The Magic of Going Home – From The Birmingham News, by Frank Baucom

The Magic of Going Home – From The Birmingham News, by Frank Baucom




Around out house we start the holiday season rather early. My music loving daughters have been playing Christmas records since the first week of November. While listening to the familiar strains of the old favorites, I couldn't help but notice how many were about home or going home.

Christmas means gifts and brightly lit Christmas trees to the young, but for children now grown it brings memories of home and thoughts of going home, if only for the holiday.




In 1943 when I was a lad of 4, my parents moved to Germania Park, a little community between West End and Powderly.

  Around the turn of the century a group of Germans settled there, building sturdy homes with foundations of hand carried stones from nearby Valley Creek. There was once a small amusement park there, complete with a carousel.

We lived in a large nine room house with a covered front porch along its entire width.

In the 1920’s the house was known as the Lula Foster Home for Boys. On many a Sunday afternoon we’d see a young man afar off, walking down Lee Avenue and we knew it was one of the now grown “boys” that had caught the #3 trolley from Birmingham to come and see the old home once more.

Our property, then owned by the state, was a tremendous 150 ft x 500 ft. It was completely enclosed by a 5 ft high wire fence with 2 x 4’s planks along the top, from post to post.  Almost every foot of the back fence was covered in red climbing roses and honeysuckle. In the springtime and fall it was a place of rare beauty.

Behind out home was a good 20 acres of woodland that we could have purchased for a song. But it was just after the war and we didn’t have much to sing with. Eventually the woodlands were cleared and houses were built all around us. The roses lost the fence they’d climbed upon, and as time passed my siblings and I all married and moved away to start families of our own.

Nevertheless, at Thanksgiving and Christmas our hearts always called us back home, as we still called it.  My mother and father were never happier than when their children and grandchildren were gathered together again, even if for just one day.

But time in its way won its usual victory. The old home deteriorated beyond repair and was sold to a builder who wanted to divide the property for new home construction. So one afternoon I drove out from Huffman to see the old home place one last time. I wish now I hadn’t gone because a few days before a bulldozer had completely leveled our old house. I got out of my car and walked over the now vacant lot, overwhelmed with feelings of loss and despair.

 Memories of youth and childhood flooded over me and a single tear rolled down my face.

As I made my way back to the car in the deepening twilight, my thought turned toward home, my home, where my wife and young children waited for me.  When I arrived, the smell of an apple pie in the oven and the sound of my daughter S onja singing “White Christmas” greeted me.



A writer of old once said that “home is a little picture of what Heaven must be like,” and I know now that how true that is. My home is here, with those I love, who love me. One day they’ll be grown and gone, but coming back home for Christmas, hopefully with grandchildren! I look forward to that day.



I guess my purpose in writing this has been to say, don’t wait too late. Go home if you can, while you can. One day, you’ll be glad you did.

(Written by Frank Baucom, published in The Birmingham News, early 1970's.)

*My dad passed away in 1995. He is missed.


http://youtu.be/iKkZ50PA7DA

Labor Day is just around the corner

As Labor Day approaches, I've been reminiscing about family reunions from times past.

I also spent a little time this weekend trying to organize some old photos, including reunion pictures.  I came across this photo of Aunt Beatrice, Aunt Ruby, Uncle Jesse and Uncle Charlie. It was the last time the four of them were all together again. We were in Winder, Ga. because it was close to Aunt Bea and her family and she was unable to travel.

That was a GREAT reunion! After we ate, we went across the street to a local church and shared a few hours of singing hymns and sweet fellowship. That was about seven years ago. How times flies, and oh all the questions I wished I would have thought to ask!

Seated: Beatrice Baucom, Jesse Baucom
Standing: Ruby Baucom Rosato, Charles Baucom 

Uncle Jesse was one of the older children in the family, and Uncle Charlie was the second to youngest son. Bea was the oldest girl and Ruby was the youngest girl. And they were the greatest generation.

Right: Mother Bennie Hall Baucom & Children.

They came up as children through the Great Depression. Some of them went on  to become members of  greatest Armed Services this world has ever seen. They grew into young people who fought, and won WWII, or held down the home front while their men were at war. Then they built America back up while raising their own children.

I always think of them on Labor Day, because they all worked so hard, all their lives. And they started early. My own grandfather left school in the 4th grade to help support his family. He worked at Avondale Mills, where he met my grandmother and later worked for many years at Lamson and Sessions. He was sharp as a tack and served as the treasurer of the union there.

