New Bern, North Carolina Feb 5, 6

  We drove on Sunday, the 5th from Washington, D.C. Leaving a city on a Sunday is always so easy. It was an easy trip; the last bit was on Route 17 which is not fast, but more scenic.
   We stayed at the Comfort Suites which is a little bit out of town, but a nice hotel and quite empty.
    The first night, we ate at MJ's in downtown. We both had ahi tuna and it was fabulous. Then we went back to the hotel and sat in the hot tub while we did a much-needed laundry. We settled down to watch the Patriots in the Superbowl versus the Atlanta Falcons. But, not being avid football fans, we fell asleep in the third quarter with the Patriots trailing by a lot. Imagine our surprise to wake up the next day and discover that they won in overtime and that we slept through a historic game. Darn.

The Masonic Temple. Anna may have taught here in her early days in New Bern.

   The next day we went to the library to research Anna Gardner. Barbara was here in 2004 on a grant and got information about Anna's time here during the early days of the Civil War teaching freedmen. But, it seemed as if Anna might have returned to New Bern before returning home in the mid 1870s, so we hoped to find some evidence of that. Barbara read microfilm records from the local and county school boards, as well as a few of the old newspapers on microfilm. The school committee records were surprisingly complete and she found no evidence that Anna returned.

New Bern during the Civil War

Northern soldiers in New Bern

   Mark focused on finding photos to put in the book. The librarian who helped us, Richard Green, was quite hopeful. He published a book a while ago with a lot of photos and told Mark where to get permissions for them.
    So, it was a fruitful trip. Barbara proved pretty conclusively that Anna did not return to New Bern and Mark found some good photos for the book, including a photo of school teachers of freedmen in their house. We suspect that Anna may be one of them, but will have to enlarge the photo more to make comparisons with other photos of her.
    As MJ's was so good that day before, we returned there for another meal! Then - a soak in the hot tub.
    The next morning, we took the Prius to a car wash to get the salt off it. That poor car is seldom clean.