Genealogy Story – Illiterate Ancestors

I was recently watching an older episode of Who Do You Think You Are? – the British version. At one point in the episode they were looking at a document that was signed by the individual’s ancestor and noted that it was “signed” with an “X”, indicating that their ancestor was illiterate. This got me thinking about my own ancestors and whether any of them were illiterate.

I had noted in an earlier blog (http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/08/changing-names.html) that literacy in England was only 5% in the late 1400s, but that by the time that my ancestors came to the US in the early 1600s it was nearly 50%. The US did not begin asking questions about the ability to read/write until the 1850 census. So the only way to find illiterate ancestors would be individuals who were still living in 1850 or who were born after that or to find a document that required their signature.

Generally, an individual’s literacy will be based on their parents, so if their parents were literate then they will be also. One’s educational achievement will also tend to be at least as great as their parents. People also tend to marry others in their same economic strata so both parents pass on the same level of literacy to their children. My grandparents had a grammar school education. My parents’ generation generally had a high school education, and those in my generation will often have a college education. The only exceptions to this being based on your parents will be if there is some sort of significant event in the family/individual – such as an economic crisis where the family is plunged into extreme poverty.

An example of a “significant event” from my own ancestry is when my maternal grandfather’s mother died in childbirth and his father, either feeling not able to raise an infant or feeling reminded of his wife’s death every time he saw his young son, sent him to the next town to be raised by foster parents (my grandfather’s older siblings were not sent away, so I tend to favor the latter reasoning). Thus, my grandfather’s education would have been influenced by his foster parents instead of his own father.

Armed with this information, I began looking back through my family tree to see if I could find any illiteracy.

My mother’s family all seem to be literate. Since her direct ancestors were early immigrants to America in the 1630s and included ministers and others who attended college, the level of literacy was quite high. I could not find any examples of illiteracy there. And since Pierponts were minor royalty in England it is likely that they were literate for several centuries before. The same was true of my paternal grandmother’s line. Her family was Jewish and lived in Brooklyn where they were involved in industries such as watch making. I could not find any examples of illiteracy there either. That left only my paternal grandfather’s line.

I went back another three generations through those who were listed in the 1850 census or later. It was not until I looked at my great*3 grandfather, Silas Russell (1803-1886), and his wife, Hester [Disbrow] Russell (1807-1898), that I was able to find any illiteracy. All the census records from 1850 and forward record them as not able to read or write. I was also able to locate a document where they “signed” with a mark of “X”. The document was an application for a civil war pension for their daughter whose husband was killed in the war. Since she was born at home, they had to attest to that fact and on one of the 45 pages of the application that attestation and their “signature” can be found. This is as exciting to me as to such a similar mark was found by the person on the TV show!

I have not been able to document any other instances of illiteracy among my ancestors. Since older census records, either in the US or in England, do not ask that question, and since finding other documents that require signing is like looking for a “needle in a haystack” that would be quite difficult. So finding one such document is quite amazing.

Three New Learnings – Letter P

There are always new things to learn. Here are three that I learned in the last week or so – all beginning with the letter P.

Papiamentu

This past week I published my 15^th book. This one is titled “Introdukshon di e Bukinan

di Tèstamènt Bieu” (translated – Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament). It is written in the Papiamentu language. I had never heard of this language until recently and was told that it is the native language of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao – the ABC islands off the northern coast of Venezuela. I then looked up Papiamentu in the dictionary (e.g. Wikipedia) where it is called a Portuguese Creole language. This was a bit confusing to me at first, as the only languages I knew which had the Creole designation were the Louisiana Creole language that is spoken only by a few thousand people in that US state and the Haitian Creole language which is also French based and is spoken by over 12 million people.

But it turns out that I had some learning to do. According to Wikipedia, “A creole language is a stable natural language developed from a mixture of different languages.” There are examples of English-based Creole, Spanish-based Creole, French-based Creole, Portuguese-based Creole and others. Papiamentu is derived from Portuguese and African, with influences of English, Dutch, and Spanish. It is spoken by roughly 250,000 people in the ABC islands.

So not only did I learn about Papiamentu, but I had to correct what I thought I knew about Creole!

Peebles

I will often do some ad-hoc research on ancestry.com. One that I did recently was in order to see if there was a connection between our former neighbors (for 25 years) across the street whose house we recently purchased for my daughter to live in. Her maiden name was Peebles. But this was the same last name (and a somewhat unusual one) of an ex-husband of my wife’s cousin in Michigan.

