Lost and found stories

Elizabeth Arrington Strickland -- the grandmother I never knew

Camp Connell, CA - I've been thinking about family a lot lately.

Not the ones close by, who are always on my mind, nor even the extended family spread across the country.

But about ancestors. You know, those people we Americans generally forget after two generations.

I never met my grandparents. All four were dead before I was born. I know one died of "childbirth fever" in her late 20s, two of heart attacks in their 60s, and one of old age -- in her 80s.

What were they like? How did they live? Did they have some characteristics that were passed down in the gene pool? And does it matter?

A lot of wonderful stories are lost that should be saved. And I believe stories from our history help shape our present, and our future.

Besides, there are so many great-great-great stories out there.

For example:

Robert Lamont was a teenager when he became one of the earliest Scots-Irish immigrants to North America. His brother beat him to it, according to the story passed down, because the older brother was forced onto a British ship by a press gang when he made a mistake and hung out on the Antrim docks on the north coast of Ireland. Next thing you know, the brother jumped ship in New York in 1745, liked it better than starving in Ireland, and sent for his mother and brothers. Robert became a weaver and part of a small group of Scots that moved into the heart of Dutch-controlled Upstate New York. They did not always get along with their rich neighbors, and once broke an uncle out of jail in a dispute over taxes.


Hardy Strickland, a namesake without the "Devil"
Devil Hardy Strickland was born into a farming family in North Carolina in 1776. That was his real name, though the story behind it is unclear. As an adult he made his way to north Georgia before the Cherokee were run off. Married his first cousin Priscilla, they had 12 children and he lived to the ripe old age of 96. Family rumor has it that he was too mean to die. He named a son Devil.

Hiram Barry was board in Tidewater Virginia in 1802, but moved on to Knoxville, Tennessee, where lived out his life as a well know printer. He probably knew President Andrew Jackson, since it was a small town, and Hiram lived into his 80s when his obituary praised his as "a venerable citizen." Think of the stories he would have to tell.

Thomas Pruitt was 20 years old when he landed on the Virgina shore from England in 1636. Ten years later he married and they had only six children. He died before the Revolution, still in Virginia, so we'll probably never know whose side he was on in the war between the upstart colonies and Mother England.
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Thanks to my mother, who talked about her family, and my grandmother who wrote down the results of her research in the 1930s, I know some things about my grandparents that I never met.

Grandfather Roswell DeEstra LaMont (his father Frenchified the family names) left his New York birthplace, moved west to Michigan and then south to Alabama. He was a journeyman printer, a stout union man who could work almost anywhere, who wandered to pursue his craft and his taste for adventure. He ended up working with other printers, one named Barry and one named Pruitt, in a small town in Alabama after the Civil War. He met and married my grandmother, Mollie, daughter of a printer and a union member as well, who was a tad older. They had one child, and my grandfather stuck around till my father was grown and then hit the road again, staying in touch through letters. He worked in Florida and then Cuba for a few years, where the fishing was good and the sun warm. He had a heart attack in Cuba and came back to Miami to die. He was buried by the International Typographical Union and their symbol is on his headstone.

Mollie Barry's home at 508 Clayton Street, Montgomery
Grandmother Mary Earnest Barry LaMont, known as Mollie, was a child when the Civil War began, and witnessed missing families, orphaned cousins, troops camped in the front yard, and Yankees stealing the chickens when they swept through. Her younger brother John, 5 years old when the war ended, was terrified when the Yankees came by the gate and called him "Johnny Reb." He wondered how they knew his name. Her father re-appeared safely at the end of the war and they settled down in Montgomery.


Grandfather Fred Strickland was raised on a North Georgia farm, but in a family that believed in education and wanted to help him go to school. As a teenager, he spent some of his his spare time panning for gold in neighboring streams he knew as a boy. By the time he was ready to apply at Georgia Tech, he had a poke of gold that along with a football scholarship was enough to pay his way in 1899. he was an engineer, inventor, and eventually ran mills in the south. He put all of his children through college, or nursing schools. The Depression took away his job, and when his beloved oldest son died in an airplane crash in the 1930s, he had a heart attack and died soon after. He is buried near his son, not far from today's Atlanta International Airport.
Grandmother Elizabeth Arrington Strickland, pictured at the top, was a native of Alabama who moved slightly north. She met her husband when he was running a mill in Anderson, South Carolina, they were married and quickly had five children. She died of a fever after the birth of her youngest child, and is buried in Anderson. No is left alive who really knows anything about her.


