2012 March 05

Monday:  the 5^th.   Up at 5:15 to be at Wolfe Eye Clinic by 6:00.  We actually had to wait a couple of minutes for them to unlock the door before we could get in.  As it was, we were the second people to check in.  Since this was the second eye, they already had all the information and just needed our co-pay.  They immediately took us back to a preop room.  Ella got a wristband, a gown and a mark over her left eye and some drops in her eye.  Another nurse came in and started an I.V. line and added more drops to her eye.  The anesthesiologist came in and discussed the procedure with Ella.  Since she had just gone through this with the right eye, he knew that she would not have any problems with the medications.  The surgeon came in and talked to her and made another mark over her left eye.  Several more drops were added to her eye.  Eventually she was moved to a wheel chair and given a warm blanket.  Soon she was wheeled away to surgery and I went to the waiting room.  I only waited about twenty minutes before they called me back in … the surgery was over.  By now it was about 8:00. 

We waited in the post-op area for a while.  A nurse came and explained how Ella was to care for her eye over the next couple of weeks and what not to do.  A while later and the surgeon came out and examined the eye and repeated what the nurse had said about caring for her eye.  We left there about 8:45.

            We stopped at Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  Ella had sweet potato pancakes with eggs, bacon and coffee.  I had pancakes, eggs, smoked sausage and ice tea.  I was not impressed with the pancakes which seemed rather greasy.  The sausage was very good.  Ella said the sweet potato pancakes were “okay”.  Altogether I was disappointed by the food at a restaurant that I really like.

            When I was checking out, I realized that the cashier was one of our neighbors, Linda, from Cutty’s Campground.  Ella was browsing in the store, so Linda went over to chat with her.

            From there we went home.  Ella rested and I took advantage of the good weather to refill the fresh water holding tank on the Hitch Hiker.

            I spent a good share of the day on Ancestory.com filling in information about my family tree.  What I am really trying to find is information about my father’s biological father.  My grandmother, Nancy J. Lamkin, had two children in Evansville, Indiana before marring Robert D. Williams in Oklahoma.

            My mother, shortly before she died in 1994, told me that Dad’s name was actually Ousley.  Over the years I have occasionally tried to find some information about this mysterious grandfather.  My sister, Maryann, has also done some looking but we never have gotten anywhere.  Maryann said that she had heard from a ‘shirttail cousin’ that she had found out that Nancy and this unknown Ousley were cousins.  (yeah, this was in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky) 

            In my digging though census records I found where my father’s name was listed as Clarence Edgar Ausley Williams.   Ah!  Ausley not Ousley!

            I started looking for Ausley in Evansville and found a single entry in the 1910 census listed this way: 

Douglas Ansley (a.k.a. Ausley)  age 42

Birth Year: 1868

Address:  Evansville Ward 7, Vanderburgh, Indiana

Race:  Mulatto

Gender:  Male

Marital Status:  Married

Spouses Name:  Mary E. Ansley (Ausley)  age 39

Race: Black

Father’s Birthplace: Kentucky

Mother’s Birthplace:  Kentucky

Also in household:  Renter: George P. Williams age 36

Race: White

Curiouser and curiouser!   Unfortunately I have not been able to find any further information about Douglas.  He would have been 36 when my father was born.  Nancy would have been 21.  I may have to take a road trip to Indiana to search through records at the courthouse in Evansville.