My mother’s name was Matilda. Her maiden name was Matilda Adelaide Hinds.
She was born in New Hampshire, in either West Swanzey, or Keene. I forget which but I recall that she spoke of them both as I was growing up. The family was apparently well enough to do, and owned a lot of land and stuff.
What the “stuff” may have been I am not at present able to say, because since her demise she’s just not very available to ask questions of.
Anyway, her side of the family came over from England, and landed in Salem, Massachusetts in the mid-1600’s. From that side of the family I even had an ancestor that fought in the American Revolutionary war.
I remember my mom had a book, I believe it was entitled, “The History of Chesterfield”, that gave some of the story. I forget his name. I remember that he was a captain, but that’s all I recall. That book and the history that went with it, were lost along the way in the wake of the many times I moved as an adult. But more about that later.
My mom attempted to have me listed in the organization known as “Sons of the American Revolution”, but she said that since I was what was referred to as a “bastard” they refused to acknowledge me.
Things are probably different these days but I really no longer care.
Oh… The bastard part? Well my mom never did marry the fellow whose seed impregnated her, and I, to the best of my conscious knowledge, never met the man, although I did hear his voice on the phone once one evening, when I was maybe 3 or 4. I remember he said he would be coming by that night to see me. He didn’t show up though. I wonder why? I remember the event distinctly, not really I think, because he was my father, (since I didn’t know what that meant) but because after the conversation with him, my mom threw-up a peculiar shade of pea soup green liquid.
For many, many years after that, I suffered a very definite aversion to the color green. Not an easy thing to endure since nature’s proliferation of green in the area of my childhood was considerable.
My biological fathers name was David Davilla. Or was it Devilla? Or perhaps DaVilla? Well you get the idea.
My mom said he was Spanish and lived in New York City, N.Y. after they parted. She said when she met him he was a bicycle repair person in Springfield, Massachusetts. She said she didn’t tell him she was pregnant. I guess he must have figured that out later though because she would send him occasional letters about me with pictures and she said she thought he was getting them because they weren’t sent back or anything.
Just his voice on the phone one night when I was little. So I’m not able to relate any history from his side of the tree.
It didn’t bother me when I was growing up. It seemed to bother other people, but I didn’t understand that. When people would say something like, “what does your father do?” and I would reply that I didn’t have one, they would usually say something like, “Oh I’m sorry”.
I didn’t understand that at all.
When I was old enough to have a better idea of what they meant, I realized that they just didn’t understand what my experience was like. It wasn’t like I ever consciously missed having a father, because I just never had one right from the start, so I couldn’t feel the loss of something I never had.
The only time I recall feeling uncomfortable about it, was when one day in kindergarten when the teacher had us make a drawing about what our father did for work. I didn’t really know what to do. So I made something up. I drew a picture of “my father” climbing a mountain. I said he was a mountain climber and that he fell off and died and that’s why I didn’t have one now.
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