A few more roots

My last post included a lot of information on my moms side of the family. While researching for my cultural roots paper, I found that I have a lot more to say about my dads side of the family. My moms background is a little more jumbled and different, where my dads background is more traditional.

His father, my grandfather, grew up in PA. My grandfather had a service station in the small town in which he lived. He had one of the only phones in town and was called several different occasions to pass on KIA notices. He was a stern man and a firm believer in working hard. When he moved his family to FL, he built a service building that is still semi-operational today. The building itself, other than the roof, has not been worked on since he put it up in the late 40's and early 50's, and the roof was only worked on because of hurricane season, which I thought was over.

My dad was born inPennsylvania, but, soon after he was born, his family moved way down South to St. Petersburg, FL. He has always been interested in tiny artifacts such as arrowheads and coins that he would find in random fields either in PA or FL. He continues to collect pieces of memorabilia that interest him.

My great-grandfather was born in Germany and fought in the Great War. My dad remembers him dressing in full pressed uniform, being clean shaven, and having his medals and belt buckle shiny. He would march and salute around my grandfather's living room in small strides and my dad and his siblings would get quite a laugh watching him "walk funny" and salute.

Later in my dad's life he became more fascinated with his German heritage and began collecting random German and Nazi memorabilia instead of American and Native American artifacts. This tradition is also shared by my Uncle Don. He has been collecting car parts, guns, arrowheads, etc. The service station that my grandfather built is still lived in by my uncle, and he also semi operates the shop. He will take care of friends and families cars.

My grandmother on my dads side was also from PA. Her parents were from Hungary, though. She was very active in the Methodist Church in PA and in FL once the Aitken family moved to St. Pete. I really do not know much about her ancestors, but one thing that I can tell you is that all her children inherited traits from my tall, lean grandfathers side of the family as well as the tall, stocky traits from my grandmothers side. Her body shape and height are almost identical to that of my aunt, and apart from being tall, my dad and uncles inherited her body shape genes as well.