Forebears and Bears

                                      Sometimes while researching I find random bits of information that, while not part of my own family history, are too interesting not to share.  I recently came across a record that on first view seems to relate to a familiar Yarmouth family - the Brays.  However, the little digging I've done promises something more complicated.  There may be a family connection to the Yarmouth Brays that future research could uncover, however the Thomas Bray discussed here - and subject of the following described criminal acts and court documents -  is probably of a branch of Brays from north of Boston, who were original settlers of the Gloucester area.  There is no doubt though that the illegal act took place at Yarmouth, and some literary discussion points to the event as a possible inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter (there are a couple of possibilities). The court ordered punishment, carried out at Yarmouth, adds a whole new reality of

 My small backyard garden is just about done for the year.  It produced again too many tomatoes, and not enough of anything else.  This year my husband, in an effort to use up some of these tomatoes, actually cooked and canned enough sauce to last us the winter.  Our cucumbers didn't do well; they were yellow and soft.  My sister's garden on the Cape, however, produced an abundant crop of cucumbers.  During a recent conversation we discovered that we had both recently looked into our grandmother's recipe files and pulled out handwritten recipes for Betty Gates' Pickles.   My grandmother made a lot of wonderful homemade goods which I recall with great love and affection.  Homemade pickles wasn't one of those items I particularly cared for.  I recall always being a little disappointed at homemade pickles not being as tasty and sharp as those found in a grocery store jar. But I was a kid, and now am much more interested in the "real" and "natural" t