Tipton Family Genealogy 52 of 67 Pigeon Roost Tour April 29 1996

Taking a break from my usual coronavirus pandemic update posts here folks.  

What I'm posting today is an old VHS video that I took in the Spring of 1996 when I visited the mountains of western North Carolina, my father's hillbilly roots. Not much has changed since he left that Appalachia area in 1930 with his parents and eight brothers. He was ten years old at that time.

The video I'm posting is raw, no fancy intro title or ending, just my shaky, huge, should hugging video camera.  

After I left my job at the Philadelphia bank where I worked, I flew down to Atlanta Georgia to apply for a job at Sun Bank. While waiting for an answer after my job interview, I took a sideline visit to my brother John and his wife who lived (and still do) in Greenville, South Carolina. John only lived about two miles from Pigeon Roost, North Carolina, near where our father was born.

On this trip we visited a distant cousin, Horace Tipon and his wife Margie. At their house we looked at a video that was taken by Frank Tipton, whose father Adgie was Horace's brother. Frank never knew his ancestry until he came to one of my Tipton Family Reunions. He told me that his father would never talk about his family. I talked to him and found out he had a brother Horace.  I contacted some of my southern sources and found Horace lived in Micaville, North Carolina. I reunited Frank with this previously unknown branch of his family which is what the video on their TV (which Frank gave them) shows.

After visiting the Horace Tipton's we visited one of the many cemeteries in those beautiful North Carolina mountains, looking for my Tipton headstones which I recorded for my genealogy information. We also took a long ride up Pigeon Roost Rood, also known as Green Mountain. 

Since that visit twenty-four years ago, I've visited several times, the last time being in 2013.  I met my cousin Bob Tipton and his wife Marie to show him our common family roots in those North Carolina mountains. I was going to introduce him and his wife to Glenn and Wanda Renfro. Wanda was the granddaughter of my grandfather Fieldon Tipton's sister Pansy Tipton. Unfortunately that visit never took place because Glenn's son found out (probably through my blog) that I was gay.  He called me the night before the planned visit and asked me "Is it true that you practice the gay lifestyle?"  I responded "If you're asking me if I'm gay, yes I am."  He responded "Now get this bud. If you put on step in my parent's house you'll have me to deal with.  You got that?"  Well, I took that as a threat. Homophobia alive and well in those beautiful western North Carolina mountains along with blatant racism (Glenn referred to President Obama in the most offensive racist terms and of course there were no people of color who live in those mountains). The next day we (cousin Bob and his wife) did take a ride up Pigeon Roost road, the same as shown in this video but we, of course, didn't visit our cousin Wanda. Haven't been back since folks. I know when I'm not welcomed. 

This video is over an half an hour long, and probably not of much interest to most of my blog followers but I'm posting it anyway, part of my legacy in case I don't survive this pandemic and for sure after I depart this world where there is no longer any degree of hate that I experienced like I did during my last visit to this mot beautiful part of our country.

Stay safe every one!

Family History - Dan Tipton

Dan Tipton - 1844 -1898
Member of Wyatt Earp's "Vendetta" posse

A change of pace folks.  Instead of hearing about me and my health and personal issues, here is a fascinating slice of my family history.  My family connection to Arizona.  As regular followers of this blog may know, I am my family historian.  I do the family research on my Tipton ancestry.  I do have a Tipton first cousin living in Arizona now.  Shirley Tipton Patterson.

Shirley Tipton standing in  front of baby with thumb in mouth behind her sister Sandy Tipton who also moved to Arizona - I am standing to the right with my arms folded next to my two younger brothers John and Isaac - photo taken during a Tipton Sunday chicken dinner at Uncle Ed and Aunt Mabel Tiptons' place in the country - 1951 when we were both ten years old - the last time I saw cousin Shirley

Shirley and I were born the same year (1941).  I haven't seen her for year but I hope to some day.  Her father Rich Tipton and my father Ike Tipton were brothers. We Tiptons are pretty much spread across the country now.  

Cousin Shirley Tipton Patterson today with her husband Bob Patterson - fully "Arizonized"

I am a ninth generation Tipton.  My first Tipton ancestor to arrive on these shores was Jonathan Tipton (1657-1757).  He was born in Kingston, Jamaica and left after a hurricane destroyed his barrel stave (for storing rum) business in Port Royale, Jamaica.  He arrived in Baltimore, Anne Arundel County, Maryland around 1697.  He was my 6th great grandfather.

