Memories of My Dad

Tags

death, family, father, memory, Taylor

My Dad

On Monday, I received the news from my brother that our Dad had passed away. This was not unexpected; his health had been declining the past few months, and doctors had recently advised us that there was nothing more they could do medically for him. I am sad that he is no longer with us, but glad that he no longer is suffering.

I have had a lot of thoughts running through my head about my Dad, and wanted to share some of my memories of him.

My Mom may have taught me how to read, but my Dad taught me to love reading

I remember Mom working with me on learning to read when I was young.  I started reading before I was in Kindergarten.  However, when I think of who inspired me to read, it was my Dad.

Other than magazines, I don’t ever recall in my younger days my Mom reading much of anything. Dad, on the other hand, was always reading.  He loved science fiction in particular, and loved Star Trek books.  E. E. “Doc” Smith was a favorite author of his, and he, like me, would read favorite books over and over.

One of the things I remember most though was that Dad was the one to read me bedtime stories.  He had a book called “The Little Lame Prince” that had other stories in it as well.

The book was given to my Dad as a Christmas present by his Aunt Jeanette.

 

I was enchanted when I was little about the stories of the Brownie, and all of the mischief he would get into. Dad made reading come alive for me.

An illustration from the story “Brownie and the Cherry Tree”

Thanks to my Dad, I grew up on Star Trek and Godzilla movies

Dad’s love of science fiction extended beyond the page, and I grew up watching a lot of sci-fi with my Dad.  Most of the shows we watched were broadcast by the Detroit TV stations.  WXYZ (channel 7) showed a lot of monster movies, and Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and Gamera made regular appearances on our set.  WKBD (channel 50) was the channel to watch for Star Trek, and Dad made sure we were tuned in almost every week.

Dad had a lot of other shows he watched regularly.  Again, most of the shows I can remember watching with him had a sci-fi slant.

• Twilight Zone
• The Outer Limits
• Lost in Space
• Space 1999
• Battlestar Galactica

Dad almost wore out our video tape of Top Gun watching one scene over and over

He would start at about 2:48 and watch the multiple plane shots over and over. It amounted to less than a minute of film, but he would watch it for several minutes at a time. I don’t know what he was trying to see, but it was something on which he would really focus .

Dad loved cartoons, especially Yosemite Sam

Dad would watch cartoons with us sometimes. He liked Loony Toons in general, and his favorite was Yosemite Sam.  His all time favorite cartoon was High Diving Hare. He would get a chuckle out of watching Sam fall for every trick Bugs Bunny would play on him.

Dad could do a pretty decent Yosemite Sam impersonation, too.

Dad liked to play games

Times spent with family usually meant some type of game.  When we would go to my Aunt Marion and Uncle Howard’s, Pinochle or Euchre of some other card game was normal.  When we would go to Grandma and Grandpa Newell’s house, the adults would usually play Aggravation. They would play teams with my Mom and Dad against her sisters and their husbands. When we were at Aunt Georgia and Uncle Neil’s, it was usually Tonk.

Dad made this Aggravation board on his Shop Smith Mark V. That shows you how much he liked to play the game.

Games didn’t have to just be indoors. The male pastime in the summer was typically horseshoes. When we were younger (and they were still legal) we used to play Lawn Darts at our house. I can remember playing both football and baseball in our front yard, as well as badminton and volleyball.

Dad waiting his turn at the horseshoe pit.

Dad was competitive

Dad I think would have played sports more in high school if not for two things:

1. He twisted his knee in high school, an injury that gave him trouble on and off throughout his life.
2. He had Polio in high school, and missed time because of it.

I think part of his liking to play games was part of his competitive nature. There were other competitions as well. When we would go to my Aunt Georgia’s house, he would sometimes get together with my Uncle Neil (and if he was there, his brother, Howard) and do some type of shooting competition.  They would set up a target and take turns at it.

Dad taught my brother and I to fish

Fletcher’s Pond is the name of the place where I remember going one of the first times fishing.  However, it was not the last.  We fished at Crystal Lake on my Uncle Tom’s boat and caught salmon in the Betsie River.  We fished at the pond at Aunt Georgia’s farm.  We fished from our own boat on Mott Lake and Lake Nepessing.

1992 – Using the skills my Dad taught me.

Dad made sure I knew how to cast a line and reel in my catch, and he made me bait the hook as well.

One movie scared my Dad so much as a child, he would not watch it as an adult

While this seems rather tame by movie standards today, this movie scared the heck out of my Dad when it first came out in 1946. To a six-year old child, a murderous disembodied hand was probably extremely scary. As a teenager, I was up watching it one night (a late night movie in the dark), and my Dad came in, took one look at the screen, and retreated without a word. Perhaps a scene like this one brought up those frightening childhood memories:

Dad taught me girls can do the same things boys can

Dad didn’t keep me from doing things just because I was a girl.  I never had any interest in shooting a gun, so he never taught me to shoot, but he did teach me to fish.  I learned to leg wrestle, as did my brother.  I was included when there was a game of football, or baseball.  We played Horse together.  When I first started driving, Dad showed me how to check and maintain my oil and tire pressure, basics that he said any driver should know. I never felt that I couldn’t do something just because I was a girl.

Car trips with Dad were fun

Dad was always doing something to keep a car ride entertaining, especially if it were a long ride.  I am not sure if he was the one that came up with the ABC game, but he was always a participant when one started.  My brother and I, if tied and waiting for the last letter, would be waiting for the chance to spot the Zephyr station at Carpenter Road and Saginaw Street.

