My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
While I am proud of my parents and grandparents I have had little interest in genealogy and exploration of my extended ancestry has been slight. The lack of interest in genealogical matters stems from the fact that as the explorer moves back through successive generations the number of ancestors increases by geometric progression. Thus if I were to trace the eleven generations of Crandalls in America I would be dealing with 2048 male and female progenitors! The problem is compounded by our patrilineal system which forever focuses on the male surname. Therefore to follow only the "Crandall" line of descendant is to ignore most of the persons who have made a genetic and cultural contribution to my heritage. However, I have had some interest in and have acquired a smattering of information on the ethnic origins of the first forbears of both mother and father to come to America.
The first Crandalls to arrive came from Wales and settled in Westerly, Rhode Island in the 1640s. They became followers of that "religious renegade" (from the Puritan point of view), Roger Williams, and the early generations of Crandalls in the colonies produced several Rev. John Crandalls of the Baptist persuasion. One of those Rev. John Crandalls ditched his missionary work in the Massachusetts Bay Colony circa 1670, fleeing to Rhode Island to escape Puritan persecution. It appears he had little interest in becoming a martyr like the Quakers who remained. While, as far as I have determined, the Crandalls were hard-working, God-fearing people of "the middling sort"—farmers, artisans, as well as clergymen—few became historical celebrities. The only one I am sure about is Prudence Crandall, a woman ahead of her time, who braved the wrath of her Connecticut neighbors by admitting blacks to her Female Seminary in the 1830s—She was eventually forced out of town, moving to Iowa, but persisted in championing the rights of Negroes and women until her death at the age of 90.
It really goes without saying that eleven generations have yielded a spate of Crandalls (only God knows how many) and they are scattered around the country if not the world. A considerable number live in the Southern Tier region of Western New York. I have encountered the largest number since moving to Bemus Point; thirty-six Crandalls are listed in the Jamestown Telephone Directory. Their relationship to yours truly remains unidentified.
The account of my earliest years is necessarily based on what I've been told, mostly by my parents. It is safe to assume that their reports are colored by parental bias. I was born about a month early, a product of induced labor because mother's health was endangered by an excessive amount of albumin. It was a cold February (the 9th) in 1919. Dr. Al Lyman came to the house to officiate and the delivery took place in a downstairs bedroom which later became the dining room. Mother always insisted that I weighed ten pounds. Because I was premature that poundage figure may raise the issue of credibility in the reader's mind. It has in my own but I have found no contrary evidence. Thus it seems safe to say that I was a bouncing baby boy, my father's first offspring and the proverbial "apple of his eye." In fact, Mother often said that my head looked like a Northern Spy apple.
At the outset it appeared there would be no problem in naming the infant. Dad had long proclaimed that if he had a son he would call him Jack. However, Dr. Al resisted writing what he regarded as a nickname on the birth certificate and turned to Mother for an appropriate recommendation. She proposed that I be named after my father i.e., Curtis John Crandall Jr. Dr. Al erroneously inscribed John Curtis Jr. on the certificate. That error was not discovered until I enlisted in the Navy twenty three years later. The Navy insisted on a photostat copy from the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Albany. I had earlier occasions to use a birth certificate but the copy was always supplied by the Caneadea Town Clerk. He knew my name was really Curtis John Jr. and so wrote it on the copies furnished. Thus all my legal documents up to the time of my Navy enlistment proclaimed I was Curtis John Jr. For the next four or five years after that I had to sign numerous affidavits declaring that Curtis John Jr. and John Curtis Jr. were one and the same person. In actual practice I have always been known as and called Jack—neither Curtis or John. So Dad won out much to my later satisfaction.
He impressed my name, with certain embellishments, on my consciousness early on. One of the first things he taught me after I had begun to talk was a little spiel designed to impress, even startle, anyone who asked me who I was. My learned response: "I'm roarin' Jack Crandall, the Boy Wonder born in Houghton, New York, Town of Caneadea, Allegany County with proud, but poor parents."
Click here to see a photo of Jack at the wheel of his father's 1924 Hupmobile. His father is standing next to the car and his mother is in the back seat.
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