My Father's Posts

Our fathers . . .

My parents with Ellen-Marie in 1949

With all of the blessings many of us enjoyed in 2010, there was a great deal of sorrow. A few of my dearest friends lost their fathers in the waning months and days of 2010 and are facing the new year without them. Some were blessed with very close and loving bonds. Others had relationships that were more complicated. All of those relationships will now take on a more poignant cast in 2011. But 2010 also brought an abundance of gifts. A year ago, I had no idea this gold mine of my father’s columns existed in the universe! And speaking of his writings, he may have had his own complicated relationship with his dad. At least so far, Ebenezer has not mentioned his father in his writings, though he gives props to his mom on a regular basis. Our fathers, living and dead, present or absent, helicopter dads and rolling stones, are alive in us and have a profound impact on who we are. Here’s hoping that their legacy makes us stronger and wiser.

Tags: Christmas, ebenezer ray, elaine ray, Ellen-Marie Ray, fathers, fathers and daughters, genealogy, holidays, Malvina Alkins, marriage, Mary Ray, New Year

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Categories Family, Uncategorized

A road map for a new year

1 Jan

Bruno Hauptmann

As the world welcomed 1936, the Lindbergh kidnapping case continued to capture the world’s attention.
“This writer individually but unequivocally thinks the State of New Jersey has the right man in Bruno Richard Hauptmann,” Ebenezer wrote. He compared the Hauptmann matter with the case of Lloyd Price, a “Brooklyn Negro” who was “convicted and executed for the murder of a white girl. The prosecution’s strongest point, if we remember well, was the fact that a pencil, supposedly the property of the accused Price, was found near the body of the murdered girl.”
My father also weighed in on Ethiopia, a recurring theme of his in 1935 and 1936, as well as FDR’s fitness for another four years:
“November next will decide whether the people of the United States want Franklin D. Roosevelt to guide their economic and industrial destinies for the next four years. In the meantime, records show a marked improvement in business and industry. the most recent Christmas shopping showed an increase of about ten per cent over that of last year, virtually all sources of individual income headed by wages and salary showed substantially higher yields n 1934 than in 1933, the U.S. Treasury announced last week. The Post office Department handled its biggest Christmas business since 1929. All in all, Prosperity seems to be turning that elusive corner of which we heard so much four years ago. People of the United States would do nothing better than to entrust their national destiny in the hands of Franklin D. Roosevelt for the next four years, even though the shiftless Herbert Hoover and a handful of disgruntled and personally interested Republicans think otherwise.”

The New York Age, January 4, 1936

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Categories 1936, Columns, Dottings of a Paragrapher

Merry Christmas, Joe Louis, the Communists, the Scottsboro Boys and Mother

25 Dec

Joe Louis 1935

I love the fact that my father gave a shout out to his mom, whom he said was responsible for all that was good in him. (Sadly, he used the same line nine months later when she died.) He also sent greetings to Joe Louis, the “uncrowned king,” “the Scottsboro lads with a sincere hope for their ultimate freedom,” and the Communists who took up the Scottsboro Boys cause and saved their lives. There was some reluctance among supporters of the NAACP about whether the Communists efforts on behalf of the Scottsboro Boys would hurt their cause. Ebenezer did not seem to have those concerns. He did give props to the NAACP for its “untiring efforts on behalf of the Negro race.”

The New York Age, December 28, 1935

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Categories 1935, Columns, Dottings of a Paragrapher, The Scottsboro Boys

Malvina Augusta Alkins

21 Dec

In a post last week, I noted that I found it interesting that the death of Malvina Alkins, my father’s mother, was featured in an obituary in the Barbados Advocate, the nation’s oldest newspaper. Turns out, her death was noted in three Barbados papers, the Advocate, the Herald and the Observer, which employed her other son, Noel Alkins. My father included these obituaries in his “Dottings” column on Sept. 5, 1936. In the two weeks preceding that column, “Dottings” featured guest columnists, which suggests that perhaps he’d made it back to Barbados. Though the Advocate item mentions that Mrs. Alkins had lost her husband just a month earlier, none mention his name. I found a death record for a James Alkins, who died June 30 of that year. More on him later.