The Journey: Growing up in the ’40S and ’50S—Across 9,000 Miles!

By C. Graham Tyner

It might be hard to believe, but there was a time before TVs, computers, iPhones, and iPads. You may think that at worst this sounds unbelievable, and that at best it seems boring—so what did kids do to occupy their time?

 

In The Journey, author Graham Tyner shares what it was like growing up in the forties and fifties—and across nine thousand miles—in America, a time when the nation’s spirits were high and when kids went outside to play! As a tribute to his children and grandchildren, Tyner offers a family history before providing a window into what a wonderful time it was to be a kid in our glorious country when he was growing up. He also chronicles his adventures acrossAmerica, where he moved eleven times and traveled a combined nine thousand miles while attending ten different schools.

 

With so many gadgets and distractions, it is all too easy to lose the importance of these simple but remarkable times. Yet this period was a wonderful time to be a kid, and even today, its lessons can offer the next generation a model for the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Nov 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781480869127

C. Graham Tyner

C. Graham Tyner is a semiretired independent geologist, and he has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Baylor University; he spent most of his career as an oil and gas prospecting geologist. He has been involved in writing scientific articles, but The Journey is his first book. He and his wife live in the northern suburbs of Houston, Texas.

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Copyright © 2018 C. Graham Tyner.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-6913-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6914-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6912-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018912446

Archway Publishing rev. date: 01/04/2023

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1Georgia Cracker and the Lady

Chapter 2WWII is Raging!

Chapter 3Where’s The Valley?

Chapter 4A Bike Too Big

Chapter 5A Step Back in Time

Chapter 6No Shoes, No Problem

Chapter 7Surrounded By Fruit Orchards!

Chapter 8Perpetual Motion!

Chapter 9Thriving in the Desert!

Chapter 10A Farmer Is Discovered!

Chapter 11Can You Ever Go Back?

Chapter 12Florida’s Springs are Amazing!

Chapter 13Home, at Last!

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Source Notes

For my family and extended family, fellow old-

timers and the young people of today

PREFACE

THE IDEA of writing this book never crossed my mind until, while visiting with my former business partner during one of our breaks from pouring over our maps (we are geoscientists involved in the oil and gas industry), he mentioned that he has written several pages about his childhood, along with pertinent pictures to give to his children. After further quizzing him about some of the things he had written and how he added the pictures, I began to think about what a good idea that was. My children and grand-children don’t have a clue about the simplicity of my childhood and what a wonderful time it was to be a kid in our glorious country at that time. I thought to myself, I can do that also and began to formulate an outline in my mind as how to go about it and began organizing my thoughts.

As the book reveals, I have remembered a lot of intricate details about the places we lived, to the point of being a little scary, of how much I remembered. I never realized that I had this ability or I guess talent to recall and recount scenes to such an exacting detail. Each place we lived was amazingly clear in my memory and the more I thought about them the more I remembered, to where the pages grew into a book of 342 pages. The book also shows that my uncles and aunts (from both sides) formed an integral part of my childhood. With never knowing my grandparents, who passed away years before I was born, they filled that void for me, which I was always very thankful for. Each chapter focuses on the moves we made (11 times), from the 1st through the 12th grade (1945 – 1957), traveling a combined 9000 miles while attending 10 different schools!

I have also tried to make it a book of enlightenment about what the background setting, interesting natural features and environment was like at each place we lived during that time. I guess it was my natural curiosity of being a geologist (future) and an affinity for detail revealing itself again. But I was a very energetic, curious little boy and those places just stuck in my mind that I can plainly recall. If you wish to take The Journey with me to those long lost, simple but remarkable times, I believe you’ll find the book worth your time and hopefully educational of what a family of five without dependable income had to do to survive. The old saying, a rolling stone gathers no moss, but gets a heck of a polish, is very fitting!

