In 2013, we shared a simple anniversary quote about love, patience, and the work required to build a good relationship. Since then, it has traveled farther than we ever imagined—often misquoted or unattributed. This is the story behind the quote and why the words “to work” matter.
What if caring for family history is not looking backward at all, but a way of becoming more fully alive, now? Preserving stories, places, records, gardens, and memories is how we live with love, purpose, and belonging every day.
At its heart, the vision for Ridge Haven is a living expression of family love: a place for memories, a shelter for elders, a garden for grief and gratitude, a library for discovery, and a place where generations will come to know not only where they came from, but who they are becoming.
Re-membering is the gentle art of gathering what time has scattered, a return of love, grief, and heritage to the center of our lives, where the dead are not lost but continue within us, shaping who we are and who we are becoming.
Every family tree hides a little wonder. Among its branches and leaves, past the names and stories, there is sometimes a bit of unexpected fruit—sweet, bright, and waiting to be discovered. Now Ridge Haven offers online access to its digital harvest, inviting family members to gather treasured stories with just a click.
When winter finally loosens its frosty fingers, something delightful comes skipping in on the March breeze: Davis Day. Part holiday, part fairy tale, and wholly devoted to joy, she arrives with flowers, laughter, and the delicious suspicion that the world is about to become a little more beautiful.
Step into the hearth-lit kitchens of the 1750s–1780s. In Colonial Comfort Foods, Michael Dragoo turns authentic recipes and cooking methods into a vivid bridge to family history—helping us taste what it was like to be our ancestors, one dish at a time.
Stories rise like biscuits in the oven—warm, steady, made from memory. Here, we honor the women who fed generations with their hands, their hearts, and a cast-iron skillet. This is where recipes become stories, and stories become legacy.
A Century of Family Voices. Imagine discovering a time capsule filled with letters from your ancestors — stories, hopes, and blessings written just for you. Their words would be a gift through time, a bridge between lives … Now, it’s our turn to be that bridge.
Just over nine years ago, we made a radical decision … we turned over a sweet, new leaf.
Before the Barrackville bridge crossed Buffalo Creek, a boy named John Dragoo stood between two worlds. Born to a Shawnee mother and a captured settler father, his story flickers at the edges of recorded history—brief, brave, and half-forgotten, like footprints along a shifting, ancestral riverbank.
We live among the silent ones, the forgotten ones. They are silent only because we do not have ears to hear. They are forgotten but not erased. They are there, in the deep, in the background, continuing their journey through us.