Starting over: Becoming a Grandfather

Original posted 7/8/2011. I am now rejuvenating my 'roots' blog and am in hopes this stays afloat a tad longer than the past one! LOL

Being a grandfather….wow…..its going to happen this year. Am I happy? You betcha!

What’s all this got to do with genealogy? Well lots of course. See, with out Grandfathers we would not be here, would we!? In the past twenty-four hours my head has been spinning and lots of thoughts bouncing around upstairs. Being involved in genealogy we ask tons of questions to fill in all those blank branches of the trees we grow. Now another branch will be added to our family tree.

Taking all this into consideration I sat back and thought about my grandfathers and the one great grandfather I remembered, which lead to thinking of how my father, Joseph W. Small Jr. (Born: September 3, 1928 Died: January 7th, 1997) handled being a grandfather and also about my father in law R. Vernon Bickford (Born June 22, 1926) and how he continues being a great role model as both a grandfather and great grandfather.

My great grandfather on my dad’s side was Conrad Arvidson Seiders. I am still searching his past. I do know he was born in 1876 and died in 1960. My only memories of him was at a very young age I went with Mom and Dad to Portland to visit him in a nursing home. I was about 4 years of age. We took him for a ride around the Portland/Westbrook area so he could reminisce about his past. I knew little about him and he died shortly after our visit. So Conrad is on my Family Tree Radar!

I then think of Conrad’s son in law, my Grandfather Joseph W. Small Sr., born June 6th, 1899 in the Portland area. He died in Ellsworth on September 1st, 1984. “Grampy Joe” was a wiry man, wire-rimmed glasses with a neatly trimmed moustache. He was an outdoorsman who enjoyed fishing. From streams to the larger lakes of Maine, he fished them with passion. He also enjoyed the hunting that Maine had to offer as well. I remember him telling of walking down the driveway of his house in Union, crossing the small field on the other side and standing there within sight of his home and catching large brown trout. Grampy Joe worked the railroad from Bangor to Quebec. The mail car was his job. I noticed that he had a severe bend in his knee area and his fingers on his right hand were bent at an odd angle. The knee problem arose form hours of bracing himself against a bench for hours as the train car rocked back and forth, the fingers bent from sorting and throwing mail into bags and parcel slots on the walls. His love of the outdoors carried on to the gardens he and Gram had in Union, he also loved his Siamese cats that they always had. When Gram and Gramps health declined they moved to Ellsworth. Gram went into Courtland living center because of her severe osteoporosis. Gramp went to live with my parents with whom he lived until his passing in 1984. For a very short time he got to enjoy his Great Grand daughter Kayla who was born in August 1983. When she visited him you could see the love in his eyes, a look I will never forget.

Then there was my Grandfather on my mom’s side; Lyman Linscott born May 19th, 1905 and died July 1st, 1980. “Gugga” and my grandmother Phyllis divorced either before I was born of shortly after (yet another search!) I remember Gugga as a shot in stature man. A hardworking man whom I remembered working at Jordan’s Funeral home. He was a stonecutter working on gravestones and monuments. In his later years he cleaned stones freelance. Earlier in life he also worked for the railroad as a yard worker in Hancock working on the roundtable station. He also was a great outdoors man, I fondly remember him taking me to brook fish for trout out to Red Bridge here in Ellsworth, fishing from the shore down to Fox Pond in the Black Woods.

 He was lucky to be able to buy a large wooden boat with a motor and I remember a couple of trips down to Tunk. We shared some great times. In the 1970s I went to work for Jordan’s Funeral Home as well. Gugga would visit the crew while we played cribbage in the stone shed during the winter months…waiting for people to “pass”. Gugga was a passionate cribbage player and when I made a mistake whilst in the middle of a bruising 4-handed game, he would tune me up with a work glove..or two. Gugga came for a large family and loved them all.

Now whats all this leading too? Well each branch of our family has his or her own unique story which makes Family history such a great area to be involved in. And Grandfathers (and Grandmothers of course!) make the roots of our trees very strong.

I am in hopes that when the future granddaughter I now know I will be enjoying for years to come, looks back and sees some of the strong roots her Grandfather and Grandmother set down for her to grow on. Thank you Kayla and Mac…thank you, and I am waiting to meet you Claire!