Bob Workman

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Biography

I was born in Missouri, the eldest of six sons. My dad was a WWII veteran who married my mom shortly after returning from the war in Europe. They took up farming on the homestead originally bought by my great-great grandfather in 1861, just before he volunteered to serve in the Missouri Militia as a cavalryman during the Civil War.

I was born a couple of years after, and all my five brothers were born over the ten years following. I attended our small town elementary and high school, graduating with nearly all of the thirty-some kids with whom I started first grade. I am a Boomer child of the 50's and 60's, and it was great growing up on the farm during that era, with five brothers and midst my large, extended families on both sides of the tree.

I grew up with a passion for reading and learning. I think I was a better-than average student as a result. I had just entered my teen years when I realized farming would not likely be in my future. Even at that age I could never make sense of the economics. I liked construction and drawing. My principal mentioned one day that perhaps I should consider being an architect. I had no earthly idea what that meant, but I knew it wasn't farming. Somehow the stars aligned to send me down that path and after a fulfilling career I am now retired and able to turn my attention to other passions, such as genealogy.

I got my first introduction to genealogy in 1966 shortly after the death of my paternal grandfather, although it would be decades before I heard that term, let alone know what it meant.

While staying overnight with my grandmother one summer evening, she asked if I would crawl into the attic of their old house and see what was up there. Amid all the junk sat an old steamer trunk with a couple of inches of dust on top. Inside were stacks of letters, old photos and yellowed documents of one kind or other. Most of the letters were of the pre-war and Civil War eras. They told of hearing cannon and muskets firing in the distance, of armies marching by, singing and horses pulling war wagons. Deep within I pulled out two rolls of parchment. They were two original land grants for what was now part of Grandpa's farm, one signed by Franklin Pierce, the other by James Buchanan, presidents of the United States.

I might have had only had a sophomoric appreciation of history at that time, but in spite of that I knew these were important documents that tied back to the history of our country. Documents two presidents had signed were now held in my hands. In the two or three seconds it took for this to register in my adolescent brain, I suddenly got what all the fuss about history was about. Oh, to have that trunk, and all its contents, back in front of me today with the dust still on top. That would be pretty close to genealogical Nirvana.

As it was, the trunk, the land grants and the vast store of history within the letters and other items inside it, all disappeared shortly thereafter. I can only hope whoever ended up with it appreciated what they had and took pains to protect it. But I fear that probably isn't the case.

A couple of years later, in the summer after graduation, I was approached by my great-uncle, who, unbeknownst to me, was the default family historian. He said he had come to realize I had a budding interest in family history. He was getting up in years and wanted to hand off some important family documents to someone who might treasure and safeguard them, even expand upon them if I was so inclined. I wasn't entirely sure what he meant, but I was intrigued and decided I would not miss my second chance at holding family history in my hands.

He handed me two, ancient sheets of paper, much yellowed with age and covered with scrawled notes and a labyrinth of hand-drawn, inked lines and boxes. He told me he had gotten both documents recently in the mail. They had come from a nonagenarian, spinster sister, the sole survivor of three spinster sisters, who lived in Indiana. The sister believed my uncle to be a descendant of their line and, before she died, she wanted to be sure someone had these old documents in protective custody. She must not have realized my uncle was an octogenarian himself. She died within three months of mailing the letter. He himself would pass within a year after receiving it.

One document was a hand-written tree back to the late 1500's. The other was a rough, graphical representation of that same history. They told of my 7th GGF, and his two brothers, being banished by Cromwell from England to Holland for being Anabaptist. From Holland they made their way to Calais, France where my GGF married a young French girl. The three brothers somehow acquired English land grants in the Virginia and Carolina colonies, but to secure them they each had to take a variation of the family name. My GGF got the derivation with a "d" in the middle. The "d" stood for "Damn the King".

They made passage to the New World around 1640 to secure their grants and make their fortunes. Two generations later, my 5th GGF, and his son, my 4th GGF, took up arms against the British with the Virginia Militia. On June 17, 1775, they stood beside other patriots gathered in Boston at a place called Breed's Hill. In the third charge up the hill by British soldiers, the elder was killed, and at the age of 17, the younger was forced to retreat, leaving his father dead on the the battlefield.

My 4th GGF would continue the fight and survive the Revolution, siring a son, my 3rd GGF, who would fight for the flag of thirteen stars in the War of 1812 under General William Henry Harrison, who would one day become president of the United States. For carrying messages through enemy lines in Quebec, and for other acts of bravery, he was granted a thousand acres in eastern Tennessee.

His son, my 2nd GGF, would eventually migrate from Tennessee to Missouri, where he would buy the land upon which his son (my great-grandfather), his granddaughter (my grandmother), his great-grandson (my father) and his great-great grandson (me) would be born and raised. He would fight Quantrill's Raiders in the Civil War. My father would fight across Europe and into Nazi Germany in WWII, then attend the Nuremburg War Tribunal while serving in the occupation. He would return to Missouri to farm that land until he died in November of 2013. The homestead remains in our family yet today, one hundred and fifty-four years later.

And I still have those documents given me by my great uncle fifty years ago. It would be two and a half decades before I would open them up and start to seriously take note of what was contained within them. But once I did, and with the now available research capabilities of the internet, I never looked back. Family history is now a significant part of my family present. Thus began my genealogical journey.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Bob Workman at registration.