After tracing the family line back for both these two people I found that they did indeed have a common ancestor, namely William Peebles who was born to a man of the same name who emigrated from the United Kingdom in the late 1600s to Prince Georges County, Virginia. So our neighbor is the 7^th cousin (once removed) of the ex-husband of my wife’s 1^st cousin (once removed). While this is not a close connection, the fact that I could document a connection between our former neighbor and my wife’s cousin is pretty interesting to me. One of the family lines stayed in Virginia until recently and then migrated to PA, the other moved from VA to TN to AL to MI.

For those who have shopped at it, there is also a Peebles Department Store chain with its headquarters in Virginia whose founder is also a descendant of the same William Peebles.

It’s always interesting to me to discover connections such as this through my genealogical research.

Polish Jews

A few days ago I watched an episode of “Who Do You Think You Are.” This is the UK version, not the US version of the same name. The episode I watched was about Jane Seymour because that was the only episode that season that starred an individual I knew (because she had appeared on American television). One of the things that I like about the UK version is that television there is not loaded with commercials like US TV shows, so a one-hour show is 57-59 minutes long instead of the 40 or so minutes of a one-hour US show.

The UK version is also not sponsored by ancestry.com, so instead of using technology to look up records they concentrate on showing the original records from churches, town libraries, and other sources as the person being highlighted is traveling around from place to place. Thus you get a bit more of the real history as you see the places involved.

In the case of Jane Seymour, she was trying to find more information about her father’s family who were from Poland in the mid-1900s. The first part of the investigation was in Warsaw which is where the family was from. They not only visited the places where her family was from, but showed old photographs of the life of Polish Jews during WWII when few Jews from Poland survived the Nazis – initially through imprisonment in the Warsaw ghetto and later through the concentration camps where all Jews were being sent.

According to my DNA analysis (via ancestry.com), 20% of my DNA is of Eastern European Jew origin (centered on Poland), so this background of Jane Seymour is a big piece of my heritage as well. My Jewish ancestry is through my paternal grandmother – her maiden name was Vera Levy. She was born in Brooklyn, NY, and lived in a series of tenement houses surrounded by other immigrant families – from England, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and other countries.

My grandmother’s great-grandfather, Lewis Levy, had immigrated to NY in 1851 from a suburb of London, England. But it appears that the Levy family were part of a Jewish community in England who had come there from Eastern Europe a few generations prior to that. I have not been able to confirm where/when the Levy family moved to England, but I have confidence that my DNA analysis is correct. So while the Levy family did not have the same type of experience that Jane Seymour’s family did a century or so later, I was still able to identify with the discrimination that Jewish families in Europe experienced.

A Short Story – The Carwash

Benjamin Morrison had been running the carwash for several decades. The sign on the side of the building said, “Benjamin Morrison’s Carwash, Specializing in Packards”. He loved the classic lines of those motor cars! But the Packard Corporation had gone out of business a few years before and had been in decline for quite some time. So the volume of the carwash business had been going down, too. He originally had three bays in the wash building and three bays in the drying/polishing building, but now only one bay in each building was active. That was the center bay in the wash building because it had slightly wider doors that more easily accommodated the newer, wider models, but the left-most bay in the drying building because it had better light from the large window on the side of the building. That necessitated a left-hand jog when going from one building to the next, but his customers did not seem to mind – with the exception of old Mr. Abernathy who didn’t like any change in his routine and who worried about scraping the sides of his beloved ’26 Packard.

But Benjamin was getting older, too. And since he was actively involved in the business, which was all manual labor and individual attention given to each vehicle, he needed to find someone younger to run the business. His son in Arizona had been getting more insistent that he retire and move there and he admitted that the prospect of a warmer climate was getting very appealing. But who to give the business to? His son and family were all in Arizona and his daughter and son-in-law had their own careers in New York City and no children. After much thought, he made a decision.

Jim Smith had been working for Ben for many years. He had the same sort of dedication to the Packard and its classic lines as Ben did. He had started out as a washer back when the business still had all three bays open, and now he was in charge of the drying/polishing bay. He didn’t have a title, but he was essentially a supervisor in the business. When Ben announced that he was going to be retiring to Arizona and wanted to sell the business to Jim for a very nominal price, Jim was a bit shocked. He knew all the aspects of the business, but the generosity of Ben was overwhelming. It took him several seconds to regain his composure before he could accept Ben’s offer.

