My mother's maternal grandparents........

     This is my Great-Grandfather Samuel Jasper Hook and my Great-Grandmother Eler Elijah Bissett Hook.

They were my mother's maternal grandparents.  She was named Eler after this grandmother.  You can tell she had a lot of Native American in her, can't you?  I don't know a lot about their early years and am hoping to find out more. 

 My great-grandfather Sam Hook with my mother's oldest brother, Leland Roberts, and my great-grandmother Eler Hook with my mother's sister, Elnora Roberts.

    This is my dad in his sailor's outfit.  I guess this would have been around 1946 when he got back from the war.  He's straddling the fence at my Uncle James' house.

  This is mom at about the same time.  She is sitting on the steps of their house on US 22.  Isn't she pretty?

They had their arms and laps full!

This is my parents in the summer of 1996 with their two youngest grandchildren (mine) and their five oldest great-grandchildren:

My mom is holding their twin great-grandsons, Donovan and Alexander Williams, four and one-half months old; beside her is my son, Andrew, almost 7 years old, holding his little sister, Eler Beth, 6 months old; beside Andrew is their great-granddaughter Summer Clay, 6-1/2 years old; beside Summer is my dad, holding Summer's little sister, Tacie, four months old and another great-granddaughter, Taylor Smith, also four months old.

  This is my dad and Andrew in the Fall of 1990.  Andrew was just over one year old, and he is helping Papaw plant a tree.

 

February 1947

My Parents right after they were married, February of 1947.

     Jeff and Eler Dowell

This picture was taken at my Gradfather Roberts' farm in Union Star, Kentucky.  My father was just getting ready to turn 25 years old, and my mother was 23.

Jeff Dowell, Jr. at one year old

Jeff Dowell, Jr., bottom right.  He was just a baby here.  Next to him on the left is his brother James.  Uncle Jimmy died in the late 1970s.  He had married my mother's sister, Elnora; her only sister.  Their three children and the seven of us, therefore, were "double cousins".  In the back row are their two brothers Theodore (Uncle "Thidore", as everyone in the family pronounced it), and Burton.  Uncle Theodore and Uncle Burton also married sisters, Cecil and Vera Roberts, respectively.  Cecil and Vera were my mother's first cousins.  So these four Dowell brothers married two sets of Roberts family sisters; two daughters of Lonzo Roberts (my grandfather), and two daughters of Blaine Roberts (my great-uncle).  Uncle Burton died in the 1980s and Uncle Theodore in the late 80s or early 90s.  Aunt Cecil died in the 70s, and Aunt Vera is still with us.  She visits Mom often.  She has Parkinson's Disease, but seems to be holding her own.

Back, left to right:  Theodore Dowell, Burton Dowell; Front, left to right: James Dowell and Jeff Dowell, Jr. (My Dad).  These are the four youngest boys of Jeff and Lucy Dowell at that time.  There would be one more boy and two more girls born in the next few years to make a total of 12 children in all before my gradfather died in 1928.  This picture was taken in the back yard of my grandparent's house.  This house was still lived in by my Grandmother Dowell when I was born.  I can remember visiting her there often.  She died before I turned five.  She had lived there with the second oldest of her sons, Uncle Harlan, until her death.  Then for a few years her youngest son, Uncle Leonard lived there with his family until the house burned down around 1975.

Gunner's Mate 1st Class

Jeff Dowell, 1922 - 2002

This is my Dad, Jeff Dowell, Jr. in 1943.  He was Gunner's Mate 1st Class aboard the USS Tappahannock, a tanker servicing ships in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

He was about 21 years old, 5'11", with very pale blonde hair and blue, blue eyes.  He was neat and trim and looked good in his US Navy uniform.

  The USS Tappahannock was a tanker.  My father told stories of how he would have to send a connecting line over the water to the ship they were servicing, and to do this he would shoot it over the water with his 4-10 shotgun.  My mother still has that gun.

I have not written in this journal for a long while.  I've been busy, but also I've been a little depressed and down lately.  The three-year anniversary of my father's death just recently passed, and I think that has been weighing on my mind more than I had realized.  He died May 19, 2002 and was buried on May 23.  My Mom and two of my sisters were up visiting today and my mother brought some of her old photos that I had asked for.  I wanted to scan them into my computer so I could copy them.  That got me to thinking about Daddy and I wanted to share this handsome photo of him with my journal.  I'll probably write some more a little later.  I will also put this entry in my other journal, http://journals.aol.com/helmswondermom/DustyPages/entries/1233

For more information and pictures on USS Navy Oilers or on the USS Tappahannock:

AO-43 USS Tappahannock

• Mattaponi class Fleet Oiler:
• Displacement: 21,750 tons
• Length: 520'
• Beam: 68'
• Draft: 30'6"
• Speed: 17 knots (max); 10.5 knots (econ)
• Armament: 1 5"/38 DP, 4 3"/50 DP, 4x2 40mm, 4x2 20mm
• Complement: 242
• Capacity: 135,000 barrels
• Geared turbine engines, single screw, 12,800 hp
• Maritime Commission T2-A (MC-K)type
• Built at Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. and commissioned 22 Jun 1942
• ex-SS Jorkay

Additional Links:

• "Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships" -- USS Tappahannock
  See Also:
• The parent directory for more information on this class and type
• Reunion links for scheduled reunions
  and possible contacts for crew lists
• Sources of ship's documents: logs, action reports, etc.
  -- mostly from the National Archives

Written by helmswondermom . (Link to this entry)

COMFORT AND SECURITY

I am slowly waking up.  But I don't open my eyes, yet.  I feel like I am floating awake.  I can hear the drone of a bee outside the open window. 

I am in my mother's bed.  The big iron bed that was my grandmother's.  There is a sheet over me and I feel as if I am sinking down into the mattress.  I have been so sick, but I've had such a nice rest.  Now I hear a fly buzzing about.  I feel a little bit of a warm breeze coming through the window and it brushes a light kiss on my face.

I slowly open my eyes.  My mother is sitting beside me on the bed, facing me, reading a magazine.  I realize I'd been hearing the rustle of the pages as she turned them.  As she's reading she is slowly waving a fly swatter over me, shooing the fly that got in and that is trying to interrupt my rest.  My eyes close and I sink back into sleep.

I wake again.  I am warmer.  I don't really need the light sheet over me now, but I am too drowsy to push it off.  The warm breeze is making the white lacy curtains flutter a little at the window.  Now I hear the drone of a lawn mower in the distance.  I drift to sleep again.

I wake, but don't open my eyes.  There is a nice, comforting sound coming to me. A sloft swish, swish, swish, a muted thump, then a slight rustling.  Then the whole thing repeated.  I listen to this repeated refrain a few times before I push to open my eyes.  I see my mother at the foot of the bed, ironing.  Swish, swish goes her iron over the garment.  A soft, muted thump when she sets it down on the ironing board.  A slight rustle as she moves the garment around on the board or takes it off to replace it with another.  Occasionally she hums a partial tune, quietly, almost to herself.  What a wonderfully soft, gentle, comforting series of sounds  to awake to.                                                                                                                

 This is my "happy place" thought.  I was about six years old.  I don't know what I'd been sick with, but I can remember waking up and seeing my mother sitting there reading, fanning flies away from me.  And I remember waking to the sounds of her ironing and quietly humming.  Whenever I need a little comfort, a thought to take me back to a happy, secure feeling, this is the memory I turn to.