My Grandfather's (Sort Of) Secret Past - Part 1

                                   PROLOGUE

I picked up a book at Costco last week that has me salivating with genealogy research envy. Martin Davidson, in The Perfect Nazi relates his research into the life of his maternal grandfather born in 1906 in Prussia. Davidson grew up in England but had relatives who remained in Germany that he visited from time to time. But prior to his grandfather's death those relatives were less than forthcoming about his grand dad's life history. After he died the relatives opened up a little.  Davidson also discovered that German record keeping during the rise of the Third Reich was meticulous as well as substantial and he was able to use public documents to pinpoint his grandfather's memberships in political parties and eventually into becoming an officer in the SS. The author was even able to locate his grandfather's original application to the SS which was a handwritten narrative describing his history of involvement with militaristic and nationalistic groups which he submitted to support his credentials. Davidson then

combines the documentation along with some family testimony with the history of Germany's transformation from defeat in World War I up and  through the rise and fall of the Third Reich. His research compiled a fascinating glimpse of how and why a German born in 1906 could so easily grow up to become a fanatical Nazi. Davidson does not excuse his grandfather...he just thoroughly examines his grandfather's life. Developing world and European events mixed with Germany's history of militarism and a 1920's infatuation with  violence created a perfect storm of circumstances to transform men like Davidson's grandfather into the thugs and brutes that typified those belonging to the Nazi party.

Davidson's inspiration to research his grandfather's past rose from growing up in a family that did not talk of World War II experiences. His grandfather's past was an unspoken mystery of which a child's inquiries were pushed aside or tip toed around.  His grandfather on the other hand was not ashamed of his past nor did he put away his nationalistic philosophies and opinions in the attic and throw away the key. But he was smart enough at the conclusion of World War II to know it might be unwise to be evangelistic about his beliefs. It could even be seen as his good fortune to have held positions of responsibility far away from the concentration camps so he did not suffer any repercussions from association with the brutal and sadistic treatment of prisoners and thus, avoided any implications of involvement in war crimes. He was a fanatical Nazi but his military service was in administration in Berlin and Prague during World War II.  He certainly had his hands bloodied in the 1920's and 1930's during Berlin's history of street violence but that's a far cry from participating in concentration camp atrocities.  Anyway, I have really enjoyed reading the book and admire the extent of research the author put into it and how he tied all of the information together to construct a fascinating biography of his grandfather. He did a masterful job of uncovering and solving a conspiracy, so to speak. A family conspiracy of silence and misdirection to hide the Nazi in their midst.

                               ANOTHER CONSPIRACY IS BORN (sort of)

So I'm inspired too. About the secret past of my grandfather, George Johnson King.  That's George on the far left of the group photograph below. I'm estimating the photo was taken around 1915 based on the fact that the young man in the center of the photo was my father, Charles George King, who was born in 1905 and looks to me to be about ten years old here. They are standing in front of guava trees, I presume at the citrus grove my grandfather and his father in law, William Sweet, owned and operated together in Lake County, Florida in the early 1900's. (William Sweet is the white bearded fellow with the cane in the photo).



And before we get too far along into this whole conspiracy thing I've got to admit that the issue of my grandfather's sort of secret past is nothing as dramatic as if he had been a Nazi or something.  At least I assume not. But you never know what kind of skeletons are going to fall out of the genealogy closet when you're doing family research. And although the cast of characters pictured here might look to be a little suspicious in a Bonnie & Clyde bank robbers kind of way I don't think anything sneaky was going on unless that fellow on the right was holding grenades to his chest  instead of just  his lapels. No, the sort of secret past I'm talking about  is mostly my own invention in that while my family might have appeared to be withholding information on my grandfather's life, it could just as easily be the fact that they were telling me but I wasn't listening. Or not listening closely and perhaps even misinterpreting what was said. Like many amateur genealogists (and probably professional ones as well) I regret not being able to go back in time to kick my immature and uninterested butt to wake up and listen to the stories my elders shared with me. But other than occasional blips of interest on my genealogy radar screen when something from days gone by might have tickled my attention, for the most part I wasted valuable and irretrievable opportunities to ask questions, write down a few notes, and fully appreciate my family history, not to mention document any of it. It never dawned on me until I retired that I just might get some enjoyment from knowing something about the lives of my ancestors.

