The Mystery of Uncle Clarence (Part II)

I have only a vague recollection of my great grandmother Catherine (possibly Katherine) Richardson (nee Birdseye).

I remember she played solitaire, kept corgis and seemed to disapprove of me.

I would later confuse her with the Queen of England (although my great grandmother's corgis were friendly and not prone to nip).

The impression I had was that I was expected to be seen and not heard while in her presence.

There was to be no running, jumping, laughing or enjoying of oneself while visiting her house.

This may not have been her character at all but it was the idea of her I had as a young child.

When asked about her, my uncle said she once told him over family dinner that it was "perfectly acceptable for a married man to have a mistress as long as he was discreet about it."

I wonder what question preceded that remark. "Could you pass the peas and what are your thoughts on infidelity?"

I read about Clarence Birdseye when I was in my twenties and learned that he had eaten strange animals like skunk and that he had had adventures in the Arctic.

I made a weak attempt to identify my relation to him then, learning that he had a sister named Katherine before quickly discovering she was of the wrong generation to be my great grandmother.

I think my great gran must be the daughter of one of his siblings.

Clarence Frank Birdseye II was the son of Clarence Frank Birdseye I and Ada Jane Underwood. He had eight siblings: Miriam, Kellogg, Henry, Marjorie, Katherine, Roger and two others who don't seem to be mentioned anywhere.

Marjorie and Katherine were twins born in 1884, although Marjorie died at about nine months old.

My uncle used to mention a "cousin Kate" who lived to be about 103 and I wonder if this is the woman he meant. I hope to find that out soon.

I was also told that one of my relatives was a sea captain who had a cluster of rocks named after him in New England. This may well also be someone from the Birdseye group as many of them came from Connecticut and settled there or around New York.

Because my great grandmother was a Birdseye until she married, I will be excluding Clarence's sisters from my research.

Clarence II was married to Eleanor Gannet in 1915 and they had four children; Kellogg, Ruth, Eleanor and Henry (so my great grandmother was not his daughter).

If I go back further, Clarence I was the son of Lucien Birdseye, whom I believe to be my great great great grandfather. Lucien had five children but aside from Clarence, there was only one other son. It is entirely possible my great grandmother came from this line. Again, I will have to do deeper research.

Lucien was the son of Victory Birdseye who was a lawyer and U.S. Congressman. Lucien was also a lawyer as was Clarence the elder.

From what I've read so far, Clarence II was fascinating to people of all ages who met him.

He liked birds and bugs and flowers and trees so chances are, regardless of any kinship, he and I would have had a lot to talk about.

However, while I love birds for their intelligence and habits, Clarence seemed to be interested in how they might taste and to what industrial purpose they could be put.

Kurlansky writes, "Birdseye-was a source of endless fascination in affluent Eastern Point. It was not just that he was famous. Or that he had lived a life of adventure and was full of stories about the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest at the beginning of the twentieth century and the wild frozen frontier of Labrador before World War I. It was that he seemed to be interested in almost everything and knew a great deal about most of it."

Before I surrender my credit card details to Ancestry.com I may just interview my uncle again to see if I can get any further details about his Birdseye great grandparents.

The Mystery of Uncle Clarence (Part I)

Growing up, I heard such wonderful stories from my grandmother about our family.

I'm related to some really amazing women.

One was the first woman in her state to get her pilots license.

One tied herself to an ancient tree to prevent it from being chopped down.

One lived past the age of 100.

Four generations of women before me received a college education.

But who were they? What were their names? How are we related?

Two of these women are my mother and grandmother but with the rest, I have no idea.

I should have asked and listened.

My grandmother Anor passed away almost 20 years ago and she was the one in the family who kept track of all the children and the once-removed cousins.

The following is what I know, what I remember hearing and what I'm guessing at when it comes to uncle Clarence.

Winterpark, Florida and its surrounds were filled with members of my Phillips side of the family.

My father was Richard Kent Phillips, son of Harrop and Anor Phillips (nee Richardson) and older brother to Scott and Katherine Phillips.

My father died when I was 13-months-old and I am his only child.

My uncle Scott had two children, my cousins Christopher and Lindsey.

My aunt had no biological children.

When I was an infant my family moved away from Florida and settled in New Orleans until my father's death. Next, we lived in Mobile before mother remarried and we moved to Dothan, Alabama. When I was five, we moved to Birmingham, Alabama which is where I grew up.

