Mothers Dad

I make a lot of typos. The one I just made in the title is maybe a Freudian typo. I meant to write Mothers Day, but Mothers Dad may be a little more appropriate as I just got off the phone with my mom after a very long conversation about her dad. I appropriately learned a bunch about my grandmother Grace by way of asking my mom about her dad on Mothers Day. 

Turns out Grace Penrose was really smart. My mom said her dad was really sweet, shy and loving, but Mother was really smart. During the war Grace worked at the National Institute of Health (NIH). She had two years at North Western (where she met William) and earned her teachers degree and had become a teacher, but when the war broke out they needed her at NIH. As my head is spinning with the toppeling of another long held assumption now about my grandmother she says, "My parents met in Chicago as my dad was finishing his first year at North Western, but his dad died so he couldn't afford to go to any longer. His dad had a stroke. Died at 59."

I choked up. Literally. Lump in throat, tears, breathing gasps like when I try to hide I'm crying durning a movie. My wife lying next to me could tell I was crying, but was able to hide it from my mom on the other end of the phone. She was on a roll and I didn't want to interrupt her chain of thought. Suzy would ask me about it later and I explained I thought they were poor and could only afford one year of school. Having your dad die while you're a freshman in college is a completely different thing. I was emotionally rocked by the idea that my great grandfather died from a stroke while my grandfather was just starting to take off and I knew nothing about them. 

Turns out the job he had to take because of this tragedy is the reason for his considerable successs in life. Fate is so insane. Because of this job he earns a law degree and because of this job he and his young wife move to Washington DC and have a baby who in the end seems to have an uncanny ability to cope and love on through the many tragedies life seems to be able to dish out. So I pulled myself back together emotionally and am able to pick up the story again somewhere around my dad being the captain of the S. S. Penrose. See my dad actually didn't like to drive the boat. He like to just sit on the back deck and drink and smoke and socialize and was just thrilled that Jeff could just make it all happen. Including the big trip when he moved the boat from D.C. up to Connecticut. He basically just gave the keys to that boat to your father.

OK. Wow. Where was I? Oh yah, Mothers Day. My mom is a really great mom. And my sister was a really great mother too. Here's a picture of my dad with both of them on a very special day.

The day Carol graduated from Hood College with a degree in interior design. They a two very smart, very beautiful women and my dad appears to be glowing inbetween them. He was one lucky guy. As am I!

Happy Mothers Day 2017!

Nancy P. Keith

So I talked for a long time with my mother last night. I asked a lot of question about her father my grandfather. My grandmother died in 1973 and he had died 7 years earlier. So he died in 1966 the year I was born. I asked about him and she said he was 5' 8" and handsome. She said we got our good looks from him not her mother. He was a sweet and loving man. He drank a lot and smoked three packs a day. But back then everyone did. She said he died from neumonia. She said he always had a cough from smoking three packs a day, but one day he got walking neumonia with no fever and he kept working. Then he got the fever and went to the new hospital in Bethesda and four days later he was dead. The X-rays for the neumonia showed hot spots for cancer in his lungs so he was a goner either way.

She told me about what he did, lobbiest, lawyer, multi  association director. And because he was the boss one year they took a two month cross-country family road trip in his new Pontiac with her mom and grandmother (from my earlier research it was cool to know it must have been Lillian) he worked along the way doing association director stuff in various cities along the way. She said the only highway in the entire trip was the Pennsylvania Turn-pike and it was brand new then. Not like when we would take it from Cleveland to Ocean City when I was little. 

She also told me about taking the S.S. Penrose twin screw 35 foot cabin cruiser with a fire place in the galley up from Maryland to Connecticut where they had recently moved. She and her mom didn't go of course because they would always get seasick. 

Originally he had it docked in MD, but when my parents moved to Connecticut he and my dad sailed it out the Chesapeake Bay, up the Atlantic and down Long Island Sound. It's the first impression I've ever had of my granddad appreciating having a son in law who was Pacific theater Marine war vetran on board. She said my dad did everything on it and did all of the driving too and all the maintenance and upkeep too. It was hard work keeping a boat like that running, but it was always fun when it was in dry dock and everyone would be painting the bottoms of their boats at the boatyard in the Spring. Always felt like a carnival she said. My grandfather kept it in Conneticit the whole time the lived there. She thinks he sold it when they moved to Cleveland.

