My Grandma Dolly Lucy (Britton) Bavin: A Tribute

I think I have already mentioned elsewhere how in the 1850's Lucius Britton brought his family from Vermont to Michigan, and his youngest, O. Wilber Britton came to run the grist mill near Pittsford, Michigan. In 1875 Wilber married Angela Elizabeth Sloan. It is through Angela we are connected to the New England Sloan and Beal families.

Wilber and Angela had a total of 13 children, of which two would die in infancy, another two sons would die, one at the age of 29 and the other at age 20, while a third son was killed as a soldier fighting in France in World War 1.

Their 8th child was a daughter named Dollie Lucy Britton, born August 15, 1889. Dollie was 28 years old when on June 2, 1917, she married Cecil Charles Bavin. A short nine days later her father Wilber committed suicide. Wilber’s death had implications for the family that have reverberated down through the generations to this very day. To addition to the family tragedy, it was that next year when her brother George was killed in France on October 21, 1918 in the midst of the Muse-Argonne offensive and three weeks to the day before the Armistice ended the war.

My Grandfather Cecil Bavin was four years younger than Grandma, and it was also somewhat unusual at that time for a single woman to marry at what was thought of then as a late age. I do not know anything about how they met or how long their courtship was.

My Aunt Joyce was the first to come along on October 15, 1918; being barely a week old when her Uncle George was killed in France.

My mother, Mildred Marie Bavin was born January 29, 1920. The story has been told that when Mom was born, the Bavin family was living in a log cabin house on Camden Rd, just west of the spot in the road that is called Betzer; the corner of Camden Rd. and Pittsford Rd. in Hillsdale County, Michigan. According to this story there was snow blowing into the house through the chinks in the log walls when Mom was born.

Uncle Bob came along on November 1, 1921; followed by Aunt Gela on June 21, 1923, and Uncle George on January 8, 1926.

My Grandfather was a farmer. In 1927 he was injured in a farm accident when runaway horses pulled a roller over him. This laid him up but he tried to do more than he should have, and a blood clot took his life. He died on June 12, 1927, just before his 34th birthday. My mother was 7 ½ years old when her father died.

Grandma Bavin never remarried, remaining a widow for the rest of her life. And she was to go on to raise her five children through the Great Depression, and as a mother, watch two sons and one daughter serve in the military in World War 2. Mother mentioned to me one time how the family had been supported through those times by public assistance.

Mom also had memories of the family getting on the back of a truck and heading off to Toledo for a Britton family reunion. That probably would have been at her Great-Uncle Quincy Britton’s place in Toledo, Ohio. Mom also had good memories of her Uncle Bill, George William Bavin who was a successful businessman in South Bend, Indiana. Uncle Bill was Grandpa’s younger brother, and Grandpa was in South Bend when he passed away. I infer from that fact that Uncle Bill had helped his older brother’s family through that time.

There was one pain and grief in my Grandma Bavin’s life that I was a personal witness to. Uncle Bob had served in the Army during the war. He never married and lived with and looked after Grandma. He developed health issues and had as I recall some kind of cancer or leukemia. I have a number of memories of Uncle Bob of which I will have to speak another time. My last memory of seeing him alive was when I went with Mom and Dad to visit him while he was in the ward of the Veteran’s hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In September of 1968 he passed away. I still remember going to Grandma Bavin’s house where the family was gathered together. She sat there in her chair, a solemn sober faced lady as the rest of the family made the funeral arrangements. I never saw Grandma cry or heard her complain, but etched into that face was a lifetime of mixed pain and grief and sorrow, not that there had never been any joy or happiness too, but nonetheless a life that knew much of tragedy. She loved all of her fourteen grandchildren and we all loved her.

My Grandma Bavin left this vale of tears on July 24, 1974. Nancy and I lived in Indiana at the time. We made the trip back to Michigan for Grandma Bavin’s funeral. We still miss her. Those fourteen of us who are her grandchildren had our hearts and lives touched by our Grandma Bavin to a degree I don’t think we realize even after a lifetime.

RIP

Herbert Lawrence Ruffer

Herbert Lawrence Ruffer
Born in Michigan on Aug. 10, 1940
Passed away on Aug. 10, 2013 and resided in San Pedro, CA.

