Genealogy and the grandfather I knew.

I have been busy studying and reviewing my family and the families that I represent as a descendant.  I was very fortunate to have a lot of excellent material available to me.  That is due in part to technology and the Internet in specific.  Computers now are cheaper and more power than they ever have been.  The digitization of vital statistic records as a result of computers and the Internet linking all this data together has for me made genealogy a fun pursuit.  I strongly believe that genealogy and archeology are going to help my family win issues that have been outstanding for far too long.

In 1998 while visiting my father and his wife in Campbell River, British Columbia I was given some really cool information about the native side of my family by Candy-Lea Chickite.  This really cool information was in the form of a GEDCOM file.  Please click on the GEDCOM link to learn more about what a GEDCOM file is.  The file that Candy-Lea gave me was about 50 kilobytes or maybe a bit less.  My point here is that this small file of digital information about a part of my family has changed my life.

Researching my families genealogy has help me use the technology I love to study something that I am learning to love even more.  My family.  I will be referring to my family as families from this point on in this blog post because most of us come from more than one family.  As stated in other blog posts my families aren’t perfect.  I found out some things about my families that have caused change in my families and mostly for the better.

On February 25, 1909, 101 years ago today my grandfather, Ronald Douglas Bartlett was born in Victoria, British Columbia.  No!  He’s not 101 years old.  He past away February 22, 1992.  Today I choose to celebrate my Granddad’s birthday because of what it was that he meant to me and what he still means to me as my grandfather and ancestor.  When I was born in 1960 and as I matured in the years that followed it was my grandfather, Ron Bartlett, who was one of the people that helped shape my life.

Sadly, I don’t speak of my grandfather, John Quocksister, as I have no memories of him and little knowledge of him until later in life.  Grandfather John Quocksister passed away August 4, 1944 a little more than 16 years before I was born.  My dad was 10 years old at the time.  His wife, Susan (Ne: Assu) Quocksister passed away December 23, 1938.  The loss of my grandparents in the Quocksister family and the impact(s) of their departures is something that I am still coming to understand in being rather large.  That is why I do not speak of my Quocksister grandparents.  I never had the pleasure of meeting them.  From what I understand and am told, they were excellent people.  I just realized that my dad was 12 of 14.  Heh!  So much for "7 of 9" from Star Trek.  My dad is "12 of 14".  So there!

I think Grandma Susan should have received a medal like the Order of Canada or something.  She gave birth to 14 children before she passed away!  Like I said, I think the lady should be decorated and now, posthumously, of course.  I wonder how many more kids she and Granddad John would have had if they both remained alive to be old together and die after living 80 years or something like that?  Frightening!  I mean wow.

My Bartlett grandparents I knew well.  Back to Granddad Ron Bartlett whose birthday is today.  My grandfather Ron Bartlett was one of the fairest men than I have ever known.  He treated everyone and I do mean everyone with respect.  I believe from my own observations as a child that he showed respect and grace to people that did not ever treat him so well.  I found that to be truly amazing as a child.  My respect for my one remaining grandfather was huge!  He was an impressive man.

My grandfather was Postmaster of the Campbell River Post Office until I think is was 1972 or 1973.  He served 55 years with in what is now called Canada Post.  I don’t believe that my grandfather worked the whole 55 years.  He was accredited with time as I recall that worked out to 55 years.  I know that he worked well over 50 years.   I remember he received a medallion and a Seiko watch along with a letter of citation or some such thing.  I don’t know where any of that stuff is now.  Hopefully someone in the family still has the medallion.  It was impressive.

My favourite times with my Granddad were when he and Grandma would take my brother and I (and later my baby sister) along with them on summer holiday camping trips that normally occurred ever year in August.  We would load up my grandparents camper, say good bye to my mother and down the Island Highway we would head to Nanaimo to catch the ferry to the mainland.  One of the few times that I saw my grandparents fight was navigating through Vancouver.  I love GPS receivers.  They really are relationship savers.  Ask my wife.

Grandma would have the map sprawled out on the dash on the right side of the truck cab.  My Granddad was fuming and driving on the left side of the truck and my brother and I sat very quietly in the middle.  Scary times then and funny memories now.  I think the funniest part is that husband – wife navigation changed little before the advent of Global Positioning System satellites and receivers.  If Granddad was alive now and saw how Girlie and I travel he would just shake his head, laugh to himself and says something like, “Kids these days”.  “Turn right in 800 metres”, says the TomTom GPS receiver and Girlie reads the GPS screen, tells me the cross street and we turn right, in 800 metres.  No arguing and no fussing except, when I miss the turn.  It happens!  Ask anyone with any experience in GPS navigation and they’ll tell you the same thing.  Trust the machine.

On one trip my brother Kirby and I were travelling with our grandparents and I recall the time was about 9:30 in the morning.  Kirby and I were sitting between my grandparents in the cab of the truck and we couldn’t keep our eyes open.  We both sat their with our eyes closing involuntarily in the bright morning sunshine.  Our grandparents were not impressed.  They promised us that beatings would soon follow if we youngster didn’t open our eyes!  Kirby and I burst into tears immediately telling our grandparents that we weren’t sleeping and we wanted to open our eyes but, we were having serious problems doing so.

My Granddad was the calmer of my grandparents and recommended to my Grandma that my brother and I should go see a doctor and find out what’s wrong.  We stopped in a town in the Interior of British Columbia (I don’t remember where.) and my grandparents found a doctor that would see my brother and I.  It turned out that my brother and I had pretty much sunburned our retinas playing on a lakeshore the day before.  Our reward?  Sunglasses!  We had no problems keeping our eyes open with sunglasses on.  Kirby and I took it easy on our eyes after that day.

Later in my grandfather’s life a sad tale played itself out that was very hard to watch.  I remember being told in 1987 by my grandfather that he had Alzheimer’s Disease.  What an amazing man!  He told me so that I would understand what was to come.  It was difficult for me to watch one of my heroes in life lose his mind and he was the only one that didn’t know it.  There were fun times even with the Alzheimer’s and my grandfather.

In 1988 my grandparents were living in Westbank which has since been swallowed up by Kelowna and I was driving my grandparents Volkswagen Jetta.  We were almost in Vernon.  My grandmother was navigating on the right, as she always did ever since I was a knee high kid, and my grandfather was sitting in the back seat.  It was nearing lunch and all three of us were expressing hunger issues.  Grandma and I were looking for a restaurant to stop and have lunch at.

My grandfather moved forward from the back seat, reached forward with his right hand and, while giving me a pat on the shoulder said, “I don’t know who you are but, we’re sure having a good time.”  My Grandma and I laughed with my Granddad.  Looking back on the moment now the memory brings tears to my eyes.  My Granddad had a good day and didn’t even know it.  He wasn’t sad.  He was having a good time.  I had accomplished what I had sent out as a goal of helping my Granddad enjoy his later years.

Thank you Candy-Lea Chickite for the gift that I am still very much enjoying in studying my family roots.  Thank you Granddad for the excellent man that you were and always will be to me.

Happy birthday, Granddad.  Before the sand ran out you lived a wonderful life.