Ask a teenager today if they drive a car to their high school and likely receive a positive response. Ask me—oh you did—and learn I did not drive to school for two reasons. First, my high school was in the heart of Peoria, Illinois, and without student parking. Second, I did not have a car until after I graduated high school.

Dang, question answered and in less than a hundred words.

I can’t leave you with the impression I was without wheels when a teenager.

I approached my sixteenth birthday with anticipation of getting my driver’s license. With it, it would be legal to drive anywhere in the United States. The challenge was to pass Illinois’ driver’s license test.

You may remember my father was on active duty in the US Navy. He was deployed and not available to teach me to drive. If any companies were giving the training, I don’t remember them. I turned to my mother, but she hadn’t the patience, maybe nerves, to teach me. She was in a terrible car accident years earlier and co-opted my Uncle James to do the teaching.

Uncle James, teacher

Uncle James Lee Harris was born on 6 September 1921 in Owensboro, Kentucky, and died on 3 September 1993 in Washington, Illinois. Uncle James was a master machinist who worked at Caterpillar Tractor Company. He was also a master gunsmith whose skills were sought from gun owners nationwide.

His talents included teaching a teenager how to drive. One day shortly after I turned fifteen, he took me to a nearby country road. He pulled over, stopped the car, and we exchanged places. We sat there with the emergency brake set.

He explained how to operate a standard transmission 1950s something Ford with the shifter on the steering column. He warned me to clutch to change gears and at stops to prevent killing the engine.

He completed his explanations, and it was time to put them into practice. I don’t remember how many times I killed the engine or how jerky the starts were, but I imagine it was many and dire. Sometime later, probably when he had suffered enough, Uncle James and I went home. My lesson complete.

Teaching myself!

My mother took me out two or three times to let me drive. Then, one day she handed me the car keys and said to go practice on one condition. (I don’t know if my mother worried about insurance or not.) I had to use the school road and none other. This road started beyond the alley by our house and wound into the country past a dam. She allowed me to practice several times before I took the driver’s test. I passed on the second try. I failed the first time because the tester didn’t care for my parallel parking.

I could use the car for errands or just joyriding until I graduated, took a full-time job, and bought my first car.

Dwane’s Grandparents and Parents

A long time ago, Elizabeth Midkiff and James Frederick Harris had a beautiful daughter named Mary Ruth in Owensboro, Kentucky. The date was 23 January 1927. Almost two months later, Johanna Mae Elder and Hilary Oswald Knott had a handsome son named Francis Leo. It was 17 April 1927, and the place was Browns Valley, Kentucky. Mary and Francis, who everyone called Leo, are my parents.

Mary and Francis married on 17 August 1946 in Owensboro. I was born in October the next year. My brother Cletus James was born on 9 June 1949 and the twins, Mary Paula and Joseph Paul, on 3 December 1952. The four of us born in Owensboro. Early in 1952, the family moved to Peoria, Illinois.

We lived on NE Adams street in an apartment until my parents bought a house on Vohland Street in Beverly Manor, Illinois. We moved in the summer of 1953, in time for me to begin first grade at St. Patrick’s Elementary School in Washington, Illinois. Cletus and the twins followed when they reached school age.

Lori’s Grandparents and Parents

A long time ago, a beautiful daughter was born on 27 July 1933 to Mary Elizabeth Neubauer and Robert Joseph Green in Donna, Texas. They named her Virginia Louise. James Alexander, Jr, a handsome boy, was born to Margaret Sarah Sherlock and James Alexander Cameron, Sr on 31 July 1929 in Minot, North Dakota.  Virginia and James Jr. are my wife’s parents.

Virginia and James met in Corpus Christi, Texas, and were married there on 29 July 1950.  They had three children born in a Corpus Christi hospital. Colin James was born 24 July 1951,  Flora MacLeod (Lori) in January 1954 and Heather Jenny in November 1967.

Virginia and James bought a house on Rosedale Street sometime before Colin was born and lived there all their lives.

I hope you enjoyed the brief glimpse into our family history. Questions or comments are appreciated and enjoyed.

Be safe in this trying time.

Clement Knott is my great-great-great-grandfather. He is the last person in the human chain of my paternal line. He is also a person of contention.

Clement was born about 1794 in Maryland. The death certificate for Raphael Knott, his son, gives Maryland as the birthplace of his father. The 1860 census for Breckinridge, Kentucky lists a C. Knott living in the household of Mary Swink. Clement’s daughter, Mary, married Christian Swink and lived in Breckinridge. Mary’s children were born there. The 1870 census for Breckinridge County had Clement Knot, 77, living with Ruben Ford and Catherine. Amanda Swink, a daughter of Mary Swink, lived with them.

Several researchers have placed Clement, my relative, as being born about 1780, moving to Kentucky before going to Missouri. I disagree with this assessment because that Clement stayed in Missouri and is on church roles there. The roles indicated he had his children in Missouri and died there. The Perry County Genealogy Trails list Clement and Mary Quick at their 15y daughter’s marriage in 1830. Clement Knott of Breckinridge was fathering children with Nancy ‘Ann’ Hardesty in Kentucky between 1815 and 1832.

Family oral history, as related, told Clement married Nancy Hardesty.  I searched for years, before Ancestry.com, for any reference to this marriage. I posted online to genealogy boards. One day I received an email that there was a Hardesty family history book that listed Ann Hardesty marrying John Riney who died within a year. She remarried to Clement Knott. The dates are appropriate for the age of the individuals and the children they parented.

Leave me a comment if you want additional information on Clement or Nancy. Or share with me your family history or family interest.

Save

Genealogy and creating a family tree is challenging without the internet. Today, Ancestry has digitized so much information that one is likely to find something on a person born a generation or more ago. I began before the internet or Ancestry.com.

My family provided my first data. I collared my parents, uncles, and aunts whenever I could. I scribbled down what they told me and stored it until I purchased a genealogy program. On one of my old computers is the second version of Family Tree. The program was amazing. It allowed me to enter a name, vital statistics, and see a relationship to others in the database generated. Now I use Family Tree v2014.1.

My database remained small for many years since new information came via interviewing relatives. Those opportunities came when home on leave from the Navy. When I married, my mother-in-law provided information on her immediate family and some ancestors.  I had 75 entries in my database when my wife and I attended her family’s reunion.

The reunion was in Oklahoma.  I brought a print out of my database and requested corrections or additions be noted. Those interested could use the blank family sheets I provided to give me their information. I added over 150 new persons to my database. Subsequent family reunions provided fewer additions and my interest in genealogy waned.

It revived when I found the internet. I discovered a college with a large collection of references including census, family bibles, family trees, and more. The college scanned the documents and made them available for download. The cost was not inconsequential to call and remain online searching. Long distance was billed by the minute. And I had blazing download speeds of 2400 bits/second. Yes, 2400. I bore the cost and downloaded many.  The internet now provides access to data from many sources and locations.

My database is over 3000 persons somehow related to me, my wife, or my children’s spouses. Some entries are just a name. Others have locations lived, occupations, and relationships to church and community. The joy in discovering a new ancestor is a treasure for one interested in his ancestors.

Does genealogy interest you? Do you have a family tree?