Which made me think about my great-grandfather. A couple months ago, a 2nd cousin sent some pictures out to various family members. Pictures of my great-grandfather on my dad's side: Willis (WillyO?)
Here's a couple:
He was born in King, Texas roundabout 1885. Did some farm work, some music, worked as a field cook for a cattle drivers, handyman.
At some point after 1915 but before 1920, he made his way further West. Rode the rails, didn't pay for a ticket. Got to the Pacific. His carpentry skills got him a job helping to build a pier, in Venice, California. Bought some land in Venice, grew artichokes. Venice wasn't then what it is now, had troubles, bad farming anyways. He moved with his family to the Imperial Valley for a while, then was back in LA in the late 30s early 40s.
I never met him. He died in 1965, nine years before I was born. I asked my dad about him a little while back. "You wouldn't have liked him," he said. Apparently he was a gruff man. My dad's aunt, Willis's daughter, says that when she was young, Willis's mother came from Texas to live with them. Apparently she was a bit of a terror. Cussin', pipe smokin', chewin', never a kind word for her son. A Texas woman, who had lived a hard Texas life.
The West was a hard place before technology made it easy and that shaped the sort of people who lived here before the 1950s.
My great-grandfather was a hard working man, who raised a family of good children. His wife, my great-grandmother, was a saintly woman according to my dad, a wonderful and kind and prayerful woman. She came from Nebraska.
Here he is late in life with my great-grandmother Etta. When he saw this picture a couple years ago, my dad teared up a bit, said this is the first time he saw his grandfather's smile.
I may not have liked him, but I still have to think he was a good man. A good man in the way the West made good men back then. Those sorts of men don't exist anymore, and maybe that is a good thing too. A hard life is not something we'd want, if that's what it takes. Now that land in Venice Beach, I wouldn't mind having that still in the family...
A few more pics of him at various ages:
69 comments:
Wow. Tough as nails; the way a man had to be back then to survive in the West. You are deeply blessed to have those old photographs, and that genetic legacy as well.
Thank you for sharing both with us.
I see some resemblance to you Paddy.
What a great story. One that would make a great TV series. About the lives of the real people who made up the West.
Sometime around the year 2000, I lost an irreplaceable album of me from when I was a baby. I believe I left it behind at a furnished room I stayed at for a few months.
I went back to try to retrieve it, but it was too late.
I keep hoping someone will return it, eventually. It has my name on it, and the name of my father and mother.
The most likelihood scenario is that it got thrown out.
If air conditioning hadn't been invented, Phoenix would have about 10,000 people. Max.
Reminds me of the story Goat on a Cow.
You have to listen for a while to get to the part where the story is relevant to Paddy's post.
Angry, bitter people who become parents tend to remain angry and bitter people. Besides, everything stunk like shit around the world until around 1935 or so. Most of the world still smells like shit. I guess that would make anyone angry and bitter.
It was a hard life not only in the west, but for all our ancestors. Most of us have it very easy compared to them. Life was difficult for most people in the 19th century and early 20th century. It was harder still before that.
And it was even tougher outside of North America (which was a land of relative abundance).
Thanks for sharing Paddy.
Lonesome Dove was fiction, but the underlying stories McMurtry based it on were real enough.
I was originally supposed to be a film with Jimmy Stewart as McCrea, John Wayne as Call, and Henry Fonda as Jake Spoon, but Ford talked Wayne out of it and the movie fell apart.
McMurtry resurrected the project a year later as a novel and the mini series followed. While it would have been interesting to see how Stewart, Wayne and Fonda would have done it, the material lends itself to a longer mini series format. Plus Peter Bogdanovich was going to direct the movie and while I like some of his stuff, he would have fucked it up.
Imagine if that movie would have been made!
But you know what?
I think the miniseries was better than that movie would have been. As great as those actors were they were past it by then.
I know people whose direct ancestors were forced marched from Massachusetts to Quebec (in the snow, on foot, after their younger children were killed because they could not keep up). Or who fought at Valley Forge. Or who served in the Civil War. Life was tough back in the day.
Now we get bent out of shape if our dinner reservations are screwed up.
