Happy Halloween

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. El Cuyo, Yucatan. 17 Mar 2023.

Clustering Matches

 

MyHeritage AutoClusters.

Back in August I posted a similar image to the one above. This one is taken from the autocluster report generated on 18 October 2024 via MyHeritage using my Mom's DNA matches. The theme of next week's DNA study group session is on autoclustering techniques, so I thought I'd attempt once again to see if I can identify groups of related matches using this report.

The red cluster at the top left corner has a lot of connections with names in the green cluster in the middle, so much that it probably should be one group. I am still comparing this with matches on Ancestry, but it looks like these two groups are Flatt and possibly Cain Targets (who I have renamed to 3GGF Targets). These people also have a strong link to descendants from Adair, Barren and Metcalfe Counties, Kentucky, so both groups are worthy of a close review to see if there are Hubbard and Dowell matches.

More Basketball in the Family

 

Ancestry. 1925 Thorntown HS Basketball.

With the return of college basketball this week for the 2024-2025 season, it's fitting to see family connections in basketball from 100 years ago. Two members of the 1925 Thorntown High School basketball team were brothers Russell Hankins (in the middle of the first row of the photo above, with the basketball at his feet) and Richard Hankins (far right end of the second row). Both were older brothers of Guy Hankins. Guy was later a reserve member of the 1937 Thorntown team.

Russell was a multi-sport star for Thorntown, participating in football, basketball and track all four years. It appears he ran in the Indiana State track meet in 1926, and I'll have more on this in another post. His brother Richard was also on the football and track teams.

Both Hankins boys appear on the first row of the 1926 Thorntown basketball team photo, with Richard on left corner and Russell in the middle with basketball on his right foot.

Ancestry. 1926 Thorntown basketball team.

Another sporting member of the family was their sister, Pearl Hankins, who was on the 1927 Thorntown girls basketball team. She appears in on the top right corner of the photo below. Pearl was the junior class basketball captain in 1927.

Ancestry. 1927 Thorntown girls basketball.

A Hubbard-Dowell Connection

 

Ancestry Thrulines.

Last week I looked at the possibility that the mysterious father of Mary Alice Cain Read was not Robert Cain, but more likely John Hubbard, son of Nancy Dowell Hubbard (third wife of Pleasant Flatt). Looking at Ancestry's Thrulines on my Mom's results after I switched out Robert for John Hubbard as the father of Mary Alice, yields some clear connections with DNA. There's a definite possibility and the link seems much stronger than I had previously in the tree.

Here's what comes up when I used the dot method and tried to isolate a "Cain Target" group of matches in an earlier post. I'm now at about 1737 matches in this potential group. But working from some with stronger cM amounts, a few match to the Hubbard-Dowell line or descend from ancestors of the Hubbards, Dowells and related families. One match, LW, has 33 cM, descending from a son of William C. Hubbard and Amanda Dowell (sister of Nancy Dowell). My Mom also matches SE, with 22 cM descending from the same couple.

Another match shows 14 cM descending from James W. Hubbard (another son of William C Hubbard and Amanda Dowell). My Mom also has a 15 cM match descending from Elizabeth Dowell (a sister of Nancy and Amanda), and a 17 cM and 14 cM match descending from John S. Dowell (a brother of Nancy and Amanda). My aunt Patty's results have those same matches, along with a 12 cM match from a daughter of Amanda Dowell, and an 11 cM descending from Genetta Hubbard (sister of potential father of Mary Alice, John Hubbard). 

These numbers are small, and I'm not yet seeing matches descending directly from John Hubbard, although any that do appear will be half connections. There's more work to do on the matches we have. 

VT Homecoming 2024

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Blacksburg, VA. 26 Oct 2024.

We went down to Blacksburg on Friday for Virginia Tech Homecoming and the VT vs Georgia Tech game. It's a pretty cool experience seeing the team enter Lane Stadium to Metallica's Enter Sandman. We saw a defensive game, with a few trick plays and key stops for a VT win 21-6. Our seats were right on the 50 but almost at the top of the stadium. They have a great game day atmosphere and we had a fun time in town.

Photo by Patrick Jones. VT Motorsports demo.