August 10, 1940 – August 10, 2013

Born in a farmhouse in Michigan to Florence Newcomer Ruffer and Lawrence Ruffer, Herb grew up loving farm- fresh fruits and vegetables and hating milk and eggs. He graduated from Baldwin- Wallace College in Ohio with a degree in religion. Abandoning a plan to become a Mennonite minister, Herb joined the Air Force where he was stationed in Texas and Colorado and served as a Supply Sergeant in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

He and his wife and son lived in Cherry Hill, NJ. Following a successful career in the commercial casualty insurance field, Herb moved to San Pedro, where he married his second wife, Sherry. He loved the ocean, marine life, and USC football. He was a docent at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and the Marine Mammal Care Center, both in San Pedro.

He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Gail and sister, Mary. He is survived by his son, Guy; daughter-in-law, Kerstan; wife, Sherry; brother, David; sisters, Anne and Nancy; three beautiful grandchildren and many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends.

He passed away from complications of MS. Following cremation by McNerney's Mortuary, scattering of Herb's ashes at sea and a memorial service will be private. Donations may be made to FRIENDS of Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, the Marine Mammal Care Center or a charity of your choice.

(McNerney's Mortuary, 570 W. 5th Street, San Pedro, California)

Herb was a first cousin. His mother Florence was my Father's sister.

When I was a young lad, there was a time I was at Aunt Florence's place in the country near Archbold, Ohio. It was a warm sunny day with a good breeze blowing. My much older cousin Herb took me to an open field across the road, and he flew a box kite he had attached to the line of a fishing reel. He let me full the strong tug of the pull of the kite as it danced and sailed in the breeze way up in the sky. I never forgot that. Thank you for the memory Herb... RIP...

The Last Ride

A little ritual had kind of developed between Dad and I over the last several years before his passing. We would go down to visit Mom and Dad. Sometime during the visit, I would take Dad for a ride. Usually those rides were around the more immediate rural area of the Michigan-Ohio border where they lived. The trips were of varying length, but served several purposes. It was a chance for Dad to get out of the house. It was a chance for us to talk about things; to have a father-son time. It was also an opportunity for me to see what was going on around the stomping grounds of my youth; to see how so many things had changed and how a few things had stayed the same; a way of reconnecting with my roots.

Those rides became more important as Mom's health and mind began to fail. On those rides Dad would tell me how Mom was doing. I could get first hand from him what was going on as the two of them aged and that aging slowly sapped their strength and vitality. We would discuss what some of their options were. It was a chance for me to reinforce some of the concerns and issues my sister had discussed with me regarding Mom and Dad's health and care. Dad needed the time out of and away from the house. He needed the respite from the care and worry over his now invalid wife.

It was this past November (2012) and the Thanksgiving Holiday was coming up. It had been more then a few months since our last visit to Mom and Dad, and I knew we really needed to make that two and half hour trip down to see them. The Friday after Thanksgiving would be the best time to go, and so it was the plans were made. That Friday morning my wife and I made the trip down to see Mom and Dad.

Mom was laying in the hospital bed set up in the living room. She was not able to stand at all. She was at the point where an aid was coming in just about every day , and Hospice was checking in a couple of times a week. She was not fully "there" in her mind though able to carry on limited conversation. She was still at the point where someone would move her to a wheelchair and bring her into the dining room to eat at the table with the rest of us. As it was, we would have to help her eat.

At some point in the afternoon, Dad and I went for our drive. As usual, I would drive and dad would sit there in the front passenger seat. We went to town and drove around the village. Dad had me drive around by the grain elevator so he could see the new office and scales, and the new grain silo bin that had recently been erected. We went through the cemetery by the stone marking my oldest sister's grave, and the stone with Mom and Dad's names on it, but at that time with only the years of birth.

We drove out north of town, swung east a mile then north again to the other near by village in the area that was also part of the local school district. In that small village we passed by the old school building where I had gone to kindergarten. The decrepit condition of that abandoned school building was an indicative statement of how the whole area of that broader rural community had changed. We turned west at the main corner and wandered through the country side until we found ourselves back at Mom and Dad's house.

I played the memory game with Momma. "Do you remember when we would go to the Britton reunions at the old Grange hall?" "Do you remember when we would go up north to the lake for vacation?" Yes, she remembered, and she remembered those things happened a long time ago.

