Cecil D Wallace, Sr. and WWII

Renee brought to my attention that Cecil Wallace, Sr. served during WWII. He enlisted in 1944 for the duration of the war, and his grave stone says,

PFC 179 AGF Band 

World War II

Translating the acronyms, you get: "Private First Class 179 Army Ground Forces Band."

He and his family must have been proud of his service.

I wasn't able to find much information online about the Army Ground Forces Band that Cecil was in--it appears that there were many bands serving during WWII, but only a few big, well organized ones. I couldn't find enough information to decipher what the inscription on his gravestone meant.

According to US Army Element, School of Music,

"The Army Band performed at countless Red Cross and USO dances and played concerts for civilians. Of all the premier bands in Washington DC, The Army Band is the only one to ever perform in a theater of foreign combat operations."

I believe I remember hearing that his preferred instrument was the cornet.

Cecil's daughter Kathleen remembers,

"He did not go overseas.

I have no idea how long he was in the army.  He had felt it was his duty to serve.  He was in the infantry, but later when they learned he was a musician, he was in the band.  I know nothing about concerts given or the like.

I don't remember him ever telling any experiences, but obviously since he didn't leave the USA he didn't see combat.  I do remember him telling about crawling under barbed wire with live ammo fired over their head during training.

Nor do I know if the war had much affect on his life afterward.  He had been a music teacher before the service, and was a music teacher at another school (in the same county) after.

I cried after every furlough when he had to return.  Mom put on a good front, and kept our home pretty normal."

Lucy and Cecil (probably circa 1927, when they were first married)

Cecil with music students.

Pictures of pictures - Wallace side

So, here are some pictures of pictures for you to look at! I didn't have a scanner handy, so I just whipped out my digital camera and took some pictures. Therefore, the quality isn't as great as it could be (yay reflections!), but I wanted to have copies of these pictures for myself and for anyone else who was interested to see them. We have some good looking people in our family!

Lucy Henize

Cecil Denver Wallace, Sr.

No flash caught on this one, but it's a bit blurrier : /

John Henry Henize, Mollie Elizabeth Chambers

Minnie May Winspear and Clifford White

James William Wallace

Julia Anna Peters, James W Wallace

Parents: Daniel Wallace, Eliza Kennedy
Birth: March 21, 1867
Marriages:

1. October 31, 1896 to Julia A. Jordan. Julia Jordan was about 20 and James was 29.
2. August 20, 1899 to Julia Anna Peters. James was 32 and Anna was 26. They had two children, Adrian Floyd and Cecil Denver.

Death: December 20, 1944. James was 77 years old.

James grew up and lived in and around Green, Brown, Ohio. That combination of township and county makes me laugh every time! I think there might have been some Whites that lived in Green, Brown, Ohio, too. Oh, so many colors.

ANYway. The 1870 and 1880 censuses show that James grew up with both sets of grandparents, and many of his aunts, uncles and cousins living right next door or down the road from him. Isn't that great? I'm guessing that they all helped each other with their farms and such. I wish I could post a picture of the census with everybody labeled according to how they're related to him (James), but I recently found out that it might not be allowed to post pictures of records from Family Search on the internet, so I'm waiting to hear back on if I have permission. If I don't, I'll be taking down all the record images that I've posted on the blog. The links will still be there, though.

James was the oldest of three boys. His father passed away when he was young, so James's mother had to raise her children on her own. I'm sure having all that family around made a big difference to her, but even with all of his uncles and family around, I wonder if James felt responsible to fill the role of his father in providing for his family, as he was the oldest son?

James was very close to his family on both his father's and his mother's sides. Most of his relatives that lived on land adjacent to his immediate family were Wallaces. I also found two 1880 censuses recording a James Wallace of the appropriate age. One was listed with Elizabeth Wallace (James's mother) and the other was listed with Z. H. Kennady -- or Zedick Hezekiah Kennedy -- Elizabeth's younger brother and James's uncle. On the census, it shows that James was working on the farm, so I think he must have gone to help his uncle out with some of the farm work when the census was taken.

I did find a marriage record for a Julia Jordan (NOT to be confused with Julia Anna Peters!) and a J. W. Wallace. A John Wallace was witness that James and Julia were old enough to marry without their parents' consent and that they weren't too closely related. I'm guessing that this John was James's younger brother. This marriage took place in Clermont County, Ohio, very close to where James grew up. I couldn't find any other records pertaining to Julia Jordan after she and James married, but I think someone has because there's a death date for her on Family Search.

