Memories of My Dad

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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!

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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.

 

 

Mom

Tags

death, family, family history, family lore, genealogy, generations, Kentucky, life, Michigan, mother, Newell, photographs

It is appropriate that I began writing this post on December 30th, and I will complete it on December 31st (or just after).  Those two dates mark the lifespan of my Mom.

My Mom was born Billie Sue Newell on December 31st, 1940.  She was born in Letcher County, Kentucky, the second born daughter of my grandparents.

This is a picture of my grandparents from back in the 1940’s.

My grandparents and my Mom and her older sister Anna Mae lived in Kentucky for a few more years, long enough for one more sister to be added to the Newell clan.  According to my mother’s cousin, Bobbie, Anna Mae would have died about two weeks before this aunt was born.

Whether it was the promise of a better life, a chance for a better job, or possibly to get away from the memories, my grandparents left Kentucky and moved to Michigan sometime between the death of Anna Mae (and birth of her sister), to the birth of another sister in the late 40’s.  In the early 1950’s, the only boy of the family was born.

Even in this 7th grade photo, you can see Mom’s hair is dark.

My Mom went to school at Northgate Elementary.  It was the very same Northgate Elementary that both my brother and I attended as children.  I do not have a copy of it (I hope my brother does), but there is a picture of my mother standing on the steps of the school with her classmates.  I can remember my mother showing me that picture, and I can recall not really believing it was her at first.  The girl in the picture had blonde hair; my mother was a brunette.  However, there was no mistaking the features, so I knew it had to be her.

Mom’s Senior Picture

Mom attended Mount Morris High School.  She graduated in 1960.  A year later, she was married and was starting her own family.

As far as I know, the births of my brother and I went smoothly.  The birth of my brother Michael though, was anything but.  Michael had problems right from the start.  My father told me that he had several procedures done within hours of being born.  Meanwhile, my mother was fighting a battle of her own.  What complications there were, I do not know, but my mother was able to survive the ordeal.  My little brother though, was not strong enough, and he died when he was only a few days old.

My parents did try to have a child again, and I’m told that she had a daughter that was stillborn.  I was also told at one point she had a miscarriage.  My brother and I never had another sister or brother that we grew up with.  We have each other though, and trust me, one brother is enough! 😉

Though Mom had held jobs prior to marriage, once she started having kids, she was a stay-at-home mom.  A few years after both of us started school though, a program started in our district that allowed Mom to stay at home and work.

It was called “Cottage Nursery” and it was a cross between in-home daycare and preschool.  I remember having two little tables in our dining room where the kids did their activities.  I can also remember a few times being home sick and straying out of my bedroom and into the hallway so I could peek into the living room and dining room to see what the little kids were doing.

The Cottage Nursery program only existed for a couple of years, but my mother found that the work was very fulfilling.  She started working as a teacher’s aide in the district, and later worked for the Head Start program.  By the time she retired, she was teaching a few grandkids of people that she had taught as a teacher’s aide.

Mom might have retired, but she never stopped being active.  She took up golf, and was on a few regular leagues.  She had a regular Bunco group that she had played with since I was in my teens.  She got involved with the Red Hat Society.

At least two of the members of this Red Hat group were folks that my Mom knew through work.

Mom had a lot of spirit and perseverance.  She started working on an Associate Degree in Early Childhood Education when I was in my teens.  She had a lot of delays due to many things, including a divorce from my Dad, financial issues, and even a medical issue or two along the way.  She made it through though, and they even did a write-up about it in our local paper.

Mom was a fighter.  She was a five plus year breast cancer survivor.  Some people think that it was the cancer that brought her life to an early close, but it was something much more unexpected.

On Christmas Day, 2008, my mother was having family over for dinner.  When my brother and his family came over, Mom had mentioned falling from her step-ladder as she was trying to get something from over the refrigerator.  She seemed fine at first, however, after dinner she started complaining of not feeling well.  She wound up vomiting, and was having complaints of her head bothering her.  They took her to ER, where her condition worsened.  She was having more and more difficulty, and becoming less coherent.

The diagnosis was a neural hematoma.  While there was no exterior signs of trauma, it was likely that the fall had shaken something loose, and my mother was bleeding in her brain.  They wanted to operate…but they couldn’t.  You see, my mother was on a blood thinner (Coumadin) for blood clots in her legs, and they could not safely operate until she was weaned off the medicine.  By that time, she was in a coma, and the prognosis was not good for recovery.  After discussing it with all the family, the decision was made to take Mom off life support.

The last time I talked to my Mom on the phone, it was a few days before Christmas.  As usual, we talked of little things.  We talked of food we were going to cook, and the family we were going to see.  As was usual, we signed off saying “I love you.”  At that point, I didn’t know I would return from Christmas with my husband’s family to an urgent message from my brother to call.

I think one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life was to fly from California back to Michigan to say good-bye to my Mom.  My brother said he would not take Mom off life support until I had a chance to say my good-byes.  I remember going in the room and seeing Mom laying there, hooked up to the machines that were keeping her breathing.  My Grandma was there, my Mom’s mom.  This woman had already lost her oldest child in the 1940’s, and then in the 90’s she had lost her youngest, her only son, to cancer.  She was clinging to the hope that my mother would wake.  Each small movement brought such hope to her.

The family left for a short time so I could have some time to myself with Mom, to be able to talk to her.  I hoped as I told her I loved her, and whispered to her to let her know I was OK with her leaving this world, that she could hear me, and that she was ready to cross over from this life to the next.  When my family returned, I could tell that Grandma knew of their decision.  The hope was gone, and she wept, knowing that another of her babies was leaving her for a time.

Mom’s Headstone

I try not to dwell on the tragedy surrounding Mom’s death.  Instead, I try to focus on the wonderful life my Mom lived, and the legacy she left to us, her family.

This is a four generation shot. In the front is my Grandma Newell. Behind her is my Aunt Faye (one of Mom’s two living sisters) and her husband John. My brother Tim and his wife Laurie flank my Aunt and Uncle. The young man in the back and the young lady graduating are my nephew Tim and my niece Tiffany, my Mom’s two grandkids.

My Mom and I when we took her to see the Redwoods  We had taken her specifically to have the experience of driving through this tree.  When we got there, we started to go through.  She hollers at us to stop, goes out, takes a picture of US going through the tree, and then proceeds to wave us through.  We should have known!  A few days before this, we had taken her to San Francisco to give her the experience of being driven down Lombard Street.  She says she wants to get out and take pictures from the top of the hill, so we let her out as we’re in the car line waiting our turn.  We get to the top…no Mom.  We can’t sit there forever, so we have to go.  Mom’s nowhere in sight until we get down to the bottom of the hill.  She was taking pictures of US coming down! Grrrrrr….

A favorite photo of mine. I took this of Mom when she visited us in 2000. This was taken at the Luther Burbank Gardens in Santa Rosa, California.

One side note:  I know my Mom well enough that I think I can say she would have been amused by the fact that the obituary had to put her age at 67 and not 68 because she was a day short of her birthday.  Talk about shaving points, Mom…. 😉

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.