My last meal with my mother was that evening's supper. I sat there and was spoon feeding her, much like she had done to me so many years ago when I was the baby. After supper my wife and I left for the two and half hour trip back to our home. A week and a half later we got the phone call. Momma had died at the age of 92. That Thanksgiving Friday had been my last visit with her.

Two weeks and one day after Momma died, Daddy died at the age of 95. I got to see him two days before he died and that was good. But then he was invalid and there was no thought of going for our ritual ride together. It dawned on me today, some few weeks later, that the Thanksgiving Friday was not only the last time I saw Momma alive, but it was also when Daddy and I went on our last ride together.

RIP Mom and Dad...

(Cross posted to The Billy Goat Blog.)

The Newcomer - Tedrow Family

It has been my intent for some time to write a post about the Newcomer - Tedrow connection, with a special reference to the Newcomer - Tedrow - Oates line.

Mary I. Newcomer was born on July 6, 1886, the youngest child of George D. Newcomer and his second wife Malinda (Mikesell) Newcomer. She married Clair Tedrow, and I have record of three sons:




Robert Wave Tedrow (Nov 26, 1909 - May 28, 1996)
Roy Earl Tedrow (Oct. 6, 1911 - Jan. 4, 1940)
George Monroe Tedrow

My father's dad was Mary's brother, Guy Vernon Newcomer. I have memory as a young lad of our going to visit one of dad's Tedrow cousins on their farm near Delta, Ohio.

Robert Wave Tedrow married Julia Elisabeth Willeman. They had five children:

Paul Eugene Tedrow
Dorothy Jane Tedrow
Mary Ann Tedrow
John Robert Tedrow (1940 - 1969)
Thomas Clair Tedrow

Roy Earl Tedrow married Eunice Johnson. They had two sons:

James Earl Tedrow
Richard Clair Tedrow

George Monroe Tedrow married Helen Garber. They had four children:

David Tedrow
Michael Tedrow
Jerry Lee Tedrow
Carol Tedrow

The above gives a basic outline of the Tedrow families connected to my Newcomer line. I now want to look at the Tedrow - Oates part of the family, as I have a particular connection with the Oates family.

Dorethy Jane Tedrow, daughter of Robert and Julia (Willeman) Tedrow, married Raymond Oates. They had a farm just north of Hartley Rd. on US-127 (Meridian Rd.) near Waldron, Michigan.

A big part of Raymond's farm business was selling hay to horse farms in the south; North Carolina sticks in my mind as one of the places he shipped hay to. He would go to local farmers in the area and cut a deal to buy the hay out of their field. He did the cutting and the baling, then would load the hay on semi trailers to be hauled to the buyers down south.

In 1967, the summer after I had graduated from high school, Raymond had bought some hay out of one of my father's fields. As it was, I needed a summer job to fill in until I went off to college in the fall, and Raymond needed an extra hand. So it was I spent the summer working in the hay fields, loading wagons, off loading into semi trailers, or stacking bales in the barn hay loft. By the end of the summer I was in the best physical shape of my adult life.

It was also in that summer I got to meet their children; Betty, Barbara, Ron, Bonnie, Beth, and Brenda. They were pretty young then, and I suspect they don't remember who I was. For myself, though I knew we were remotly connected somehow, at the time I didn't make the connection that "Mrs. Oates" was my 2nd cousin, and all these little kids were also part of "my family".

I went on to college and the rest of my life. Those "little kids" grew up, and recently I connected with Betty via Facebook. That summer job working for Raymond Oates was my first "real" job outside of our farm. It marked a turning point in my life as I transitioned from my high school teen years to adulthood.

One November Day

(Though I've published this elswhere, it fits well with the memoiers intent of this site.)

As I remember it, that autumn had been relatively mild. By mid-November most of the corn fields had already been picked. The leaves on the trees had dropped some weeks before. It was a time in that interlude when the high school football season, for better or for worse, was history, but the basketball season was yet to start.

For those of us in our relatively quiet rural Southern Michigan community, it was a time of routine leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. Our community was somewhat off the beaten path; a good hour away from any big cities, and not on any major highways. There was a certain degree of isolation. TV, radio and the newspapers were the vehicles that brought the outside world into our midst. There were the vacations that would occasionally take us outside our normal boundaries. Also from time to time there might be a day trip to Toledo or Jackson, or maybe even Fort Wayne, but for most of us growing up in that rural area, the rest of the world was "out there".

