Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Clarifying weirdness

Some of you have commented on my #5 weirdness - about calling people out of the phone book that have my maiden name -- so I need to qualify it - I have only done it once - because there just aren't that many of us - less than 100 in the US - don't know the statistics elsewhere. It's an Anglo Saxon name and there is a town in England with the name. James Herriot, author of the "All Things Bright and Beautiful" series, loosely associates the fictional town with this particular town, though I don't believe the actual town is ever mentioned in his books. I found an image of the church that is in the town too. I believe there may be a castle also, yet I doubt I have much blue blood that I have been told about.
Oh well, I need to get back into my knitting - the babies are cooking in the oven and my fingers aren't near the needles at the moment.

3 comments:

Leslee said...

Wow, what was the response when you did this? Was the person you called just as excited to hear from another rare named person? My mother-in-law's maiden name was Sweetwood, which is very rare too. She's always saying if we meet a Sweetwood we're related to them.

Annie said...

It isn't the least bit strange, IMHO. My maiden name is similar in that respect and all people who have it who are of European decent are related to me through one of six brothers (after the Civil War some ex-slaves that needed sirnames borrowed it). So, I have checked phone books for it--but I never called anybody.

Trilla said...

During WWII we lived in Amarillo. It had a big airbase. One Sunday afternoon the phone rang. When my dad answered he heard. "I found your name in the phone book. My last name is Nordyke, too. I'm at the base and so homesick. May I please come to Sunday night supper." Of course, he did. Art Nordyke became a good friend.