Indian Connection

Most families in the South have a story about someone being part Indian. I've found most I researched were not true.

My wife's great grandmother was reported to be Cherokee. Her maiden name was Nancy Pittman and she married Eli Lawrence. Nancy's mother was named Comfort Hatfield and she married Daniel Pittman. With a first name like Comfort the Indian connection certainly seemed possible. Comfort was born in Kentucky about 1810.

Another Lawrence family researcher recently found a Guion Miller application that was submitted by Nancy's nephew in 1907. The application was denied because he didn't have any written proof but in it he said Nancy's grandmother was named Annie Ross and she was one quarter Cherokee.

I came across this photo of Nancy taken about 1918. Compare it to my daughter Kristen's picture taken 70 years later and you can surely see the Cherokee family resemblance.

Family inheritance

When you talk of a family inheritance most of us think of a house, stocks or grandma's jewelry. In my family, skin cancer is what has been passed down from one generation to another.

Having red hair, fair complexion and growing up in Florida sure didn't help, but my genes would have caught up with me, even in Seattle. I knew my grandfather died from it in 1965 and most close relatives have had more than one but only recently found a record that my great great great great grandmother died from it.

I was reading the Revolutionary War pension file of Louisa Gabriel Willis Fulford. It has a December 10, 1849 affidavit from Samuel Leffers, Carteret County Justice of the Court of Pleas stating that Louisa had been confined to her bed for over three years because of Cancerous Affection of the Face. Louisa died eight months after the affidavit was written.

Four sons

It is always sad to find children's graves next to the parents without knowing much about them. Were they the only ones born to the family. Why did they die so young.

I recently located the Ware - Green Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama and it held several relatives place of rest. There were four sons born to Joseph Anthony Green and Margaret Boutwell Taliaferro between 1820 and 1840 who died young and were buried in the plot that would eventually hold their parents.

Benjamin Taliaferro Green was born in 1821 and died in 1831. Brother Thornton Green was born in 1836 and died in 1838. Francis Benjamin Green was born in 1839. They reused the name Benjamin after the first one died but this one died young also in 1847. A brother who was never named was born and died in January 1840.

I'm not sure exactly how Joseph Anthony Green and I are related. I found him via a dna test that proved we share a common ancestor. I think I know who that is but don't have proof yet. In the mean time I have been getting to know a couple of the relatives on his side of the family tree.

Suicide

Suicide. It's not a pleasant subject but it's there staring at us when we research family history.

Several of my distant relatives or those connected by marriage committed suicide. I often have to edit out the facts on the family histories I've published so to not offend.

I suppose there are cases in every family but it's not something we normally talk about. The first one I remember was a good friend of my Grandfather Tink, Albert "Gator" Mora. Gator was a big man, hence the name, a commercial fisherman who at age 60 had been diagnosed with cancer in 1964. After finding out he went home, parked his car with the engine running, put a garden hose in the exhaust and the other in the side window and sat down behind the wheel.

Gator met my Grandpa Green once, maybe at my parent's wedding and was friends of sorts with him. They had an ongoing "discussion" of who owed who money. Gator would give me messages to tell him something about the money Grandpa had under his bed or buried in his yard and Grandpa Green always had some retort about Gator paying off the money he owed. This photo is of Gator (on the left) and my uncle Ralph taken around 1960.

Some other cases I have come across, Grandpa Green's brother shot himself in 1934. The newspaper article about the event said only he had been despondent and shot himself in the heart as his sons approached the house.

Another great great uncle on the Fulford side of the family tied a rope around a 90 pound boat engine, tied the other side around himself and jumped overboard with the engine and drowned.

So what's the point, there is none. Just like when anyone takes this as the way out.

You haven't changed a bit

People used to say it a lot more often to me. You haven't changed a bit.

I am still within 10 pounds of what I weighed when I was 18. My hair is still mostly red, although there are a few more blond spots.

I was thinking of my old monkey. I don't know his name, if he had one. I just remember him as monkey.

I got him when I was very young. He moved several times with my family before we settled in Tallahassee. From the photos it looks like he stayed for a while with my nieces.

This photo was taken in 1972 with my neice Jenny in Tallahassee.


My parents moved to Bradenton in 1974 but he moved back to Tallahassee with my sister Cathy and he seems to have been a close friend of my neice Bekah in 1976.

I am sure we have photos of him with my kids but couldn't find them. He has been a companion to two of our foster children and Cedric calls him "my monkey" today. Unfortunately he has been relegated to the dress up box.

Yes, he was stuck in an old steamer trunk with broken parasols, fur from an old collar and numerous hats and mis-matched shoes. I am not sure he has aged as much as the rest of us over the last 50 years. A couple seams that could use some thread and an ear that someone chewed on for too long, but all in all he looks pretty good.

Just an old store

Shortly after my ancestors moved to Cortez, Florida in the 1880s a wood frame store was built on the waterfront. It was a simple structure and they probably thought it would do for a while. I am sure they never expected it to outlive them.

It was used over the years not just as a store but a hotel, residence and in more recent years as a U.S. Coast Guard station. It survived not just 100 years facing the the harsh coastal wind but several direct hits by hurricanes.

When the government wanted to build a new home for the Coast Guard the 100 year old store was scheduled to be demolished.

The current residents of Cortez scrambled to save it, find a place to store it temporarily and then made plans to restore it. The temporary storage lasted over 13 years but it was finally moved to a permanent location and renovation begun. The goal is to have a family life museum in the store, to celebrate all the families who grew up, lived and died with the store.

Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day. We are supposed to use this day to honor veterans. Those who served our county in the the military forces during war or peace.

I have a number of relatives and ancestors for whom I could give this honor. Cousins, brother and father in law, uncles and many grandfathers who served going back over 300 years.

But for this day, I choose to honor to my father.

Benjamin Clyde Green enlisted in the US Army on July 18, 1936, without any requirement or draft influencing his decision. He served during parts of four decades and on at least six continents.

He transferred from the regular Army to the Army Air Corps in 1937 because he wanted to fly. Later he joined the United States Air Force when it was organized during WWII. When the US Strategic Air Command opened bases in Europe and around the US he was there.

He served in combat and spent many years away from both his Florida hometown and his family. After he got married in 1949 he brought his family along with him to duty stations in Florida, Ohio, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Kansas and Texas.

He was probably disappointed that neither of his sons served in the military but he never said so. At least not to us.

He was proud of his own service and always gave respect and his thanks to veterans. He gave money to help build the WWII Memorial but didn't live long enough to see it completed.

So from this son, Thank You for your service!