Text 9875, 209 rader
Skriven 2005-04-12 14:46:05 av Roy Witt (1:10/22)
   Kommentar till text 9827 av Carol Shenkenberger (6:757/1)
Ärende: NIMBY
=============
Hello Carol.

10 Apr 33 14:33, you wrote to me:

 RW>>> With at least 1/16th Indian blood, you qualify for benefits.
 RW>>> Check wit the tribe your blood related to.
 CS>> Really?  I didnt know that!  Be hard to prove it though.  One of
 CS>> those situations ;-)
 RW>> Nobody kept records...right?
 CS> Well they did, but these records are not perfect.  They were busy
 CS> tracking the rich older son, not the poorer relations I came from.
 CS> Lots of money in the family, just not my side of it :-(

That's how it is with Nancy's maternal grandparents' family. They own
Texas oil wells and are rolling in money, but her side of the family
doesn't get to share in it, unless they're visiting one of them.

 CS> Phillips Steel ring a bell?  Mom was a Phillips.  Just not close
 CS> enough related for us to have the money although as a kid, she was
 CS> rich enough.

It would have been nice to be born a rich kid...

 CS>> very much which is strange as they were fairly blue-bloods over
 CS>> all in the American naming of such.  Her name seems to have been
 CS>> Lisa Anne Running-tree which doesnt sound very Cherokee at all,
 CS>> nor do I know what a 'Running-tree' is....

 RW>> Maybe she was a logger and her job was running on the tree (log)
 RW>> while it floated in the lake or river. That's what herding trees
 RW>> down stream is called; Running Trees.

 CS> Doubt it was her doing that ;-)  Maybe her family did something
 CS> like that? But I dont know that Indians did much 'logging' per-see.

Probably not, but they could have worked for logging companys. She could
have been the daughter of one who did.

 CS>> from something like 'Lissaloukeea' and was touted to the family as
 CS>> an Indian Princess but that was probably bogus.

 RW>> Yeah, every indian squaw was a princess. (Only in the movies) :o)

 CS> True!  I discount that one like everyone else, but it was a giggle
 CS> to hear as a kid.

My grandmother didn't like to claim her indian heritage, but my
grandfather exploited it to the hilt. He liked to go fishing on the
reservation because he didn't need a license and access was free. Then
the indians got smart and started to charge $1 to park and $1 to fish
from their shores. A boat in the water cost another buck. That was the
day that gramps backed the 41 Chevy out of there and said he'd never go
back. Don't know that he ever did, but he was stubborn enough to keep
that promise.

 CS>> 'Coopers wife' in any letters.  BTW, James Fenimore Cooper isnt
 CS>> the same Cooper but he is an ancestor of mine though of a side
 CS>> line to me.  5 times up the tree uncle or something.

 RW>> I have one of those too. Winchester is an old family name on my
 RW>> mother side. I doubt that they were related to the Winchester of
 RW>> firearms fame, however their American history goes back to before
 RW>> the revolutionary war. The Witts only arriving here in the 1840s.

 CS> Mixed here.  Dad was born just an hour after Grandma crossed Ellis
 CS> Island, german.  Family name was Von Papen, but they 'Americanized'
 CS> to Pape to avoid association with an infamous uncle who was high
 CS> with the Kaiser (and later not so high but was with Hitler).  Pape
 CS> is a very common name, like 'Smith' or 'Jones' but in Germany along
 CS> the French border.

 CS> There's even a region called the Pape region I think.  They make
 CS> red wine too.  Chateau du Pape.

Southern France. They make both red and white wine there.

 CS> 5th Avenue NY?  Used to belong to a relative who had a farm there.
 CS> Mom's got records of the deed still.  He sold out long before the
 CS> city spread that way.n Lots of ancestors here before the
 CS> revolutionary war (we seemed to have mostly been in favor of the
 CS> war) and by the Civil war, we spanned the border and there are some
 CS> very sad (and true) tales about brothers literally being split on
 CS> it.

Yeup. My GG-grandfather fought for the yankees and his younger brother
joined the SC rebels, never to be heard from again. Although a couple of
my relatives who delve into these things have claimed that they've found
part of his trail.

 CS> Most lived in Virginia or north of it.  Several were abolishonists
 CS> and a few were slave owners though family tradition says they
 CS> always freed them upon their own death and never held the kids as
 CS> slaves (somewhat common for that decade or so along Virginia
 CS> borders where we were).  Some moved outwards to Chicago and such
 CS> places.

Where they per chance, ran into the Witts, Rochkas, Winchesters, Scotts,
Dahms, Clarks, etc...

 CS> American Mutts both of us <g>.  I can only say my genetics seem a
 CS> bit more mixed than yours may be, but then I do not know.

