Patricia Sheranian Christmas 2009 note

I was born in the same Thomas Home that had been my grandmother’s childhood home where my aunts and my mother were born also.

My Great Aunt May never married. I remember her and her stories of the Civil War. She would let me sleep in her bed once in a while. It was very high and she was very small not much taller than I was as a child, we both needed steps to get into the bed which was made of feathers. It was wonderfully soft and deep. She was precious in frills and lace.

Great Aunt May’s house was about a long city block from my grandparents home, the Thomas Home. After Papa married Emma Jane he eventually bought the Thomas Home and the land but it was always called the Thomas Home and Thomas Cross Roads is still there. I walked on that intersection 11 years ago when I was in SC to visit my cousins. My grandfather (Papa) died when I was 7 and a half. I remember so well walking from the funeral at my grand parent’s home to my Aunt Janie Kate’s house with my cousin Jack Cagle who was 2 years older. It was June 1940 and the road was hot and dusty. It is now paved and though not a busy road it is on the maps. The Thomas Home burned down in the late 1970’s. Great Aunt May’s home was left to Janie Kate and she left it to her son, Richard C. Grant, his children and grandchildren live there today.

The Bethune sisters all married.
Janie Kate Bethune Grant had one son
Emma Malcolm “Mac” Bethune Fagan had a daughter and a son.
Margaret Elizabeth “Bessie” Bethune Cagle had two sons
Sally Louise Bethune Cobb had one daughter
Mary Lucille Bethune Hucks had one daughter and two sons
Thornwell Faye Bethune Crossley had one son and three daughters

We spent most holidays together at our grandparent’s home as children and teens. We spent summers with aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and grandparents often at the Atlantic Ocean or at The Lake in Hartsville. After our grandfather Daniel Malcolm Bethune ‘Papa” died we continued to spend weekends, holidays and any time we could together with our grandmother Emma Jane who lived many years and until her death with her daughter Louise and her family in Hartsville.

When Papa was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Lattergiay Saints it was early in the year 1917 in January. He was baptized in the Clyde Pond. Soon after, five of his daughters were baptized and eventually his wife Emma Jane Thomas Bethune was baptized also.

His daughter, Janie Kate, died not having been baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but that has now been done. Kent Vorkink my son is doing some research on past relatives so the families can be sealed together in the Temples of the Lord.
After my family moved to Utah in 1947 it became more difficult to be with our loved ones in the South but we took buses, trains and planes to visit with relatives in the South until Emma Jane, my grandmother, died at 83 years of age. I was 21 years old. We still continued to go South as often as possible but my heart will ever be there.

My youth was made up of many family “memorable memories” and “traditions” for which I will ever be grateful and thankful.

May Christ bless you and your family and may your Christmas be filled with “memorable memories” and may you cherish each and every one!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night
I wish I was with you to squeeze you tight

Love
Patricia Hucks Vorkink Sheranian
2009