Sisters Ancien

Prince Paul Nicholas Alexandrov Romanov, born 1843

Lady Andromeda Kent Wembley Alexander, born 1847

This is the primary pairing, wed 1866

They had five daughters.

Rose Marie, born 1867
Iris Marie, born 1870
Lily Marie born 1872
Violet Marie, born 1874
Ethel Marie born 1887

Rose Marie was wed to a Mr Price Reynolds in 1886. She gave birth to

Eurydice Marie, born 1890

So a little family history. The family followed Nicky acrosss the Atlantic in 1887. He had previously been back and forth to the 'Americas', his term for the US west. And yes she gave birth to Ethel during the passage.

The two girls while from different generations were raised as siblings. They grew up as Americans. As we have read previously, Violet died in England 1885. She was exhumed and removed to Denver and put into the family plot. Iris Marie disappeared in Chicago in 1888 and no one ever heard from her again. It was the family legacy that she eloped and then lost track of the family. So I suppose there is part of the family out there that does not know of their family.

Setting the Story

The original thought was to have each day a one minute long blog on a story. This would build as it went forward. Kind of like one of those daily calender, with the cartoon, or word or thought, short and to the point and thus more accessible. Now it is quite a bit of material for someone to read on the web. At the beginning there was a play on the profile and the pictures were, in my plan, specifically placed nxt to the corresponding text. As the blog grew things became seperated. I am working on that..

At this point I am going to leave the blog as it is and just proceed forward. So, for the few readers that I do have I apoogize but I am going to be repeating myself alittle bit, but I think it might clarify the characters and story plot.

Principal Characters

1) Andy, 1983 to present, seventh generation. Daughter to Barbara Anne(2) and Sammy(13), Andromeda Marie Winters. She is bright and took college courses in high school and graduated in 2004. Now however she feels free and is unwilling at this point to either find a ‘real’ job or return to school. "I am in no rush.", she says. When she announces she has a passport Cassandra(4) feels ill.

2) Electra, is the name she will known by during the story. Was born Barbara Anne, 1959. She was scared by what she saw of the 60's when she was growing up, but thought the 70's cooled off. She is bright and funny, but has mild depressive cycles, sister don’t we all? Sammy and she were married in 1982. Andy was born in 1983. "My mind just shuts off I was so grown up in 1984.", she says. She and Sammy split up in 1991. Went to court, changed her name to Electra Marie. It was not easy with her and Sammy for 10 years. Gradually they patch it up to friendship with an edge, or a row of buttons. She and Cassandra have an uneasy relationship that is fun sometimes but hugely frustrating at other times.

3) Gael Angeline Marie 1945 to present. She is half sister to Cassandra. She was there for the 60's in a way Cassandra had never experienced and therefore never understood. She was it all for womanhood. She is an artist and a lingering hippy. She had moved in with GG in 1972 and helped take care of her as she failed. She is there in GG’s house by default and becomes a weaver, in one room, a potter in the garage, and painter in the rest of the house. She will come across the legendary lavaliere and thus initiate the treasure hunt with Electra.

4) Cassandra Marie, 1938 to present. She spend’s less time with GG because she was older. She was 17 when her mother, Helen(5) died. She went to college and she did amazingly well in her courses and graduated magna cum laud. Practical and self sufficient. On the spur of the moment she had another graduation and found herself pregnant, then shortly engaged and shortly wed. She went back to school and was in two terms at once. The husband was in marketing and was a complete flop as a father, husband and marketer. After catching him In flagrante delicto, she divorced him, severed the relationship and found that she had pleased him more than was her intent. "Damn him!", she said. But this did not slow her ardor for banking. She had risen to president of the bank, there were only three other presidents, unlike someone who tells you they are a bank president nowadays. She is a republican, lapsed Presbyterian, and had come up through the 60's and 70's as a single mom, before it was one word.

5) Helen Lynne Marie, nee Hermann, 1911 to 1955. She was a wild one. A beauty that finished her life with cigarettes, drink and one spectacular car crash. She had two husbands; she divorced the first and the second divorced her. She had Cassandra by the first one and Gael by the second. She had been a spoiled child and was unprepared for either marriage or child rearing, she fought back with booze. These half sisters are raised by GG. Fourth generation.

6) Eurydice Marie, nee Eliot, Hermann, 1887 to 1975. She is also know as GG. She is 28 when her mother Rose Marie(8) dies in 1919. GG is the link back to the treasure. Her diaries and journals provide a large part of the story’s background; she will also communicate by means of the wax cylinder recordings. She is married to Henry Lloyd Hermann. Their daughter is Helen. HLH had cause to regret spoiling his only child. Hers is the house Gael lives in since coming there in 1972 to help out. This one of the estrangement issues between Gael and Cassandra. Third generation.

7) Ethel Marie Alexander, 1887 to 1953, is the last daughter of Nicholas(10) and Andromeda(9). She was proof of her father’s undying love for Mum. She will hear, growing up in the US of the travails of Merry Old England. The especially dreadful incident of the tomb of Violet Marie. Because she was such a late addition to the family she was a contemporary of Rose Marie’s daughter, Eurydice. Second generation.

How does this go together?

Well, Liz the librarian goes to Denver to do some research on the journals. One of the librarians at the Denver Public Library, Western History Section, gets her in touch with a woman named Electra, whose family it was that kept these journals. At this point they have agreed to meet for coffee, at a place called Common Grounds, convenient to both. Let's give them a few moments for pleasentries..

Author's Note

Circa 1867 A man claiming to be Nicholas, the eldest son of Tsar Alexander II shows up in England; the one problem with this was, that son had died in 1865. [Alex II, 1818 - 1881, he was czar 1855 - 1881, life and reign terminated by a bomb thrown by an I. Grinevitskii. This is the man that sold Alaska to us for six cents an acre, two million plus dollars, in 1867. They called it Seward's Folly... Anyway not to get distracted, this Czar has another son Alexander III, Prince Alexis, who becomes the next to the last Czar. But before that he does a number of interesting things, but the one we are interested in is his hunting expedition in America which began with the Svetlana docking in New York, New York 19 November1871. There are more detailed notes in the appendices, of this social juggernaut]

The seond son Alexander III from St Loui Missouris to Topeka, Kansas by train then by horses and wagons crossing Kansas and Colorado to Denver, hunting all along the way. The interesting correlation to this is the journal entries of our Nicholas. It begins in Topeka and it documents the expedition very thoroughly, and according to the sources I have seen accurately. And in the journals are some things that did not make the newspapers or other memoirs. Such as a fond reunion of the two brothers, where they make a pact to Nicholas's true status when Alexis becomes Czar. If you do the math it turns out to be ten years from the journal entries.