An uncle’s memoirs enrich family genealogy

For all my growing-up years, the five-generation picture hung on the wall of my parents’ bedroom with my great-grandmother Rena Bennett; my grandmother Ione Moore; my dad, Gayland Moore Jr; and in the front, Ga, my great-great-grandmother Mary (Cummings) Bennett Lord holding me as a baby.

That picture was the beginning of my sense of how far my family reached, and now I’ve been collecting names and dates and places for more than a quarter-century.

The Moores and Cummingses and Bennetts and so forth fill up a notebook quite nicely, but of course it’s the stories that flesh things out. Do I really remember sitting between Ga and Gram Bennett for a later picture taken at the Grinnell Tower in Greenville, or is it just that I’ve looked at the photograph so often it seems that I must recall it?

My dad and my Grammy Moore – both gone now – did a great job answering my endless questions about the family.

I’ll never forget the time I was “interviewing” Grammy Moore yet again when she popped up with the tidbit that great-grandfather Alton J. Moore’s “J.” stood for Jotham. I had just discovered Jotham as the next Moore-Mooer ancestor rather than the Abbot founder Abraham Moore we had all been hoping was our relative, so this confirmation was most important.

But it’s not only the way-way-way-back information that’s important. One of the vital keepers of the memories in my family is Uncle Roddy Moore, best known for the fact that he up and went to Alaska when he was in the Air Force more than 50 years ago.

Uncle Roddy had the good sense to write down his “hunting stories,” both those that took place in the 1940s here in Maine and the adventures of the 1950s and 1960s with bigger game in Alaska, sometimes in the company of native Alaskans.

Then, a few years ago, Uncle Roddy decided to write up his childhood memories for his kids. He was the third of four children in a Depression-era family. My dad was the firstborn, then Carroll, Roddy and Mary. I can’t tell you how wonderful those stories are.

For instance, it never occurred to me that as a boy, Roddy, born in 1928, had to learn to use a crosscut saw from both sides because one of his brothers was right-handed, and the other left-handed.

Reaching back to even earlier memories, Roddy came up with a remembrance of historical value: “The second thing I remember was Cal Weymouth walking across the bridge over the Piscataquis River with a long pole and turning on the electric lights by screwing in the bulbs with something on the end of the pole. Every time in later years when I heard Bing Crosby sing about ‘The Old Lamp Lighter of Long, Long Ago,’ I always thought of Cal Weymouth and that period in my life.”

After reading Uncle Roddy’s memoir, it occurs to me that I should set aside my genealogical pursuits long enough to write up my memories for my boys. For example, I remember seeing President Eisenhower in a motorcade going down Main Street in Newport.

I remember Alan Shepard’s space shot, John Glenn’s circling the Earth, the landing of man on the moon, the assassinations of Jack and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the eradication of polio and smallpox, the bringing down of the Berlin Wall, and going to college with Stephen King before he was famous. Then, too, I should write up some of my newspaper adventures such as riding aboard the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy from New York City to Boston.

Thanks, Uncle Roddy, for reminding me that current generations should do their part to add to the family story.

Speaking of President Eisenhower, he was the one who designated Constitution Week, which we mark Sept. 17-23. I heard a wonderful talk on Constitution Week given by President General Presley Wagoner at the fall meeting of the Maine Daughters of the American Revolution. Our forebears would bid us not forget this most important of weeks.

The Maine Old Cemetery Association will hold its Oct. 2 meeting at the Weld Historical Society buildings on Route 156 in Weld. Registration at $3 begins at 8:30 a.m. Sean Minear will speak on “Weld: The Town and Its Cemeteries” at 9:15 a.m.

Enola Couture will present the eighth-grade student project, “Cemetery Project: Meet My Person,” at 10 a.m.

Check out exhibits and displays at 10:30 a.m. and join the brief MOCA meeting at 11 a.m. Brown bag lunch is at noon.

Weld Historical Society members will give tours of some Weld cemeteries at 1 p.m.

MOCA meetings are a great place to meet up with some very astute genealogists. Note that facilities are not accessible to the handicapped, and the plumbing is “rustic.”

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402; or send e-mail to familyti@bangordailynews.net.