Mortons are back from Paraguay...

[JMO]

I'll admit that my reposting of old blogs is since I've seen new members asking about the S'Mortons and since I was not lurking on the Mortons back in the day I wanted to discuss them with others looking into them for the first time.  I have looked at the Morton threads but I was also trying to track down birth dates for the various family members.  I had always assumed that the parents were the same age and not actually 10 yrs apart, for example.  And I was interested in the age gaps between the babies.  It's a silly thing, but it's something I wanted to know. 

[Palimpsest]

 

19 minutes ago, JMO said:

I'll admit that my reposting of old blogs is since I've seen new members asking about the S'Mortons and since I was not lurking on the Mortons back in the day I wanted to discuss them with others looking into them for the first time.  I have looked at the Morton threads but I was also trying to track down birth dates for the various family members.  I had always assumed that the parents were the same age and not actually 10 yrs apart, for example.  And I was interested in the age gaps between the babies.  It's a silly thing, but it's something I wanted to know. 

Useful link: http://www.freejinger.org/forum/307-smortons-smiths-mortons-and-sanders/

 

[nelliebelle1197]

28 minutes ago, JMO said:

I'll admit that my reposting of old blogs is since I've seen new members asking about the S'Mortons and since I was not lurking on the Mortons back in the day I wanted to discuss them with others looking into them for the first time.  I have looked at the Morton threads but I was also trying to track down birth dates for the various family members.  I had always assumed that the parents were the same age and not actually 10 yrs apart, for example.  And I was interested in the age gaps between the babies.  It's a silly thing, but it's something I wanted to know. 

It's always fun to rehash the Mortons, but it is best to review the old threads first and not just read the blogs - do both.  I did it myself, so trust me! There were a LOT of Degreed Morton Scholars^tm on here and you run the risk of posting misinformation or wasting a lot of your own time reinventing the wheel!

I don't even know if a lot of stuff is even out there now. There is an old Smith blog and other things discussed in the old threads that will answer a lot of questions.

[divadivine]

4 hours ago, JMO said:

 

 I found this from Sept 2006:  Mama was expecting a 13th child June 2007 (When Kressant ended up having her first).  I never found another mention of the pregnancy.  She would have been 44/45 when she was pregnant.  

http://mortonclan.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html

 

 

I did some digging. She mentions a few pages later that she miscarried under the Bravo.... And a little personal note section. 

http://mortonclan.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2006-11-30T06:21:00-05:00&max-results=100&reverse-paginate=true

[JMO]

I've been tracking down a lot of birthdays since there weren't many in previous threads.  Kressant/Alan and Rachel Smith have all had birthday posts listing their birthday as July 15th.  Kressant was definitely born in 1987, not sure about the other two.  Is this real?  Does anyone know?

 

I found on Kressant's old blog from 2005 that Rachel and Alan had a joint birthday party.  Can't find anything else yet. 

[Kira]

I think Alan was born on July 31, 1983. I remembered that he shares a birthday with his nephew: http://mortonclan.blogspot.com/2008/07/its-boy.html  I also think I read somewhere that Katie and Alan are the same age(Katie was born in Aprilof 83)

Kressant does share her birthday with Adeline. I dont know Rachel's birthday.

  

 

 

[JMO]

So, one last post before I try and take a break from this crazy train.

Addie discussing her joy about being a SAHD and taking care of the men in her life by finding fulfillment in doing laundry and how it prepares her for marriage:

http://mortonclan.blogspot.com/2009/01/general-morton-news-odd-tidbits-and.html

I guess this also means that all the cooking/cleaning and laundry is falling to her these days.  At least there aren't 14 of them at home anymore. 

 

One last thought, I know all the SMorton blogs started to drift down in 2013.  I'm wondering if had anything to do with what was happening with VF?  Or maybe since the other bloggers were getting married off Addie just wasn't feeling it as much any more?

 

 

 

[SolomonFundy]

12 hours ago, JMO said:

So, one last post before I try and take a break from this crazy train.

Addie discussing her joy about being a SAHD and taking care of the men in her life by finding fulfillment in doing laundry and how it prepares her for marriage:

http://mortonclan.blogspot.com/2009/01/general-morton-news-odd-tidbits-and.html

I guess this also means that all the cooking/cleaning and laundry is falling to her these days.  At least there aren't 14 of them at home anymore. 

 

One last thought, I know all the SMorton blogs started to drift down in 2013.  I'm wondering if had anything to do with what was happening with VF?  Or maybe since the other bloggers were getting married off Addie just wasn't feeling it as much any more?

 

 

 

There was a lot of speculation on it at the time. I personally thought that they had pulled back to refrain from posting about family events that Tayte attended before the courtship had fully turned into an engagement. There was a lot of hesitancy. When Addie did get back into posting, she would flood the blog with pics of events that were months old, most of which featured Martha and Tayte together. 

Then, between the wedding planning and the family's obvious plans to move out of the country, the blog just took a backseat in importance. Martha's brothers announced her pregnancy on their blog (Brothers Five), which was the first time that such news didn't headline the main family blog. Addie has made it clear that they don't have the ability to keep up with social media much in Paraguay. Unless one of the young married girls decides to start a blog (which is possible... Alyssa had a personal blog for a few years a while back), I just don't see the Mortons continuing their online presence much. They seem to welcome pulling away from "the world", and I don't think they were ever comfortable with the volume of traffic their blog attracted. They all have cell phones to keep track of each other; why blog when you can just send a text? 

[fundiefan]

I think the blogs were all intended for them to keep up with each other. The Smiths, Mortons and Sanders' all started blogging in 2005 and were almost over sharing at the time. I don't know when the Roberts & Campanas joined but they each had blogs for a while as well.

