A Saturday night in San Jose (the 10th largest city in America–bigger than San Francisco, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., among others–did you know that?) is not like a Saturday night in, say, Chicago or Los Angeles. A Saturday night in San Jose is more like a Saturday night in Cleveland or Milwaukee. In other words, the perfect time and place for a gathering of family and friends for a 75th birthday party.

Dad’s birthday party was a terrific success–he said so himself. All of his children were present and a large gathering of friends at a San Jose restaurant. Included were one of his high school classmates and a married couple he and my mother have known for more than fifty years. Another guest was a man who was also born in January 1932 and lived on the same street Dad lived on in Houston. Strangely enough, this fellow and my Dad didn’t meet each other until about three or four years ago at the VA hospital in Palo Alto, California.

Of course, a number of the Bay Area Browns Backers turned out as well.

One of Dad’s passions is music–jazz, specifically. I put together a couple of CD’s of his favorite artists, including Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Charles Brown, Clifford Brown. Dad also liked Dinah Washington, Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, and the (very early) Beatles. I also found and put on the CD’s radio news bulletins of significant events of the past 75 years, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor. My sister (who was largely responsible for the success of the evening) found some vintage film footage of the artists.

Dad recalled that in 1948 when he went to spend a year with his father in California, the first day they were in Los Angeles, they went to the Million Dollar Theatre downtown and saw a movie, a newsreel, and a live show. The live performer was Dizzy Gillespie.

A 75th birthday party for a parent is both fun and trying–yet you never want the music to end.

Who were these people? Aunt Pansy, Aunt Pearl. I was always mixing up Pearl and Pansy. I couldn’t keep them straight. And how about Velma, Alta, Mrs. Dolphin . . . which were relatives and which weren’t? Who knew?

My dad would say that one of these days he was going to sit down and do the family history. All he had to do was sit down with his relatives and get the stories from them. I was interested, too. When he got around to it, I knew that I would help him. But as the older relatives gradually departed, Dad would lament, “I wish I had asked him about . . . .”

And then there were the stories about my father’s “Spanish” great great grandmother. So it was my father who first got me interested in genealogy. I think his interest came from the fact that he grew up without siblings. But the spark that he did smolder long time before it caught fire. In the meantime I heard from my mother about her Indian great-grandmother, and her “English” great-grandfather. Just who were they?

It took my Aunt Delorise Gines of Kansas City, Missouri, to really get the fire going. A few years ago, she published what she called the Gines family calendar and sent it out as Christmas gifts. It had names of relatives that I had never heard before. But it was a little bit short on dates and documentation. That was the show that I needed. I determined that I was going to fill in the gaps in Aunt Delorise’s work and my adventure began. It was really that simple. So here I am, obsessed.

A few days ago on a family conference call with my siblings, my youngest brother, now nearly 49 years old, said “Do you suppose Dad ever had a birthday party when he was a kid?” As soon as he asked the question, we all knew the answer.

My dad will be 75 years old this week. He was born in rural South Texas at one of the lowest points of the Great Depression, less than 70 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The town in which he was born, Rockport, Aransas County, had a population of less than 2000 people at the time. (Its estimated population in 2003 was about 8,500.) His parents were Jessie Beatrice Bowie (1909-1973) and Quentin V. H. Manson (1913-1987). His father was a jazz musician who left Texas in the 1940s to join the Central Avenue scene in Los Angeles. His mother worked most of her life as a domestic servant. When his parents split up, his mother sought work in the big city of Houston, leaving my dad behind on the Gulf Coast in the care of family and friends and others. The others included an influential German immigrant merchant family in Rockport to whom my dad’s family was virtually indentured.

Family and friends and the merchant family paid scant attention to my dad’s educational needs. So, according to a family story, my dad one day decided to enroll himself at school. And he walked and walked and walked until he came to a school which happened to be a Catholic school. He told the nuns he was in second grade (although he had never been to school before). I doubt that this story is true. Nonetheless, it is clear that the authorities in Aransas County had decided that they were not going have black children in their schools. As a result, some of my dad’s cousins, including George and Dorothy Stafford, or to the Greyhound A. every morning for 30 mile trip to Corpus Christi in Nueces County. Aransas County was more than happy to pay the travel fees.