That Friday started off like any other normal Friday. I got up early and went out to do what farm chores needed to be done. Sometime or other in the course of the usual morning ritual, I had breakfast, and got ready for school. Then it was off to school. The morning classes went by, and the lunch hour came. So far it had been a pretty ordinary normal day, one among the many others at that time of our lives.

Sometime around 1 PM or so, I and my fellow high school Freshmen classmates were in our Science class. For some reason our regular teacher was out for the day. Mrs. Welling was filling in as the substitute teacher. Mrs. Welling and her husband were retired teachers. Sometime in her life Mrs. Welling had received a certain amount of musical training. She directed one of the local church choirs, and occasionally sang special numbers. She was a petite slender lady which contributed to the nickname of "Mrs. Canary Legs" which we students sometimes callously called her, but not ever to her face or in the hearing of other adults. In truth she was a pretty nice lady. In all the times she substituted for the teacher in any of my classes, I never remember her saying any unkind words to any student, or ever in any way speaking sharply or roughly to any class at large.

I do not remember what the exact time was. It most probably was around 1:45 PM our local EST. I have no memory of what we were specifically doing in class at that time. Mrs. Welling may have been speaking to some aspect of Science, or we may have been doing some in class study time. We heard the school PA system come on. The PA system was always used for announcements of some kind or another related to school activities. In my mind, that was the expectation at that time. However, what we heard was something much different then anything we had ever heard on that PA system before. We realized the voice we were hearing was not that of the high school Principle, or the Superintendent, or any of the teachers. It was a voice on a radio. I don't remember the exact words, but to the best of my recollection they were:

"......We repeat. President John F. Kennedy has been shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.... At approximately 12:30 PM local time, the President of the United States was shot...."

We sat there as the radio broadcast continued over the PA system. It took several minutes to process the meaning of the words we were hearing. Assassinations are things that only happen in history, such as in the Lincoln assassination. They are not suppose to happen in our United States of America of 1963. How could this be? What was going on? Even then there was a certain detachment from what we were hearing, as though listening to some kind of fictional account.

But it was not fiction. It was real. It was actually happening! Any thought of continuing with the Science class was totally erased from everyone's mind. We just sat there listening. It was about 20 minutes after we first heard the news of the shooting when the voice on the radio announced a news update bulletin had just come in.

"President John F. Kennedy died at approximately 1 p.m. Central Standard Time today here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound in the brain."

We were stunned. Mrs. Welling had tears in her eyes. In the wisdom and perspective of her older years, she much more fully comprehended the meaning, importance, and impact of what we were hearing. She had already in her lifetime witnessed December 7, 1941 when the shocking news came through that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. In contrast, we as students in our youthful inexperience and naivete could hardly comprehend the tragic historic moment we were listening to over that PA system.

At some point the buzzer rang to signal the end of the class session. We left the classroom as in a daze. Any conversations in the hallway were subdued. We were struggling to comprehend what we had heard, what it all meant, and what was going to happen.

My last class of the day was Phys. Ed. We went to the gym, but no one bothered getting ready for gym class. We just sat there on the bleachers or wandered around the gym aimlessly, talking quietly among ourselves. At one point one of my classmates, in a demonstration of youthful folly, made a smart-aleck remark about cancelling school because the President was shot. The Phys. Ed. teacher angrily and curtly told him to just shut up.

Finally the school day ended. We headed home. My mother was a teacher at the school, so she had heard the news in the same way we had. My dad had also heard the news. The normal afternoon TV shows we liked to watch were cancelled. All the TV and radio stations were focused on the assassination. We started hearing the name Lee Harvey Oswald mentioned. He was now in the custody of the Dallas Police Department. President Kennedy's body was being flown back to Washington, DC aboard Air Force 1. Lynden Johnson had taken the oath of office, and was now President of the United States.

Saturday morning dawned. We did our usual farm chores, but I don't remember doing much else that day. The news came that President Kennedy's funeral would be on Monday, and there would be no school that day. Lee Harvey Oswald was still in the custody of the Dallas Police Department. The only thing else I remember about that Saturday was that it was sunny with mostly clear skies.

In looking back at that time, it's the routine details of your life you don't remember. Sunday morning came. I had probably gone to church that morning, but have no memory of it. I would have got back home a little before Noon, our local EST. What I do remember was watching the TV coverage of the assassination, funeral preparations, the public viewing of the closed casket in the rotunda of the Capital building, and all the rest.