I'd say a genetic mix of Heinz 57 varieties.

 CS>> lines. Bought at a slave auction 2 years before the civil war, her
 CS>> stories that came down in tradition are something out of a pure
 CS>> romance novel Cinderella style.  I have no way to prove any of it,
 CS>> but why did the family preserve the stories if not true?

 RW>> Does your family have a historian? Ours on the Witt side is my
 RW>> dad's brother. He doesn't do a very good job though. My dad wrote
 RW>> his own biography (all CAPS and hard to read) and his dad started
 RW>> on his, but too late to finish it. No Etheopians in the background
 RW>> on either side though.

 CS> Heheh but probably some good tales!

Things I didn't know and memories that I didn't even remember about my
own youth. He remembered places where he lived as a kid. I can't recall
anything that far back in my own past.

 CS>   Yes, we have a historian every 2-3 generations.  Some odd
 CS> tradition or trait that just comes up. The verbal tradition is what
 CS> we are all trying to get Mom to write down.  Doc Corbett is one of
 CS> the better ones.  Younger son of the landed gentry of England, came
 CS> to make a name for himself. Somewhat of a black sheep as the
 CS> stories go.  Definatly a philanderer.  Kept 2 wives *in the same
 CS> town* and one up north state!  It was his son from his second wife
 CS> I think, who's related the the city of Corbett Virginia?  Might
 CS> have been a grandson.

Nothing as exciting in my family's past, but Nancy's boasts of a horse
thief who shot his wife and her lover in his bed (the horse thief's),
before they caught up with him. New Mexico territory turn of the 20th
century.

 CS>> Neither were politically correct for WASP type USA folks to claim,
 CS>> so ....

 RW>> Things like that are left out of family histories, even today. A
 RW>> broth marries an ex-wife and the kids from the previous marriage
 RW>> have the sa sur-name as the ones from the present marriage, yet
 RW>> they're brother an sister only by their mother's bloodline.

 CS> Yeah doesnt help that they liked the same common names so:
 CS> Charlotte Elizabeth travels through time to be grandmother and
 CS> daughter and grand-daughter ;)

As do variations of my grandmother's name of Elizabeth, only it became
generic when they called my sister by GM Elizabeth's nickname, Becky.
I just happen to be from a long line of Roy's, but I was adamant that it
didn't get passed on to my son. Which started a new string where each
kid has the intials of MW ... I used to call them Monkey Wards...

 CS> Tradition in my family is when possible we will always have a
 CS> Charlotte and an Elizabeth, and if in doubt, one gets both names.

My generation broke from that tradition. None of mine, my brothers' or
my sisters' kids are named the same as any older relative.

 CS> My sister broke tradition and didnt use either name, I just somehow
 CS> thought it was cruel to have Charlotte Elizabeth Shenkenberger.
 CS> What a mouthful!  Went with Ann for the middle name (Anne was a
 CS> favorite Aunt of Don as well as my sister Charlotte's middle name).

That kind of stuff is easy to get around. My grandfather used Roy Witt,
my dad just added a Jr to that and I just put a J between them. The
confusion starts when somebody calls out for Roy and three people
answer at once. :o)

 CS>> me the male ancestors of mine thought with their stomachs <g>.
 CS>>                                        xxcarol

 RW>> Women who're good cooks are always considered to be closer than
 RW>> those who don't. I had an aunt that was short, fat and ugly, yet
 RW>> she was abl to cook for and catch a rich farmer. 'course, being an
 RW>> Ichabod Crain (sp) type of guy, he wasn't a good looking prize
 RW>> himself.

 CS> Grin!  I like it!  Looks are sorta shy on my side of the family
 CS> too.

The above always reminded me of that famous portrait with the farmer
holding a pitch fork and his wife next to him. Mutt and Jeff, if you
know what I mean. :o)

 CS> We are 'cute' not 'lovely'.  Most of us though, are good
 CS> cooks (Sister is the exception but her husband is a whiz with food
 CS> and wont let her even try). My Mom was a lovely woman (handsome
 CS> actually would be best term) but she's not a fancy cook.  Edible
 CS> food if you consider school lunches edible ;-) Wonderful in all
 CS> other ways though so I was blessed as a child.
 CS>                                        xxcarol

Well, the looks department in this family came from my paternal
grandmother. With the Indian and Scot blood, she was a looker. My dad
and I are the benefactors of that blood line, while my siblings look
more like my mother's side of the family. Typical bulldog Brits. The
Witts, all looked like your typical German, big bones and all of the
men were bald.

Dad had all of his hair when he died and I still have all of mine. Dad
was truely blonde w/blue eyes, while my eyes are also blue and my
hair is/was dishwater blond and turned to brown later in life.



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