"The heroic death of the Civil War Randolph unleashed an epidemic of Randolphs through five generations of descendants of the Hagley Smiths. There are, or have been, a dozen or so nephews and nieces who claim relationship with Randolph in their name. I was, proudly, one of those Randolphs. With the appellation came the responsibility to learn as much as possible about the original Randolph. Thus motivated in my survivorship, I set about my search..."
If you dare to read more Smith history, check out
http://aubreypub.typepad.com/writing
Here’s a photo of my first cousins on my dad’s side of the family.
We had a recent get-together at Lew’s farm in Virginia. Lew's not a farmer, but he managed to hang on to one of the family farms. That’s Lew Smith in the middle, and Randall Barnes on the right. Visiting Virginia often chokes me with nostalgia. Walking around the farm by myself the day before we left, I was nearly hyperventilating recalling the people and events of the past; thinking about all the work that had been done in the acreage in my viewscape. At one point, nearly all the property around the little hamlet of Waterfall was owned by various relatives.
I’m afraid I’ve created something mythic about Virginia which I’m not certain Lew and Randall share. Afterall, they’ve lived there all of their lives. But, as a child, my Virginia identity was very important to my self-image.
My mom grew up in an equally, perhaps even more interesting setting—a log cabin in the mountains of Montana where the family ran a little store and gas station and my grandfather taught school in rundown boomtowns like Marysville. But mom’s family had moved out of Montana about the time I was born and I never had a chance to experience their life in the pines above a trout-filled creek.
This is the memorial stone for William Randolph Smith.
(http://aubreypub.typepad.com/photos/antioch/ is a photo album with photos of more grave markers which
family members might be interested in looking at)
As you can see, Wm. Randolph was killed as a very young man in the Battle of Frasier’s Farm. This was part of the Seven Days Battle for Richmond when the Union General McClennan brought a huge army in an armada of ships to the tip of the Virginia Peninsula and attempted to take the capitol of the Confederacy. He was defeated by General Lee who had taken over the army in the middle of the campaign. I know an awful lot about Wm. Randolph. I’ve actually written two books about him which were satisfying to research and write but not good enough to publish.
Perhaps there will be more on Wm. Randolph later. But suffice to say that he was another young man sacrificed to the cannons—in his case, literally blown up attacking a battery in a little clearing on a farm some people named Frasier once owned.
In our childhoods we cousins spent some time togther during our summer trips from the West Coast to my grandparent’s farm. But, for the most part, I didn’t get to know Lew and Randall that well as kids.
However, when Randall graduated high school he joined the navy and was stationed at Bremerton. Then, he became a regular weekend visitor to our home in Everett. This was my sophomore year of high school. I was happy to see him for several reasons. 1) He had a driver’s license and I did not, 2) My dad let him use our ‘49 Ford whenever we needed it, 3) He taught me to speed shift without using the clutch and lay a bit of rubber, 4) With his Southern accent and gift of gab, Randall charmed the ladies.
Cousin Randall joined right into our social circle which revolved mostly around the First Baptist Church and my close friends Dave Andersen and Ron Rumery. We were all sort of dating girls from the church and that summer I got pretty serious about one of them and Randall and I went on many double dates. But, then, he did me in.
The truth about Randall Barnes.
Late in the summer I was laid low with the flu. Bedridden. Weak. Pathetically ill. I recall through a haze of fever Randall and Ron coming into my bedroom to call on me and mentioning that they were taking some girls out somewhere.
When I regained my health, I no longer had a girlfriend. Ron did, aided and abetted by my speed-shifting, sweet-talking cousin.
I still run into some of those girls almost fifty years later and, you know what? They always ask about Randall Barnes.
Kirsten hooks up the car seat.
I can’t figure out how to do it.
It seems pretty complicated being a parent these days. First of all, you need so much equipment. Car seats, for example. We never had one. Linda and I are of the pre-car seat era, not quite horse and buggy, but...old. When I got out of the Air Force in 1968 we drove from Florida to Everett in my ‘63 Ford Falcon with Noble in a kind of a basket sitting on the back seat. He was five months old. Shawn was five years old and roamed the back seat at his leisure. I don’t even recall if the Falcon had seat belts. If it did, we probably didn’t use them. The big car seat push didn’t come until the seventies.
A quick comment on the ‘63 Falcon. It was a piece of junk and quite possibly ruined my life, in addition to being unsafe at any speed. You simply can’t be a dashing Second Lieutenant driving a ‘63 Ford Falcon. Not possible. I had very few repeat dates. One ride in the Falcon was enough for most girls. Linda didn’t know about the Falcon until after we were married. And, of course, she tried to get an annulment after she saw the thing.
I’m glad that the babies are in car seats although every trip these days is akin to getting astronauts ready to blast off. Car seats are good.
And they work. Recently, a young gentleman attempting to flee arrest gave a car seat the ultimate test:
Suspect Throws Baby Out of Car
9/14/2004
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- A man threw his fiancée’s 8-month-old daughter out of a car as he fled police after being accused of domestic violence.
The girl, strapped in a car seat, was unhurt but the man later was fatally injured in a crash. Dana Bettin, 23, died Sunday, three days after the dramatic highway chase that ended when he crashed his fiancee's car into an unoccupied squad car.
At one point, he slowed down, opened the car door and dropped the baby in the car seat onto the highway, sending it tumbling toward the middle of the roadway.
"As the baby was flying toward me I noticed that she was crying very hard and looked scared," Wisconsin State Patrol Sgt. David Catalano said.
"Fortunately she was seat-belted into the child seat so that as it slid forward on the highway and then rolled over she escaped without any injuries," he said.
The man at first tried to put the baby out of the car on the shoulder, but the door car was in his way. He eventually pulled back into traffic and pushed the baby out as he was accelerating.
So, it’s pretty clear to me that I really need to learn how to work the buckles on those car seats.