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Rev 9/10/21
At close to my 60th birthday, I began to take an interest in learning more about our ancestry. Fortunately, a couple years earlier, Dan started doing research on Ancestry.com. So it was pretty easy to pick up where he left off.
Going into this, I knew VERY little about our Dad's side of the family. I knew he had a couple siblings and I thought he mentioned something about being orphaned at a young age.
See Also: Where Did Our Ancestors Come From?
For the sake of simplifying the tree, it is divided here into Dad's trees and Mom's trees.
Born: March 28, 1929 in Racine Wisconsin.
His parents were William C. Farrell and Esther Kempen.
He is the third born of 10 kids. Coincidentally, he and Mom also had 10 kids.
He and his many siblings were born and raised in Racine Wisconsin.
It looks like many of them remained in the Wisconsin area.
See the Farrell Tree and the Kempen Tree
Born: Sept. 2, 1930 in San Francisco
The eldest of 4 kids.
See the Boullet Tree and the Palmer Tree
Mom and Dad met in San Francisco at a roller skating rink on 11th street around 1950 or so. Mom was with a couple of her friends and her mother. Dad was 21 yrs. old, still in the army, and stationed at the Presidio. Mom was 19 yrs. old, working downtown as a keypunch operator and living at home. Apparently they hit it off. Mom couldn't remember ever getting a proposal, so it was probably by mutual agreement that they decided to marry after a year or so on Jan 6, 1951. They moved to an apartment on 17th street in the city.
Dad was relocated to 29 Palms in Palm Springs, so he made the long drive north, pretty often, for 6 months or so until he was discharged. Somehow, he managed to get a job working for the State of Calif. as a draftsman.
They eventually moved to Guttenburg St, around the corner from her parents. Together, they combined for 7 boys in about 9 years, then a girl and two more boys.
Things fell apart, abruptly from my perspective, around 1970, with Dad moving out. We kids are still unsure what events, if any, led up to that decision. I guess it really doesn't matter. He moved maybe five miles away with a woman and her couple of kids. He may as well moved to the other side of the planet, because it didn't seem that he ever reached out to his kids, and we were highly discouraged by our grandmother (and partly mom) to make contact with him.