I do have a lot of "Tipton" information to write about.  However, let me start with Dan Tipton, one of the few Tiptons that I cannot tie into my family tree.  

Dan Tipton was a very interesting man as all Tiptons are.  We all have our story.  Dan's story caught my eye because for a time he was in the famous American western lawman Wyatt Earp's 

posse.  Here is Dan Tipton's story that I took from Wikipedia:

Wyatt Earp

Dan Tipton (1844-February 25, 1896) was a sailor minor, gambler, and member of a federal posse led by American Old West lawman Wyatt Earp.  He participated in Earp's vendetta during which four outlaw Cowboys were killed.

Ike Clanton - member of the Cowboys outlaw gang

Life in Arizona:

Morgan Earp

Tipton served aboard the USS Malvern during the American Civil War and drifted west afterward.  He showed up in Tombstone in March 1881.  When Morgan Earp was assassinated on March 19. 1881, Tipton was present in the billiard parlor where Morgan was killed.  Tipton joined Earp's posses after it returned from Prescott.  While escorting Virgil Earp and his wife Allie to the train bound for California, Wyatt killed Frank Stilwell who had been named as a suspect in Morgan's murder.

Frank Stillwell

Warren Baxter Earp

Tipton rode with Wyatt, Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, 

Doc Holliday

Texas Jack Vermillion, 

Texas Jack Vermillion

Turkey Creek Jack Johnson and Sherman McMaster as they searched for the other Cowboys thought responsible for attacking the Earps.  He was with the Earp posse when it rode out to Pete Spence's 

Pete Spence

wood camp where they found Florentino Cruz, a.k.a. Indian Charlie, who had been implicated in trying to kill the Earps.  He returned to Tombstone to obtain more funds for the Earps and was arrested on trumped up charges by Cochise County Sheriff and Earp enemy Johnny Behan.

Johnny Behan

 While in jail he missed the shootout at Iron Springs on March 24 during which Wyatt Earp killed Curly Bill Brocius because he was bringing money to the Earp posse.

Curly Bill Brocius

Tombstone, Arizona

After Tipton was released on March 25, he brought $1,000 donated by E.B. Gage, who was part owner of the Tombstone-based Grand Central Mining Company and superintendent of the Grand Central Mine.  He was also a prominent Republican and a member of the Citizens Safety Committee.  He took the money to the Earp part at Henry Hooker's Sierra Bonita Ranch north of Wilcox.  The posse members looked for more members of the outlaw Cowboys for a few more days before leaving Arizona on April 15 to avoid arrest warrants.  Tipton remained with the group through New Mexico and into Colorado, where most of the posse stayed to avoid arrest warrants from Cochise County.

Boot Hill, Tombstone, Arizona

Later life:

In 1897, Tipton ran afoul of the law.  Customs agents arrested him for smuggling forged Chinese immigrant labor certificates.  He was convicted in October and sentenced to 20 months in the Ohio Federal Penitentiary.

 The 53-year old inmate lasted just four months behind bars before dying of Bright's Disease on February 25, 1898.  He left no known kin. His body was buried in an unmarked grave at the Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.

Ron Tipton - Faux Cowboy (although I do think I lived in an earlier time - I just so fit in the costume) 

By the way, do you think any of those guys back then were gay?  Oh I'm sure one of two of them were.  Talk about being in the closet.  Now those days were tough.

Unknown couple - 1880's
Probably not a part of Wyatt Earp's Vendetta posse - just guessing

My Grand Passion

Martha "Patty" Bailey Tipton Cooper
1830-1915
My paternal great-great grandmother

So what does this old picture of an old woman have to do with my Number One Passion?

When I first began my genealogy research of my family back in 1994, I didn't know the name of my paternal great grandfather.  My father didn't know the name of his grandfather because he was brought to Pennsylvania when he was ten years old with his eight brothers (two more were born in Pennsylvania for a total of eleven boys, no girls).  My father was a hillbilly from western North Carolina where where the mountains border eastern Tennessee.