And then there was Bina Mickle.
All I know about Bina Mickle is that the photograph was taken in 1931, apparently in or near Haneyville, Alabama, where my grandmother Barry was born.
And, there is letter surviving from the 1930s in which my grandmother wrote a family member to make sure that Bina was "properly taken care of" in her old age. A return letter assured my grandmother that she was, and there is no further correspondence.
Census records do not indicate the family owned slaves in 1860. Craftsmen and people who lived and worked in towns did not often have slaves, and the woman in the photo does not look 90 years old in any case.

But I will always wonder about her, and why my grandmother cared for her well being.
There has to be a story there.

Football culture -- The anthropology of the South

Camp Connell, CA -- A large number of my relatives -- Auburn fans all -- are enjoying post-BCS syndrome this morning.
For some that means sitting around telling each other "we always knew Auburn was a national champion," despite the fact it has been almost 50 years since Alabama Polytechnic Institute (then called "Auburn" and now named "Auburn University") actually won a championship.
But this is no time to quibble with a great success, and what I thought was a great football game even though I personally matriculated (is that a real word?) at the traditional football power in the south -- the University of Alabama aka The Crimson Tide.
(I went to graduate school at the University of Michigan, but only claim that school when they make it to the top ten rankings or discover a cure for disease...)



Auburn's last-second victory over Oregon will be celebrated for weeks, or years, by most of my relatives.

I take some pleasure in it, mostly because 70% of the New York Times readers picked Oregon to win, as did the columnists for the Los Angeles Times.
It is my humble opinion that people from outside the Southern United States have never really understood the SEC and regional pride that fuels these teams and their supporters.
Take THAT you effete western media snobs and you citified New York Yankees. (There, I feel better already. I have re-affirmed my football southern-ness.)

My father always used to cheer for Auburn or any other Southern school doing battle with universities from "up North." We had "schools" and they had "universities."

He used to say, rather politely, that he "attended" Auburn. He never really explained why he left school, but it later occurred to me that when he mentioned being arrested at a college football game for drinking from a flask under the stands, THAT probably was his memory of college.
It was the Prohibition Era, and he got off lightly.
And he always liked Auburn.

My brother-in-law Roy went to Auburn on the GI bill in the 1950s, and was such a fan he would sneak into games wearing a telephone lineman's belt to walk through the "authorized personnel only" gate when he could not afford tickets. He swore that he hung off a telephone pole to cheer Auburn on.
His support never flagged, even joining and leading his alumni association, something I never even considered. He has waited a long time for this recent victory.

His children adopted his fan-hood. Ben, the eldest, still lives in Alabama, and is a staunch Auburn fan, sending out Facebook messages every few minutes during the game and making sure I know of a web site where I can buy Auburn victory paraphernalia.

My niece Beth is an Auburn-trained engineer living in Colorado. I am sure the mountains were echoing late last night with shouts of joy.

Nephew Philip, who lives and works near my old stomping grounds on Mobile Bay, was unusually quiet until after the game, when he sent a short message: "WDE!" Translation: "War-damn-Eagle."
He is a sensitive soul, and was overcome by emotion.

And my late sister Mary would have been there cheering too, even though she went to the University of Miami. She was a convert, and you know how dedicated they are. She was probably cheering from on high.

May the joy in my Auburn family extend for weeks and months to come.

I, on the other hand, have never been an Auburn fan, or even for that matter a big football fan.