He had a few standards that he would pull out.  He did a parody of the old Ajax commercial that went like this:

Use Ajax (bom bom)/The foaming beer (ba baba ba ba bom bom)/Floats your guts/Right out your rear (baba baba baba bom)

And, at some point, he would usually sing the last verse of this song, beeping the horn at the last part:

There was also a word game that I believe my cousin Danny introduced to us one Christmas that came up from time to time.  The idea was to start with the first line and have everyone say that line, then continue adding lines.  If you made a mistake, you were out.

• A big fat hen.
• A couple of ducks.
• Three brown bear.
• Four running hare.
• Five fat females sitting on a fence.
• Six Simple Simons sitting on a stump.
• Seven Sicilian sailors sailing the seven seas.
• Eight egotistical egoists echoing egotistical ecstasies.
• Nine Nubian nymphs nimbly nibbling on gnats knuckles and nicotine.

My brother and I added a few more:

• Ten treacherous tarantulas torturing Turkish troops.
• Eleven Lebanese lions lurching on luminous llamas.

At one point, I had it up to twenty, but never played that far most of the time, so they are forgotten.

You have to remember, this was before the time of hand-held devices and video players in cars.  We were having fun, and scenes like this rarely, if ever happened:

Dad could sing and play the piano, but he wouldn’t always play/sing the whole song

Growing up, we had an old upright piano.  Dad would often go in and play.  He would never use sheet music, so he would play from memory.  I think though that is why he would only play up to a point.

One of my favorite pieces is this one, which he learned to play in high school:

Dad also played The Moonlight Sonata, The Lord’s Prayer, Cool Clear Water, Yellow Bird, Young Love, and Jailhouse Rock.  I learned the first part of The Moonlight Sonata because it was another favorites piece of mine, and, even though I do not have a piano now, I still have much of my Dad’s sheet music.

Dad was a good dancer

While I am not that great, Dad was a good lead, and though we didn’t have a lot of dances together, this one is the one I will always remember.

1999 – Dad and I dancing at my wedding

I love you Dad!

Three Records; One Life

Tags

birth, death, Taylor, US Census, West Virginia

In the last week or so, I have been trying to flesh out more of the family of one of my paternal Great-grandfathers, William Henry Taylor.  William Henry, or W H as he is often listed in records, was born in West Virginia.  A few years after marrying my Great-grandmother, they moved to Nebraska.  They moved around over the years, and in earlier blog posts I have detailed the moves.  Eventually, my Great-grandparents settled in Malden, Missouri, where they lived out their remaining years.

What I originally set out to do was to locate the birth record for William Henry Taylor. I knew his birth information from his obituary and his death certificate.  There was a one day discrepancy between the two.  While both showed November, 1857 as the month and year, the obituary listed the day as the 10th, while the death certificate listed it as the 11th.  Which one was correct?

From the death certificate, I also knew the names of both parents:  John C Taylor and Eliza Ann Oldaker.  I hoped I wouldn’t have much difficulty in locating the birth certificate for William Henry.

My research was done on the search site for West Virginia Vital Records.  If you have family from West Virginia, I recommend using this site if you want to find records of birth, marriage, or death.  While most records start in the 1850’s, there are a few counties that go back to the 1790’s, long before West Virginia was declared a state in 1863.

Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped.  W H was proving to be elusive.  He however, was not the only child of John and Eliza Taylor, and I had more success with some of his siblings.

 

These are the names of the children of John and Eliza Taylor in birth order (name in bold type means I have found their birth record:

• Lydia A (have also seen Phoebe A M listed on a record as an alternate name)
• Benjamin Ison
• William Henry
• Joseph Elza
• Alonzo F
• Aaron L
• Luretta A J (have seen Lunetta R as an alternate name)
• Margarett J
• John C

This post deals with the youngest sibling I have found:  John C Taylor.

I believe John C was likely named after his father.  I don’t know much about naming traditions yet, but I have seen a lot of children whose names were a combination of their grandparents names (a hint on Ancestry.com that I haven’t followed yet shows that my 3x Great-grandfather could be Henry Taylor and I believe William could have been an Oldaker based on other hints I’ve received.

I found John’s birth record quite easily:

The year is 1880. As you can see, the date of birth is April 8th.

Being this was the beginning of a new decade, the US Census was likely to have a record for baby John, and I was not disappointed.  This was the household on June 12, 1880:

 

As you can see, the oldest four children, including my Great-grandfather, are no longer living with their parents. Notice that both mother and child are listed as ill at the time of the census. I cannot be sure, but it looks like the word listed there might be dysentry – possibly dysentery. Dropsy is also listed as an illness for the mother. The older John’s sister Catherine is living with them. Is she there perhaps to help take care of her sick nephew and his mother?

Wikipedia lists dysentery as “an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing blood and mucus in the feces with fever, abdominal pain, and rectal tenesmus (a feeling of incomplete defecation), caused by any kind of infection.”  Dropsy is edema or swelling, and could be caused by any number of factors, including diseases of the kidneys or heart.

Especially for such a young child, dysentery could have serious consequences, as the diarrhea could cause dehydration.  And, unfortunately for young John, that was the case:

The death record says the cause of death was not known. John died on June 16th, just 4 days after the Census was completed.

It is sad to see any life cut short.  For this one life, three records are all that we have to show the brief span of time that young John was on this earth.

