Life Imitates a 1960s Sitcom

Tampa, Florida, issued a promissory note to storekeeper Thomas Pugh Kennedy on June 21, 1861, in the amount of $299.58.

Kennedy's great-granddaughter says the city never made good on its loan. Now, Joan Kennedy Biddle and her family are suing to collect the payment plus 8 percent annual interest.

The total bill: $22.7-million.

Biddle wouldn't give specifics on why she decided to sue now, using as evidence a piece of paper that has been handed down as an heirloom for generations.

"This thing has been in the family since the date on the note, and it has never been repaid," said Biddle, 77. "My daddy told me, and I certainly believe him." [Link]

The relevant case law comes from an episode of The Andy Griffith Show.

Andy is forced to evict Frank Myers from his home only to later discover that he holds a century-old bond that is originally believed to be worth $349,119.27. Since the Mayberry treasury holds just over $10,000, the mayor and town council scramble to keep Frank happy by renovating his run-down home. Later, the bond is discovered to be worthless because it was paid for with Confederate currency.

Her Family Tree Has Three Leaves

Mary Lane's family has a 250-year-old shamrock plant.

Lane’s ancestors brought the original over from Ireland in 1751 “to have a piece of Ireland,” and the family has shared bulbs from the line since then.

“It’s the best inheritance you can have,” she said last week at her home. “It’s an heirloom that can be passed down through the generations, and everyone can get some.” [Link]

There Still Be Blood

Paul Dye is confident that the Civil War battle flag in his family's possession is stained with the blood of his ancestor, William D. Whitehead. Others aren't so sure.

"It's a great artifact, but there's no way it could have gone into all the battles they claim it went into," says Greg Biggs, a military historian in Tennessee who has researched Confederate flags for 18 years.

Another historian, Keith Bohannon of West Georgia University, told the auction house that he suspected the regiment had replaced the flag months before Whitehead fell at the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862.

Word of the scholarly skepticism riles Dye. "If anyone has questions, I'll do a DNA test," he vows. "But I know that's my family's blood on that flag." [Link]

No Room on Her Bookshelf for Hate

Melissa O'Brien's decision to dispose of an unwanted family heirloom led to a really touching piece in the St. Petersburg Times.

On my grandmother's bookshelf, wedged in between Katharine Hepburn's Me - Stories Of My Life and Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro was a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. It is a 1939 German edition, and inside the front cover, neatly scrolled like a wedding invitation, are the names of my grandparents and the date of their nuptials. My grandparents told me that this book was issued to every newly married couple in Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

When both my grandparents had passed on, my mother decided to sell some of their things. I specifically asked her not to sell Mein Kampf. I wanted to find a way, short of burning the book, to dispose of it properly. The place I finally found for it may come as a surprise. I donated it to the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg. [Link]

Man Finds Spoon, Loses Arm

Descendants of John W. Matheny donated some of his belongings to the Botetourt County (Va.) Historical Society, including a very special eating utensil.

According to family lore, said Jim Keyser, Matheny had found the spoon on the battlefield earlier and stuck it in his left breast pocket. While the battle raged around him a Yankee pumpkin ball hit him in the chest bending the lip of the spoon and sending the musket ball into his arm. He lost the arm from the resulting wound.

“All of our lives that spoon hung attached to the frame that held our great-grandfather’s discharge papers from the Confederacy,” said Keyser. [Link]

His PB & J Did Not Survive

Coal miner Joseph Roberts went to work on Feb. 19, 1891, with an orange in his lunchbox. He was fatally injured in an explosion that day, and never got to eat his lunch. So his family kept the orange for 116 years, donating it recently to a museum in Staffordshire.

Spokeswoman Deb Klemperer said it may just be a piece of dried fruit but the story behind it made it an amazing piece for the museum.

The orange is completely blackened and dried out - the pips can be heard rattling when it is shaken. [Link]

Granny Wore a Bikini

Nicky Watson's grandsons are going to be very, very confused boys.

In Nicky Watson: Calendar Girl, screening on Sky 1 on October 17, the 30-year-old supermodel speaks about how the calendar will become a family heirloom.

"How cool will it be to be able to show my grandchildren how beautiful New Zealand is and the fact that granny's boobs didn't used to go down to her ankles," she says, laughing.

