Lori Writes - Biographies, Life Stories, Memoir Consultations - Leave a Legacy - Writing Services from Lori Whittle in Sarasota, loriwrites.com, www.loriwrites.com, Florida - Writing a Biography, Writing a Life Story, Biographer, Personal Biographer, Sarasota Biographer, Florida Biographer, Ft. Myers Biographer, Tampa Biographer Writing Memoirs, Recording Memoirs, Interviewing, writing, editing, and organizing material, Photo inclusion, publishing, Printing, Interviewing Biographies, writing Biographies, editing Biographies, organizing material Biographies, publishing Biographies, Printing Biographies

Ancestors
History
A lost way of life
Relationships
Family
Recreation
Heartbreak
Controversial
Reminiscences

(Biography)
Many of Vic’s maternal relatives called him “June” when he was younger because his name is Victor Wilson, Junior; a few older family members continue to call Vic “June”. He says, “Nobody has the right name in the Hanford tribe. On my father’s side, I was ‘Vic, Junior.’” All of Vic’s grandparents spoke English and all either grew up in Florida or moved to Florida after the Civil War. Vic’s maternal grandmother, Gertrude Beacon Hanford, grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi. She was quite educated, the family having had a live-in teacher as she grew up in Mississippi. Over a period of 3-to-4 years, Gert moved to Florida in a wagon with her family to homestead in Venice. She had four brothers and sisters. Fran, Vic’s mother, never believed this account and maintained its author “a damned liar.” Vic’s maternal grandfather, Jasper “Jap” Hanford, grew up outside Gainesville, Florida. Jap had six brothers and sisters, each of whose first name started with “J”.

(Memoir)
Mary Ann was oldest of five daughters born to Johann Peter Gaertner and Magdalen Bouillon. In 1833, when Mary Ann was ten years old, the family emigrated from France to New Orleans, possibly with Magdalen’s sister, Ursala. The next spring, they moved to Oldenburg, Indiana. In 1843, Mary Ann married Franz Joseph Huber and they moved back to New Orleans where she worked as a clerk and he worked in a “wholesale establishment”. In a loose-leaf booklet on family history, this is written: “It is said that Abraham Lincoln was trying on gloves where (Mary Ann) was clerking. He tore one while trying it on and handed the pair back to her.” After the birth and death of their first child, Mary Ann and Franz Joseph moved back to Oldenburg, Indiana.

back to top

(Memoir)
My paternal grandfather’s name was Anton Elsbernd. Anton’s mother, my great grandmother, Mary Moellers, was born in 1861 in Festina, Iowa. Her father, Henry Moellers, born 1823, was one of the earliest settlers in Festina, arriving with his younger brother Bernard only eight years after the Iowa territory was opened to white settlers. He emigrated in 1846 at the age of 23 from Telgte, Westfalen, Germany. Winnebago Indians still lived in the area on a reservation, having been earlier relocated from east of the Mississippi. Soldiers and a priest were housed in the fort at Fort Atkinson to protect and serve the Indians. In 1848 these same Indians were again relocated to Minnesota. In 1856 Henry married Anna Tegelkamp (born 1828) who had also emigrated from Telgte, Westfalen.

(Biography)
Martin was about 17 years old when his father started working outside the farm. It was during the Depression. Martin said, “Roosevelt had that corn and hog program. People were supposed to raise less corn and less hogs. Then they had to go measure the land yet to make sure that they complied with it. There was too much corn and hogs. See that was the trouble. People didn’t have no money so they couldn’t buy any food or anything so they had way too big a crop of corn so they had to cut back on the acres and then they cut back on the hogs. Then people got hired to go around the farms and check the fields and also check how many hogs they had. Oh, that was quite a thing and then some farmers, they didn’t believe in that, you know, they tried to raise all the hogs they could. Well, then they got fined or something. I don’t know what happened and that made them mad. And they had what they called a ‘hog kill’. You were supposed to kill them little pigs if you had too many. Dad always said that was the simplest thing out: if you got that many sows, you got that many pigs. Well, if you had to have less pigs, keep a couple sows less. That was no problem but some of them were just bull-headed; they thought they knew more. That was the beginning of the farm program that they got now yet.”

