Loren Wilkerson, World War Two veteran

This year’s celebration of Low Moor Days included a parade that included three World War Two veterans as grand marshals. That man in the middle is my father-in-law, Loren Wilkerson.

Loren served in the Navy on the Cape Esperance in the South Pacific, including the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. It was on that ship that he and the crew encountered one of the Pacific’s typhoons. He doesn’t talk about that storm much, other than to say he was mighty scared.

Loren Wilkerson c. 1944 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Born in 1925, Loren was just a young guy all of the age of 19 when he joined the Navy.  As the oldest of 10 children he had been making his way on his own for many years, but going to war and being thousands of miles from dry land had to be somewhat of a culture shock.

Loren Wilkerson 1943

I am proud of all the veterans in our family, and whenever I have an opportunity to meet a vet outside of our family, I make it a point to say “thank you”. That’s what they did in Low Moor this July, the whole town said “thank you” to these three men. Good for them!

iPentimento is part of Liz Strauss’ Blog-To this weekend! Liz describes it as kind of a auto show for blogs. Looking at the early numbers for participants I think it is going to be a whopping good show. Successful Blog is Liz’s personal blog, and one of the best online for teaching you how to promote your blog. Now, if this was the 1960’s we would be havin’ a happenin’ blog show, or a Blog-In.

Blog-to Show? Showcase Your Blog at Successful-Blog July 26-27

If you happened here for a visit (thank you!), you might want to read some of my earlier posts such as:

Get Your Kids Interested In Genealogy Early

Enrich Your Reunion With Life Stories

How To Do A Genealogical Interview

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First of all, this document shows that Thomas Bordeaux had become a naturalized citizen of the United States prior to 1921. In the section above, also gives the name of Thomas’ wife as Sarah Ester, even though in other records I have she is called Essie. Getting her full name, date of birth and that location are definite pluses. It also shows that in 1921 Thomas and his wife were living in Seattle, King County, Washington and in Shelton as they had been for many years.

Why would they live in two places? Because Thomas was the President of where Shelton is located, but he was also a very wealthy (in his time) lumberman and no doubt he had to entertain according to his station in life. Doing so in Seattle would have been easier than in Shelton, a much smaller town.

This next section might be a little hard to read, but it gives a very important clue as to where exactly he was born which was St. Isidore, Quebec, Canada. While it is not proof of it, it also gives the family researcher a good bet that Thomas’ siblings, Joseph, Virginia and Gilbert were probably born there, or near there too. The next gem of information is Thomas’ father’s first name: Theophile. Having that makes it that much easier to find the family in Canada. We know from this document that Theophile died before 1921.

Next, we see that Thomas states he sailed from Montreal to the United States in 1870. It is unknown if it was a short sailing and most of the trip thereafter might have been overland, but it pinpoints the year, and having the knowledge of that date, it qualifies Thomas as a Washington State Pioneer.

The next tidbit of information Thomas’ passport application gives us is that he was naturalized as a United States citizen in Olympia, Thurston, WA Superior Court on 19 July 1892.

The bottom section of this document states that his permanent address is in Seattle, that he in fact was a Lumberman, and that they would be sailing on the ship Imperator on April 25, 1921. (I sure hope he got his passport in time! ) It looks like they had a very extensive cruise planned that must have cost a good amount of money, even in 1921.  Is this what they would have considered a “Grand Tour” in the day?

To me, the icing on the cake was finding one last and unexpected item on the document. It shows up on the facing page and here it is…. A lovely little photo of Sarah Ester Webb Bordeaux, Thomas’ second wife. While the Bordeaux family might have other photos with her in them, generations down the line might not know who she was if the photos don’t get labeled.

Have you enjoyed this article? Please leave a comment if you liked it.

Thanks! Also, please visit my other blog Pentimento for a little lighthearted doodle week art.

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Here is a list of my Entrecard Top Droppers from the last 30 days. Thanks very much to you all! Please give them a visit, a Stumble, a drop, or anything else that will help promote their sites.

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Patricia’s blog is Communication Exchange. Make sure you give her a visit and drop a comment or two while you’re at it.

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