Images in the calendar feature Nicky modelling skimpy bikinis and lingerie against a backdrop of dramatic scenery. [Link]

A Fussy Family Recipe

The Dexter family of Westport, Massachusetts, has been hosting a Labor Day picnic for 100 years. A book sold at this year's picnic includes an "old family recipe" for the chowder served at the event.

The recipe is printed on the inside back cover of the book, and precision is the key with directions:

"It is essential to cook on a granite base, with a SW wind, and granite wall not less than 10 feet high to the NE."

Or, "Salt Pork: diced in 5/8" cubes with surgical scalpel."

And, "Remove from fire and add milk and cream. Serve not less than 25 yards to leeward and not less than 10 feet above the level of the fire." [Link]

Don't Take Her Love for Granite

Emery Pierce gave his wife Winona a rock back in the '60s. A very big rock she had spotted in a quarry and fallen in love with.

"I had to call eight different places to get somebody to haul it. I finally got a tow truck operator who said, 'Lady, you've got rocks in your head,'" Winona recalls. He added, "I'll try anything once."

After much huffing and puffing, the rock, estimated to weigh between 1,000 pounds and a ton, arrived in their yard.

The Pierces have moved three times since then, and each time the "family rock" has followed them. For Winona's 78th birthday in August, her husband arranged to have the boulder delivered to their latest front yard.

In Windward Village, where people casually stroll, Winona has observed their reactions to the front-yard addition. "People walk by and say, 'Am I crazy? Has that been here all this time?'" [Link]

The Key to a Tragedy

An officer who was supposed to serve on the Titanic's maiden voyage was taken off at the last minute, and took with him the key to a locker in the crow's nest that stored binoculars.

In his haste, second officer David Blair forgot to hand the key over to his replacement and took it with him. As a result, none of the lookouts on board could use the binoculars, despite asking other officers for them.

Fred Fleet, a lookout who survived the disaster, later told the official inquiry that if the crew had had binoculars they would have seen the iceberg the ship struck sooner. When asked by a US senator chairing the inquiry how much sooner, Mr Fleet replied: "Enough to get out of the way."

The 95-year mystery has resurfaced after the key was made available for sale at auction. The key is being sold by Mr Blair's descendants, along with a postcard he wrote to his sister about his disappointment on missing out on the trip. [Link]

What’s the Oldest Thing You Own?

Chris Higgins at mental_floss stole this question, so he probably won't mind me pilfering it as well: What's the oldest thing you own? To be more precise, what's the oldest artifact you own? (I was given a piece of petrified wood when I was a kid that is considerably older than any man-made item in the house.)

I think the oldest item in my possession is the 1805 deed conveying land in Hartford, Maine, to my ancestor, Moses Dunham. The leather wallet that formerly held the deed—thought by my great-great-grandfather to have dated from the Revolutionary War—was misplaced some years ago. I don't really consider myself the owner of the deed—just the current custodian.

So, what's the oldest thing you own?

Hands Off the Heirloom, Kid!

John Keenan has learned that he's descended from one of the most famous of the Salem "witches."

Keenan says it wasn’t till his grandmother passed away and genealogical papers were found in her house, that he discovered his familial ties to Rebecca Nurse.

More evidence was discovered last summer when Keenan’s father sold his home and the basement, which contained some of his grandmother's belongings, was being cleaned out. In the backyard Keenan discovered his 7-year-old son playing with something that appeared to be a silver basket.

“It turned out to be a fiftieth anniversary gift engraved with the names Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Nurse, marked 1840-1890,” Keenan said. “He was putting dirt inside it.” [Link]

A Powder Monkey With Sticky Fingers?

An Australian auction house is taking bids on Admiral Lord Nelson's telescope and a brass-bound elm bucket supposed to have seen action in the Battle of Trafalgar.

The items came to Joel's via the descendants of a 10-year-old cabin boy and powder monkey, William Thomas Cook, who served on the Victory and later was transported to New South Wales.

According to various family documents, Cook walked off the vessel with the telescope in the bucket after it was gifted to him, by whom it is not clear. Supposedly he managed to keep the relics and still had them when he arrived in Botany Bay in 1820 as a convict aboard the vessel Mangles. [Link]

A Hand-Me-Down Hand

A painter working in an old house in Waldoboro, Maine, discovered a severed hand that had been passed down in a family for decades.

