A to Z April Challenge: Z is for Zone

“We need to get together more often and not at a funeral.” How many times have you and a cousin said that? Funerals are much like a family reunion. You can learn a lot about a family just by looking at who showed up. Using my grandparents’ guest books and sympathy cards, I’ll be exploring “Who came to the funeral?”

is for Zone, the neighborhood zone. When I was going through the cards from when my maternal grandfather died in 1963, I was especially touched by one in particular. The neighbors had all chipped in to send flowers to my grandmother.

My grandparents lived at the corner of Gillis and Frailey. The list of names on that card is the geography of Frailey Place.

From Google Maps street view
Left to Right: Davis, Louden, Harris behind the trees

On the “peninsula” between Frailey Place and Travis Place was the Louden family. They had a daughter much older than the majority of the kids on Frailey, but she would always speak if we were out in the street jumping rope. She would even take a turn holding one end for a game of High Water-Low Water.

Mildred Harris lived at the corner of Gillis and Travis, to the right of the Loudens’. Her yard was like a garden in the 1960s. She was a friend from church, so I’m not surprised to see her name included in the list of “Your Neighbors” which seems otherwise to be families along Frailey.

I believe the Bowens lived on Travis, probably next to either Mrs. Harris or the Loudens.

From Google Maps street view
Left to Right: Harris, Cummings, Foltz, Hornick

Across from my grandparents and right behind the Loudens were the Hornicks. They were accountants with an office in their home. With a paved driveway that looked like a divided highway, they had the best rollerskating surface in the neighborhood. The covered carport at the end of the driveway was perfect for twirling and skating in circles. The Hornicks never complained about our intrusion. Occasionally they closed the kitchen door, but that was the worst that ever happened to us kids except, of course, when they were actually parked in the carport. Bummer! The Hornicks always prepared my parents’ and grandparents’ taxes, and when their son took over the family business, he did the same for us until he retired a few years ago.

Next to the Hornicks was Mrs. Foltz and her son and daughter. Sonny was one of the few boys in this girl-heavy neighborhood. He often joined us in our games of tag, and he came to all the birthday parties. I’m not sure whatever happened to Mr. Foltz. He came and went until one day he went for good.

Debbie, my sister Mary Jollette, Donna

Next to the Foltz house were Russ and Tess Cummings and their four kids. Donald and Barbara were teenagers, so I didn’t know them as well as I knew Katherine and Donna. Barbara and Betty Foltz next door were cheerleaders, and they practiced cheers out in the yard. They were the cool girls making everyone want to be a cheerleader. Katherine always had good paperdolls, but my favorite toy of hers was a cute pink metal kitchen set. Donna was at that funny age – a couple years too young for me and a couple years too old for my sister, but despite the difference in age, Donna was easy-going and always a good companion willing to play whatever part she was assigned in our many make-believe games.

The last house on that side of the street was the Harris house. What I remember most was playing in their ditch that ran parallel with Victory Boulevard. That ditch seemed deeper and wider in the 1960s than it does today. Still, what a dangerous place to play – where were our parents?

From Google Maps street view
Allen house was the only two-story on Frailey.

Next door to my grandparents was Earl and Betts Allen and their four kids. Big brother Dickie was too busy with Little League to bother with us girls. I played with Peggy, Mary, and Anne probably more than with any of the other kids on the block.

Anne, Mary, Peggy, and Me
in dress-ups

The card reminds me of what a fine time and place to grow up. While I don’t see the Frailey Place kids often, we are still Facebook friends. Too often we see each other at a funeral. One by one, we have buried all the parents now. Mr. Cummings was the last one, just a couple weeks ago.

We need to think of a more cheerful reason to get together now.

Zip, Zoom, or Zigzag over to the A to Z April Challenge Zone for Zillions of Zesty Zingers by Zealous Zanies before they are Zapped.  But the challenge is now over, so it’s time for me to catch some zzzzzzzzzzzz’s.

Now give me my Survivor Badge!

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: Y is for Yvonne

“We need to get together more often and not at a funeral.” How many times have you and a cousin said that? Funerals are much like a family reunion. You can learn a lot about a family just by looking at who showed up. Using my grandparents’ guest books and sympathy cards, I’ll be exploring “Who came to the funeral?”

is for Yvonne Ellington. There is no evidence that Yvonne attended either of my maternal grandparents’ funerals or that she sent flowers or a card. Yvonne was a family friend through membership at Cradock United Methodist Church. But she was more than that.

from Cradock UMC directory

On the day of my grandfather’s funeral, Yvonne was likely working. She was the owner and primary operator at Yvonne’s Beauty Salon on George Washington Highway in the Cradock neighborhood of Portsmouth, Virginia. In the 1960s, a trip to the hair salon was scheduled weekly. She likely styled both my mother and grandmother the day before the funeral.

In looking once again at all the lovely cards and messages from friends, I got a kick out of a note written by my grandmother on the back of a sympathy card. The envelope was addressed to my mother, so apparently Grandma was at our house when she wrote it.

