“My” Trip to Bountiful

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 In April 2013 I finally made a successful trip to” The Eames Rock” as the local Framingham, Mass. news refers to it.”Traffic is backed up all the way to Eames Rock.” The Eames family except for Thomas and 4 children lost their lives here during the historical King Phillip”s War. My maiden name was Ames and DNA reveals a direct descendant from Thomas Eames. Needless to say this was an emotional time for me.

“My” Trip To Bountiful Nov.2011

I discovered about 2 years ago that my landed settler,Thomas Eames, lived and pretty much owned Framingham at one time in history.Framingham is just outside of Boston, so you can imagine what ecstacy I felt when 6 months ago, my daughter’s family relocated from Hawaii to Boston..I could just see myself getting my picture beside the Thomas Eames memorial and upon arriving in Framingham ,seeing a sea of family likenesses as I walked down the street.My daughter’s last words as we walked out the door”Hope this won’t be a trip to Bountiful”a movie where this elderly lady dreams of going back to her home and when she does nothing is as she imagined.
I had also found on the internet that many Ames’s were buried in Sudbury..so since I was out that way I prevailed upon my husband to take me first to Sudbury… I found the History Society pretty easily and unfortunately it was closed..so I asked the ladies in the town clerk’s office if they had heard of the Eames family name and they were very helpful. In fact we shared some great stories of our geneological journeys. They kindly directed me to the cemetery,but as I began perusing the various tombstones from every era of our history and every family except Eames or Ames, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I am not really a geneologist. I think I need to hire someone for this boring job.
At any rate ,I encouraged my husband to take me on to the promised  land,Framingham. Surely I would find something there…Meanwhile ,we were driving through georgeous fall leaved forests,bejeweled with manicured typically New England homes..which I couldn’t fully enjoy becuse I’m looking for road signs and route numbers.
After asking a couple of Framinghamites directions,we found the History Society. It was closed and desolate. there was not a soul in site…Time for a coffeebreak..so we pulled into a mini mall bearing a Starbucks sign. Imagine our dismay when we reached the door bearing the message”,temporarily closed due to power outages”..Ah.. It’s elementary, that’s why we will not find much info . I didn’t think power outages would effect areas so close to Boston.
Next stop..a barber,surely someone there has heard of our Grandfather Thomas. The man I talked to  kept looking at me quizically..had I really come all the way from Los Angeles for a historical placque…is this woman for real. I tried to ignore the look and asked if he knew any Eames’s, he said yes but he didn’t elaborate. Funny, this is the second time this happened to me. Either they really didn’t know them personally or they didn’t really care for them.
I will definitely come back to Boston and yes I will make that trip to Framingham again.  The next time I will call ahead and make appointments with the History Society, and pray that there will be no power outages.

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