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captainsblogMy sister loves to scrapbook. I appreciate it without entirely understanding it, much as, I'm sure, she relates to my lifelong passion for a team of lovable losers from Queens. Every now and then, though, there's a gem in among the magazine clippings, and this one, while technically a day late, is several billion dollars short:
That's me, circa 1963, at our "Aunt" Allie's place in Vermont. If I've got the history right, Allie would be my father's great-aunt Alice, and she, in turn, would be the second-generation Alice Stilwell, daughter of the original Alice Stilwell. And the original, according to this genealogy, was the
[o]lder sister of TAE’s first wife, Mary Stilwell. She lived with the Edisons until her marriage in 1881 to William Holzer. They had two daughters: Mary Edison and Alice Stilwell. The family moved to Hamilton, Ontario, in 1907, where her mother Margaret and her sister Eugenia had been living since the 1890s. After William’s death in 1910, TAE provided financial support to Alice and her daughters. In her later years, she corresponded extensively with former Edison employee Francis Jehl, biographer William A. Symonds, and Henry Ford’s secretary Frank Campsall regarding her recollections of the Menlo Park years.
If you're keeping score at home, "TAE" would be one Thomas Alva Edison. Tom stands accused, with more than a little justification, of being a major historical douchebag, particularly in his dealings with one Nikola Tesla, whose birthday was celebrated yesterday, with an Oatmealish exhortation to add a "delta bravo" characterization about TAE to the Wikipedia page for the word "douchebag." (It's been blocked from such vandalism- the talk page from as far back as May 2012 notes, I underestimated how many sleeper accounts of Oatmeal fans we had.)
So that's me, with the daughter of the sister of the wife of the alleged creator of All Good Things Electrical and Musical and Good- Or Not. Mary died 13 years after their marriage, leaving three children, none of whom had children of their own, and therefore leaving the entire Edison fortune to his more prolific descendants, Con and Met.
Do I regret these alternate currents of life and DNA that kept my family from becoming heirs to such a fortune? Not a bit. Because then I'd probably find myself liking Mittens, and I don't think I could stand that.
That's me, circa 1963, at our "Aunt" Allie's place in Vermont. If I've got the history right, Allie would be my father's great-aunt Alice, and she, in turn, would be the second-generation Alice Stilwell, daughter of the original Alice Stilwell. And the original, according to this genealogy, was the
[o]lder sister of TAE’s first wife, Mary Stilwell. She lived with the Edisons until her marriage in 1881 to William Holzer. They had two daughters: Mary Edison and Alice Stilwell. The family moved to Hamilton, Ontario, in 1907, where her mother Margaret and her sister Eugenia had been living since the 1890s. After William’s death in 1910, TAE provided financial support to Alice and her daughters. In her later years, she corresponded extensively with former Edison employee Francis Jehl, biographer William A. Symonds, and Henry Ford’s secretary Frank Campsall regarding her recollections of the Menlo Park years.
If you're keeping score at home, "TAE" would be one Thomas Alva Edison. Tom stands accused, with more than a little justification, of being a major historical douchebag, particularly in his dealings with one Nikola Tesla, whose birthday was celebrated yesterday, with an Oatmealish exhortation to add a "delta bravo" characterization about TAE to the Wikipedia page for the word "douchebag." (It's been blocked from such vandalism- the talk page from as far back as May 2012 notes, I underestimated how many sleeper accounts of Oatmeal fans we had.)
So that's me, with the daughter of the sister of the wife of the alleged creator of All Good Things Electrical and Musical and Good- Or Not. Mary died 13 years after their marriage, leaving three children, none of whom had children of their own, and therefore leaving the entire Edison fortune to his more prolific descendants, Con and Met.
Do I regret these alternate currents of life and DNA that kept my family from becoming heirs to such a fortune? Not a bit. Because then I'd probably find myself liking Mittens, and I don't think I could stand that.
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Date: 2012-07-12 07:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-12 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-12 11:06 pm (UTC)For now. :)
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Date: 2012-07-14 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-12 01:56 pm (UTC)Unless you count my great-grandad's brother Claude, who was a moonshiner during Prohibition and got caught in a shootout, which forced to move to Oregon and become a florist.
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Date: 2012-07-12 02:01 pm (UTC)Thank you, btw- your stories inspired this dip of my toe into the family water. The other night, Emily and I had one of our longest and nicest heart-to-hearts, and she wants to learn more about her family. I'm one step from the top of the knowledge base, and I know less nuthink about it than Sergeant Schultz does, so I've got some work to start doing here.
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Date: 2012-07-12 03:00 pm (UTC)Family history can be an interesting thing, My family, for example, is never boring (well, my brother's in-laws aside) and we have a huge oral history.
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Date: 2012-07-13 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-14 11:38 pm (UTC)