At some point my dad began splitting his time between Houston and Rockport. When he was with his mother in Houston, he went to school. She saw to it. But since he was not being educated in Rockport, Nana refused to pay the property taxes due on the Bryant homestead which she had inherited. Curiously, the authorities did not pursue the issue with her. (In 1962, long after he had left Texas, my dad, by then a captain in the United States Army, received a tax bill from Aransas County for his mother’s overdue taxes).

Eventually my dad lived full-time in Houston with his mother and went to school there. He attended Phyllis Wheatley High School, but spent one year at Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles where his dad lived. Houston was so different from Rockport it might have been Mars. Houston had paved streets and traffic lights. Houston had parks. And best of all Houston had public libraries.

Recently Dad described to me his reaction upon first being in a public library in Houston: “All those newspapers!” Newspapers became his passion. Dad didn’t just read newspapers, he studied newspapers. He he read every newspaper he could get his hands on some big cities to small towns. He knew the great newspapers from the good newspapers from the average newspapers from the poor newspapers. He knew the big newspaper companies. He knew the names and something about the newspapers in virtually any city you could name. (Trivia game: “Wichita, Kansas?” “Wichita Eagle.” “Long Beach, California?” “Press-Telegram.”) He had found his calling. His love of newspapers would later be to my great benefit. Before I was old enough to go to school, my dad would sit me on his lap and read the newspaper to me. Not the comics; the front page. He would teach me words. By the time I did go to school, I had a bit of a head start on reading.

In 1951, as his high school graduation approached, Dad wasn’t entirely sure what his next step would be. Late in the semester, a teacher told him about a journalism scholarship at Lincoln University in Missouri.

Dad met Mom at Lincoln University. He dreamed of working in a big city newsroom. But that would have to wait until after his ROTC commitment, and until big-city newsrooms were hiring black journalists.

Dad never did get to work in a big city newsroom. He stayed in the Army for 20 years and retired at the rank of lieutenant colonel. His last assignment was as deputy commander of the Defense language Institute in Monterey California. He earned a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Oklahoma. He went on to a second career as an administrator at San Jose State University in California. And when he retired from that, he decided he wanted to be a paralegal. He went to school and got a paralegal certificate, and was hired by a prominent law firm in the South Bay area. After five years as a paralegal, Dad retired for good. He turned his attention to running the largest Cleveland Browns fan club in the world, the Bay area Browns backers which he had founded. (How a native of South Texas who had never been to Cleveland until he was into the 60s became the leader of the Browns fan club in the San Francisco Bay area is yet another story.) He was active in other community affairs as well, including being the foreman of the County grand jury one year.

In his last visit to Rockport before college, one of the Pictons offered Dad lifetime employment as her chauffeur. She was actually perplexed when he said he would rather go to college.

San Jose, California in the year 2007 is about as far away from Rockport Texas in 1932 as Pluto is from the sun. In the time and space between, my dad, born at home delivered by a midwife, became the first person in his family to go to college and to earn an advanced degree; reached a high ranking as an Army officer; acquired assets equal to the entire assessed valuation of Aransas County in 1932; raised four children all of whom went to college; and earned the respect of his community. I cannot possibly find words to convey the significance of this unlikely journey. A bookmaker would have given better odds that he actually would go to Pluto. For for a poor black child from a single-parent home, born in the midst of the Great Depression in circumstances not much different than they had been in the 1860s, to achieve what my dad has achieved is nothing short of incredible.

I became the first in our family to go to law school, achieved an even higher military rank my dad did, worked for a California Governor, was a Superior Court judge, and served at the sub-Cabinet level as a Presidential appointee. Nobody should be impressed. These things were low-hanging fruit as I stood on my father’s shoulders.

So Dad will have a birthday party this weekend . . . and there will be funny hats!

I’ve been tagged by Denise Olson of Moultrie Creek, and Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings Thanks (I think), Denise and Randy! So I have to disclose five things about myself that you might not already know, then tag five other folks. This meme goes back a bit and, of course, in many, many, directions. Worldwide Web, indeed!

Okay, here we go:

1. I learned German the hard way (or, according to most linguists, the easy way). I went to a German (“German” as in it was actually in Germany!) kindergarten at age 5, where only German was spoken. Now, almost fifty years later, I’ve forgotten most of it (which was about as easy as learning it).

2. I lived for about a year in a 400 year old thatched roof cottage in a small town in Norfolk, England. I rented the place in July, 1981–around November it occurred to me that central heat was not a 16th century amenity.