Prior to the game, we attended the Alumni tailgate. The shot above is Allison in the VT Engineering racecar.

Traces of an Earlier Journey

 

Ancestry. 1900 US Census. Allegheny, PA.

I'm continuing to flip back to the paper trail while using the DNA path to identify the connection to the Pennsylvania O'Brien branch. In the 1900 US Census entry above, James O'Brien appears with his family in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. James reported that he immigrated to the US in 1860, and became a naturalized citizen. The 1910 US Census entry states that he immigrated in 1859, so this gives us a target range to try to find James' arrival.

Pinpointing the arrival for a James O'Brien somewhere on the East Coast between 1859-1860 might be difficult. I'm starting with Philadelphia arrivals. I also know determining which of the many James O'Briens who became naturalized citizens in Pennsylvania that might match with this James is an even more challenging task.

One option worth exploring, a young Irish family arrived into Philadelphia on the ship Saranak on 11 May 1860. It's too early to tell if this this is the same James O'Brien who later ended up in Pittsburgh.

Penn. US Arriving Passengers & Crew Lists. 1860.

Hypotheses

 

Museum.ie 1930s Travel Poster.

Working through my second research question to determine the generation of connection on the Pennsylvania O'Briens who match my Dad's DNA results, I tried to use WATO on DNAPainter with the shared matches of matches who I can verify descend from James O'Brien and Mary Nolan. Of the eleven hypotheses it tested, a few jump out as possible.

Corrections soon (24 Oct 2024 update - I've completed the WATO tool incorrectly. I think the hypotheses I've posted are the right ones, but the percentages will change after I re-do the WATO chart. I spoke with an expert earlier today about this.)

1. John O'Brien (1793) had an unknown child between 1807-1829, and this child was the father of James O'Brien (1843). This hypothesis came back at 92% likely.

2. John O'Brien (1793) is the father of James O'Brien (1843). This came back at 7%. While so little is known of John O'Brien's time before he showed up in La Salle County, Illinois about 1850, I feel like this one is unlikely. It would mean John left James with a first wife or another family member and traveled West.

3. John O'Brien was the father of James O'Brien, with James as half-sibling to other children such as my La Salle County O'Briens. This is shown as possible at .24%

4. Another possibility, John O'Brien had an unknown sibling, who was the father of James O'Brien. This came back statistically possible, but less than .005%. WATO says "Data from additional matches could make a big difference."

So, it seems I'm looking for a mystery first marriage or first family for John O'Brien, before he made the move west. This hypothesis also shows that the Pennsylvania O'Brien matches either directly descend from him or a sibling of John's. 

Testing AI Tools

 

Source: Claude AI.

After watching some videos recently by genealogist Dana Leeds on how she is using AI tools like Claude to assist with making charts and Leeds Method tables, I thought I should try it out to see if it could help me make a descendancy diagram on my Pennsylvania O'Brien group related to James O'Brien. This is still a work-in-progress, but I can tell it is a powerful tool.

I'm using the free version at the moment. I started with a prompt asking Claude to help me make a descendancy diagram, giving it the parents as James O'Brien and Mary Nolan, with their children (shown above). Using some of the DNA matches on my Dad's results, I gave it more information on several branches descending from James and Mary. It quickly built the chart, providing a useful text narrative at each step along the way. I've hit the free limit at the moment, but am going to keep adding information.

I'm hoping it can take this information and possibly make a What are the Odds (WATO) chart that I can use to see how these people might be related to my Dad and connected to John O'Brien. More to share soon with this and I'm excited to see how this can help with visualizing my research.

Another Possibility

 

1870 US Census. Metcalfe County, KY.

There's another possibility for the father of Mary Alice Cain Read, and I've been looking at this entry for years. In the 1870 US Census, my 3rd-great-grandmother Nancy Jane Flatt (listed as Jane Flat) appears in the household of John W. Rose in Metcalfe County, Kentucky. She's listed with John Hubbard, 18 years old. John was a son of Nancy Dowell and James Whitfield Hubbard. Nancy's 2nd husband was Pleasant Flatt. Pleasant Flatt and Nancy Dowell Flatt are just three households away on the same census entry. I've looked at this previously, but ruled it out as Nancy Jane isn't enumerated in the 1880 Census and John had moved away.

