For Love of a Car Addition: My Father's Jeep

     I had wanted to include my Dad's WW II jeep in the essay about family cars but I didn't have the photos. Recently I found the photos and feel that the jeep shouldn't be left out,

     My Dad, John M. Peterson, was a Lt. in the Quartermaster Corps in Europe in WW II. After the war while he was still in Europe he had the opportunity to buy a jeep ("Army surplus" so to speak). In his autobiography he says, "I was able to buy an almost-new jeep which I could ship home under the new peacetime rules for officers transferring to and from Europe." Upon return home he and my mother moved to Boston where he attended Harvard University.  The jeep was their main mode of transportation. In the autobiography he tells this story, "One icy day there was a traffic jam when cars were unable to climb the hump of a bridge over the Charles River.  I ducked down a side street, and them drove my jeep on the sidewalk of stately Beacon Street, turned a sharp corner and got onto the bridge to help push two wheel-spinning cars ahead of me. This showed the advantages of small size and four-wheel drive!"

     They drove it from Boston to Chicago ("in below zero weather") when he went to the University of Chicago to get his PhD. In Chicago they sold it at four times what he paid for it! It had been a very good investment. I remember my mother telling me that she hadn't been that fond of the jeep, though, because it was so open and cold in winter. Hopefully she never told him that!

My Dad, Mar 1946, waiting to be sent home after the war

My mother on the hood of the jeep, August 1946

My mother and friends in the jeep, August 1946

Another view of my mother and friends in the jeep, August 1946

My mother on the hood of the jeep, August 1946, you can tell that my Dad was proud of that jeep!

Lucy Gifford or How I Lost 1000 Ancestors With One Click

     Several years ago I was looking for the parents of Daniel Cookson's wife, Lucy Gifford. I had found a marriage record for Daniel and Lucy which didn't note parents but gave the location of Whitefield, Lincoln, Maine. It said 1801 but I thought it was likely 1810 as their first son was born in 1811. I looked at the 1800 and 1810 Censuses for every Gifford family and only found one with a female the right age who wasn't likely the wife. This was Paul Gifford. I found data on his family and he had a daughter named Lucy of the right age. No data was known as to her marriage or when and where she died. So based on all available data it seemed that this was my Lucy.

     But yesterday I found a marriage record between that Lucy Gifford and a man named Wall. And her death record in the same town in Maine where they were married. So, it looked like I had Lucy in the wrong family. It's a shame because Paul Gifford's ancestry has been well researched as has his wife's, going well back into English history. I deleted them and lost about 1000 ancestors in two clicks! but they aren't mine so there you go.

     I now have narrowed down a possible family for Lucy, there is a Lucy Gifford born about 1780 to William Gifford and Priscilla Lawton in Freetown, Mssachusetts. I haven't been able to find out anything else about her yet.

     Another "good guess" that I am making about Lucy is that she married David Corless in Linneus about 1846. In the 1850 Census a Lucy Corless is listed in the family of Daniel Cookson, age 72. Me and every other researcher that I've seen has taken this to be Lucy Cookson, mother of Daniel. But one day I noticed that the name is Corless, not Cookson. Carefuly reading the Census record we find David Corless living in another house with James and Lizabet Lilley. One would assume that she is his daughter, but there is no Lizabet, Elizabeth or even a daughter with the middle initial "E" noted in his family. He was living in New Limerick, Aroostook in the 1830 Census. Daniel Cookson was living in New Limerick in the 1840 Census and this town and Linneus share a border. David is listed as in Linneus in 1840. David's wife, Polly, died in 1845 and I believe that Lucy's husband, Daniel Noyes Cookson, died around 1839. Thus they were neighbors and may well have married. Why they weren't living together in 1850 I don't know.  It could well have been too hard for them to live on their own but their children couldn't take care of both together. So far I haven't been able to find any marriage or death records to confirm this.

     So I am left with some good guesses and a lot of ground to cover to get at the real story.  I have looked at all the probate indexes and records for Aroostook from 1837 to 1860 (online at Family Search) and found nothing but a couple of references to Daniel Cookson  having claims against the estate of William Webster and buying 4 tin plates for .26 and 1 sugar bowl for .05 at his estate sale!