 

 

The Happiest Place on Earth

Tags

Cat, Disney, Dog, fish, fishing, Horse, Old Yeller, Pet, Recreation

And no, I’m not talking about Disneyland. In fact, I’ve never been to Disneyland (or Disneyworld, for that matter).  That’s not to say I’ve never SEEN it.  After all, growing up watching Disney each weekend, every once in a while, you would get a feature about the park or, in the case below, plans for a new park.

But, for me, the happiest place on earth wasn’t an amusement park.  For me, the happiest place on earth was a farm about a half hour’s drive from our home in Flint:  the home of my Aunt Georgia and Uncle Neil just outside of Lapeer, Michigan.

My Aunt Georgia in front of her home in Lapeer, Michigan. Laying down is Litska, and Walter is sitting.

Now Aunt Georgia did not always live out in Lapeer.  Originally, she lived in a small house near Averill Avenue in Flint.  However, Aunt Georgia and Uncle Neil owned property out in Lapeer, and they had plans to build a house on it.

Aunt Georgia’s house in the process of construction. To the right is a covered pump that was already on the property.

The property was quite large.  Even the aerial shot that was taken does not show the full extent of it.

This picture only shows the buildings on the property. It does not show all the land or the woods that Aunt Georgia and Uncle Neil owned.

You can see on the right side that train tracks ran along side the property.  The road that Aunt Georgia lived on ended at the tracks and her driveway began on the other side.  The tracks at that point were up a small hill; there was no warning signal for the crossing.  You would have to drive onto the hill enough to look both ways, and then cross over.  Sometimes in the winter, it was too slippery for the car to cross and so you’d have to park and walk to the house (which was also up a hill, so it wasn’t easy if it was slick).  I can remember at least once where we had to stay the night because we got snowed in.  Of course, I didn’t mind. 🙂

The farm in Winter. This is a rather mild day, but you can see how pretty a place it could be even when there was just a little snow.

The seasons were always beautiful out there.  Autumn was always a wonderful time to be visiting.  Fall color in their woods was able to be seen from the house, and a walk on the property allowed you to see the variety of the season.

Caption on back written by Aunt Georgia: 1994 – Color just starting at our home

I spent many nights with Aunt Georgia in November.  Uncle Neil liked to go hunting up North on weekends during deer season, and Aunt Georgia preferred not to stay alone.  She would ask me to come stay for a few days, and of course, I would.  During those visits we would sit for hours in her living room and  talk of many things, including family and family history.  My biggest regret is that I didn’t think about writing any of it down at the time.  Aunt Georgia was the family historian, and between her and my Aunt Jeanette, I learned quite a bit, but much of it is locked away in memory that I cannot access.

Aunt Georgia in her living room. The rug covering the bench of her organ was originally my Grandma Taylor’s and it is in my care for the time being. Her cat, Felicia, is laying on the floor near her.

In Spring, things would begin to bloom.  On the hillside, a garden would be planted.  Typically, there would be corn, green beans, tomatoes, and carrots.  One year, Aunt Georgia put in some grape vines, and after a few years, she yielded Concord Grapes.  There were also some fruit trees on the property.  There was one apple tree in particular that I remember.  It was old and eventually died off.  I seem to recall that out of the dead stump a seedling came up.  I seem to recall us calling the old one ‘the pregnant tree’ because of it.

This picture of the garden (which appears to be late Spring because the corn isn’t that high) gives a good idea of the length of the hill, but it doesn’t seem to give as good an idea of its steepness.

In Summer, everything was green and beautiful.  Aunt Georgia also kept a flower garden which made use of an old feature on the property.

Caption by Aunt Georgia: small – Walter German Shep. Litska
Remember the covered pump I mentioned in the construction picture? Here it is, cover removed and built into a raised planter.

As you can see, animals were a big part of life on the farm.  I can always remember my Aunt Georgia having a dog, even from before when she lived in Flint.

Rags was the first dog of my Aunt’s that I remember. This was taken in Flint at her old home.

When my Grandpa Taylor died, he had owned a dog called Yeller (he looked a little like the dog in the movie “Old Yeller“).  Walter, if I remember right, was a stray, as was, I think, Nickla.

Caption by my Aunt Georgia: Nickla – 1994 Just came from the beauty shop.

Litska was another matter.  Litska was a retired show dog.  Her owners asked Aunt Georgia to take her because they were working with their newer dogs.  Even a retired dog needs to be put through its paces now and again, and they knew Aunt Georgia would give the dog both the structure and attention needed.  Every one of my Aunt’s dogs were well-trained.  She took each one to obedience training, and I remember watching her work with each one.  I learned a lot of things from her by observation that I eventually used in training my own dogs.  I can still hear her praising the dogs.  “Very nice!” she would say in an approving tone, and work time would end with a rub behind the ears, or a good petting. Even Felicia, the cat, was trained.  She would not come onto the furniture unless called, and even then, I believe the only furniture she was allowed onto was Aunt Georgia’s chair.  She also had taught her to sheath her claws when she was on people.  A soft tap on her paw if the claws came out was enough to get her to bring them back in. Only the cat was indoors full-time.  The dogs, with the exception of Rags, all slept outside.  They had their dog houses or kennels, of course.  However, in Winter, if it was bad outside, the dogs were brought in.  They were all well-behaved, and it was nice having them in with us. However, dogs and cats were not the only animals on the property.

