Enos Joseph Paynter 1903-1968

Enos was my father's oldest brother.  He was actually Dad's half-brother, son of Joseph Paynter and his first wife, Bertha Highhouse.  His mother died when he was only 5 and he and his younger sister Violet went to live with their maternal grandparents while Joseph coped with the loss.  I know this from the 1910 census entry I found for him in Texas Township, PA.  I believe his Lutheran religion came from living with these grandparents.   Although his younger sister went back to live with their father by 1920,  I have not found Enos in the 1920 or 1930 census records, so I don't know where he went from there.  

Sometime around 1931 he married Mabel Irene Burdett.  This marriage ended in divorce.  Around 1940 he met and married an opera singer, Marie (Helen) Smith.  They remained together until his death in 1968.

Enos was a self-taught man. He earned his high school and engineering degrees through correspondence courses.   His engineering knowledge got him a wartime job with Otis Elevator in New Jersey, so he and Marie moved to Carlstadt.   This proved a opening for many of his friends and family back in Pennsylvania who were looking for jobs.  Through his recommendation, my Dad went to work for Otis, and so did Frank Benonus (Mom's sister's husband), Myron, John & Joe Orinick (Mom's cousins).  

Around 1950, Enos landed a job as an engineer with Lockheed and they moved to Downey, California.  He worked on the Apollo rocket program and got to meet and work with some of the astronauts.  The photo at the right was taken in Phoenix, Arizona in 1950, so this may have been while they were en route to their new home.    Enos carried his technical expertise into his private life as well.   His hobby was electronics and his house was full of every imaginable gadget available at the time. Since Marie had severe arthritus, many of these were to make her life easier. They both also loved music and had a great stereo system.

I only met them 3 times as a child, on our 3 trips to California, so I did not know them well.  My Dad kept in touch through letters.  Enos died on December 1, 1968.  My Mom and Dad flew to California for the funeral, so I have the funeral card.  It reads:

"In Memory of Enos J. Paynter
Born June 29, 1903 Honesdale, Pennsylvania
Passed Away December 1, 1968 San Diego, California
Services Memory Chapel of the Miller Downey Mortuary Thursday, December 5, 1968 2:00PM
Officiating Rev. Vernon F. Jacobs, Pastor Christ Lutheran Church
Private Inurnment service Concludes at Chapel"

After Enos' death, Marie moved to a continuing care retirement community in La Guna Hills, California.  She lived to 92, going to follow Enos on March 3, 1990.

Cross-Country Vacations - Part 1

When I was a little girl, my father's 2 brothers moved to California.  I will talk about them later.  Today I want to tell you about the first of 3 trips I made with my parents across the country to visit these relatives.

 In 1959 my parents bought a brand new silver Oldsmobile 88.  This car would one day be the car I learned to drive in, but at the time it was going to be our transportation on a great adventure.  My Dad, Mom, sister and I would embark on our first trip across the USA.  My oldest brother was already married and my next brother was in the Air Force.  My sister wasn't thrilled about the trip because she had recently gotten engaged and didn't want to be away from her fiance for 3 whole weeks, but she went anyway.  I was seven years old, and didn't understand the magnitude of what we were about to do.  We had driven 8 hrs to upstate every year for vacation, so I wasn't upset about a long drive.  I liked to sing, and had recently learned a new song, "Michael Row the Boat Ashore", which I sang all the way across the country, driving everyone in the car crazy.

We started the drive from New Jersey with AAA maps and trip-tiks in hand in August. We had a movie camera and a 35MM camera with slide film to document our trek,  The first marvel was the tunnels that had been carved through the mountains in Pennsylvania.   It took about 5 days to drive across country and my Mom made sure we stopped at as many tourist spots along the was as possible.  I think we drove to Chicago and then picked up Route 66.   According to Wikipedia, "The famous highway originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, before ending at Los Angeles, encompassing a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km)."  Our destination was Riverside, California, just east of L.A. and this was our route.


Growing up, my Dad had made lifelong friends with the Reed boys, 5 brothers who lived near his boyhood home in Pennsylvania.  One of the brothers (Doug?) had settled in Missouri with his wife and 2 daughters, so we stopped for a day to visit them along the way.  


