More Brown History

Now as an adult I see them in the market at $28.00 a pound and realize that I should have eaten them as a child. Ah, hindsight!

Grandma and grandpa Brown, around 1940

I’ve accomplished quite a lot doing genealogy research. I can’t find much about the Brown side of the family.  I can’t get past great-grandfather Brown being born in North Carolina in 1832. Trying to find information on John Brown in an area filled with Browns is not the easiest thing to accomplish.

His wife, my great-grandmother is another story. I can go back as far as 1767 when my great-great-great grandfather immigrated from Ireland.  He fought in the Revolutionary War wit

h Colonel Lock’s NC Regiment.  He is buried with a Revolutionary War grave marker.

He and his family settled in the hills of Pike County, Kentucky. I like to think that they were Moon-shiners.  It makes for a fun story.  When I found the Gannon Family Cemetery in Pike County, Kentucky, I was thrilled. It is located on coal mine property and I had to get permission to visit.  The cemetery is located near Bent Branch and Meat Hook, Kentucky. I’ve been able to read and identify 77 grave stones and have re-engraved my great-great grandparents stones. They should be readable for another 50 years.

My father had been born in the house where I lived until I was five and we moved to Denver.  My father was the third of six children.  They lived in a three-room house with an outhouse.  They raised chickens and had their own garden.

Dad claimed that he had a great childhood.  His mother was filled with love and she was free with showing it. He loved and enjoyed his siblings. They all remained close until the end.

His aunts, uncles and cousins were all within walking distance and they all shared close bonds and memories. In hindsight, I’m sorry I didn’t pay more attention to the stories when I was younger. I don’t remember meeting many from that generation. I guess I was just to young.

The Brown family home, Daisy, Grandma Brown, dad, 1908

I can’t imagine living with eight people in a three-room house.

My father was born in 1905, the third child of my grandparents.  I understand that his childhood was fraught with the embarrassment of being the child of the town drunk.  His mother held the family together doing laundry and watching other children.

Dad was one of four boys and two girls.  During the early 1900s in a small town, life revolved around doing chores, going to school and playing.  Dad and his brothers were typical “boys.”  They ran everywhere, played baseball and stickball.  They collected eggs in the hen house every day, worked in the garden, and when they got old enough they slaughtered and plucked the chickens for dinner.  My grandfather took the boys hunting where they would shoot squirrels, rabbit, quail, pheasant and anything else they could eat.

Dad graduated from high school in 1923.  He and a younger brother traveled around the area playing baseball for a few years.  They were both pretty good players. I guess they even got close to being picked up by the St. Louis baseball team.

The Brown Family History

Chapter Four -THE BROWN FAMLY HISTORY

My paternal grandfather’s family arrived in Ramsey in 1857 from Kentucky when my grandfather was three years old.  He was one of eight children. His father did farm labor as well as his own small farming enterprise. After my great-grandparents moved to IL with their children in 1857 they settled into the small town routine. Great-grandfather Brown died at age 44 from measles, leaving his wife a widow with eight children to raise.

I guess she did a pretty good job on her own.  Other than my granddad, all of her children were successful and happy.  Granddad did have some good offspring, so maybe he was successful as well.  Maybe it was because of grandma.  I hear she was a saint.

I never met my paternal grandparents. Grandpa died in 1943, six years before I was born.  According to my dad, grandpa was the town drunk and could barely hold a job.  My grandmother died in June 1949, six months before I was born.  According to everyone with whom I have spoken, Grandma was a saint.  All of the neighborhood children loved going to the Brown house.  Aunt Frank (grandma) as she was known, always had food and good times for the neighborhood children. I wish I could have known her. She sounds amazing, filled with love and willing to share that love with whomever 

crossed her threshold.

Great-grandma Brown (Gannon), 1910

Great-grandma Brown (left) raised her eight children alone after my great-granddad died in 1872.  All of her children, with the exception of my grandfather, were all successful and contributing members of the community.

My grandparents married in 1895 and started their family with my first uncle being born in 1899.  My granddad’s siblings all stayed in the same town, raised their families and died there.  They were all pillars of the town society with the exception of my granddad.  The town drunk always holds a place in the town’s history, but not always in a positive light.

My father was always embarrassed by the fact that his father was the town drunk. He never got over that embarrassment. He was an avid

abolishenist and believed that alcohol was indeed the spirit of the devil.

Dad spoke about loving his father and saying that he was a good provider.  They never went hungry and always had clothes. I think a lot of that was because his aunts and uncles helped and my grandmother was resourceful in keeping the garden and chickens healthy.

Grandpa took the boys hunting so they could have other meat on the table and would never go hungry. The idea of eating squirrel and quail don’t appeal to me, but then again, I’ve been raised in a different time. I still love biscuits and gravy, bacon and fried eggs and fried chicken. My one regret is that I never ate morel mushrooms. The family would go mushrooming every year and return home with these things they picked off dead logs. Mom would sauté (fry) them in bacon grease, then make a cream gravy and serve them.  As a child I wasn’t eating those things!

The early years...

