Just prior to Giles death, I began suffering from severe leg pains. I have suffered from kidney failure for the past three years, but have been fortunate to be able to perform dialysis from my home with much cooperation from the doctors and my family.

The chemistry of my body indicates that an abundant amount of calcium has deposited in my skin tissue which is causing the extreme pain in my legs and feet.

I have had to drop a many of my activities for the past few weeks, and am moving at a much slower pace. I ask you to bear with me, I like you, do not know what the close future holds, but I will continue enjoying living and loving as I have for many years.

It is with pleasure that a lot of old local friends have been sending me emails and other correspondence recently.

While in the hospital the past few weeks, I have had to refer back to some of the local history articles that I wrote five or six years ago. Today I am blending current findings with local stories that I wrote in the past. The Town Charter has been very helpful in allowing me to reprint previous stories.

Now, I am temporarily out of the hospital and with a lap top, I will continue to bring you more history of Onega and the Aubrey area.

One of my friends who has been sending me emails and prayers is my lifetime friend, Edith Pearl (Simpson) Johnson. Edith Pearl came by my office while I was in the hospital. She left me with some historical photos of the Simpson Drug Store.

When the drug store was destroyed by fire the first time, it appeared that the disaster would end the store, but, no the disaster occurred again only a few short months after the drug store was rebuilt.

Disaster has been a "key word" in Aubrey’s history, and when the drug store burned, it was much like a large family losing much of its family. When the second fire destroyed the drug store, the town grieved and grieved, and the desire to quickly bounce back was lost, and for many years the suffering community lost the Simpson family.

Edith Pearl Simpson, Howard and Clyde possessed a love for the dying community. Their grandfather was a Civil War veteran who possessed an example of the strong will power and determination to continue the faith that many of the good people in the village possessed.

The good people of the community did not allow the disasters to defeat their spirits. These people had settled in Onega from their former homes in Cherokee Country of the Cherokee Nation back in Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia.

With the decline in my health, I shall and will use the Great Spiritual comfort to know that with the faith of our people that brought us here from the Cherokee Nation and with that great spirit, we will live on and on.

When I was beginning to feel down, I received an email from a good friend and my spirits are lifted with comments like "Stay in there my friend, we are counting on you." Those words were emailed to me while I was in the hospital.

So with your prayers, I will continue to be blessed as in the past and in the future. An example of the great community spirit can be seen with the expansion of the school, the new city library, the park and the restoration of what is left of the old downtown.

The photo this week was delivered while I was away. Edith Pearl Simpson Johnson found this in her collection of old photos. The man on the far left is her uncle Elmer Simpson. She was uncertain of the date of the photo.

Elmer Simpson was born in Aubrey in 1889 soon after the village acquired the new name of Aubrey. I would guess that Elmer was around 20 to 25 years old, which would make the approximate date of the photo 1915.

I am not sure if the location was in the back of the Drug Store office, but I believe it was. The old wind up clock on the wall says the John R. Dickens is Old Reliable to Cure Sore Eyes.

Also note the hanging electric light fixtures that provided close up lighting above the desk.

Some of the elders of Aubrey, seem to think that the person setting at the end of the desk is a Coffey and could be Homer Coffey. If I find out the correct identities of the people, I will pass it on to you.