Left to right: Shannon, Goldie, and Sand

I think the horses were one of my favorite things on the property.  When I wasn’t with Aunt Georgia, I would be out with the horses.  I would pull grass and clover for them, I would talk to them and pet them, and on occasion, I was able to go to the corn crib and bring them corn, or give them apples that had fallen from the tree.  There were five in all.  Goldie was the oldest, and I believe was mother of both Shannon and Sand.  She later had Kelly.  The fifth was a pony that was a Shetland/Welsh mix called Toby.  Toby is the only one I ever ‘rode’ (which my uncle leading me around).  He could be an ill-tempered beast; even Aunt Georgia called him a ‘booger’ on more than one occasion.

The horses had a lot of property to range on.  There was a large pond that was always a fixture on the property.  The fenced area allowed them to range between several fields.

You can see the pond behind Sand and Shannon in this picture.

We had a lot of fun at the pond, too.  There was an old raft made of oil drums and wood that floated around out there for several years.  My brother and I would swim out to it and the jump off.  The bottom of the pond was in places mucky with silt, so it wasn’t that great to come out.  I think we sometimes had to wash our legs off with the garden hose before we could go into the house.

Uncle Neil built a small dock later.  Usually, he had a cane pole sitting next to it, so it was easy to get some bait (he usually had some worms he’d dug up already), and go out and fish.  Even as kids, we used to fish at the sides of the pond, but growing up didn’t make fishing less fun.

1992 – I still had fun fishing even when I got older. I never cleaned a fish, but I did bait my own hook and I did take the fish off the hook.

You can see I was having a good time in this picture, and why not?  I was at my Aunt Georgia and Uncle Neil’s farm; for me, the happiest place on earth. 😀

A Tale of Two Irons

Tags

family, lore, Newell, Taylor

I had been struggling today to decide on what to write about.  Not having any particular thing in mind, I turned my attention to my Google Reader, to catch up on the genealogy blogs I follow.  In doing so, I came across a post made earlier this month by Sheryl Lazarus on her blog “A Hundred Years Ago” about ironing.  It brought to mind two pieces of family lore about irons and ironing.

The first story is about my Aunt Georgia and my Grandma Taylor.  When the ironing had to be done, Aunt Georgia told me that to pass the time, she and my grandmother would read poetry to one another.  They would take turns, one of them ironing, and the other reading aloud, until all the clothes were pressed.  My Aunt Georgia’s favorite was “The Fool’s Prayer” by Edward Rowland Sill:

THE FOOL’S PRAYER

by: Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887)

The royal feast was done; the King

Sought some new sport to banish care,

And to his jester cried: “Sir Fool,

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!”

 

The jester doffed his cap and bells,

And stood the mocking court before;

They could not see the bitter smile

Behind the painted grin he wore.

 

He bowed his head, and bent his knee

Upon the Monarch’s silken stool;

His pleading voice arose: “O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

 

“No pity, Lord, could change the heart

From red with wrong to white as wool;

The rod must heal the sin: but Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

 

“‘T is not by guilt the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;

‘T is by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

 

“These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end;

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust

Among the heart-strings of a friend.

 

“The ill-timed truth we might have kept–

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?

The word we had not sense to say–

Who knows how grandly it had rung!

 

“Our faults no tenderness should ask.

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;

But for our blunders — oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

 

“Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool

That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!”

 

The room was hushed; in silence rose

The King, and sought his gardens cool,

And walked apart, and murmured low,

“Be merciful to me, a fool!”

“The Fool’s Prayer” is reprinted from The Little Book of American Poets: 1787-1900. Ed. Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1915.

The second story of ironing is about my brother, Tim.  At one point in his young age, Tim liked to iron when he would visit my Grandma Newell’s house.  For hours I’m told, he would pretend to iron, using a container of baby powder as his iron of choice.  Back and forth his little arm would go, smoothing out the wrinkles of imaginary pieces of fabric.

At some point, the family decided that since he liked to iron so much, they would get him a toy iron so he could play with a “real” iron.  The gift was given, and the family waited to watch Tim with his new toy.  From what I’m told, he picked it up, set it aside, and went right on “ironing” with his baby powder box!

The toy iron did get some use though; when I was old enough, I played with it. 🙂

Thanks, Sheryl, for inspiring me to share these stories!

A Father is to…

In May, I shared a book I had written in about second or third grade (about 40 years or so ago) about my Mother.  Today being Father’s Day, I wanted to share the book I wrote for my Dad.  I don’t know how long it’s been since he’s seen this.

Again, the cover still looks good, despite its age.

The book formula is the same as the book I wrote for my Mom.  Each page starts with “A father is to”, and then the illustration and words relate to what I felt a father was supposed to do.

It is interesting looking at them side by side to see the differences in what I wrote about.  The roles of Mom and Dad are very different in the eyes of my younger self.

As I did with my post in May, I’m going to present the book page by page.  If you scroll over the picture, there will be my comments as an adult looking back on what I wrote.

A Father is to Let You Bat
by
Pam Taylor

A father is to give you an allowance.

A father is to let you bat.

A father is to watch you when your mother is gone to the store for some groceries.

A father is to wear a necktie to work and on special occasions.

A father is to hold your hand when a lion roars at a zoo.

A father is to let you play baseball with your brothers.

A father is to take you to the Detroit Zoo.

A father is to cook breakfast when your mother isn’t up yet. He is in an apron.

A father is to tell jokes as he gets home from work.

A father is to get a raise from his boss at work.

A father is to get a job is his workshop is on strike. He got a job at Hank’s and Herman’s

Though distance separates us, my Dad is always close in my heart.  Happy Father’s Day, Dad!  I love you!