3. I would do anything to be back in radio–commercial radio as it was in the 1960′s and ’70′s. I’d be a morning guy on a huge AM rocker like KQV or WHB or KFRC or WLS. Heck, I’d even be an overnight guy on a little bitty central California station like the old KMBY in Monterey (hey, wait a minute–been there, done that–KMBY Monterey overnight, that is).

4. I started college intending to be an astrophysicist.

5. I may be the only genea-blogger who’s actually played professional baseball. I use the term “played” in the least meaningful way. When I was 14, I won a newspaper contest to become the batboy for the Albuquerque Dodgers, then the Class AA Texas League affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I spent the entire season with the team–an adolescent fantasy come true! Our manager was the former All-star catcher Del Crandall. We had a galaxy of future major league stars that summer: Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Billy Buckner, Charlie Hough, Von Joshua, to name a few. Despite this apparent surfeit of talent, we had a lousy season, finishing dead last in the league’s western division behind the despicable El Paso Sunkings. On September 2, 1969, the last day of the season, in a meaningless game with the said Sunkings at Albuquerque Sports Stadium, in the ninth inning, when all hope was gone as we trailed the loathsome fellows from the bordertown, Del Crandall ordered me into the game as a pinch-runner at first base. There were two outs already as I took a generous lead off the bag. The next Dodger batter (wish I could recall who it was) hit a hard ground ball to the El Paso shortstop and I was forced out (of the game, the season, and pro baseball) at second base. The ball game was over. Now there was work to do for a batboy. As I jogged off the field, I caught a glimpse of my dad beaming from his seat behind home plate. The last game of the season was the first (and only one) he’d been to; he had returned just hours earlier from a different season in a different hemisphere–a place called Vietnam.

So, I tag Katie, Dana, Demetrius, and Dave.

I recently opined about the “dangers” of identity theft through genealogy. Randy Seaver has an excellent piece on this topic yesterday. Recommended reading!

If you live in Los Angeles and have been searching recently for “Lee Chester Manson” on Google, please contact me by e-mail: craig@geneablogie.com.

My grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie (1909-1973), was born in San Antonio, Texas, but was raised primarily in the rural areas of Aransas and Nueces Counties along the Gulf Coast. She spent most of her life as a domestic servant for rich people in large cities. But by the late 1950′s, when I got to know her, “Nana” seemed to be fairly well-off. She travelled on the first scheduled jet flight between New York’s Idlewild Airport (now JFK International Airport) and Frankfurt, Germany, and returned aboard the SS United States. She bought a house in the hills outside Pasadena, California.

I’ll never forget one particular time that Nana came to visit us when we lived in Albuquerque. (We lived in what I call the “ultimate gated community”–a semi-secret atomic weapons research base nestled against the Sandia Mountains southeast of the city. The residential areas of the installation had the loops and cul-de-sacs typical of suburbia).

I believe it was 1962. The reason this particular visit stood out was because it was the first time Nana prepared a typical Southern meal for us, including “chitterlings.” This was to be an experience for me and my siblings, accustomed as we were to our mother’s Midwestern “comfort” recipes and our new-found taste for Mexican cuisine.

My mother seemed less than thrilled about turning her kitchen over to such an exotic adventure. Soon, it became clear to me why. The smell of “chitlins” cooking (having been thoroughly cleaned) is unforgettable . . . ’nuff said! We (my sister and brothers and I) hoped not to have explain it to our neighbors, who mostly weren’t from the South.

The meal was quite good, actually; the main dish being an acquired taste made easier with a little hot sauce.

Nana learned Southern cooking from her mother, Hattie Bryant (1888-1944) and her grandmother, Maria Martin (1861-1931). On the Gulf Coast, all of the women had lived and worked in proximity to German immigrants. The German farmers were enthusiastic hog raisers and had their own recipes for most of the parts of the animal.

We only had meals like that when Nana visited. Now that she’s gone, “soul food” from the kitchen is nearly a lost art–certainly nobody in the family dares fix “chitlins.”