It didn’t take long for Jim to realize that the business needed a few changes in order for it to survive. While he kept the name in honor of his former boss, he changed the “Specializing in Packards” to “Specializing in Classic Automobiles.” He also upgraded the lights in the center drying bay so customers could drive straight ahead from the washing bay. Mr. Abernathy was most appreciative of this latter change! The increase in business was not dramatic, but it was enough to make it viable. Now collectors of vintage Cadillacs, Fords, Hudsons, and other brands besides Packards could be found going through the carwash. Because the carwash was an entirely manual effort, owners of vehicles with soft tops or open touring cars were much more open to visit Benjamin Morrison’s Carwash. Jim had enough business to keep only one set of bays operational. But at least the business could continue.

It was about 15 years later that the aging process caught up with Jim, too. He was struggling with arthritis in his knees and needed to be able to do something before he was totally disabled. He had kept the business going, but he had not gotten rich from it. He believed that he had enough saved up to retire to Florida where he believed the weather would be more amenable to him. If anything, business was once again heading downhill. But he remained dedicated to providing a useful service to those individuals who owned classic cars and wanted the kind of care and attention to detail that Jim was able to offer. But like Ben before him, Jim was struggling with whom to pass the business along to.

Jim’s one son was well established in his own career in finance and had no interest in following in his father’s footsteps. The best possibility was Jim’s granddaughter, Rebecca. She had worked for Jim off and on for the past several years. Although she was in her 20’s and not yet married, she also did not have a career and had worked at a series of low-paying jobs since finishing high school. But whenever she worked for Jim in between other jobs she seemed to like working on the procession of classic cars that came through the carwash. Jim thought long and hard and then made his decision.

Rebecca, or Becky as she liked to be called, was thrilled with the prospect of having long-term employment at something that she enjoyed doing. It wasn’t long after Jim had turned over the keys and moved south that she put her own stamp on the business. She painted the aging buildings a bright yellow and renamed it as “Becky’s Carwash” with the “Becky’s” in bold black script – she had never totally understood her grandfather’s keeping the business named for a man who had died several years before.

Becky attributed the increase in business to her decision to repaint the buildings and rename the business. During busy summer weekends she even had to open a second set of bays to handle the increased traffic. She hired and trained several local youth during those busy times. She was convinced that her upgrades were the cause of the increase. And while she knew that most of the owners of the classic cars that were her staple were middle-aged men, she would have been shocked to realize that the reason for the increase in traffic was because of Becky herself. Those otherwise car-focused gentlemen just liked the sight of the blond well-proportioned Becky dressed in t-shirt and shorts leaning over their vehicles as she ensured that they were well cleaned, dried and polished.

It was about fifteen years later that Becky had to deal with the decision to sell the business. She was now Rebecca Johnson, having been married to Andy for nearly ten years. He was employed by a large corporation in the nearby city and was being considered for a position in the corporate headquarters in Chicago that came with a substantial promotion. He and Becky had no children to tie them down so the only thing holding them back was the carwash business. Andy was putting a lot of pressure on Becky to sell it so they could move.

Even though the business was once again in a decline, primarily because now in her early 40’s and married Becky was not the draw that she had once been, she still loved the carwash. So it was with reluctance that she agreed to sell. Andy was even willing to help finance the sale if need be. Becky’s choice for a new owner was Jeremy Mills. Jeremy had been one of the local youth who had helped during the summer rushes back several years ago. He also continued to help during his breaks from school. He had graduated from college the previous year with a degree in marketing, but was still unemployed. When he was not out “pounding the pavement” looking for a job, he would continue to help out by relieving other employees when he could. Becky could see a lot of her younger self in Jeremy.

Jeremy was startled when Becky approached him about taking over the business. And when he learned that Andy was willing to not only have her sell it at a pretty reasonable price, but that he was also willing to help finance it by holding the mortgage, he knew that this was his golden opportunity. With the approval of his parents, with whom he still lived, he enthusiastically agreed.

But Jeremy did not immediately try to put his stamp on the business. For several months, he kept the name of the business and spent much of his time trying to find out what his customers wanted. He interviewed all those who came through the bay doors, finding out where they lived, why they patronized the business, what they liked/disliked, what they thought of his pricing, and what changes they would like to have. He also spent two days at the county antique and custom car show – not looking at the cars, although he would have liked to, but talking to the owners, asking if they used a service like his, how far they would be willing to drive, what would convince them to go to a business like his. From this he also received information about a few other, larger car shows on the east coast and he traveled to those as well, asking the same sort of questions. By the start of winter, he had decided what he needed to do to make the business successful.

