What’s New: denbow@groups.io & a Denbow Football Star

It’s been a long while since we’ve posted a blog on this site. Some of the discussions of the topics we’ve explored here have migrated to the denbow@groups.io list. See: https://groups.io/g/denbow. If you haven’t checked that out yet please do. There’s plenty of room for commentary on all subjects related to our shared family history. Also, you can easily upload files and photos of general interest.

I thought I’d also share something of common interest that came to my attention over the weekend. I’m a big college football fan, and among other games I watched on Saturday past was the 3 OT game between Southern Methodist University (SMU) and the University of Tulsa. You can find the box score here: https://smumustangs.com/boxscore.aspx?id=10390&path=football. As interesting as the game was, I found it even more interesting that one of the players for SMU was a Trevor Denbow. He plays safety and made several key stops for the eventual winners of the marathon contest. Here’s a link to more information about Trevor: https://smumustangs.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=970

Always nice to see a Denbow excel in a pursuit — be it academic, athletic or any other endeavor. I’ll be following SMU a little closer this year, and hoping for their team success and the success of Safety Denbow! 😉

Denbow Poetry: from doggerel to classic gem

In what turned out to be the last issue of The Denbow Diaspora newsletter I had promised that the next issue would contain a sampling of poetry written by members of the Denbow clan.  Well, as you know, shortly after that issue came out I made a decision to cease publication of the newsletter after nearly two decades.  The replacement for the newsletter is this blog, and this is the first post to the blog.  It took a good deal of preparation to get to this point, as the whole web site needed to be redesigned into a blog-centric one.  It’s still a work-in-progress, but things have advanced sufficiently that I’m now in a position to write blogs and post them to the website.  You’ll notice that each blog has space at the bottom for comments.  Please make comments and then feel free to comment on other’s comments.  You’d be surprised at how much additional useful information can be acquired through this type of dialogue.

Let me add that I’m not making any value judgments as to the worth or literary excellence of any of the poems presented here, though I have my personal favorites.  I’ll leave it for the reader to decide what’s a “classic gem” and what’s “doggerel.”  I will hasten to add, though, that poems which critics call doggerel are often my favorites.  Among my favorites are simple poems like Ogden Nash’s little verse about billboards (from memory): “I think that I shall never see a billboard as lovely as a tree; perhaps, if the billboards do not fall, I may never see a tree all.”  So, my personal taste in poetry is not all that “high brow”! Winking smile

Ok, enough of the preliminaries, let’s get to the heart of the matter and explore the world of Denbow poetry.  First, I’d like to present a poem written by Elmer Forrest Denbow, affectionately known as “Uncle Bob” to his relatives near and far.  My own father (Carl H. Denbow) corresponded with Uncle Bob over many, many decades, and I’m lucky enough to have a few of those old letters.  In one of them I discovered that Uncle Bob, a single man, had given my father some funds to help with my college education and that of my siblings.  Uncle Bob had a heart of gold.  Here is a poem he wrote about his adopted state of Arizona:

Arizona Beckons You, by Uncle Bob

This was not the only poem that Uncle Bob wrote.  Here is another one, in a more serious vein, it’s entitled, “Life’s a Funny Proposition, After All.”  It kind of reminds me of the Book of Lamentations in the Bible:

 

 Uncle Bob (E.F. Denbow) Poem Life's a Funny Proposition

Another Denbow poet is Harold Sinclair Denbow.  The poems that I have of his were sent to me by Garren Snyder of Zanesville, Ohio.  Her husband, Gail, is the great-grandson of Harold Sinclair.  This poem, which doesn’t have a title, was dedicated to Mrs. Elizabeth McAbee on her 68th birthday in 1943.  It’s a little more hopeful in outlook than the lamentations of Uncle Bob (the writing on the bottom of the sheet is Garren’s):

Poem dedicated to Mrs. Elizabeth McAbee (by Harold S. Denbow, 1943)

