I was born in 10/21/1924 five miles west of Corydon, Iowa. I was the 11th child out of 12; there are 3 of us left. Siblings. 9, 11 and 12. I have been to a lot of funerals. My father was from a German family which migrated to America in 1730.
The original spelling was Griershimer. It changed to Griesemer in 1730. My branch changed it to Grisamore in 1800 in Indiana. My Dad and siblings changed it to Grismore in 1900. All three spelling can be found in America now.
My mother was a Bussey and her mother was Bowlby. They were both English and Irish.
We moved to town when I was 2 years old. Dad could not survive on the farm in the oncoming depression the hit the country in 1929. He went to town and started repairing and then later selling sewing machines.
I went to the Corydon School System where I was a very good student. When I was 11 years old I contracted scarlet fever. I had it so bad that I was paralyzed in my legs for 6 months. I laid out in the yard on those hot summer nights of 1936. I was awed by the stars while I was recovering. The stars would be my lifetime interest. I recovered from the paralysis and ran the 100 yard dash in the fastest time when I was in JR. High.
I graduated from Corydon High School and in 6 weeks I was in the US Army. Training was at Fort Mcclellan Alabama. After training (due to my aptitude test) I was transferred to the Headquarters Company keeping statistics for the fort. I served in that capacity for a year. I met Virginia Rice (we later married after the war) during that year. She was from Anniston, Ala.
I went to Europe in Sept. 1944 and in in windup of the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle for Germany. I was a truck driver then. A horrible thing about the war were the concentration camps we liberated.. The holocaust was inhumanity at its worst.
The trucks (I was a driver) moved the holocaust victims out of harms way. The victims were like zombies. A man would weigh much less than 100 pounds. If a victim would fall he didn't express any pain upon lifting him up, he didn't express any gratitude either. Some of the victims were numb to all that went on around him. It was not uncommon for us to get the victims back to a safe haven and find that one or more of them were dead. They were that far gone. While witnessing some the concentration camps we could see mounds of ashes which we reasoned were the ashes of the victims. I have read that there were 6 million Jews and 7 million Gypsies who were victims of the holocaust. Such cruelty. I wonder why we hear little of the Gypsies?..
We were the first unit to link up with the Russians on the Elbe River near Leipzig. The war with Germany was over in about a week.. I was transferred to the North Coast of Germany and then to Frankfort. I was in the Army of Occupation for another year attached to the Message Center.
After arriving home I enrolled at Bradley U. in Peoria, Ill. to take watch making and jewelry repair. I was there for about a year and a half and married Virginia Lynn Rice. After my schooling I repaired watches and jewelry. In a few years Virginia and I opened and owned (Grismore Jewelry) in Seymour, Iowa. After 11 years we moved (Grismore Jewelry) to Centerville, Iowa.
We have two children. John Richard (Rick) b 1951 and Carol b. 1959
I became interested in genealogy. I traveled, checked courthouses, cemeteries, family records and built up a vast array of Grismore Genealogy. I self published a book in 1958. Today I have 10,000 names of Grismores and their related surnames. I have them on a computer program called (Family Gathering)
We retired from the store in 1989. I had a massive stroke in 1994. I was paralyzed on my entire right side. I lost my speech. Within 6 months and with careful but persistent work by the therapists, I was able to walk with a walker and talk with some (not bad) hesitation. I can carry on a vigorous (with some hesitations) conversation now. And that is where I am now.
Without my wife (of 53 yrs) , my family and friends and the big man upstairs I wouldn't have it so good. I am lucky.
SOME TID BITS
I am 6 feet tall and weigh 185
pounds
My favorite food is FOOD
My favorite pie is pumpkin
My favorite meat is swiss and minute
steak
My favorite drink is coffee, cocoa
and milk
My favorite vegetable is green
beans
My favorite fruit is apple
My favorite bird is a robin
My favorite dog is a collie
My favorite people are my Family
I have always had a shy personality
My past times are, Astronomy, Archeology, Anthropology and Genealogy. Astronomy is my life long favorite. I have three telescopes and before my stroke I had backyard star parties. I gave 15 and 20 minute talks to groups around the area. I helped out at school by explaining the motions of the stars and planets and showing eclipses in real time. Even today people come to me for explanations on this, that or the other.