Uncle Jesse served for many years as the treasurer of the Jefferson County Employees Credit Union. (If memory serves, Uncle Jesse was the bailiff for one of the judges who put Martin Luther King in jail in Birmingham.)

 I'll never forget being called for jury duty and Judge Mac Parsons telling the open court about going to see Uncle Jesse to get approval for the money to buy his first new car.

And there was the time that ol' Hanging Judge Jack Montgomery let me off on a traffic ticket when I told him Jesse was my uncle!

I think my grandfather and his siblings were rather accomplished for all their blue collar backgrounds and I'm proud of them. If they were here, I know they'd be proud of the high number of college graduates and business owners that are their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Baucom Family, Lee Avenue, West End

The Baucom siblings lived lives of quite normalcy and their names are not written in the history books. But their memory is engraved upon the hearts of those they loved, who loved them in return.

 Children of Estelle "Doc" Baucom and Bennie Eliza Hall Baucom: They are all gone now, but not forgotten.

James Edward Baucom Sr

Comer Eugene Baucom

Ben L Baucom

Jessie T Baucom

Beatrice M Baucom

Katherine E Baucom (Kitty)

Viola L Baucom (Lois)

Garland Baucom

Margie Baucom

Ruby Baucom


Charles Baucom

Baucom-Hall Reunion, Birmingham, Alabama
1978

Comer Baucom, Jesse Baucom, Beatrice Baucom, Charles Baucom, Ruby Baucom Rosato

When my dad died, the international lemon market took a hit

If he were alive, July 18 would have been my dad's birthday. He would be 72.

My dad was ever a lover of iced tea, long before Uncle Si hit the scene. Sweetened, lots of ice and always with fresh lemon. He never went through a grocery store without buying fresh lemons. We never ran out. Never. Because someone would always run to the store and get one or some if the stock was low. To say that we bought a whole lot of lemons is almost an understatement. Growing up I thought everyone kept fresh lemons on hand all year round and as an adult, I still feel slightly guilty that I don't.

Then there was coming of age, and learning to avoid the lemon squeeze droplets. The kid who sat next to dad at dinner was sure at some point to get an eyeful of lemon juice from an errant squeeze. Ok, so not an eye full, but enough to make you wince. By the time we were five or six years old, we had a nice dodge reflex and could almost sense the lemon juice coming.

On the rare occasions we went out to eat (Shoney's, Catfish King, or Joy Young's, but that's another story,) I imagine we were a funny sight. Kids ducking for seemingly no reason, because you couldn't actually see the lemon juice droplet unless you were about to be hit by it. From a distance, it probably looked like my parents had a table full of children with Parkinson’s, heads ducking and bobbing like ours did.

Until my own narcolepsy was diagnosed with genetic testing, I never understood my dad's love and need for ice tea. But I see now how vital it was to his staying awake as long as he did during the day. Not that he didn't nod off on occasion, even when driving, but thanks to the tea fuel, those occasions were not so bad. Except in the case of the Green Chevy Impala with the buckets seats and the bridge guardrail keeping Dad and Frankie from landing in the Tombigbee one fine Saturday afternoon. They were coming back from a deer hunt and Dad had to call Papaw to come pick them up and boy was Comer mad. (But that's another story.)

Fixing dad's tea at dinner was a coveted chore. You knew you had arrived when dad asked you to refill his tea glass. "Up to the ice line" he'd say. Because the tea had to stay very cold, you never put too much tea in the glass on the refill. Each serving had to be chock full of ice, and if the ice was half way down, then the tea was refilled to that point. No more, no less. Unless of course you added more ice, but for some reason we usually didn't. And you learned it early, how to refill that tea! It became second nature to us older 3 kids.

The day finally arrived that Beth was asked to refill dad's tea. She probably got pushed into it before she was ready, but S**** was away at college, Frankie was away, away and I had been at work all day that day. And it being a Tuesday, Bonnie was at Sweet Adeline's. So Beth jumped up quickly and practically skipped around the table to bring the tea pitcher in from the kitchen, happy as a lark to be asked to do something. (She was always happy that way, but that's another story.)

