Since I went primarily to capture a feeling for Great Grandfather William Wood, let me report
on that first. As an interesting coincidence, just as I was thinking about William Wood, I received
an email from Ian (Wood) and then another one from Aunt Betty (McPhee) telling about a distant
"cousin" who is a descendant of William's brother. He lives in New Zealand and is working
on family genealogy.
Back to Nanjing.
Our hotel was near the bank of the Yangtze River, where the Qin Huai River flows into it.
The second morning we decided to explore along the banks and walk down the river, past the
island that was preventing us from seeing the whole expanse of the river. As we left the hotel
grounds, the most interesting thing happened. We were surrounded with noise that sounded
like cannon shots, just like what William Wood would have heard as they were fired upon sailing
past Nanjing in 1859. We laughed about it. It was either booming, and I mean booming, from a
work site, or else it could have been fireworks from a Tomb Sweeping party, although it was
louder than usual fireworks.
We tried to follow the river to the east. The path took us down near the river and we saw that it was a
working river. Finally the sidewalk ended and we were more or less walking on our own, across
small docks, up and over stairways , and around little garden plots planted by the river. We climbed
over a little fence and were in a nice area. When we saw a fellow in army fatigues running to get someone,
we wondered if we were in the wrong area. We were. An older guard came and told us to leave. He was
slightly bemused and told us "no pictures and go back." I wondered how he thought that we had
gotten into the place. It was an army area that had vessels to patrol the river. We went back, over the
fence again and felt as though we had had our adventure for the day. It is always an adventure when
you follow Don.
We could see that the river at Nanjing is a very wide, busy and important working river. We could
see river barges and docks on both sides of the river. There was a lot of activity. Great Grandfather
Wood's group could have easily maneuvered in such a wide river. I had a nice "family" feeling being
down by the river, looking out over its width and thinking about ancestors and the sacrifices that
this particular one made for all those that followed him. A twenty year old "kid" could never have
imagined that there would be thousands of us.
The pictures will give some idea of the river. Notice the canola that is grown on every available spot.
The picture of me shows the electrifying time we had on our adventure, or it could just be a bad
hair day that is common here in China.
2 comments:
love your blog. I miss you. Wendy
So my comment got through. Just testing it because I ususally try and it fails.
Since it might work I will give a breif update. We are all fine. Tom is working again and he is happy. I go to Texas on Sat. to be with Stacey as she has boy #4 on April 15th ( induction ) I will be gone until early May. Nena's Ivy is getting stronger and is stable but not better. She will go to Edmonton in June for more heart work and then to Boston. They don't have the experience in Canada compared to Boston. We are loving our Baptistry assignment at the temple. Friday afternoon and evenings are busy and we do between 500- 1000 baptisms each time. Dead tired by 9:30pm on those days. It is still winter here. Cold with new snow on the ground. When it changes it will be quick I am sure. I am so happy to read of your adventures and work. What an experience to enrich your lives for ever. I hope I can send this now. I sure love you. Wendy
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