Personally, I don’t believe in fortune tellers, mediums, or psychics of any sort. But, I’ll admit, on occasion, I question what phenomena may exist that lay beyond the landscape of what my brain can understand.
Week 11: Fortune
Out of all of my grandfather’s papers and possessions that I inherited following his passing, one of the most interesting was his mother, Anna Diamond Millhouse’s, personal journal.
Anna Diamond (Williams) Millhouse, “RECORD,” 1947-1976, West Virginia, diary privately held by great granddaughter Kira D. Foltz in Thousand Oaks, California. The binding is frayed and loose with worn edges, but still connected naturally and with some help of Scotch tape applied by original author. All pages are filled, so accounts do not always follow chronological order, as author appeared to find any space available for later year’s entries. All handwriting appears to be consistent with original author, though ink and lead instruments used vary throughout.
Her diary chronicled nearly every day’s activities in and around their home in West Virginia, starting in 1947 with the last dated entry of June 1976.
Anna Diamond (Williams) Millhouse, “RECORD,” 1947-1976, West Virginia, diary privately held by great granddaughter Kira D. Foltz in Thousand Oaks, California, p. 10-11.
While the majority of the pages outline their family’s farm holdings such as number of cattle, horses, and pigs, and the wages earned from selling off beef and other foods, there were also entries with heavy meaning to our family history, such as when my grandparents’ son, ChesLee, tragically died as a toddler.
When I shared the discovery of the journal with my cousin Eileen, Anna’s granddaughter, she revealed to me that Anna was known to be psychic! Or, at the very least, had what she described as premonitions. This threw me off at first, because, like I said, I don’t really believe in that stuff – though I do occasionally find myself predicting many things before they come to pass! I chalk most of my “visions” up to forethought and good intuition, but according to Eileen, her grandmother legitimately believed in her sixth sense. Eileen said she wouldn’t flaunt her fortune-telling abilities and never used them to turn a profit, but supposedly the family as a whole was aware of her gift and bought into it as well.
Anna Diamond (Williams) Millhouse digital photo cropped from original hand-colored portrait of Harry Samuel Millhouse and wife Anna Diamond (Williams) Millhouse, undated in unknown location, original privately held by great granddaughter Kira D. Foltz in Thousand Oaks, California.
I haven’t had a chance to finish reading the full diary yet. I’m slowly typing up the whole thing to make it searchable for future reference, but I’m really hoping I run across an entry or two that can lend itself to Anna’s peculiar trait!
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