I attended the University of Alabama during the years when Joe Namath was quarterback, undefeated seasons were the norm, and we always went to educational places like New Orleans to play in bowl games. Alabama usually lost those bowl games, but we thought it only fair that the team had a chance to relax on Bourbon Street before the big game. And I furthered my education by closely studying the local culture as expressed in fruity drinks, great gumbo, and a variety of exotic dancers.Crowds seek educational opportunities on Bourbon Street


At Alabama's home games we drank a lot and left at halftime to go to parties because the game was usually wrapped up by then.
I once was hired to tend bar for the Law School students sitting together in the stands. Instead of "Roll Tide" I heard a chorus of "More bourbon!"

I even wrote a editorial once in the college paper saying Coach Bear Bryant was not a god and could not walk on water. No one took it seriously.

Nowadays there is too much money involved in college football for such frivolity and wasteful behavior.

Most of the talk is about how many millions the universities will get from the games, and whether the key players will drop out of college to join a professional team where they will earn even more than the university.

But the good old days still exist in my family.

And my relatives know that I cheer for them, and for one brief moment was actually happy that Auburn won a football game.

(I planned to insert a photograph of Auburn's "War Eagle, " or maybe even the "Tiger" mascot, but the University website charges a fee for that.)

Happy (?) New Year!

Camp Connell, CA - The year 2011 has officially begun, and so far so good.
I know. It is only two days old.
But.
Our elected officials are all on vacation so they have done no harm -- so far.

The ski resort up the road has had a booming holiday season, which has spilled over into the local businesses that have been struggling. That's good for my working neighbors.

Everyone in our immediate family is employed -- if they want to be.

All are healthy and seem happy.
Daughter Ruth, granddaughter Delaney, and best in-law Leroy, helped celebrate my 70th birthday at the Camp Connell store in 2010
Son Zack, granddaughter Katie and Pat celebrated Zack's birthday with a cake

It will be another year of transition for me, hopefully all positive.

Some things are required.
My IRA's have "matured" along with me, and I have to do something about them in the next three months. I hate that sort of decision making, but the clock is ticking.
Like many retired couples and families this year we will learn to get along with less, as the last few years have carved down our savings. The last time I ran the numbers our savings lost about 60% of their value in the past three years. Social Security suddenly is a lot more important that it used to be.
My body requires a certain amount of maintenance which seems to entail increasing doctor visits for probes and scans and examinations to make sure I am just aging, not deteriorating at an unnatural pace.
I have never been good at the type of exercise people get by working out in gyms, so I will have to try harder to get out and walk more, whether in the snow or not. I recall vividly the advice a physical therapist once passed along" "Use it or lose it."
Fortunately, there are plenty of trails to hike, mountains to ski, and lots of wood to haul to keep the home fires burning.
We have yet to hike the trails up Mount Whitney, seen here in the Fall, above the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine

I don't make New Year's resolutions anymore, but two things I want to do more of this year are sailing and get back to working on the family history.
The family history project, which my grandmother began in 1935, may move ahead thanks to Pat's gift of a subscription to an on-line genealogy service. It is an amazing tool and saves hours and hours of research. Now I just have to start writing.
"More sailing" has been an unrealized goal for several years. We love our boat, but it sits tied to the expensive dock in Alameda most of the time. Why is it when you retire you do not have time for things you claim you want to do?
So far we have decided to keep the boat and try to use it more. But each year we come closer to the inevitable decision that the cost and effort are not worth the ultimate pleasure. But owning a boat has never been logical, so do not expect a logical move in this area.
The other decision out there in our future is when will we have had enough snow and ice in the winter and need to move down the hill. Travel to warmer spots helps, but that has been limited recently by economic realities.
We will not leave the mountains, but the idea of living somewhere in the winter where we would not have to wait for the snowplow, shovel the deck, or worry about the power failing, well, that seems pretty attractive some days.

But for now the snow is falling prettily, the temperature is not bad, and the fire is going strong in the wood stove.

And whether I am ready or not, the new year is here.

Christmas in the Mountains

At a Christmas fund-raiser in the state park

Camp Connell, CA - The sky is almost crystal blue today, not a cloud in sight and only a slight haze (from the wood-burning stove that keeps us warm) between us and a screen of bright green conifers.

