A Man After My Own Heart
In his research, my friend Wes uncovered more ancient family photographs belonging to an elderly relative who had them squirreled away.
Yesterday Wes came over to my house to work on the autobiography of his great grandfather Joseph Pyram King. (I mention this work in my August 4th blog.) But now Wes had ten “new” photographs to insert — photos virtually no one has seen before.
Here is one of these photos. The story that goes with it touches my heart:
This is a turn-of-the century photo of Joseph Marian King, the eldest son of Joseph & Eliza King.
“Uncle Joe” was an inventor; he’s holding one of his inventions in the photo. It was taken at his brother’s home. “Uncle Joe” lived with his brother, Archie, his sister-in-law, and their numerous children.
Here’s a 1912 photo of that family:
The mother sewed all the clothes in the photo by hand including the suits and shirts all the young men are wearing. Family legend says she could just look at a picture in the Sears Catalogue and immediately sew a replica of that store-bought clothing.
Her name was Laura.
After her husband died, Laura took in sewing jobs to keep the family together and she continued to let “Uncle Joe” live in the home. The inventor seemed a bit eccentric because he practically lived in his bathrobe while inventing his devices.
The children loved him. They said he told magnificent bedtime stories.
The kids wanted a dog.
Mama said, “No dog. We can’t afford a dog”.
The children ran upstairs to his bedroom and appealed to Uncle Joe. After all, he was an inventor with degrees in both engineering and chemistry. He’d convince Mama to let them have a dog.
Uncle Joe glanced out his bedroom window and called all the kids over to see. A neighborhood dog squatted on the lawn “leaving his calling card”.
“You see what that dog is doing,” Uncle Joe asked.
The clambering children nodded.
“What you need to do,” said the master inventor, “Is take a coffee can. Fill it halfway with sand. Scoop up what the dog left in the can. Top if off with more sand. Put it under the edge of the porch. Then water it every day — and grow your own dog”.
The excited children bounded down the stairs intend on growing themselves a dog.
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posted by John Cowart @ 3:56 AM
4 Comments:
John, what a faboulous story!!! I will have to remember to tell this one to the girls. For a woman who can barely sew on buttons, I have alot of admiration for Laura (I also like her name) for doing all of that by hand! Amazing! I hope there will be more Uncle Joe stories, they are great. I would love to hear about all of his inventions (now, I'm going to go check out the Aug 4th blog).
Sure its a funny story . . . but tricking kids into scooping up dog poo to grow a desperately desired family pet seems a tad cruel. Its the same kind of trick as if he told them he was taking them to disney world, drove them out to a burned down factory, and then told them, "Oh no, Disney World burned down!" before driving the crest-fallen kids back home. Did the kids at least eventually get a dog?
This is the only Uncle Joe tale I know and it has been fondly handed down in his family as an example of how clever the man was. I don't know if they ever got a dog, in those years of Depression I doubt it.
When my kids were little and lost a tooth, I told them to place the tooth and a quarter under their pillows and the Tooth Fairy would collect both tooth and toll during the night. See why Uncle Joe was a man after my own heart?
Preacher Joe was my grandmother's Uncle. My grandmother was Mary King and her father was Preacher Joe's brother. Do you have anymore family photo's of all the brother's together? If so I am on Ancestry and I have most of the family tree done up until my grandmother was born and the family tree splits off. Contact me at dlane1971@ec.rr.com. I have a lot to tell you about Preacher Joseph Pyram King.
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