I was unable to find a marriage record for James and Julia Anna Peters, but documents pertaining to their two children (a birth record for Cecil Denver and a marriage record for Adrian) list James Wallace and Julia Peters as their parents. Mabel Shell, Anna Peters's daughter from her first marriage, lived with them until she either married or was of age to move out. I wonder what James's relationship was like with her?

By the 1900 US Census, Mabel is 4 years old and James and Annie had been married for about a year. They were renting a house that didn't have a farm, but most of the people living near them lived on farms.

At the 1910 Census, James and Annie seem to have a really good life going for them. They own their own farm free of mortgage! Their children are growing and going to school--at this point, they have two boys (Adrian, 9, and Cecil, 1.5 years - here's his birth record from 1908) in addition to Annie's daughter Mabel. James seems to have steady work at the sawmill, which brings in a more reliable income than the farm would. Family is close again; James's brother Robert was living close enough to be recorded on the previous page of the census.

Not much seems to have changed by the 1920 Census except that Mabel has moved on, probably to marry and start her own family. I couldn't find a marriage record for her, so I'm not sure who she married or if she did marry. James's son Adrian got married two years after the census was taken, so Annie and James were left with only their youngest child at home, making Cecil essentially an only child for his teenage years.

Sometime before 1930, Annie and James sold their farm and moved into town. James started up a grocery store, and Annie worked there as a clerk. Unfortunately, it seems like that business didn't work out for them, because in 1940 James was working at the saw mill again.

Although he had moved several times, James lived in Brown County, Ohio his whole life. I'm sure he visited other places, though, especially Cincinnati. James passed away just five days before Christmas Day, 1944. World War II was still raging, although the tides had turned and it would end a few months later. James was 77 years old when he passed and was survived by his widow, Julia Anna Peters.

1870 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M6KH-YS9

1880 Census:

1. with mother: https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MZ1D-GZJ
2. with uncle: https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M89W-DBB

Marriage to Julia Jordan:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XDKP-42R

1900 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MMCC-1R8

1910 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MLNF-1ST

1920 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MDBS-5VX

1930 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X4S4-YXF

1940 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KWD1-6W5

Pictures of Wallace children

There are so many great pictures of Grandma Kathleen's family! Also, who knew that Grandma had blonde hair when she was little? Just like so many of us :)

Uncle Cecil with Kathleen. Isn't this the most amazing picture?

The following picture was labeled "Janet, Kathleen". I know that Kathleen is the littlest girl in the picture (from the picture above with Cecil), and I'm guessed that Janet is the one on the far right. However, on further inspection of other pictures taken on the same day, I found one that was labeled with Cecil and Janet. Janet is the other blonde little girl in the picture!

Georgiana, Janet, Kathleen (two in middle), Grace

This picture wan't labeled when Rachel scanned it, so we don't know who she is. Grandma says that this is probably Grandma Lucy when she was young, and that this young lady (below) was not from her generation--she would have recognized her otherwise.

Probably Grandma Lucy

Iconic photos

Here are some more of those pictures Rachel scanned and sent to me. Of the pictures that we know who's in them, they all seem to be Grandma Kathleen's family. I'd assume that someone from her family took these, and most people in the pictures are either related to her through family or through friendship with her family.

What an awesome picture! Rachel thinks that Becky has a kindred spirit among our kin. :) I do, too!

Now here's the big question: Is it a lunar or a solar eclipse?

I have no idea who this is, but I thought it was an amazing picture. 

I don't know who this is, either, but someone looks like a Don Juan--what a pose!

Quality Pictures of Cecil Wallace, Sr, and Jr.

Cecil Wallace Jr and Sr. Doesn't Cecil Jr. look a lot like Becky did when she was a baby?

Here's another of Cecil, Jr. He was 14 months in this picture.

Pictures-Wallace and Henize

Grandma's home video finally got here! (I've had it for a little over a week now, I just didn't get around to editing it and putting it up). I now have a video editing program, but I can't get it to show more than about 13 seconds of the video. I have managed to get some screenshots from it, so here's a little preview for the video that Grandma sent to me:

Aunt Janet, Kathleen, and G'ma Lucy

John Henry Henize, Mollie Elizabeth Chambers

Julia Anna Peters, James Wallace

Lucy Henize

Aunt Bee (Dora Bedah Henize)

Uncle Paul (Aunt Bee's husband, Paul Liming)

Cecil Jr with pet dog

Kathleen

Janet

Cecil Jr.

