52 Ancestors Week 11: Lucky

Question

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 11: 

The theme for Week 11 is "Lucky." Were any of your ancestors lucky? Maybe someone won the Georgia Land Lottery? Do you consider yourself lucky to have discovered a particular ancestor or document?

Feeling lucky.....punk?

Comments

Lucky they did not die in WWII, or there were no divorces in the family for generations, or the grqmpa with ʻextra childrenʻ stayed with his wife, or most in the ʻdeceasedʻ generations were over 75 when they ʻgraduatedʻ to that category?

Or are you asking about luck that provided $$$ or status?

Signed,  The  Trouble maker

PS . . .Many were Irish, so does that change anything?

---

Any and all of the above, I guess - and plenty more that may take your fancy. Just pick one and tell your ancestor's story here ... :D

---

It is very lucky to have a commune office help you out on a genealogical adventure: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2023/03/52-ancestors-week-11-lucky.html

---

I am a descendant of a Luck Key (Key-293).

Answer 1

My great grandparents Phoebe and Alvin Porter Long were very fortunate to have 12 healthy children that all had fairy long lives; several of them were in their 80s and 90s and still active,  Phoebe had 12 pregnancies and all of her children were protected for disease, probably because they were homesteaders and somewhat isolated from the city life. This is a photo taken in 1898. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Morris-15783

Comments

Alexis What a gorgeous photo and story about your great grandparents had 12 Healthy children,

Thank you for sharing this wonderful story ❤️❤️

---

Alexis, your photos never cease to amaze me!

---

Wonderful photo and story, Alexis.

---

Susan, thank you for the sweet comment. My grandmother is the child in the high chair.

---

K Smith, thank you for the nice comment. I feel fortunate to have the many photos that I have.

---

Pat, thank you for your lovely comment. I am so glad you are adding photos and great stories.

Answer 2

I consider my father, Udo Stegen, lucky. Having graduated from University of Hamburg with a mathematics degree in 1969, he worked in IT for the next 13 or so years, often doing 80 hours per week. When his organs (stomach, spleen ...) started to rebel against his workaholism, he remembered that his own father was a workaholic and died from a heart attack at age 52. So, my father pulled all the plugs and emigrated to Australia, where he had a more relaxed 40h-job at the West Australian, took to woodturning and bowling, enjoyed Down Under fauna and flora and in the end had a twenty years longer life than his father.

Comments

Great story and photo, Oliver.  Your father was a smart man.

---

Thanks, Pat. I'm very proud of him.

Answer 3

"Luck" in German means "Glück" and in Schleswig-Holstein there is the town of "Glückstadt". So I asked WikiTree+ to give me all profiles with the town of Glückstadt. Among them was the unconnected profile of Johann Heinrich Bielenberg. In his branch there was the profile of William Koerner, He had a FamilySearch-source mentioning a marriage, but his wife didn't have a profile here. So I went into the FamilySearch-Tree and looked for her name. Nauck is in WikiTree a rare surname, but luckily her father had one and is connected. And again about 25 profiles get connected to the Big Tree

Comments

Danke, Jelena - well spotted. Connecting rocks!

---

A good kind of luck.  Very satisfying, too.

---

Just brilliant. How satisfying. Well done.

Answer 4

I've covered this before but it defines luck to me.  My maternal grandmother Mary (Loock) Stielow, http://wikitree.com/wiki/Loock-138, contracted Typhoid Fever in 1907, the same disease that killed Queen Victoria's beloved Prince Albert.  The disease killed Mary's mother but Mary, age 19, pulled through.  However, the doctor told Mary's father his daughter's heart was so weakened she wouldn't last much into her twenties.  Lucky Mary made it to age 48, enough time to marry Charles Stielow and have a daughter Evelyn.  Lucky Evelyn Stielow married John Miller and gave birth to lucky me, making three generations of luck.  I see her photo and I just want to hug Mary.

Comments

Pat what a wonderful story, I am so sad that your maternal grandmother had typhoid fever how sad

 Am sad it kill Mary mother but how great you came along thank you for sharing this wonderful story

---

Of course the German surname Loock is also sometimes written 'Luck' among many other variations.  Y-DNA evidence (from my dad) suggests that my grandfather's unknown father may have had that surname (Laucks, Lock, Laux, etc.)

Pat, I did look on Family Tree DNA to see if my dad's Autosomal DNA matches included anyone named Pat Miller, but you weren't listed.  That certainly was a 'fishing expedition' - - - but 'no luck' !

---

Thank you, Susan.  Both my mother and I felt lucky to be alive due to Mary's nearly fatal illness.

