What Were Your Grandparents Like?

I am so grateful that I’ve started working on finding out about my family through Ancestry.com. It has been a big help in regaining memories. It also provides details and explanations of things I remember but didn’t understand.

I knew I had never met my paternal grandfather and have a vague recollection of my paternal grandmother. She was old and frail. Her name, I also remember, was Mary Davis. I thought that was strange. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t Mary Wellman. Through Ancestry, I’ve learned that at one time she was indeed Mary Wellman. In fact, her full name was Mary Vivian Middleton Wellman Shaw Moon Davis. Apparently, even in the early 1900s, she was married and divorced several times.

Mary Vivian Middleton was born on October 4, 1884, in Arkansas. She married my grandfather, Walter Gray Wellman, August 7, 1904, in Hunt, Texas. Until recently, I only knew my grandfather’s middle initial. Learning that his middle name was Gray finally clarified what my mother told me. She said that if I were a boy, my name would be Timothy Gray Wellman because Gray is a family name. Mary and Walter had three boys. My daddy, Cecil Norman Wellman, the middle child, born January 12, 1909. Mary passed away on January 28, 1958. Thus, in order to meet her, I could only be up to 4-years in age. Mary is interred in the same place as my daddy, Llano Cemetery in Amarillo, Texas. Their burial sites are next to each other.

What I remember about visiting her was that her home was very dark, ancient, and didn’t smell very good. I remember being handed to her and crying.

The grandparents I remember the best are my mother’s father and mother. Oscar Floy Hobart and Alice Edna Norton Hobart. I always called them Grandpa and Grandma, but Grandpa would sign all their cards and letters to me as ‘GPa’ and ‘GMa.’

Oscar and Alice were married on March 18, 1911, in South Dakota when they were both 19-years-old. Even at that young age, they were kind and upstanding people.

I remember that I dearly loved them and was so excited and happy whenever they would come to visit and the times that we traveled to their home in Centerville, Iowa. Grandpa always had a twinkle in his eye and would play with me, and the two of us would get into “trouble” with Mother or Grandma. He would make me laugh and tell me I was wonderful. He called me the “apple of his eye”. Grandpa was always fun and would tease me. Grandma was a bit more severe, expecting that we would behave, but we never did. Grandma was an amazing cook and would have a variety of food prepared for us, on the table and ready to eat. Even when we got into trouble with her, she would correct us with a slight smile. Sometimes wagging her finger at us like she was angry, but holding back laughter.

They were loving and well respected by everyone. They had ten children, five boys and five girls. Their oldest was Lucile Caroline, born in 1912. Five years later, my mother, Edna Mae, was born. During those five years, two boys came along. After my mother, there was one more boy. Then in 1921, Lucile Caroline passed away from tuberculosis. Lucile was 9-years old, and my grandparents were both 30-years-old. They had so many children to care for while living through the tragic loss of their eldest child. James was nearly 8-years old, Carl was 5 1⁄2, my mother was 4, and Robert was 6-months. I can’t imagine how difficult it was for them to have five children all under the age of 10 and then the heartbreak of caring for a sick Lucile and then losing her. Starting in 1922 and through the next 10-years, five more children came along. Mother didn’t get another sister until 1927. During those five years (from 1922 to 1927), Mother was the only girl with five brothers, two older and three younger. Although they played roughly with her, she held her own.

Oscar came from a large family as well. He had three brothers and seven sisters. He also traveled via a covered wagon convoy. However, he and most of his siblings walked the entire way. All of that information is available in a book that my mother published and shared with all of his children and grandchildren. I have our copy and someday it will be passed along to my son and his children. Alice also came from a large family. She had two sisters and six brothers.

When my daddy passed away, we all met in Amarillo, Texas for his funeral and interment. I remember Grandpa and Grandma staying with me. I don’t remember seeing my mother very much. Grandma helped me get ready. Grandma dressed me in a new black dress, hat, gloves, and shoes. I was 10-years-old. I remember feeling very uncomfortable in my new clothes while sitting in the living room with my grandparents. There were also several aunts, uncles, and cousins. I don’t remember who was there, but I remember how tender and caring my grandparents were. I remember feeling very nervous. Seeing them there was calming and helpful. I knew I was safe as long as they were with me. It seemed like we waited in the living room forever, everyone feeling uncomfortable. It was so silent, which for this large group was unusual.

Finally, two of the largest, blackest vehicles arrived. I have since learned that they were limousines. I saw my mother and brother in the back seat of the lead vehicle. A man got out of the passenger side of the second vehicle and opened the door to its backseat. My grandmother got in first, slid over, making room for me, and then my grandfather followed. The man closed the door and got back in the front passenger side. I sat there between Grandpa and Grandma and felt safe, but still worried. We followed my mother and brother’s vehicle somewhere. I do not know where and I don’t remember the service at all.

The next thing I do remember is being in the same room with the open casket. I caught a glimpse and saw that my daddy was in it. After a closer look, I could see that he ‘looked’ like my daddy; but he seemed so much younger. Obviously, he was my daddy, but it was not the same face I saw for the last time when he was being placed in the back of an ambulance to be taken to the VA Hospital in Tucson. I was confused. Wondered how he got to Amarillo. How did he get here and why didn’t he look right? Then I realized that the huge bandage on the side of his face was gone and the gaping hole in that cheek was now gone, too.

Somehow, in death, his face had become whole again, and he looked younger. I was very confused. Around his casket were so many baskets of flowers, on the floor, and on tripods. Flowers surrounded his casket. The flowers looked lovely, but their loveliness felt so strange and unsettling in that place of death. Their sweet fragrance could not mask the smell of antiseptic death.

There were lots of people in line to go up to see him. One of my aunts accompanied me and picked me up so I could see him better. She wanted me to say goodbye to him. Then she leaned over him while pushing my head toward his face, trying to force me to kiss my daddy’s cheek. That was the cheek! I screamed and fought her, yelling “NO! NO! NO!” My grandpa came up and carried me back to sit in the pew between him and Grandma. I was safe again, but I was still furious with my aunt.

Although I couldn’t see my grandparents often because of the many miles between us, I always knew they loved me. Even as one of over twenty-eight grandchildren, I still felt special to them. During the most difficult time of my childhood, they were there—to love me and protect me.