Time Traveler

You can go from here to there in seconds.

Here is the computer where you sit and there is Graffigny-Chemin, where Marguerite Chevallier was raised and where she met First Lieutenant James Madison Pearson.

Google Earth takes you to the church (in the center of the picture) across the street from where she lived. Observe the carriage house, and gardens of her house which comprise the bottom right hand corner of the picture. In my Google Earth view, the number 52150 appears on top of the house. A path to the left of the image leads to the hill where I took the view of the village. (See wikipedia entry on Graffigny-Chemin.) The path leading out of the village to the top of the picture goes to Bourmont where during World War I, the Second Infantry Division was originally headquartered. The path leading to the right is the ancient Roman Way from Langres to Toul near the birthplace of Joan of Arc.

Time travels. The past is the compression of all that has happened, waiting to be revealed.

Family tree

 

 

 

 

Benjamin Rush Pearson's Hand-Written Family Tree.

Our great grandfather, Benjamin Rush Pearson, hand wrote this family tree. Notice that in addition to the White family, there are also the Head, McCoy, Brown, Coleman, Ferrell and Letcher family names.

Benjamin Rush Pearson graduated from the Medical College of Alabama at Mobile in 1881. Interestingly, Benjamin's name sake was a famous Revolutionary War patriot and doctor. In 1874, Benjamin married Sallie Coleman Ferrell of Montgomery, Alabama. Benjamin and Sallie produced 3 children:

• Mrs. William Rush Letcher (Elizabeth Ann Pearson),

• Dr. Coleman Ferrell Pearson,

• James Madison Pearson,

Benjamin Rush Pearson died March 12, 1906 at the home of his daughter in Richmond, Kentucky. Sallie died five months later in Montgomery. James Madison Pearson, our grandfather, was 22 at his father and mother's deaths. At the time, he was possibly in the Army and stationed in the Philippines where the Philippine Insurrection was winding down.

Benjamin identifies William Head Pearson and Mary White Pearson as his grandparents.

Benjamin identifies James Madison Pearson and Elizabeth Brown Pearson as his parents, once living on a family farm in Dadeville, Alabama. This James Madison Pearson was an attorney, in addition to owning a family farm. This family farm passed down to Benjamin's younger brother Charles Lafayette Pearson and was owned by Charles until his death in 1940. The farm may still be there today under the ownership of another Pearson family member. A family cemetery holds the remains of many Pearsons including Benjamin's brother Charles and their father James Madison, our great great grandfather. You can visit the cemetery's names by clicking here. See my article in August on Tallapoosa County, Alabama.