Cousin Judy

Today I spent half of the day with cousin Judy Schmidt.  Scott and I met her for breakfast at 8:30 a.m. at the White Rose Cafe in Union, Missouri - the county seat. It was a cute older building - a landmark for the city.  It was white brick with a rose painted on it in the window. We ate a good old country breakfast.  I had ham, two eggs, juice and "American potatoes" which is basically potatoes sliced and cooked - enough calories for the entire day!  Judy had the same but had sausage instead of ham. Scott had a big omelet. We sat and talked for a good hour and a half chatting away.

(Web Photo)

Scott took the truck and returned to the RV Park for a meeting while Judy and I walked next door to the Courthouse Square.  There we saw some pretty old buildings: the Land Office from 1865, the Union Post Office and the old Courthouse were my ancestors would have gone.  There we took photos of us with Benjamin Franklin sitting on the bench. It was pretty cute!

Original Land Office from 1865

Old Union Post Office

Ben and Me

Judy with Ben

We went inside the Courthouse to see the Veterans Honor Hall.  This was a super cool place with a museum and list of all solider from Franklin county with the uniforms they would have donned.  It was inspiring. I hope you find this as interesting as I did.  Our William Lawson was in the Mexican War and all the Lawson boys were conscripted into the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Most of the wall were Union boys from the county and a handful of Confederates.

Great-Great-Grandpa Lawson served in the War with Mexico (left)

Afterwards, she took me back to the RV park.  She had errands to run and I had to go back to the History Library for some final research, which proved fruitful finding the estate and guardianship records for William P. Lawson and also Anderson Stevens.  Plus, Marc Houseman, who was so generous with his time yesterday taking Judy and I to all the cemeteries found the Lawson Cemetery file with the photos he took 10 years ago. This is the exact photos of a stone and markers for the old Lawson Baptist Church.  Sue Lampe helped me all day today get the files microfiche that I needed and the day whizzed by quickly.

Headstone at bottom right

These rocks were the foundation of the Lawson Baptist Church

The Washington Historical Society also has a lovely museum with some wonderful artifacts that I'll share here as well. You'll notice a lot about water.  That's because Washington is on the Missouri River and the river is about 3 blocks down the hill from this building.

And, I thought you might like to see where I've spent the last two days also...

Ralph Gregory is a Lawson cousin who directed the library and lived to be 105 years old!

Yesterday I sat in the left chair where lady sitting is.
Today I sat across from her.

I spent a few hours at the white microfiche machine over the past two days.

Once I got back to the RV park at 4:00, I actually had 45 minutes to get myself a little organized since we're heading west tomorrow.

At 5:15 p.m. we left and met up with Cousin Judy and her partner Ernie for dinner at the Hawthorne Inn in Labadie, Missouri about 7 miles from here.  That's where Judy grew up and they had a cute, tiny little downtown.  The restaurant was very cute - mainly Italian in style.  Scott ordered his typical bowl of soup with dessert for dinner; I had a little pasta as did Judy and Ernie had lasagna.  We talked about family and a few miscellaneous things for at least an hour after we finished "supper" but it was OK since all the tables weren't filled up yet.  But it was lots of fun.  Needless to say, Scott and Ernie didn't get much of a word in edgewise but they are both quiet kind of guys.

Sylvester Labaddie - Found of Labadie and "the bear"
Apparently, a Frenchman who thought he killed a bear, went to find it, but wasn't dead and the bear killed him.

After dinner we had to run to Wal-Mart and fuel up the truck.  I nearly forgot to show you the Historic Route 66 Sign.  Our RV park is on that road.

Tomorrow we're going first to James Wesley Stevens grave at Gilbert Cemetery in Kingsville, Johnson county and then to my favorite quilt shop in the country - Quilter's Station in Lee's Summit before arriving at Scott's brother's house.  We'll have to get an early start so I'll say goodbye for today.