introduction

Last December I attended the funeral of my uncle, Bill Coughenour. When a man has lived into his late eighties and enjoyed life as much as Bill did, the event really is a celebration of a life. When I returned to New England I wanted to come up with an easy way for the whole family to keep in touch. I wanted by daughter living in CT with her husband who acts to know Kelly's daughter who was moving to New York and interested in theater.

I have decided to set up this blog, get in touch with as many relatives as possible and invite all of you to post here.

Post anything and everything. Introduce yourself, tell us what you do for work and play. Write up the stories of your childhood or even better, your parent's life.

I'll get us started. I am Mary Gray Coughenour Sawyer. My father was Dick, Bill's younger brother and my mother is Mary George Coughenour. I live just north of Boston. My husband Dana and I have 2 grown daughters, Mary who lives with her husband Victor in rural Connecticut and Elinor (Nora) who lives with her partner Brian in San Francisco. I have always loved my name: Mary Gray Coughenour. I like it with the Sawyer on the end too. Easier to pronounce, spell and you don't have to answer a lot of questions about the ethnic origin and the weird pronuciation.

When I was little and used to visit both sets of grandparents in Salisbury I realized that my name really place me on the family tree. First of all, it said I was a Coughenour. Next, the Gray part told which Coughenour, the one who had married Ruby Gray. That would narrow it down to my being either Dick or Bill's daughter and since Dick's wife's name was Mary, it was clear who I was. Coughenour is not the easiest name to grow up with. I remember being determined to learn to spell it before starting school. The girl across the street had told me that it was best if you could spell your name on the first day. Easy for her to say, her last name was Evans!

You can always tell when a new teacher is going to call your name from the roll. They have called a B name or two and maybe a C. Then there is a long pause, and you have to call out "Mary Gray Coughenor". I learned that not every teacher appreciated my respose to the question "Doesn't c-o-u-g-h spell cough". I would bravely answer "doesn't d-o-u-g-h spell dough"? But how do we pronounce the name is it Cough (rhymes with dough) -en-our or something closer to Cornhour. I remember people, not us, pronouncing it Cornairr or something close to that,

So that's the first question everyone can anwer after they introducd themselves. How do you pronounce Coughenour?