Family
Here we got info on the families. This stuff is mostly genealogy and referenced documents with some background contextual glue to put it into place. The stories that flesh out the people listed here are in the Places and Stories pages.
My mom was born Joyce Wood. Her mother was born Harriett Rosevear and her grandmother was born Emma Jane Pomery. My dad was born Donald Arthur Wheeler. His mother was born Ruth Caywood. These are the families that are listed here, in longer or lesser lineage, depending on what I can find.
My mom was born Joyce Wood. Her mother was born Harriett Rosevear and her grandmother was born Emma Jane Pomery. My dad was born Donald Arthur Wheeler. His mother was born Ruth Caywood. These are the families that are listed here, in longer or lesser lineage, depending on what I can find.
We spent a lot of time with our grandmother Kate, our mother's mother, when we were growing up. Our mother had a strong attachment to her and we visited nearly every week-end. We called her gran'ma, but everyone else knew her as Kate. She was born Harriett and I don't know how she came to be called Kate, but even an early census identified her as Katie.
Kate had been born in England and came to America when she was about 11 years old. She still had a slight English accent 50 years later. She dropped 'h's from some words and added them to others. She was basically a happy person and laughed easily. She told stories of people she knew and always had a story about someone in the family. It was because of these stories that I became interested in our family: where we came from, who the people were, how we are related and what happened.
In contrast we didn't visit our father's family much, except at holidays, especially Christmas. When we did visit they were like friendly strangers. There was a distance, almost a formality, like a code of behavior that needed to be maintained. Our dad's father and mother were warm and friendly, but remained unapproachable somehow. All of dad's brothers and his sister would be there and they all had a great time talking and sharing, but we, the kids, were not explicitly included. It was at gran'pa and gran'ma Wheeler's house that we got to spend time with our cousins on our father's side. We didn't visit with them directly, they way we did with mom's family, even though some of them, Sonny and Barb and Skip - our uncle Fritz's children - lived just a few houses down the street from us.
Gran'pa Wheeler had been a soldier and there was a room in the basement of their house that was filled with souveniers and paraphenalia from the two world wars. Rifles, bayonettes, swords, artillery casings, flags, a gas mask and photographs were there. We would spend hours there looking at these things and absorbing the smell, the texture and the atmosphere of a military life. Now that I'm older I recognize that I had an early consciousness of these things- sort of took for granted the fact of the wars; that I knew implicitly they were a part of my father's family with an intimacy that lingered around these gatherings and in our homes 20 and more years after the fact, like the smell of old clothes that hang onto a person's skin.
Dad remained active in the National Guard for 30 years after his war. He had uniforms and kits - canvas web belts, cartridge cases, canteen holders, helmets, boots - all with that distinctive smell. They carried that sense of a military life, a continuity of Army from his father, through his youth into our lives. So, while we didn't know stories - or even names - of our father's and grandparents families, we felt the influence of the Army with years of history, like an inheritance.
Kate had been born in England and came to America when she was about 11 years old. She still had a slight English accent 50 years later. She dropped 'h's from some words and added them to others. She was basically a happy person and laughed easily. She told stories of people she knew and always had a story about someone in the family. It was because of these stories that I became interested in our family: where we came from, who the people were, how we are related and what happened.
In contrast we didn't visit our father's family much, except at holidays, especially Christmas. When we did visit they were like friendly strangers. There was a distance, almost a formality, like a code of behavior that needed to be maintained. Our dad's father and mother were warm and friendly, but remained unapproachable somehow. All of dad's brothers and his sister would be there and they all had a great time talking and sharing, but we, the kids, were not explicitly included. It was at gran'pa and gran'ma Wheeler's house that we got to spend time with our cousins on our father's side. We didn't visit with them directly, they way we did with mom's family, even though some of them, Sonny and Barb and Skip - our uncle Fritz's children - lived just a few houses down the street from us.
Gran'pa Wheeler had been a soldier and there was a room in the basement of their house that was filled with souveniers and paraphenalia from the two world wars. Rifles, bayonettes, swords, artillery casings, flags, a gas mask and photographs were there. We would spend hours there looking at these things and absorbing the smell, the texture and the atmosphere of a military life. Now that I'm older I recognize that I had an early consciousness of these things- sort of took for granted the fact of the wars; that I knew implicitly they were a part of my father's family with an intimacy that lingered around these gatherings and in our homes 20 and more years after the fact, like the smell of old clothes that hang onto a person's skin.
Dad remained active in the National Guard for 30 years after his war. He had uniforms and kits - canvas web belts, cartridge cases, canteen holders, helmets, boots - all with that distinctive smell. They carried that sense of a military life, a continuity of Army from his father, through his youth into our lives. So, while we didn't know stories - or even names - of our father's and grandparents families, we felt the influence of the Army with years of history, like an inheritance.