Here’s a popular contemporary recipe:

Adapted in part from Yahoo Answers

Chitlins and Maw

Ingredients

2 lb pork maw
2 tb salt
2 ts crushed red pepper flakes
4 stalks celery — finely chopped
4 sm onions — finely chopped
4 sm green bell peppers — cored, seeded and finely chopped
5 lb precooked chitlins

Instructions

1. Wash the pork maw thoroughly in several changes of cold water. Drain thoroughly and place in a large pot with enough cold water to cover by 2 inches. Add the salt, red pepper, and half of the celery, onions, and green peppers. Heat to boiling, reduce to simmering, and cook, covered, until tender. This could take anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 hours, depending on the maw.
2. Meanwhile, wash the chitlins carefully in several changes of cold water. Drain thoroughly. Refrigerate until needed.
3. Drain the cooked maw and reserve the cooking liquid. Place the chitlins in a large pot and add enough of the maw cooking liquid to cover by 2 inches. Add the remaining celery, onions, and green peppers. Heat to boiling, reduce to simmering, and cook, covered, until tender, about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, when the pork maw is cool enough to handle, cut it into 1-inch pieces.
5. When the chitlins are tender, stir in the maw pieces and simmer together a few minutes. Check the seasoning and serve hot.

And now, a food safety tip from the Cobb County, Georgia, Extension Service of the University of Georgia and Fort Valley State University:

Work with chitlins in one small area of the kitchen. Use only chitterlings that are pre-cooked or pre-boil chitterlings for 5 minutes before cleaning. This boiling process will kill the bacteria so it will not spread throughout the kitchen. While chitterlings are boiling, the Department of Human Resources recommends cleaning the kitchen thoroughly with scouring powder.

This cleaning process would need to include sinks, pans, counters and any utensils that have come in contact with the chitlins or juice. After cleaning and rinsing thoroughly to remove all traces of scouring powder, a chlorine bleach solution of 1 tablespoon per gallon of warm water could be used as an extra measure of protection. Apply this solution to surfaces and allow it to air-dry. Once the chitterlings have been “pre-boiled” they should be cleaned as usual. Cook the chitlins thoroughly before they are eaten.

Don’t forget to thoroughly clean hands.

Dr. Joel Branham (1799-1877)
Eatonton, Putnam County, Georgia
Did his family hold the ancestors of Martin Luther King, Jr.
in slavery?
[Photo from Digital Library of Georgia]

(updated 1:54 pm, 1/15/2007) As is the case for many African-Americans, the ancestors of Martin Luther King, Jr., apparently included a slaveowner. We know that Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. The 1930 census of Fulton County, as mentioned here previously, enumerates the family of “Marvin L. King,” the wife being “Elberta.” We know that Dr. King’s mother was named “Alberta.”

In addition to “Marvin, Jr.,” the census records a daughter, Willie. The Kings live next door to “Allen” D. Williams, a Baptist preacher, and his wife, “Jimmie.” In his autobiography, Dr. King tells us that his mother was the daughter of the Rev. A[dam] D[aniel] Williams.

The 1920 census of Fulton County shows Adam D. Williams, his wife “Jennie” [Parks], (her correct name) and daughter Alberta. In Henry County, the census counts a Jim King, a farmer, his wife “Dealy,” and seven children. In his autobiography, Dr. King relates that his father was from Stockbridge in Henry County, Georgia. The indisputable King Encyclopedia says that Dr. King’s grandfather was James Albert King, who married Delia Linsey, and that they were from Henry County.

In the 1910 census, Adam D. and Jennie C. Williams have their names spelled correctly. They are in Fulton County. At the same time, James King, Sr., is a resident of Henry County, and his household includes a son “Michael,” then about 12 years old.

Martin Luther King, Sr., was known as “Michael,” at least until he was 22 years old. At that time, according to the New York Post in April, 1957, his father told him that his true name was “Martin,” but that his mother had nicknamed him “Mike.” [The senior "M.L." King went on to say that he had intended to name his son "Martin," and did not know until 1934 when the boy was five years old that the name "Michael" had been put on the birth certificate. The elder King said he found this out when he was applying for a passport. Reliable sources suggest that the senior King had gone to Germany at that time.]

The odd thing about the 1910 census is that James King’s place of birth is shown as Ohio (as is his mother’s) and his father is said to be a native of Ireland. On the 1900 census, this same assertion is apparent, except that his father’s birth place is given as Pennsylvania.

The 1900 census shows us one Nathan King, a day laborer in Jones County, Georgia. He’s counted with his wife “Malinde” and three children.

