Family Matters

And now we come to Sunday, one of the focal points of the trip. I'd call it a family reunion except it wasn't or maybe it was, family reuniting that had never met before. Guess I should explain that a little. My sisters and I grew up knowing my father was adopted but we knew nothing more, I don't think he did either. In spite of doing genealogical research on our family since 1973, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I broke that knowledge barrier and found out the names of his parents from his original birth certificate: Claude Dewey Crippen and Willa Margaret Haggarty.

Although my original focus was on the ancestry, I made contact with family members as well, several of whom had done DNA tests and were matches eliminating any doubt as to the parentage. This is where this post will get a bit tricky as I really do not want to use the names of  current living relatives on a post that at least technically is wide open to the internet.

Edith Crow Haggarty Crippen

It turns out that Willa Haggarty, daughter of Edward Haggarty and Edith Crow, had three children all together, two daughters: Lee Walker, older than my father; and Kristy Jensen, younger than my father. Whether or not the girls knew about my father's existence is unknown but certainly none of the current generations were aware that Willa had had a son in 1923 whom she gave up pretty much immediately for adoption.

Now, just to complicate things, Willa's mother Edith had divorced Ed Haggarty and remarried to Sam Crippen. Edith and Sam had a number of children including the mother of a bunch of second cousins all living in south central New York, back to them in a minute. Sam's youngest brother was Claude Dewey Crippen, my father's father, although it seems likely that Dewey never knew he had a son. So, I was in touch with Willa's half sister's children (and their spouses etc) and this is the family I was meeting for the first time face to face this past Sunday. These relatives were also related through Dewey's side as he was their mother's uncle. Confused yet?

We drove a half hour or so from our hotel and up into the New York hills (mountains?) for an afternoon get together. Frankly I was a nervous wreck. These people all knew each other well and I was the outsider in a sense although that feeling did not last long as I was warmly welcomed as family! When we eventually left I felt like I really had all this additional family, my own immediate relatives being a bit on the scanty side. I also had pictures and a genealogy pedigree chart!

I will be seeing more family members later on during our trip, first cousins both, one in Denver who is a child of Kristy's and one in Oregon who is a child of Lee's. I will never forget the get together this past Sunday and I can hardly wait to meet the others.