In Search of…Baby Taylor

Tags

adventure, birth, death, In Search of..., investigation, marriage, mystery, Nebraska, path, road, search, Taylor, US Census, vital records, West Virginia

Does anyone else remember the television show “In Search of…”?  I used to love watching it.  My Dad turned me onto it at first.  It was in the late 70’s and early 80’s; about the time I was in high school.  The show was hosted by Leonard Nimoy, and was done documentary style.

The focus of the show was to explain mysteries and phenomena.  Some shows dealt with natural occurences like tornadoes.  Others delved into things like ESP or UFOs.  Several shows dealt with mysteries of historical significance as well, like Jack the Ripper, the lost colony of Roanoke, Virginia, or even Dracula (Vlad the Impaler, but of course, they did touch upon the vampire as well).

“In Search of…” never claimed to have the correct answer.  It gave the facts, provided some possibilities, but ultimately, it left it up to the viewer to make up their minds as to what the explanation really was.

In going through my family history, I have a few mysteries.  One that keeps drawing my attention is a child without a name.  So today on my genealogical journey, I’m going ‘In Search of…’ Baby Taylor.

I’ve actually mentioned this baby before.  I first discovered information about this child on the 1900 US Census when tracing my great-grandparents’ travels from their native West Virginia.

My Grandfather and His Family

My great-grandmother has eight living children, but had nine children in total.  The ninth child, Baby Taylor, is our mystery.  When and where was the baby born?  Was it a boy or a girl?  How long did the child live?  When and where did it die?

Assuming the child was not born out-of-wedlock, the date of birth would be some time after my great-grandparents were married.  My great-grandfather’s obituary stated:

He was married on March 15, 1883 to miss Georgia Chrisman and to this union nine children were born….

I was able to confirm the date of the marriage using data from a vital records search at the West Virgina Division of Culture and History site (West Virginia has been probably one of the easiest places I’ve found to search for such information, and if you have family members that are from West Virginia, I would recommend searching there).

The date of the 1900 US Census was the 29th of June.  So, I was looking at a window of birth somewhere between March 15, 1883 and June 29, 1900 (about a 17 year window).

Looking further into my great-grandfather’s obituary, it provided me with more information:

He moved with his family to Nebraska in 1884 and for nine years resided in that state. In 1893, he moved to Gallatin, Mo., where he made his home for sixteen years, moving from there to Arkansas, where he lived for three years.

So, unless born on the move from West Virginia to Nebraska in some state between those places, the baby would have been born in West Virginia, Nebraska, or Missouri.  Those were the three states the family lived in within that 17 year window.

The birth months and years on the census of the 8 children known are:

• Millard D. – October 1885
• Oscar R. – March 1887
• Boyd – July 1888
• Lucy D. – April 1891
• Ethel – November 1892
• Anna M. – February 1894
• Hazel – May 1896
• Floyd R. – April 1900

I decided to look at the gaps between events:

• From Marriage until birth of Millard D. – 31 months
• Between Millard D. and Oscar R. – 17 months
• Between Oscar R. and Boyd – 16 months
• Between Boyd and Lucy D. – 33 months
• Between Lucy D. and Ethel – 19 months
• Between Ethel and Anna M. – 15 months
• Between Anna M. and Hazel – 27 months
• Between Hazel and Floyd R. – 47 months

I excluded any gap that would be too small for another baby to be born (assuming a normal term of 9 months for each baby, that would mean less than 18 months).

So, that left me with the following possibilities for Baby Taylor’s birthday (assuming the baby was not a twin of a sibling):

• Between March 1883 and January 1885
• Between April 1889 and July 1890
• Between January 1892 and February 1892
• Between November 1894 and August 1895
• Between February 1897 and July 1899

The third one I found highly unlikely.  My great-grandmother would have been almost constantly pregnant!

One day on familysearch.org, I was searching for more information on my great-grandparents, and I got a suggestion for an ancestral file.  I went to look at it, and it showed the names of both my great-grandparents, and there were correct dates, including the date of their marriage.  Underneath that it said “Show Children (9)”.

I figured that perhaps when I clicked on it, I would get eight names and then some “?” type entry for Baby Taylor.  Instead, I got a name:

name:	Amy C TALOR
gender:	Female
birth:	15 Dec 1883 ,, WV
death:	11 Aug 1885
afn:	6WK2-VK

AFN stands for Ancestral File Number, and is a unique indicator for that file.

Whoa!  Not only a name, but a birth date and a death date too!  The birth date and place listed was plausible; it was exactly nine months after my great-grandparents were married (that must have been some wedding night)!

But, before getting too excited, I wanted to check this out.  Could I find the records that matched the information?  Was Amy C. Talor (not sure why the different spelling) truly Baby Taylor?

So, back I went to my favorite vital research page in West Virginia, typed in Amy C. Taylor (figuring the Talor was a misspelling), Lewis County (last residence place of my great-grandparents), 1883, female, and hit search.  I got back…nothing.

I started playing around with it.  I changed the search to All Counties.  Nothing.  I changed the spelling to Talor.  Nothing.  I changed it back and just tried Amy.  Still nothing.

Finally, out of frustration, I decided just to search just the last name.  Show me all female Taylor babies born in West Virginia in 1883.  That time, I got a list.  Two results on the list of 25 caught my eye:

7

Annie C Taylor

1883

Lewis

1390 Kb

23

Taylor

13 Dec 1883

Upshur

856 Kb

My great-grandparents were also born in Upshur county, and the date was two days off from the date given on the AFN record.  While record 7 said Annie C. instead of Amy C., it was the same initials, and Lewis county was a possibility as well.