I was always interested in my family history but had little hope of finding anything about my paternal line because my father showed no interest and had no knowledge other than he was born in Pigeon Roost, North Carolina.  Well, to make a long story short (a more detailed story is on my blog "Tipton Tales and Trails"), through a lot of hard work which included much travel and many interviews with family relatives I was able to establish a basis for my family tree.  From there on out it was just a matter of filling in the missing pieces of the puzzle.

One "piece" that always eluded me but I knew existed was a picture of my great-great grandmother Martha "Patty" Bailey Tipton.  I was told that one existed somewhere but no one knew where it was exactly.  Just last month I found where she was buried quite by accident.  I was working on my Ancestry.com account and was reading through an obituary for a daughter of one of Martha's sons and it mentioned survivors.  I called one of the survivors and through our conversation she told me where Martha and her son Baxter Tipton were buried!

This folks is how genealogy research is done.  Through a lot of digging through records and interviews.  You just never know when a "gem" will pop up.

I told my brother John who lives in Greenville, South Carolina that Martha was buried at a church cemetery in Ashville, North Carolina.  John and his wife Barbara took a week to tour the "homeland" (as we call those"hollers" in the mountains of North Carolina that form the border between North Carolina and Tennessee) and found her grave and took pictures for me!  I was so excited but I thought this was as close as I would get to see my paternal great-great grandmother.

Then lo and behold last week a book arrives on my doorstep called "The History of the Toe River Valley Volume X."  These books are written by Dr. Lloyd Bailey, who is a professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.  Lloyd is the person who was the key to me researching my ancestry.  I will be forever grateful to him.

Every time a one of his volumes of Toe River Valley History comes out I order it.  This volume has to do with how the Civil War affected the mountain folk.  As I was flipping through the pages I came across this picture of Martha!  I couldn't believe it.  My heart started to race!  This was finally the picture I've been looking for.  WOW!  Now I feel complete.  The only way this could be better is if I had a picture of her husband, my great-great grandfather John Tipton.  But that is probably impossible because he was killed while recruiting for the Union Forces in those same mountains in 1863.  He and some of his neighbors were ambushed by a Confederate Calvary which was lead by a Colonel Noah Wichter.  Colonel Wichter and his men were in the mountains trying to discourage Union sentiment and especially recruitment for the Union forces.

After my great-great grandfather was killed Martha and her neighbor went to fetch his body and he was buried on the family farm.  She was now a widow with eight children.  Not an easy situation to be in those harsh days of the Civil War.  Life in the mountains was difficult even with the husband alive.  So here she was a widow during those difficult times with eight hungry children to raise on her own.

Her third child was my great grandfather Hiram Tipton.  He was eleven years old when he lost his father John.  Hiram's fifth son was Fieldon Tipton was my grandfather.  Fieldon's fifth son was my father Isaac Tipton.  And here I am, the End of the Line.

Martha never did learn to read or write.  She signed her application for Civll War Widow's Pension Benefits with an "X".  But she did raise her children all to be successful.  In fact, Martha remarried to a doctor; Dr. Thomas Cooper.

Looking at her face looking at me through all these years gives me a sense of tranquility and completeness.

I know that some in my family and friends think that I take too many pictures and I can be annoying with always wanting to take "just another photo" but I'm telling you...there will be someone like me one hundred years from now who will appreciate all the photos I've taken of my family.

I may not have a family, and I haven't written the Great American Novel.  In fact, I have no discernible talent but one thing I do have is a passion for researching my family history and putting the record out there for future generations.  I love it!

My Family Tree

Bear in the Woods

I don't remember if I posted this video so at the risk of repeating myself, I'll post it again.  Bill and took a trip down South this past spring.  One of our stops was at Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.  Cades Cove was originally purchased by one of my ancestors, William "Fighting Billy" Tipton back in the early 1800's.  "Fighting Billy" was a contemporary of President Andrew Jackson (yes, I am bragging.)  Although my ancestor never lived in Cades Cove, he did sell off a lot of the land to his relatives.  The existence of many Tipton graves in Cades Cove is what started me on my genealogy research of my Tipton roots.

Cades Cove was inhabited by many Tipton families as well as other families until the Federal government brought them all out (for pennies on the dollar I might add, Tiptons seem to always be on the short end of any monetary deal, must be in the genes) and established the Cades Cove National Park.