The trip was pretty uneventful until we got to the mountains.  I only remember 2 things about that - that the narrow, winding mountain roads frightened my mother, and that my sister got to drive down the mountain from Flagstaff, Arizona.   I also remember stopping to visit the Petrified Forrest.  However, the event that stands out most in my mind was the last few hours before we arrived at my uncle's house.  We crossed Death Valley that day, and were told later that it had been 120 degrees in the shade.  This was before cars had air conditioning.  We had a cooler with food and fruit juices in the back and my Mom got a large soda size container of ice which she held up to the car's vent windows so it blew the moisture back at us.  We arrived at my uncle and aunt's house sometime in the afternoon.


During that visit we did lots of fun things.  While staying at my uncle Russell's house visited a second Reed brother (Dick?),  my Dad's step-brother Enos and his wife Marie, went to the recently opened Disney Land, and went down to Tijuana, Mexico to the horse races.  I have snippets of memories from each of these.  My uncle Enos had an intercom system throughout the house and they had lots of special appliances because his wife had severe arthritis and was loosing her hearing.  The Reed family had a house that had adjustable walls, so they could change room sizes or make two rooms into one as their needs changed.  On our way back from Mexico I remember waiting in a line of cars to go through the border and boys along the way were selling souvenirs.  I have a Mexican doll puppet, and I believe we bought it from one of these boys. 


On the way home we took a southern route so we could stop to visit my brother, who was stationed in Biloxi Mississippi.  I think he was there for Basic Training.  My mother made a point of getting out on the beach and putting her feet in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  She had done the same in the Pacific Ocean and we had often been to the Great Lakes, so, along with our trips to the Jersey Shore, she could now say she had set foot in the water on all sides of the USA.


The only other thing I remember about this trip was swimming in a pool at a motel somewhere in the South with my sister.  I think this motel may not have been on AAA's recommended list, and the place sticks in my mind because my Mom was not happy with it.  However, I believe it was all we could find and was probably the last night before we got back home.   We must have gotten back after Labor Day, because I was a few days late starting school that year.   I remember having trouble finding where I should line up in the playground to go into class.  All the other kids already knew, but I had a few minutes of confusion until a teacher pointed me in the right direction.   But I did have the best story that year for what I did on my summer vacation.

Missing Week

Last week I broke my commitment to publish an entry every week.  Between our return from a week's vacation and my leaving on a business trip to California first thing Monday morning, I just ran out of time.  However, the trip to California brought back a lot of memories that I am going to turn into this week's blog entry, Stay tuned.

List of Graves Found

When I wrote my last post this morning, I must have been half asleep, because I missed 2 relatives, bringing the total to 32.   Here's the whole list of graves I tend in PA, and their relationship to me.  See if you can tell me who I missed this morning:

Canaan Corners Cemetery:
Clayton & Daisy Paynter (parents)
Joseph & Carrie Paynter (paternal grandparents)
Violet Paynter (aunt)
Leroy Doney (first cousin)
Abel & Phoebe Gray (great-great grandparents)
Ashfield Gray (great grandfather)

St Tikhons:
Mathew& Anna Orinick (maternal grandparents)
Julia & Jack Reger (aunt & uncle)
Catherine Zedar (aunt)
Mary Orinick (aunt)
Margaret Orinick (aunt)
Helen Orinick (aunt)

East Canaan Cemetery:
Ted & Shirley Orinick (uncle & aunt)

South Canaan Protestant Cemetery:
Jonas & Jane Seeley (great-great grandparents)

Aldenville Baptist Cemetery
Ellen (Oliver Paynter) Gummoe & John Gummoe (great-grandmother & her 2nd husband)

Union Dale Cemetery:
John Zedar (uncle & godfather)
Aldrude & Jacob Shager (great aunt & grandfather's 3rd wife, with her 1st husband, who would be my great uncle)
Nettie & Levi Shager (great aunt & uncle

Indian Orchard:
William & Elizabeth Oliver (great-great grandparents)
Elizabeth & Adolphus Henshaw (great aunt & uncle)

Finding Dead Relatives

I am a little late posting a blog entry this week.  We're vacationing in the hills of Pennsylvania this week and in my desire to unwind, I forgot to write this weekend.  No excuses, the beauty of my surroundings and the need to do absolutely nothing for the first 2 days took over.   Yesterday we ventured out to perform an our bi-annual task of love and remembrance - visiting the graves of relatives I have found.

