Kitchen

Mom and Dad have been back from Ontario just a few days and went straight back to work, painting the kitchen cabinets. Jim and Marcia were on the Island on the weekend and visited on Sunday. Jim took these photos.

The cabinets are French Gray, with 5 doors left to paint, then the hardware can be installed. The sink is known as a drop-front or a farmers sink. The counter-top is laminate with a dark gray marble graining, and the edge is Corian. The old original shelf will be put back on the wall to the left of the window. It will go back when the trim is put back on. I didn't order upper cabinets in the hopes of eventually finding an antique cabinet with glass doors to put to the right of the window eventually. The plumbing and dishwasher are working, and the stove and refrigerator are in use. Finally they can cook in the kitchen!

 

 

 

 

 

View from the Dining Room, through the Butler's Pantry into the Kitchen.

The phone station in the Butler's Pantry, what used to be the Dining Room. That little table used to be at the top of the stairs. Dad refinished it and they had it in their house in Springhill for years. It's back home.

They have the Kitchen and Pantry doors painted French Gray as well. The wainscot will eventually be the same colour, and will be put back all around the room. The outside of the Kitchen door has one coat of Carriage House Green on it.

The main floor Bathroom

This is the first time I have seen the hardwood floor at the landing of the Back Porch.

The Moravian Star light over the basement stairs

Jim took some exterior shots as well. Dad is keeping the grass cut with the push mower! The outhouse looks bigger somehow with the little shed next to it.

The field looks like it has recovered well from the stress of all of the equipment.

Sunflowers?

The house is really starting to grey out nicely. By next summer much of the copper colour of the shingles will be gone.

The Mountain Ash, also known as a Rowan Tree, is blooming.

Thanks Jim and Marcia. These are great!!

Family News

It has been a while since I've had anything to post as you may have noticed. Mom and Dad have been away for almost 2 weeks, visiting family in Ontario, and taking a long deserved break from work on the house. First they stayed a week with Dad's cousin Joan and husband Dan to visit her mom, Eileen, Dad's aunt and Grammy's last surviving sibling, who lost uncle Bill on August 27th. Below is a picture of Eileen and Bill at Munn 200, five years ago. Bill was a great guy and will be sorely missed, especially by Dad.

 

Then Mom and Dad went to Mississauga for this past weekend to visit Dad's brother Carl, and plan on getting back to the Island today or tomorrow.

My aunt Betty and cousin Ralta are in Australia right now visiting Ralta's daughter Ami, who has a blog about their visit. Take a look! Looks like they are having a wonderful time: 

Betty and Ralta Down Under

My cousin Tom's wife Jennifer is a courageous breast cancer survivor, and is now thankfully cancer free. This is the second year that Team Machum, including their girls Emily and Bridget, is participating in the "Run for the Cure". Please visit their website to find out more, and give if you can. Thank you 

Team Machum

More Information

I have been obsessed with the old photos of the house, George and Catherine, and I have been doing a little research and making some observations. There is a lot more to find out but this is a beginning. 

The studio portrait of George was taken when he was about 25, so that would have been around the turn of the last century. The name of the photographer, seen at the bottom of the portrait, was Fred Green, who was located at 140 Court Street, Boston Massachusetts, and the studio was active from 1889 until 1940. Today the block contains a modern office/ retail building overlooking City Hall Plaza right downtown, but is within the oldest part of Boston. The next question is, why was George Lowe in Boston?

I sent the photos to and called Donna Collings, curator of the Garden of the Gulf Museum in Montague (check out their website: http://www.montaguemuseumpei.com/). She also happens to be George Lowe's great-grand-niece. I asked if she knew any more biographical information about George. She noted that in the 1928 Cummins Atlas of Prince Edward Island, of which I have a copy, that he was listed as a carpenter. The Lowe's were carpenters and it was a common thing back then to work on the Island and in Boston. Donna says many of her family went to Boston quite often. I know that my great-great-grandfather Dan Munn, who had the farm and orchard in Hopefield, would travel to Boston in the winters to work in carpentry, as did his son Ira, who also worked as a carpenter in Halifax.  

This information isn't terribly specific as of yet but makes sense. George's father was Postmaster of Murray River, and his mother was the former Sarah Bell. Carter and Arnold did some digging at the archives for me 5 years ago and found this information. They also found out that George's middle name was Smith, named after his uncle George Smith, who was married to George's father's sister Margaret, who died in childbirth around the time of George's birth. Donna was able to give me his birthday, which was August 21, 1873. He was baptized in 1875, and died on July 12, 1948. He and Catherine are buried in the Murray River Cemetery.

I have posted these before, but these are two photos of George that my grandmother had. Another studio portrait, and the final one is obviously late in life. As I find more information I will post it, and I'll follow up later on what I found out through the other photos of Catherine and the house.