back to top

(Biography)
John, his father and brothers cut trees and hauled wood on their farm throughout the year to supply enough wood for both heating the house and making boards. They used a handsaw to fell trees that were anywhere from one-and-a-half to five feet in diameter. The smaller trees were burr oak and the bigger ones were cottonwood. John says, “Elms were tough and really weren’t good for anything because boards and stuff would warp. Oak was good and cottonwood trees were alright for sheeting and so on. We loaded them up and hauled them to Reick’s Sawmill in Dunbar. They could make anything you wanted. It took 15 minutes with two people to saw a 50-60 foot tree. The trick was to get them to fall right. You had to study which way they were leaning a little bit. You had to chip out part in the direction of the fall and then saw the other side. Sometimes the tree didn’t fall; it got caught in another tree. Then we had to hook a team of horses to pull it away. Once the tree was down, we had to saw it up by hand into pieces so we could handle it. We split it in 12-foot lengths so 2-3 people could lift it on the wagon using a ramp and haul it to the woodshed by the house. If it was really heavy, the horses would drag it. Then you would go out and get more wood until you got what you thought was enough. When you got enough, you would hire someone with a saw and a couple of neighbors would get together and you’d saw wood for 6-7 hours into blocks 12-16 inches long and stack them in the woodshed. We split them by driving in wedges or drilling holes for blasting. We would put in the blasting powder and then a fuse; you had to be careful you didn’t break that fuse when you were filling it with ground or something to pack it. Then you’d light the fuse and get out of the way! The powder would expand and split the length. If the darn thing didn’t go off after about so long, the only thing you could do is leave it go until the next day. You didn’t want to get too close because you didn’t know what was going to happen.”

(Memoir)
Facing the right end of the table was a large wood stove on which all the cooking was done. Food was plentiful, earthy, and just plain good. Although meals each day except Friday (Catholic eat-no-meat-for-penance day) consisted of meat raised on the farm, boiled potatoes with gravy, homegrown vegetables, and freshly-made dessert, I particularly liked Grandma’s homemade noodles, a rare treat. Grandma washed dishes on the wood stove. She would draw two huge pans of cold water from the sink in the entranceway and set them on the stove to heat. One pan was for washing and one for rinsing. Homemade lye soap was placed in a small basket at one end of a wire utensil. As the water heated, the utensil with soap was vigorously shaken back and forth to release soap into the water. When the water was warm, Grandma started to wash dishes; the longer she washed dishes, the hotter the water became. By the time she got to the pots and pans, she couldn’t even put her hands in the water.

back to top

(Biography)
Tom’s relationship with his father was troubled. Tom says, “I was born too soon. Dad didn’t want a family so soon. Dad wanted a super-stud kind of boy. I was anything but that; Jim was. He had curly long hair. When Mother finally took him to the barber and had the curls cut off, she nearly died. Jim was a star football player at Sarasota High School. I was the team manager, meaning I was an underling. Dad wanted me to play any sport. He gave me a great big, mammoth glove and I was going to be the damn catcher. Then he would throw this bullet at me. I didn’t receive it very well….I don’t know. I was just not the kind of son he wanted; Jim was the apple of his eye. He wasn’t that overt about it…he was as far as I was concerned. The other two boys were his kind of people. Mother was always accepting. She would spank me but she was on my side all the time. I wouldn’t say I was a ‘momma’s boy’; maybe others would. I have forgiven my dad but it took me 20 years.”

(Memoir)
Grandma and Hilary had a particularly close relationship. It wasn’t spoken but I could certainly feel the bond. I longed for a special relationship with either one of them but I was never able to achieve the closeness I wanted. In retrospect, I am not sure either of them could have given me what I wanted. It seemed to me that I was Grandchild #20, just one of many. Grandma was tired and Hilary was aloof. For years I told myself that Hilary wanted to be fair to all of us but, in reality, I think she just wasn’t interested. As an adult, I once wrote to her and asked her if she wanted to be my “pen pal”. She never answered my letter. Although my whole childhood was marked by emotional distance, it was Hilary and Grandma to whom I wanted to be close. Their lack of noticing me was a disappointment I continue to carry.