I also learned my grandfather's middle name was Alva, not Anderson. Anderson was my other grandfather's name so I at least had that part of the story right.

It's Mothers Day so when I post this I am giving her another call. So glad I called her yesterday. So grateful because this call won't be the obligatory it's Mothers Day call, but a I really enjoyed talking with you yesterday please tell me more kind of call. Well, I better get on it.

William A. Penrose

A few posts ago I pledged to research my grandfather on my mother's side as I realized I knew next to nothing about him. Worse I had a lot a false assumptions and this weird erroneous impression of who this man was by virtue of being raised by his daughter. I here by make another solem blog post pledge to call my mom soon and ask her some specific questions about him like I did my dad about his dad.

So laying here in bed not sleeping as I should be I figured now is the perfect time to to test the magical powers of my iPhone after first posting Mary's cat drawing from today on Facebook and wondering for way too long what she meant by the caption, "# Leve Me Alon !!!" was the cat saying it or her expressing her feelings or was someone bothering her at school while she was drawing it and will this sentence ever stop like my racing brane that won't sleep.

So I started searching William Keith, Bethesda Maryland. An amazingly small amount of information to go on. A shameful lack of knowing about the man I never met. Couldn't think of his middle name, year of birth or death, where he was born, nothing to add. The first thing I learned is there were and are a boat load of William Keiths in America. But I wanted to find the one who loved my mother and inspired my father so I persevered. It seems the really good data bases or search engines seem to cost a lot, but I found a free trial offer at archive.com and kept at it. I took a guess at what year he was born + or - 10 years (cool little search feature at archive.com) and holy cow I do hold magic in the palm of my hand. Hello 1940 Census data!

In 1940 William A. Penrose was male, white, 33 years old, born in 1907, Head of a Houshold, living with his wife Emma Penrose (also 33) and his daughter Nancy Keith (9) in Montgomery County, Maryland! Unbelievable. So I kept digging.

In 1930 he was 23 living with his wife Grace Penrose (also 23) no kids in Washington D.C. 

In 1920 he was the 13 year old son of William (43) and Lillian (41) Penrose in Weld County, Illinois. He also lived with his big sister Ellen (16), little sister Lillian (10), litter sister Margaret (5) and his grandmother Anna Anderson (68).

Nothing like a little magic to keep you up way past your bedtime. Well there you go Mr. William A. Penrose, nice to meet you. I am your grandson William A. Keith. Thank you for everything! I look forward to getting to know you.

Karen and Carol

Ok








This picture captivates me in several respects and for many reasons. First because it predates yours truly and my big brother as well. I would guess my mother is pregnant with him at the time of this portrait making it 1963, the year he was born. So Karen is 3ish and  Carol 6ish. Karen looks so genuinely happy and healthy. Her smile and slight dimples and bright eyes she is so beautiful and perfect. Carol is beautiful too of course and smiling, but I see in her eyes a concentration on determining exactly what the photographer is saying. He's obviously entertaining and great at what he's doing and has her attention, but she's not getting him and smiling to be polite. I wonder what he said because Karen thinks it hilarious.




After enjoying this photo for awhile it struck me how hard it must have been on Carol when Karen died. Sure it was hard on all of us, but what Carol went through with the menegitus and those two being so close. She was already quite isolated because of her deafness and she was on her way to college. She being such a natural empath I'm sure she felt every bit of what Karen had gone through. Makes me ache just to think about it. I do not dwell on the tragedy of Karen's death or Carol's. I do celebrate the way in which they lived. They lived in way of appreciation. They lived on in the worst of situations. They accomplished more, lived more, influenced more, created more and loved more than the circumstances of their short lives would have predestined if known when this portrait was taken.




A thought that came to me long after seeing this photo. They look like angels. Literally. I do not proclaim to know a thing for certain about the afterlife. But I do have faith there is one. What I do know is whatever the afterlife holds for us my sisters are already there. Together. With Dad. And Bootsie too. Sharing the love they shared then and sharing the love I feel now. Sharing the love of my girls today and carrying it forward forever.

!