I write poetry and short stories.
I am a member of the Methodist
Church.
As of 10/21/2000 I will be
76 yrs old.
John R. Grismore. .
John Grismore's
son, John Richard(14) Grismore, aka Rick Grismore. Rick started working
for Phillips Petroleum in 1973. He is a senior
geoscientist working in the computer department. He and a colleague
have spent the past 2 years working on the Seismitarium. In an article
from the Phillips
web site the Seismitarium is described as:
"A computer technique used to "carve" seismic data and project it onto a concave screen. The tool allows geoscientists to examine data from the point of view of a drill bit."
Rick and his colleague have invented a program for the Seismitarium and have a patent for it. John has a copy of the patent that Rick sent to him, as does the US Patent office for ever and ever... There are several patents to go, but apparently things look good! (Of course, since Rick is working for them, Phillips own the patent.)
Virginia/West Virginia lineage of
Mary Ann Bowlby.
Lineage
James Bowlby(8) b. 1765 in N.J.
d. 1842 in Monongahela Co. Virginia. he married Lydia Carhart b. 1769
in N.J.
Their son was:
John Herod Bowlby(9) b. 1798 near
Morgantown, Monongeahela Co., Virginia. He died in Monongahela Co.,
Virginia. He married Elizabeth B. b 1802 in Green Co., Pa.
Their son was:
James P. Bowlby(10) b. 1828
in Monongahela Co., Virginia. he died in 1885 in Mt. Morris, Green Co.,
Pa. he married Irene Boyles.b. Tarrytown, Green Co., Pa.
their daughter was:
Mary Ann Bowlby(11) b. 1852 in
Mt. Morris, Green Co., Pa.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Mary
Ann (my grandmother) and her recollections of the Civil War
You will notice by a map of Pa. and Virginia/ West Virginia that Green Co. Pa. and Monongahela Co., West Virginia are across the state lines from each other. Mt. Morris, Pa. and Morgantown, West Virginia are 20 or 30 miles apart. Green County is the most southwestern county in Pa.
The Bowlbys settled in Monongahela Co, Virginia and James P. and some of his brothers relocated in Green Co., Pa. before 1850. Some stayed in Virginia.
In 1861 the secession started. The Southern States seceded from the Union. They formed the Confederate States of America. The Union Government had debated over slavery and the Southern States said that that was for the State to decide or States Rights. And so, the conflagration started to settle that matter.
But of course these arguments were not important to Little Mary Ann Bowlby. She was only nine years old and she could not understand such things. She had Uncles, Aunts and Cousins near Morgantown just 20 or 30 miles away. Some of then even nearer. Mary Ann leaned that she was in Pa. and some of her cousins were in Virginia.
Mary Ann had been going to family reunions, family gatherings and community celebrations. Little Mary Ann was a happy child with her cousins and friends.
But now, things were different. She could tell when she went to town
to Mt. Morris that there was a lot of arguing. Her father was not
the right age to join the conflict but he could raise the crops, a garden
and the farm animals. Mary Ann noticed that they did not go to Morgantown
any more. Her father did go from time to time to visit his brothers
but that was usually under the cover of darkness.
He did not always agree with his
brothers. Her mother worried while he was away.
Her mother worried quite a lot because of the war..
Mary Ann recalls that there were times when there was peace and there were times when her parents worried a lot. (I suppose it was the ebb and flow of the battles.) She recalls that when the Rebs (Rebels) came around, her mother would often hide the kids in the cellar. They always let the Rebs have anything they wanted. Some were kind and some were not. Her father worried that if he put up a fuss the Rebs would take it out on his brothers in Virginia.