---

Amazing, Peter, that the Y-DNA could pick up a surname.  My Loock family leads back to Pielburg, Pomerania and they were often tailors.  Mom said they worked in Berlin, which is close to Potsdam.  So how about Julius August Loock  http://wikitree.com/wiki/Loock-155.  He was in Berlin in 1885.  I only mention it because his brother Albert, my great grandfather, had a child without marrying the mother. But he was in Canada long before your George Wetzel was born.  I'm Patricia Miller on Family Tree but I checked too and I only match a Dan Wetzel, grandson of Frank Cecil Wetzel 1915-1985.  So no luck either but there still could be a connection if it's the same name in the same location.  Anyway, thanks for your most interesting response.

---

Pat - yes, I looked over your ancestors and noticed the connection to Pommerania - my Wetzel line originated in Greifenberg and they were not tailors but Stone Masons.  Greifenberg is only about 50km NW of Pielburg by my rough esimate.  And, yes, a number of my ancestors from that line moved to and lived in Potsdam--seemingly a sort of second home for the clan.

So it was indeed intriguing to note your Julius August Loock marrying in Berlin right before my Grandfather was born in April 1886.  But it's a big city.  If you and my Dad shared some common AU-DNA, then there might be reason to delve into this further.  But as it is, it just appears to be an interesting coincidence.

---

You're right, Peter. Even if there was a connection it's too distant to produce DNA matches.  The surname Loock is not that common but Berlin had a population of 1.3 million in 1885.

---

Pat, thank you for sharing the story about beautiful Mary—she looks so much like you and your mother.

---

Thank you, Alexis.  I always enjoy your photos and stories.

Answer 5

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1551088/52-weeks-of-us-black-heritage-notables-week-11-lucky

This week, US Black Heritage Project is featuring:

Eli "Lucky" Thompson, a jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist whose playing combined elements of swing and bebop.

T. Thomas Fortune, a journalist, editor, and writer. 

Answer 6

Grandfather Al "Pug" Truslow was incredibly lucky throughout his military career.  He survived a plane crash (albeit from a low altitude) near San Diego, CA in 1930 as part of a Navy training flight.  He was in bed asleep in his house on the base when the planes arrived at Pearl Harbor and decimated the Naval fleet.  He was commander of the USS Swan at the time, and it was one of the few ships to escape with minimal damage. Later, he was part of the support fleet aboard the USS Kenneth Whiting during the atomic testing at Bikini Atoll.  .

Answer 7

In the spirit of "Luck of the Irish" I've just added (and connected to the global tree) the profile of my best friend Malcolm Armour from Elementary School (and before), who was born in Londonderry, Ireland and moved to the US in 1950.  I moved to the street where he lived in Nov. 1952 and we quickly became fast friends.

I lost track of Malcolm after moving away (out to the country) in 1958 but in an utterly stunning LUCKY coincidence, he and I got summer jobs ten years later at the same US Post office in Newark,DE.

We renewed our friendship, but once again did not keep in touch, so it was with great sadness that I learned of his passing in 2002--much too young!

But I sincerely believe Malcolm was truly happy all the years of his life.  Please take the time to go to Malcolm's profile and read the touching testimonial written by a former missionary to Africa who shared some of Malcolm's last years with him.

Comments

What a great thing to do for your old school chum, Peter.  I read the profile and the testimonial you added was indeed touching.

---

Thanks, Peter, for making me aware of this extraordinary colleague of mine from a different part of the world. The organizations we work(ed) for are quite large and spread throughout the continents, so I never met Malcolm despite a six year overlap on the same continent. Still, it's always encouraging to come across testimonials about a colleague - and I certainly didn't expect it in 52 Ancestors, so thanks bunches!

---

Oliver - it's a pretty amazing coincidence that anyone else that happened to read this answer worked in the same area for the same organization!

I guess you could call it 'Lucky'! 

Answer 8

I consider myself to be a fortunate person. Three of my four siblings and I inherited polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a dominant genetic disease, from our dad who died at 42 years old. For two of my siblings and myself, it also affected our livers. I was fortunate to receive a Liver-Kidney transplant from a deceased donor in May 2014 at age 49. My brother Russell became too ill while on the transplant list and died in 2015 at age 55. My sister Marie received a Liver-Kidney transplant in Oct 2018 but never fully recovered and died in Mar 2021 at age 62. (My other sibling only needed a kidney and got one from his wife in Aug 2015.) I am now 58 and almost 9 years post transplant and still doing well. I am fortunate to still be alive!

Answer 9

My grandfather's mother's family was Irish, and my grandfather and great grandmother Holahan seemed to have "Irish Luck" when it came to ships. She immigrated to NYC  in 1877 and survived although most of her siblings did not. 
During WWII, my grandfather Frank survived the sinking of the USS Gambier Bay, as well as several other battles aboard various ships. He enlisted again in 1945, and although he was wounded, he survived.

My father served two tours in Vietnam as a helicopter combat pilot. He and one other pilot from his aviation class were the only ones who made it out alive. He considers himself fortunate and blessed to have survived everything, especially given that the average life expectancy of a US Army Huey pilot in combat in Vietnam was only 19 minutes.