By the 1880 US Census, John had married Margaret Harding and moved to Saint Joseph, Buchanan County, Missouri with two young children, Ira and Fidelia Hubbard. But the possibility remains that John was the father of Mary Alice, and Nancy Jane concealed the identity of the father as she delivered her daughter in the Metcalfe County Poor House in February 1878.

I'm testing this theory using the DNA matches in the Cain Targets group I mentioned in my last post, along with some clearly marked adjustments to Thrulines on Ancestry. There's more work to do, along with some other things to look at. I've long questioned whether "Robert Cain" was the actual father of Mary Alice Cain, or if more likely candidates were out there that could be verified by DNA. More to come on this one. At this stage, I'm leaning more toward the reality that the Robert Cain mentioned in the records of the day may not have existed, and our candidate 3rd-great-grandfather is waiting to be revealed through the DNA search.

Looking for a mysterious 3rd-great-grandfather

The third of my research questions for the current DNA study group is to identify a third-great-grandfather on my Mom's side of the tree, the father of Mary Alice Cain Read. My strategy at the moment is to use my Mom's DNA matches, and create networks of people descending from best known matches from her Read/Holsclaw line, Flatt/Gaw line, and Whitley/Matthews line. I already had a Read/Cain group based on matches from my 2nd-great-grandparents Charles Read and Mary Alice. This is about 2900 matches.

I created a group called "Cain Targets" and assigned everyone from the Read/Cain group who did not match to Flatt/Gaw, Read/Holsclaw or Whitley/Matthews to that group, creating a network of about 1900 matches. I know there are still some matches to those lines in that network.

Next I took anyone who had a common ancestor with one of those three lines, and unchecked any of their matches, then unchecked themselves from the Cain Target group. I repeated this step until there were no more matches with common ancestors on these lines. This brought the total to 1731, which is still a lot.

I'm now in the stage of looking at the matches who have connected trees, and checking to see who has descendants in their tree who were living in Barren, Metcalfe or Adair County, Kentucky between the 1850s and 1880. Then I'm going to look at those groups to see if I can identify any patterns of names. After that, there's more steps to learn from the DNA study group to see what can be done with this group of mystery matches.

This strategy might not work. There's already the complication that Nancy Jane Flatt's second husband was also her first cousin. There's also the possibility that this could work and topple the brick wall on this side of the tree.

Vasquez matches

 One of my regular research quests is looking into the family of my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez, to see if there may have been any siblings of his which will allow me to trace the family further in Chilean records. Switching from my current research questions with DNA, using my Mom's DNA matches I've found a cluster of Gabriel's descendants through his daughter Carmen Vasquez, a younger sister of my 2nd-great-grandmother Maria Jesus Vasquez.

Carmen and Jesus Garcia were married in Pitiquito, Sonora and had at least the following children:

• Leonor Garcia
• Maria Jesus Garcia
• Ana Garcia
• Angela Garcia
• Teresa Garcia
• Gabriel Garcia
• Jose Garcia

Using the methods from the DNA study group, I've identified cousins matching from descendants of Ana, Angela, Teresa, Gabriel and Jose. There's a lot. The large number gives me some hope we might be able to use these matches to work backward to Gabriel, split the DNA network from the Suastegui branch, and potentially see Vasquez DNA connections to Chile. This is essentially the same approach I'm using to figure out the family for my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget and her Irish family, although in this case I know the names of Gabriel's parents (Jose Vasquez and Agustina Rojas). 

What I don't know is if Gabriel had siblings, or if Jose and Agustina made the voyage from Valparaiso, Chile to Mexico. DNA can't tell us the second question, but it can help identify others on the Vasquez line.

A deeper dive into the 2024 update

 

AncestryDNA 2024 update. 

Taking a closer look at things that changed in the 2024 AncestryDNA update, I see the reference panel size is up to 116,000+ samples, vs 72,000+ last year. This is up substantially from 40,000 reference samples in the 2019 update. As I've been tracking these updates since I first submitted an AncestryDNA test in 2012, it has been really fascinating to see the ancestral regions evolve and fluctuate over time. It is a little odd to see Germanic Europe go from 4% in 2019 to 26% in 2024, and for Ireland to completely disappear.

