Saturday, February 9, 2019

Sepia Saturday: The Terrible Five


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


This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt offers many ways to interpret it, but my eye keeps going to that white tent, I suppose because it makes me think of the tents my grandaunt Helen Killeen Parker may have camped out in in her glory days. I have written about her camping trip before HERE

Helen Killeen's camping trip Northwest River https://jollettetc.blogspot.com

I thought it was a darn good story, impossible to improve upon, until I found a poem that recounted the events of that very trip, which I wrote about HERE
Helen Killeen's camping trip Northwest River https://jollettetc.blogspot.com

The end of the poem combines a bit of teasing and an inside joke, but reading between the lines reveals the fondness for a group of friends.

So I tell you dear friends, if you want to die
Just go on a Camping trip, with the “Terrible Five.”

It occurs to me that in every group of friends there seems to be that one person or that little core that holds everyone together. They’re the fun ones. They’re the trouble makers that make even trouble fun. In Helen’s crowd around 1918-1921, they were known as “The Terrible Five.”  Not a single one of the five is my family - that I know of, anyway. But I can’t stop wondering about them. I guarantee no one in my family cares, but I just need to know who they were. It’s a curiosity thing. A genealogy thing. I can’t help myself.

After studying photo after photo, I think I figured out 3 of the 5. The first guy on the left is Pete. 

Pete and Agnes Ocean View, VA https://jollettetc.blogspot.com
But Pete who? “Pete” isn’t always a diminutive of “Peter.” I knew a man named Albert Clifford who was known as “Pete.”


The guy on the far right is Mitz Ollice. The photo with Lucille Fritzinger was taken probably not long before they married.
Mitz Ollice and Lucille Fritzinger at Ocean View https://jollettetc.blogspot.com 












I could find no other pictures with people identified to match the dark-haired fellows. That light-haired guy in the middle appears in lots of pictures though. One photo turns out to be the perfect gift for this curious family historian.

There he is with a gun.
Canal boat ride Helen Killeen Parker https://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Helen's friends Jerry, Gertie, John, Pickles and ??
on a canal boat ride
What does that say? Rayell? Rayill? Roy ice? I knew it would be a longshot, but I searched Ancestry for Rayell, Rayill, and even Roy born about 1900 living in Portsmouth, Virginia. Nothing.

Closeup of the patch on the sweater

I noticed the patch on Whatshisname’s sweater and zoomed in. CRC. That meant nothing to me, but I Googled that too. CRC. CCR. Nothing.

On a whim and really just giving in to frustration, I went back to Ancestry and searched for “Roy Ice” born about 1900 living in Portsmouth. And what do you know - there he was! ROYCE! Chester Royce Crawford, to be exact. CRC! (I bet those crazy friends of Helen’s dubbed him “Roy ice.”)

In stalking Royce Crawford through Ancestry, FamilySearch, and online newspapers, I learned an INTERESTING thing, a SAD thing, and a FUNNY thing.

INTERESTING - Not only did Royce work for the railroad, just like Helen’s husband Herbert, but also he rented a room from Herbert’s parents, the same house where Helen and Herbert lived in the downstairs apartment. Now that’s a friendship!

SAD - Royce never married. He died much too young at the age of 58. Ironically, Royce was predicted to be the second of Helen's friends to marry. 
Helen's predictions of ideal husbands https://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Royce was 2nd from the right
and predicted to be the second to marry
FUNNY - When Royce was 10 years old, his fifth grade class at Berkley Elementary School in Norfolk, Virginia presented a Christmas program consisting MAINLY of original poems, stories, skits, and songs. Royce’s contribution was a recitation of “The Mischievous Stocking.” I suspect his was an original piece. He seems like the mischievous type!
 
Gerie, Unknown, and Royce Crawford at Ocean View https://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Look out - here comes Royce!
Please visit my friends at Sepia Saturday where you can pitch a tent, but just don’t pitch a fit.

Wendy
© 2019, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

21 comments:

  1. Great detective work! I love looking at your pictures.

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  2. Fantastic, love the research you do.

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  3. Oh my, you even found out about his school performance when he was 10! Now that's good sleuthing!

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    1. I know! Wasn't that cute? I love my newspaper subscriptions.

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  4. You sure don't give up on a subject! And lucky for us, you don't. What fun your photos are and interesting because of your perseverance! Nice going!!! :)

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    1. Thanks. I was hard-pressed to come up with a NEW post based on the prompt photo.

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  5. P.S. We had a friend named Royce who went by the nickname Roycie

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    1. Hmm - maybe this says "Roycie" rathan than "ice."

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  6. Lots of great photos of the great outdoors.

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    1. Yes, I have lots, thanks to my grandaunt Helen.

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  7. You do great with your detecting work! Royce seemed like a good fellow, glad you were able to find out what you did about him.

    betty

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    1. He does seem like a fun guy. I wonder why he never married.

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  8. Super photos and great detective work, Wendy! It seems being a master family genealogist is not enough for you now, so you've taken up the fiendishly hard study of family friends of friends. We forget that a family tree usually grows in a vast forest with other trees.

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    1. The gene pros keep saying to study friends as another way to learn about an ancestor, so I do.

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  9. I am SO impressed. I'm not sure I would have ever thought about searching for him but I'm glad you did!

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    1. You and I are both researching family friends these days.

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  10. You did really well, Wendy, to learn so much about Royce from just his nickname written on a photo! Sometimes the friends of our ancestors bug us to find them just as much as our ancestors do. It's too bad he never married because it means that probably no one else is looking for him.

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