Pat is somewhere in the back of the cabin, I suspect in a cleaning frenzy, and I am sitting by the picture windows doing as little as possible.
Christmas music is filling the room and the dog is carrying a tennis ball around out on the deck, dropping it into the snow then pouncing on it, perfectly happy to entertain himself. I could spend an hour watching him watching the ball, listening to a great version of "Silent Night" that includes the story of how it was written for a church service.
After a big snow the barbecue grill is hard to find!

The Advent season always seems like positive anticipation for us, and a time for looking back across the year and years to memories of friends and places and family.

Forty years ago we were living in Florida, and daughter Ruth was a tow-headed baby with a perpetual smile. I was reporting on the manned space program for Gannett Newspapers, and there was one year when we were so busy that we never finished decorating the tree. Just a few balls and no tinsel, and off to work.

We took a scuba diving course and I talked my way into writing assignments in the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. Life was good then.

Friends from those years remain in our hearts today: Benton and Sandy Bingham, our first close neighbors and friends with whom we shared dogs, children, cars, hikes and joys and a few sorrows; Bob Bentley, my editor and friend through great newspaper opportunities, and battles; Burke and Beth Edwards, 20 years older than us but a couple that knew no barriers to friendship and who took us on our first sailing voyage to the Bahamas, and Pat's parents Bob and Florence Taylor, parents, friends and great grandparents.

Thirty years ago we moved to California, with Ruth and Zack and an old dog named Fang, finding a new life and new friends that blessed up for another twenty years. We were welcomed to the neighborhood, work, and church as if we belonged. And we did.
The Coley and Christie families brought us into their homes for holidays and shared
food and friendship. Zack grew up through baseball and soccer and Ruth went off to college.
C.K. McClatchy and Frank McCulloch and Erwin Potts treated me as a colleague at McClatchy Newspapers, gave me unstinting support, and were mentors and good examples of what a journalist could be. How many people can claim to have great honest bosses for a 20-year span?
Mark Vasche', Dave Cummerow, Ray Nish, Dick LeGrand, Rich Petersen, Susan Windemuth and many others at The Modesto Bee made coming to work a daily joy.
The people at Centenary United Methodist Church, particularly the Nelson family, helped us learn and grow and share, and provided a place or worship and celebration, and even backpacking.
We discovered Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, and began coming to Calaveras County to camp and ski and hike, finding a beautiful place that later became our home.
Life was good then.

Ten years ago we moved again, that time to Sacramento as empty-nesters, and a whole new world and group of colleagues and neighbors. I learned to spell "ombudsman," and even how to define it, had a chance to write again, and we learned the joys of living in a big city.
Our friends Michael and Sylvia rekindled our love for sailing and re-introduced us to the beautiful people of Mexico.
When I retired early we spent two years in Florida with Pat's dad, then came back to California to live in our mountains. Renewed friendships with the Grassmyers, new friends like Jeri and Gary, and the bonus that both our grown children and their children live with 20 miles.

We are surrounded by forests, which is a good reason for me to oppose clear-cutting, and the state park is a short distance away with roaring rivers, giant trees, wonderful employees and terrific volunteers.
Life is good now.
The dog, Rusty, loves the snow

Christmas Eve 2010 was a day between storms, snow is due Christmas day and a good time for quiet pondering. I had good intentions of going skiing today, but a good book trapped me late last night and I decided to sleep in and hang out instead. Maybe later we will go walk in the state park just down the road.

For now I just want to remember good friends, good times, and the blessings of Christmas.

So dear friends, named or not, you are all in my thoughts on this lovely Christmas Eve.

Alleluia indeed!Okay everybody sing real pretty!

Okay, we have had enough rain for a while

The "seasonal creek" runs through our property, but rarely this fast!

