The Tree: A Walk Through My Family Tree

My Father's Parents were Harvey Barker and Virgie (Martin) Barker.  The date on this photo is unknown, but was probably taken in the 1920s.  Harvey had a touch of cowboy in him, and Virgie was very demure.

 Since they divorced early on, I only have two photos of them together.  Here is the other photo - they are on the far right.  This photo was taken in Perryton, Texas in 1926 - three years before the stock market crash and the start of the Great Depression.  Those are my great grandparents on the far left - Annie (Aubrey) Barker and John Washington Barker.  More on them in future posts.  These were simple people with not much money.  It was a different time and place that those of us who weren't there can't fully understand, but this picture speaks volumes.

My Mother's Parents were Vernon Hope and Vera (Whitaker) Hope.  They met in Idaho but he was stationed in Monterey once they married, so this 1943 photo could have been taken at either place.

Here they are with their friends, Gene and Delma.  I don't have many photos of Vern and Vera together either, because they too divorced early on.  In fact, I met Vern only once in my life, while I was in my 20s.  Being young and foolish, he visited my mother while I was on my way out somewhere and I didn't stick around to talk.

While I hold no ill will towards Vern since I don't know the backstory to why he wasn't around, the man I knew as my grandfather on my mother's side was Nolan Blair - he married Vera in 1947.  Nolan was an outstanding man so I couldn't complete this post without his mention.  Some of my personality comes from Nolan's attitude.

Here is a photo of Nolan in 1945, while he was still in the Navy.

For quite some time, I've wanted to start posting about what I've found while researching my family tree. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there, and I'd like to communicate it to my kids and, as soon as they are old enough to comprehend, my grandkids. My hesitation has been that I want to protect those still living. So I've decided to not give specifics about anyone one generation prior to me. I will trace The Tree from my grandparents back, as unfortunately all of my grandparents have now passed away. It's been a rough decade.

Here is the game plan.  I'm going to trace each of my four sub-trees back as far as I can:

- Barker sub-tree

- Martin sub-tree

- Hope sub-tree

- Whitaker sub-tree

one at a time, probably starting with the Hope subtree since that is where I have the most information.

After that, I'm also going to trace Nolan's subtree back - I have quite a bit of information on him also, and it's a pretty interesting story too.

If you have one of the people I discuss in YOUR family tree too, please contact me!  Leave a comment with your email address (create a temporary email address if need be) attached to any of the posts.  I monitor the comments daily, so I'll see it immediately.  And to protect your email address from the masses, I will delete your comment as soon as I write down your email address.  I promise!

We can trade info, photos, etc.

Stay tuned, because here we go!