Longevity and Travel
Once again I'm going to combine two weekly hints into one post.
My Grandfather Wilton Tisdale Booksh is the subject. He was born 7 February 1886 in Grosse Tete, Louisiana, son of Samuel Walker Booksh (1853-1930) and Arabella Maria Tisdale (1855-1934). He died at age 99 on 9 June 1985 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was my longest living ancestor.
 |
| Wilton Tisdale Booksh Sr. with his two sons, Wilton Jr. and William, 1913 |
 |
| Vera Booksh with Grandpa Booksh in 1941 |
He was also my most well-traveled Grandparent. He was a sugar chemist and worked at sugar mills in Louisiana and Florida as well as in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guatemala and Honduras. He definitely gave me my desire to travel.
I remember the postcards he would send me with pictures of Aztec and Mayan ruins and the stories he would tell me that made me want to learn more about those cultures. He taught me how to count in Spanish and my first Spanish sentence, Yo quiero helado - I want ice cream. Many years later I ended up studying Spanish and majoring in Anthropology and Art.
Grandpa continued to work as a sugar chemist into his 80's, in Louisiana in the fall and traveling in the spring "to the tropics" as he always said, for their sugar season. I remember visiting him at the Cedar Grove Sugar Mill.
I remember Grandpa telling me about the September 1928 Hurricane that struck when he was working at Belle Glade in Florida. He said he weathered the storm in his lab and watched people being blown past the windows. He told me about the snow storm that struck New Orleans in 1895. He had stories about his Great Grandfather Honore Leonard who fought in the Battle of New Orleans and said his mother had told him we were related to Benjamin Franklin. He said he told Louisiana Power and Light about that but they still wouldn't give him free electricity. And when I started doing genealogy I found out the story was true.
Around 1910 Grandpa built his own roll film camera and he took lots of photos. I remember sitting and looking at his old photo albums and listening to stories about all the photos he took.
I remember going to a Booksh Family Reunion in Grosse Tete with my parents and him and meeting a lot of the people he had told me about. He made my genealogy come to life for me.
 |
| William Booksh and Wilton Booksh Jr. with their maid in Cuba, c1917 |
One story that Grandpa and my Daddy, Wilton Jr., told me was about when rebels attacked the sugar plantation where Grandpa was working. Daddy remembered the sugar mill and the house where they were living and riding in an ox cart to escape. "The ox wouldn't go, so the driver tied a knot in his tail and jerked on it to make him go. It might have been in Honduras. They were always having revolutions in the tropics. At one place the revolutionaries came and told us to leave because they were going to burn everything down. We got out with the clothes on our backs and watched all the houses burning." I think of that story whenever I hear someone say "I'm gonna jerk a knt in your tail."
I found a newspaper article from June 4, 1923 that may have been about that experience. Titled HONDURAS REVOLT REPORTED BREWING, it said:
"The arrival today from Honduras of persons fleeing because they believe a revolution is impending again, is attracting attention in the Central American republic. On the same steamer with the family of Wilton Booksh, a sugar engineer in Honduras, who sent his wife and children here for safety, were several Hondurans reported interested in the election of a successor to President Lopez Guiterrez. Booksh advised his father here ten days ago that the country was on the brink of civil war with the factions only awaiting the command fro m their leaders, and that he would send his family to New Orleans util the trouble blew over. His wife and children debarked today..."
Another article I found later was about their earlier escape from Jobabo Plantation in Cuba in March 1917:
AMERICANS FLEE CUBA
Tell of Destruction of Much Property at Jobabo
NEW ORLEANS, March 26 - There arrived today on the Turrialba of the United Fruit Line a sorry company of refugees from the Jobabo sugar plantation, situated on the border line of Camaguey and the Oriente Provinces in Cuba. They had a story of maltreatment and devastion to tell at the hands of the rebel bands roaming through that country. The losses to the property in question are already $1,000,000 in burned cane alone, while the losses in buildings burned, houses sacked and burned, and property of Americans carried off by the bandits total at least $55,000.
The event they described occurred between Feb. 3 and March 18. They had been cut off for thirty-three days from all communication with the outside world.
The party on the Turrialba consisted of Hunting Raynor Sayre, factory superintendent of the Jobabo mill, and his wife; Joseph Steinberg, chief chemist, a Russian; Wilton Booksh, American, assistant chemist; his wife, and three little children...
Another longer article in the Times-Picayune the next day, titled REFUGEES RELATE STORY OF RAPINE, had more details:
"...Two ox carts were at last allowed them for the women and children, the men following on foot. They set out in the morning but it was night before they could make the ten miles to the nearest plantation, where they received shelter. The Americans lost all their possessions except what they stored up. Mrs. Sayers says that the nervous strain on the women was awful. As for herself, she was not afraid to die. Her husband and herself each had secreted a pistol and they were determined some of the scoundrels should suffer if they themsleves weere to be killed like dogs..."
No comments:
Post a Comment