Nigeria (now Nigerian Woodlands) has held pretty steady at 1% since it first appeared in the 2018 update. Clicking on this ancestral region shows another surprise, connecting us to the Tiv ethnic group of Benue State.

AncestryDNA Oct 2024. Nigerian Woodlands sub-region.

 It's nice to see Spain at 16%, and that tracks with my Mom's Spain percentage increasing to 33%.

AncestryDNA Oct 2024 for KDJ.

On my Dad's updated results, his England & Northwestern Europe went up to 62%, while his Ireland lost 6%, down to 12. This seems to be a decrease for Ireland across all the tests I administer, along with the increase on Germanic Europe, maybe that is a sign of a larger trend. Interestingly, because my Mom's results have no Germanic Europe and my sister now has a sub-region of Germanic Europe for Italian Swiss, maybe this comes from my Dad's side.

Dad's results also show two sub-regions in Ireland: Leinster and Munster. This makes sense, as Limerick and County Clare are in Munster, and John O'Brien's obituary from 1901 says he was from County Clare. Longford is part of the western edge of Leinster, so maybe this also helps trace where the family of my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget came from.

On my results, the sub-region for Scotland's Northern Isles of Shetland and Orkney appear as "strong" connection strength. My Mom shares this sub-region, although her connection strength is "moderate".

Scotland sub-region 2024.

On my Mom's sisters' results, my Aunt Patty retained her 14 ancestral regions, as well as adding the Northern Isles sub-region for Scotland. Her percentage of Jewish went up from 1% to 2% and now shows the sub-region of Sephardic Jews.

AncestryDNA Oct 2024 for PM.

It's interesting that my Mom does have the trace for Nigeria, but Aunt Patty doesn't, and my Aunt Linda has 1% Senegal. My Mom's cousin Irene, who is a great-granddaughter of Vicente Antonio Campuzano and Maria Conception Amado, has a trace of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. This reflects a little studied aspect of history that a large number of African slaves were brought to Mexico from along the West African coast in the late 1500s and 1600s, many through the port of Veracruz in the Gulf Coast.

I am really interested to see how MyHeritage's next DNA update, teased earlier this summer, will look in comparison with Ancestry's 2024 update. Maybe this will be out by Rootstech in March.

The 2024 AncestryDNA Update is here

 

AncestryDNA Oct 2024 Update.

The 2024 update for AncestryDNA has been released, and there are quite a few changes from last year. While the 2023 update showed 8 ancestral regions for me, this year's version is down to 6, with a new sub-region for the Northern Isles of Scotland. My percentages for England and Northwestern Europe dropped from 56 to 38%, and my Germanic Europe shot up to 26% from 7. Spain is now 16% from 7. Scotland stayed the same and I added a sub-region. Indigenous Americas - Mexico stayed the same at 5%, but Ireland dropped off along with Wales. I still have 1% Nigerian, now shown as Nigerian Woodlands.

AncestryDNA Oct 2024 for BAJ.

My Mom's results also changed slightly, and now I can see where this mystery sub-region of Northern Isles, Scotland comes from. This region is coming from her paternal side of the tree, either from the McKinley line or the hole I currently have as one of the research questions to determine the identity of the father of Mary Alice Cain Read using DNA.

Her England & Northwestern Europe went up from 17 to 38%. Her Spain also went up from 30 to 33%. Scotland dropped from 20 to 6%. Indigenous Americas - Mexico stayed the same at 12%. Her Sweden dropped from 10 to 4%. Ireland at 4% is new, along with 1% Sephardic Jews. She retained 1% Basque and 1% Nigerian Woodlands.

The Sephardic Jewish percentage makes sense, as the Amado surname is known to be of Sephardic origin.

I'll have another post comparing the updates on my Dad's results and others in the DNA tests I administer for the family. 

Irish Travel Posters

 

National Museum of Ireland.

This beautiful travel poster is from the National Museum of Ireland's digital collection. I'm partly posting this so I can easily locate these again to go with future posts and plans for next summer's visit to Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The Pilot

 

Indianapolis News. 24 Oct 1944.