Camp Connell, Ca -- We were pretty happy when we had a long cool Spring, a mild summer and no forest fires within miles of where we live during the driest months of the year.
After several years of near-drought conditions it was a relief.
Fall was brief.
Snow started falling before Thanksgiving, and seemed as if it would not stop. We had six feet or so within two weeks, the ski resort opened early, and I managed two ski days without injury before Turkey Day.
Then the snow stopped at our elevation, we had a brief thaw, and then the rains came.
We lived a part of our lives in Florida so we are familiar with real rain, as opposed to what we normally get here in the mountains. Summer and Fall are dry here, while in Florida we could get four inches in an hour or so from one good summer thunderstorm. I think we lived here for several years before we even heard thunder.
In Florida you just pull off to the side of the road until it stops.
In California you wonder what the heck is going on.
The Winter of 2010-2011 is shaping up to be different in our mountains. It has been raining, really raining, for several days. Or weeks. I think I heard one of the TV guys say we are running about 150% of normal for snow pack before the normal heavy snow season begins. The rain must be three or four times normal for this time of year.
When you drive the roads of the Mother Lode country it looks like the Smokey Mountains, mist and fog and everything dripping wet. Beautiful, but very different from what we are used to.
We went by our daughter's home near Murphys today after church and Coyote Creek was out of its banks and into the road in large areas, around eight inches deep and getting deeper. All the gopher holes on their property were spouting water turned red by the mud. The gophers, presumably, have headed for higher ground.
My son Zack works at a ski resort at 7,000 feet and they have been shoveling for days to keep the place going. At that altitude it is almost all snow. They expect six to eight feet from this storm.
Here at our home at 5,000 feet it has rained and rained and rained. We've had 4 inches in the last two days, maybe a record. I suspect it will be ten inches or more from this storm by the end of the week.
The bridge to our neighbor's house is still above water, proof that FEMA was wrong and we are NOT in a flood zone.

The seasonal creek has gone ballistic, ripping down the hill below the house like white water rapids people pay to visit.
The wind has kicked up enough to bring down lots of limbs, and a tree or two We heard a big "boom" earlier but can't find out where it came from.
The latest series of storms to roar in off the Pacific came just as son Zack and Granddaughter Katie left to drive to Spokane Washington. At last report they are safe, but the first day of the trip was in pouring rain, and the last 300 miles or so have been in snow. They should arrive at Spokane tonight, where only two or three inches and cold temps are forecast.
They are fine, but as Zack said on the phone a while ago:"Thank God we are in the Subaru with snow tires." Lots of cars and trucks off on the side. (This is not a product placement advertisement: everyone here loves Subarus.)
Here the rain is still coming down as of 6 p.m. Sunday, but the temperature is dropping steadily. The expectation is that by 10 p.m. it will change to snow.
That figures, since I need to drive to the marina at San Francisco Bay to check on the boat, and it looks like a long day.
Pat will stay home and keep the fire going, take care of the nervous dog, and make soup. She will have the old pickup truck if she needs to escape. She will have quiet and beautiful snow for company.
And I will be driving in the rain.

The forecast is for rain and/or snow for the next five to seven days.

Santa better have his radar turned on.

This Christmas event Saturday was hoped-for as a sleigh ride, but the rain made it a covered carriage ride.


Note: I used to chuckle when Pat's dad included a detailed weather report in every letter and phone call from his Florida home. Now, I understand.

Snow way....