Cades Cove possesses a glorious natural beauty that is rare in this county in these days.  Visitors to the park travel a loop through the park.  If they are lucky they will see some of the present inhabitants of the park like we did on this spring day.

What we saw was a black bear snacking on some wild berries by a clear, cold, stream on this brisk spring day.  Take notice how many cars stop to observe the black bear in it's natural habitat.  Also note towards the end of the film when the bear seems to be approaching we tourists and how we head towards our cars!

We're going down again this spring.  It's an annual event for us now.  Enjoy!

My Family Tree

Samuel Pennell Hannum 1836-1911 (Pennsylvania Quaker)
My great-great-grandfather on my Mother's side of the family

This is where I will be the next few weeks, furiously updating my family tree on Ancestry.com.  I've left it go long enough.  My relatives are dying off, I'm losing valuable information.

Ancestry.com and findagrave.com are great resource tools to help me update my family tree.  I want to do this now in case I'm not around.  Someday THAT will happen, be not being "around."

Now I may "go" tomorrow, wiped out by a rude tourist on Route 1 anxious to get to Rehoboth and a parking spot near the beach.   Maybe I do have prostate cancer and my days are numbered (I really don't believe that but I'm prepared).  Then maybe I'll live to be 100 years old but we all know how fast time flies by (when you're having fun and I always have fun).

I started my family genealogy research back in April of 1994.  Since that time I  had periods when I was hot and heavy on the research and then there were those periods where Life interrupted.  Then I had periods when I got buried into the research again.  One thing about researching family genealogy, it does take over your life.

My family tree- click to make picture larger

I was up until 2 am this morning trying to reconcile the dates of my great-great-grandfather Samuel Pennell Hannum.  I love this kind of work, LOVE IT! I can imagine people having jobs like this that they love so much that they don't even make time to eat, go to the bathroom or sleep.  That's the way it is with me when I'm digging into my family history and updating records.

As I said, I love this activity.  I was worried that if I did kick the bucket all my information would be lost.  Now I'm not so worried.  I'm putting all my information on Ancestry.com and Find a Grave.  That information will be there forever for whoever wants to garner it for their own records.  I was really worried that all my research would be lost once I was gone.  I feel so relieved now that I know that isn't going to happen.

Maybe I needed something like that high PSA count to give me a kick start.  Fate has a strange way of working.  I am very happy the way things are working out now.

F.A.G.

My account for update my Find a Grave info

F.A.G. is the acronym for Find a Grave.  Find a Grave is a website that was originally started to identify burial places of famous people, (usually movie stars).

I discovered Find a Grave through a tip from my cousin Tim Tipton who, like me, made numerous trips to graveyards searching for information on our common ancestors.  Tim told me that I could go to the Find a Grave website and probably find a lot of information about our ancestors.

I went, I saw and I was hooked!  Over the years I had taken many pictures of graves and their headstones.  Now I had a place to put them.  I joined the Find a Grave community (which ironically has the acronym of FAG - oh the irony since I am gay) to share my information and also to fulfill photo requests.  Many a time Bill and I searched and visited nearby graveyards to fulfill a photo request for a far flung relative or friend of the deceased.

Me at my great-grandfather's grave in Limestone, Tennessee

Since joining Find a Grave, I have made many friends in the FAG community, most of whom are straight (again, the irony).  Like my genealogy research, sometimes I'm hot and heavy into it and then sometimes I take months off and do nothing because I'm caught up in other aspects of my life in "retirement".  More irony, I have never been busier in my life than I have in my retirement but I've also never been happier.  No irony there, just contentment and happiness and much to look forward to each day that I wake up and see the morning light.

Over the past two years I have taken hundreds of photos of grave headstones that I haven't posted to FAG. A couple of weeks ago when I was fulfilling another photo request for a FAG member, I noticed that I now have competition down here in Lower Slower Delaware for Find a Grave contributors.  In fact, I have discovered that someone else is posting pictures they have taken of gravestones!  I have dallied too long.  So for the next couple of months, I'm going to try and post my backlog of pictures to Find a Grave.com.  I may not have as many blog postings so if you're all wondering what happen to Ron, it is just that I am shifting priorities.  Just so many hours in this retiree's days.