Eighty years ago, Guy Hankins was reported missing over Germany. He had become a command pilot of a B-17 bomber. Any descendant of his will want to seek out his military service record. I do not have the details on his service as a pilot, but I'm sure it would be a fascinating read.

In February 1945, Guy was listed as a prisoner of war.

Journal & Courier. 8 Feb 1945.

Guy's name appears in a record on Ancestry as part of the Arolsen Archives collection, titled Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947. This record gives a glimpse into what happened after he was captured in Germany. The record lists his name, date of birth, birth place and indicates it is a medical record from Oberursel. This was a military hospital north of Frankfurt where captured servicemen were given medical attention and interrogated.

The record indicates Guy was captured on 2 October 1944. The word "mittlefußbruch" translates to metatarsal fracture. He was treated at Oberursel between 2 October and 4 November 1944.

Arolsen Archives.

Another document on FamilySearch related to his prisoner of war status indicates Guy was transferred to Stalag Luft 3 at Sagan-Silesia (now Poland). From there, he was moved to a POW camp at Nüremburg-Langwasser. It is not clear when he was freed, but this camp was liberated by the US Army on 16 April 1945.

I cannot comprehend what Guy experienced those six months when he was a prisoner of war. His service record should provide a lot of information on what happened, and would be essential reading for his descendants.

Guy returned home to Thorntown, and married Frances Hungerford on 7 September 1946. Perhaps the photos on my previous post were from Guy's wedding, or prior to his departure for Europe. In the 1950 US Census, Guy and Francis appear in Thorntown. He was working as a grocery store owner.

Guy died on 8 October 2002. According to his obituary, he owned and operated the Hankins Grocery Store in Thorntown for 32 years, retiring in 1980. The obituary mentions surviving children, and notes the numbers of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Perhaps some of them will find this post, and the previous photos and link to his memory-making 1937 West Coast road trip with his cousins.

Guy

 

Ethel, Guy and David C. Hankins. Thorntown, Indiana.

The fourth member of the group on that amazing 1937 California road trip was Guy Hankins, a cousin of my Gumpy and his brother Bob through their great-grandaunt Minnie Melissa Armstrong. Minnie was a daughter of Easter Vail Armstrong (my 3rd-great-grandmother). He was born in June 1921 in Thorntown, Indiana, about eight months younger than my Gumpy.

I know there are living descendants of Guy out there, and I am sharing these photos and starting his story with this post. Perhaps they've never seen these photos. I likely have more once I search through what might remain from the nine rolls of photos the group took in their two week road trip to California and back.

Keith Jones and Guy Hankins.

Guy was a reserve guard on the 1937 Thorntown High School basketball team. In 1938, he was a member of the Glee Club, and he graduated from Thorntown in 1939. In the 1940 US Census, Guy's father David was a barber, and Guy was a clerk in a grocery store in Thorntown along with his older sister Pearl. With the start of World War II, Guy took a job in the Hoosier Ordnance Plant, otherwise known as the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant in Charlestown, Indiana. The plant opened in 1941, and employed over 27,000 people by May 1941.

Guy signed a draft card in February 1942, listing the plant as his employer. Sometime after signing the draft card, Guy became a supervisor in the plant.

WWII Draft Card. Source: Ancestry.

Guy enlisted in the Army in July 1942, and it appears he was moved over to the Air Corps. He trained in the US, and then moved over to England in August 1944. My next post will pick up the story of Guy and his service in Europe during the war.

Research Questions

Ahead of the first DNA Study Group virtual session, I am reposting the research questions I want to try to tackle with the tools and skills I'll be learning in this DNA course.

#1 - Identifying the parents of Bridget

#2 - Determining the generation of connection with the Pennsylvania O'Briens

#3 - Identifying the father of my 2nd-great-grandmother Mary Alice Cain on my Mom's side

#4 - (New) Verifying the father of Cora Belle Medcalf on my wife's side of the tree

Longer term, I'd love to see if DNA matches will reveal others from the Vasquez family who made the journey from Chile to Mexico.

The road trip from Uncle Bob's perspective

Photo by Patrick Jones. Santa Monica. 1 May 2010.