INTRODUCTION

IT’S UNFORTUNATE that as a young child you don’t have much of a sense of time. Time spent with family, friends or just by yourself doing something that’s going to become a nice memory to dwell on, when you’re older. I had a lot of such memories as a kid in the 1940s, 1950s and as I got older, realized were unique to that time period. A time period in which a loaf of bread was 10 cents, a gallon of gas 15 cents, average car $1,250, average annual wage of $2,600, a postage stamp 3 cents and all obviously much less than today’s dollars due to inflation. But things not costing as much added to the period’s simplicity. If you had $15 dollars in your pocket, you would feel pretty loaded and could cover all your expenses for a whole week or longer. ¹

This time period also produced what many believe was the Greatest Generation, consisting of all those young men and women who both directly and indirectly participated in WWII (1940s). Many of which making the ultimate sacrifice and helping to keep the free world safe from tyrannical regimes. Part of my childhood was during that stressful period. But the word divisive was an unknown back then. The country was united, spirit was high, everyone was pulling together and pride to be an American was busting at the seams. Our flag was flying everywhere and the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance were learned in school at an early age, with the Pledge said at first period every day. This feel good to be an American spirit carried over throughout my childhood and helped shaped my beliefs later as an adult. The following is my story and attempt to convey a picture of what it was like back then as a kid, during that safe and secure classic time in American history, which I believe resulted in the greatest childhood.

With television not available for most of those years and the computer with all its games just someone’s dream and a cell phone not even thought of and building things out of Legos far in the future, it must have been boring times for kids, right? Wrong!! It was, I believe the most wonderful time to be a kid. We were never bored! So not having all those technology gadgets to play with, what did kids do? The answer is we played outside! After coming home from school, we got a snack from mom, went outdoors and stayed out until dark or time for supper – every day and we played hard! Or if we had chores to do, we got those done first and then we played. At least that’s what I did and most other kids as well. We lived outside!

It all started for me in Baltimore, Maryland, in May, 1939, which pretty much coincided with the start of WWII. But of course I don’t remember much until the later part of the war – 1945. I remember the names Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo were definitely the bad guys and I would sometimes pretend that Tojo was a grapefruit and would beat him to a pulp with a stick. We lived in Donna, Texas, at the time, which was located in the Rio Grande Valley farm belt (southernmost tip of Texas) and citrus fruit – oranges, grapefruit trees were everywhere.

With no television everyone listened to the radio for news about the war and you always got an update when you went to the movies. Before the main attraction began, Movietone News (in black and white) would come on with the RKO rooster crowing and the latest war news would be shown about action in Europe, as well as the Pacific. Even at that young age I remember the names of Eisenhower, Patton, the Nazis, the Japs and the Allies. I didn’t realize then, but many years later seeing some of those old newsreels, they were always pretty upbeat about how the Allies were doing. Obviously, keeping the home morale up was pretty important back then.

I also remember my mother saying later about those war years, that certain foods were short of supply, like sugar, butter, some canned goods and gasoline were rationed. In fact, starting in 1942, every family was required to keep a War Ration Book, that contained coupons for practically everything and the number of coupons depended on the size of your family. Mom said that you couldn’t buy a rationed item without giving the grocer the right ration stamp. Once a person’s ration stamps were used up for a month, you couldn’t buy any more of that type of food. You had to wait until the next month and the rationing did not end until 1946. ²

But my two siblings (two older sisters Peggy, Franny) and I always had enough to eat, never too fancy but always plenty of it. I remember sometimes having Corn Starch for cereal for breakfast (mixed with water and heated), not knowing that was not normally used for hot cereal. I know that we ate a lot of Spam and my mother used to fry baloney for breakfast, with grits always being included. But like I said, we never went hungry and seemed just like everyone else.

1

GEORGIA CRACKER

AND THE LADY

Family History

Before I get to talking about me, I probably should say something about my family background. My mother and dad (your great grandparents on my side) were about as different as night and day. They were really good examples of the opposites attract theory.

Fathers Side

My Dad, Clarence James Tyner, was born in July, 1910 and raised in southeast Georgia near the small town of Colquitt and the Alabama border. Dad said southeast Georgia looked a lot like southeast Texas, pretty flat with a lot of pine trees and occasional low, swampy places.

