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On Choosing A Cool Last Name
One of the things that my future wife told me when we were engaged was that she wanted her married name to be Swan (actually, лебедь) and that she’d dreamed about it since she was a little girl. At least the cards were stacked in my favor. “Well,” I said. “Then let me tell you a little story about how I almost didn’t get this cool last name.” The surname swan isn’t all that rare and comes in several flavors. One “n” or two. We are of the two “n” variety. You see, my last name was pure happenstance. Or the fulfillment of a little girl’s dreams. My father was…
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Learning to Read
When they married in 1903 in Alabama, my paternal grandfather (Ollie Manning) could not read. I am sure this was common in this area of Alabama in the early twentieth century, and it was probably common to many people at the time. My grandfather was a carpenter, so he could work and earn a living. My grandmother (Mary Jones) decided that she would teach him to read. And she did. When they married, she was about 15 years old, and he was about 26. The picture below shows them on their wedding day. She was a little over 5 feet tall, and he was over six. I am not sure…
