52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 3 – What This Story Means to Me
Prompt: Some people don’t understand the appeal of genealogy. They think it’s only names and dates. What they don’t realize is that those names and dates lead to stories. This week, consider a story in your family history that means a lot to you.
My father recently shared with me more details about what he remembers of his personal experiences during World War II. When the U.S. entered the war, he was only four years old. When he was about eight or nine, his father enlisted in the Merchant Marines, performing the duties of Engineer on various tankers.
During my grandfather’s years of service, my grandmother and my Dad—an only child—lived by themselves in their home in Joplin, Missouri. They saw my grandfather only occasionally during the war and in the years that followed on those occasions when he was on furlough.
There was one time, my Dad remembered, that his father had flown home (probably via Kansas City) from New York. Then, when it was time for his father to return, the three of them flew to New York together. My grandmother and father returned by plane.
The Tri-State Tribune, (Picher, Oklahoma), June 22, 1944
My Dad recalled a later trip when his mother drove the two of them all the way from Joplin to New York and then on to Providence, Rhode Island, where my grandfather’s ship had pulled into port. My father remembers his mother being nervous about driving in New York City and driving through a tunnel (perhaps the Holland or Lincoln Tunnel) in particular.
I have since been thinking about how brave my grandmother must have been in that situation: a young woman traveling alone in unfamiliar places, in big cities, far from home, with her young son. She drove a long way with no one else to share the driving, much less someone to look out for her safety. My grandfather drove the three of them home to Joplin.
My father remembers seeing the sights of New York City and, on one of these trips, missing a lot of school. While school administrators were initially concerned about the absences, it was determined that the enrichment he had gained made up for the fifth grade classroom experiences he had missed. He was allowed to advance to sixth grade.
I never asked my grandfather about his service and, until today, I hadn’t asked my Dad where his father had travelled to while in the service. Although my Dad still has some coins from the Philippines and the United Kingdom that his father had given to him upon returning from his travels, those were the only clues my father had in ascertaining where his father’s military service had taken him.
He told me that his father had not talked much about his travels. As far as we know, my grandfather had not been reticent about doing so because he had seen combat or been involved in any military action that would have been painful to discuss. Nor do we suspect that he was not at liberty to disclose that information. For whatever reason, he just didn’t talk much about those experiences.
Here then, is a case where finding records and media has helped me to fill in some gaps in the timeline of an ancestor’s life. Because I have found ship manifests, I at least know the ports from which my grandfather’s various ships arrived and departed. Documentation below places my grandfather in Bristol, Liverpool, and London, England, Bremen, Germany, and Aruba between the years of 1944 to 1947.
This story means a lot to me for several reasons. Because I have no other close relatives who served in the military, I greatly admire that my grandfather did so. Also, he travelled to places that no one else in his immediate family ever visited—places that I have not been to either.
I am fully aware that many others do not share my particular zeal for combing through records and citations. But for me, discovering details like these serves to paint a more vivid picture of an ancestor. Conversely, acquiring details like this has, for me, fostered even more curiosity about national and world history and a stronger desire to historically contextualize my ancestors’ stories.
This is one of many narratives that have emerged from my thirteen years of researching my family tree. The impetus for the creation of this site was, in fact, a desire to turn citations and records into relatable stories.
