The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree, or Does It?

An article in today's NY Times titled "Your Ancestors, Your Fate," offered an interesting analysis of how our social mobility hasn't changed much over time, and that our overall chances of success can be predicted from as far back as our great, great, great grandparents. Hmmmm. I'm definitely beginning to see that as I delve into the two centuries of family letters I have. I would, however, like to be in the same room with the author of this study and go into much more depth than he was able to in the article, as I have many questions about his methodology and just exactly what he means when he talks about "elite" names, and using registries of doctors and lawyers to draw his conclusions.

Actually, though, it caused me to think about some recent discoveries I made from a box of "stuff" I found at Christmas time when I pulled the boxes of decorations out of the storage area. I thought it was a box of my junque as it had some framed photographs from my life on the top, along with the Super 8 movie camera. Surprise! Below the first layer it turned out to be a box of my father's memorabilia. I have no memory of this box or when it came into my possession, nor had I ever looked into it.

When I first looked at it about 3 weeks ago, I really almost threw up my hands in despair. It needs major sorting, some pitching out, and some saving of stuff. Two things I found that intrigued me were a report card from Dartmouth, where I always assumed he had done very well academically (but realize now that I don't believe we ever talked about that)and discovered a rather average report - grades of C, even. I also found two letters from the President of Dartmouth, Ernest Hopkins written to dad and one letter from dad to Pres. Hopkins after he had graduated. They seemed to have a fairly close relationship, and I surmise that is because dad was President of the Inter-Fraternity Council, and probably had a lot of dealings with the administration. There apparently were some deaths at Dartmouth that year, and I haven't discovered what caused them, but part of the correspondence has to do with prevention of same, going forward.

The other day, I walked past the box again, and grabbed a handful of photographs, a small photo album and found two more discoveries. A rubber band held 4 letters together written by dad to his parents. Three of them were written while he was "courting" my mother, and for the first time I get to see dad's perspective on her family and how he felt he had found "the right girl." The other letter in the packet was written after my oldest brother Rob was born, and he describes in some detail the lead-up to mom going to the hospital. Each time I find something pertaining to my dad, I realize how little I knew him and how much I wish I had known of the existence of these letters during his lifetime and could have talked to him about them.

The other discovery was a small red leather diary which I first assumed was a small address book. It turned out to belong to my brother Rob, and was kept in 1951, the year we left Manchester, VT and moved to California. He was 12 at the time. There was a small wooden pencil stuck in the spine which said Charles Letts & Co. London. The space for entries was only about 5 tiny lines, but I read through all of them. (Many pages were blank).

I was quite surprised that he actually mentioned me in one entry, and it was something I had completely forgotten about: August 9, 1951 ". . . Kay started Baton twirling." We moved to California on August 26th, according to his diary, so my baton twirling lessons were short-lived. I do remember someone (dad?) had made me a baton out of a large-sized dowel and it had something like the rubber end of a cane at one end. Later, in California, I think, I had a real baton with a shiny silver shaft and I can remember practicing twirling it, but I was never destined for glory as a twirler in a marching band. Probably not in the genes I inherited from my great, great, great, grandmothers.