Note written on back of envelope

I should be back from Yvonnes in time for supper. I have plenty food from yesterday so don’t cook.

( Lucy )

LUCY?? She never went by Lucy, so I think she was being funny.

Yippee!  There will be no yawning over the yarns yielded by yuppies, youngsters, yokels, and yodelers over yonder at the A to Z April Challenge.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Wordless Wednesday: Men of the Eastwind #17

Wordless Wednesday is a daily prompt at Geneabloggers that asks family historians to create a post in which the main focus is a photograph or image.

When my dad was stationed aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eastwind in 1946-47, he took pictures of his shipmates during tours to Thule, Greenland but didn’t provide names.  Maybe the family of these sailors will find my blog and share their story.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: X is for eX Girl Scout Troop

“We need to get together more often and not at a funeral.” How many times have you and a cousin said that? Funerals are much like a family reunion. You can learn a lot about a family just by looking at who showed up. Using my grandparents’ guest books and sympathy cards, I’ll be exploring “Who came to the funeral?”

is for my eX Girl Scout Troop 543. When my maternal grandfather Orvin Davis died in 1963, my family received this lovely card sent on behalf of my troop and leaders.

From Leaders and Girls
of Troop 543

The envelope bears the return address of our neighbor Mrs. Loulies. What really saddens me is that I don’t even remember Mrs. Loulies being my scout leader. I enjoyed my troop and being a Girl Scout. I can remember Mrs. Kratz and Mrs. Davis (no relation that I’m aware of), but Mrs. Loulies as scout leader escapes my mind’s eye completely.

Mrs. Loulies also sent a card from her own family. 

from Helen, Walter,
Gloria and Walter Jr.

What is even sadder about that card is that my grandmother was never very nice when it came to the Loulies. It was because of their son, Walter Jr. I don’t know of anything that he did wrong, but for some reason, Grandma always saw him as a delinquent. He was a teenager, which was probably crime enough as far as my grandmother was concerned. 

That the Loulies even bothered to send the card at all shows what a fine and forgiving family they were.

If you’re caught between a xenolith and xylols, or even if you suffer from xenophobia, you should make your way to the A to Z April Challenge where you will be met with xenodochial xenagogues whose xenophilia will convince you there are no xanthippes among us.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: W is for Wilson

“We need to get together more often and not at a funeral.” How many times have you and a cousin said that? Funerals are much like a family reunion. You can learn a lot about a family just by looking at who showed up. Using my grandparents’ guest books and sympathy cards, I’ll be exploring “Who came to the funeral?”

is for Wilson Chapman. He attended the funeral of my maternal grandmother in November 1990. Wilson and his wife Dovie were my parents' good friends. However, the entire Chapman clan had been family friends for decades.

Born Leonard Wilson Chapman in 1927, Wilson’s parents were Bill and Edith Chapman. In 1930, the young Chapmans were living with Bill’s parents on Jouett Street. Bill was a merchant in a retail meat market. My grandmother worked for him off and on over the years.

Chapman's Market on Afton Parkway in 1954
cradock.org

By 1940, the Chapmans had added two more boys and moved to Ericsson Street in the Cradock neighborhood in what is now Portsmouth, Virginia. Wilson went to high school with my mother, graduating a few years ahead of her.

from The Admiral 1945
L. Wilson "Lappy" Chapman
Quote: Friendliness and good sportsmanship
makes a character

Wilson’s senior yearbook records his high school career as one popular young man. He was elected as vice-president of both his freshman and sophomore classes. He was president of the junior class. Wilson was quite the athlete too playing basketball, baseball, and football. One year he was co-captain of the football team. He probably made the perfect sports editor of the school newspaper, The Shipmate.

from The Admiral 1944
Bille Dove Forrest
Quote: She hath a daily beauty in her life

Also on the Shipmate staff was Billie Dove Forrest. “Dovie,” as she was called, held several positions on the staff including circulation manager, layout manager, news editor, and eventually editor. She also enjoyed the Literary Club, Drama Club, and Dance Club.

Wilson and Dovie must have been quite an item in high school. In a gossip column-type feature of the yearbook was this statement: Wilson and Billie Dove have made up again – will it last, who can tell?

It did last actually. They married in 1947 and were never apart. I don’t ever remember seeing one without the other.

Wilson and Dovie are buried together at Greenlawn Memorial Gardens.

L. Wilson Jr. 1927 - 1997
and Billie Dove 1928 - 2000

If you have withstood my wily and whimsical wheedling, then wallow in the wanderlust of more waggish writings and witticisms wafting your way at the A to Z April Challenge.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: V is for Virginia

“We need to get together more often and not at a funeral.” How many times have you and a cousin said that? Funerals are much like a family reunion. You can learn a lot about a family just by looking at who showed up. Using my grandparents’ guest books and sympathy cards, I’ll be exploring “Who came to the funeral?”

is for Virginia Lucille Griffith Melton. She attended my grandfather’s funeral in 1963 along with her brothers John and Clyde Griffith.

