Mark the Carp

I was awaken this morning by my wife, Shirrell, shaking me. "Mark, wake up! My car doors are frozen shut, I need help." Glance at the clock...5:45, oh gee! Shirrell works for Goody's in Elkin which is nearly an hours drive away.

"What's the temperature?"
"29"
"Oh this won't be too bad..."

Well another Thanksgiving Day has come and gone. Shirrell is closing her store today, Black Friday, for the third year in a row. She wasn't terribly happy about that.

She's not terribly happy with me either. I guess I really do need to do more around the house. I tend to sit in front of my computer for hours on end doing mostly nothing. Being unemployed is making me stir crazy; I'm just not used to sitting around the house all day.

Here are some family related writings.

The old about me is one I first used on the Mark's House site.

Grandma Rice was a very special lady. I have many fond memories of her from playing "Cowboys and Indians" in the woods behind her house, eating the raw cake batter from huge mixing bowls...

The eulogy is by my cousin, Marjorie Hobbs. The tributes were compiled by my sister, Nancy Friesen.

A Family
Tribute
to
Elsie Mitchell Rice

“We are a large family and we still enjoy being together. [My great grandchildren] are the lovingest children and the future generation of this country.”

“My advice to all future generations of our family would be...to put God first in your life...to honor your father and mother, love your neighbor...read and study the Bible, especially the New Testament, to learn how to really live.”

In the year 1913, times were good and many exciting things were happening in America. The new Studebaker "25" came out and the 28th president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, was inaugurated. Perhaps a more meaningful event for those of us in this room occurred on May 8, in Stokes County North Carolina. In a modest log house hidden away in the hills were a young farmer and his wife waiting for their first child to be born. Her name was Elsie Pauline and her proud parents were Mattie Belle and William Luther Mitchell. Little did Mattie and Will know how their family would grow and flourish after this day and what a wonderful woman this small baby would become. She would be the first of many......11, in fact.