The majority of them were also maintained by the SAHD's. As they married off, you can see the main author moving on down the line, particularly with the Smiths. As those who maintained the blogs married off, social media became more prevalent, from Facebook to Twitter to IG to whatever else everyone uses. As well as cell phones with data where they can do all their communicating without the need for a blog. They no longer need to be public to reach their presumed 'large' audience. In one text they can reach everyone they want to reach. In one IG post, same thing. One FB post...you get the picture. AND, they can be relatively private about it - at least private in the sense that no one outside their chosen circles will see anything.

Aging out of the home & marrying off and social media have killed off fundie blogs.

Sadly, it hasn't worked for everyone. The grown women who started as adults have never gotten the memo that blogs are just old news and there are much more effective & efficient ways to reach an audience.

[Feministe9000]

Good point @ophelia! I loved following Adeline's blog but honestly it makes sense given how many of the Morton kids have IG accounts and cell phones to send group texts and share photos with one another in that massive extended family! 

[ophelia]

Did anybody else see the photos that Jeanine posted on IG yesterday? They are gone now, but they showed their community in Paraguay. If I recognized these people correctly, they were also attending the Morton church in Georgia. So it appears that they didn't only go down there with their immediate family, but also other families from their circles. But now the pictures are gone and I find it very mysterious.

I might have to add that in the captions under the pictures it wasn't mentioned that these folks were visiting. It was only written "Mrs Xy"

[SolomonFundy]

1 hour ago, ophelia said:

Did anybody else see the photos that Jeanine posted on IG yesterday? They are gone now, but they showed their community in Paraguay. If I recognized these people correctly, they were also attending the Morton church in Georgia. So it appears that they didn't only go down there with their immediate family, but also other families from their circles. But now the pictures are gone and I find it very mysterious.

I might have to add that in the captions under the pictures it wasn't mentioned that these folks were visiting. It was only written "Mrs Xy"

If you're referring to the collage "it's Thanksgiving here!" church pics, they are still there. 

[ophelia]

I'm sober, I had breakfast and a green tea and still those pictures aren't there. What is wrong with me? Or my IG?

[JemimaPuddle-Duck]

I can see them, as well. In other news....Tayte and Martha's place is basically my dream home. 

[ophelia]

Jeanine's latest picture that I can see is the one where she is wearing that apron.

@JemimaPuddle-Duck I love their house, too. Maybe one day in the future I'll have a farmhouse on my own.

[JemimaPuddle-Duck]

31 minutes ago, ophelia said:

Jeanine's latest picture that I can see is the one where she is wearing that apron.

@JemimaPuddle-Duck I love their house, too. Maybe one day in the future I'll have a farmhouse on my own.

There are eight photos since that one! Have you tried resetting your app? 

There are no farmhouses in my future now that I live where I do, but I'll keep my fingers crossed for you ;-)

[ophelia]

26 minutes ago, JemimaPuddle-Duck said:

There are eight photos since that one! Have you tried resetting your app? 

There are no farmhouses in my future now that I live where I do, but I'll keep my fingers crossed for you ;-)

Yes, I did that several times. No new pictures for me.

So what's your guess? Did they really move the whole community to Paraguay?

[NachosFlandersStyle]

Which people are you referring to? I see the photos, but I don't recognize anybody.

Im kind of surprised to see them in a traditional church. She says it's one of the oldest churches in town, which I assume would make it Mennonite? Not sure how that fits with their particular brand of fundamentalism. There was also a recent pic on Addie's IG showing her dad preaching in an outdoor setting, looked like most of the audience was indigenous. I wonder if that's separate from this church they were at yesterday.

 

Oh, and here's a new-looking (and mostly incomplete) website for their construction business. Seems to suggest they are continuing some of the business in Paraguay? 

http://calathora.weebly.com

[NachosFlandersStyle]

According to Facebook the Bs are the Boschmanns. At least one branch of the family appear to be American missionaries but I don't think any of them are from Georgia or other Morton stomping grounds.

[fundiefan]

There are a lot of white folks in those pictures. They obviously didn't go to Paraguay to become part of their culture. 

Color me surprised. They're just trying to make a 'safe' little space to be insane religious fanatics with their friends. 

[NachosFlandersStyle]

2 hours ago, fundiefan said:

There are a lot of white folks in those pictures. They obviously didn't go to Paraguay to become part of their culture. 

Color me surprised. They're just trying to make a 'safe' little space to be insane religious fanatics with their friends. 

The region that they're in was largely settled by Russian and German Mennonites. So just because the people in the photos are white doesn't necessarily mean they're Americans.

[JemimaPuddle-Duck]

17 hours ago, ophelia said:

Yes, I did that several times. No new pictures for me.

So what's your guess? Did they really move the whole community to Paraguay?

The whole thing has me all sorts of puzzled, but I still don't think it's long term. 

[fundiefan]

1 hour ago, NachosFlandersStyle said:

The region that they're in was largely settled by Russian and German Mennonites. So just because the people in the photos are white doesn't necessarily mean they're Americans.

White does not =American. I didn't say they were creating a little America. In fact, I didn't say America/American anywhere in my short observation.

[EmiGirl]

I don't know about you all, butt I'd be beyond pissed off if I went to an outdoor wedding and had to sit and wait all freaking day to find out when it was going to actually happen. From the sound of it, it was hot too. Nothing pisses me off more than being in uncomfortable dress clothes and hot and probably hungry. 

[NachosFlandersStyle]

1 hour ago, fundiefan said:

White does not =American. I didn't say they were creating a little America. In fact, I didn't say America/American anywhere in my short observation.

But it's not their own culture. Their culture is fundamentalist baptists in the southern US. Paraguayan Mennonites have got to be at least a little outside their comfort zone.