The unnamed Taylor girl did not turn out to be the right one.  While the father’s name was listed as Wm., the mother was Idella M. and not Georgianna.  Would I fare any better with Annie?  See what you think:

The father’s name is hard to read here.  It looks like a W and another letter.  On the opposite page is listed the mother’s name, and the name of the person who reported the birth.  The mother’s name is listed as “Georgie”.  I wondered…would someone have heard the name Georgianna and thought it was two names instead of one (Georgie Anna)?  I looked over to the name of the person that reported the birth.  It happened to be the father, and he was listed as W. H. Taylor.  The birth date was December 15th, an exact match to the record for Amy C.!

I thought of what that would mean that my great-grandparents had a child in 1883.  They would have traveled miles with the baby in a wagon across several states to reach Nebraska.  Where was she when she first started to crawl?  In which state would she have taken her first steps?  How would she have been kept occupied while her father worked on building their home?

Of course, I thought too about the death date that was listed.  Annie would not have been quite two before she died.  What happened?  A sickness?  An accident? Where would I find confirmation of the death date and would that provide other information?

Unfortunately, answers to those questions have yet to be answered.  I have yet to confirm the death date, but I’m working on trying to reach the submitter of the AFN to see if I can get more details.  I’m still looking for any other data on the family.  I was hoping the 1885 Nebraska State Census would be helpful, but it hasn’t.  I haven’t found any record of my family in it, even though I know they were there for Millard D.’s birth in 1885.  They were supposed to have moved to Nebraska a year before that.  Had something delayed them on the journey?

If I find out more information, I’ll share it when we go ‘In Search of…’ Baby Taylor Annie C. Taylor.

Memorial Day Memories

Tags

cemetery, Flint, Flint Memorial Park, genealogy, McCombs, Memorial Day, memory, Michigan, Taylor

While I don’t remember doing it every year, I can remember many a Memorial Day visiting the graves of my paternal grandparents.  On some occasions, I went with my Aunt Georgia, and I can remember her showing me how to use a knife to cut away some of the grass that was starting to encroach upon the edges of the headstones.  While I worked on my grandparent’s stone, I believe she worked on that of my Uncle Orvall, her first husband.  We also cleaned around the stone of “Poppa”, my great-grandfather (and my Aunt’s grandfather), Joseph Jeremiah McCombs.  I can remember being shown how to bring up the urn that was a part of my grandparents’ headstone, so we could place the flowers we had brought.

I can remember visiting with my Mother as well.  The area in Flint Memorial Park where my grandparents were buried was near to the area set aside to bury children.  By this time I knew I had a younger brother, Michael, that had died only a few days after being born.  I had wondered where he was buried, and I think I asked my mother that day.  I thought she and I would be walking over to where the children were buried, but I learned that day that Michael was buried at my grandmother’s feet.  No headstone marked the place where he lay.

The last time I visited Flint Memorial Park on Memorial Day, I was alone.  I was in college by that time.  I did the work by myself, cleaning around each headstone.  I think I had picked some early lilacs and had brought them with me (lilacs usually didn’t start coming in on our bushes until June).  I pulled up the urn and placed the flowers and stood there a moment, reflecting on the past before getting back in my car.  I went out that afternoon, not to a picnic or a barbecue, but to go visit my Aunt Georgia.  I would tell her of my visit that day, and listen to her tell me her memories of my father, my uncles, and my grandparents.

 

A Mother is to…

Tags

book, memory, Mom, mother, Mother's Day, school, story, Taylor

When I was in either second or third grade, our teacher had us make books for our parents.  Since Mother’s Day was yesterday, I thought I would share the book I made for my Mother.  It’s been about 40 years since I wrote this.

The cover shows amazingly little wear, despite its age.

We wrote the book with a simple formula.  Each page started with “A Mother is to”, and then we would write what we thought a mother was expected to do.  Looking at this book is a peek back at the things I felt important at the time.  It has a lot of good memories associated with it.

With each part of the story, we drew an illustration.  I can’t say that my artwork shows much imagination, but then again, I was a young child at the time.  Our teacher typed our stories and then bound them into books for us.

I’m going to present the book page by page.  If you scroll over the picture, there will be my comments as an adult looking back on what I wrote.

A Mother is to Take You to the Beauty Shop to Get Your Hair Cut
by
Pam Taylor

A mother is to help you with homework after school.

A mother is to go to the market with you after school.

A mother is to keep you company when there’s nothing to do.

A mother is to join you in brownies.

A mother is to take you to the beauty shot to get your hair cut.

A mother is to let you make gingerbread by yourself.

A mother is to boss you.

A mother is to take you places.

A mother is to move things.

A mother is to help you in bed at night.

Happy Anniversary!

Tags

adventure, family, Flint, journey, marriage, Sabados, Taylor, wedding

It’s been years since this picture was taken, but I’m happy to say that Bill and I are still together, and still very much in love.

Even though we had a daytime wedding, our wedding took place under the stars.  The building behind us is the Longway Planetarium in Flint, Michigan.  We said our vows under the dome, beneath the stars projected above us.

It was my second marriage; Bill’s first.  So, he was the one that got to wear white. 😉  One of my Aunts made my dress, which is white satin overlayed with royal blue lace.  Royal blue is my favorite color.