Duvall was perfectly cast for that roll at the time it was made.
While I am sure Stewart, Wayne and Fonda could have done a great job, I also do not see how you could do justice to that material if you tried to squeeze it in two hours.
Interesting stuff.
In Louis L'Amour's words, a good man was one who kept to his word and what was loosely seen as the Code of the West (you didn't mistreat women, kids, old folks or horses, gave a day's work for a day's pay, etc.); a bad man was a bad one to tangle with - he could be moral as Sunday morning, but, if he decided to fight, you were in for it.
Texas, as well as OK, because of the oil boom in 1900, remained the Wild West a bit longer than other places, similar to Cripple Creek in CO and AK during the Gold Rush era.
In 1905, Teddy Roosevelt wanted to make Bat Masterson, a true fast gun, the US Marshal in OK, but Bat declined on grounds of age and the fact it was still "woolly" and a young man's job. Many counties and towns in west TX were founded and incorporated until the early 20th century.
Evi L. Bloggerlady said...
Lonesome Dove was fiction, but the underlying stories McMurtry based it on were real enough.
I was originally supposed to be a film with Jimmy Stewart as McCrea, John Wayne as Call, and Henry Fonda as Jake Spoon, but Ford talked Wayne out of it and the movie fell apart.
McMurtry resurrected the project a year later as a novel and the mini series followed. While it would have been interesting to see how Stewart, Wayne and Fonda would have done it, the material lends itself to a longer mini series format. Plus Peter Bogdanovich was going to direct the movie and while I like some of his stuff, he would have fucked it up.
Elegiac Westerns were disasters at the box office and generally have only found some acceptance through TV.
Not a fan of McMurtry - I think he's one of those people who would rather be a native New Yorker than a native Texan - much of his early stuff ("Hud", "Best Little...") was very negative in its portrayal of his home state.
(and, before anybody asks, no, I've never seen "Lonesome", largely because it's got Danny Glover, the most ungrateful token who ever set foot in Hollyweird)
Well you are missing a bet ed because it is pretty good. Danny Glover is not a big part of it but Robert Duvall is brilliant as is Tommy Lee Jones. Surprising Robert Urich is also great as Jake Spoon and I love Diane Lane who is hot stuff.
It is well worth a watch for Western fans. We get so little quality stuff we can't turn up our nose when actors we hate are in it. Just sayn'
I think you could make a old style John Ford Western and make a lot of money but you would have to market it in a different way.
It can't go through the normal studio blockbuster system since that can't work. The millions in promotional costs and added on graft would sink it.
You would have to follow the model of some of these Christian movie makers like Kirk Cameron. They manage to make movies that are extremely profitable in relationship to the amount they spend to create it. There is a market. But no one will attempt to hit it.
So TV remains the best bet.
Trooper York said...
I think you could make a old style John Ford Western and make a lot of money but you would have to market it in a different way.
It can't go through the normal studio blockbuster system since that can't work. The millions in promotional costs and added on graft would sink it.
I've seen bits and pieces and it's just never grabbed me - and I'm a Duvall fan from 1964 (also remember Agent K from one of the soaps my sister watched about 30 years ago).
Ford was mostly an independent working through Republic, one of the smaller studios for much of his career.
Hawks OTOH did a little of everything, mostly for the big studios and found his niche in Westerns rather late.
A good Western can still be made for the movies, it's the Lefty politics that has loused them up for 40 years. In some ways, I'd rather see something by Michael Curtiz ("Dodge City" does have its moments) than a sermon about the poor mistreated red man (who got a better shake from us than he would have given if he had the chance - witness Ev's story, that's the story of captives in the French and Indian Wars).
PaddyO, I think men of that generation were generally more cantankerous. Great photos, I love old photos.
IMO, Lonesome Dove is the best miniseries ever. The only miscast part was Angelica Huston. She was ok, but all the other roles were cast almost perfectly. Every winter, we pick a snowy weekend, and watch it. I love the name, "Pea Eye."
Great pics, Paddy, you're lucky to have them. The one where he and Etta are smiling is precious.