The new name of the business was not going to be personalized. Rather, he was going to call it “Classic Carwash and Detailing”. The latter part of the name was because he was planning to erect yet a third building to focus on interior detailing. This building would have two bays, one of which would be staffed and the other fully equipped but not staffed. It would also have a small office section on the end. In addition to the staffed offerings, Jeremy planned on offering to rent out bays to classic car owners who liked to do their own work and who did not want others touching “their” car. He was able to get financing for this new building by approaching a local bank where the loan officer was most impressed by Jeremy’s marketing results that showed how much demand there would be for these new offerings, and even letters of commitment from classic car owners who wanted to use those services. Jeremy spent the winter months having the new detailing building erected, cleaning out the bays of the other two buildings – some of which had not been used for a couple of decades, repainting the older buildings a more classic light brown color instead of the now faded yellow, and putting up new signs – covered until the grand re-opening was scheduled in the spring.

Five years later, on a sultry summer day, Jeremy was sitting in his office and thinking about how far he had come. He was still not yet thirty, but he owned his own business – the loans having been paid off the previous year. All eight bays were busy, most with his employees doing the work, but the rest with car owners who preferred to do their own work. Jeremy also had three franchises of “Classic Carwash and Detailing”. The oldest one was in a suburb of Chicago and was partially owned by Andy and Becky Johnson – Andy because he knew a good investment when he saw one, and Becky because … well, she still liked cars. The franchise in Virginia Beach had been going for two years now, and the latest one near Memphis was scheduled to open on Labor Day weekend. Jeremy had already booked his ticket so that he could participate in the opening ceremony.

As he scanned the wall opposite his desk which had pictures and a framed newspaper article of his own grand re-opening, Jeremy thought back to that day. The local newspaper and the local TV station had both sent reporters to cover the event. Even the mayor had stopped by to say a few words and have a photo op. There were also a few special guests. Andy and Becky had flown in from Chicago as an investor and prior owner. And Becky had even convinced her grandfather to fly up from Orlando. Jim was now confined to a wheelchair, but that did not stop him from rolling up to the microphone to offer his comments on the event. But the star of the event was a 1926 Packard. Although Mr. Abernathy had been dead for over 20 years, Jeremy had located Colin Abernathy who had inherited his grandfather’s car when he passed on. Jeremy had presented Colin with a complementary “Gold Gloves Special” which included a carwash, polishing, and thorough interior detailing. After all, it was partly that car which had inspired the start of the business so many years ago – “Benjamin Morrison’s Carwash, Specializing in Packards”!

Wolcott Memories – Being a bad boy

The most recent posting on the wolcotthistory.org website, written by my friend Florence Goodman, was part of a continuing series about Wolcott residents who served in WWI. One of the featured soldiers this month was Albert James Homewood. Two things about this article caught my eye – one that his mother’s maiden name was Frances Ella Alcott, thus meaning that he was a descendant of James Alcox/Alcott who was one of the earliest settlers to the area and thus was a relative of mine as I am also descended from the same individual. The other is that information from the article was obtained from Elaine [Homewood] Martinelli whom I knew growing up as she was only a few years younger than I was. I contacted Elaine via Facebook and we shared a few things. But that got me thinking about an incident of my childhood that I want to relate in detail here.

I was a “good kid” growing up and seldom got into trouble. I was always a top student academically and generally lived up to the expectations of the adults in my life. But there were two occasions where this was not true and one of them that I will relate here.

As I have posted earlier (http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-growth-of-wolcott-neighborhood-1935.html and http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-growth-of-my-wolcott-neighborhood.html), I attended Alcott School (named after one of my relatives as well as one of Elaine’s relatives as above). There were about 20 in first grade – the only students of that grade in the entire northern half of the town. As mentioned in the second article, one of my classmates was Don Therkildsen who lived on Center Street. Like me, he was a somewhat gangly blond boy and we got along well together. He and I are the focus of this story.

For a reason that I don’t recall, and for one of the few times in my childhood years that I did not sleep in my own bed (except when camping), I stayed overnight with Don at his house. I believe it was a Friday night until Saturday afternoon. The Therkildsen’s had a large family like ours, and Don and his younger brother shared a bedroom at the top of the stairs. There was no bed frame, just a double bed mattress on the floor, but they made room for me and we shared it for Friday night. In the morning, his mother made a good breakfast for the family. The Therkildsen family were from Denmark – I believe that Don’s grandparents were immigrants, and Don’s father had a job working for the Homewood family on their chicken farm which was right behind the Therkildsen house. The Homewoods lived across the street down just a short ways and on a rise so that their basement/garage level was accessible from the street.