   

Linneus, Maine

Cookson purchases at Estate Sale ca 1847

Mustaches in the family history

     A recent post by the Photo Detective about men's mustaches in the past led me to look over the photo evidence of these in my family tree. The great great grandfathers I have photos of all have at least a mustache and two have full beards. The one exception I thought I saw was Giovanni Tinetti who lived from 1825-1904 in Northern Italy. But looking at the only photo I have of him it does appear that, indeed!, he has a thin mustache.

Giovanni Tinetti 1897 Torino, Italy

Stephen Avery Kells ca 1877, Minnesota, USA

Johannes Peterson ca 1895, Minnesota, USA

John Marshall Cookson, 1867, Vienna, Ontario, Canada

Benjamin Lester Hudson, about 1915, Saginaw, Michigan, USA

These men all lived from about 1825-1917, except for John Cookson who was younger living from 1848-1936. In Dennis' family the only photos of a great grandfather I have are of his mother's grandfathers, Carl Gustaf Knock and John Mallgren. Both from Sweden and born in the 1840's they still follow this rule.

Carl Gustaf Knock, 1875, Chicago, Illinois, USA

John Mallgren, ca 1911, St. Peter, Minnesota, USA.

Now the next generation, the great grandfathers. They also sport facial hair in their early photos.  But by 1930 or so they have lost it. 

Frank Stefani, 1891 Hurley, Wisconsin, USA

Frank Stefani, ca 1912, Issaquah, Washington, USA

Adolph Peterson, 1885, Dassel, Minnesota, USA

Adolph Peterson, ca 1925 Minneapolis, Minnesota (okay, he never lost his mustache!)

Benjamin M. Hudson 1888, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA

Benjamin M. Hudson, ca 1912, Fort Worth, Texas, USA

By my grandparents generation, though, mustaches and beards were no longer in fashion. It wasn't until the last years of his life in the 1980's that my grandfather sported a beard!

Walter Peterson, ca 1928, Detroit, Michigan, USA

Walter Peterson, ca 1978, New Mexico, USA

Lucas C. Kells, ca 1920, Seattle, Washington, USA

Neither of Dennis' grandfathers had facial hair either.

James C. Negley, 1948, Los Angeles, California, USA

Carl John Knock, ca 1905, Saint Peter, Minnesota, USA

In my father's generation men were clean shaven. Like his father, my father grew a goatee when he was older.  His brother, however, grew one, almost de rigeur for a psychologist! He went full hippie in his old age!

John Peterson, 1944, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Walter H. Peterson, ca 1959, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Walter H. Peterson, 1988, Lodi, Wisconsin, USA

Jim Negley, ca 1943, Los Angeles, California, USA

But, in the 60's and. especially

the 70's, facial hair for men returned. Dennis Negley, 1974, San Francisco, California, USA

My cousin, Eric Peterson, 1988, Lodi, Wisconsin, USA

My cousin, Ray Dellinger, ca 1988, Berkeley, California, USA

My cousin, Danny Dellinger, 1982, New York, New York, USA

My cousin, Larry Kells, 1982,  Palo Alto, California, USA

And now men can go any way they want as shown by my son in law, John Weber

John Weber, 2015, Beaverton, Oregon, USA

For Love of a Car

     In a recent post in "Vita Brevis" from the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, Scott C. Steward wrote about the cars, horses and other forms of transportation (an Ostrich!) in his family photos.  This got me to thinking that there are many vehicles in my family photos and I thought it would be fun to share them.

     The earliest is my 2nd Great Grandfather, Frank Stefani, with his laundry delivery wagon in Issaquah, Washington, around 1913. He eventually did own a car. His daughter-in-law, Peechie Stefani, told me the story that not long after he acquired it, he was driving downhill and wanted

 to slow down and started yelling, "Whoa! Whoa!", forgetting about the brake!

     Thirty-three years later, in about 1946, his son, Clement, posed with a freshly killed buck on the hood of his car! Clement's son, Johnny, age 6, posed with him. A proud moment! The back of the photo says that "he had three pound on each horn", perhaps prong was meant, at any rate, a big buck!

In my father's family photo collection there are several photos of cars. The earliest is obviously in the Twenties, I'm guessing about 1928. It shows my grandparents, Walter and Bessie and their children, Wally, Betty and Jack, on the right side of the photo. I'm not entirely sure who the three women on the left are but I'm guessing that they are Bessie's three sisters, Edna, Mabel and Alma

Hudson.  Another photo around the same time seems to show the same car.

A decade or more later, Jack posed with a then more up to date car. His first car, perhaps?