Yesterday I shared a photo and sketch from my Gumpy's 1937 California road trip with his brother Bob and cousins Guy Hankins and Tom Hendrickson. Gumpy wrote about the journey in his self-published book of short stories in July 2000. Bob wrote about this same trip in his own memoir, titled The Things I Remember, published in 1994. I don't know why I didn't compare the two accounts previously. I have extracted out Bob's retelling of the road trip from his chapter on 1937, below. Bob's account provides an interesting and deeper telling of their road trip.

"When the 1937 cars came out, I was awaiting in great anticipation for that was the year I was planning to buy a new car. I remember that Dad and I went to the Murat theater to view the new Dodge and Plymouth cars which were being shown in advance to the dealers. The 1937 Dodge was redesigned considerably. All of the controls on the instrument panel fitted flush with the dashboard. The sales pitch was that there were no protrusions in the interior of the car which would injure the passengers in case of an accident. The crank on the windshield folded up so it would not stick out. Yes, the windshield opened up at the bottom to a total extension of probably four to six inch and there was a cowl ventilator. That was the air conditioning system.

I ordered a new four door Dodge sedan which was powered by a six cylinder L head engine. It had a dark blue metallic paint job, and an imitation walnut dashboard. I ordered as extras, a heater, radio, electric clock and banjo steering wheel. It sold for $990. I had enough money for a down payment and paid about $35 per month for eighteen months. Dad had to sign the note for me, because I was not twenty-one years of age. I was somewhat perturbed by this because I was paying for it with my own money. I could hardly wait until I was twenty-one! I received delivery of my car in March 1937.

...

For a year prior to getting my new car, Keith and Toad and Guy Hankins (third cousin) and I had talked about taking a trip to California. We wrote to a number of Chambers of Commerce and obtained maps and free 'trip ticks' from Texaco. During the winter of 1936 and 1937 we planned our trip. After I got my new car in March, we really got down to serious business about our trip. We planned to go in the month of August when I would be getting two weeks of vacation from the business college. All of our parents were very supportive of our trip. Shortly before our planned departure, grandmother Jones became quite ill, and she told Mom that she did not think it was too good an idea for the boys to go to California. Mom told Keith and me, what she had said, and she stated emphatically, "You go right ahead!"

Toad and Hank got someone to paint a blue lettered sign on a piece of white oilcloth, which said "California or Bust". We tied it across the trunk lid of the car. A lot of the fun was in the preparation for the trip. Our luggage consisted of my Gladstone bag which was equipped with straps and buckles, and smaller suitcases of the other three boys. We also had some nonperishable food supplies and sandwiches and fried chicken for the evening and noon meals of the first day of the trip.

On the night of our departure, in the month of August, we all assembled at our apartment in Indianapolis, located on West 20th Street. We went to bed quite early, around 7:00 P.M. and set the alarm clock to awaken us around 11:00 to 11:30 P.M. We got into the car and turned on the radio, and with Mom and Dad watching us, we left home on the stroke of midnight. I had $150 in my pocket, Toad had $100 and Keith and Hank each had less than fifty dollars. We took US 40 (the Old National Road) through every little town and hamlet on the way to St. Louis. Some of the US 40 in Illinois was paved with brick. We arrived in St. Louis at 6:00 A.M. and after about a two or three block backtrack, got on US 66. We ate our lunch in Joplin, Missouri in a public park. We had moved right along and had driven almost five hundred miles since midnight without any interstate highways. We stopped driving at the end of the first day of the trip at Sapulpa, Oklahoma, located a short distance southwest of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The next morning we reached Oklahoma City and saw operating oil pumping rigs on the lawn of the Oklahoma statehouse grounds. I think we got to Santa Fe, New Mexico the second night where we saw quite a few Indians. It was kinda scary! I should mention that Toad would drive one hundred to one hundred fifty miles each day, and I drove the rest of the time. Keith and Guy Hankins were too young to drive.

The next day we drove to Flagstaff, Arizona. We were thrilled with the cooler weather at the higher altitude and the forests of pine and fir trees. Enroute to Flagstaff we drove through the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert. When we arrived in Flagstaff, we looked up an acquaintance of our family. Their name was either Gaddes or LaRue, I think it was the latter. These people lived in a small house which was located on the campus of the Arizona State Teacher's College, and the man with whom we were visiting was in charge of the maintenance department. He and his wife invited us to stay all night with them. Since Toad and I were the drivers, we took the bed in their only extra bedroom. Keith and Hank slept on the floor of the college garage. Keith said that sometime during the night a night watchman came around and flashed a light on them!

