Friday, February 15, 2013

Family Friends Friday... Let's try this Prompt out


  Well I was just checking over my past blogs and fixing some spelling and grammatical errors I noticed and came across the blog I did Wednesday, June 13, 2012. It was titled "Workday Wednesday - John Bertram & Sons of Dundas, Ontario".  In that blog I spoke of how my great, great  grand father George Dennie and his son (my great grand father) William George Dennie worked there and how they met and came to be friends with a fellow worker George Fraser and his wife Rose. George and Rose became fast friends with William and Gladys (nee Forwell) (Williams wife & my great grand mother). When William and Gladys had their first child Elva Irene Dennie (my grand mother); it was George & Rose that became the God Parents of course.
    Now I suggested on the Facebook page for Genebloggers that we add this "Family Friend Friday" to the "Daily Blogging Prompts" and they excepted it.  George Fraser is the reason it came to mind for me. See I know we all have an Uncle George or Aunt Rose in our families. That couple that was our parents best friends; that they did everything with. Hung out with on weekends, stood in their wedding, went on trips with, served in the war with, and as with mine; were the God Parents of "little Billie". It's these things that make them part of the family, so why shouldn't we include them somewhere somehow in our genealogy?
    More importantly than just the fact that they are like family (as far as blogging and researching our families goes); they are important sources of information. As I pointed out in that previous blog - "He (George Fraser) was able to tell me personally about my great great grandfather and great grandfather, both of whom I never had the honor of meeting myself. Both were honest, hardworking men for whom family came first. I would have liked to have known them, but since I couldn't, I will say that getting to know them both through Uncle George was a great experience. not only did I see them through his eyes; but reflecting back on it, I realize that I got to know them by the friend they picked to have as a member of our extended family. Uncle George Fraser was a great man and since I couldn't know my relatives personally; I'm sure glad I knew Uncle George because of them."

Pictures


A picture of George Fraser with my kids can been seen in the previous blog mentioned. 




Above Left to right:

Elva Dennie (my grand mother), Elva's God mother Rose Fraser, Noella Lafleur (my mother) holding Branden (my brother) with me John Goodwin in front of her.

(Summer of 1976 in London at the home of George & Rose Fraser)

Above:  George & Mable Whitebread 

(Rose Fraser's parents) (1920?)


Above: At the "Hard Rock Cafe" downtown 

Detroit, Michigan (March 18, 2011)

I (John F.W. Goodwin) am seated right with my son Liam P.F. Goodwin seated next to me. Across from us is my good friend George Daniels. George is Liam's God Father.  Yes he could tell my son some stories about me. 


  I can think of many other family friends, such as my parents friends the Ouellette's when I was young. Later my father had friends Howard and Barb. I have many friends such as Liana who I went to high school with and is the God Mother of my oldest daughter Victoria. Speaking of which Victoria's God Father is another good friend of mine who I have known since grade 6, Robert. I could go on and on but the point is they all have known us and can give us and our descendants a picture of our families (that can be a verbal picture, but may be physical copies of pictures) which we may not have. So lets talk to these people and as they "Remember When....", they can help us to record when. I will definitely blog of some others now that my prompt has been excepted as a Genebloggers Daily Blogging Prompt.



Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Wednesday's Child - Remember When (Week 3) - Your 1rst BFF

    So I was thinking about week 3 and what it should be... I looked at the first two weeks and the home I  lived in. I got to "Remember When..." I use to play with Marcelo  Marcelo was the son of a couple that lived next door to us (and my grand parents - since we lived over them). His family was Italian and we were the same age. Once we moved to our first home (my parents owned on their own), I still played with Marcelo whenever we visited my grand parents or I was babysat by them. We played Cowboys & Indians, Cops and Robbers and with our toy cars & trucks. Marcelo's mother was a very kind lady and very protective of her son. We would sometime's go to his house and visit with her. I say visit because we didn't play in their home. It was always neat, clean and organized. She would let us come in for cookies and milk at the kitchen table or for some other goody. I was allowed in to wait for him if he was getting ready or had to finish cleaning his room to go out. I remember that in the living room under a side table next to the couch was an old Fisher Price Ferris Wheel toy.  It was a decoration at that point. She would allow me to pull it out to see how it worked a few times but it had to go back to it's "Spot". Marcelo was at my 6th Birthday in the dinning room of my grandparents home. I got my first 2 wheeler bike.

July 4, 1972 - My (John Goodwin) 6th Birthday with my Dad (William F. Goodwin) helping to cut the cake. I looked all day through old photo's and couldn't find the one with Marcelo in it. This is the closest I could find - he is sitting to my right (that is his hand).




July 4, 1972 - Outside our house on the side walk with my  birthday gift a new bike.  My dad (William F. Goodwin) and his step father; my grand father (Vic Boismier).


    As I got older and the visits grew further apart, so did our relationship. By the time we were around 8 years old his family was getting ready to move back to Italy. We said goodbye and that was the last I saw of him. I often wonder how he is doing, what did he grow up to do, did he get married, have kids, come back to Canada? Does he ever think back and "Remember When...." he lived on Highland Ave. in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and hung out with his friend John?

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Those Places Thursday - Remember When You Lived in Your First Home? (Week 2)

    So my first home was apparently with my Mother's parents. Recently my father told me that for about the first year or so after their marriage he and my mother lived with her parents. They had the back bedroom. My father got his job with Chrysler's here in Windsor working the line. He told me he would get home from the late shift and my mother would be asleep; but when he came in he would often find my grandfather up, sitting at the kitchen table feeding me my nightly bottle. If you have read my past blogs at all then you have seen this home at 818 Bruce Ave. in blog dated Nov. 1, 2012.  We were in the back addition (3rd bedroom). While I know this home well, because we spent so much time there. My grandmother babysat me while my parents both worked.

Me (John Goodwin) in my parents room on Highland. Closet door is just left of cameraman.


      The first home I remember actually living in was in the apartment above my other grandparents home. My parents moved in there to get their own space and start saving for a home of their own. This is the home at 1646 Highland Ave. It was in the previous blog about the first memory.  I remember snap shots of things and then other things are clear. I remember going in my parents room to see them, I remember trying to climb into their closet to play. It was an over deep closet, deeper at the bottom (child level) then the top because of the slope of the roof. I remember my uncle coming over now and then. Of course I remember time spent with my grand parents down stairs as they watched me. Especially  my grandfather who stayed home. Being with him, him making me lunches (peanut butter toast), and playing in the yard. I also remember most fondly my father at the kitchen table building model cars. He liked cars and growing up as a kid didn't have the money for toys and things so I think this was his way to recapture some of that lost childhood.  My grandparents had a patch of rhubarb in the back yard and grandpa use to cut a stick off for me and then clean it and give it to me with the blue sugar bowl (pictured in the Jan. 17, 2013 blog of heirlooms), to dip it in and eat. Until my grandmother died when I was 26 yrs old; that home was a central anchor to our family world as was the home on Bruce for our family on my mother's side. I will always look back on these places and "Remember When..." fondly, with love and happiness.