I casually watched as she poured dad's tea. And poured dad's tea. And poured dad's tea. All the while Dad was saying "Just up to the ice line baby, up to the ice line...." but Beth just kept that tea a coming like there was no tomorrow. And it was a mighty big glass. Before you could say "No Mas!" Beth had the tea glass full of slightly warm tea, which of course quickly started melting the few pieces of ice left. Oh the stunned looks on all of our faces. You just can't imagine how shocked we were when Beth went past the ice line, and then some and then some more. It was a day that would live in infamy in the Baucom family.

“Baby, what happened?” asked Dad in a dazed sort of voice.

Beth replied, "Well Dad, when I poured the tea in, the ice started floating and the ice line kept moving up!"

And somehow, coming as it did from Beth, it all made sense.

I missed my great grandparents so much on the 4th of July

I'd been missing my great grandparents (Foster Norris Maddox and Virgie Snider Maddox)  for a few days already when the 4th rolled around. I dreamed about them the night of the 3rd and I woke up on the 4th determined to visit their graves At Valhalla that day.

I thought I knew where they were, but as it turns out I didn't. Even with Beth's help over the phone, it was a no-go. We went there with some regularity, up until about ten years ago. But time changes all it pertains to, as the song says.

However, I did see the grave of Mr. Pete Mitchell, which I've always thought was interesting. His headstone says "The King of the Gypsies."

When my dad would take us out to visit the graves of my great grandparents, he would point the headstone out and say, "That's where the king of the Gyspies is buried."

It seems like I remember him telling me that a rather large number of Gypsies from around the US attended the funeral.

I couldn't find any information about Mr. Mitchell online, but I remembered my friends R and M  B mentioned something about him coming in an office they worked in. So I asked them what they remembered, and R remembers Mr. Mitchell coming in to see about a bad check someone out of North Carolina wrote, and wanting to see if anything could be done about that. (R recalls that he was known back then as the king of the Gypsies.)

M also mentioned that she knew where there home was on Bessemer Super Highway, a very pretty white brick house, somewhat large.  I think I know which one she's talking about, up on the hill to the right if you are headed to Bessemer away from Birmingham. Just a few tidbits of information, but I thought it was interesting.

As a kid, I remember going down Bessemer Super Highway on the way to visit my great grandparents. My dad would point out the palm reader house that the Gypsies ran. I don't recall if my dad mentioned Mr. Mitchell in connection with the palm reader, I just add that to say that it seems like the area was sort of a Gypsy stomping grounds, so to speak.

Also remember as a kid being told that we didn't go a certain back way home through Bessemer because it was in the "cutoff." Strangely enough, when I grew up I ended up living on the "cutoff" road. When we first moved out here, there was a trailer park about 3/10 of a mile from our house that some Gypsies still lived in. Now Hoover has built us so much, the city limits are just a few blocks from the former Gypsy camp.

Not too long after we moved out this way, someone bought them out and later, the Flowers Bread Company built a location on that site.

And that's a little history of the Gypsies in Bessemer. Very little, I know. But I expect that no one except me was interested anyway. :-)

Headstone of Mr. Pete Mitchell, King of the Gypsies, and his wife, Annie

It also reads "Chief Justice and Criminal Investigator of the Gypsy Nation"

More Baucom Family Photos

I started a page just for photos, but I couldn't figure out how to add more posts to it (technology is wasted on me for sure). So here are some additional Baucom Family photos:

Bennie Eliza Hall Baucom, first wife of Estell "Doc" Baucom

Lessie Downs Carlton Baucom and Estelle "Doc" Baucom
(Mama Lessie was the 2nd wife of Estelle Baucom)

Children of Bennie Eliza Hall Baucom and Estelle "Doc" Baucom

Children of Estelle "Doc" Baucom and Bennie Eliza Hall Baucom:

James 12/5/1906
Comer 6/22/1908
Ben Lee 12/28/1910
Jesse 4/4/1913
Mary Beatrice 8/24/1915
Katherine 9/15/1917
Lois V 5/18/1919
Margie 12/12/1921
Charles 10/3/1923
Ruby 6/23/1925
Garland 2/12/1927


(Photos courtesy of Chrissy R.)

Comer Eugene BAUCOM (1909 - ~1993)

Comer Eugene BAUCOM (1909 - ~1993)

Garland Baucom, son of Estelle "Doc" Baucom and Bennie Eliza Hall Baucom

(All of these photos unless other wise noted are from the collection of Ruby Baucom Rosato and graciously supplied to me by cousin Christina.

