The Family Tree - Lewis & Clark Included
My late sister was Patricia Ann and she was the family genealogist. Years of her life were spent in the Mormon library bent over the books tracing the family tree and I, like all the celebrities on TV lately, was shocked to find out where I came from.
Pat and I were two kids born of a working class family in SW Philadelphia. She went on to be in health education, and I had a checkered career in management. Where we came from:
On my father's side there was a family called the Willards and the Helligas'. In 1692 there were 12 hanged as witches in Salem, Mass. My ancestor, Samuel Willard, was the last. His brother, Simon, the local Episcopalian Minister, testified AGAINST him in the religious tribunal.
While his brother was still dangling on the end of a rope, Rev Simon had the stones to give a sermon on the subject of "Is Christ Ascended?" I have a copy in my files dated 24 hours after. You had to have ice in your veins to be an Episcopalian preist in those days, I surmise.
One of the Willards was in the Corps of Discovery that traveled with Lewis and Clarke in 1804/05. He was Alexandar Willard, a Lt. in the Army and the only one to ever be photographed, I am told. His job, guns, rifles, horses and odd jobs to keep everyone else out of trouble. As an odd trivia fact, the troop went up through Oregon, through what is now the land owned by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. These three tribes own and operate a resort and gambling casino on 77,000 acres in the middle of Oregon. For about 8 years I worked for them. Talk about coincidence.
On my mother's side, we lost three people at Gettysburg, two cavalry officers, and an army corporal at Little Round Top. My father's ancestor Col George Willard? Lost at Cold Harbour, Va. My grandmother's mother had a cabin down the road " a piece," and hid her two teen age sons on the second floor under a bear skin when two union officers rode up on horses.
" Do you have any sons?" they inquired. She told them, no, and they could ride on...actually, my grandmother said she gently encouraged them with the shotgun cradling in her lap. Nana was a gentle soul, but her mother was not.
My mother's mother, "Nana" was related to Stanley K White the architect in New York City who shot his wife's lover in the back of the head in the Emperor's club above the old Madison Square Garden. The trial made headlines all around the world. His wife was a "chanteuse" fancy name for an attract high-class stripper of the day. Every hear of the old, old song, " She's only a bird in a gilded cage, a beautiful sight to see...?" That was her, a 17 year old beauty who swung in a cage above the heads of those old foggies. She got mixed up with one of them, and White showed up with a gun.
My grandfather and his 11 brother's and sisters were Canadian illegals over 100 years ago until the amnesty in the mid 30's. Dad dodged the WWII draft by joining the Coast Guard Reserve Temporary Service, also known as the League Island Beer Club.
My late Aunt, a self-confessed 'lousy solder' once confessed to rounding up her nurses in a Belgium MASH unit, taking off in a truck, and heisting the contents of a wine cellar at gun point. She and 15 other nurses threatened to shoot any soldier that got in their way....OUR soldiers.
Pat and I were two kids born of a working class family in SW Philadelphia. She went on to be in health education, and I had a checkered career in management. Where we came from:
On my father's side there was a family called the Willards and the Helligas'. In 1692 there were 12 hanged as witches in Salem, Mass. My ancestor, Samuel Willard, was the last. His brother, Simon, the local Episcopalian Minister, testified AGAINST him in the religious tribunal.
While his brother was still dangling on the end of a rope, Rev Simon had the stones to give a sermon on the subject of "Is Christ Ascended?" I have a copy in my files dated 24 hours after. You had to have ice in your veins to be an Episcopalian preist in those days, I surmise.
One of the Willards was in the Corps of Discovery that traveled with Lewis and Clarke in 1804/05. He was Alexandar Willard, a Lt. in the Army and the only one to ever be photographed, I am told. His job, guns, rifles, horses and odd jobs to keep everyone else out of trouble. As an odd trivia fact, the troop went up through Oregon, through what is now the land owned by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. These three tribes own and operate a resort and gambling casino on 77,000 acres in the middle of Oregon. For about 8 years I worked for them. Talk about coincidence.
On my mother's side, we lost three people at Gettysburg, two cavalry officers, and an army corporal at Little Round Top. My father's ancestor Col George Willard? Lost at Cold Harbour, Va. My grandmother's mother had a cabin down the road " a piece," and hid her two teen age sons on the second floor under a bear skin when two union officers rode up on horses.
" Do you have any sons?" they inquired. She told them, no, and they could ride on...actually, my grandmother said she gently encouraged them with the shotgun cradling in her lap. Nana was a gentle soul, but her mother was not.
My mother's mother, "Nana" was related to Stanley K White the architect in New York City who shot his wife's lover in the back of the head in the Emperor's club above the old Madison Square Garden. The trial made headlines all around the world. His wife was a "chanteuse" fancy name for an attract high-class stripper of the day. Every hear of the old, old song, " She's only a bird in a gilded cage, a beautiful sight to see...?" That was her, a 17 year old beauty who swung in a cage above the heads of those old foggies. She got mixed up with one of them, and White showed up with a gun.
My grandfather and his 11 brother's and sisters were Canadian illegals over 100 years ago until the amnesty in the mid 30's. Dad dodged the WWII draft by joining the Coast Guard Reserve Temporary Service, also known as the League Island Beer Club.
My late Aunt, a self-confessed 'lousy solder' once confessed to rounding up her nurses in a Belgium MASH unit, taking off in a truck, and heisting the contents of a wine cellar at gun point. She and 15 other nurses threatened to shoot any soldier that got in their way....OUR soldiers.
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