Before I leave, one more irony.  About a year into my membership of Find a Grave I discovered who founded Find a Grave.  It is a man by the name of :

JIM TIPTON.  

Jim Tipton, Find a Grave Founder

Grand Aunt Daisy

My Grand Aunt Daisy talking to my cousin Anne Tipton on the iPhone -first time Aunt Daisy has used the iPhone - picture is indeed worth a thousand words

This is a correction to my previous posting about my 'cousin Daisy." My friend and fellow blogger sent me a comment that in Vietnam my relationship with my 'cousin", who is the daughter of my great-grandfather would be my great aunt. I check my relationship calculator in my Ancestry.com account and he is right, Daisy is my great aunt. Now none of this is of probably any interest regular readers of my blog who are used to me either complaining about working too much, getting old, or reminiscing about my glory days. But it is of great interest to me and my GREAT AUNT Daisy. I will call her as soon as I can and inform her that she is my aunt.

Now, just to make this a 'regular' blog posting, I received a call today from my manager at the hotel. He asked if I could come into work tomorrow to fill in for another co-worker who has a family emergency. Of course I said "yes" and there goes my two days off. It was nice while it lasted. Well, at least I got something done today. I canceled the 10 ton delivery of top soil and instead ordered a six cubic yard delivery to make the raised island to surround my three new and expensive river birch trees. Again, nothing of great interest to the average reader of my blog but this is what is going on in my life now.

I am looking forward with great anticipation to getting back into my regular schedule. There is just too much going on in this retiree's life right now. There I go complaining again.

Thank you Tai for notifying me of my error.

Front Royal, Virginia

I'm sitting at my desk at my room in the wonderfully clean and comfortable room at the Front Royal Hampton Inn. What a huge difference in hotel accommodations from the cavelike room I had at the Red Roof Inn in Johnson City, Tennessee.

We decided to check out early in Johnson City in order to shorten the miles we would have to travel to get our rental van back to Enterprise on Saturday. There was just no way we could drive 10 hours tomorrow and get back to Delaware in time before Enterprise closed and we would have to wait until Monday and incur an extra day's charge.

We both got up very early (4 am) and were the first customers for breakfast at Burger King, just down the street in Johnson City from the Red Roof Inn where we were staying. Of course the Red Roof Inn doesn't offer breakfast. No surprises there.

After breakfast we had to kill five hours before I met up with my cousin Anne Tipton, who I have talked to on the phone many times but never met face to face. I disappointed her last year by not meeting her when I was in the Johnson City area. I didn't want to disappoint her again. But oh we had all these hours to kill while we were waiting for her to finish her brunch at her nieces graduation at ETU.

We waiting at the Tipton-Haynes Historic site in Johnson City for here. I surprised my friend Penny McLaughin who is the site director. She was busy with a bus load of second graders who were on a field trip. Those kids were so cute as their teacher was telling the "Three Piggies" story. I video taped that on my Flip video camera and will post it on You Tube when I get home tomorrow.

Oh yes, HOME! I am so looking forward to skipping in my own bed and getting back to my regular routine again.

Anne did show up at 1 o'clock and We fi ally met. I am now glad I waited because I liked her immediately. And.....she showed me new Tipton graves which were right down the street from the Historic Site. She showed me her parent's grave and her brother's graves. I took pictures and can now check off those folks whose pictures of graves I have to take for Fi d a Grave.

It's late and I'm making more typos than usual. That's a sure sign I am exhausted. I see a big, comfy king sized bed beckoning to me.

I'm coming, I'm coming!

Why I Have a Yankee Accent

My grandmother, father and nine of my 10 Tipton uncles at my grandfather's funeral 1939

I first began researching my Tipton family roots in 1994.  I was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1941 to Isaac Walter Tipton and Betty Louise Hadfield.  My Mother’s family history was from Pennsylvania Quakers.  All I knew about my father’s history was that he came up to Pennsylvania when he was ten years old, with eight of his brothers (no sisters) and without shoes to work on his Uncle Don Byrd’s farm near Unionville, Pennsylvania, country about 45 miles west of Philadelphia.  I did know that my father was a ‘hillbilly’ and that fact distressed me greatly when I was growing.  Little did I know that my father and his brothers came from those hearty, brave and hardworking families of Appalachia that made up the backbone of America. 