But I digress. Here's the mystery. I had the impression that my father's father, George Johnson King, died when my father was around 12 years of age. My sister had the same impression. We apparently shared this time line interpretation from what our father told us. I remember when I was around 12 years old thinking what a sad thing that must have been for my father when he was my age. And at the same time being grateful my father was still with us. I do not recall my father telling me any stories about my grandfather except that he apparently once owned a grocery store. Nothing was said (or heard by me) of the cause of my grandfather's death. If there were any other details provided about George Johnson King I just don't recall.  Nor does my sister. So in retrospect it just seems as though our father was rather tight lipped about anything of his father's life.  At least around me and my sister. Thus for many years in my non-inquisitive ignorance I had a rough time line in my mind, knowing my father was born in 1905, that his father must have died around 1917, maybe give or take a year or so.

In 1971 just a few weeks before my father suffered a fatal heart attack, I visited him and my mother in Florida where they were vacationing near the town where my father was born and raised. I don't know what inspired him to do this but my father took us to the cemetery where his parents were buried. We looked at the grave markers for his parents which are flush-type granite ground markers engraved with their names and years of birth and death. I remember clearly that we parked on the road next to an old cemetery  in rural Lake County, just a small graveyard located at the top of a small rise surrounded by woods and citrus groves. The thing that glued itself to my brain was the fact that there were two cemeteries, one on the East side of the road where my grandparents were resting and another on the West side of the road where blacks were interred. That's all I remember about that visit forty years ago. No stories, if related, remain in my memory. No information or revelations about my grandparents stand out in my mind from that visit except that they were buried in a small rural segregated cemetery on a gentle slope shaded by large trees decorated with Spanish moss.



 

The photo above was taken at Yalaha Cemetery around 1995. It is the graveyard where my father's mother and father are buried. My wife and I looked for this cemetery on a Sunday afternoon with our initial area of search focusing on a town named Okahumpka. My father had always told me he was born and raised in Okahumpka so it seemed logical to start there. In retrospect I think my father's Okahumpka origins were designed to catch the interest of a young boy (me) because he knew it was a much more exciting name (and an Indian name at that!) than the name Bloomfield. He was born in Bloomfield which later changed it's name to Yalaha. Whatever the case, our search in Okahumpka came up empty. One last stab driving East out of Okahumpka on a two lane highway brought us to Yalaha and...KOWABUNGA!! (as perhaps the Okahumpka tribe might have exclaimed) there was the cemetery on the right hand side of the highway. We turned right onto a narrow road that ascended up a gentle slope where the Yalaha Cemetery stands looking exactly the same as it did in 1971. We recognized it instantly as one and the same graveyard my father had taken us to so many years prior. And after a short reconnaissance we found my grandparents' markers.

                                DOING THE MATH 

The grave markers stand side by side engraved with my grandparents' names and dates of birth and death. Both were born in 1864 with my grandmother passing away in 1944, a few months before I was born. George Johnson King preceded his wife in death almost twenty years earlier in 1923. My grandmother's date of death jived with my impressions of her passing before she ever got to know me. I recalled seeing photographs of her, an elderly woman always dressed in white, always wearing a hat, and obviously a widow posing alongside various relatives without her husband. Looking down again at George's marker seemed unsettling until I did the math...1923...1923...1923!!! Duh, 1923 minus 1905 meant our father was 18 years old when his father died. Not a young boy as we had believed but a young man. Moreover, I recalled that my father had gone to high school in Lakeland, Florida nearly 80 miles South of Yalaha in Polk County where he resided with an older sister and her family. So what's up with that?!? So my mental image of my father losing his dad while he was a shoeless kid playing in citrus groves and attending a one room school house down a dirt road in Bloomfield or Yalaha or whatever faded to a different mental photograph entirely. My father obviously lived apart from his father for a few years, enough time at least for him to attend and graduate from a high school a good distance away.  Why did he do that?  Why would a boy and his father be separated during the son's later teenage years and, more important to me while pondering this genealogical surprise, why wasn't any of this explained to me or my sister?  Was there a conspiracy of silence going on that our father employed to keep it all a secret?  Was there an illness or a behavioral issue involved that would have been swept under the rug (or hidden in a closet, so to speak)?  It just didn't make any sense to me that information might have been withheld about our grandfather.

I'm not a conspiracy fanatic. I trust the Warren Commission's findings, Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate, and scientific evidence of global warming. And the truth of the matter is I trust my father...still. I don't think he would hide anything from me unless he had a very good reason. So I don't believe he conspired to create a cover up of his separation from his father. But as an amateur genealogist trying to piece information together to get an accurate picture of my family history, I feel obligated to research this period of time to find out all I can about the last few years of George Johnson King's life. And to that end, my search goes on.