Even Daddy would be surprised to learn the truth behind this photograph!

The portrait of my grandfather, Richard W. Wiggins II, hangs in my living room.  I thought it was taken in 1913 when he played Joseph in a play about the Biblical story of Joseph of the coat of many colors.  Many times I had heard the retelling of the event that had taken place before my father’s birth.  So, I suppose my father could be excused for having gotten the facts a bit out of order. 

 

Granddad's portrait in my living room.

 

I had heard about the play being presented in the Grand Opera House in Meridian, MS , about 1913. The family must have been present because the tale is that Granddad’s niece, Annabelle, was in the audience.  When she saw her Uncle Dick on the stage, she hollered out a greeting to him right in the middle of the performance.  After all she was just a small child, Daddy said. 

I have held the wig that my daddy said was a part of Granddad’s costume as Joseph.  I have memories of seeing the sandals he is wearing in the photo, but maybe that memory is the kind that seems to be born of hearing a story so many times that reality and true memory seem to blur.

I found a program from the event that had been put away as a souvenir and remained out of sight until I had to empty the house on 15^th avenue for Mama and Daddy to sell.  I was too busy to look through the program at the time, so I, too, put away the program along with smaller versions of the photograph on my living room hall.  There was also a printer’s woodblock of the photograph that had been used to print Granddad’s image in costume in the playbill.  The printer’s block was the same image as the portrait in my living room.  I had a “complete” souvenir package of my grandfather’s stage appearance as Joseph.

Then the day came that I had time to bring out the “playbill” and photograph the pages to document it for the family history.  That was the day that the truth was revealed to me.   If I had only taken the time to even read the cover when I found it, the tale would have gone up in smoke.  The booklet is titled “Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.  Valley of Meridian.  Orient of Mississippi”.  Inside the program I learned that it was the  forty-first reunion held in February of 1920 at the Scottish Rite Cathedral on Twenty-third Avenue.  How could I have not noticed that!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrong date.  Wrong place. Wrong event.  Right photograph.  Yes, the portrait that hangs on my living room wall is the same portrait of my grandfather in the program booklet , but he is not identified as Joseph son of Jacob.  The caption reads, “ R. W. Wiggins, 32 Degree, as Zarababel, in the Fifteenth Degree.”  I don’t know any of the secrets of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, so I can’t explain the caption.  I can only assume that he had some role in the rites of the degree process in the Masonic lodge.

If I had not been caught up in the story Daddy told me from the time I was a child, I would have noticed some clues as to the errors in the story.  The strongest clue is the reference to my grandfather’s niece who in a childish way called out to him from the audience.  I could have put two and two together to realize that she was much too old in 1913 to have behaved in such a manner.  She was about 12 years old then. 

Granddad may have actually acted in a play in the Opera House.  There are other costume pieces and stage equipment that were found in the attic and outbuildings at the 15^th Avenue house.  Annabelle could have, as a young child, greeted her uncle on stage.  But that is not the story of the photograph.  Daddy may have heard the various stories and may have as a child blended the facts into his own memory.  He certainly was not trying to fool me or to pass on a false story.  He really thought the photograph represented Joseph.  But the truth, in the end, does come out.  And that truth is a good story all its own.

The house on 15th Avenue. 100 years of a family's memories.

1908 Four Generation Wiggins-Peavey family.  Original photo in possession of author.

15th Avenue house.  Date of photo pre-1950. Original photo in the possession of the author.

Photos of three, or four, or sometimes five, generations are a staple of family photo albums.  They are usually taken at family reunions, weddings, funerals and sometimes at the birthday celebration of the oldest generation or the birth of the youngest.  Not many photos are taken because all four generations live in the same house. 

What you see in the photo of the four people above are my great-great-grandmother in the rocking chair to the left.  Her daughter (my great-grandmother and my paternal grandfather's mother) sits sternly next to her.  One of my great-grandmother's sons (and half-brother to my grandfather) is the only gentleman in the photo.  His daughter  (my grandfather's niece) is the only child.  Their names are almost as long as the description of the seating arrangement because both women were married twice.

 The four people on the porch were not the only occupants of the house.  My grandfather was there.  He bought the house for his mother in 1901.  He had just probably turned 21 and he wanted his mother to live in a house that she did not have to move (or "remove" from as they said back then) when the landlord decided to sell his rental property.  It had happened to them before.  My grandfather's half-brother had a wife and, by the time of the 1910 census an additional daughter of his who all lived in the house.  Also in the 1910 census the other half-brother had moved in with his wife and three sons.  Twelve people occupied a six room house that did not have an indoor toilet at the time. 