My father loved Colorado.  He had visited a number of times before he married my mother.  He had siblings living there so he would go there during the year to work. After he married my mother and before my sister and I were born, mom and dad would travel to Denver to spend the summers where dad could work and make more money.

They had been married for five years before my sister was born and thirteen years by the time I came along.came along.

Mom and dad around 1940.

According to dad, this was probably the closest my mother’s mouth ever got to dad’s crotch.  He liked to tell me that oral sex was dirty because the penis and vagina are dirty.  I later found out that wasn’t a 

true statement. I’m really glad I found out.

 Mom and dad, 1939

Dad was 38 year old when my sister was born; mom was 25.  When I arrived in 1949, dad was 45 and mom 33.  Dad was kinda old for a newborn, mom, not so much.

I understand that I was “planned” and they were thrilled when I finally came along.  I’ve been told that my sister was also thrilled when they brought her little brother home on Christmas Day, 1949.  That changed before too many years passed.  My sister, Camilla in 1944.

  Me, age three, 1953, all dressed up as "butch" as can be in my OshGosh overalls.

1953 again, more like what is to come.

Home was in a smaller town, Ramsey (population 800) about 17 miles south of where I was born.  There was not much there.  The town started out as a water and coal stop for the Illinois Central Railroad.  Other than the railroad business, everything else was based on farming.  The town had a couple of general stores, two service stations, a Chevrolet dealership, barber shop, pool hall, bait shop and a couple of diners.

Of course there were the churches, mostly protestant, although there was one Catholic Church, a funeral home and the elementary school (1^st-8^th) and the high school. There was even a movie theater (The Roxie) but it closed in the 1960s.

During more recent visits to Ramsey I’ve found that the population has increased by 400. I’s assuming the reason is that the offspring don’t leave the family.  There is nothing in the town to draw new inhabitants. There is now one service station/store, one grocery market, one diner, a bank, no more Chevrolet dealership, no more pool hall.

There are quite a few wealthy farmers in the area, but most of the population survives on some sort of governmental  assistance.

The Beginning - My Life

Chapter three -THE BEGINNING

I was born in a small town in Illinois in December of 1949, just before Christmas.  I spent the first five years of my life in an even smaller town in Illinois. I was the second child of Jim and Henrietta Brown.  My one sibling was eight years old at the time. She was excited when I was brought home.  That didn’t last very long.  I was told my parents wanted more children. My mother must have had difficulty carrying a pregnancy to term. They were thrilled when I was born. I don’t know if they tried having another after me.  I don’t remember anything that may have indicated another pregnancy.  In hindsight, I’m really happy they didn’t have more children. They really fucked up the two they had. Thank God, they didn’t have more to fuck up.

My father was 32 years old when he married my mother in 1937.  She was 20.  I’m not sure why my father waited so long before he married.  Maybe it was the economy after the depression or maybe it was because my father hadn’t met a woman who would tolerate his rigid views. 

After my father graduated from high school in 1923 he did some odd jobs in the town. He kept busy, but had no direction.  His older brother lived in Moscow, Idaho so dad hopped a freight train and rode the rails to Idaho.  He spent time with his older brother and his wife for a while, finding odd jobs to help with the expenses. I’m not sure what happened, but my father did mention that his sister-on-law was the meanest woman in the world.  He left Idaho.

He and his younger brother spent time riding the rails around the country for a number of years.  They always found odd jobs to make a bit of money, which they sent to the folks in Ramsey.

I’m not real sure about what he did during the intervening years although his stories about riding the rails were always entertaining.

Sometime during this period of uncertainty, he started apprenticing as a brickmason. After he made journeyman he must have believed that he could care for a wife and family. He met my mother in 1932.  

According to my father’s second cousin, dad was rabidly anti-catholic. She said that he would expound on the evils of Catholicism.  When he met my mother, who was raised Catholic he made a 180 degree change in his opinions. I know she was not putting out so he converted to Catholicism so he could marry her and get some. He married her in 1937.  In 1937 he was 32 years old and I’m sure horny as hell.

Mom had her own issues. Her mother had an affair with a young Sicilian immigrant while she was still married to her husband. Her husband, my grandfather, was a Baptist minister. My mother’s half-brother was born out of wedlock (oh! the shame). My grandmother then divorced my grandfather and married her Sicilian lover.

Grandma’s Sicilian lover, Sam, was the only grandfather I ever knew. He was a warm and gentle soul who always saw the good in people although he was treated like shit by the German immigrants in the area. When they needed someone to do the shit work they always called Sammy. He always did the work because he had a family for which he needed to care.

I met my real grandfather once when I was 12 years old. I was not positively impressed. He came across as a real asshole.

My mother seemed to assume the guilt she believed my grandmother should have felt. I still can’t understand that.  I’m well educated and insightful, but still can’t comprehend my mother’s guilt.

My mother’s half-brother, George, had his own issues.  He was married at least four times of which I know.  Something like nine children. He never held a job long enough to care for his children.  He was always dependent upon my grandparents to care for him and his families. I believe my mother was always jealous of how my grandparents always took care of George and his family at the expense of her family.

More about this inequality later.