Irish dirt for sale: $15 for 12 ounces

This off-beat news item is for the Irish (Cotter) descendants of the family:

DUBLIN – Two Irishmen have set up a business selling dirt to nostalgic Irish Americans who want a handful of 'the mother country' on their graves.

Pat Burke, 27, and Alan Jenkins, 65, have just shipped their first $1 million load of 'official' Irish soil to New York – at $15 per 12-ounce (340-gram) bag – and confidently expect it will be followed by many more.

'The demand has been absolutely phenomenal,' Burke, an agricultural scientist from County Tipperary, said on Friday.

'We knew it would take off but not in our wildest dreams did we expect the reaction we've had so far.'

Burke, who has patented a way of processing the soil so it passes U.S. import rules that demand it is free of disease and non-indigenous insects, said the pair were in talks with 'one of the world's largest retailers' and a U.S. shopping channel.

'We're looking at going worldwide,' he said. The firm has pledged to donate 80 percent of its profits to charities in Ireland and the United States.

A visit with Della Liggett

Della May (Reneker) Liggett, a resident of Pebble Creek Convalescent Center, was photographed by me when Helen and l visited her on Saturday, October 14, 2006. Della can no longer remember many things but we had a nice visit in the dining room. The center is in a quiet section a short distance from Interstate 77 just south of Akron at 670 Jarvis Rd., Akron, OH 44319.

Della, , who celebrated her 78h birthday on May 22, 2006, was married on October 22, 1967 to William Fenton Liggett who died June 19, 1997. Their son, Sheldon Scott Liggett, is a travel nurse in Greenville, NC.

Here's an update from Sheldon:

I have an apartment here for the days I work and still have the house in Florence, SC where I had moved when I transfered with the company I worked for in Ohio. In Novemeber, I will be giving up the house in Florence and Steve and I will be making our home here until the hospital either no longer renews my contract or we are ready for a change of scenery. The money is good and the area is nice and slowly growing. The hospital is huge, basically about the size of Akron City Hospital, and is a level one trauma center. It is a great oppurtunity to travel and see and work in different areas to see where might be a nice place to settle down when I retlre.

Sheldon's e-mail address is loctordanue@yahoo.com

Cards can be sent to Della at Pebble Creek at the address listed above.

New school portraits of Liggett girls

These are school portraits taken August 30, 2006 for the new school year. Erin (left) is in Grade 6 and Anna is in Grade 2 at St. Paul School on Brown Street in Akron. They are the daughters of Tom and Sue (Gabelman) Liggett and grandaughters of Harry and Helen Liggett of Akron, OH

This blog's for you

If you have received e-mail from Harry Liggett, this blog is for you. This blog was opened because there is no longer a Liggett site on My Family.com. We found little interest in that site because some of you forgot how to log onto it and it was mainly a repository for family history records. If any new information is found on the family, it can be reported here. This blog, however, will be used to post photos and updates on what family members are up to now. The first item, for instance, is about the latest descendant of Frank and Nora (Penn) :Liggett.

Please keep in touch. If you have any news of your family or a photo you would like to see on the blog, just contact Harry Liggett. If you can e-mail a jpeg of your photo fine. If not, we can scan an original for you.

We hope to have other family members who will become contributors who can post their own. Let me know if you are interested

Cecilia Jane arrives

A baby girl named Cecilia Jane, who will be known as CJ, was born at 9:11 a.m. Wednesday, October 4, 2006 at Union Hospital in Dover. She weighed 7 pounds and 4 counces.

Cecelia Jane is the daughter of Lisa (Williams) Espenchied and Zachery Allen Espenchied and granddaughter of Barry and Susan (Armstrong) Willams and Gary and Trudy Espenchied.

Her name comes from Zach's grandmodther's middle name (Cecelia) and from Lisa's mother's middle name (Jane).

Her Liggett connection: She is the great-grandaughter of the late John and Betty (Liggett) Wlilliams. She is the great-great granddaughter of Harry Doyle and Lillian Mary (Bilderback) Liggett and so on back to Frank and Nora (Penn) Liggett, William and Caroline (Denning) Liggett, Samuel and Jane Stackhouse Liggett, Stephen and Sarah (Gourley) Liggett and Patrick and Sarah Jane (Yost) Liggett.

Click on the photo to see a larger image.