Generational Archives: Uncle Francis
Our first full episode has launched and it focuses on Uncle Francis.
Here’s the summary: “In this episode, we, Dr. Raina J. León and Dr. Norma D. Thomas, introduce ourselves as collaborative creatives, scholars, and archivists. We share an introduction to Uncle Francis through a discussion of the documents and methods we've used to learn more about him. He was a poet, musician, and vocalist, like his mother, aunt, sister and many others in the family, but he died young during the 1947 TB epidemic that struck much of the United States and especially Uniontown and Western PA. In that epidemic, there was another member of our family, a barely one year old cousin of Francis who died. Her sister, just a few years older, lost a lung but survived. In this episode, though, we celebrate Francis, what we were able to learn about him, his wife, and his life while also perhaps inspiring listeners to listen, investigate, document, and learn more about the past to root themselves and cast healing and hope into the future.
Cover photo from Rohan DaCosta
Cover art from Dr. Raina J. León
Theme song, Funky Percussions, from AudioCoffee on Pixabay
Transcript from supported by Descript and available here.
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Uncle Francis’ continues to be fascinating to me. Considering what we are learning about creative and performance histories with my great-grandmother, Alverta, and her sister, Aunt Doris, I wouldn’t be surprised if Francis’s name might appear in some newspapers in which Aunt Doris, who had a very illustrious career, is featured. There are several papers that recount her name, primarily in musical comedy productions. Now that I am thinking more and more, I am thinking that a way to find out more about Uncle Francis might be to look closer into the newspaper cutouts that we have for Aunt Doris.
Uncle Francis died at only 25, but in that time, we have two pictures of that indicate him as a performer, one at a mic and another at piano. We know that he also, at one point, lived very close to New York in New Jersey, with the occupation listed as a waiter. I’m wondering if he was a waiter in a performing venue … as many performers in the New York area are.
We were also able to find him on a census record but not the previous, because it’s clear that he was born and raised, at least until he was 6 or so in New York, but it’s only recently that Mami realized that his father (my great-grandfather) had family in New York. That might be where we can continue the search for more information about him: looking at address directories for my great-grandfather’s siblings. At least then, we might be able to get a sense of where Uncle Francis was raised until he returned to Uniontown, which would confirm part of the story that we knew: that he was born in New York and when his mother, my great-grandmother returned it wasn’t until many years later, after she had more children, that all of a sudden their older brother, Uncle Francis, appeared. The younger children actually didn’t know that they had an older brother until he appeared one day as the story goes.
But why and how do we find out perhaps some of the reasons?
Some approaches that I would take would be to look at the history (What was happening during that period around his birth and then arrival in Uniontown in the 1920s?), look at where his grandmother and uncles/aunts lived in New York to see if I can get a sense of where they lived and possibly what school he might have attended. According to family stories either his youngest brother was the first to complete high school or Uncle Francis was the first one to complete high school, which his youngest brother might not have known since he died the year that Uncle Pete was born. It might have just been too difficult for my great-grandmother to talk about her son who had recently died while one son had just just entered into the army and she had just had a baby. Still, knowing the high school he might have attended might also give me the ability to look at archival yearbooks. I’ve also been really interested in finding out more about his wife who was 10 years his senior, which seems unusual for the time. What’s her story and how can knowing her story reveal more about Uncle Francis?
We start with questions and then try some angles.
In this search for the names and stories of our people, though, it’s ok to work at one knot a while and then take a break or try a different knot entirely. Ultimately, the goal is to untangle as many knots and weave the threads into something beautiful and decipherable by others, if you will allow the metaphor… research and weaving, they take time … so take your time.