Finally, I’d like to add two poems by my father, Carl H. Denbow.  The first is a very short poem, entitled “Alone,” which kind of echoes the sentiments of Uncle Bob.  The second one is much more poignant and strikes a hopeful cord at the end, but it may take more than one reading to grasp its deeper meaning.  Here’s the first:

Alone (poem by CHD)

This next one, as mentioned above, is more symbolic and harder to grasp the meaning of than the other more literal poems.  When my father first gave me and each of my sisters a copy of this poem we didn’t know what to make of it.  It was very puzzling.  Over the years, each of us has found something in it that we didn’t see upon first reading.  I hope that you find it of interest:

Voices of Time -- A Trilogy p1

 

Voices of Time -- A Trilogy p2

Again, please feel free to add your own submissions to this compilation of Denbow poetry.  Poetry from members of the Denbo clan also welcome!  — CJD

Digital Preservation for Genealogists

vol18---no1

Editor’s Note: This article is very relevant to this issue of the The Denbow Diaspora, which has been delayed because of  two successive crashes of my genealogical computer (also same machine as my ham shack computer) that required two clean installs of the OS (Win8-64). I had all my data in the documents folder backed up via Crash Plan online backup service and was able to restore it without too much hassle. I did forget that a few data files (e.g., a log made by a ham radio program for a mode called JT65-HF) were not backed up to the online service; therefore, I lost about two months worth of contact information for that digital mode and a few other items. Also, I’ve been placing a lot of my data on Dropbox over the last several months, though I haven’t gone “whole hog” yet and used it to replace my entire documents folder, as has the author of this article. It was a real hassle to  reinstall all of my programs, so in keeping with the LOCKSS principle, as described by Mr. Eastman, I’m now also regularly imaging my entire hard drive to an external drive via a program called Casper, which I had in the past used with great success at my office.

Who is John Denboe?

john

John Denboe was born in 1640 at England. He married Jane Woodfield in 1682 at St. Stephens Parish, Cecil, Maryland, USA, According to Sandy Denbow Jameyson: St. Stephen’s Church was located in the Sassafras District. This was near the area of the Sassafras River, in Cecil County, Maryland. It is within this area that John and wife Jane owned or rented property. Their son Thomas settled up their estate after John’s death. Other Children were John and Jane. Jane married in the Bell Family. This is probably the same John Denboe who came to Maryland as an indentured servant in 1664. John Denboe was also known as John Denbow. He died on 27 November John Denboe was born in 1640 at England.1 He married Jane Woodfield in 1682 at St. Stephens Parish, Cecil, Maryland, USA, According to Sandy Denbow Jameyson: St. Stephen’s Church was located in the Sassafras District. This was near the area of the Sassafras River, in Cecil County, Maryland. It is within this area that John and wife Jane owned or rented property. Their son Thomas settled up their estate after John’s death. Other Children were John and Jane. Jane married in the Bell Family. This is probably the same John Denboe who came to Maryland as an indentured servant in 1664. John Denboe was also known as John Denbow. He died on 27 November 1704 at Cecil, Maryland, USA.

Learn more about Denbow, Denbo and Related Families by visiting www.denbowtree.org

Diaspora (Vol. 18, No. 1)

Denbow.org
Editor’s Note: This article is very relevant to this issue of the The Denbow Diaspora, which has been delayed because of two successive crashes of my genealogical computer (also same machine as my ham shack computer) that required two clean installs of the OS (Win8-64). I had all my data in the documents folder backed up via CrashPlan online backup service and was able to restore it without too much hassle. I did forget that a few data files (e.g., a log made by a ham radio program for a mode called JT65-HF) were not backed up to the online service; therefore, I lost about two months worth of contact information for that digital mode and a few other items. Also, I’ve been placing a lot of my data on Dropbox over the last several months, though I haven’t gone “whole hog” yet and used it to replace my entire documents folder, as has the author of this article. It was a real hassle to reinstall all of my programs, so in keeping with the LOCKSS principle, as described by Mr. Eastman, I’m now also regularly imaging my entire hard drive to an external drive via a program called Casper, which I had in the past used with great success at my office.

DOWNLOAD NOWDiaspora (Vol. 18, No. 1) 2013