Yet another side of Mr. Sawdust – the Historian.
“When all is ‘said and done’ (and it is, for me!), our real purpose is to give our children, forever, a foundation for their lives. In essence, a place to ‘come home to.’ Here, again, dates in this genealogy, will show the trends in our history, the migrations, and (in the recent decades) the falling apart of the American family; the increasing divorces, the hesitancy of relatives to supply ‘embarrassing’ information, and occupations having to do with therapy, halfway houses, and helping to get people off welfare. But the pendulum swings and we will return, full force, to the values of family and sustenance and love. That’s when our future children will seek out this book—to get their footholds anew in this crazy civilization of ours. And we’ll be ready for them.”
The Genealogy
Before we had Ancestry.com (though he would have truly loved it) and at-home DNA tests, Wally Kunkel untangled his entire family history on his own. Astounding in scope, meticulous in detail – researched and painstakingly assembled for future generations. You don’t have to care one bit about our particular family to appreciate the immensity of his task, his warm passion for the undertaking, and truly beautiful ways he brought together decades of research – in his final years, with little more than his smoking pipe, hot coffee and faithful computer.
Before we move on, here’s a few other pages related to the one-of-a-kind Genealogy Chest Wallace built in the 1980’s, as a gift to his mother Grace — whose original genealogical research laid the foundation for his work:
The Genealogy Chest
— written by Mary B. Walsh
Made by Mr. Sawdust
Furniture / The Genealogy Chest
Wally mentioned a bit about his interest in all this way back in this August 1980 issue of his Bench Talk Newsletter…
Believe it or not, it is possible to have another interest equal to woodworking! As genealogist for "Our Kunkel Family in America", I have become absorbed in the lives of thousands of Kunkels -- 99% of them I've never met. It's a fascinating project begun by my parents in 1954. Now I am updating and adding to it, and will publish a sizeable "family-tree" book this winter.
As I wade through the huge puzzle of families within families, typing my way through the puzzle, I find that I can actually live the lives of these blood-related strangers. What becomes most obvious is the great impact parents have on the lives of their children. Here's a barber whose big brood grew up to be "hair-designers" — every last one of them! An outdoor-loving Doctor breeds a batch of Forest-Rangers, sculptors, and builders. A mother with three marriages begets a family full of divorces. Another mother lost her husband early and must have been very strong-willed. Without another marriage, every one of her kids turned out to be a professional of some kind.
On it goes. And what we should talk about is YOUR kids -- or the good influence you can have on any child who needs it. These are times of "no time". No time to even answer a child's question -- let alone go camping, or into the shop, or to Church, or anywhere peaceful and private. Not even stretching a point, inattention to a child's desire for knowledge or activity is a form of "child abuse". Whether we like it or not, some inconsideration eventually causes some kind of heart-ache.
Even better — why don’t we let him explain…
And in the simplest way possible – quite literally, to children.
“You see, we’ve got a little tiny place on this earth, in this world, but we know what it is. Now the reason we know what it is – is right here – because we found it out.”
This is just a small set of opening pages to the complete work —
Wallace always took time to add a little message to whoever cared to look in the future.
Wally dedicated himself wholeheartedly to this project. You could find his ads spread across niche genealogical research newsletters and magazines around the country. All of this was just before the Internet changed everything.
It feels fitting to wrap up on this last note…
This reply to an email he’d received, during his final days in the hospital. His handwritten response to someone he’d never met says everything about his attitude toward the whole undertaking. Within weeks, he’d be gone — but you’d never know it from his assurance that he’d “enter the data” once he was back on his feet, and his focus on seeing that the “Kunkel history goes on the Internet soon.”
This small page is just one more way to be sure that optimism didn’t go unnoticed, even by a grandson 20+ years later – finding that handwriting, imagining what it must feel like to have so little time left, with so, so much work left undone.
— David
What follows is the full text of his Introduction, for those interested to read a bit more…
This is not a novel... but to be read that way!
This would appear to be the dullest of books–thousands of names, dates, places and addresses—and few pictures.
But I will remind you that each name was (or is) a human being just like yourself—with all the passions and pleasures and tragedies you could ever imagine. You should remember that all these people are related in the same family and that each birth date and birthplace has a relationship with all the others.
This is American history as it happened from the very first days of our country and it has all the plots and characters to make it "The Great American Novel"!
It begins with a Hessian soldier, captured by General Washington at Trenton in 1776. This Henry Kunkel then marries the daughter of an Indian Princess and establishes his family in York, PA. This is followed by his sons and daughters migrating into Ohio by ox and wagon—and then to NW Missouri when it was still Indian Territory. You'll read about Kunkels in the Gold Rush, in the Civil War, on the Oregon Trail to the "Great Northwest" by covered-wagon - with the Pony Express out of St. Joe and to Idaho on the first railroad.
But it's the day—in—day—out happenings that give a very personal excitement to our reading: The fellow who powered a sewing machine and a washing machine with a windmill; another who made the long, wooden flagpole for the Philadelphia Centennial and transported it on three flatbed railroad cars; a family who lost their first four children with diphtheria, all at one time; a family (my own G-Grandmother) who buried three little girls out on the Kansas prairie, from the back of a covered wagon. They had scarlet fever.
There's one lady who was a cousin to the Wright Brothers; a fellow who was burned to death in a lime kiln and had a daughter and a granddaughter who also burned to death; a woman who married the same man five times; another who was a head of the Mormon Church; a fellow who was given for adoption and (30 years later) this very book found his original family—only to be rejected by his own father.
These are but a few examples of life as it has been lived through the years. Many of the instances are pointed out, but a close study of dates, alone, can tell stories of their own. One couple had a son who died and then they also died, on the same day, exactly one month later. We know nothing more, nothing but the dates. A cousin has told us, "We don't want to talk about it."
Most of the facts in this book, we certainly do want to talk about. There is every conceivable situation, accomplishment, and occupation. For example, we have one cousin who is a worldwide, recognized authority on disease resistant beans. Another was a medical doctor who made great violins and was an archeologist who dug for 10,000-year-old Indians and left a museum full of both out in Weeping Water, Nebraska. And good old Daniel Kunkel, who had the water powered grist and woolen mill, the last place to get flour and blankets before those thousands of covered wagons ventured onto the Oregon Trail.
A number of years ago, a lady told us that her father had been such a "miserable cuss" that all his many children changed the spelling in their family name. When we printed it, she denied it and refused to work with us forever after.
Probably most interesting, the early Kunkel men had a way of marrying real, "quality women". Those who married Actons can trace their heritage back to King Edward I (ci 1200) through all kinds of nobility. Those who married into the Parsons and Dewey families can trace back to the very first Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and to William Bradford, the Pilgrim Father.
When all is "said and done" (and it is, for me!), our real purpose is to give our children, forever, a foundation for their lives. In essence, a place to "come home to." Here, again, dates in this genealogy, will show the trends in our history, the migrations, and (in the recent decades) the falling apart of the American family; the increasing divorces, the hesitancy of relatives to supply "embarrassing" information, and occupations having to do with therapy, halfway houses, and helping to get people off welfare. But the pendulum swings and we will return, full force, to the values of family and sustenance and love.
That's when our future children will seek out this book—to get their footholds anew in this crazy civilization of ours. And we'll be ready for them.
