Sunday, January 27, 2008

My Father's Family in S______, Arizona (ca. 1924)

This photo shows my father's family in their hometown of S______ in eastern Arizona when my father was about six years old. (L-R: my aunt Afton, my aunt Merle, my father Stanley, my uncle Lindsey, my grandmother Adlee, and my uncle Kenner.) I'm struck by how, well, Kartchner-like the kids are in appearance!

All the people pictured here are dead now. (My grandparents later had twin sons, Jene and Dean, and I wouldn't be surprised to know that my grandmother was pregnant with them when this photo was taken. Dean died in infancy, and now my uncle Jene, who lives in Utah, is the only surviving member of the family.) Lindsey, who was reportedly an alcoholic like my grandfather before him, died in a car wreck in 1963. My grandfather, Kenner Sr., from whom my grandmother had long been divorced, died in 1970, and my grandmother (who lived with us off and on throughout my childhood and adolescence) died in 1976. Kenner Jr., who for years was the public-address announcer at Cougar Stadium (now Lavell Edwards Stadium) for BYU home football games, died in the early 1990s from ALS. My father died in 1997, and Afton and Merle both died sometime later.


I can remember visiting Aunt Merle, Aunt Afton, and Uncle Kenner many times on family vacations as I was growing up; in fact, it seemed like all we did on vacations was to visit relatives, which often wasn't what I'd call a good time (in part because most of my cousins were older). I'm sorry to say I didn't maintain very close contact with my aunts and uncles when I reached adulthood, and I only rarely see any of my cousins on my dad's side. However, the family came from good Mormon pioneer stock, despite my grandfather's being the black sheep of his family.