BAUCOM - ENGLISH or GERMAN? by Jim Baucom

BAUCOM - ENGLISH or GERMAN

Any person can post whatever genealogical information that want to at almost all websites. No one checks them so you have to go to source documents yourself to verify all findings. And I have been told by fellow researchers that they have found professional researchers who have made big errors, perhaps to satisfy a client or they were just lazy and said, “what the hell” the names match.

The LDS website is a great example of misinformation but a wonderful site to get a starting place. And they state that there information is not verified. I had a pretty good idea that my Baucoms were of English extraction before I contacted Banks McLaurin in Dallas, TX about the Baucoms. He had done a lot more for a longer period of time than I had. We both had traced our line back to Wake, Co., NC to John Baucom and his father Nicholas. We had both found that Nicholas and his wife Mary had John baptized in Baltimore, MD in 1725 at St. Georges Parish, an Anglican Church. We agreed that having the baptism done in an Anglican Church was a big clue to Nicholas being English.


We both had read in The History of Deleware: 1609- 1888, volume 2 by John Thomas Scharf a write up on a Peter Baucom who lived in Delaware and Maryland in the 1600s. He participated in many land transactions and was named sheriff of Kent Co., DE. And I got my hopes up high that he was Nicholas’ father, but Peter’s will named only a daughter and wife. He still could have been his father, having given him property in MD before his death. Or perhaps he was an uncle or maybe no connection at all. By the way, Banks and I were both college trained engineers. Now that does not make us smarter than anyone else but we are trained to not take anything for granted. Always challenge any idea to see if it seems logical and try to prove it for yourself.

One day soon after I found the google website I put in Baucom TN history, just for kicks and out popped:
http://www.tngenweb.org/haywood/goodspeed/b-gdsp.htm
I had read some of his work on another line of my ancestors so I knew of Goodspeed’s Tennessee history work. He had written a short piece about J, F. Baucom of Haywood Co, TN. Here is part of the article:

“J. F. BAUCOM, citizen and farmer of the Tenth District, was born in Maury County, Tenn., August 30, 1826, being one of six children born to Brittain and Elizabeth Baucom. The father was of English origin, born in Rockingham County, N. C., in 1796, and moved to Tennessee in 1814, locating in East Tennessee, but two years later moved to Maury County, and in 1829 to Illinois, where he engaged in farming and died in 1831. The mother was a Miss BARKER, born in Caswell County, N. C., in 1798, and died in 1874.”

It goes on to tell of the family J. F. and his accomplishments in Haywood County. Notice that it stated that Brittain was of English origin. And we know that his father Brittain Sr. and 10 other children were named in the will of John Baucom, Sr who died about 1800. And if you stop to think about it, who, but a person of English origin would name a son Brittain. Could John Sr. have done this to announce to others around him that he was of English origin? I was satisfied that my line of Baucoms were English and probably from the region of Baucombe, England as Banks had speculated.


So I was surprised when one day I returned to the Baucom name at the Genforum website and saw the discussion about whether our line was German or English and the story about the Von Baucoms coming from Germany and one of them being an ancestor of our Nichols. I knew that Nicholas had to be English because of the foregoing information. And John Sr. or his father Nicholas never named any children Otto or Herman, or Heidi or Hilda, nor did they belong to a Lutheran or Roman Catholic Church. Therefore I immediately dismissed the ideal of a German connection.

And then one day I came across some work by a Sandra Vossler on the Genforum Baucom website. She is a true researcher who leaves no stone unturned. Her early work can be seen at:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mdannear/firstfam/baucom.htm
Check it out. So when Sandra started trying to verify the Von Baucom story she found out that it could not be proven. The following is what she sent to me in an email:

Did you know Marietta Cowan is doing an update of Banks McLaurin's book? I don't have her e-mail address listed on this email but you can find her easy enough, she is on the Baucom GenForum all the time. The last time I checked she had no further information on Nicholas either.

I have a copy of the "Upchurch Family of Enlgand, Virginia and North Carolina". On pages 90-92 they have the Von Baucom theory. The only problem is, what little siting they do I can not find. They list two ships that the Baucoms were suppose to have owned and came over here on, the "Faterland" and the "Brigantine" but I can not find where these ships existed. They say Nicholas was only married once, to Sarah, and that John is Sarah's son. Which they would if they have no records for Maryland, as that is where John was born to Nicholas and Mary. But they do not have him anywhere near St. George Parish Maryland. They have him coming from Prusia to Manhattan, Philadelphia (PA), then right to North Carolina. Which I can find no proff of the Manhattan or PA period. They report "unfortunately a large collection of information of the Von Bakum (Baucom) family of East Prussia was lost some years ago."