Since my dad’s father was a carpenter and because there were seven children (four boys and three girls), I assume he built them a three- bedroom house - one for the boys, one for the girls and one for the parents. But my dad never said how many rooms their house had. I know there was no running water in the house and kerosene lamps were used for lighting. An outhouse was far from the house in the backyard. Dad said they had a hand dug well for drinking water and a roof cistern that caught water for bathing and cleaning clothes, etc. In the summertime, he said they dug a pretty deep hole in the ground and buried ice (covered with straw) to keep it as long as possible before it melted. He said the house also had a few adjoining acres where they grew many of the vegetables they ate and was attended to primarily by his older brothers, until he got old enough to help. I’m also sure this was done walking behind a plow pulled by a mule!

He also said they had a smokehouse, where his dad and his dad’s brothers (his uncles) would get together usually on the first really cold Saturday and slaughter a hog. They would cut it up into slabs of bacon, hams and also made rings of sausage. It always had to be on a cold day after a front had come in to keep the hog meat from quickly spoiling. All the meat was then hung up in the smokehouse to begin the smoking process, which he said lasted for weeks.

So it seems as if my dad’s home was rather modest and probably like a lot of the folks who lived and scratched out a living in that area of rural Georgia during that time. An early picture of the entire family, when my dad’s mother was still living (including uncles, aunts, maternal grandparents and cousins) shows a well-dressed family, gathered around a Thanksgiving holiday spread of food. So they didn’t give me the impression that they were poverty stricken– just hard working. Everyone contributed their share to help the family. My dad looks to be two or three years old, which would date the picture to approximately 1912-1913.

His Father, William Isom Tyner (Will), my grandfather (1869 - 1936) as I mentioned, made his living as a carpenter – building houses, barns and the like, around that part of southeast Georgia. Those were the days before electric portable tools (such as saws, etc.); everything was done by hand. My dad said, that his father would saw all the framing for an entire house by hand, using saw horses, a saw and a square, measuring and cutting the studs, rafters, joists and other materials, to the very last piece of wood needed. Then he would erect, nail and frame the entire house without having to re-cut. That was pretty amazing! Obviously, my dad’s father was pretty handy with tools. Apparently, my dad must have worked around his father while growing up, because he learned the painting trade, which is part of the finishing process of any construction.

But I would like to make this point, my dad wasn’t just a painter; he was a master at his craft. You didn’t have the benefit of going to a Lowe’s, Home Depot, Sherwin-Williams store, or similar store back then (they didn’t exist) to pick the color you wanted from a chip and have it blended by machine. Paint supplies were mostly sold at lumberyard stores and contractors worked out of those stores, which furnished them leads.

When mixing a color, you first had to know which raw color pigments (in tubes) to choose and then know how much of each to squeeze into a gallon or five gallon can of white paint to create the desired color. My dad was an artist at that. He could look at a color, remember it in his head, go to the store that furnished paint and mix and match perfectly the desired color.

He was also a perfectionist and demanded that from his men, when he became a painting contractor, or they were shortly let go. He also demanded that of me. If he worked on a house or commercial building on Saturdays, he many times took me with him – starting at the young age of nine and always found something for me to do as a young painter’s helper. This continued throughout my childhood and teen years, working with my dad on Saturday’s and during the summers. Over time, I became pretty good at helping him and I noticed that he always gave me the nastiest jobs that painters don’t like to do, such as sanding, puttying, scraping, painting tight places like closets and bathrooms (prime coat), washing the brushes and cleaning up in general. I once asked him about that and he said, I want to make sure you don’t like it and become a painter like me. To which I replied, dad you don’t have anything to worry about! I knew that somehow, someway, I was going to go to college.

