Family

Maphis - Micklem Family

Information about the Maphis-Micklem family in Virginia

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PICTURES OF JOHN AND NATALIE MAPHIS
WEDDING - JUNE 8, 2008

Wedding pictures.

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TRAVEL BY TRAIN
(written by Alice Russell in 1944 as a teenager traveling by train)

If variety is the spice of life, life must begin on a train, for here are people of every description, each from different surroundings, thrown together for the same purpose; arriving at some destined point.  I have spent a great amount of time on trains, and although I have learned the fundamentals of train traveling, each trip I take, whether it is long or short, is a new adventure.

I guess I have never gotten over the thrill of my first ride.  I was nine years old, and up to this time, our family had always traveled by car.  Every summer we visited relatives in the country; this year I had stayed longer than the rest of my family, and my cousin, an experienced, fourteen-year-old traveler, accompanied me home on the train.  We rode from Shipman to Charlottesville.  I never  will forget how excited I was, or the feeling I had when the train started.  This first train ride gave me the knowledge of a new world, an exciting, adventurous world, filled with unusual and numerous people, willing to lay their life history at your feet, with the merest hint of encouragement.  

The most thrilling trip I have ever taken was from Norfolk, Virginia, to Los Angeles, California.  Until this trip, I had not realized how immense our country is.  My mother and I began our trip by catching the Newport News ferry at six o’clock in the morning; by nine we had arrived in Newport News and had boarded our train.  Seated across from us was a girl, a few years younger than myself, and her mother.  I don’t remember their names, but I do remember that the girl had never seen a mountain.  She was from Florida, where they have a fence law, and our Virginia fences were very amusing to her, especially the white washed ones.

It seemed only a short while before we were in Charlottesville, where mother and I spent the next few weeks waiting for word from my father, who was house hunting in Los Angeles.  Finally, he found a place for us to live, and we were able to continue on from Charlottesville to Chicago  on a very luxurious train.  The seats were cushioned and the coaches air-conditioned.  There were many interesting people, but the most unusual was a Cuban ball player who wore a pink suit and sang Spanish lullaby’s to all the babys.  

By the time we reached Chicago, we were thankful to leave young Caruso.  Here we changed to the not-so-clean or luxurious Challenger and even the countryside looked worse, for everything looked brown or bare.

Cabin rentals by the U.S. Forest Service in
Coconino National Forest
www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino/recreation/other-rec/recreation_room_with_a_view/

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