Our friends Carla and Brenda were the Maid and Matron of Honor.  Our friend Derek was Bill’s Best Man, and my Brother Tim and his son Timmy were groomsmen/ushers.  Tiffany, my niece, was our flower girl.  My Dad (kind of out of sight in this picture) was able to finally walk his daughter down the aisle (the first time, I eloped).

As you can see, the star theme carried through into our decorations.  Tiffany carried  a star wand rather than a basket of flowers.  The bridemaids’ dresses had a fabric than kind of reminded me of the Milky Way.

My grandparents, my brother and his wife and family, most of my cousins from my Mom’s side, and some of their children.

Bill, his Aunt, two of his cousins and their families.

Unfortunately, Bill’s Mom and Dad weren’t able to make it out from Oregon to our wedding, but one of his cousins came with his family from Arizona.  The rest of his family came up from Ohio.  Much of my family was already in Michigan, but I did have one Aunt and Uncle and a cousin that came in from the East Coast.

We spent a weekend up in Harrison Michigan at a bed and breakfast.

One corner of our room at the Carriage House Inn.

After that, it was time to finish packing, as the rest of our honeymoon was spent travelling cross country in a Ryder truck, bringing all my stuff from Michigan out to California.  We both said if you can survive a week together in a Ryder truck, you can survive anything. 😛

We did have one companion on our trip West.  My last day of work, I took one of the M&M dispensers with me.  Blue, the M&M guy, became our travelling buddy, and Blue wrote back to my former co-workers about his exploits on the road.  We stopped at St. Julian’s winery in Paw Paw, Michigan, before heading down to Berwyn, Illinois, where a branch of the bank I had worked for was located.  From there we continued our trek West, and got to see many interesting sights with Blue.

This Polaroid shows some decay, but you can still see Blue on the dashboard of the Ryder truck with the statue of the Jolly Green Giant in the background.

Bill and Blue posing in front of Mount Rushmore.

I believe that is Old Faithful in the background.  We are at Yellowstone Park.

One last thing I’d like to share with you.  We didn’t write our own vows, but I did write a poem that we both recited as we exchanged rings.

Strolling Through the Old Neighborhood in 1940

In starting my research into the 1940 US Census, I started to wonder about where I grew up and how it would have looked back then, over twenty years from when I was born.  At one time, my grandparents had lived in the house that was home to me from the time I was just a few years old until I was almost thirty.  I was pretty certain that my grandparents would not be living there in 1940, and I was right about that.  My father had told me he grew up on Knickerbocker, which was a few blocks away from where I grew up.  And Knickerbocker was right where I found them.

My paternal grandfather and his family in 1940.

I learned a few things about the family from this census.  First, they had lived in the same place in 1935.  I know that in 1930 my grandparents had lived within the city limits of Flint, Michigan.  Now, they lived just outside the city limits.  My grandfather worked in an auto factory doing motor repair.  I had already known he worked at the factory, but now I knew what he did.  From what my father has told me, he was a participant of the Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37 in Flint.

I was surprised to see that neither of my grandparents had completed high school, but knowing that, I wasn’t surprised to see that my grandmother had two more years of schooling than my grandfather did.  Since her father, Joseph McCombs, was a school teacher, I have a feeling that he would have done his best to see that his girls received an education.

The children listed are my aunt and my two uncles.  My father was the youngest and would not make an appearance on the census for another ten years.  I know that my grandparents were married in Missouri, but their first child was born in Illinois.  Their oldest son was born in Missouri, and the youngest at this time was born in Michigan, as my father would be.  I wondered what had prompted the move from Missouri to Illinois and then from Illinois back to Missouri.  I knew my great-grandfather had not had his first stroke until 1931, and my uncle’s age said that he was born a few years before that event.  Was there perhaps some other family issue that caused the move, or perhaps was it a result of the financial complexities that resulted from the Great Depression?

Regardless of why my family moved from Illinois to Missouri, I know that my grandfather came to Michigan to get a job in the auto industry.  He was not alone.  As I began my journey down Genesee Avenue, I was able to find many people whose place of employment was listed as “Auto Factory”.

As I went through the records, I could see that the census takers were walking down the streets as far as they could go, and then back up to Saginaw Street, the border between Mount Morris and Genesee Townships.

1940 Enumeration District Map showing the area where I grew up. You can see both Genesee Avenue and Knickerbocker Avenue on the map. It is a distance of about one mile from Coldwater Road to Carpenter Road, the northern and southern boundaries.

In case you are wondering why there is such a large gap in the middle of the map, that is no accident.  Between Downey Avenue and Cass Avenue there were three places that I know of that were there when I grew up (I’m not sure however, if all of them were there in 1940).  From Saginaw Street to Summit Street was the grounds of Saint Francis of Assisi Church (this was the most likely structure to have been there in 1940).  The spacious (and mostly treeless) grounds made it a wonderful place for us to fly kites growing up, and they had a playground that we would often visit to swing or to go down the big slide (probably about three times the size of the one on our swing set at home).  Facing Summit Street on its west side was Summit Junior High School, and facing Detroit Street on its east side was Buell Elementary School, with a large field running the rest of the distance between them.  Past Detroit Street, I don’t know, because Detroit Street was the border my parents set for us to the west.

So, when the census takers started their walk, they had just finished with South Cornell on its western edge, and were walking east on Genesee Avenue back toward Saginaw Street.