Camp Connell, Ca-- What we are experiencing is not the first snow of the year. That happened a few weeks ago with a polite three-inch covering that made good pictures but did not inconvenience anyone.
Today we are having what we call a dump. Twelve to 14 inches on Friday night, and an additional two feet or so (so far) since yesterday. The first of several we expect each winter, and this one came early.
It is beautiful, but the more years we live where winter is a reality, the less enamored I become with snow.
The snow plow has come by twice, and our lane is open enough to safely make it to the county road that connects us to the state highway.
But we opted to stay close to home after son Zack arrived this morning and warned us that the roads were extremely slick, and even careful drivers were sliding around playing bumper cars.
Yesterday afternoon Pat was driving home and just as she turned of the highway there was a young man beside his crushed pickup truck, looking a bit dazed. He told her he was alright, but his truck was demolished from the tree he slid into. His ATV had flown out of the back and landed nearby. His airbag inflated, though he said he was going so slow it didn't help much. He was driving down the mountain in his 4-wheel-drive vehicle when it began to slide sideways and he could not regain control.
This morning the local news website reporter trees down across a county road nearby, and several thousand people in our county without electric power.
We have to plan carefully any trip, even short ones. We carry chains, even for the all-wheel-drive Subaru and the four-wheel-drive truck. We carry shovels, drinking water and sleeping bag. And a First Aid Kit.
Just in case.
So this winter I have begun thinking about warm places, sunshine, and clear skies and roads.
Unfortunately our favorite sunny winter retreats have had recent setbacks.
The Pacific Coast of Mexico has changed through the last decade.
The resort area near Puerto Vallarta that we enjoyed for several years has become increasingly expensive, more isolated from Mexican people, and seems somehow less friendly than it once was, at least for me as a budget-minded visitor.
The beautiful little town of LaManzanilla on Tenacatita Bay is apparently as charming as ever, but Mexican politics, greedy and politically-connected resort developers and even some drug activity seem be be getting closer all the time.
The Florida that I used to know, as a child and a young adult, is disappearing faster than I can track. The coasts are now lined with condominiums, many of them empty or in the hands of the repo man, and the Everglades and "old Florida" beaches are dying faster than the aging population.
My native South -- Alabama and Georgia -- are not exactly winter travel destinations. I'd rather shovel snow off the deck than go through another cold wet winter that seems so typical in my memory.
The warm desert resorts of Southern California were interesting for a while, but require money by the bucket-load, and I have always been, and remain, cheap.

On the other hand, we've never been to Hawaii. Maybe it is time.

(Meanwhile, it is still snowing. Only three days into winter and I am ready for an escape. I think we'll walk to the general store for a candy bar.)

I'm Not Done Yet -- My Ten Year Plan

Camp Connell, CA -- Turning 70 years old has some advantages, and I've been looking for them.

(The downside is boring and nobody wants to hear about it.)

The upside is pretty darned good.

Here are ten top reasons 70 isn't so bad.

1. I'm still here.
2. Most of my parts are intact and in workable condition.
3. Pat still finds me amusing and tolerable and lovable.
4. My children are close by and tolerant of my eccentricities.
5. My grandchildren like me most of the time and act like I am important to them.
6. There are still things that I can do that may make a contribution to others, and at the very least does not do any harm.
7. Old friends get better and more important through the years. (You know who you are.)
8. New friends are a gift, a surprise and a joy. (You know who YOU are.)
9. I am surrounded by beauty every day. That includes Pat, the conifer forest, sun, water, snow and friends.
10. God is still working on me. I am not yet what I may someday be.

The list could, and does, go on much longer.

When I begin to grump about doctor appointments or bills or politicians, I remind myself that the good stuff has pretty much always outweighed the bad in my life.

I am no Pollyanna. I can worry myself into a snit as quickly as anyone. When people I love are sick, or out of work, or in need, or stressed, that bothers me.
The collapse of the real estate bubble and the stock market hurt our family too.
But in the long run, that doesn't amount to much.

The movie "Little Big Man" included the perfect metaphor for my limited experience with aging.

Martin Balsam played a snake oil salesman who befriends Dustin Hoffman's character. They keep running into each other through the passing years. At one point a drunken Hoffman looks up from the gutter to see a cheerful but older Balsam looking down at him from the wooden sidewalk. Balsam is wearing an eye patch, is missing a leg, uses crutches and has various other parts missing or scarred. He is battered by life.
A concerned Hoffman asks, "How ya doing Doc?"
And Balsam responds, "Well, they're whittling away at me but they ain't got to me yet." He departs cheerful, and visibly unaffected by life's scars, off to seek another adventure.
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What to do next?

As I start this eighth decade I plan to take the advice of my late friend and pastor Don Nelson who was asked by another friend what he should do when beset by doubts and fears and concerns.
When nothing else seems to work, Don told him, "go to work in the vineyard."

There are always things that need doing, people who need what you offer. Do that and the rest of those worries and concerns will fade or even disappear.

So Pat gave me the perfect birthday gift: a firefighter/trailworker's tool called a McLeod.

It's perfect for creating a clear path ahead.