Cecil Sr.

Cecil Jr

Kathleen on a scooter

Cecil Jr with Kathleen

Cecil Jr pulling Kathleen and Janet on a sled

Snowball fight: Cecil Jr, Kathleen, Janet

Cecil Jr

"WALLACE MUSIC SHOP" -sign outside their house

Cecil Sr's band

Lucy and Kathleen

Cecil Sr.

Uncle Ralph (Ralph Lawrence Henize)

Aunt Louise and/or Aunt Alverta (wife of Ora Bery Henize)

 I couldn't find a Louise among Grandma Kathleen's aunts unless it was her Aunt Hazel Louise, married to her Uncle Harley. But there's a shot of her Aunt Hazel that shows her a bit heavier than this woman.

Edit: Grandma sent me an e-mail telling me that Aunt Louise was married to Uncle Ralph.

Cecil Sr with pet dog

Janet

Janet making a fish face

Kathleen and Janet with pet dog and cat

Janet and Kathleen

Cecil Denver Wallace, Sr.

Birth date: 2 November 1908
Marriage: 26 March 1927 (age 18) to Lucy Elizabeth Melisa Henize (age 19)
Death date: 16 May 1959

In the 1930 Census. The census says it's in Batavia township, but I wonder if they made a separate page for Amelia, since it was so small?

Click to enlarge

In the 1940 Census. His family was living in Pike County, KY at the time.

Click to enlarge

Something interesting from this 1940 census is that it lists the yearly income of the families. If you enlarge the picture, you'll see that Cecil's yearly income was $1,640. For comparison, a civil engineer on the same page of the census earned $3,000 and a store manager earned $2,400. The clerk at that store earned just over $500 a year.

EDIT: I found more records (birth and census) for Cecil Wallace. I put them in this post about his mother, Julia Anna Peters.

Cecil Denver Wallace, Sr: An Interview with Grandma Kathleen, Part I

I just finished a delightful conversation with my Grandma Kathleen. In that conversation, I asked her about her father, Cecil Denver Wallace, Sr., and learned a lot about him and Grandma's family as she was growing up.

Among other things, Grandma and I share this in common: Whenever someone asks for a story from us (whether it's a funny story, a serious story, or a story about anything else), we immediately blank out and go, "Duuuuh." Just kidding. Grandma doesn't go, "Duuuuuh." But it is pretty much impossible for either of us to come up with a story on demand.

Because I already knew this, when I called Grandma to learn about Granddad Cecil, I came prepared with questions! Lots of questions. As we proceeded through the interview, I realized some of the questions were inappropriate for the time period, since recreational activities did not have as much emphasis during the time period when Grandma was a child, but many of the questions were just what we needed to facilitate the conversation.

I learned that Granddad Cecil ("Cecil" for the rest of this post) had several occupations, since he had the summer off as a high school band director. He worked as an instrument repairman, a private music instructor, a gardener, and rabbit caretaker. His main instrument was the cornet. When Grandma Kathleen was in high school and her family owned a restaurant, she remembers him helping in the restaurant as well.

Grandma remembers that a back room in their house was used as Cecil's instrument-repairing workshop and that the living room was often converted to a music shop. When asked, Cecil would perform solos on his cornet.

Cecil was also "able to repair anything, including clocks.  He did everything that needed doing.  He even painted our house - inside and out.  It was a two story, very high house."

Cecil spaded their garden by hand. This must have been a big task, as the garden was big enough to produce so much that Grandma Lucy spent a lot of her time canning. He also took care of rabbits that the family raised to eat. Grandma Kathleen says that must have been a business as well, since they had so many. At one point, Grandma Kathleen had a pet rabbit. When the pet rabbit died of natural causes, her parents didn't tell her for a long time after it had died. I didn't think to ask why until we were finished talking, but I like to think that it was because they didn't want her to be sad about the rabbit.

Cecil Denver Wallace, Sr: An Interview with Grandma Kathleen, Part II

When I asked what Cecil's character was like, Grandma told me that he wouldn't tolerate any shenanigans (those are not her exact words). I asked if he was strict, and she said yes, definitely! The family didn't have a lot of worldly goods and did not have much time for leisure activities, and there were absolutely no summer vacations. However, they visited relatives that lived in the area about once a week. Grandma said they would visit grandparents on both sides as well as aunts, cousins, and uncles. She mentioned that there were a lot to visit, since Grandma Lucy came from a large family.

