Just call her General North Star

Harriet Tubman has (finally!) been posthumously recognized as a one-star brigadier general in Maryland’s National Guard. At a ceremony on Nov. 11, 2024, officials in her home state honored her military service during the American Civil War.

Born Araminta Ross about March 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman escaped slavery in 1849 and settled in Philadelphia.

She established the Underground Railroad and guided many "passengers" to freedom. Tubman then acted as a scout, spy, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War, before she led an expedition of 150 Black soldiers of the 2nd South Carolina Infantry on a gunboat raid in South Carolina.

The Combahee River Raid (also known as the Raid on Combahee Ferry) was conducted on June 1-2, 1863, along the Combahee River in Beaufort and Colleton counties in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

There the Union ships rescued and transported more than 750 former slaves freed five months earlier by the Emancipation Proclamation, many of whom joined the Union Army.

Gov. Wes Moore called the Veterans Day occasion not just a great day for Tubman’s home state but for all of the United States.

“She knew that in order to do the work, that meant that she had to go into the lion’s den,” Moore said. “She knew that leadership means you have to be willing to do what you are asking others to do.”

Something many of our current leaders have forgotten.

General Tubman, I salute you.

It's alive!

I simply cannot believe it has been five long years since I last posted.

Steampunk Addie

Sooo, what has happened in all that time?

Plenty. And nothing.

We had a pandemic the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the Spanish Flu of 1918. (Momma made hundreds of masks and even made me a little mask.) Sadly, Grandmomma died in 2020.

Momma is still disabled, but even more so after a medical emergency in 2021. We also moved to the Superstition Mountains while Momma was in the hospital. (Momma says we are actually in Apache Junction, but I prefer to say The Sups.)

Since then we have adjusted to living the life of shut-ins. Part of that includes sorting through possessions and down-sizing. Momma and I are slowly trying to declutter, which means most of My things! My loss is your gain.

So I have opened a new shop, Steampunk Addie's Shop. However, this is My shop for 18" Vinyl Americans! You can find her human stuff at Rexphiles.etsy.com or even on eBay!

We are slowly adding faux foods for 18" Vinyl Americans that we can easily do. Doll clothing that Momma made before the fire but never got a chance to finish. And props! We shall be selling toys and props.

Momma also has dreams for these cute little Wheaton (no relation to Wil Wheaton) bottles she has collected and seen since her childhood. We hope to have monthly collections available. 

We are slowly going through the website looking for dead links, so please let me know if you find anything. Also, my Big Sister might make an appearance every now and then!

I'm usually found on Instagram these days, so I hope to see you there but I plan to post here more regularly. 

Certainly more often than every five years.

-30-

One small step

Fifty years ago Momma was 5-years-old and annoyed because she had to watch the boring “Men on the Moon.” She was up too late, and Captain Kirk did it weekly.

In color.

Congratulations Apollo 11! 

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”