After going out back to the chicken house – a large structure where the chickens ran free in the center part of the building and the nests were along the side – we then went across the street to the Homewood’s basement which is where they processed the eggs. For those unfamiliar with egg processing, the eggs are cleaned, then inspected, graded for size, and put into cartons. Part of the inspection process is what is called “candling” where the eggs are placed in front of a strong light which can reveal the contents as the shells are translucent. Any cracks or blood spots inside the shell are easily seen and that egg is then rejected as unsuitable for sale. Don and I helped in the processing of that morning’s eggs for a while, then, on his instruction, we each took a few of the rejects and left.

The northern side of Center Street toward the town center and west of the Homewood house was a steep embankment with no other dwellings. Up past the Therkildsen house there were also no dwellings on the south side of the street. At the top of the embankment was a rocky outcrop where you could look down to the street perhaps 20-30 feet below. It was then that Don revealed to me why he had us bring some of the reject eggs with us. I thought that we were going to throw them at trees or rocks in the woods, but he had an idea of lobbing them down toward any passing vehicles. As I said earlier, I’m generally a “good kid”, and this is not something that would have occurred to me. But for once my “bad boy” streak kicked in and I decided to go along with the idea.

Getting the timing right to lob an egg over the intervening trees below us on the embankment and having them hit the street in time to intersect an oncoming vehicle is not the easiest thing, so the first few never hit the street until the vehicle had safely passed. But we quickly got better and scored a few hits. It was all fun until one of the cars stopped, the driver got out, and started up the steep hill towards us. We immediately took off running, going back into the woods beyond the embankment and eventually circling around to re-emerge farther down the street near the Therkildsen and Homewood houses and back to Don’s house.

We did not get caught, but I immediately vowed to myself to never get involved in that kind of activity again – and I never did. For Don’s part, he eventually became a policeman for the Town of Wolcott, rising to be their highest ranking official – and no doubt with an awareness of his own background, learning how to deal with “bad boys” like we were on that particular day.

It’s now been 60 years or so since that incident. But the lessons that I learned from being the “bad boy” for once in my life have stuck with me that entire time. And they have also made me much more understanding of how to deal with both my own children and now my grandchildren as they go through different phases of their life.

Thanks to Flo for her stories about Wolcott History and to my newly discovered cousin Elaine for triggering my memory about that long-ago day in my growing up years.

PS – for those who are intrigued about my second “bad boy” incident, I’ll just briefly mention that once my cousin Dave and I were playing with matches in a vacant field at the corner of Seery and Long Swamp Roads and I accidentally set the field on fire and it got too big to stamp out. The fire department had to be called and I was named as the culprit (for which I was appropriately disciplined). Part of my personal learning was that as soon as I was old enough I joined the local State Forest Fire crew that was run by my uncle and thus spent several years trekking into the woods with an Indian Pump and equipment to put out small forest fires that were too far into the woods for the fire department to reach with their hoses. Everything can be a learning experience!

Genealogy Story – Spouses of my Mother’s Siblings

I have done much genealogical research into both of my parents. Their ancestors, both on the Russell side and the Pierpont side, extend back into early New England as they came to America as part of the Great Migration in the 1630’s. I have also written about my father’s sister and her marriage to Robert Hill (http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/06/genealogy-story-my-hill-relatives.html). The Hill family also has the same sort of deep American roots. But I’ve never done much research into the spouses of my mother’s four siblings and their ancestry. So this will fill in that gap in my research.

My mother had four siblings – Clarence (Zeke) who married Barbara (Babs) Bishop, Alice (Alie) who married Ewell (Joe) Tucker, Richard (Dick) who married Gertrude (Trudy) Clark, and Violet (Vi) who married Anthony (Tony) Semeraro. Here is the story of each of these spouses.

Aunt Babs

My Aunt Babs maiden name was Barbara Leete Bishop. I have touched briefly on the Leete connection before as her great*8 grandfather was William Leete who was one of the early governors of Connecticut (http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/04/governors-of-connecticut.html). But the Bishop family has also been in New England since the 1600s. Her great*7 grandfather, John Bishop, was born in England in 1625, but he arrived on a ship in the New Haven Colony as a young lad of 14 in 1639 – just one year after the founding of that colony. So her American roots are as deep as my Uncle Zeke’s.