Ed, do yourself a favor and watch it. The funny thing about it, to me, is that Tommy Lee Jones does not look like himself at all. And I don't think Diane Lane was ever more lovely.
The last picture is posed, and the subject must stand still for the shutter and the blur on the envelope and hand shows it is not so steady for one or two seconds, but why make a point to pose with a letter? To show he can read.
In ancient times when people made enough to leave statues of themselves or stele they would put "scribe" because that was something worth noting unless they are aristocrats where it is assumed they can read and bragging about that would be a step or two down.
ndspinelli said...
PaddyO, I think men of that generation were generally more cantankerous. Great photos, I love old photos.
Not necessarily.
While a lot of them went by Davy Crockett's motto, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead", and, once set on their path, were unstoppable, a lot of Westerners, particularly cowboys, were known for their wry sense of humor.
Sheepherders were known as men of substance, deep thinkers.
The prospector was the eternal optimist.
Sodbusters, OTOH, tended to be rather grim.
Trooper York said...
and I love Diane Lane who is hot stuff.
I watched her in Nights of Rodanthe and I wanted to see her get killed in an explosion or something. She was awful in it. In fact the whole movie was shit.
The "Old West" is not as distant as some younger than this geezer like to think. When I was in college (62-66) I used to spend a lot summer-school weekends in Cottonport, La riding horses bare-back at the small plantation/large farm of the grandmother of one of my fraternity brothers. Old granny, then in her 70s would still get up at 4am to supervise the blacks who lived on the place while they hitched up the mules to the plows (imagine that, even in 1965 she eschewed the tractor! Also raised cattle) At any rate one evening at the diner table the subject of the southwest came up (My mother and I had just driven to Cali and back from Ill to bring her sister back to live after her husband died the previous summer) and when the subj of Arizona came up Granny opined: "Oh yes, Arizona--of course the last time I was thru there it was still a Territory." LOL!!
If air conditioning hadn't been invented, Phoenix would have about 10,000 people. Max.
And Florida would be a sleepy little state too. There are days when I hate air conditioning, but today isn't one of them.
Besides, everything stunk like shit around the world until around 1935 or so. Most of the world still smells like shit. I guess that would make anyone angry and bitter.
Says the guy with a bird taking a dump on his head!
Icepick said...
If air conditioning hadn't been invented, Phoenix would have about 10,000 people. Max.
And Florida would be a sleepy little state too. There are days when I hate air conditioning, but today isn't one of them.
Even more enticing, DC would be a ghost town May through September.
Maybe somebody can do a study linking A/C to impotence.
PS DC in August reminds you the place is still a swamp. Was down there for a short week when I was with the IRS and I showered 3 times a day.
Those photos are treasures.
And the Venice land - ah if only!
DC in August reminds you the place is still a swamp. Was down there for a short week when I was with the IRS and I showered 3 times a day.
DC in August is over-rated as far as discomfort goes. It's not that bad.
Even more enticing, DC would be a ghost town May through September.
I'm working on my own constitution, just for fun. Part of it will be to make the seat of the legislative and executive branches Death Valley from May to September, and Nome Alaska the rest of the year. No reason for the bastards to get comfy anywhere.
I heard an author interviewed on the radio about 8 or so years ago. He wrote a book about how air conditioning changed our country. Hell man, I lived in KC in 1980 when there were 17 days straight reaching 100. We had no air conditioning. My car didn't have air and I drove it on the job as an investigator. I would have to change clothes @ lunchtime.
Old photos are treasures. Just think how lost we will be in a few generations or even this next generation when all of our photos are digital and as ephemeral as smoke. Who will know about us? No one.
My grandfather was born in Rock Springs Wyoming in 1894. HIS father had immigrated from Wales in the 1880's (actually, ran away since the family story is that he was in quite a bit of trouble) and later brought his girlfriend/wife to meet him> Neither of them spoke English and had to learn. He was a miner in the coal mines. I have some photos somewhere of my Great Grandfather Reese and baby son Owen on a "new fangled" bicycle in about 1895. Another photo of my Great Grandmother who lived in Rock Springs until she died at the cabin that they built in the 1880's. A VERY stern, no nonsense looking woman.
