A to Z Challenge 2024 - Professionally Speaking - H is for HVAC

HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning.  After my brother Arden ("Ned") Packard II (1942-1996) was medically retired from the Marines, he took some training in HVAC.  His MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) in the Marines had been Aviation Electronics, so the switch was not all that much of a change.  

He was placed in charge of the HVAC facilities on an aircraft carrier out of Bremerton.  That meant, for one thing, that he got to go out to sea on the carrier from time to time.  He later went to work for CDI Marine, of Bremerton, as their Senior Electrical Designer.  

All this was a result of being different from most of the other boys we knew, who could be found hunched over the engines of their cars or their parents' cars.  Not Ned.  No engines for him.  He could be found lying upside down on the front seat of Mom's '51 Packard with his head under the dashboard as he fiddled with the radio.  His interest in electronics was lifelong.

A Rose by any Other Name

 I subscribe to Family History Daily, which has articles about all kinds of aspects of genealogical research.  Today's article is about naming patterns, telling us that there are clues in first names regarding our ancestors, based on the naming patterns of their native region, influenced by factors such as religion.

They left out middle names.  I have found that middle names often have more of the story than first names.  

Example:  My first name, Karen, has no connection to any ancestors.  I was given that name in honor of a character in a novel my mother was reading during her pregnancy with me.  I was saddled with the middle name LeSueur, and that name and I suffered greatly in my childhood from the cruelty of other children.  I was called "sewer rat" and likened to a can of a particular brand of peas (which I love).  Yeah, I love the peas.  I didn't love the comparison.  But, as often happens in genealogy, learning the story behind the name will often soften any negative feelings about it.  My middle name was also the middle name of a granduncle of mine, Wilmer LeSueur Reed.  Wilmer died in infancy, of an acute gastritis, according to his death certificate.  One of the items in my grandmother's cedar chest, which I inherited, was a photo of little Wilmer.  I have it on one of my bookcases.  Knowing that sad story, as told to me by my grandma, made me feel more agreeable toward the name.

My husband's first name and middle name have reference to ancestors.  His first name is Marshall.  Marshall was the surname of his great-grandfather, who fought on the Confederate side in the Civil War.  That puts my husband on the other side from me, as I have two great grandfathers who fought on the Union side.  Marshall became a middle name for my father-in-law, Leonard Marshall Rhodes.  The name Leonard also has significance, though not a family connection.  My husband's great grandfather's physician was named Leonard Henley, and was so close to the family he is buried in the Marshall family plot.  Marshall became my husband's first name, and has since migrated back to being a middle name, that of our grandson.  My husband's middle name is Keys, a name that came from his father's favorite uncle, Richard Keys Russell.  

One may not find a family-name connection to an ancestor's name, but a connection, perhaps, to a parent's or an ancestor's occupation.  My father was named Arden Packard.  He had no middle name.  The name Arden was intended as a placeholder, because his father wanted to bestow his own name on my father.  His name was Walter Hetherington Packard.  Grandma Packard put the kibosh on that, as they already had a son named Walter, my father's older brother.  Young Walter's middle name had a family connection, by the way.  His middle name was Reynolds, which was Grandma Packard's maiden name.  So, no more Walters in the Packard family at that time.  My grandfather agreed to a renegotiation of the name at a future date, and wrote a temporary name on the birth certificate:  Arden, naming his new son after the city-owned dairy at which he was the superintendent.  The name Arden has remained in the family, with namesakes both male and female, including my brother, the son of a nephew, and a granddaughter of a cousin.

      Wilmer LeSueur Reed

A is for Arden

This post is part of the A to Z Challenge for genealogy bloggers.  I'm catching up today, because I got a little bit of a late start on this.  This is a Facebook group, so you'll have to log in to Facebook to find out more about it, if you'd like to.

Arden is a name that has been in my extended paternal family for four generations now.  My father was the first.  His parents, Walter Heatherington Packard and Elizabeth Jane (Reynolds) Packard could not decide on a name, as the story goes.  Walter put on the birth certificate "Walter Heatherington Packard, Jr." but grandma Elizabeth ("Betty") put her foot down.  One Walter Heatherington Packard in the family was quite enough, she said.  They could not come to an agreement on a name, so for the interim, they did agree to put Arden on the birth certificate.  They chose that name as a stopgap, because grandfather Walter worked as the supervisor at the Arden Dairy in Los Angeles at the time.

They never did come up with another name, so my father was Arden Packard.  He had no middle name, probably because that, too, had been set aside for a while during the time grandma and grandpa Packard were supposed to be agreeing on a name!

My brother was Arden Packard II, but was called "Ned."  That nickname came from a Naval Academy classmate of my father's who was killed at Pearl Harbor, Edward Worthington, who was called "Ned."  My brother died in 1996.

Various grandchildren and now great-grandchildren in the family have Arden either as a given name or a middle name, preserving the legacy of my father, who died in 1954.  One of these new little Ardens is a girl, and the name fits for both girls and boys.  I have to say that it touches me that my cousins and others in the family have seen fit to preserve that legacy, my father and brother apparently having made quite an impression on them.

