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.