ROOTS °
HONOR YOUR PARENTS, GRANDPARENTS, AND BEYOND! Send in your roots.
Send pix of your parents, grandparents, and beyond. See below for those we have so far.
*Quiz: Born in Java? Relative murdered in Wild West? Is Greek? Father two-timed? Mother born Bolivia? Captured by Pancho Villa? Ancestors came with William Penn?
*Katie Knowles:
Mother: Josephine Rebecca Knotts, born April 8, 1906 I believe in Southern California. She grew up in Mexico where she
met my father when she was three, he four. She got her BA from UCLA and her PhD in Psychology from Stanford and helped develop the Stanford Binet IQ test under Lewis Terman. She taught
herself accounting and became the accountant for the company my father started. Her mother's uncle was kidnapped for ransom by Pancho Villa.
Father: Hugh Shaler Knowles, whose family arrived on Cape Cod in 1622, was born in Hines, Iowa, Sept 23, 1904. Grew up in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. Graduated from high school
at 14, ran away to sea as a radio operator and later earned his way through Columbia Univ. shoveling coal. When I was born he was VP of Zenith, but when I was
nine he started his own company which later became Knowles Electronics, dominated world market for miniature hearing aid microphones. Had 50 patents in that field. His microphone
was on the moon, on Mars, and in Watergate. On his deathbed his one regret was not having spent more time with his children.
Me: born July 15, 1941, in Oak Park. Older sister, Margaret, and deceased older brother, James Edward. We lived in River Forest until
we moved to Glen Ellyn when I was nine. I was a latchkey child when there wasn’t a word for it because mothers did not work in the 1950s.
I went to Stanford and majored in German and French. In 1965 I married Keith Robert Bentz, a teaching assistant at Stanford; divorced in 1967. In 1969 I married Paul Arthur Strasburg,
also a Stanford graduate, with a PhD from Princeton. We lived in NYC for fifteen years where he worked for Ford Foundation and Vera Institute of Justice and later served Mayor Koch
as Commissioner of Juvenile Justice. We spent two years in Paris from 77-79 where he worked for French Ministry of Justice. In 1982 we returned to CA, where he directed Volunteers in Asia
at Stanford and started International Development Exchange. We divorced in 1991. We have two children: Gregory who is 38 and unmarried and Laura who is 42, and divorced with two children: Kyle, 21,
and Brooke ,16. I now live in Laguna Beach, CA near my daughter and grandchildren. I taught German and French in high school, stayed home when the children were young
and founded my own nonprofit in 1994, Healing Environments. It has brought me great joy to bring support to those with
life-threatening illness and comfort to those who are left bereaved.
DNA: not yet.
Long Form: Click here. Includes Pancho Villa.
° MORE ROOTS °
*Homeland: In honor of Cliff's forebearers here's a link to an article about one of its islands. Send us/honor your roots, and we'll look for similar links. Chios.
*Margie Shaw:
Mother: Agnes Louise Wagenknecht (1904-1992), born Chicago but moved as a child to Oak Park. A classmate
at Oak Park High was McDonald's founder Ray Kroc (who paid for the 50th reunion). Ernest Hemingway was a few years ahead of her. After OPHS, she worked at Cracker Jack as a
stenographer (shorthand). Her parents emigrated from Germany and Czechoslovakia.
Father: John Christie Shaw (1901-1955), emigrated from Scotland in his early twenties, took a job at Sears, rented a room in
my grandmother’s house in Oak Park. "The rest is history” -- Not so fast! He had a fiancée back in Scotland who decided to make a surprise visit. She wanted to look her best, so first
went to a local hair salon. My mother was having her hair done there also and overheard the fiancée's plan. The Scottish brogue and her reference to “John” made it easy to put two and
two together. My mother forgave the two-timing, but the fiancée did not. Back in Scotland she sued Daddy for breach of promise.
Me: My parents rented in Maywood where my older sisters Mary and Joan were born. In 1937 they bought a foreclosed house in Lombard for a little over $7,000. I was born there and spent my entire elementary, high school, and college years there. In 1967 my mother sold the house to Mary (and husband Jerry Giesler) who made wonderful additions and restorations. In 2000, after 63 years in the family, the house was sold. 334 N. Charlotte St. holds so many memories, both happy and sad, I make a point of driving by every five years during our reunion. Delighted to report the new owners have taken good care of it. Ditto grandmother’s house in Oak Park, now over 100 years old.
DNA: not by me; but by my sister Joan. No alarming family secrets, but it did detect an unusual gene in our Cave Man ancestors. Joan says the gene
proves our family is exceptionally highly evolved. Maybe that's why I never got my wisdom teeth.
° STILL MORE
* Come on Down! We need links to: Asia, Italy, Africa, South Pacific, Middle East -- and many more! Send us/honor your roots.
*Teun Schoolwerth:
Mother: Helene Jeanette Johanna (Leni), née van der Hoeven. She was born in Nijmegen, eastern part of
the Netherlands. Her mother and grandmother were also Dutch. My mother’s father was a family physician in a small town near Nijmegen. Family goes
back many centuries. My parents met at the U of Utrecht, she as a pharmacy student, he in dental school.
Father: Anton Schoolwerth, born Rotterdam, as was his father Anton H.C. Schoolwerth. His mother, Maria Anna Bernardina de man Lapidoth, was born in the Netherlands, as were her family members back generations; de man Lapidoth (husband of Deborah, Judges 4:6–7) is a name from the Old Testament, so the family likely has Jewish origins. My parents married 1935, upon dad's graduation. Spent a year in Chicago
where he received a D.D.S. from then Chicago College of Dental Surgery. Thereafter, joined his parents and sister on the island of Java, part of the Dutch East Indies colony. I was
born in the eastern city of Surabaya, three weeks before Pearl Harbor. Since father and grandfather were both named Anton, I was
called Teun, a Dutch nickname. Never forgave my parents, as Teun cannot be pronounced correctly by English-speakers; became Turn, even though there's no “r”. ~~ March, 1942,
after a harrowing train trip across Java, mother and I joined father, now in the Dutch army. We escaped on the last plane out of Java before island was captured by the Japanese. We
crash landed in NW Australia. We then traveled to and spent a year in Jackson, MS (at a Dutch air base/flying school!) before returning to South Pacific. Mother and I
lived in Australia while dad served as liaison officer to the American military. After the War, since Dutch were no longer welcome in what had become Indonesia, my parents
decided to emigrate to Chicago. a familiar location, and they chose Glen Ellyn on a recommendation from a Dutch dentist colleague.
Me: we arrived fall 1947, and I began my education at Hawthorne School.
DNA: yes, but results not useful.
___________________
Note to classmates: Please prepare your roots in above format and at above length (Short Format or SF).
Send to glenbard59@gmail.com.
If you'd like to prepare something longer as well, do so! That's the Long Format or LF and can be as long as you want, in the style you
want. We don't have enough room on this page for LFs, but we'll put yours up in the website files and then put a link to it in your SF. But send
LF in a separate email. To those who want LF -- more power to you!).
SF = short format, shown here.
LF = long format, click on link (if exists) at end of SF to see.
Here's link to current LF page.
SF = short format, shown here.
LF = long format, click on link (if exists) at end of SF to see.