 

Virginia was born in June 1906 to Hubert and Bettie Griffith of Shenandoah, Virginia. She was the last of six children. While her brothers operated the H. F. Griffith & Son general store followed by Griffith Brothers Store, Virginia attended Harrisonburg Teachers College. She even made the “Personals” column of the campus newspaper The Breeze in October 1924 when her brother John came to visit.

 

Virginia graduated and began teaching in Page County. Her marriage to Ivor “Tuck” Melton was announced without the fanfare accompanying many wedding announcements. Theirs was kept secret.

from GenealogyBank
Richmond Times Dispatch 13 May 1934

Why, I don’t know. There was a time when teachers were forbidden to marry; however, 1934 surely was a more enlightened time accustomed to teachers having a normal personal life outside the classroom.

snipped from Google Maps

Ivor and Virginia rented an apartment in this charming Victorian on Second Street for $12 a month. By 1940, they had two children, Bettye Lynn and Lane.

Virginia and Tuck are buried in the Methodist Church Cemetery in Shenandoah, Virginia.

Photo courtesy Jan Hensley

Don’t vacillate now.  Why don’t you venture over to the venerable vanguard of verisimilitude in the vernacular at the A to Z April Challenge to view a veritable vortex of veracious verbalization before they vanish?

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: U is for Upton

“We need to get together more often and not at a funeral.” How many times have you and a cousin said that? Funerals are much like a family reunion. You can learn a lot about a family just by looking at who showed up. Using my grandparents’ guest books and sympathy cards, I’ll be exploring “Who came to the funeral?”

is for Mary Lee Farrar Upton. She was my mother’s second cousin, daughter of Lewis and Eltar Farrar, first cousin of my mother’s father Orvin Davis.

When my grandfather died in 1963, Mary Lee and her husband Chris went in with her sister Phyllis and husband Donald Carruthers on flowers, a spray of white carnations.

 

The Uptons sent a card when my grandmother Lucille Rucker Davis passed away in November 1990.

Mary Lee was the second child born to Lewis and Elta Farrar. Like my mother, Mary Lee attended Cradock High School.

from 1947 Admiral
Cradock High School Yearbook

Unlike my mother, Mary Lee was in the Glee Club and Drama Club. In the class prophecy, Mary Lee was predicted to be the manager of Woolworth’s. I’m not sure what that said about Mary Lee, but I don’t think that it ever happened.

According to one city directory from 1954, Mary Lee was a clerk for the Commissioner of Revenue.

We often ran into Mary Lee and her sister Phyllis at the mall or at the nursing home visiting their mother and our grandmother. 

With unabashed admiration for my utterly unequal colleagues, I issue this ultimatum for you to unite with umpteen users at the A to Z April Challenge to uncover some uncanny and unconventional blogs that will be unveiled to you.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Oh Baby!

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt seemed almost too easy. After all, I have plenty of photos to fit the theme of newlyweds and babies. In reviewing the many possibilities, something happened that has never happened to me in preparing for Sepia Saturday. I experienced an epiphany. A breakthrough. A mystery solved. All thanks to the prompt.

For years, I have been sure of the identity of only half the people in these photos.

Orvin and Orvin Jr. on the right

That’s my maternal grandfather Orvin Davis as a young father to first born Orvin Jr. 

And that’s my grandmother Lucille Rucker Davis as a young first-time mother.

Lucille Davis and Orvin Jr. on the right

But who the other man and baby were was the question. A friend? A relative? And the woman? That the baby was possibly the same baby had never entered into the equation. Somewhere in time I tricked myself into assuming the man was a relative and the woman was my grandmother’s girlfriend. Years of just thinking it had somehow made it so, preventing me from considering any other options.

Children of Ben Davis

I should know better, and I learned that lesson this month during the A to Z April Challenge. In looking for photos to accompany my posts, I kept seeing the same ones over and over. Then suddenly it happened – that “ah ha” moment when I finally saw a connection between
this one

this one

and this one.

I knew the first one was the children of Benjamin Davis, my grandfather’s first cousin. The number of the girls in the second photo matched the number of girls in Ben and Fleeta Davis’s family. Those lovely socks tied the last two photos together.

Forehead slap – I coulda had a V8. Orvin and Lucille had their baby boy in 1925; so did Ben and Fleeta. Then it all made sense. “Let’s get a picture of the dads with the babies.” “Now let’s get a picture of the moms with the babies.”

Probably only another family historian can appreciate that moment of recognition. Even though I’ve looked at the photos hundreds of times, this week I saw my distant cousin Ben Davis and his wife Fleeta for the “first” time.

My grandmother Lucille Rucker Davis age 21
My uncle Orvin Jr. just months old 1925

Newlyweds and babies await all visitors at Sepia Saturday. Please, no gifts.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.