The photo on the next page of Dad’s album is this one, of his grandfather, William Perkins Wright. I imagine this photo was taken in Chicago, but I don’t know when. He looks to me like he’s in his late 50s or 60s here, so that would date the photo maybe between 1900, when he was 57, and 1912 when he passed away at age 69.
William Perkins Wright was born January 27, 1843, in Bristol, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia). He was the fourth child and fourth son of John Jay Wright and Charlotte Green (Scattergood) Wright. He was named after the Rev. William S. Perkins, the minister who performed his parents’ marriage ceremony at St. James the Greater Church in Bristol.
He grew up in the Detroit, Michigan area, where his father was a merchant, postmaster (in the community of Wayne) and bookkeeper. When he was 11, his mother passed away in connection with the birth of her seventh child. (The child, John Ingersoll, survived, but died two months later.) William’s father remarried soon after, but his second wife passed away just seven years later, when William was 19.
Three of William’s brothers fought for the Union in the Civil War, two older and one younger. The oldest of the three, Robert Edgar, fell sick and deserted. The next, James Callendar Irvine (who apparently went by C.I. or Irvine), was wounded but remained in the army for most of the war, and was honorably discharged. (Later in life he had a long-term letter-writing relationship with his grandnephew, and apparent namesake, our Uncle Irvine.) The younger brother, Alfred Lee, enlisted late in the war (1864), survived it, but reportedly died of Civil War wounds in 1874, at age 29.
By 1871 William was in Louisville, Kentucky, where he married Angeline Hawkins. Four children were born to them there: William James (Will), our grandfather John Edwin, Clay Lloyd, and Charlotte Mary (Lottie).
In 1880 William moved the family to Chicago, where he was a clerk for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad. Four more children were born in Chicago: Richard Hawkins, Sarah May (who went by May), Thomas, and Persis Helen.
Two things are passed down in family lore about William. One, he earned a reputation as “the human adding machine” for his ability to do arithmetic calculations quickly in his head. The other, he was a strict and harsh disciplinarian—so harsh, in fact, that Clay Lloyd, about ten years old and facing discipline when his father returned home from work, ran away instead and was never heard from again (as was mentioned previously).
I don’t think Dad could have had any memories of this grandfather. It seems likely that the marriage of Gerrit Hulshof and Lottie Wright in January 1906 was the only event where they might have met, and Dad was just two months old then. Irvine would have been just a bit over three so he might have remembered something of that event. But this assumes William and Angie traveled to White Lake for the wedding. It seems likely that they would have, but I have no information about that.
About 1908 John and Minnie moved west to Tripp County, South Dakota, to help Anna Hulshof get established on her homestead. Dad’s earliest memories are from this period. It seems likely that Dad didn’t ever see even his Hulshof grandparents again after this move (and so may have had no memory of them). I suppose it’s possible Evert and Willemina came to Tripp County for a visit sometime before John and Minnie moved to Seattle in late 1909. But almost certainly they did not see each other after that.
I’m not aware that any family (let alone grandparents) visited John and Minnie during their time in Alberta—which is hardly surprising. By the time they (Grandma and the kids) moved back to the US in 1922, their Grandpa Wright and Grandma Hulshof had passed away (in 1912 and 1917, respectively). Their Grandpa Hulshof passed away the next year (1923), so there was no opportunity to see him.
It is remotely possible that their Grandma Angie Wright came west for a visit before she passed away in 1928, but I’m not aware of any record of such a visit. If the picture of Will and Richard and their families was taken in Washington, as I suspect, then she had come west for a visit in the 1914 time frame.
But I’m going to guess the siblings didn’t see any of their grandparents after 1908 (when Dad was three). So aside from letters (I assume there were letters to the family, if not to individual children), they didn’t really get a chance to have grandparents.