 

Answer 10

I am lucky to be here when I look at the many situations my ancestors found themselves in during their lifetimes.

Comments

I hadn't really thought about that, though it is true for me too.

Answer 11

Shipwreck survivor Hannah Cogwell, founding mother of the American Waldo line: 

As a young girl she sailed with her parents and 7 siblings on 4 June 1635 from Bristol, Gloucestershire, England on the Angel Gabriel. It encountered a terrible storm that wrecked the ship off the coast of Pemaquid in Maine. Not everyone survived. 

Hannah Cogswell Waldo (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cogswell-582)

Comments

Thank you for sharing this harrowing tale of shipwreck and drama. I love stories like this because I have been shipwrecked twice and almost died on a ship in a hurricane. My 2x great uncle died at sea during a hurricane.

Answer 12

Granddad [[Williston-211|Ray Williston]] returned to Halifax June 7, 1918 aboard hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMHS_Llandovery_Castle). The ship was torpedoed by U-boat SMU86 on the return crossing.

So, is it luck the ship wasn't sunk on the way to Halifax? Or just the good sense on the part of a uboat crew not to sink a hospital ship full of casualties going home...can't help but wonder if the Llandovery Castle hadn't been briefly centred in a periscope sight and passed on for another target.

Not sure I believe in luck, per se, nor a hidden guiding hand. I think stuff happens, people cope, and stories are told.

Answer 13

My ancestor, Lt. Robert Deane, RN b. 1829

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Deane-1139

sailed with his family (wife and 4 children) from Calcutta to New York in a small sloop. They managed to survive constant storms and a knife fight among seamen. It was a six month journey. His son, William Deane "was the first Deane who did not mind staying on dry land."

Everyone in his family landed safely at New York. This was lucky for them.

Answer 14

My parents and I had "luck" in our lives. Here's a few examples:

My mother moved from Texas to Arizona after high school (1950) and was well respected in the community of Tucson for at least 4 decades.

My father entered the military (1956) during the time when discrimination was at its peak. He was well respected among the airmen.

I came into this world hyperventilating but the Air Force nurses in labor and delivery OR saved my life. I was in the NICU for a few days till I could breathe on my own. As a child, many times I have faced death due to my asthma issues but every time...the nurses and respiratory therapists give me oral medication or a nebulizer. Also, I guess getting accepted to nursing school was luck. I got the email notification from my advisor last Friday!

We survived the flood of 83' in Tucson, Arizona. A tree could have hit our house but it went the other way towards the cul-de-sac.

My mother won a new Christmas tree from Kmart in 1987 and we had our only White Christmas in Tucson, Arizona...24 days later.

Our only regret: We didn't go on The Price is Right or Wheel of Fortune.

Answer 15

My maternal grandfather was in the Army during the end of WWII. After boot, for his first deployment he was put on a ship heading to fight in the Pacific when the war ended. This is according to the family. I am preparing to try to get his military records to confirm this, but his records are in the years that were affected by the archives fire in the 1970s so it may not be able to be confirmed due to loss of records.

Answer 16

My paternal great grandmother survived being shot in the chest in 1931 by a boyfriend/possible fiance to go on to marry my great grandfather. Depending on the source it was either an attempted murder suicide or a suicide pact, I lean towards murder suicide attempt. I have yet to look into any charges against him, but happily she survived and found my great grandfather instead. The bullet was in her body the rest of her life and freaked out doctors when they didn't know it was there before imaging was taken until her dying day.

Answer 17

My father Eugene St Patrick Buxton was a very luck guy. One year while living in a dug out in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma, my father and his brothers were chopping wood for the home. He was the second oldest of 4. He little brother Raymond Bernard Buxton  wanted to help and the older two told him no, it made Raymond angry and he took the axe and hit my dad Eugene in the head with that axe. It was around 1939 and no one around except grandma, my dads MOM. He bandaged his head best she could with torn cloth. Grandpa came home and was very angry about what happened. He looked at the wound and decided to wrap it again till morning when he could see it better. The swelling had gone down and they took the bandage off and all they found was the bump on his head, brother Raymond hit him with the hammer part of the axe. Thank the Lord

Lucky guy

Answer 18

John Lucky or Luckey https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Luckey-228 was a hat maker. He married Ann Shields, the daughter of my 3ggf Banner Shields (sorry, but I'm challenged figuring out what # great-aunt she was). John Lucky and wife Ann and children moved from east Tennessee to Smith County, Texas between 1850 and 1860. John died in Smith County after 1870.

His son Napoleon Bonaparte Lucky https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Luckey-229 lived in the Cherokee Nation and married Lucy Ann Ward as his second wife.

His son Darius Benjamin Lucky https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Luckey-246 was registrar of voters in Smith County and gave testimony in Whitmore v. Herndon, 1872, regarding the way votes were counted in the 1871 election. When asked directly if he had voted for the Republican candidate, he evaded the question, saying only that he had not voted for the Democrat.