My Uncle John Henry Tipton and his team of mules used to haul lumber
for his father's (my grandfather) saw mill in the western mountains of
North Carolina about 1924

Back in 1994 was when I first began researching my family history.  I made my first trip to the mountains of western North Carolina where my father grew up as a small boy and visited one of my father’s distant Tipton cousins.  His name was Horace Tipton and he was about the same age as my father.  During my visit ‘Uncle Horace’ stopped me and said:

“Ye a damn Yankee ain’t ye?  Ye talk funny!” 

'Uncle Horace's home in Micaville, North Carolina 1994

At first I was stunned because he thought I talked funny?  I could hardly understand him, his Appalachian accent was that thick.  Then I saw the humor in the situation and continued my visit with ‘Uncle Horace.’  However during our visit (I was there with my brother John and his wife Barbara Tipton), ‘Uncle Horace’ did maintain a 'safe' distance.  Don’t want to get TOO friendly with a (damn) Yankee you know. 

My brother John and I at his home in Greenville, South Carolina
discussion our recent trip to the hills of North Carolina where
our father was born and left at ten years old for Pennsylvania

Below is the reason I have a ‘Yankee’ accent.

This is a history of how my branch of the Tipton family came to be in Pennsylvania. This information is an oral history from my late Aunt Peg Tipton, wife of my Uncle Henry Tipton.

In the 1920’s, life was rough for the folks who lived in the hollers of the Pisgah Mountains in western North Carolina, near the border of Johnson City, Tennessee.  One of those families who were near starvation was my paternal grandparents, Fieldon and Hester Lewis Tipton and their nine sons. 

Me during a visit to the mountains where my father was born - 1994

From 1909 to 1926 Fieldon and Hester had nine children, all boys. Fieldon was in the lumber business with other relatives in the close-knit mountain community. Leading up to the Great Depression, the sawmill business wasn’t producing enough food on the table to feed nine growing Tipton boys. Fieldon’s brother-in-law, Don Byrd (married to Hester Lewis’s sister, Essie Lewis) had a fruit and vegetable farm in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. He needed cheap farm labor. Fieldon and Hester and their nine growing boys needed food, a roof over their heads to protect them from the elements and heat to give them comfort during the cold winters.

My grandmother Hester Tipton with her two sons born in Pennsylvania, Bruce and Sam Tipton 1936

Sometime in 1929 or 1930 (the exact date is uncertain) the Fieldon Tipton family made a life course change and decided to relocate to Pennsylvania and work on Don Byrd’s farm. The whole family moved into one of the tenant cabins called “The Baker Place” near present day Unionville, Pennsylvania. “Field” and his boys began the back-breaking work of picking fruits and vegetables in their Uncle Don’s farm. Two more sons were born to Fieldon and Hester Tipton in Pennsylvania. More farm labor.

My Uncle Sam, Bruce and Fieldon Tipton at the old 'Baker Place' where they
were farm laborers for their Uncle Don Byrd on his farm in exchange for free housing

The names of the Tipton boys were:

Raymond Luther Tipton  (1909-1988)                         

John Henry Tipton  (1911-1993)                                          

Edward Walter Tipton (1914-1998)                                   

Erby Erwin Tipton (1917-1990)                                            

Isaac Walter Tipton Sr. (my father)  (1920-2000)       

John Hannum Tipton (twin)   (1922-1961)                       

Richard Berry Tipton (twin)  (1922-1989)                

Luther Raymond Tipton    (1925-1979)                      

Fieldon Jacob Tipton, Jr.  (1926-2006)                       

Bruce Tipton  (1931-1995)                                                                  

Samuel Park Tipton (1934-2001)                                  

Baby Tipton (twin of Samuel, died at birth)  

As the Tipton boys grew into adult most of them met and married the local women of southeastern Pennsylvania, their new home.  Out of those unions thirty-six legitimate children and four illegitimate children were born. I am one of those thirty-six legitimate children over a hundred children were born. 

My Mom (pregnant with me), my Uncle Dude and my grandmother Hester Tipton 1941

With the exception of Fieldon ‘s cousin Adgie Tipton, who also moved to southeastern Pennsylvania at the same time, all of the Tiptons who now live in an around the southeastern portion of Pennsylvania are descendents of my grandparents, Fieldon and Hester Tipton.  And this is the reason I am a Tipton with a Yankee accent.