There were aspects of my personality and thinking that were always distinctive to my mother's.

I had my own quirks and habits and points of view that seemed to originate from nowhere until I spent time with the Phillips clan in Florida.

Even though I grew up hundreds of miles away and had limited summertime visits, the similarities between myself and this part of the family amazed me.

My grandmother, Anor, was the daughter of Rich Richardson (yes, really) and Catherine Richardson (nee Birdseye).

It is my interest in the latter which has brought me to the mystery of uncle Clarence.

The Clarence I am speaking of is Clarence Frank Birdseye II, naturalist, entrepreneur and inventor of the modern process of freezing foods.

Perhaps you've heard of Birdseye Frozen foods? That's my family. Somehow.

I believe Clarence is my great-great-great uncle but I am having a devil of a time hunting down the family records that prove it.

This is probably because I'm looking at public census reports and the free content on ancestry websites.

To get to the real meat and potatoes of the family tree it appears I'll have to fork over some cash.

So far, I've been using probable and known birth dates and shreds of information I remember being told.

Because Clarence was famous, there's quite a bit of information about him available.

I'm currently reading his biography, "Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man" by Mark Kurlansky.

Aside from being a great read about a remarkable man, it has provided me with a wealth of information about Birdseye geneaology.

I continue to research.

An Emptier Nest

I took the NPR up to Wellington yesterday to help her settle into her university dorm.

Somewhere around 10:30pm Nick and I turned off the television and went to bed.

A few minutes later I was soaking his arm with my tears.

My firstborn is the most successful and long-lived interpersonal relationship I have ever been in.

As she grew up, I began to feel that I had successfully cloned myself in order to keep myself company.

Now that company has gone off to start her adult life and I am filled with sorrow.

I had to close the door to her room because its emptiness overwhelms me.

This is the downside to not having a dysfunctional relationship with your child.

If she had been a teenager from hell or had a personality unlike my own then perhaps her leaving would have been a relief. It definitely would have been easier.

Instead, my mind is flooded with hundreds of memories of our time together.

I remember her being born in a shade of blue.

I remember the little clay hand print she made for me at preschool that I had to hide in the closet because she wanted to play with it and I was afraid she would break it.

I remember how much more meaningful my university experience was because I was working hard for her benefit and not just my own.

I remember taking her to Paris at two and having her be in a grump in most of our photos because of missed nap times.

I remember sitting in bed with her on September 11 and watching the twin towers fall over and over again on the television. My one reassurance was that she was right beside me and I could keep her safe.

I remember dropping her off on her first day of kindergarten and watching her little backpack disappear in a crowd of children.

I remember her fascination with the crabs in a tank on Cannery Row in Monterey and I still have the drawing she made of a crab family with smiley faces.

I remember her looking appalled when a pinata was destroyed at a birthday party in Mexico. (She got over this and was able to bash the heck out of them too.)

I remember her gentle manner with each of her brothers.

I remember her telling her best friend that I believed strongly in human rights.

I remember her mere existence getting me through some of my darkest days in the military.

I remember countless lunches where our mutual sense of humor would put us in hysterics.

I remember using Spanish with each other like a secret language so we could complain about things without those around us knowing what we said.

I remember the way that people who didn't normally like children somehow managed to make an exception for her.

I remember the way she would scold me like a parent if I returned from a grad school meeting later than I said I would.

Finally, I remember that she's not gone from my life forever but just moving on to a new stage in her life.

Remembering this will help keep my eyes dry and my mind untroubled.

Orchard and Garden

Alex and I went out to gather some apples and pears in the orchard and check on the veggie patch.

Fantail

Last night a fantail followed Nick into the house and soon realized its predicament. 

It perched in the window above the door, puffed its feathers out and made some low, fretful sounds.

I crawled up on a chair and tried to catch it in my hands but it sailed away and perched on a light fixture.

I tried opening the front door but it flitted into my office. 

I got the mop and it perched awkwardly on the handle momentarily making me look like an odd character from Harry Potter who didn't get the memo about messenger owls.

It flew off the mop handle and up to the top of my book shelf where I was finally able to catch it.

I took it outside and opened my hands. It flew to a nearby perch on the roof.

Aside from some ruffled feathers, the little guy appeared none the worse for its misadventure.

This morning it was out on the porch chirping happily and hunting bugs as usual. 

Fire in the Hills

A large fire is currently burning through the Port Hills near my home. No homes have been damaged so far but crews are working hard to contain the blaze.