The first thing I noticed was that the street numbers were all different from when I was younger.  I wasn’t sure why they had been renumbered.  That in some ways made it more difficult to figure out where I was on the street, but as I got closer to where I lived, it got easier.

I stopped as I found familiar names.

Two names stood out for me in this section.

The first name that stood out for me was Trovillion.  My family knew a family named Trovillion, and I wondered if this might be the parents of the Trovillion that they knew.  Since I knew that the Trovillions we knew were about my parents’ ages, I decided that, like my father, they hadn’t been born at the time of the census.

The second name that stood out for me was Leo France.  Now, the part that surprised me was that in this census, that Leo was widowed.  The reason that it surprised me was that while I don’t think that I ever met Leo, I did know his wife quite well.  You see, his wife was the grandmother of three girls that lived only a few blocks down the street from me (probably closer than what I guessed Leo lived to that location in 1940).  I became friends with all of them, lost touch when they and I moved out of the area, but, thanks to the wonders of social networking, we now keep in touch on a more regular basis.

I do have reason to believe that this is their grandfather though.  During one of those times when my own searches were hitting road blocks, I did some research into their family tree a bit.  I confirmed with them some of the things I found.  Their great-grandparents’ names were William and Marion and they were born in New York and Canada, respectively.  Mary I believe would be a shortened form of Marion, so I believe the parents he has living with them are my friends’ great-grandparents.  He would then have married again, and had more children, since my friends’ mother was born a few years after the census.

More familiar names appeared.

The last name Nelson was one I knew.  There had been a Nelson family living at the corner of Genesee Avenue and Summit Street.  Perhaps this gentleman was related.  I saw that he was divorced and had a live-in housekeeper.  The housekeeper’s last name was also familiar, as I went to school with one or two girls with the last name Schwalm.  The name Royal sounds familiar too; I think one of them named their son Royal.  I think it is likely that this would be their grandmother and perhaps also their father.

Finally, we got closer to Saginaw Street; closer to where I lived and I could tell because the names were extremely familiar.

Three names showed up on this page on Genesee Avenue that I knew.

I knew a Healey family that lived just down the street from us.  They lived across the street and a few doors down from the three friends I mentioned earlier.  However, the Healeys here would have been much older than the Healeys that I knew growing up.  Perhaps they were the parents of Mr. Healey.

I knew where I was when I got to the Pero house though.  I don’t know if I had ever met Mr. Pero, but Mrs. Pero (I don’t think I ever knew her first name) I did know and would visit from time to time.  The were actually our next door neighbors; there was an empty lot between their house and ours.  Well, in reality only a portion of the lot was empty, but I’ll come to that in a moment.  Mrs. Pero kept a nice garden in her yard, and I would go over once in a while when she was outside and talk to her.  She was a sweet lady.  Her son lived in the house after she passed away.

The Ayottes were our next door neighbors on the other side.  They were nice people too, but I didn’t get to know them as well as the Peros because they weren’t there as long.  I got to know the family that moved in after them much better.

I thought I was about done with my journey through my old neighborhood, when I spotted one last set of names.

While the neighbors to either side of us were important, so were the neighbors on the street behind us. The Henrys were our neighbors for longer than any of the others.

The Henrys were great neighbors, and I knew them the best of any family that was living in this area in 1940.  Our yards were separated by some fencing that aged to the point of non-existence by the time I was in my teens.  Again, I don’t think I knew the senior Mr. Henry, but I did know Old Mrs. Henry, as I called her (the designation Old was likely as much to do with her age as to distinguish her from her daughter-in-law.  Remember that mostly empty lot between the Pero house and ours?  It belonged to the Henrys and that’s where Old Mrs. Henry kept her garden, and a wonderful garden it was!  It would begin to bloom as soon as Spring arrived, with Crocus, and then would come the tulips and daffodils.  She didn’t just have the yellow daffodils that grew in our yard.  She had other types as well.  And the tulips were so varied as well.  She had single and double varieties.  There were variegated ones, and solid colors from bright white to a deep purple that almost looked black.  In May there would be Periwinkles and Lilies of the Valley.  There were bushes of beautiful lilacs that would bloom in early June, and several varieties of peonies and some roses as well.

I can remember playing in the backyard, and seeing Old Mrs. Henry going back to work in her garden.  There was an old, tiny trailer (an Airstream perhaps) that held her tools, and I would often hear her whistle a tune as she worked (she’s the only woman who I had ever hear whistle a tune before or since).  I would get permission now and then to pick flowers, and I was careful not to pick too many of any one type.  After Old Mrs. Henry died, I would sometimes go out into her garden and admire her flowers, and though her son kept them watered and weeded, they did not thrive for him the way they did for her.

I would visit over the fence with Mr. and Mrs. Henry from time to time, and I made occasional visits to their house.  I would sometimes cut down their driveway when I was going to and from school in Junior High.  It became an accepted practice, and I often would say hello to them as I was getting ready to cross over from their yard to mine.

My last visit to them was the day Bill and I got married.  They were not able to come to our wedding, but we paid them a visit our way to the reception.  I can remember Mrs. Henry’s sight was failing then, and I don’t remember her being in the best of health.  But I can still remember her face lighting up as we talked to her, and I was so glad to see them one last time before leaving for California.

It amazed me how much taking a stroll through my old neighborhood years before I ever lived there would help me to remember so many things.  I would recommend looking at where you grew up, even if it was years before you were born.  Even if your family wasn’t living there, perhaps there were neighbors there that you’ve forgotten that the Census could help you remember.