Things about my family that my grandchildren should know.” Series …. Part 2

Figured my dad would be next … as I think my mother’s will be longer..

F. Gilbert (also called Gub by some friends) was born on a small island in R.I. called Jamestown. His parents are Aaron R and Harriet R.

F. G.  was brought up with a very loving woman. Harriet.

F.G. grew up on the island helping his parent with his brothers and sister, when they had the John Carr Watson Farm.  Aaron ran a stable out of there before cars. Then they moved into town, built or bought a gas station with a store.. with stairs on the outside leading to the living quarters above. F. G. would ride his bicycle down those stairs much to his mother’s horror..  His aunt who ran the post office across the street would see him come down.. many a times head over heels.  Later the family with the oldest brother built a garage to join it and evidently it because a Ford dealership.  

F.G. finished the 8^th grade.  Even tho he professed to going to high school…. My aunt, his sister told me many years later, that yes, he went TO high school..  meaning TO was the operative word… she said he would go every morning to drop off his girlfriends… and go back every afternoon to pick them up..  He was working for his father at the time.. and went to work early on his motorcycle,(on the ferry) pick up one of the cars, make the rounds to all the girls houses, and took them to school.. before his father came to the office.  And then found a car he was working on, to make a test run to make sure it was fixed.. and picked up the girls and give them rides home..  That must have been quite a trip to get his work done in time to test it.. must not have been daily. And I imagine there wasn’t much going on during the winter.

While F. G. worked for his father in Middletown for a while. At another Ford dealship.  The only way to get back and forth between Jamestown and Middletown (joined by Newport) was a ferry that went back and forth every half hour until about 11 or midnight.   FG rode a Indian motorcycle  to work each day on the ferry..  And some times after partying, he would fly down the landing and jump the motorcycle on to the ferry end.  After several of these and some other trying the same.. the ferry captain had a chain put across the end…  Luckily F.G.  heard about it.. or saw it on this way to work..  and never got caught into it.

I rode the ferry many times and saw the chain, it wasn’t until F.G.’s sister told me why it was put up there.. I thought it was so the cars didn’t fall off the end.

F.G. married a woman and they had a daughter.. then later met Mary Elizabeth while working on a horse truck. 

During World War II, he went to work for the torpedo station, and then transferring to the Navy Seals building in Quonset after the war. He worked for over 30 years for the government. 

While he loved horses, he had no where near the love that Mary Elizabeth had, so he tolerated shows over the years.. but he did get into Hackney ponies after he retired. He also had a creative side too..  he loved to carve wood.. he made many of bowls, wooden spoons, (I still have mine) and also some primitive faces in rock as well as wood.. somewhere there is a totem pole about 2 feet high, with all sorts of faces.  Animal as well as humans.   He could fix just about anything…. And was a hell of a mechanic… he was one of the few that could listen to an engine and know what was wrong with it.. and could fix it. 

And he was the best Dad… needless to say my brother and I could along with Dad most of the time.. he inherited his mothers calmness.. But don’t get me wrong.. he could be hard to deal with .. if he got mad..

I named one of my son’s after him.. he even got his nickname from him.. which of course is not used now.

Tomorrow… my mother…