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Wednesday, May 18, 2005
He married Mary Christenberry on August 31, 1854 and had seven children, who were Sarah, John W., James H., Noah T., Frances C., Robert L., and Mary J. According to his obituary, "he was one of Indiana's pioneer settlers, being assisted in the construction of the Vandalia and Monon railroads. But few men have assisted more in log rollings and the erection of log houses and barns, or done more otherwise to redeem this vicinity from the vicinity it once was to what it is now." Conrad Job was apparently "an ardent believer in the predestinarian baptist doctrine," but he was not a member of any church. They said he had many friends, few enemies, was an honest man, and won the respect of all who knew him. I'm creating an Acrobat document of his last letters, along with my mother's transcriptions. To date, I've completed ten of them. You can download the working document (it will increase in size over the next few days) using the link below. [Note: Please see the Genealogy section of this site to find this document.]
It's never over till it's over. I made the mistake of telling Erika a few weeks ago we'd had the last snow. Last night and early this morning, four or more inches of snow fell on the high country, more than a month after the start of spring. This photo was taken earlier today at Carver's Gap, where a winter storm was fully engaged. The extreme highlands truly have their own weather. Erika was with me and received an education in wind force, as a gust propelled her little forty-some pounds over twenty feet and tossed her in a drift. (It's not quite as bad as it sounds; she wasn't airborne.) While driving Saturday night, Kassi and I witnessed a meteor, complete with smoking trail, near Johnson City, Tennessee. It was the brightest, and appeared to be the closest, meteor I've ever seen. It looked like it moved in slow motion. Later, I read about the Lyrid meteor shower. This must have been one of those. It was especially thrilling to see, considering the full moon (which dampens viewing conditions) and snow showers looming over the mountains on the horizon. Whether through freak snows or meteor showers, God finds endless ways to surprise us. You can look at anything in this world and be filled with wonder. It may be a few days before I post again to the website. I have to finish a project for my church, and I'm working on some Job family genealogy information about Conrad Job, my great, great grandfather. We're going to publish it here in PDF format towards the end of the week in a new section of our site dedicated to Job family history. April 21, 2005
I've been enjoying studio photography, especially with the opportunity to shoot the directory pictures for my church. Our pastor's wife graciously painted a classroom wall for a backdrop, and after shooting fifty families (so far), I can happily say, I enjoy this! The conditions have been hectic, since we're only allowing five minutes per sitting. Yet, overall, I'm very happy with the results. There is a true joy in learning and developing new skills.
The dogwood tree is my favorite. I took my first dogwood pictures with an Argus C3 (loaded with Kodachrome). Though thirteen at the time, even then I loved the lattice of branches grown by these trees, the canopy they unfurl twenty feet overhead. God made every variety of plant, and each is unique and amazing. You know, God made life and living things. God is all about life. If you find this hard to believe, study the world around you. Study the picture of the dogwood. Do you really believe this incredible, beautiful, and nearly infinitely complicated Universe is the result of...chance? Consider what we know about DNA, the chemicals that drive a seed of an organism to form into another member of its species. The complexity, the genius of DNA, dwarfs man's greatest achievements. God, whose capabilities, size, and mind we describe (but cannot grasp) as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, is the architect and maker of it all. The picture below was taken today with the Nikon D70. The dew was still fresh on the petals. (For an interesting write-up on the Flowering White Dogwood, visit American Meadows' website.) April 4, 2005
In other weekend news, while the Tennessee Valley enjoyed spring weather, the Roan Highlands received anywhere from an inch to over a foot of snow on Saturday. Erika and I couldn't keep away from the peaks on Sunday afternoon. She frolicked in five foot drifts while I scoped out the snowscape with my camera. In a somewhat unexpected turn, I've been getting into studio photography and really enjoying it. In a few weeks, I'll be launching a website to tout service offerings ranging from website creation and hosting to various flavors of photographic services. The company is called Highlands Media.
Visit Archive for Winter 2004
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My great, great grandfather, Conrad Job, was the son of Sebastian Job and
Catherine Frances Knoll. He was born in Ottersheim, Germany on February
13, 1833 and lived for 90 years. In 1840, he emigrated to the United
States with his parents, and they eventually made their residence in Putnam
County, Indiana.
So
the mystery of where Anna got her looks may have been solved in the recent
discovery of this photo of Violet Beatrice Hitch, Anna's great grandmother.
We think there is a striking resemblance. Fortunately, Anna doesn't look
quite as serious as her great grandmother did in this turn of the 20th Century
photo.