My dad had a pretty hard up-bringing. He was the youngest of six brothers and sisters and suffered the tragedy of losing his Mother, Zella Laura (Lonie) Wilson Tyner (1867 - 1915), at the young age of five. Starting with the oldest, his six siblings were Elmer, Walter, Eula, Ida Mae, Wynn and Laura Maude. My dad told me that he didn’t remember much about his mother. But he was told that while she was riding in a horse-drawn buggy on July 4, the horse was startled by a fire-cracker and started running, which caused her to lose her balance and fall out of the buggy, hitting her head on a tree stump and killing her instantly. As a result of this, during my entire childhood, my dad didn’t like for us to pop fire crackers on that date, at least not around him.

Apparently not long after the death of his mother, his father remarried (maybe a year or so later) and had four more children (my Dad’s step-siblings), three girls and a boy. In order, they were Lena, Calvin, Tina and Molly. He said he was not very close with his step-mother, who seemed to not have much time for him because of having to take care of his four baby step-siblings. He said he couldn’t wait until he got old enough to leave. He also said his dad was a pretty hard and strict disciplinarian. He could still remember (as a young boy), his dad calling out on cold winter mornings, Clarence, Clarence, get up, make a fire (for the fireplace) and get that cow milked! Dad said, those words and the memory of those cold, predawn mornings of gathering wood, building a fire and milking the cow stuck with him throughout his life.

My dad was full of stories about how it was growing up in rural southeast Georgia. He told about how he and some other young boys would lasso and take turns riding a calf that had wandered off from its herd. With the one who would stay on the longest getting a treat at the local general store that each boy would divvy up for. Also, he told how they would climb thin pine saplings as high as they could till the saplings bent over, and then letting go for a good ride back to the ground. They were a bunch of rough and ready boys, who sometimes after getting a treat at the local general store, would be egged on by the owner to fight for a moon pie, given to the overall winner. Apparently growing up in the rural south, fist fighting and rough housing in general were pretty common. It was a way to obtain bragging rights as to who was the toughest. I’ll never forget the name of one my dad’s boyhood friends, Blackshear Mears. With a name like that, you had better be pretty tough!

Dad left home when he was around sixteen or seventeen and hooked up with his brother Walter, who was twelve years older. During the early days of the Great Depression, (1928 – 1930), the two brothers rode the train rails all over the country, sleeping in hobo jungles and doing all kinds of odd jobs to survive. This included among other things, bailing wheat from Kansas to Montana and working as a lineman for a telephone company in the dead of winter in Minnesota. He said they weren’t really hobos, but there were literally thousands of men riding the rails back then while looking for work, wherever they could find it.

He said a job they had in Duluth, Minnesota was with the area telephone company. Although the temperature was well below freezing, he and Walter were connecting lines near the top of the poles. One day while doing so, dad said one of his gloves fell to the ground. He had no choice but to finish the job before coming down and as a result he suffered frostbite. This caused his hand and fingers to turn red. He went to the foreman and showed him his hand. The foreman said, go stick it in the snow, which he then did and said it took about an hour for it to feel normal again. Rubbing snow or placing a frostbitten hand into the snow was considered a normal practice until the mid-1950s. In the late 50’s, it was determined that rubbing snow is actually a detriment to treating frostbite and the best treatment is some form of heat, perhaps in stages depending on the severity of the frostbite. Over the years, I heard my dad tell that story several times and he always claimed, the coldest place he had ever been in the life was winter time in Duluth, Minnesota.

Georgia and the South in general were segregated during the time of my dad’s upbringing and remained so until the late 60’s, early 70’s. White and Black people each had their place and it was accepted that way. Whites and Blacks did not mix in schools, churches, restaurants, restrooms, drinking fountains and so on. My dad also said you didn’t see any Black people on the streets or in towns after dark, at least in the small towns in southeast Georgia. Yes there was a lot of prejudice toward Black people back then. But if that was the way you were raised and for all the generations before you, you just didn’t know any different. I also saw that as a young boy growing up in Florida especially. The Black people rode in the very back of the busses and almost all the drinking fountains said, white only.

