 On The Line -- Issue 683 -- April 18, 2008  Online News and Views of Life in San Benito County with Herman Wrede Published by HollisterOnline.com -- Copyright 1995-2008 HollisterOnline.com
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On The Line -- Issue 683 -- April 18, 2008 Online News and Views of Life in San Benito County with Herman Wrede Published by HollisterOnline.com -- Copyright 1995-2008 HollisterOnline.com
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Since beginning this column a little more than 13 years ago I have limited my appearance in it to the role of anonymous commentator with the exception of a few meetings with family members.
However, this one is deeply personal and is the result of an anniversary important to me and a few family members, and of learning of a woman whose existence I had never even suspected until a day ago. The woman first: Edna Parker will observe her birthday Sunday in a small Indiana town. As far as anyone can determine, she is now the oldest living person on earth, succeeding to that distinction last August when an older Japanese woman died. Mrs. Parker will turn 115. Her remarkable life has been lived in three centuries, the 19th, 20th and now, the 21st. She was born on April 20, 1893, a time that is almost impossible for today's Americans to realize. Man was still a decade away from heavier-than-air flight, the first vehicles that could be called automobiles were still being tinkered with in barns, and radio was a quarter of a century in the future. Mrs. Parker can remember the excitement of news of Theodore Roosevelt's charge up San Juan Hill, and the assassination of President William McKinley. She was in her 20s when the United States entered World War I. She has seen the entire panorama of the 20th Century. Her role was as a girl, then a wife and mother, which brought her joy and sorrow. She has been a widow for 70 years and has survived both sons. One of Mrs. Parker's grandsons is 59, and she has great- and great-great grandchildren. It is a remarkable life, not just for its longevity alone but also because it has gone from horse-and-buggy days well into the Space Age. I had more than a passing interest in it because her birthday, April 20, is a date that is important to me and one that has caused an ever-increasing frustration over the last few years Sunday will be the 200th anniversary of the birth of Isaac Urich in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. He moved to Richland County, Ohio while young and later took up farming there. He did not marry until into his 40s, then became a father of many children. When his wife died, he waited a decent interval, then married a widow much younger than him. They had two sons and two daughters but one of the daughters died at birth. The boys, Will and Ezra, were born during the Civil War and his last child, Harriet, was born in 1867 when her father was 59. Harriet married a year after his death and became the mother of nine children, including Cora, the next to youngest. Cora grew up and married and became the mother of five sons and a daughter. I was the second of the sons, all of whom have since died. Only my sister, Anna, the only girl and youngest child, and I are still living. I became interested in genealogy as a boy and often asked my grandmother, Harriet, about her early life and customs of the 1870s and 1880s. She told me what she knew but I thought to ask no further than about her parents' names. I don't know if she knew of her grandfather's name but she might have. The computer is a wonderful instrument for research so when I started looking up various branches of my family tree on it I thought that it was just a matter of clicking on a name and waiting for results, much like pulling a lever on a slot machine and holding a sack under it for the cascade of silver dollars. Not so. I did find out more about my great-grandfather than I had previously known but not for sure the name of his parents. I found a Urich couple who lived in both Dauphin and Richland counties and whose ages could have qualified them as his parents, but could not nail it down as fact. Something I did find, though, was the existence of two cousins whom I had not known of before. Several years ago, Janet (no last names for privacy's sake), replied to my query on the Internet. Her paternal grandfather was Ezra, my grandmother's brother, which makes us second cousins. We have met several times for lunch and family talk since. She lives a little more than an hour's drive from my home but we met twice at midway points. She found another cousin, Suzanne, on the Internet. Suzanne is our second cousin twice removed as Will Urich, the oldest of Isaac's second family, is her great-grandfather. It turned out that she is quite a researcher herself, and has traced another branch of the family -that she and I share but Janet does not - to the 8th Century. But none of us has had any luck on Isaac Urich's parentage. I am just a few months younger than he was at his death in 1883 and had hoped to get the answer before the bicentennial of his birth. Lineage is important only to those exploring their family tree so no great font of knowledge will be untapped because I could not trace the Urich family earlier than two centuries. But it is still disappointing because I have searched so long and believed myself to be close several times. I do know this: He was born in blood and pain to a woman who lovingly suckled him although her body was still torn by birth, and who cherished him and dreamed of what he might become. I believe his father may have seen in him the means to realize goals he might have failed to attain. If I never find more about Isaac Urich, I do know that his birth is the story of all Mankind. He was one of the billions who have ever lived on this teeming planet. He knew sorrow, joy, fear and courage. He was loved and he loved in return and two centuries after he first took his mother's breast, he has thousands of descendants. Happy birthday on Sunday, Isaac Urich. |
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