We are such wimps anymore.
"We are such whimps anymore."
DBQ, I have a photo of my grandfather Glick (my mothers side of the family) riding a horse at age 105! LOL.
(PS: And not looking a day over a healthy 70!)
@AprilApple/
"And the Venice land...."
My aunt Elsie's husband and his brother owned some orange groves (thru family inheritance) just outside L.A. in 1945 and sold them for $20,000. A nice sum that they invested well and became millionaires in the post-war stock market boom, but they would have done perhaps even better if they could have afforded to hold on to it. The location of the groves? Smack dab in the center of what's now Century City, lol!
Just think how lost we will be in a few generations or even this next generation when all of our photos are digital and as ephemeral as smoke. Who will know about us? No one
The NSA will know. And Google.
A voice in the past for Paddy O: Chirbit
Virgil - If only.. But at least they did well back then.
We are such wimps anymore.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. Most of my ancestors were here for a long time, though one set of great grandparents immigrated from Scotland in the 19th Century. There were some tough bastards in that crowd. One great-to-the-fifth grandfather was known for having killed the last Indian in his part of western Virginia. Prior to that occasion the Indians had once shot him outside his cabin. One of his sons started shooting back while his wife went out and dragged him back into the cabin. He was a tough customer.
But the toughest man I have ever heard of in the family, tougher even than the first Henry Flesher and the man who survived Pickett's Charge (he was on the Confederate side, and isn't a direct ancestor), is from my mother's generation. Hubert "Bud" Flesher was an Air Force pilot that got shot down over North Vietnam. He got caught and spent years in the Hanoi Hilton. Not only did he have the highest rating (along with one or two others) for resisting torture (yes, the military used to track such things, don't know if they still do), he was also the first of the POWs released to get back to flying. He was back in fighter jets within four months of returning to the US, IIRC. This after getting released and publicly stating that he didn't know what the Hell we were doing in Vietnam anyway.
....
Hell, for that matter, I don't think old Pop Conley was any tougher than I am. He broke a hip racing horses and refused to have a doctor set it properly. Over time his broken leg ended up a good deal shorter than his good leg. But I walked around for several weeks on a leg with a major break in the femur. Steel plates and screws were holding it together, I thought it was healing, so I cast down my crutches and walkers and switched to a cane. The pain wasn't that bad. It wasn't until I saw an x-ray that I realized I still have many months to go on the crutches. But my great-grandfather's leg situation didn't sound that tough any more. We were both stubborn as Hell, though I was a little less stupid when confronted with evidence.
Yeah, we've got it easier, but that doesn't mean we're less tough, just less tested.
And frankly I've had all the testing I want. The birth of my child and its aftermath were all the testing I want to bother with. The C-section went haywire and my daughter slipped into my wife's abdominal cavity. By the time they got her out she had an Apgar score of one, and was blue all over. Staying calm for my wife was test enough.
As was the next few days when my wife almost died from complications. I came too close to burying my wife and child together. I don't need any more tests, thank you very much.
At least he wasn't a rodeo clown.
Another tough contemporary of Bud Flesher was MOH winner Lance Sijan, who was in a sister F-4 squadron @ DaNang and a fellow 1st/Lt and was shot down shortly after I arrived. Hit Wiki for his exploits--talk about a tough guy and going above and beyond! The AFA also has a memorial to him and the USAF a Leadership Award named after him.
ndspinelli said...
I heard an author interviewed on the radio about 8 or so years ago. He wrote a book about how air conditioning changed our country. Hell man, I lived in KC in 1980 when there were 17 days straight reaching 100. We had no air conditioning. My car didn't have air and I drove it on the job as an investigator. I would have to change clothes @ lunchtime.
In Philadelphia, in the summer of 1980, we had 6 weeks of 95 (often 100) or better temps and humidity of 90+. Even the A/C wasn't totally effective and you cringed at the thought of going outside. When you finally got to sleep, you woke up in a pool of sweat.
I've never had air conditioning. I bought a new 2011 Jeep, and that was my first vehicle with air.
If it weren't for air conditioning the South would not have risen.
And CNCN would not be in Hotlanta.