And here is John by his car in the 1960s.

Even my mother posed for a photo by the car with her daughters around 1955. As I

recall the car was a Nash Rambler. Her second husband, Mac McDonald loved cars and here he is with his car around 1943.

Not to be outdone, the Negley family has an impressive photo of Dennis' grandfather, James C. Negley, MD, in front of his auto in McMinnville, Oregon in 1949.

And Dennis and his brother, Pat, on top of the family car in McMinnville, also in 1949.

Here are the brothers almost 40 years later in front of our truck in Modesto about 1982.

Finally, a fitting end, a photo to challenge Mr. Steward's photo of the girls riding an ostrich, here is Dennis' mother, Eloise Negley, riding a camel on her trip to Egypt in July 1977.

Cars and family are intertwined and you can trace the history of one through the other.

Mama's Dishes

     When I was eleven, my Mama, sister and I moved back to my Mama's childhood home in Seattle.  It was a big Craftsman style house on Cherry Street in the Madrona District. It was summer and hot for Seattle when one day Mama and Grandma took us  down to the basement.  It wasn't a finished basement but a big cement room with windows, a washer and dryer and storage. I remember that it was nice and cool and not at all scary. Mama got out a big barrel, about 4 feet tall and 2 feet in circumference. It was made of thick brown paper with metal bottom and top.  She opened it up and started pulling out objects wrapped in paper. As she unwrapped them each one was beautiful. I was excited to see what was next. She explained that these were her wedding presents which she had wrapped and put away many years ago after her wedding to be sent for later when she and my Dad were settled.

     My parents, Margaret Edith Kells and John Marshall Peterson, were married in Seattle on 30 Jan 1943.  The U.S. had just entered the War in December.  My Dad had joined the Army and was married in his uniform.  I think they were already planning to marry and just sped up the ceremony's date so that they could be married before he left.  Margaret followed him to his training at Harvard (Officers training for the Quartermasters' Corps), Stanford (more of same), a supply truck company in training in Augusta, Georgia and one in Mississippi. Finally Jack left for overseas in December 1944. After the war, they lived in Boston where Jack completed his MBA at Harvard, then moved to Chicago where he went to the University of Chicago for a Ph.D program in Economics. I was born there in 1948. In 1951, they moved to Washington, D.C. where Rhonda was born. In 1953, furthering his career, Jack moved the family to Alcoa, Tennessee. Then in 1955 the family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas.  Here they were more settled and did some looking for a house but never bought one. In 1959, Jack fell in love with his personal secretary and, for that reason and many other longer term ones, he and Margaret got divorced. Thus the move back home to Seattle.  And thus the fact that the wedding presents still sat in my Grandmother's basement, 17 years later.

     As my mother unwrapped the items she told us the stories of who had given them to her and so on. Of course, I don't recall most of them.  I remember the beautiful blue glass pitcher which was a gift from my Dad's favorite history professor at the University of Washington. And the dishes. She had a full eight place setting set of hand made china with several serving dishes.  They were very beautiful, blue flowers on white with gold trim. These were made by a woman she knew named Mrs. Lilly (this is the only name I ever heard her called.) She made china for a living and was well known to the family and in Seattle generally. My mother's family and friends had contributed to the china and each plate or bowl is inscribed on the bottom with well wishes and the names of the people who gave it.  There also was a lovely vase in a different pattern but also by Mrs. Lilly and inscribed on the bottom.
It was bittersweet for my mother to unwrap these presents, given with good wishes for a marriage which had died. And she never had gotten to use them! So, we moved them into the house we moved into and used them over the years at every dinner party, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holiday dinner. We used them, admired them and enjoyed them.

    Years later in the 1980's, Mama decided to give my sister and I her good china. She wanted to do it now while she could enjoy our enjoyment of it, not wait until she was dead to distribute it.  So Rhonda and I chose pieces and we split the china, each taking a four place setting and splitting the serving pieces. And I have used it for family dinners at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and so on. And my daughter plans on using it when it is her turn to receive it. So, I would tell Mama that her china, her pitcher and her vase have been used and enjoyed by a loving family (which is a product of her marriage)

 John and Margaret, Wedding 1943

 Wedding dishes May 2016

 Inscription on back of a dinner plate

 Inscription on back of a serving dish

 Blue Pitcher May 2016

Vase May 2016

, for many years now and to come.