Frederick Smith - A Decent Goy Begat My Dad

    Part of life is figuring out who we are. For those of us who believe in the Bible, we believe that we are chosen of God and are of a royal generation. Who begat you and your line?

    

    Did he go by Fred? I should ask his daughter Barbara, who I did meet in person.

    

    This man was not to marry my grandmother, whom I never met. He was only to impregnate her. 

    Good enough. (A phrase of my father). I never met Frederick, and neither did my dad. Once I thought that my dad told me that he may have briefly met him, possibly as my dad was a teen in his small town. Fred's wife never knew that my dad existed, I guess. They would have three daughters, who never knew of my dad. Until about 60 years later.

    I cannot complain about what happened in Massachusetts in the 1930s while so much worse was going on in Russia back then, come full circle to 2022 and 2023 and those Russkies (Russies) are up to nothing but bad in Ukraine. Times change, and times stay the same.

    So, my dad learned to not get the mother pregnant before marriage, and my sisters came out more legitimate, as it were. And we met three of our four grand-parents, albeit one was really our great-grandma. (See above). Her name was Clinch, not Smith. And that was the name that stuck, to this day and beyond.

    Things went good by and large.

    Much better than Russia.

    And even Germany, of course. Smith was likely descended from the Brits. Which leads me to questions of how to submit and track genealogy. That, for another post.

    I am blessed, Frederick Smith.

    Biological grandpa. I may meet you someday. I did not meet my adopted grandfather either, who died too young. Guy, son of a Harvard trained dentist. He begat another Guy, who passed on some more than ten years ago. I knew this Uncle, who technically was my great uncle. Father of five Clinch boys, who have gone on to have many more. From New England (most recently Maine) to Iowa, that is what I know.

    Oh, yeah. You were not Jewish; you were Christian from a land that had been dominated by stalwart Puritans. You were Protestant of some type, and then your son, my father opted for leaving traditional Christianity and became a Latter-day Saint. Which has become my legacy. And my family is more or less constituted as such.

    Yeah, family. About time. And history. And in the back of it, or front of it, I believe that I am among the Chosen. From inauspicious beginnings and continuous cycles of life come God's faithful.

The name above does not fit my biological grandpa. Our Smith would have been born around 1914-20. I cannot recall his middle name, but he is buried in Wilmington, like the Clinches. Only a few yards apart.

Who are the Chosen of God? That remains to be seen. Jewish, Christians, and Muslims think we are headed there. We are all woven into the fabric of the tapestry of God's children.