Reflecting back over my fourteen years of genealogy research, I find that I am mildly disappointed, as well as deeply saddened, that I waited until after I was retired to uncover the rich history of my ancestors. I suspect the reason behind my early lack of interest was due to the fact that in the way of ancestors, I only knew one great grandparent and three or four grand uncles in my lifetime. By the time Mom was nine; both of her parents had passed away and soon after Dad’s eighteenth birthday, his parents were taken from him.

 

After the death of Mom’s parents, her grandmother Caroline Severance raised her and her siblings until adulthood. Grandma (actually my great grandmother) was my first and only encounter with a direct ancestor. My memories of visiting Grandma and my grand uncles during the summers in which my brothers and I worked in the tobacco fields are very dear to me.

 

I am from a typical small Florida community and lived in the area until my eighteenth year in which I joined the Navy. My memories of childhood go back until I was five or six years old. At that time, Dad was the superintendent of a large hotel, which meant that our family had to live in a cottage on the hotel grounds. Until my sixth birthday, my brother Dan and I spent most of our time running wild on the hotel’s golf course and the hotel grounds. After we moved into our home (by that time I had two more brothers), my brothers, and I spent most of our time lat at the local community center or in and around the various hotels in which Dad worked. If I were to reflect upon the three areas of my younger years that stand out the most, they would be in no particular order, the hotels, the home we built from the ground up, and our summers working in the tobacco fields at Grandma’s farm in North Florida.

 

The  building of a home under normal circumstances would not make interesting reading. However, the story of how our home came to be will surely give you reason to  smile.  The year was 1942 and the country was at war with Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  The Hotel (also our home) was soon leased to the U. S. Army Air Force (at this time, the Air Force was a part of the U.S. Army) to become an auxiliary barracks for Army personnel. Dad was given notice that our cottage was needed to house the flyers, so we had to give up our home.

 

Dad was not able to work at the hotel while the Army was in control, so he and mom packed all of our belongings and off we moved. For the next two years, we remained in this rented house while dad, wanting to do something of value, volunteered as an “Air Raid Warden” for the area.

In late 1944, Uncle Sam (the Federal Government) decided to return the hotel to its owners. Since the government no longer had a use for the barracks or latrines (out houses) used by the airmen, the Army vacated the hotel leaving the barracks, and latrines spread throughout the hotel grounds. Dad knew this was the opportunity of a lifetime so he negotiated a deal with the government and hotel owners whereby he would dismantle the buildings in return for the lumber. The old reliable southern yellow pine used for the barracks and latrines, as repulsive as it may seem, would now be used to construct our future home.

 

My parents, brothers, uncles, and I (along with anyone else that we could find to help) hauled every foot of lumber from the hotel grounds to our new home site. My brothers and I, as young as we were, became acquainted with every phase of building a home... from sawing 4 X 12’s to driving 20-penny nails using both hands to hold the hammer along with every phase of pluming. Just before the end of the war in 1945, we moved into our new home and lived there for the next fifteen or so years. Uncle Marvin told me in a recent interview that every time he came to visit, we were working on our home. He was right; our home never seemed to get finished. We were still working on it when I left to join the Navy. Although the house no longer serves the Chancey family, it still stands today and serves another family as it did ours. Bless that southern yellow pine.

 

My memory of Grandma also  begins at about the age of six. After the death of her husband Sam Severance, Grandma and her youngest sons were left to work the 160-acre farm. The 160 acres were subdivided among the sons and since Mom’s father had passed away years earlier, she, and her siblings inherited their fathers section. When help was needed with the tobacco crop, Mom loaded up the car and to North Florida we went. I learned at an early age just what tobacco juice and black sandy soil will do to a young kids skin. Grandma made her own soap from lye and lard in a large iron kettle and each evening waited impatiently for us to return from the fields so that she could scrub us down with her soap and ice cold well water. At that time there was no electricity or pluming in the home so we bathed at the water pump.

Why do I have such a vivid memory of Grandma? She was a very stern looking woman with piercing eyes. She also loved us kids and was very gentle unless we misbehaved (which  w as often). Her method of punishment for our misbehavior? She would march out to the front yard and with one swift movement break off a switch from the peach tree in the front yard.  Boy! Do I remember the look on her face when she came after us with that thing.

 

Grandma passed away when I was nine years old which meant the working of the farm was left to the sons along with Mom, her brother, and sister (and all of us young boys and girls). Some years later, Mom and her siblings decided that they wanted nothing to do with the farm so they quit claim deeded the farm over to Grandma’s youngest son. That was to become the end of my experience on the farm and my last memory of an ancestor until after my retirement years later.

After my discharge from the Navy, I worked for Sperry Rand Corporation for thirteen years and then went to work for a start-up company by the name of Paradyne. About fifteen years later, AT&T purchased the company and I remained working there until my 25th anniversary at which time I took an early retirement.

 

The story of how and when I started my research into the history of my ancestors will continue on another page of this web site. If you are interested, please click.

 

The Beginning - Researching My Family of Ancestors

 

 

 

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