As the years came and went, at least four additional family members cycled in and out as residents of the house on 15th Avenue.  One of those family members was my father who was born in the house.  They left bits and pieces of their lives there.  My great grandfather who died prior to this photo, left his tool chest that he had used since he was a carpenter in Green County, AL, in the 1850s.  His step-father-in- law left the tools of his shoemaker's trade.  My grandfather's half brother who is pictured left remnants of some of his inventions.  As children, we played with the funny sunglass- looking pieces of plastic that I did not learn until a few years ago were part of his prototype made for the patent he obtained for a "glare shield".  He also left behind some of the pay telephones from the telephone companies he managed. 

Many pieces of furniture also lasted longer than the people who used them.  The wicker rocker that my GGGrandmother sits in on that porch now sits in my sister's home.  At one time it found a place in my own home.  Some of the furniture that my carpenter great-grandfather made are in my home and the home of one of my daughters.  Some furniture awaits in storage for younger generations to have in their homes. 

And of course there were the family Bibles and the photographs and a few letters.  There were the quilts, tatting, embroidery and even a few pieces of clothing made by the women in the family who were masterful with a needle and thread. 

It was a hard decision for my parents who were the last of the generations to occupy the house as a primary residence to finally sell the home.  After all, it had been the place where memories had been made for the family for 100 years.  In 2001, my parents moved to live near me.  In 2003 they decided it was time for a new family to make memories there.  It must have been the right decision because, in an old neighborhood where "for sale" signs would sit for years, the house of 15th Avenue was under contract within two weeks.

I might drive by the house on my way home after my week at Genealogy Camp.  The current residents are restoring the house.  I can't say their choice of paint would be my choice.  But their choice to love the house of my family's memories definitely gets my OK.

One man behind the men on D-Day. How Daddy played his part.

Daddy on cold day in England wearing a sweater from the Red Cross.  Original photo in the possession of the author.

Daddy in fatigues at Knettishall RAF, Suffolk, England.  Original in the possession of the author.

"Daddy, what did you do on D-Day?"  we would ask when the subject of WW II came up.

"Not much", he would always say.  "I was on leave.  The base was on lock-down and I couldn't get back on."

All through our childhood our father played down his military service.  He made it sound to us that he pretty much goofed off all those years he spent at Knettieshall RAF in Suffolk, England.  It wasn't until I was an adult and my husband and I got to see his papers from his time in service that I learned the truth.  Jimmy, my husband, was the first to realize what Daddy had done during the war.  Jimmy started asking questions and he got answers that Daddy never shared with Lydia and me.

The papers Jimmy was looking at were Daddy's certificates of his pre-deployment training.  I knew he had spent time in Pocatello Idaho and maybe in Salt Lake City.  I didn't know what kind of training he had been doing. His separation papers said that he calibrated and made minor parts for the Norden (Norten?) bomb sight and the Honeywell automatic pilot.  Daddy had told us he had worked on B-17s.  He had prepared all the planes from that air field that were among the first planes to fly over the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.  He wasn't there in the planes that day.  But without his precision work on those bombsights and autopilots, the success of the men who did fly would not have been achieved. 

To further emphasize the importance of his role, we eventually learned that he was one of only two men on the base who calibrated the sights.  Daddy finally told us that he worked under armed guard to protect the security of the bombsights.  Sounds to me like Dad played an important role on D-Day.  He may have been on leave the day the planes flew, but without his preparation on those planes and that of countless other men who did prep work and stayed behind, D-Day could not have happened.

A few months ago, Lydia and I decided to do a little research on Daddy's time in service.  We found internet sites with information and pictures of Knettieshall RAF.  Lydia found a site that had pictures of the nose art of some of the B-17s at that air field.  When she enlarged the photos, she noticed that one called "Gremlin Gus II" had a man in the nose canopy who appeared to be working on something inside that area of the plane.  It sure looked liked Daddy.  Other websites on the Norden bombsite indicated that the nose canopy was the location of the sight. Since only one other man on base did the same type work that Daddy did, it is a 50% chance that it is Daddy.

