Back in a bit

Sorry, but things are a little up in the air due to a family situation. I will be back tomorrow.

Work-in-progress: one side of the story

Not having any photos of my great-grandfather Taylor, my imagination fills in the gap to build these collage portraits. I've taken this (copyright-free) image...

and turned it into these:

At the end of the Civil War, my great-grandfather Taylor returned from Texas to Kentucky, to his wife and two daughters. At some point, he worked for a man who refused to pay him after Taylor had completed the labor. When Taylor called him on it, the man fired shots at him -- hitting him in the neck, the shoulder and groin.

So as a Civil War veteran, Taylor looked for medical help from his local veterans' hospital. They told him since he didn't receive the wounds in battle, there was nothing they could do for him.

The pain drove him to two more veterans' hospitals in Ohio and Virginia, where they told him the same thing: sorry, buddy. I imagine him guided by the North Star, in search of relief.

On Monday, I'll wrap up the story with more about the other half of this collage pair. Hang in there!

Work-in-progress: Looking forward, looking back

If you follow me on Facebook, you might have noticed an evolution going on...

.. two collage portraits in progress.

The Janus faces I've been working on are inspired by one of my great-grandfathers. The family story is that Taylor escaped the person who owned him (either in Virginia or Kentucky). Near the end of the Civil War, pension records show he became a private, then a sergeant in the United States Colored Troops (later known as the Buffalo Soldiers). But the records indicate it wasn't until after the war that Taylor was seriously injured.

His doctor filled out the above diagram, with pointer fingers to show where Taylor was shot three times: once in the neck, once in the shoulder, and once in the hip near the groin. (P.S. That's a fig leaf in the diagram.) He lived with those half-treated wounds for years, searching for relief while trying to support nine children as a farmer or farm hand.

I'll tell you more of the story behind the gunshot wounds tomorrow... I promise...