Time Travel

This week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun as proposed by Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has a fantasy theme:

1) Let's go time traveling: Decide what year and what place you would love to visit as a time traveler. Who would you like to see in their environment? If you could ask them one question, what would it be?

2) Tell us about it. Write a blog post, or make a comment to this post, or on Facebook, or in Genealogy Wise.

But, Randy – I’ll be talking to a brick wall. No, really. I would go back in time to talk to my brick wall, Susan Elizabeth Smith Bonner Brinlee. I originally thought of going back to 1870s Tennessee to find her there as a child, but I realize that I do not know what part of Tennessee to go to and that to find out more about her past I need to find her as an adult. So I will look for her when and where I know I can find her – in 1910 in Hunt County Texas – when she can answer questions about some of the major events in her life. (Although she lived until 1958, I will not visit her later in life; by that time her memory may not have been as strong.)

Now Randy has specified one question only, so this would be the question:

Who were your parents?

If given the latitude to ask more questions, they would be:

When did your parents die, i.e., were you orphaned when you were a young child? If not, why did you have to work for another family when you were young – was your family that poor?

Who was your first husband, where did you get married, and when and where did he die?

What were the names and dates of birth and death of your three children who did not survive childhood? Were they children of your first husband or of your second husband, Hiram Carroll Brinlee, Jr.?