Me ( tall, skinny  kid on the right) with my brothers and cousins showing our hillbilly roots 1955

March 26, 2011

Ronald Walter Tipton

Lunch in Lewes

Jessie and niece Margaret at Gilligan's Restaurant in Lewes, DE

Yesterday my friends Jessie and Margaret visited me in Lewes, DE.  Jessie if the former wife of my cousin Tom and Margaret is her niece.  I met Jessie through my family genealogy research.  We met for the first time in person last year in Lewes.


Last week Jessie and I reunited again at the Tipton Family Reunion in Pennsylvania.  Jessie brought along two of her three sons and two of her grandsons.  Of all the Tipton family members, Jessie is the only one who is keeping the Tipton male line going.  For that she deserves extra special recognition.  Thank you Jessie!

Jessie and Ron at Gilligan's - thank you Jessie for keeping the Tipton line going!

Last year when Jessie and Margaret and I met on Second Street in Lewes, it was a beautiful, sunny day.  Like last year, yesterday was another beautiful, sunny day.  I must have a special Guardian Angel following me because the family reunion was also a beautiful, sunny day.

Yesterday I invited Jessie and Margaret to go with me to help celebrate a birthday luncheon for my good friend and former classmate Judy.  Judy's birthday is this Sunday.  I haven't seen Judy and her husband Jack for months and months, at least before the horrible back to back blizzards we had this past winter.

Jack was the catalyst who pushed me over the edge to build a house down here in Lower Slower.  I had been looking and thinking of moving for several years.  One weekend in 2006 I saw the perfect lot.  I already had chosen the perfect house plan.  All I needed was a push and Jack provided that push.  I'm not quite sure if I should thank him or damn him.  Just kidding Jack!  Buying a lot and having a house built in Lower Slower was perhaps the best decision I have ever made in my life.

I will be forever thankful to Jack and Judy also because they graciously let me stay in their bay front mansion while my house was being built.  Thank you Jack and Judy!

So yesterday we all met at 1:30 for Judy's birthday luncheon at Gilligan's right in downtown Lewes, DE.  It was just a lovely day.  We were seated outside on the deck by the canal under a tree which filtered the blazing sun on our noggins.

I made the introductions all around and we proceeded to order our lunch.  While we were waiting for our orders to arrive, my co-worker P.J. from the nearby in happened to walk by the deck adjoining Gilligans outdoor patio area where we were gathered.  He threw out a "Hey Ron!"  I threw back a "Hey P.J.!"  We had a little back and forth for a few minutes.  I pointed out that my friend Jessie has the same name as his daughter.  They discussed coincidence and noted that even though they both had the same outlaw name they spelled it differently.  Being the picture taker that I am, I asked P.J. to take our picture.  Here is the happy group below.

P.J. on the balcony

Happy birthday Judy! (the Birthday Girl is in the sleeveless top on the left corner)

We had a delightful lunch.  We had a long lunch.  It was then I realize that maybe our parking meter times were close to running out.  I know that Lewes is notorious for handing out parking meter fines.  When I had parked earlier and was feeding quarters into the meter the lady who had just feed the meter told me she visited Lewes last year and had gotten a ticket.  She told me she made a mistake and put in the wrong parking slot number.  She tried to point that out to the meter reader but he wouldn't budge. No excuses.  Parking meter fines are one of Lewes' main sources of income in the tourist season.

We said our goodbyes and agreed to meet again next year then Jessie, Margaret and I headed to the parking lot a block up the street.  I checked my meter.  I still had time left.  I backed out of the parking lot.  Margaret and Jessie were behind me.  Margaret pulled past me and stuck her hand out her window.  She was waving a piece of paper at me.  She yelled out her car window to me...."Did you get one of these?"  "ONE OF THESE" was a parking ticket.  Welcome to Lewes, Delaware Margaret.

Margaret (smiling....before she got the ticket)

Fifty Eight Years Later

My last post I displayed a picture of me taken at my graduation from Downingtown High School, Class of 1959 and the 50th anniversary class invite I received to this year's DHS Class of 2009 graduation ceremonies. The contrast was remarkable and scary, given how fast the past fifty years has flown by.