Grandma Kathleen's family would also go to family reunions on her mother's side. The reunions would always be held at some family member's farm. Many of them still had farms at that point. There would always be watermelon, and sometimes there would be home-made ice cream! Grandma remembers helping to turn the handle to churn it.

I asked if Cecil was quiet or talkative, and Grandma told me he was neither one nor the other; he didn't dominate a conversation, but he wasn't mostly silent, either. He usually dressed in a white shirt and trousers. Sometimes he wore a necktie, and he always wore a suit for church. The family attended a Methodist church a few blocks away from their home--close enough to walk--and Cecil taught Sunday school at one point.

Holidays were fun. There were always a lot of presents under the tree at Christmastime, although many were small presents, such as a tube of glue that would have cost about 10¢. All the gifts were individually wrapped by Grandma Lucy.

At Easter, the kids would have an Easter egg hunt. Cecil would hide the eggs. I asked Grandma if he made them easy or hard to find, and she laughed as she said, "Hard!" I had guessed as much by the way Grandma had said earlier that he was strict. I'm sure he didn't make anything easy for his children.

All Grandma remembers from the 4th of July are sparklers that she would play with.

Looking for a romantic story, I asked, "Where or how did Cecil meet Grandma Lucy?" I found out that neither one told any stories from their courtship, and they both came from Amelia; Cecil lived in town with his father who ran the saw mill and Lucy lived out on a farm. They unromantically met each other through living close together; Grandma says they went to the same very small high school.

One funny memory that Grandma shared with me is that Cecil took her fishing once. He borrowed a fishing rod from a friend for her to use, and right at the very beginning, Grandma got the line tangled in some high wires above the lake where they were fishing. She said that was all that she remembered, and I can understand that she remembers that part of it so vividly! I'm sure that Cecil was pretty upset with her for tangling his friend's fishing line (and hence his fishing rod) in those high, hard-to-reach wires, especially given Cecil's strict attitude.

At the very end, Grandma remembered that they had a movie camera (a rare thing in those days) that Cecil would take movies of the kids in the snow or riding bikes. She said she would see if she could send what she had to me, so I will put it up if I get it!

Muggins with Grandma Kathleen

Grandma Kathleen is one of the sweetest women I've met. She is very soft spoken, but a great disciplinarian. You know, one of those where the soft, serious voice is scarier than yelling.

She fits the description for the ideal grandmother: she has a stock of sugary cereals just for her grandchildren, a candy bowl, treats after every meal, AND lots of games and kids books. She was always up for playing games with us, even when other adults might find our games childish and tedious.

My favorite game to play with Grandma is a card game called Muggins. I think it's a pretty old game, because they don't sell the cards anymore. I just did an internet search for it, and there were no results for the particular card game I'm thinking of. However, we played the game with cards from the game Flinch:

Picture taken from here

The gameplay is very similar to the game described in this Wikipedia article, except that you say "muggins!" instead of "flinch!" when a player fails to play a playable card. Also not mentioned in the article is that the person who yells "muggins!" gives their top card to the person who failed to notice the playable move. Thus, if you are good at spotting muggins opportunities, then you can get rid of your cards more quickly. There are evidently several versions of Flinch, but we only played one version of Muggins, where we would deal out all of the cards evenly between the players.

Another difference is that playing cards in the middle took precedence over playing cards on other player's discard piles. This made for a fun twist to the game, as well as more muggins-calling, since most players were more intent on giving cards to other players (giving the first player a greater advantage over the second player if no one notices that they should have played in the middle instead).

Grandma had no mercy when it came to calling Muggins on her young grandchildren, but that was part of the fun of it all. We would play Muggins over and over again just to get the chance to muggins Grandma, who was nearly perfect in her muggins playing. If we did catch Grandma and call muggins on her, we would brag about it at the dinner table that night. We also had fund piling our cards on each other's discard piles, pretending that we were doing them a great favor in giving them so many cards. So many fun, happy memories!

PS: if you are interested in trying the game out for yourself, it can be played using regular face cards. Austin and I did so with two decks of cards. Muggins is more fun if you have more than two players, though.