I was a fortunte person. My years from age 5 till 10 years were spent living with my grandfather, George Alexander MORGAN. The older I got, the wiser he became. Now at the age of 69 I realize, to late, how foolish I was by not engaging him in conversation about his early life, his family, brothers, sisters, parents. I was ignorant of the future need to know about his past life, where he lived, how he spent his childhood, where he swam in the cool waters of Tennesee.
A few years ago my cousin, John Lawrence WINSLOW and I began a joyful voyage into genealogy. Just with a few 8 x 10 file cards of data that he had collected over the years we now have relationship connections to over 60,000 people world wide from the great grand children of mine and grand children of his, back to Adam and Eve.
All that being said, I have yet to locate a more interesting person than this grandfather. These are some of my memories with a fantastic human being, my grandfather.
We lived in the Arbor Hill District of Albany, New York. Not the poorest area of the city, but if poverty had a neighbor it would live in the next block over. A totally diverse group of familys, black, whites, Irish, Polish, Jewish a large bunch
of ishs in general.
Gramps house was a typical 2 floor building attached on
both sides by other 2 floor buildings, which were attached to other 2 floor buildings until you came to an empty lot. This would be an area where that poor old 2 floor building had given up the ghost and collapsed out of exhastion.
Public School #6 , my home away from home from grades
kindergarden to 6th grade was right accross the street, I was never late for class, not always there, but never late when I did attend.
Gramps was a preacher in, "The Church of God, the
Piller, the Ground and the Truth". I beleive he was a preacher when he first arrived in Albany, NY, transferred from Illinois where he lived and raised most of his family. First arriving in Mount Vernon, Illinois from his home state of Tenn. It was later that he was elected to the seat of being the "Bishop of Connecticut" for the church, while still residing in Albany.
The family in Albany consisted of his 2nd wife, Carrie, my mother, and I. To raise money for us and the church, he operated a second hand store on the lower front room of the house, which Iam sure was a front room at one time, with a doorway leading back into another room, at one time Iam sure was a dinning room, with another arch, leading to a side bedroom, with the dinning room having another arch leading back to the kitchen.
All of the rooms except the kitchen were filled to the ceiling with second hand clothing of several periods. There were racks of shirts, suits, ladies dresses, belts, ties. The walls were covered with pictures, placards. Iam sure that every type of clothing at one time or another found it's way into Gramps place of business.
At times the aroma was strong of other humans having
worn these garments, but like most smells, one gets use
to them and for that person they no longer exist. That
was off set by the variety of colors clashing, messhing
into one another. A true calidiscope of humankind's
wearables.
The kitchen is were most visiting and living took place. It was a large room, but only about 6' 6" tall. Gramps was 6' 2" tall and with his hat would duck under either doorway into the kitchen, from the hall or the store.
This is where small meals were prepared, dinner was
eaten and people gathered to talk. The stove was the
style of the day, wood burning, with four burners on
the left side, a place to set pans on the right top and
a full oven underneath. There was one window that visually led to the hallway and a small window
on the back side of the kitchen, about 5 feet from the
floor.
It was thru this little window, during winter time,
Gramps or Carrie would, after a large fresh fallen snowstorm, rech out gather into a bowl a helping of
white snow, mix in an amount of pure fresh vanilla
and hand me my treat of homemade ice cream.
The sink was a huge parcelain translucent ceramic
ware style of the day. It sat next to where the hinges were for the hallway door. This is where Gramps would wash his teeth daily using just pure salt, "kind of adds taste to a neccesary job", he would say.
Going out into the hallway, to the right would lead
a person to the little boys/girls room, a single use type of place, containing only the seat a person needed, the where with all to finish the business and a door to close, leaving a person the privicy in which to do it.
Then further toward the front of the home would be the
ever present front door with the likewise ever present
cow bell hanging from the ceiling, just inside the door
range of about 2 inches. High enough a child could not
reach it, yet back far enough away from the door frame
to ensure, no sneaking into this place of business, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, it would go, alerting my ever cautious Gramps.
Retracing steps back pass the kitchen would take a person outside, into the back yard. To the right were the back stairs leading upstairs, continue on into the yard, on the right are 3 six foot by 10 foot each buildings attached together as are the homes on the street.
These buildings were my castles, containg all my valuble treasures, toys, tools, anything that was not clothing Gramps kept in these treasure areas. I was always free to go into them, taking out the little soldiers, broken games even were treasure, at least they were better than not have any games at all. Besides I hardly ever had the directions of how to play, so if a part was missing how was I to know? I would play with them any way, being creative and making my rules up as I went, by the way, I was an only child, so my way were the rules. Who is there
to agrue?.
In front of these buildings was an area that was kept open most of the time, enabeling Gramps to put up a large tent from time to time which I could sleep in. A Knight of old, staying close to his castles, to protect everything, everyone. The back of the yard contained a large area where Gramps planted a garden that he tended as best he could, a lot of meals came out of there. Also back there was one big tree with one overhanging large limb over which Gramps hand a large rope, tied a big old tire to it and made me a
swing of the day, what fun was had in that.
Back into the front hallway, at the foot of the stairs, in front of which stood a peice of furniture that contained a large mirror, on the sides was an area for umbrellas and a small table. From the back hung metal hooks on which one could place a hat upon comming into the house. Gramps had a large variety of head gear there, men, womens, childrens.
The top of the starirs straight ahead lead to a back porch which led to the back stairs. I remember there being a large sofa there, where I often fell asleep, away from noise, people in general, relax, and doze off.
The other direction from the stairs led into the large front room where we set from time to time, but was used mainly for sunday worhip service. Off to the left was Gramps small office, containing the usual desk hi boy he used, with the pigeon holes of a business man's domain.
The back of the upstairs big room held two doors, leading to the two bedwooms, Gramps/ Carrie's, and mom's, I often slept on the sofa on the upstairs back porch.
All of this would be during the years of 1937 to 1942.
I went back in 1994 for the first time since 1974.
20 years had gone by, when I got there, I was devistated. 7 family homes, all two story wooden structures, nailed together like couples wedded for life, were all gone. In their place was a fenced in large plot of earth in which was growing a vegtable garden that was used to feed many of the other familys still living in the area. Gramps was still giving to other people, even after death..........................
That was the beginning of more stories to come, about
a man I loved as a child, thought highly of as an adult, and miss today, me being a grandfather and greatgrandfather myself.
This page and connecting pages: Copyright © 1996-2005 by Jack Leroy Bryson. All rights reserved. This site may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without my consent.
