Week 9: Disaster
Disaster: such a cheery topic! My ancestors certainly did face their fair share of disasters--if one line of inquiry is to be believed, an ancestor was on the losing side at the Battle of Barnet; he was killed and then his body exposed for three days to be eaten by the local carrion fowl. That would have been on the Prewitt side--as a group they (we) are prone to picking the losing side in whatever conflict we are participating in.
More recently, on the Belknap side, we have Moses Case, a member of the Continental Army. He managed to die in August of 1776, possibly of small pox. He left behind a letter to his wife, which she produced as evidence when claiming the pension Congress had voted to widows and veterans of the Revolutionary War. This letter mocked the "lying Tories" who, he said, claimed that Small Pox was abroad in Montreal where he was headed. Clearly a ruse to keep the Americans away, he thought. Ah well. His widow apparently did get the money, albeit rather late in the game.
And, finally, we have my grandfather, Melvin Belknap, who was killed in a sawmill accident in 1936. As the story came to me, he was unemployed for over a year (remember, this was the Depression) and this was his first job maybe? Unfortunately, he did something that he, as foreman, had told his men not to do. I will spare you the details: it was fatal and my grandmother thus became one of the earliest beneficiaries of the death benefit of Workmen's Compensation in Washington state. This program is administered by the Department of Labor and Industries where I worked for three summers as a college student in the 1970s. The second summer we actually spent time in the department's archives but I, not thinking, never looked for my grandfather's claim. It's probably still stored somewhere, at least digitally. I hope.
There've been other disasters and mishaps that changed the course of lives but I think that's enough for now. There will be other opportunities to talk about them I expect.
More recently, on the Belknap side, we have Moses Case, a member of the Continental Army. He managed to die in August of 1776, possibly of small pox. He left behind a letter to his wife, which she produced as evidence when claiming the pension Congress had voted to widows and veterans of the Revolutionary War. This letter mocked the "lying Tories" who, he said, claimed that Small Pox was abroad in Montreal where he was headed. Clearly a ruse to keep the Americans away, he thought. Ah well. His widow apparently did get the money, albeit rather late in the game.
And, finally, we have my grandfather, Melvin Belknap, who was killed in a sawmill accident in 1936. As the story came to me, he was unemployed for over a year (remember, this was the Depression) and this was his first job maybe? Unfortunately, he did something that he, as foreman, had told his men not to do. I will spare you the details: it was fatal and my grandmother thus became one of the earliest beneficiaries of the death benefit of Workmen's Compensation in Washington state. This program is administered by the Department of Labor and Industries where I worked for three summers as a college student in the 1970s. The second summer we actually spent time in the department's archives but I, not thinking, never looked for my grandfather's claim. It's probably still stored somewhere, at least digitally. I hope.
There've been other disasters and mishaps that changed the course of lives but I think that's enough for now. There will be other opportunities to talk about them I expect.
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