If it was lost, how did they supposidly come up with it? I find the Jacob Leedertsen Van de Grist family they mention that was suppose to be "in-laws" of the Von Bakum (Baucom) family, but find no mention of a Baucom in that family. They say Susannah Van de Grist married Johan Von Bakum, but all the Van de Grist records I can find does not show Susannah marrying a Von Bakum and some don't show a Susannah as a daughter at all. So I just have a hard time with this theory, not to say it is not true, I just can't come up with any information to back it up at this time.
Well, I got to go check on mom. Hope to hear from you again.
Good luck with your genealogy,
Sandra



And just recently she wrote me a letter:
Edited Letter from Sandra Vossler PO Box 314 Kimball, NB 69145 8-24-09

Dear Jim-
My line is through Nicholas and his second wife, Sarah Lee, so I don’t have a lot on John Baucom Sr.
John Baucom’s father, Nicholas Baucom was not German. That is a story going around that says Nicholas was related to a one Jaochim Eric Mailian Von Baucom, and other Von Baucom “stories” with a story of the Heidelberg Military Accadamy in 1705. I wrote to the University at Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany twice. According to a reply from Mr. I.V. Hunerlach, Archeiamtfrau, “There is not and never has been a Heidelberg Military Academy. The registry of the University of Heidelberg for the period between 1662 and 1704 isn’t saved. The name von Baucom couldn’t be found in the printed registrar of the University of Heidelberg. There is a story of the Baucoms coming over here from Germany on the ships called the “Brigantine” and “Fatherland.” No one in Germany or in the USA can find either one of those ships. So- to me anyway, this German and von Baucom story is just that- a story with no foundation to it.

My connection to the Baucoms:
Sandra (me), Albert Caves my grandfather, his parents Maggie Sarah Lee Baucom and John Wright Caves, Moses Baucom Jr., Moses Baucom, Sr., Nicholas Baucom Jr. and Nicholas Baucom Sr. and second wife Sarah Lee.

Grandma Maggie helped raise me. She said the Baucoms are Irish and English and mostly English up to Moses Sr., then from Moses Sr. add in Cherokee. She said her daddy only mentioned the Irish a couple of times- mostly he just said English and Cherokee.

Sandra Vossler
Note: her letter goes onto list the children of Nicholas Sr. and Sarah. And there is some discussion about Nicholas Sr. and Mary his first wife who were the parents of John, my line.

Finally, I have had my DNA tested and match up almost perfectly with descendants of two different sons of Josiah Baucom, a brother to my Cader Baucom. Another one of their brothers, was John Jr. He supposedly had a son named Isham. A descendant of Isham had his DNA tested and was no match to me or Josiah’s descendants. That means that Isham was a son of a different John Baucom or that an adoption or hanky panky took place. I am looking for other Baucom descendants that would get their DNA tested. So far there are at least 3 different Baucom lines that have been identified, maybe at least one of them go back to the New England Balcoms, of which there were many.

Comments please!

Jim Baucom
7379 S. Eudora Ct.
Centennial, CO 80122

Descendants of Nicholas Baucom, Sr. [256]

For my cousins who are not familiar with our early Baucoms

1 Nicholas Baucom, Sr. [256] b: Abt. 1700
.. +Mary ???, [257]
.... 2 John Baucom, Sr., [128] b: Jul 01, 1725 in Baltimore, MD
........ +Rachel Barker, [129] b: Abt. 1735
3 Cader Baucom (my line)
3 Josiah Baucom
3 John Baucom, Jr.

*2nd Wife of Nicholas Baucom, Sr. [256]:
.. +Sarah Lee
.... 2 Thomas Baucom b: Bef. 1743 all children born in NC
........ +Keziah Hardcastle
.... 2 Nicholas Baucom, Jr. b: Abt. 1748
........ +Dollie ???
.... 2 Jacob Baucom
.... 2 Moses Baucom
.... 2 Aaron Baucom
.... 2 Susannah Baucom
.... 2 Ann Baucom
.... 2 Ester Baucom