Then the network broke away to the coverage in Dallas, Texas where the Dallas police were about to transfer Lee Harvey Oswald from the police headquarters to the county jail. There on the black and white screen in front of me, I saw police officers escorting a man into the basement of the police headquarters. Then another man stepped quickly forward and shots rang out. It was 11:21 am local CST, Sunday, November 24, 1963. As he was about to be taken to the Dallas County Jail, Lee Harvey Oswald was fatally shot before live television cameras in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters by Jack Ruby. I was watching the whole thing on TV. I along with millions of other Americans saw it happen right before our eyes. It was surreal, as if in a dream.

Ruby was immediately taken into custody. What was going on? This stuff happens in fictional movies and TV shows, but this was real life. Two murders in two days! I don't remember watching any more TV that day. I may have, but that scene from the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters remains etched forever in my memory.

Monday November 25, was President John F. Kennedy's funeral. In our part of Michigan, it was another sunny day with mostly clear skies. I may have watched bits and pieces of the funeral on TV, but I remember very little. A few years in the future, in 1969, my college roommate and I would visit Washington, DC. While there, we would cross the Potomac River to the Arlington National Cemetery and visit the grave site where the eternal flame was burning. But that is another story for another time.

After the President's funeral, at some point school resumed. The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays came and went. A new year began. We would go on with our lives, but for each of us who lived through that tragic historical time, our lives would never ever be the same after that one tragic fatal November day in 1963.

(Written by J. William Newcomer. Copyright © April 2010. All rights reserved.)

Remembering Mickey Mantle's Big Hit

(This is being reposted from one of my other blogs. I think it is a story that fits well with the intent of "The Neukomment Files".)

Late August 1961, it was the summer between 6th and 7th grade, and my last summer of Little League Baseball. That day all us Little League ball players from our small rural Southern Michigan town packed into the school bus and were off to Tiger Stadium in Detroit to watch our favorite Detroit Tigers take on those NY Yankees.

That small rural town was several hours from Detroit, and as such, it was a rare treat for any of us to see a Major league baseball game first hand. We listened to the Tiger games over the radio with George Kell and Ernie Harwell calling the games. Those were the years when Al Kaline, Rocky Colavito, Norm Cash, Jake Wood, and Jim Bunning, among others were our heros.

That summer of 1961 was also the time when Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were chasing Babe Ruth's home run record.

When we got to the stadium we were seated out in the center field section of the stands. The Yankees were out warming up, and there he was right in front of us; Mickey Mantle! And over in right field was Roger Maris! The two guys who all season long had been hitting all those home runs!

We started yelling "Hey Mickey!"... He turned and waved. He caught a ball, (it must have come from Yogi Berra in left?). We called out to him to throw the ball up to us. He made a motion like he was going to do just that but that ball returned to his glove and Mickey returned to his warmup. We were in awe. What a guy!

The game started. In the course of the game both Mantle and Maris hit home runs. I don't rememeber what inning it was when Mickey was at bat and hit that 2nd (as I rememeber) home run. I can still hear in my mind the crack of his bat hitting that pitch. We heard that crack all the way out in the center field stands. We watched the ball rise as it headed out towards right field. It keep going up and up and up. It was over the outfield fence and still going up. It cleared the stands and even then was still going up.

Was it going to hit the wall? No!!!

It cleared the wall and was out of the stadium! Mickey Mantle had just hit a home run out of Tiger Stadium, and from our center field seats we had the perfect view of it all the way up and out!

As I recall, the Yankees won the game and afterwards we climbed into the school bus and headed back to our small rural Michigan community. The memory of Mickey interacting with us during the warmups; the memory of that "out of the stadium" home run remain in my memory to this day. We had seen someone who was to us, one of baseball's larger then life heros. And even though most of us remained loyal Tiger fans, Mickey Mantle had a special place in our hearts and memories.

I am well aware that in latter years, after his retirement from baseball, Mantle had some struggles and failures in his personal life. For myself, those things do not take away from who he was as a major league baseball player, nor from what his presence met for the game. For us who as youngsters saw him play the game, Mickey Mantle was and remains a great baseball player and hero.

RIP

Official Mickey Mantle Website

(Up to 1961, the Detroit stadium had been known as Brigg's Stadium. 1961 was the first year it went by the new name of Tiger Stadium.)