From our family to yours, we would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas! By now, most of the presents have all been opened and Christmas dinner is over. We still have a few days to enjoy the decorations before they are all packed away for another year. I did finally get my Christmas tree up this year. I just couldn't let Christmas go by without it as my tree is mostly about family. Most of my ornaments have a story behind them. My newest ornament was to link my maternal family in Maine to my paternal family here in North Carolina. Many of my ornaments are from Maine, simple reminders of my favorite things from there. More importantly to me are the hand made ornaments. After our family lost pretty much everything to include our home to a tornado in 1984. My Great Grandmother made many crafty ornaments to make sure we still had a tree. A few of these knitted and needlework ornaments are still on my tree. I...
Thelma Jessup Edge Dockery was my paternal grandmother. She was born on March 24, 1922 in what she called a dirt floor shanty near the northwest corner of present day Hwy 53 and Johnson Road in the Beaver Dam township of Cumberland County. She was the eldest child and only daughter of Ava Lee Edge and Mary Charlotte Bedsole. Gramma, as she is most fondly remembered, left home and went to Wilmington and worked in the shipyard. This is where she met my Grandfather, Earl Dockery, who trained her as a tack welder. They were married on June 2, 1943 in Bennettsville, SC. During their marriage they lived in both White Oak, NC and for some time in Marshall NC in Madison County in the western mountains of NC. Sadly, their marriage ended in December of 1976. Gramma resided the remainder of her life in the house her father built. I am now the proud owner of her house. Gramma died just 22 days shy of her 90th birthday, on March 2, 2012 as I was by...