Vacation

I'm on vacation and it's great. Sleeping in, no alarm, doing whatever...
We decided to skip St. George Island because of gas prices and the heat.

This morning's mail drop gave me a moment of suspense and hopefulness that was dashed almost instantly upon opening the large yellow envelope from NARA. It was just thick enough to contain the Navy pension record I sent for. Well, it was indeed a Navy pension record and it was for a James Pierce from Pennsylvania...but it's not our James. I swore a storm like a longshoreman with Touretts as I had paid $25 for this pension. First of all, I specifically stated his address, where he'd lived almost all of his life. Date of death in 1911, and the name of his wife being Edna as a first or middle name. I even gave them exact dates he served.

What I got was a pension for James F Pierce married to Sarah Robinson of Delaware and that he died while in the Navy in 1877. Also our James died in Chester and this James died in NC. So, I don' think I can get my money back and if that's the case, maybe I'll see if there are descendants of this James and pass the paperwork on to them. I did something like that with an old photo I got at an antique shop. Found the descendant by looking at city directories and census - they were tickled to have the old photo and it was lots of fun for me.

Anyway, I guess we are back to square one on James military record. How frustrating!

I finished the Picoult book - really a good read - and am waiting on a reserve from the library so I haven't started anything new yet.