The next morning of our trip, we headed for the Grand Canyon. Soon after leaving Flagstaff, I started to pass an old car. I would guess I was going about sixty to sixty-five miles per hour. Just as I got alongside the other car, the driver started pulling into me, because apparently he wanted to turn left into a small country filling station. The horn would not stop him, and he just kept coming on over toward me. By that time, I was off the road on the left and on a gravel entrance to the station. When I hit that gravel, the car started skidding, and by the time I got it stopped, we were heading back east. The old fellow in the other car acted as if he did not know what happened. Fortunately, we had no damage and proceeded on to the Grand Canyon. Several minutes after the excitement of our escape from a wreck, the calves of my legs quivered for some time. We enjoyed the Canyon, but did not stay very many hours. We thought we had seen it!

We went back down to US 66 and proceeded west and then turned and went north from Kingman, Arizona to Boulder Dam. It was called Hoover Dam at that time after Herbert Hoover who was president of the United States from 1928 to 1932. We were taken on a tour down into the bowels of the generating plant. At that time, there were only one or two generators which had been installed, and they were awaiting delivery of the others, which were to be placed in the vacant areas of the generating plant. It was very interesting.

We drove on into Las Vegas, Nevada and had the car serviced and the oil changed at about 8:30 or 9 o'clock in the evening. I stayed with the car and the other guys checked out downtown Las Vegas. They came back all excited about the bright lights, gambling places, etc. We were not in Las Vegas very many hours, because we wanted to cross the Death Valley desert at night when it would be cooler. We were stopped at the California state line around midnight for inspection. This was done for the protection of California crops from diseases and insects which might have been brought in with contraband fruit and vegetables, etc. So we drove to California in almost three days!

Toad began driving and I went to sleep on the back seat of the car. When I awakened about daybreak, Toad was driving very slowly through the fog shrouded San Bernardino mountains. We drove to Long Beach, California and stayed at a night court (motel). We went swimming in the Pacific Ocean which was clean and the water was nice and warm. The place where we stayed had a kitchenette where we cooked our breakfast. We had bought some bacon and eggs and bread. Bacon at that time in California was not too plentiful and was expensive, for all pork products were shipped from the Midwest. At least we thought the bacon was expensive.

The next morning, we drove south along the coast down to San Diego. We saw the famous Coronado Hotel, then crossed the Mexican border and went into Tijuana, Mexico. We stayed most of the morning and looked around. I remember that we bought a serape for Mom, which she occasionally used as a library table cover. I suppose she used it just to keep us thinking that she liked it.

We drove back north to Los Angeles, and of course, we wanted to see Hollywood. We got a tour guide, and he took us around and showed us the homes of the stars. We believed him explicitly, but I wonder now, if we really did see the homes of the stars. They were quite ostentatious houses. We took nine rolls of pictures on our trip with a little Brownie Kodak camera which belonged to Dad. He had purchased it as a teenager with a five dollar gold piece which had been given to him by his mother's mother, my great grandmother, Easter Armstrong. I remember her and also remember when she died in 1923. Incidentally, we did not have any problems at all with the traffic and with finding our way around Los Angeles.

The next stop was in a very nice court (motel) at Carpinteria, California, which was located near the beach. Here we had cooking facilities and fixed ourselves hot dogs and warmed up a can or two of pork and beans, then bacon and eggs for breakfast. I did not go swimming, but the other guys did.

We then proceeded up to northern California. I think we went up through Bakersfield and Fresno. I just remember that it was hot in August, and it took all day to drive up to San Francisco. We knew a girl by the name of Roberta Elliott who was from Thorntown and had married and moved to California. Roberta was reared in a Quaker family, and was in the eighth grade when I was in the fifth grade at the two room schoolhouse at Sugar Plain. 