A story has been told about my dad from one of my older cousins (it seemed everyone was older than me!), when we were living in Baltimore. When in a tavern sitting at the bar, a Black man proceeded to sit next to him and my dad without hesitation knocked him off his stool. The bartender jumped into the situation before it escalated any further and saying, something like, hold on Johnny South, we don’t do that up here. My grandchildren are probably going to be appalled at that, but I’m sure my dad had a few beers and it’s still no excuse for hitting the man. But you have to try and realize the environment my dad was raised in was a world apart from ours today. Where he came from Black men didn’t do that. I’m sure it was a partially inebriated reflexive reaction on my dad’s part. The United States, especially the south was a very structured, segregated society. What’s that saying, before you judge, walk a mile in another man’s shoes. That of course is impossible and especially since it was many, many decades ago - a totally different time in our country.

My dad was the product of a harsh father and a young step-mother, who didn’t seem to have a lot of time for him. He also had no higher than a fourth grade education. His older brothers apparently never paid him much attention, but he did get along with one of his sisters, Laura Maude. She was the sibling that he loved the most and apparently she looked after him. She was only a few years older and I could tell from the times we were around her (lived in Colquitt, GA), they were close.

But out of that background how did my dad become the morally good, honest, loving, caring, hardworking, dedicated father/husband that he was? Who was my father’s mentor or mentors that he copied, who made him the excellent master craftsman (painter/artist) that he became? Who taught him to strive for perfection in everything he did and never accept second best? Was his mentor his father, even though a harsh disciplinarian that he couldn’t wait to be free of? All the years I worked around him, I never heard him say who it was that he gave credit to, for inspiring him to always do his best, teaching him his trade, a person he admired. I regret that I didn’t think to quiz him about that before he passed. All of my older cousins who knew him well have also passed on, so I guess I’ll never figure it out.

I once asked my dad why he became a painter. What motivated him to that craft? He said, he really did enjoy taking something that was run-down and brighten it up, making it look pretty. He had a passion to make things look their best, through the use of as paint brush. Whether it was a newly constructed house, a commercial establishment or bringing back to life a 100 year old historical home, he wanted to make it shine and apply his painting talent in every way possible to make that happen. That’s what apparently motivated him every day. It was just that simple.

But my dad was not perfect because especially during my youth, he did drink quite a lot (mainly beer – Budweiser his favorite). It didn’t take many beers for him to become incoherent, which was an embarrassment, if around extended members of the family or our playmates. When older I once asked him why he always just drank Budweiser. He said, because no matter where you are in this country, the one beer that you can always count on tasting the same is Budweiser. Apparently, back in those days there weren’t that many beers that had perfected the brewing process nationwide like Budweiser.

But his excessive drinking did cause some problems and it was a strain on the family during those times. He used to tell me when I was older; it was his only recreation, stopping at a local bar to have a few beers before coming home. As I thought about it when much older, my dad was under a great amount of stress with a family of five to provide for and most of the time without a steady job. I sometimes wonder how he stood the strain. It would have crushed a lot of lesser men. But my dad was not a quitter and we always knew that he loved us and loved my mother (always mom to us and nanny to our kids).

When older working for my dad an expression he instilled in me was, don’t ever allow someone to have to come in behind you to complete or correct the job that you thought you finished. Be embarrassed or insulted by that! That has always stuck with me throughout my life, in whatever I found myself doing. I can picture my dad telling me that to this day. Yes my dad had his faults, mainly excessive drinking. But for a man with only a fourth grade education, I always felt that he had great amount of down to earth common sense that was revealed continually throughout his life.

005Tynerfamilyimagewnumbers.jpg

Tyner and extended family Thanksgiving gathering, Venice, FL., 1912+ 1-Elmer Tyner, 2-Walter Tyner, 3-Ida Mae Tyner, 4-Eula Tyner, 5-Grandfather William I. Tyner, 6-Grandmother Lonie Wilson Tyner, 7-Laura Maude Tyner, 8-Wynn Tyner, 9- Father Clarence Tyner,10- Maternal Great Grandfather Wilson 11- Maternal Great Grandmother Wilson. Others are Wilsons, Roberts and several unknown.