Uncle Joe

My Aunt Alie did not marry until a bit later in life, marrying Uncle Joe in Arizona when she was in her late 30’s. But Uncle Joe was not a native of Arizona either, having been born in Laurel, Mississippi. His family had been in Mississippi for several generations, in South Carolina before that, and in Virginia since the 1600s. So while not the same type of New England English roots, the Tucker family has been in this country just as long and originated from England as well.

Aunt Trudy

The Clark family has the same sort of deep American roots as the Bishop family. My Aunt Trudy’s great*8 grandfather, George Clark, was born in England in 1604, but he came to Boston as part of the Great Migration in 1637. But Boston was only a stop on his journey as his son Thomas was born in Milford, CT the following year. The family resided in Milford for several generations, then moved inland to Orange, CT for several more generations, before settling in Prospect in the mid-1800s. Clark Hill Road in Prospect, named for them, has been the home of the Clark family ever since. My Aunt Trudy is the only one still living among those of my parent’s generation. She is now 92 and living with my cousin Cindy and her husband on the family farm on Clark Hill Road.

Uncle Tony

My Uncle Tony is the only decidedly non-English individual among my aunts and uncles. His father, Pasquale Semeraro, was born in Sortino, Sicily in 1887 and his mother Lucia was also from Sortino. They emigrated to the US in 1910 and married here a year later. Although the Pierponts are pretty accepting, there was never much mixing with the Semeraros like there was with the other families above. I knew the siblings of my other aunts and uncles, but not the Semeraro family. Pasquale died before I was born, but Lucia did not pass away until 1971. She continued to speak Italian and not English. And the Semeraro family were staunch Catholics which the Pierpont family were not, putting another barrier between them. I wish that I could have known more about that branch of the family when I was growing up. 

Remembering 9/11 – Stranded in Europe

As I write this it is the early morning hours of 9/11/2017. Hurricane Irma is lashing Florida. I have been praying for all those who are being affected by this “natural disaster,” including my son and family, a cousin who shares the same name as my son but who is a law enforcement officer who will see many additional hours of duty before the week is over, and many other friends and relatives who have chosen to make Florida their home. But until the storm is over later today there is not much else I can do except pray.

But as I sit here, my mind is drawn back to another 9/11 which happened 16 years ago. On that date, the disaster was not natural, but was a man-made one. But the activities of that week are etched on my mind because of what occurred. I’d like to recount the rather unusual events of the week.

A few weeks before, the company I worked for had been involved in negotiations for a potential acquisition of a portion of a large chemical company which was located in Belgium. As I had been involved a few years earlier in coordinating all the Y2K compliance in our joint ventures and subsidiaries around the world, I was tapped to be the IT representative on the acquisition evaluation team. The assignment for the team was to visit the target company in Belgium and perform an in-depth evaluation of all aspects of its operations, finances, IT, etc. and advise management so that a final decision could be made on whether to proceed with the acquisition. Most of the acquisition team members, about 10 in total, were from our US headquarters, but one was a manager at our existing facility in Utrecht, Netherlands. The plan was for everyone to travel to Brussels on Monday where we would meet each other and make the detailed plans for the rest of the week, spend Tuesday-Thursday at the target company, and return home on Friday. As an experienced traveler, I packed lightly for those days, taking just one piece of carry-on luggage.

Monday went as planned. After dinner we met in a conference room at the hotel in downtown Brussels, got to know each other, and prepared for the following day. Because the employees of the target company were not to know that they were being considered for acquisition, we were scheduled to be taken by shuttle bus around 9:30 the next morning where we would be escorted to an unused part of their corporate campus. We would spend the work day there with lunch being brought in, then picked up at the end of the day (around 6:30 after the plant employees had left) and shuttled back to our hotel. I went to bed early (by my bodily clock) to finish the adjustment to the new time zone (I have learned over the years how to adapt to world travel and avoid the typical jet lag that many people experience).

Tuesday morning went as planned. I had a leisurely breakfast, then joined the others to take the shuttle bus to the plant outside the city. Our work space for the next three days was a vacant third floor of a building where the only contents were a large work table with chairs and two long rows of file cabinets with all the materials they had collected for us to examine. We had our own company laptops, but there was no Internet connectivity or phone service available to us. However, the one team member from Utrecht had a cell phone that worked in Europe. Also, as we were to soon find out, he had brought his wife with him on the trip. She was going shopping that morning and she was back at their room in the hotel in the afternoon. We began carrying on our individual assignments and going through the material in all the file cabinets. Lunch was brought in (trays of sandwiches and fruit) and we continued into the afternoon.