"A voice in the past for Paddy O"
Love it!
And yeah, the pictures are a treasure. Found in a box somewhere recently. No one I know had seen them before.
I forgot to tell the story that emphasized the good part of Willis. During WW2, he was a farmer in eastern LA county. Had Japanese neighbors, also farmers. They were taken away to internment camps. Willis farmed their land, two different neighbors, for them while they were interned, paying costs through their produce.
When they were released, they came back to still working farms. He saved the land for them, from the government. Meanwhile, his sons were overseas fighting, one was a marine who landed on assorted highly contested Pacific Islands. One of the neighbors gave him a family heirloom, a Samurai sword, which my uncle still has.
Not a man I would like, but a good man. The comment above about farmers being grim is, I think, true.
What I also started wondering, is what Grandpa Willis thought of Wyatt Earp. There's an opinion I would like to hear.
My sister is into ancestry.com and has been tracking down old family pictures.
Dang it when they don't have dates or names. She just sent one to us today of my dad (as a young man) and his sister (who was 16 years older) with her adult son. Dad has a young woman with him. Who is she?
Not my mom, we had to inform the "nephew's" grandson who has just discovered this side of the family.
It's actually a lot of fun. And the old photos... Think of how precious they are, compared to the thousands we take digitally these days.
Lem -- so sorry about your pictures. Who knows... maybe they will show up yet. They may be in someone's attic or closet and ... there is the internet now.
JAL, I also belong to Ancestry.com, and have went so far as to have had my DNA tested. I now have close to 1,700 cousins. One is my 2nd cousin. Never knew about her before, but she has lots of pictures of my dad and grandmother and others of our family. Our grandmothers were sisters.
virgil, that Lance Sijan was one tough man. Thanks for pointing me to that.
As I said, I don't know that our ancestors were tougher, just more tested.
@ PaddyO
he was a farmer in eastern LA county. Had Japanese neighbors, also farmers
Your story reminds me of my best girlfriend's family during the War. Japanese. Her father had been in and exibit from the Japanese government for the Chicago World's Fair in 1933 and 'defected' when he met his American Japanese wife. He was a 'master' samuri swordsman and a representative from the Japanese military. Shortly after defecting and getting married, they moved to the Santa Clara Valley and he had a vegetable/truck farming business. When the war came, since he was illegally in the country and a Japanese military officer, to boot, they were sent to Tulelake, where their oldest daughter was born, in the internment camp.
After the war when they came back it was the same story. Good hearted neighbors had run the farm and returned it to them. Gives you faith in humanity. He went on to have a successful landscaping business and did very well in the housing boom after the war in the Santa Clara Valley.
The past is really not as distant as we think and the past can easily be repeated IF we let it.
You know what is really weird and sad?
I'll tell you. When we are perusing antique and second hand stores and come upon photos of people who are long dead. How did they end up in a bin in a store? Didn't anyone CARE to keep those family mementos? Who would throw away their Grandmother's wedding photos, their Uncle's military posings?
So sad. These are people who had lives, stories, aspirations, hopes, dreams and WTF......they get tossed out like some used dishes.
Paddy O said...
What I also started wondering, is what Grandpa Willis thought of Wyatt Earp. There's an opinion I would like to hear.
Unless he'd spent time in Tombstone in the early 1880s or in KS in the mid 70s, he probably never heard of him until he saw something about him in the movies.
Wyatt's rep was mostly local until Josephine started pushing his story in the 20s.
Bat Masterson and Bill Hickok were nationally known in their time, but not the Earps.
Didn't anyone CARE to keep those family mementos? Who would throw away their Grandmother's wedding photos, their Uncle's military posings?
So sad. These are people who had lives, stories, aspirations, hopes, dreams and WTF......they get tossed out like some used dishes.
As one explanation, you assume that those people didn't shit over all their family members their entire lives. I'd throw my mother's ashes in the trash if they came to me. Or maybe I'd mix them in with Dad's just to make her spirit rage. Nah, I couldn't do that to Dad. He wasn't a good father nor a good man, but he suffered enough from her when he was alive.