Mother’s Side

My mother, like my dad, also came from a large family, having five siblings. But that is about the only thing that they had in common. Their family backgrounds, their immediate surroundings and the environment they were raised in was totally different – 180 degrees apart! First of all, mom wasn’t born in this country. But rather on a small island chain, the tropical Grand Cayman Islands, located about 180 miles south of Cuba, in the Caribbean Sea. The Islands are part of a British Crown Colony and have been under British rule since 1670, through a treaty with Spain.

The Cayman Islands consists of three islands, with Grand Cayman the largest, being approximately 22 miles long and 8 miles wide, at the widest measurement. A dense karst limestone makes up the central core of each island, with a consolidated coral, shell fragment ironshore that surrounds the central core bluff, forming a coastal limestone that’s found mainly along the north, east and south beaches of the Island. I often heard my mother talking about the ironshore beach south of her house at Spotts Bay and that it was not a beach you could swim in because of the rough coral that would cut your feet. One of the places you don’t find the ironshore coral beach is on the west side of Grand Cayman. Along this shore is found the famous seven mile beach – one of the most beautiful, clear blue water, white sand beaches in the Caribbean! The sands are actually made of limestone grains that were eroded from the Ironshore coral limestone that were then deposited by ocean currents along the western side of Grand Cayman to form the enticing beach. The lack of rivers or streams and topographic relief on all three Islands (essentially flat) means no sediment runoff into the surrounding coastal waters, which adds to the remarkable clear water found surrounding the islands.

But before reminiscing about my mother and things she told me of her childhood, because of my college degree later achieved in the geological sciences, I was curious of how the Grand Cayman Islands were actually formed. I understand that the Islands are made up of coral. But coral grows in relatively shallow water and the Grand Cayman Islands are right next to the deepest oceanic trench in the Caribbean Sea, the Cayman Trench (or Trough) - over 25,000 feet deep! The narrow trough starts from just south of the southeastern tip of Cuba, then extends southwest, lying between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica and ending at the eastern coast of Guatemala – a distance of over 700 miles. The trench is actually a complex fault zone that is being pulled apart and forms the boundary between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. The main fault complex is a strike – slip type, where the plates are sliding horizontally past each other. The disastrous earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010 causing massive damage and loss of life was the result of slippage along this fault zone. Aftershocks a few days later were felt as far as Grand Cayman, 587 air miles distant.

But getting back to what caused the very small Cayman Islands to form, the answer is that the Cayman Islands are actually the remnants of mountain peaks of volcanic rock that built up along an east-west oriented ridge (known as the Cayman Ridge). This ridge formed the northern margin of the Trench. Over time (the last 30 million years), the submarine volcanic mountain building activity pushed the peaks high enough to be within the warm ocean surface and sunlight, enabling calcium carbonate secreting organisms to thrive and build up a coral rich limestone deposit on top the peaks. The youngest fossil corals are about 120,000 years old and form the already discussed Ironshore formation, overlying in some places, the very thick rich coral limestone – dolostone (altered limestone) that forms the Islands we know today. ³

So in summary, mom’s birth place the Grand Cayman Islands, although tiny compared to my dad’s, the state of Georgia in the large United States, have become well known for three very unique natural features and one man made attribute that has become a trademark of Grand Cayman. The first is the Cayman Trench, the deepest depth found in the Caribbean Sea and found all along the south boundary of the three Islands. The second is the Cayman Wall, a dramatic wall of coral found primarily adjacent the south beaches of Grand Cayman. The Wall begins at shallow depths of fifty feet and falls away as either a sloping wall or sheer vertical cliff of dramatic color variations and types of coral to the lifeless black depths of the Cayman Trench that has become one of the most popular scuba and diving destinations in the world. And number three and as already mentioned is the phenomenally clear water, white limestone sand seashore of Seven Mile Beach – one of the prettiest beaches in all of the Caribbean Islands.