On this posting I'm showing a picture of me with my cousin Bud (Edward) Tipton at the West Chester Fishing Rodeo. This picture was taken September 1, 1951 at the West Chester, Pennsylvania reservoir. The big smile you see on my face is the fact that I won the fishing rodeo by catching the biggest fish of the day. It was a 13 inch rainbow trout. It was ironic I won because I wasn't the sportsman in the family. If anyone was, it was my cousin Bud (who, coincidentally is the same age as I am and is also unmarried as I am today.) Bud went on to to fish many more days and even deer hunting which I never did in my life. I never went fishing since that day in 1951. I figured I would quit while I was ahead.

Embarking on a New Adventure

Tomorrow I embark on a new adventure. I begin classes for training as a census enumerator for the 2010 census. Classes are at the Light House Church in Laurel, Delaware, 23 miles from where I live. Classes will be for one week, 9 to 5. The first three days are classroom training. The remaining two days will be in the field. When I first was told that classes would be held so far away, I told the Census Bureau representative I wasn’t interested. Part of the reason was my fear that I would be assigned to conduct census training to far away from my home. Late on Friday a higher up in the bureau called and assured me that they would make every reasonable effort see that my area of responsibility would be in the Milton-Lewes area. I was persuaded. I’m easily persuaded. So, we will see.

I’ve held many different jobs in my lifetime. But I’ve never been a census taker. Somehow this is fitting because for years I’ve worked with old census records in doing my Tipton family genealogy research. I’ve looked at those old census records and noted the misspellings and thought “why couldn’t they be more careful?” Now I will have a chance to correct that error for future generations of genealogy researchers. Maybe this is my legacy as an amateur genealogist.

Life’s patterns do work in strange ways. I started out my work career as a five year old child running errands to the local grocery store for relatives and neighbors. From there I progressed to newspaper boy, office cleaner, dishwasher at local restaurant, meat counter clerk at local farmer’s market, soldier in the Army, hotel night auditor at the Pittsburgh Hilton hotel, accounts payable clerk at Lipsett Steel Products, remittance clerk at Girard Bank, trust operations manager at Mellon Bank, research project reconcilement and control manager for Fidelity Bank, gardener on private estate, trust operations manager (again) at Downingtown National Bank, front desk clerk at Hampton Inn (hotel work again), trust operations consultant at First Financial Bank, front desk clerk at Marriott Hotel (again), front desk clerk at the Inn at Canal Square, and now U. S. Census Bureau enumerator. Along the way I took no acting jobs.

For the past sixty years I’ve always had one kind of job or another. I’ve always had to keep bringing the money in. I wasn’t one of those fortunate children whose parents were committed to putting me through college (although I wanted to go in the worst way.) I didn’t have enough self-confidence to work my way through college so I joined the Army, perhaps the best decision I ever made in my life. I learned more in the Army that I ever would have in college. I matured immensely and gained a level of self confidence one I got away from the environment that did little to nurture self-confidence.

Through the G. I. Bill I gained a college degree (associate degree in business management from Peirce College in Philadelphia.) Also, because of my service in the Army I am now receiving lifetime care from the Veterans Administration. All the years I had complete medical coverage from my banking jobs, I never used it once. It wasn’t until I lost my job with the bank that I was in need of medical care. The care I received from the Veterans Administration Medical Center was the best I’ve ever received in my life for which I will be ever thankful. Socialized medicine work for me, so there Harry and Louise.

The only serious medical care I received before was when I was 17 years old. I had failed my medical induction exam to join the Army. I was informed that I was born with a hernia. The Army would not take me until I got it fixed. I had the operation. The operation went fine but I caught a staph infection from the hospital which almost killed me. I had the staph infection for six months. After a series of operations, the staph infection finally disappeared. I took the medical examination again. This time I passed and I joined the Army January 27, 1960.

Someday I will sit down and write the story of my life. My story may be of little interest to most people but I would like to do it for myself at least and for those future Tipton family genealogy researchers. Fifty or a hundred years from now some researcher may pick that book of my life story and be encouraged to write their own life story. In the meantime, my life story isn’t over yet. I have a whole new chapter to write starting tomorrow. The adventure continues.