Around 3:00 in the afternoon, the team member from Utrecht received a phone call from his wife at the hotel. She had been watching TV and the initial reports from the first plane strike in NYC were coming in (Brussels is six hours ahead of New York, so this would have been 9:00 am on the east coast of the US). She was relaying the information that she was watching to her husband, who then would summarize it to the rest of the team. All acquisition work stopped as we sat silently, listening as he passed on the information to us for the next several minutes. Then the second plane strike happened and we were all stunned. The initial reporting from that day was rather jumbled as it was not yet apparent what was happening. There were many rumors mixed in with the facts.

When it became obvious that none of us in the room were in a state of mind to continue working for the day, we contacted our hosts to ask them to have the shuttle bus return for us as soon as possible. While we were waiting, they were kind enough to escort us to the company fitness center a few buildings away where we could watch some TV monitors while we were waiting (since it was mid-afternoon there would be no employees there to encounter us). We no sooner had entered the fitness center than we got a chance to observe the collapse of the first tower in NY. What a shock that was. Once the shuttle bus arrived, we returned to our hotel where we all quickly went back to our rooms to watch TV. Many of the local European stations were playing feeds from the US, CNN-International was available, but the BBC was also covering everything and had probably the best coverage from my perspective (more on that below). Because Brussels is home to the NATO headquarters, there was initial fear that they might also be a target, so that part of the city also went into lockdown mode. The team leader called each of us in our rooms and we scheduled an early morning get together for Wednesday morning to decide how to proceed with the week. I don’t think any of us got a good night’s sleep.

One of the things I knew I should do was to let my wife know that I was ok. Phone service to the US was down as not only were many transatlantic cables routed through NYC and had been destroyed, but the remaining circuits were so overloaded that you couldn’t get through. However, the ever-reliable Internet was still running. I chose one of my co-workers in the US as a trusted go-between and sent a quick email to ensure she was at work, then composed a message to my wife which I sent to my co-worker together with my wife’s phone number at work. I would use this a few times over the next several days (thanks, Pat!).

At our morning meeting on Wednesday, we all agreed that with all travel to the US suspended that there was not much we could do except to carry on with our assigned acquisition tasks for the week. So on Wednesday and Thursday that’s what we did – but spending time glued to the TV in our individual rooms all the hours we were not otherwise engaged in the acquisition. Our team leader also spent some time trying to handle our return travel arrangements. We had no idea when travel back to the US would be possible or how backed up it would be with so many people having had their travel plans interrupted. The one team member from Utrecht would be driving back home to the Netherlands. The corporate attorney felt that he was too important and could make his own plans – he tried scheduling himself to fly to the west coast (which didn’t work as ALL of US airspace was closed), then to Canada where he would rent a car and drive into the US. He was ultimately successful in this, but it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. He flew out on Friday morning, but ended up getting stranded in Spain waiting for a flight (even his first-class upgrade didn’t help). After a rather convoluted and lengthy travel itinerary (two full days!), he finally got to Toronto and drove back to PA, arriving around the same time the rest of us did on a direct flight back (more on that below). By this time, the rest of the team had gotten confirmed flights back the following Wednesday, but we were waitlisted for all the days until then and we had to check with the airline each morning to see if we had gotten moved up.

I had only brought enough clothing to last me until our original flight back on Friday morning. Since that was obviously not going to happen, for the only time in all my international travels I sent out my clothes to be washed by the hotel laundry service so I would have clean clothes for the next several days. Also, I had not brought a jacket since my original plans were that I would be either in the hotel or in the acquisition workspace and would have no time for any outside activities. On Friday morning, I walked from the hotel down into the town center, located a store (kind of like the European equivalent of an Army-Navy store) that had reasonably priced clothing, and bought a light jacket (which I charged to my expense account).

Thus outfitted, I spent Friday doing an extensive walking tour of Brussels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels). I went into a store that sold Belgian chocolate (I think I gained weight just with the smells!), had lunch in a nice outdoor café in the central market, went to a classical music concert in the town hall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_Town_Hall), and saw the famous Manneken Pis statue (which is on a small somewhat obscure alley a few blocks from the town hall) (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis).  