In 1880, Nathan King was listed in Putnam County with wife Malinda and seven children, one of whom is named James and appears to be James Albert King, Dr. King’s grandfather.

Back another decade, in 1870 (the first time most blacks were identified by name in the census), there is no Nathan King family in Putnam County, Georgia. There is, however, a Jacob Brannum, age 65, heading a household that includes 38 year old Nathan and 24 year old Malinda, as well as 5 year old James (whose last name is spelled “Branham”). The ages of Nathan and Malinda Brannum and their four children are consistent with the ages of Nathan and Malinda King and their families.

The Branhams were prominent landowners and slaveholders in central Georgia. They were of Irish ancestry and had moved to Georgia from Virginia in the late 1700’s. In the mid-nineteenth century, Henry Branham and Joel Branham were key figures in the family and in Putnam County. Henry owned 29 slaves in 1850, while Joel owned twelve. Both men were physicians.

Dr. Joel Branham attended the birth of one of Putnam County’s most famous residents: the controversial writer, Joel Chandler Harris, who apparently was named after him. A folklorist and journalist, Harris wrote the Uncle Remus stories.

(Another prominent literary figure born in Putnam County is the Pulitzer laureate Alice Walker [The Color Purple], who is fiercely critical of Harris, accusing him of “stealing” African-American heritage).

In any event, it is possible that the Branham family held Dr. King’s ancestors as slaves. Note, however, that in 1870, there were also a number of blacks in Putnam County enumerated under the name “King.” This suggests, of course, that there was a slaveowner named King in that locale. Indeed, Elisha L. King and his wife, Elizabeth Ann, owned 15 slaves in Putnam County as of 1860.

What to make of this name change? Many freed slaves took the names of their recent owners; however, many took other names. It may well be that Dr. King’s ancestors were first owned by the King family and then by the Branhams when freed. The theory would be that they took the Branham name first and, later, for whatever reason, decided to change it to the King name. One reason for such a switch may have been to bring family members together under the same name.

The genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner lists a white man named William Nelson Williams (1804-1863) as Dr. King’s great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side. Williams supposedly had a “non-marital liaison” with an unnamed woman. It’s not clear what supports this assertion. See The Ancestry of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Following that line back one more generation, Reitwiesner shows William Williams (1772-1835) and Rachel Nelson (c.1774-1851) as the next great-grandparents. These people were from North Carolina, but ended up in Dallas County, Alabama.

As is the case for many African-Americans, tracing Dr. King’s ancestry past the middle of the 19th century is not a simple matter. Perhaps some young researcher will take up this matter as a tribute to Dr. King and his message of brotherhood.

Other Resources:

The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute (at Stanford University)

The Library of America–Reporting Civil Rights (biography of New York Post writer Ted Poston)

One would think in the Cyber Age, it would be easy to find a rather complete genealogical study of an historic figure like Martin Luther King, Jr. Turns out, that’s not the case. There are sources that identify Dr. King’s parents and grandparents, but few go beyond that. Ancestry.com has a “Famous Family Tree” that goes back to King’s great-grandparents. (Ancestry.com has transcribed the 1930 census of Fulton County, Georgia, to include the family of “Marvin L. King,” with son “Marvin L., Jr.” At first I shook my head in amazement over this; but upon an examination of the image of the sheet, the transcription may be accurate. See below).

Rootsweb.com’s WorldConnect Family Tree Project has one posting for Martin Luther King, Jr., that seems fairly close to the generally known facts of Dr. King’s family history. This tree was updated on December 31, 2006.

Click on these images to see how Martin Luther King, Jr. , was enumerated on 1930 census. Did the enumerator get it wrong or did Ancestry.com transcribe it incorrectly? (Images Copyright (c) MyFamily, Inc.)

The most extensive on-line source that I found concerning the genealogy of Martin Luther King, Jr. is on a rather spare, somewhat peculiar site called WARGS. This site is owned by one William Addams Reitwiesner (“WARGS” is an acronym for “William Addams Reitwiesner Genealogical Services”). Reitwiesner is a genealogist who specializes in celebrities, politicians, and historical figures. Reitwiesner traces Dr. King’s maternal line back six generations.

The Reitwiesner work is based largely on census records and such. It is not extensively documented, as Reitwiesner candidly admits. However, it does seem consistent with known and demonstrable facts.

Next: Finding Dr. King’s Roots in Slavery