Vanilla Milk

I'm getting ready to go to live for two years in Pinellas Park while I work on my master's degree at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.  I've been loading my car with boxes of books, so I'm taking a break and having a small dinner of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and vanilla milk.

Vanilla milk is a treat taught to me by my brother, Arden "Ned" Packard II (1942-1996) when I was something like 7 or 8 years old.  The recipe is simple.  In a glass, put one or two teaspoons of sugar and about 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (vary measurements to personal taste).  Add milk to fill the glass.  Stir.  It's yummy, and one of my favorite treats.  I do not indulge it very often, but when I do, I think of my brother.

My brother taught me lots of useful stuff.  He was five years older than I am.  When I was five years old, he taught me how to clean a fish, something our father had taught him.  We lived on Perdido Bay in Pensacola in what seemed to me at the time to be a large house, but then, everything looks big when you're five years old.

Ned died in 1996, of acute myelocytic leukemia.  The last thing he taught me was how to face death with dignity and courage.  That is the most important lesson of all.

And by now, I'm sure he has taught the cherubim and seraphim how to make vanilla milk.
.

Veteran's Day: Remembering

Arden Packard

(1911-1954)

U.S. Navy

World War II

Arden Packard II

(1942-1996)

U.S. Marines

Vietnam

Armed Forces Day: A Family History

Today is Armed Forces Day, so I am going to talk about ancestors and other relatives who have served in the military forces of the United States.

On my father's side, I can trace back to a Revolutionary War ancestor, Richards Packard.  He enlisted in Massachusetts at the age of 17, in 1780, and serve two enlistments.  We don't have any War of 1812 ancestors in this line, because in around 1796, Richards Packard headed up to Canada, not because of any change of heart after the war, but because in Canada, in Quebec, the government was giving land away without much worry about who they were giving it to!  He found farmland to his liking, and settled in the area of present-day Georgeville.  His movements after the Revolution had a northward trend, from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, up into Northern Vermont, and then into Canada.  I guess he was more picky about his land than about the winter climate!

My great-great grandfather Mathew Hale Packard "retro-migrated" back to the U.S. in around 1850, settling first in Chautauqua County, New York.  He is enumerated there in the federal 1850 and 1860 censuses and in the 1855 New York state census.  He was still in New York in the 1860s, and there enlisted in a cavalry regiment for the Civil War.  On the other side of the family, another great-great grandfather, Charles Reed, served in an Indiana infantry regiment.  Both men suffered more from illness than from combat action, neither having been wounded, but both feeling effects of disease.  Both received pensions based on disability; Matthew Hale Packard didn't benefit from his for long, for he died in 1881.  Charles Reed lived, in poverty, until 1920.

I don't have any record of anyone in World War I.  My maternal grandfather Perry Reed was a railroad freight agent, and therefore in an occupation of national security importance, so he wasn't drafted.  My paternal grandfather ran a dairy; I don't know if he had any particular deferment; I haven't looked for the draft  registration status of either one of these yet.  Just haven't had time.

My father, Arden Packard, enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1929, right out of high school.  A year later, he took a competitive exam and won entrance to the U.S. Naval Academy (the way serving sailors got in).  He graduated from the Academy in 1934, served on aircraft carriers, and finally got to indulge a passion of his childhood and youth -- he entered flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station in 1937.  It was in Pensacola that he met my mother.  He was medically retired in about 1939; in 1941 -- several months before Pearl Harbor -- he was called back to active duty.  He was restricted to limited flying because of his medical condition, but became a flight instructor.  Despite the limitations on his flying, he was rated in one fitness report among the top 5% of Naval aviators!

My brother, Arden Packard II ("Ned"), enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1960, after he graduated from high school.  I can imagine what our father, who died in 1954, would have thought of that.  Daddy taught his dog, Smoky (registered name Ceiling Zero) a couple tricks which indicated his opinion.  He would set two identical bowls of dog food down, calling one "Navy chow" and the other "Marine chow."  Smoky went for the "Navy chow" every time.  He would say to the dog, "Smoky, which would you rather be -- a dead dog or a Marine?"  The dog would roll over on her back, all four legs in the air.

When I was a little girl back in the 1950s, I was unconventional.  Alas, I grew up in an all-too-conventional family.  When I expressed a desire to go into the Navy, my mother and brother were aghast and absolutely prohibited it.  "Nice" girls didn't do such things.  When my husband and I got married, he was in the Coast Guard.  I saw what fun he was having -- he really did enjoy it -- and said I wanted to share in the fun.  "Sure," he said.  His confidence in me (and in my sense of honor and self-respect) enabled me to do what I had been blocked from doing earlier on.  I enlisted in the Coast Guard Reserve 3 February 1976 as a yeoman third class, becoming the first woman in my family to serve in the military. When I had to stand down in 1991 because I had developed arthritis, I was a lieutenant (junior grade).  I had been selected for lieutenant, but did not get to advance.

Happy Armed Forces day to all serving members and to all veterans!
.