Happy Birthday to our son (by inclusion) David Anderson! He works in student affairs at Vanderbilt University. He has gifted me with many ties, including these stripes from 2012. Today is also Mardi Gras, and so I'm wearing purple and gold in my hair.
An interesting tangle in my ancestry: Today marks the birthday of Anne Mary Large Kester (1712-1756), who is one of my 6th-great grandmothers. She has that role TWICE, but explaining how that works is a little complicated but fun. She and her husband Hermanus Kester (1703-1780) had many children, including a pair named Samuel and Susannah. Meanwhile, in the same Quaker community around Hunterdon, New Jersey, Benjamin Webster and his wife Rachel Skinner Webster also had many children, including a pair named Samuel and Susannah. These pairs married each other, and it’s hard for me to imagine how they all kept their names straight. But anyway the S & S pair named Kester had a son named Benjamin, while the S & S pair named Webster had a son named Samuel (!). These two (some of my 4th-great grandfathers) had wives (separately) named Rachel Wilson and Rachael Hambleton, and then their children – who were four-way second cousins – named William Kester and Mary Webster – married and had a daughter named Rachel Kester, who became my mother’s great-grandmother. If you’re still reading this you are probably overwhelmed with all of the Samuels, Benjamins and Rachels in my genealogy! The very “Friendly” Quaker communities in New Jersey had a long string of intermarriages. The diagonal stripes on my tie symbolize trying to keep things straight despite all the different angles.
Today's tie is for "no special occasion." I last wore this one over two years ago, in June 2018. I like the bold stripes!