back to top

(Memoir)
As a child, I spent little time thinking about the life my grandparents had lived. They had few choices, a fact that may account for the great number of relatives who became nuns or priests. My grandparents were in their 80s by the time I could interact with them. I don’t remember ever having a conversation with my grandfather. I spent time with my grandmother but don’t remember really having any conversation with her. I mostly watched her. She was blind but always knew when I visited because I was the only grandchild with blond hair. She said she could see lightness around my head. Although I found my grandfather to be stern and scary, I always enjoyed visiting their house. It was dark in a rich sort of way and harkened back to another era. While my aunts and uncles talked constantly about the need to upgrade the house, I thought it was fine as it was. Everyone had a great respect for my grandparents. I don’t remember anyone ever saying a critical thing about either of them.

back to top

(Memoir)
On other Sundays we would head out to the fields to see what we could find. Unlike my dad, Ralph’s farming was not labor-intensive on a daily basis. He had beef cattle that grazed in pastures instead of a dairy herd that had to be milked twice each day. The fields seemed to be wilder, not so intensely tended. There was an era that seemed to go on for years when we made periodic pilgrimages to the “back 40“ to witness the decaying state of a large bovine animal . The first time I saw it, I questioned repeatedly why nobody had moved this animal when it died. I never received an answer beyond, “Why go through all that trouble?” So we meandered out there, talking and pointing out things along the way. When we reached the carcass, we stood around, gaping and commenting on what had changed since the last viewing.

back to top

(Biography)
Willard was studying out of town one summer while his wife continued working at the university library. He said, “Jean was under tremendous stress and pressure. One day I called and she told me that the doctor said she had breast cancer. Jean had had a breast cyst removed. She was on top of that all the time because her aunt had died of breast cancer. She had frequent mammograms. I rushed home and she was operated on the next day. I couldn’t believe it! Jean survived the operation and the doctors said they got it all. She recovered and got a falsie. We accepted it as reality, complete recovery. We believed it because we wanted to. That year was a good year for both of us. Of course, the cancer came back. The dying year was one helluva mess…horrible. I said, ‘We’ll fight it.’ She said she was not going to have the other breast removed. I raised hell and told her the boys were not ready to be without a mother and I was not ready to be without a wife. I browbeat her into having the other damn breast removed. That was just awful; that was the worst thing I ever did. The surgery was of no consequence at all; it didn’t stop anything. The last year was hell, just awful. I couldn’t accept that she was going to die.”

(Biography)
While Andrew and Emma lived in Georgia, Emma unexpectedly got pregnant. Andrew says, “I just didn’t want any kids. We were told she couldn’t get pregnant. I didn’t want her to get pregnant but she was happy being pregnant. I just couldn’t accept that. I felt trapped, I guess. I was an SOB, a bastard throughout her pregnancy. We were just living. I didn’t talk to her.” Susan Emma Smith was born December 1951 in Savannah. Andrew goes on, “Immediately upon birth, her spine didn’t fuse. I felt guilty---like I helped cause it. The doctor said she would die within one week.” Andrew and Emma left their infant in the hospital, as instructed, and never saw her again. She lived for a year. Andrew and Emma were notified when she died. Andrew says, “We had a funeral in Savannah. It was traumatic. After this occurrence, I realized my mistake. Emma accepted it as a reality. It was a bad year. Emma went back to work. I grew up a little bit. We were fairly compatible after that. I was the bad guy.”

back to top

(Biography)
Ted’s time in Asia was a stark departure from his previous life. He says, “Half the university staff in Okinawa was gay. I learned how to get around Okinawa---meaning where to find gay bars---from an excellent friend. It was a whole new experience for me. The fact that I didn’t speak Japanese was no problem.” Ted continues, “I had all kinds of women friends in South Carolina…all expecting me to marry them, particularly one of them. In Okinawa, I met a good female friend, a professor, who wanted to have sex. I told her why I didn’t and she was not happy. We became very good friends. I had been latent gay for a long time; I wanted to have sex with a man. The first time I had sex with a man was with an English professor at the university when I was a grad student. It seemed much easier with a man; I didn’t have to play the charade. I had sex with men intermittently while I was married. I never discussed it with Helen but I suspect she knew.”

back to top

“One of the highlights in my life was learning to fly. It really was great. Solo…all by myself…sort of a beautiful fog down below me…heavenly.”

Is there something you believed in for a long time that you no longer believe in? “I used to believe in Jesus and all that stuff. I really did when I was a senior in high school. I got religion. By the time I finished college, I didn’t believe a damn thing. College was interrupted by three years wasted in the military. I saw too many people who were ‘good Christians’ and I didn’t want to be like them. Their morals were all screwed up.”

back to top