Roberta was probably about twenty-four years of age. We looked her and her husband up, and I have no recollection of how we found the streets and where they lived. We just did it! She and her husband were very hospitable and seemed to be genuinely happy to see us, for we were somebody from home! They invited us to stay all night with them. They lived in a typical San Francisco duplex with a flight of seven or eight steps leading up to the front entrance. I presume they were renting an apartment. I think some or perhaps all of us slept on the floor. 

They told us how to get around in San Francisco and suggested what we should see. One day, Roberta's husband took us and Roberta in my car and gave us a nice tour of the city. Imagine all six of us packed in the car. I guess we must have stayed with them at least two nights. We went to Telegraph Hill, the Presidio and Fisherman's Wharf. We learned that the fleet was in, and that the battleships Oklahoma and Tennessee were conducting tours for the public. One afternoon we went down to the embarking point and boarded a motor launch which took us out to one of the two battleships. We had to climb up a rope ladder to get to the ship, and were given a most interesting and educational tour. I remember the smell of fresh baked bread on board the ship. We were awestruck with the cable cars, steep hills and cobblestone and brick streets, some of which were so steep they were used very little and had grass growing up around the bricks. We walked halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge which had been opened only about one month prior to our arrival. We also saw Alcatraz Prison in the bay, which at that time was where the worst of the worst convicted criminals were incarcerated. At that time, we boys had no interest at all in going to the big hotels like the Mark Hopkins or Fairmount, of course, we could not afford it either. One night we went to Chinatown, which was very interesting. I bought a white bathrobe for Frances [Frances Cornelius, later Bob's first wife], with Chinese embroidery on it, she probably considered it grotesque.

We left San Francisco via the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge which we thought was awesome! We proceeded to Lake Tahoe, Carson City, Nevada and on to Salt Lake City. After over a five hundred mile day of driving, we located the Great Salt Lake and parked the car. All four of us went to sleep in the car. The lake had a rather unpleasant odor. We saw the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, and were favorably impressed with the cleanliness of the streets. I think our next stop for the night was at Vernal, Utah.

We continued on old US 40 (the Old National Road) through the Rocky Mountain National Park and on to Denver, Colorado. We saw snow up in the mountains and took pictures of some of us throwing snowballs on the tenth of August. I think that we drove up Pikes Peak.

We proceeded homeward, and stayed in Manhattan, Kansas. The next morning we left bright and early, and went through Topeka, then somehow got on US 36 which goes direct to Indianapolis. I know that we crossed the Mississippi River at Hannibal, Missouri. By the time we reached Springfield, Illinois, we began to realize that we were running low on money, and that we had better keep driving straight for home. Outside of Springfield, Illinois, we had to change a tire which had a puncture. We got to Decatur, Illinois, at about dusk and kept right on 'pedaling' homeward, and dropped Toad and Hank off in Thorntown, with Keith and I going on back home to Indianapolis. When we got home we figured up our miles traveled which was 6,133 in thirteen days.

Admittedly, we only hit the high spots of our trip, but we saw a lot of country, and have had a lifetime of pleasant memories. We were so glad to get back to the Midwest and see green grass and green leaves on the trees. I had five dollars and some change out of my original $150. I think everyone else was just about broke! The outside cost of the trip for the four of us was $350, plus some pretty good wear and tear on the car. I never told Mom and Dad about the near accident in Arizona, nor that I let the Dodge out on the straight highway somewhere out west on our return; and got up to ninety-seven miles per hour. Crazy! What youth won't do! Keith has all of the pictures which were taken on the trip."

...

This is really great we have Bob's account of the road trip and can compare it with Gumpy's point of view. Their trip is amazing to think about what they saw. I didn't realize from Gumpy's story that he could not drive, and that Bob and Tom did all the driving during the two week trip. I also really love how this is another cool link in our family story to the state of California. So many in our family on all sides of the tree have had a connection to the state.

I need to do some digging in our old photos handed down from Gumpy to my Dad, and I probably have more of these in our house to add to the other set I shared in December 2016.

I did a quick search on Roberta Elliott mentioned in Bob and Gumpy's stories, and located records on her on Ancestry. I'll share these in an upcoming post.

I also located some photos of Gumpy with his cousin Guy, and I'll share those in an upcoming post as well.