Genealogy & Family Stories

[Borodog]

My aunt Rita is the family genealogist and historian. She has spent her entire life compiling our family tree, as well as collecting historic documents, letters, photographs, stories, etc. She compiles them into large tomes as well as CD-ROMs and ships them out to the whole family. I love her for it, because they are filled with amazing stories that I never would have known if it weren't for her.

This thread is for you to share any genealogical information you'd care to, as well as favorite family stories. I'll do some of the former later, when I get home (that's where the books are), but I thought I'd get the ball rolling with the latter. I briefly told the story of how my great-grandfather got rich flying bat [censored] from Mexico to Hawaii for use as fertilizer on the sugar cane plantations, before losing it all with the advent of artificial fertilizers (that was the inspiration for this thread), so I'll start with another one.

My father tells this story, and it's one of my favorites. When he was a young boy, something like 8 or 10 (this would be around 1940, give or take), my grandfather would take him and his brother to the Army-Navy game every year. My grandfather was a Captain in the Navy (in fact he commanded a ship in WWII), so of course he would go to the game in full regalia.

It happened that my grandfather had just purchased a brand new shiney black sedan, a Packard if I remember the story correctly, and had polished it up in preparation for driving to the game. They lived outside of DC, and the game was in Philly, I think, so it was a bit of a drive. So granddad packed up the boys in the back of the Packard and hit the road.

He pulled onto the highway behind a long line of shiney black sedans, flanked by police motorcycle escort. One of the motorcycle cops dropped back and maneuvered up to the driver's window. Granddad rolls down the window and puts his arm on the edge as he leans out to hear what the cop is trying to say to him.

The cop sees the full dress uniform, the sleeve and shoulder full of gold braid and the chest full of ribbons and medals. He doesn't say a word, and waves my grandfather up to the back of the line of cars, and he and the other motorcycle cop in the back dropped back to flank his car.

And that's how my dad got to ride to the Army-Navy game in the Presidential Motorcade.