It began many years ago.  When I was a little girl, Mom & Dad took me to the cemeteries around Memorial Day each year to plant flowers on some graves.  We visited Mom's parents at St Tikhon's and Dad's parents and half-sister in Canaan Corners.  After Dad died,  Mom took care of these and a few more.  Two of her sisters were buried at St Tikhon's before my Dad died and another sisters was buried there shortly after.  That brought the number of graves to care for to 8.  Although I always had an interest, after my Dad passed away, I began working on the family genealogy more earnestly.  I began asking my mother and other relatives more questions.  Mom and I took a few drives around the Pennsylvania countryside as she tried to remember where other graves were located.  We found my Dad's step-mother Aldrude Shager and added her to the list.  Her sister Nettie, who is also a great-aunt, is buried nearby.   Both are with their Shager husbands, so that brings the number to 12. Down the hill, my godfather John Zedar is buried across the road, making it 13.

A big breakthrough in my search for graves came when I first visited the Wayne County Historical Society library in Honesdale, PA.  Someone had compiled a list of headstones in county cemeteries and donated it to the library.  It wasn't an exhaustive list, but I found a few familiar names to investigate.  one was my grandpa Joe Paynter's mother, Ellen.  She is buried with her second husband, John Gummoe, in a little cemetery across from the Aldenville Baptist church.  The other discovery was Ellen's parents, William Oliver and Elizabeth Histead Oliver in Indian Orchard.  Next to them is their daughter Elizabeth with her husband.   Adding these 3 couples brings the number to 19.  

My Dad told me years ago that he had a grandfather buried in South Canaan Bible Protestant Cemetery, but he thought there was no headstone so I didn't look there right away.  I always thought it was Dad's mother's father, Ashfield Gray, but one day I found a small green marker with Ashfield's name, birth & death dates on someone else's grave in Canaan Corners.  Why that marker is where it is remains a mystery, but I honor great-grandfather Ashfield there.  However, that made me wonder who might be in South Canaan.  It didn't take much effort to find my great-great grandparents Jonas Seeley and Jane Swingle Seeley just to the right of the entrance road, about a third of the way into the cemetery.   The number was now 22.  

During the years of searching, my father, mother, 2 more of my mother's sisters and my father's nephew Leroy have died, bringing the number to 27.   Yesterday we drove around Susquehanna and Wayne counties, planting a few small flowers near each headstone.  We saved Canaan Corners for last.  A few years back I found another set of great-great grandparents there, but could never find the headstone again.   I made a cursory search each time i visited but was frustrated each year.  This year, we had more time to spare, so Ray & I began the search again for Ashfield's parents Abel & Phoebe Gray.   We were almost ready to give up when we both spotted the headstone at the same time.  What had confused me on previous attempts was that the old stone has been replaced with a new one.  The stone I found the first time was a large and typical gray  headstone.  Something must have happened to the original because it has been replaced with a new, smaller, pink headstone.  There is also another stone near the foot of this grave for Fannie Gray. Her birth date is 1860, so she could very well be another of Abel & Phoebe's children.  I don't have documentation for that yet, but I placed a flower near her stone too.  That makes 30.   

I also know where several of my grandpa Joe's brothers and sisters are buried in Clinton Corners, but I don't bring flowers there because they have local descendants to remember them.  I have documented that entire cemetery and donated my list to the Wayne County web site, but they have never uploaded it.  First chance I get, I will upload it to Find-A-Grave.

On a side note, yesterday's cemetery visits had a moment of excitement.   After planting flowers by the grave of Jonas & Jane Seeley in South Canaan, we got in the car and started to drive away.  The road in the cemetery leads around it, so we were heading towards the woods at the back to exit on the side road.  All of a sudden a huge black bear ran out of the woods and across the cemetery in front of us.  All I could do was say "bear" to get Ray's attention.  He was driving slowly on the dirt road and was able to stop easily, but I could not get my camera out in time.   This was a beautiful, majestic creature, at least 800 pounds.  I don't know whether the sound of the car scared him or he was running from something else, but he was wonderful to see.  We are glad we were already in the car thou.   I don't know what I would have done if I was still out there planting flowers.