This will probably become a throw away blog. So what. It's better I take out my frustrations here instead of beating my wife. Before I retired I thought I would pull together information on my dad and his family. As far as I know it had never been done. I thought perhaps a grand child or two might someday be interested. Dad's parents were very poor. I'm certain about that because that's about as far back as any information about dad's family goes. That's it.
So I gathered the few photos of the Webbs and patched together a short biography of my dad. It didn't take long and I enjoyed doing it. After I finished with my dad's family, I started collecting information about my mothers family, the Chapmans. It was a serious mistake. There are so many photos, letters and other written monographs that I doubt my ability to finish in my lifetime.
Jeez-Louise, there are hundreds (maybe thousands), of photographs taken between 1800 and now. There are written records from the 17th century forward. I have just started going through scrap books, newspaper clippings, family bibles, and a mile long written ancestral track my Aunt Jo researched in the Mormon Church library in Salt Lake. I'm tired already.
It is a forbidding task but I'm going to give it a go. Perhaps not the way you expect. As little incidents occur to me I will write them here. When finished I'll arrange them in some sort of order. (Promises. Promises.)
1940 I came into the house shaking snow off and stamping my galoshes on the kitchen floor. I have no idea where I had been, but apparently I had been missing for a few days? Grandma Chapman told me to be quiet as my father was in bed sleeping. This was in the middle of the day and I thought it was a strange time for him to be sleeping. Then my very pregnant mother arrived in our tiny kitchen and helped me out of my winter clothes. The ribbon connecting my mittens got snagged and broke somewhere in my sleeves, and my spring ear muffs snapped across the floor.
My mother then told me that dad fell off the roof and broke his back. He had been to the hospital and had just come home. She said that Dad was in a neck-to-knees cast and had just dropped off to sleep. I wanted to see him for myself. I didn't have a clue about what a "cast" was. We tip toed to the bedroom door, she opened it a crack and dad was in full snore and shaking the bed. He was on top of the covers in kind of a big white rock thing with his head, arms, and legs sticking out.
My first thought should have been something like does it hurt? Or was it painful? But the fact is that the first words out of my mouth were "how is he gonna go to the bathroom"?
Mom was expecting a baby any day and looked as if she had swallowed a large ball. Sure enough, baby Diane arrived in a middle of a roaring blizzard a few days later.
After church and while I was still dressed up and had clean ears, the family would venture somewhere in Minneapolis to Aunt Tilly's house. Old Tilly was one of Grandma Chapman's sisters. Two old guys lived in her house and mostly on the front porch. One was Sam and had longish silver white hair, and the other was Bert and I don't think he had any hair at all. They were about the same age and were related, but I don't know how. I think they were my cousins several times removed?
Anyway, as far as I know, Sam and Bert had just two things to do;
1. They both were clerks at an old fashioned hardware store.
2. When they were not working they rocked in old
Craftsman style rocking chairs on Tilly's front porch.
When I visited they did one more;
3. They sat and watched me get dirty and throw stones at the
squirrels in the yard while the adults inside the house
talked about all the gossip since they last saw each other.
World War II was on everyones mind. Dad was 4-F because of his eyes and bad back. The Army Air Force (AAF) was in the news every day and for me it was the most compelling and glamorous of the services. When the gang played war, I was always the Air Force Leutenant.
My favorite go-to-church outfit was an Air Force style suit complete with a white belt around the middle and a sash belt down from my shoulders across my chest. I was 5 years old and ready to be a pilot. Alas, nobody listened to me, and I was only allowed to wear my special outfit to church. That was supposed to be my big treat - and was probably the only way they could get me to go to sunday school.
After church (Lake Harriet Methodist) Dad, Mom and I drove to a nearby lake where the ice was so thick they let cars drive on it. We had a two door 1935 Chevy and I stood on the back seat. Dad drove right down a cul-de-sac street that ended about fifty feet from the lake. We were going not very fast and he drove right straight out onto the lake before turning the steering wheel and beginning to spin the car. I think it made a few dozen revolutions - but it was probably only a dozen or so. I was thrilled beyond words. As we pussyfooted slowly off the lake I begged for another run. Nope. Not that day but maybe another time. They said they had to get back home to Grandma Chapman who was watching baby Diane there.
My kindergarten days were at Brookside Elementary. I went to school on a big orange bus with my blanket (for the rest period) and a Gene Autry or Roy Rogers metal lunch box. I (thankfully) don't remember much about grades 1 through 4 except that I had a lot of friends at that time. Wyman Carlsen and Ray Rierson were my closest buddies, then there was Billie and Todd Craven, and the big bully of the area, Punkie North.
I was (I'm embarassed to say) something of a "cry baby" with one heck of a temper. I think I lost as many fights as I won. I usually went crying home. Punkie North was bigger and liked to tease me often about my red hair and freckles. I'd pull his hair or stamp on his foot - and a good fight would begin. The result was me on the ground in the dirt kicking, scratching, hitting and almost always losing. I had a lot of bloody noses and other bruises. I think Punkie always won - but I went back for more anyway.
In the 5th grade there was a major change in my education. My teacher then was a pretty blonde from Bemiji, Minnesota (home of Babe and the Blue Ox). First: I discovered women, Second: Miss Pretty Blondie told my mother that she suspected I might have bad eyesight. Mom took me to the eye doctor and found out I couldn't see the wall, much less his eye chart. I got glasses quick and when I did the entire world changed for me. I've not been without eyeglasses since.
I don't know what happened to my dream teacher but I have saved somewhere in my treasure trove a little red autograph book - that she signed. No one can say that I don't save stuff - and if that ain't trivia what is?
When I started this I intended to write down a few recollections of the Chapman family, so let's get back to business.
Richard Chapman Grandfather
Elizabeth Chapman Grandmother
Josephine Chapman Daughter
Seymour Chapman Son
Warren F. Chapman Son
Richard Chapman Son
Annabeth Chapman Daughter
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Josephine Chapman & John Low
Margaret Low
Seymour Chapman & Myrtle
Jean Chapman
Shirley Chapman
Warren F. Chapman & Erma
Marylou Chapman
Richard Chapman & Sylvia
No Children
Annabeth Chapman & Dixon Webb, Sr.
Dixon Webb, Jr.
Diane Webb
Warren Webb
Charlotte Webb
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My grandfather, Richard Chapman, died before I was born. My grandmother Elizabeth then moved to North Minneapolis with my mother Annabeth. I don't know if any of the other children accompanied her. My father Dixon, Sr. had moved from Greenbay, Wisconsin to Minneapolis, and rented a room next door to Lizzie and Annabeth. Dixon, Sr. and Annabeth were eventually married in Calvary Methodist Church.
At the time of their marraige Dixon, Sr. had a job with Sears Roebuck in Minneapolis but soon was let go because of the impending war. The war was going strong in Europe and the United States was about to join the other Allied Nations to fight in Hitler's war. Jobs were hard to find at the time Dad lost his, but he finally was hired as a traveling salesman for a company that published the then popular (Hulbert's?) Books of the Bible.
more later . . .
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