Tales From My Family - Players and Scorecards

Tales From My Family

Players and Scorecards

      This blog, on Thursdays is going to be stories from my family.  Too many good stories over the years for them not to be preserved.  But first, a bit of geneology.  So when I talk about my Uncle Murray, you can go back to this page and figure out that he's the husband of my mom's oldest sister.

So, starting with me...

Sandy

daughter of

Jack H and Joan C

Joan C was the youngest daughter of

Vincent C

and

Ruth T.

Vincent and Ruth had a total of 7 children

Alice (born in 1915

Ralph (born in 1917)

Everett (born in 1919)

 Adelbert "Del" (born in 1921)

Marion (born in 1923)

Louise (born in 1926)

Joan (born in 1928)

 

The first 5 were born in the family home on Staten Island, NY

Louise and Joan were born on the family farm in Upstate NY

 

Alice married Murray U and had 6 children

Ralph married Bette and had one daughter

Everett married Josephine and had a son and a daughter

Del married Carla and had a son

Marion married Frank N and had 1 son and 2 daughters

Louise married Paul S and had a son and a daughter

Joan married Jack H and had me

 

Jack H was the only child of Harry H., Jr. and Lucille R

 

Lucille R was the only child of Rando Lee "Jack" 
and Lildon

Harry H, Jr. was the only child of Harry H, Sr., but he did have half siblings

   And now for the story that comes down from my father's side.

   The first member of my family to live in California arrived here approximately 1850 or 51.  We'll call him Johann.  According to the story, he was the younger son of a family of minor nobility in the borderlands of what is now Germany and  Holland.  He was reckless and didn't care about others.  So he became what what know as a "remittance man."  His family paid him to stay away from home.  His wanderings led him to England.  Unfortunately while there he was found to be in possession of a horse that didn't belong to him.  Horse stealing was still a serious crime.  He was found guilty and was put on a boat to what is now known as Australia.

   Back then, if you were a convict in Australia you had 3 choices.  You could just serve your sentence and be released.  You could work a set time longer and be granted a small piece of land.  Or, you could work a set time longer and gain passage to some place other than England or Australia.  Johan chose # 3 and became a "Ticket of Leave" man.  About the time he was due to be released the news of the California gold rush had reached Australia.  So it was off to San Francisco he went.

   I doubt that Johan ever made it to the gold fields.  He was, I suspect, very happy in the Barbary Coast section of San Francisco with the other "Sydney Ducks"- other former convicts.  The ducks were notorious for their crime sprees.

   The citizens of San Francisco eventually became tired of the lawlessness and a Committee of Vigilance was formed.  This committee had the unofficial support of the overworked police and military of San Francisco.  One night, committee members visited members of the Sydney Ducks and other groups that were on their list.  Johan was on that list.  Despite his other flaws, he was intelligent.  Johan headed south for friendlier places the next day.  He survived, while many of his other friends were hung.  Johan lived to become the patriarch of a large and sometimes not hones family.  Ironically enough, his descendants born after the turn of the century became very law abiding.  At least two Los Angeles Police Officers in the bunch.

And a starting story from my mother's side:

   You will note that my mom and her older sister were not born on Staten Island.  There's a story there.  When Ruth T (an upper middle-class socialite and suffragette) met Vincent C, he was just a brick layer, a mason.  But Vincent had been raised upper middle-class.  His Irish immigrant parents had money and were, in fact, slumlords as well as plant nursery owners.  How Ruth and Vincent met, I have no idea.  They were certainly in love.  After marriage they moved into her family home where he worked and she started having babies.  Unfortunately,  in 1920 Ruth's father died.  Then in 1923, her mother died.  With both parents gone, the estate was sold and the money divided between the 3 daughters and the one son.  All of the sisters decided to move to Upstate New York, near Binghamton.  I suspect that one of Ruth's sisters was married to a man who had landed a job up there.  The two sisters bought homes near Binghamton, NY.  The husband went to work for a well known shoe company.  Ruth and Vincent decided they were going to be "gentlemen farmers" despite the fact that neither one of them knew much about it.  They used their part of the inheritance to purchase a dairy farm about 3 miles from Greene, NY.  I've been there, it's beautiful country.

   Ruth was pregnant during the move with Louise.  Very pregnant.  Their oldest child Alice was only 11. That was 1926.  My mom was born two years later.  There were probably two or three pregnancies after that, but Ruth was in her 40's by then and the pregnancies after Joan ended in miscarriages.  

   Somehow the family managed to hang on to the farm and keep the family going.  Both Alice, the oldest, and Ralph managed to graduate high school.  Alice got some money from the family to go to college, but mostly she got through by scholarships and working.  Ralph was a professional musician from the time he was 15.  Ruth figured that he could pay for his own college when he was ready a lot easier than Alice.  She was right.

   Ruth and Vincent were not dairy farmers, though they did try.  The kids all pitched in too.  But the Great Depression on 1929 spelled the end of their days as farmers.  Vincent became a life long Republican after he was forced to dump his milk due to recovery policies.  Eventually they were at the end of their money and their strength.    In 1936 they moved back to Staten Island where Vincent could get work as a brick layer.  Not to the old nice neighborhood.  But to the poor part of the Island, down by the shipyards.  

   I am, to this day impressed with how Ruth and Vincent managed to raise 6 kids in those circumstances to be solid middle class citizens.  Of the 7, Ralph became a medical doctor.  Alice and Louise became school teachers.  Everett and Marion were caught up in the war years and never did go to college.  Still, they had respectable careers.  Del had a major head injury when he was 17 and re-injured his head a few years later.  The trauma left brain damage and he was never able to finish school.  He had a good career as a school janitor.  My mom, also caught up in the war years didn't go to college either, though she certainly could have.  Instead she was a bookkeeper for many years, amongst other things. 

More about the adventures of my mom's family next week.  What was the accident that damaged my Uncle Del?  What did the family do in the war years?  Was Ralph successful as a musician and how did he become a doctor?  Stay tuned.