Mary Ann recalls that the Yankees were no better. They accused her father of being sympathetic to the rebellion. Mary Ann recalls that her parents had a thin line to draw. Mt. Morris was just 15 miles away from Virginia/West Virginia. The western part of Virginia became West Virginia in 1863.
Sometimes her parents were siding with the Rebs and sometimes they sided with the Yankees. They had relation all over the place and they did not want any of their Kin getting hurt.
How did Mary Ann remember the Civil War? A smile whenever a soldier was around, be his pants Grey or Blue Mary Ann and her siblings would smile at them approvingly... Sometimes her mother would scoot them off to the cellar for hiding. That was when her dad was having trouble with the soldiers.
The soldiers on both sides would bargain with her dad for food, horses or whatever they needed that he could supply. And he supplied to both sides. But there were those on both sides who took whatever they wanted and put the family under duress.
I do not know if there were any battles where Mary Ann lived but there sure was a lot of troop movement. One day her mother scooted the children off to the cellar. After a while a soldier wanted to look there. He started for the door to the cellar and her mother called out to the soldier and told him not to hurt the children. He opened the door to the cellar and saw the scared kids. He told them not to be afraid. Then he closed the door and left. Her mother was relieved.
Mary Ann was 13 years old when the war was over. She remembers those 4 years as sometimes scary. She was deprived of seeing her cousins near Morgantown. She saw her parents agreeing with everybody they could. You never knew which side a person was on - probably the side who had soldiers in the area at the time. She related to my mother, Jennie (Bussey) Grismore, that it was the only way to survive, and if you had children it was a must.
And then the war was over. There were still some arguments around town but the freedom to move was much easier. Mary Ann could see her cousins again. In another year they would have a family reunion. They all were happy with that.
When Mary Ann was 17 years old in 1869 she married that handsome David Bussey of Mt. Morris. He had his own Civil War recollections to tell. In a year (1870) she followed David and his cousins to Iowa. Mary Ann did not see a Bowlby after that but she wrote to her parents and siblings and cousins about once a month. In 1872 her first child (Benjamin. Bussey) was born.
She never forgot the years 1861-1865 and related them over and over to her children.
Note:
As I said, this story is undocumented
as is the oral recollections of Mary Ann as told to my mother years
later.
There's an old Mid-Western custom called The Shivaree. It involves serenading newlyweds. This could be a nice thing and I am sure that in some cases it was. I am sure serenading was a romantic occurrence for the newlyweds just so it wasn't too long.
The Mid-West was a pioneer area and things didn't always follow a plan. Somebody thought that serenading was not enough. Devilment got involved with the serenading. until the devilment became the norm.
I will tell you how Shivaree-ing went for my brother, Ben.:
The ceremony was in the afternoon when Ben and Beth tied the knot. After eating their supper out they went to their apartment. At an early bedtime they heard a knock (it was more like a banging) at their front door. That wasn't the time for company. They opened the door and 3 or 4 young men came right in. It was planned by Harry Hibbs, a friend of the pair.
The young men grabbed Bennie and pulled him outside toward a car. It was a new Tin Lizzie a Model T Ford. They lifted Bennie up on the hood and tied him there on his stomach head first like a hood ornament. Harry said to Beth , if he lives though this, we'll bring him back.
They drove to the square with Bennie securely tied to the hood and drove around and around for everybody to see. And it was a sight. Harry thought, "that's not enough", so they went down to the reservoir which was a half mile away and they untied Bennie and took him to the water edge. Harry said, this might be your wedding day but we'll cool you off.
With that they dunked his head under the water and held it there till they could see bubbles floating to the top. Reluctantly they had to let him up. They drove him back to his apartment on the hood of course, and said to Beth, "Here he is!" He was wet and cold and shivering and Harry said he won't be any good until tomorrow. Then Ben and Beth gave them some treats. Milky Ways I think it was.
And that's how The Shivaree became in the Mid-West.
Neat don't you think?
Well John, all I can say is that I'm glad my 4 brothers' - in - law didn't get a chance to know this story 20 years ago!!!