On Saturday, with our confirmed flight now moved up to Monday, three of us on the team decided to do some more extensive sightseeing. We walked to the train station, bought tickets and took the train to Bruges (about an hour away and up near the coast). (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges). Bruges is the capital of the West Flanders region of the Flemish part of Belgium. It had been an important city for two millennia, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is also known as the “Venice of the North” with many canals, including one which encircles the main city center. The three of spent the day there in a walking tour, climbing the 366 stairs of the historic belfry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfry_of_Bruges), and generally enjoying a nice fall day. At the end of that rather nice day we took the train back to Brussels where we were able to confirm that our flight had been moved up again and we were scheduled to fly home the following day.

I need to add here that the people of Belgium were all most sympathetic towards us when they learned that we were Americans. Their hospitality and deeply felt concern are still feelings that I have warm remembrances of. Unlike the somewhat biased news and reporting that happens in the US (which is now often referred to as “fake news”), the reporting in Europe was much more factual and introspective.

Sunday morning, we all took taxies to the airport for the flight back to the US. We were all once again sobered by what we were returning to. We had a direct flight on US Air from Brussels to Philadelphia. That particular flight follows a flight path that parallels the coast of Long Island and just to the south of NYC as it is descending toward Philadelphia. The weather was very clear that day. As we were flying past NYC, if you were on the right-hand side of the plane (I had a window seat on that side), Manhattan was quite visible. Seeing the skyline without the twin towers was shocking enough. But there was also still smoke rising thousands of feet into the sky from where the towers had been. Since everyone wanted to see it, those of us on the right side would flatten against our seats so those from the left side could lean over us and take in that sobering sight. I was concerned that we would overbalance the plane with everyone crowded onto one side.

Getting back to Philadelphia, I quickly went back to my car and drove back home where I could embrace my wife. The next several days were consumed with getting back to work and catching up on the US version of what had been happening.

What did I learn? Several things, the chief ones being:

·       US news media is the most biased in the world – they seem to forever focus on small “sound bites”, concern for ratings, and almost solely things which happen in the US. World events receive scant coverage. I greatly prefer news reporting from places like the BBC.

·       People around the world will generally be nice to you if you are nice to them – and if you show appreciation for the things that they are/have. I tried to avoid crowds of tourists in Brussels, I took the regular train to Bruges, ate the local food, went to a concert in the town hall, etc. And in return I was warmly received everywhere I went.

·       Being apart from family during trials is difficult. I wanted to be able to hug my wife, to reassure her, and to be able to share with her during that week. It was very nice to finally get back home again!

It’s taken me three hours to write this blog. The sun is now coming up, the news will be able to report from Florida, and I have family responsibilities in getting our grandsons up and ready for school. Enjoy your day!

A Legacy of Diversity

Some of my efforts at work had nothing to do with IT. The company at the time had a number of “diversity groups” – the “standard” ones such as WIB (Women In Business), EDEN (Ethnically Diverse Employee Network) (for African-Americans), HOLA (Hispanic Organization of Latinos and Amigos), and others. I became aware of someone down the hall from me who had fibromyalgia and was very sensitive to light and noise and so had a closed-in office with modified lighting instead of a cubical. But since she didn’t “look” disabled she was getting discriminated against by some others who couldn’t understand why she rated an office with a door when they didn’t have one. As a result I decided to make it my goal before I retired to start another diversity group – we eventually named it ABCD (AnyBody Concerned about Disabilities).

I made an announcement about it, found some like-minded individuals, and we created the group, worked through the process of getting both recognition and funding through our corporate HR department, got an executive sponsor, etc. We were able to bring in an outside speaker on the subject and gave a presentation in the company auditorium to begin to expose others to the topic of both visible (such as blindness) and invisible (such as fibromyalgia) disabilities. We also noted that there were temporary disabilities (such as a broken arm or advanced pregnancy).

The latter were important because in the event of a fire in a multi-story corporate building the elevators are normally blocked from usage (you’re all seen the notices in hotels, etc. about not using the elevator during a fire). We created a cadre of group members who were trained on how to use the elevators during a fire (requires a special key), and ensured that each individual who needed assistance to safely exit the building had a buddy and all were accounted for so none were left behind. We also lobbied for additional handicapped parking places and created a standard procedure for individuals who needed to request one (either permanently or temporarily).

Today the ABCD employee group is one of the eight recognized diversity groups which receive recognition on the corporate website. While I’m proud to have had a part in starting it and knowing that it’s a permanent legacy that I have left behind, I’m also happy to have made a number of new friends whose life has been made better because of my efforts.