In doing some genealogy research over the weekend, I stumbled across another researcher's work.  This researcher must have a genuine love for local history in northeast Mississippi.  He/She had researched many of the long time area familes, revealing a huge web of family lines. 

In doing his research, he/she had also compiled photographs of these families.  And one of the families he had researched was mine.  He had pictures of my mother, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. etc.

One of the photographs was this one of my great uncle, Ginny.

I had never seen it before.  It must be his senior picture from high school, around 1948ish.

I have such wonderful memories of Uncle Ginny.  As a young adult, Ginny was in automobile accident and was paralyzed from the waist down.  So my only memories of him are in a wheelchair.  But he was a vibrant and active man.

This was WAY before the days of handicapped accessibility.  But that never stopped him.  He rigged his El Camino with hand pedals so he always drove himself.  And he would just toss his wheelchair in the back. 

He would even fish.  In a boat.  By himself!  Somehow he was able to load and unload his boat from the trailer...get himself into and out of the boat...  How he did it is beyond me!

But one of my favorite memories is of his love of jokes.  And he loved to play those jokes on my Mom and her 6 sisters.  I can remember many a summer day being offered a quarter if I would bring him a frog.  Since the sight of my Mom and aunts running around and screaming like mad was ALWAYS a fun time, I was always happy to oblige.  He usually had a smoke bomb to set off as well.  And he LOVED to cheat (and get caught cheating) at cards!

Uncle Ginny passed away when I was a freshman in high school.  What I wouldn't give to be able to find one more frog for him...

So thank you, Pinedale Connections researcher on Ancestry.com.  Thank you for bringing back such wonderful memories!