So to Hell with that evil old bitch that was my mother and all her mementos. She abused everyone around her her entire life, and deserves to be forgotten save as the terrible example she was.
The most important thing I've learned these last few years is that people that wish you ill should not be tolerated, forgiven or coddled. If you can't get away from them, make it clear that you won't tolerate their bullshit, never back down, and never expect them to do the right thing. And that is even more imperative for family than it is strangers.
So yeah, I can see people wanting to get rid of the memories of Grandmother and Uncle. Grandmother and Uncle aren't always good people.
The most important thing I've learned these last few years is that people that wish you ill should not be tolerated, forgiven or coddled.
Well, now you are singing my song. Maybe we could do a harmony?
But still....it is sad that no one cared for whatever reason. Sure....maybe they were horrible people and no one cared to retain a memory of them (I would burn the sonsabitches up but that's just me).... or the family just reached a dead end and there was no one left to care.
Still weird to see those photos and photo albums for sale along with the silverware, dishes and collectables. I often wonder WHO would buy them unless there was some sort of other historical object of interest.
Ah well.
Gonna find me a life baby, way out west.
I often wonder WHO would buy them unless there was some sort of other historical object of interest.
Someone who wants or needs to manufacture a new family history, perhaps. Personally I'm just starting a new one. My father-in-law did something similar, so my daughter will be getting that from three-quarters of the grandparents.
Well, now you are singing my song. Maybe we could do a harmony?
I skipped the forgiveness thread for a reason.
The last picture is posed, and the subject must stand still for the shutter and the blur on the envelope and hand shows it is not so steady for one or two seconds...
David Mamet surmised that the reason why the photographer said 1, 2, 3 before taking the picture harkens back to those early days of photography.
edutcher, The nights are the worst during a heat wave. If you can sleep comfortably it's bearable during the day. But, when it's midnight and still in the 90's it is hell!
DBQ, I drove through Rock Springs in April on my way home for San Diego. The old prison is still there. I was hoping to take a tour but it was closed.
ndspinelli said...
edutcher, The nights are the worst during a heat wave. If you can sleep comfortably it's bearable during the day. But, when it's midnight and still in the 90's it is hell!
Our street was tree-lined, lot of shady spots in the day, with good street lights intermittently spaced.
On a hot, humid night, you could look down it and, in the dark spots, see the air, it was so stuffy.
OT, but what the hey, this should liven things up as everybody comes back from vaca:
400 US missiles, diverted to Benghazi (guess where) are been stolen and have fallen into "the hands of some very ugly people.".
He looked handsome in youth, durable in his majority, and kindly in old age. Orwell said that you don't have the face you deserve until forty. My codicil would be that if you can look at the world with kindly eyes in your seventies, the trip wasn't a dead end.
I lived my youth without air conditioning, but that wasn't the worst of it. I remember b&w tvs with rabbit ears and perpetual vertical roll. Those were hard days. But they toughened me up.
First: PaddyO, this is so cool. I'm not sure its a good thing these men don't exist anymore, though.
On the topic of Lonesome Dove. I loved that miniseries. Don't deprive yourself of the riches of it, edutcher.
I'll admit to having a huge crush on Robert Duvall, but he's earned it with his acting, and especially in that series.
Back to this post: Are we rich here at Lem's, or what? Wow. I am loving getting to know the contributors through what they're sharing.
Diane Lane looked great in Lonesome Dove, but prostitutes had a hard life in the West and did not keep their looks very long.
"prostitutes had a hard life in the West"
Except for high-priced call girls, prostitutes have a hard life everywhere. Its the farm wives of the old west that had it hard. The old feminist canard about women never working is absurd. Farm wives ALWAYS worked, and women used to run ranches and farms when they had to.
BTW, Women had the vote in 1890 in Wyoming. Men hoped it would attract females, but it seems women were more interested in luxury than the franchise.
I lived in small western town while a young boy and there were plenty of retired cowboys and "old west" types about. Generally, they were very friendly toward small boys who found them fascinating and asked a lot of dumb questions.
Some of them told stories with a wry sense of humor. Others were tipped-lipped and grumpy. I got the impression they were OK - but intolerant of laziness or foolishness.
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