  I definitely like to believe that I have had a glimpse of my daddy doing what he did almost seven decades ago getting the planes ready for the men who flew on D-Day.  It is ok that he was on leave the actual day of the Normandy invasion.  Daddy's job was already done.

It pays for a Mom to have a talented son who understands things about computers that are unfathomable to her!

Notice something new?  Look at the top of the page.  My son, John, has created my very own personal graphic for my blog.  He has done some very creative art projects on computers that I have seen.  This is the very first time I have been not only the recipient, but also the subject of one of  his creations.  I love this new graphic.  Thank you so much, John.  His inspiration was  my first grade school photo.  He even included my little hair barrette. I am sure he will be as surprised as me to see that I was able to insert the new design into my blog layout without any outside help.  This helps to make the blog page my own.

Back in the 70s, camping in the Great Smoky Mountains meant be prepared for BEARS!

When Jimmy and I first started camping in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the greatest attraction for us was the beauty, the peacefulness and the bears.  My only experience with the Smokys in traveling with my parents had been one day trip from Knoxville where we saw a couple of bears along the side of the road causing a “bear jam” of cars and family photographers snapping souvenir shots of the bewildered bear.  I had no idea that camping overnight in the parks campgrounds could bring me face to face with multiple bears every evening and, sometimes, in the morning as we sipped our coffee.

Jimmy and I were young and camped in our bargain canvas tent sleeping on the hard ground.  Jimmy had camped many times with his family as a kid in these very same camp grounds and he knew “the drill”.  1. Eat your evening meal before sunset.  2. Lock your ice chest in your car between meals.  3. Leave no food on your picnic table at night (unless you are seeking bear-type visitors). 4. Never, never eat or keep food inside your tent.  He told me that I would get an advanced warning when bears were in camp because I would hear other campers banging on pots and pans to scare the bears away.  It did not occur to my naïve mind that I might possible be that first person who spotted the bear approaching.

Bear on the side of the road.  Not a good idea for these folks.  Original photo in possession of author.

Black Bear at Smokemont Campground. Original photo in possession of author.
 

Bear on top of picnic table.  Original photo in possession of author.

The bears that make the Smoky Mountains their playground are Black Bears.  They are smaller than the Grizzly bears found in the Rockies and Alaska.  Their smaller size does not mean smaller danger.  They have great strength, long claws and sharp teeth embedded in strong jaws.  The park visitor center has displays of the dangers and damage done by bears to items like lunch boxes, etc.  I knew this was not a petting zoo experience.  But I was excited to see the creatures moving around the tents.

 

 

 

Over several years of camping in the Smokys, Jimmy and I experienced several memorable bear encounters which we attempted to record on film.  That was not easy to do considering the fur color against the blackness of the late night campground.  Sometimes you have to look closely at our old photos to make out the shape.  But we did get a few shots for the album.  Fortunately, the snapshots of the moments that make up memories don’t need Photoshop to make the image clearer.

Once we watched a bear open a jar of jelly someone had left on a table.  The bear lay on top of the picnic table on his back with the jar in his paws and the lid in his jaws.  He clamped down on the lid and rotated the jar in his paws.  The lid was soon history and his tongue scooped out the jelly all the way to the bottom of the jar. 

Another time we watched a man who did not believe the advice given him by seasoned campers about eating before sunset.  The man set out his Coleman stove and proceeded to fry chicken for his family.  I know the aroma was like ringing a dinner bell for the bears already spotted in camp.  The man was so intent in preparing the meal that he did not notice the bear approaching.  The bear quietly climbed on the table bench and sat waiting for his supper.  The man placed the chicken on a plate and as he sat the plate on the table, he noticed the bear.  The man screamed, grabbed his Coleman stove and ran inside his camper on the back of his pickup truck.  I think he broke all the rules that night. True Story!

Once we arrived back at camp after a day of sightseeing too late to eat before sunset.  I had a migraine and Jimmy said he would prepare a quick meal of hotdogs before the bears came around.  I laid down in the camper to rest (we had upgraded by then).  Within minutes Jimmy was sticking his head in the door of the camper announcing that we had to go back into town to get some supper.  The bear had enjoyed the hotdogs that were meant for us.   

I don’t think that bear encounters are as numerous now as they were back in the 70s when we were a young couple looking for a fun, inexpensive vacation.  I don’t know if the bear population is dwindling or if the rangers are keeping the bear population and the human population separated.  My last visit to the park about ten years ago did not produce even one bear sighting.  I am glad I have the memories.