Police concluded that the hand had been ripped off 50 to 80 years ago. They also seized the hand because it's illegal to possess such a body part.

The previous owner claimed she had gotten the hand from a man down the road, who is now in his 80s and remembers his father having the hand.

"She had heard it was from a farming accident," [contractor Bo] Jespersen said. [Link]

I'm proud to say that this took place about 35 miles from where I'm now sitting.

Grandma Missed the Boat

An unused ticket for the Titanic first put on public display in 2003 was thought to be the only one in existence, but now an American woman claims to possess one of her own.

Margaret Hallem from Illinois said her Irish grandmother had been due to sail on the White Star liner, but missed the trip due to bad weather.

She was checking up on her Irish roots at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC when she revealed that her family still had the ticket. [Link]

Teen Unsheaths His Sword in Public

To mark the 700th anniversary of Robert the Bruce's momentous journey from Rathlin Island off Northern Ireland to the Isle of Arran in Scotland, Lord Bruce of Kinloss and his three sons retraced their relative's steps carrying his original sword.

Lord Bruce’s eldest son, 16-year-old James, who has the title Master of Bruce was carrying the sword which was nearly as big as him and he took it out of the sheath to show the crowd on Lamlash pier.

‘It is not as heavy as you would think,’ said Lord Bruce. ‘The strength is in the tempering of the blade.’ [Link]

Planning a trip to Scotland? Then you'll need your very own Robert the Bruce sword. Good luck getting it through airport security.

Get Your Heirlooms Smashed on TV

On the Chinese version of Antiques Roadshow, sentimental value counts for nothing.

Losers go away not just disappointed that their "family heirloom" has turned out to be a dud. At the end, if a panel of experts decree it to be a forgery, the host wields a golden hammer and smashes it to smithereens.

Before the experts pass verdict, the audience gets to vote - a red, smiling face for genuine, a blue, sad one for those they would consign to the hammer. [Link]

Contestants on "Collector's World" can opt out before receiving the final judgment, but have to sign a contract allowing the destruction of their item if they want to receive an appraisal.

The Family Chariot

Forty-two relatives of Isidoro Vannozzi gathered Monday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to visit a former family treasure—a 2,600-year-old Etruscan chariot Isidoro discovered in 1898 while digging a cellar in Monteleone, Italy. He stored it in his barn, where his grandson—Lou Giovannetti's father—used to play on it when he was a boy.

"Dad would be amazed. I'm sure he would. I don't think he realized that much about it when he was a young kid playing on it."

Neither, apparently, did Isidoro, who -- according to lore -- sold the chariot for two cows and 30 terra-cotta tiles before it was shipped off to America. Other accounts say Isidoro made a tidy profit on the sale.

"We keep talking about Isidoro -- he was a farmer; he gave the chariot away. But the money he got was a lot. He wasn't stupid," Bill Giovannetti said. [Link]

[Photo Credit: Bronze chariot inlaid with ivory... by Mary Harrsch]

Granny's Gator's Gone

Someone broke into Glen Day's New Zealand home and made off with a treasured family heirloom: the alligator his great-grandmother shot 80 years ago.

"We have some old photos of my great-grandmother out on hunting trips, riding on the back of an elephant through the jungle," he said. "They would hunt for tigers and alligators. Of course, it is not the sort of thing we would do today but the alligator has sentimental value and is part of our family history." [Link]

They Didn't Forget to Remember

A saying was passed down in Bettye Kearse's family: "Remember your name is Madison." A reunion of slave descendants this weekend at James Madison's Virginia plantation might bring her a step closer to proving the truth of the saying.

Kearse said her family traces its roots back to a slave named Corean, who was reportedly owned by Madison and gave birth to a son named Jim. When Jim was sold to a plantation owner in Tennessee, she told him not to forget he was a Madison in case they should ever reconnect. Since then, the saying's meaning has evolved.

"Initially it was a tool, then it became valuable after the slaves were free because my family really did well. They owned property, participated in government, learned to read and then they passed this legacy on," Kearse said. [Link]