But in addition to these three natural features, Grand Cayman is also known around the world as one of the key financial centers – a tax haven since 1966. According to a NY Times article published in 2012, titled Haven for Tax Evasion, 1.7 trillion dollars were tucked away in 281 banks and trust companies, with offices in Georgetown, Grand Cayman – including forty of the fifty largest banks in the world! Over 100,000 companies are registered there! Grand Cayman is second only to Switzerland as a banking jurisdiction offering tax freedom and neutrality to wealthy individuals, companies and businesses all over the globe. However, Grand Cayman’s tax haven status may be affected by UK’s recent legislation in May 2018. A new law was passed requiring the disclosure of the names of owners of corporations they register, which previously have been kept secret. Of course none of this was foreseen during my mother’s years on the Island. It was just a British Territorial sleepy island of a few thousand back then, with most of the men earning their living by going to sea. This included her dad, her uncles and just about every male relative in her large extended family. ⁴, ⁵

Mom was born in January, 1907 to a family of three other sisters and two brothers. Mom was next to the youngest in age. Her five siblings starting with the oldest were Grace, Viola, Paul, Alton and Jane (Jenny). Her Dad Lawrence Delgado Thompson, my grandfather (1870 - 1919) had four other siblings. He was a sea captain of a large schooner that hauled goods to various ports, mainly around the Caribbean. We don’t know that much about my mom’s father’s family history, but with a name like Thompson, we assume that he was of British decent, like many of the Islands residents. Although a mystery about mom’s dad is his middle name of Delgado. Where did that come from? It’s obviously Spanish and does it mean that a former relative was of that lineage, perhaps his mother? More digging obviously has to be done regarding my mom’s dad.

But on the other hand, we know a great deal about my mom’s mother’s (my grandmother’s) family, the Crighton’s (sometimes spelled Creighton). My Grandmother Anne Brett Crighton Thompson (1873 - 1934) was one of six children, four brothers and one sister. The four brothers, like my Grandfather Thompson were all sea captains.

According to our genealogical research, the first Crighton to settle in Grand Cayman in the 1860’s was my great grandfather, sea captain Alexander McKeith Crighton, whose ship was wrecked in a storm on the island of Cuba in 1861 and he came to Grand Cayman from Cuba. In a short while, he met Ann Brett Coe, the Governor of the Island’s daughter and in a few months after that initial meeting, they were married. So great granddad didn’t do too badly, after being shipwrecked in Cuba and then coming to Grand Cayman! With a name like Alexander McKeith Crighton he surely sounds as if he may have been of Scottish origin and he was, being born in Port Glasgow, Scotland in November, 1822. Extensive research of the Crighton’s done by my niece Karen Yaklin shows that baptismal and birth records have his middle name spelled as McKeich (rhyming with peach), but was later changed to McKeith.

Prior to becoming a captain great granddad was a chief mate on a ship either in New York or another eastern port. The following story is supposed to be true and is from my grandmother’s unmarried sister Sarah Jane (who my mother always called Aunt Gee and apparently was the family historian).

He took a short leave and went to see Chicago. They were selling squares of ground in what later became downtown Chicago. He made a down payment on a square of ground and arranged to make the final payment and take title on his return. Unfortunately his ship was wrecked during a storm on a trip to Australia and barely escaped with their lives. They lost all their belongings. On his return to the U.S., grandfather went back to Chicago to take title to his property. However while gone, a fire in Chicago had destroyed all their records. Also as all his evidence was lost in the shipwreck, he had no proof of ownership. Thus his square of land in downtown Chicago went up in smoke - - or water! What that could have been worth today!

Continuing with information about great grandfather Crighton from mom’s Aunt Gee (my great aunt),

He continued as a sea captain on the Island and sailed large schooners to many U.S. ports and as far north as Boston. He subsequently opened the first navigation school on the Island and many from his school became well known captains in the Islands. Some emigrated to the U.S. and became captains there. And I bet one was my mother’s oldest sister Grace’s husband, Uncle Leon, who we always called Uncle Lonny.

My mom said "that her dad along with her mother’s four brothers all built large bungalow houses next to