BEFORE THERE WAS ME THERE WERE FAMILIES: 1-- MEREDITHS

You don’t pick your ancestors. They don’t pick you either. You sort of happen to them and they’re kind of stuck with you and you with them. They give a little something of themselves to you called genes. You take these scraps and build upon them, add to them and come up with a new creature called you. Some of that start up material you may like, some not so much. You may have great, great grandmother Sarah’s eyes and granduncle Elmer’s hair or lack of. Perhaps you got a cute button nose from mother or a big honking honker from father.

Maybe some special talent flowed through family blood to your veins, an artistic bent or ability to lead. Weaknesses may twirl down the spiral of DNA as well. There may be a history of drink, of temper, of shyness or you may always be too skinny or too fat because that’s just the way the family mutated.

Whatever your families sowed through the centuries of being is in the seeds of your existence. Hopefully you make the best of the good and the least of the bad inherent within you. It doesn’t matter what your family was; you are a new beginning. Still it can be interesting knowing whether the tree you dropped off of was Golden Delicious or Crabapple.

I don’t know of a white apple, but according to my DNA Test I am about as white as one can get. If I was any more pale I’d be invisible or at least transparent.My ethnicity is 52% British, 22% Irish, Scot and Welsh, 18% Western European and 6% Finish and Northern Russian. The other 2% is undeterminable, which probably means I have bloodlines on other planets who immigrated here in UFOs and most likely illegally.

These are briefly my family roots.

I

MEREDITHS

Families can be a royal pain, quite literally. There are red-blooded Americans and Blue Bloods and sometimes we find our blood stained by a bit of ancient royal purple.

My surname went through some evolution of spelling from Maredudd to Meredydd to the modern Meredith. The original Old Welsh was Morgetiud. Apparently the first half of the name means pomp or splendor and the second half means “lord”. I have also heard claims the name meant “protector of the Sea”, more likely “Sea Lord”. Similar words as “mere” and “mare” translate to sea or lake in various languages including Latin, Old High German, Old Norse, etc. (according to the Free dictionary.com).  Mer also means sea in French, mare means sea in Italian and mar is sea in Spanish. Dudd or Dydd in Old Welsh means “lord”. The double dd in Welsh is pronounced like the English th, kind of a lisp sound. The proper way of saying my surname is Ma-Red-Dith, not Mare-Dith.

The name first appeared in Northeast Wales in the ancient historic county of Denbighshire, a place that goes well back before William, Duke of Normandy invaded and defeated the British at the battle of Hastings in 1066.

The Meredith motto was “Heb Dwuw her ddim, a Duw a digon”, which means truly, “Without God there is nothing”.

This is the Legend of Meredith.

 In the fifth and sixth centuries AD, many tribal chiefs and

princes ruled the country of Cymry, what we know today as Wales. Each and all were in constant struggle to dominate. Maelgwn (pictured left) one of the stronger princes was attempting to bring some order and unite the varied warlords under one chief, hopefully himself. He gathered all the most powerful princes together. This council made a proposal. Each prince would sit upon a seaside chair. The king would be he who sat the longest as high tide covered the shore.

Maelgwn visited Maeldav the Old. A number of scholars, who spend their lives worrying  about such things, believe Maeldav was the same wizard known as Merlin in the King Arthurian Myths. (Pictured right, and indeed, there are those who propose Maelgwn

as the model of King Arthur.) Maeldav the Old prepared a chair constructed from waxed bird wings. Maelgwn sat upon his chair the longest since it rose and floated above the tide. Because of this deception, the people declared him Chief Prince and bestowed the title Maredudd upon him. The exact meaning of this word is not certain, but may mean Protector of the Sea.¹

The title Maredudd eventually became a surname and the spelling evolved through Maredydd to become Meredith. The proper pronunciation is Ma-Red-ith, not Mare-Dith. My family used Ma-Red-ith when I was a child, but at some point my father surrendered to the more common use of Mare-Dith.

“I got tired ev’ry time I gave my name they said, ‘Spell it’. I spelled it and they’d say, ‘Oh, Mare-Dith,’ I jus’ got tired of spellin’ it.” 

I discovered as a young man, despite how I might announce myself, everybody still asked me to spell my last name, except in Dallas where Don Meredith , former Cowboy quarterback and Monday Night Football commentator was a hero.

Maelgwn, who is an actual historic figure (c.497 - c.560 AD), was my 43-Great Grandfather (pictured on left). He had at least two children (and probably many more not recorded), a son named Rhun and a daughter Gwawr.  In case  you wonder, that was pronounced either as Go-AAR (heavy on the AAR like a pirate ) or Goo-aar (a bit more feminine, I suppose). It was probably considered a pretty name for a girl within her native tongue since gwawr means “dawn”.

To just give equal time to both these offspring, Rhun is pronounced as Rheen and means charm and mystery, also mighty.

Gwawr may not be what you would name your daughter and I certainly didn’t name either of my daughters that; nonetheless Gwawr was my 42-Great Grandmother married to one Eliylt Llydanwyn ap Meirchion. This was a period long before surnames came into existence. The little word “ap” means “son of”; therefore, Eliylt was the son of Meirchion.

Eliylt and Gwawr begat Llywarch Hen ap Elidir (note the slight change in the spelling of Elitlt). Llywarch allegedly had 42 children. His wives are not noted. (It is an assumption on my part that with 42 children he probably had more than one woman in his life.)

As one can begin to see, my family tree is a web of odd relationships, because Rhun is also my 43-Great Grandfather, indicating he and his sister Gwawr began two separate lines of my father’s ancestors. (It also indicates Rhun shared a wife with his father, but the less said about such things the better. This is not the last of such entanglements and confusion couplings, but we will get to some more of that a bit later and in a more recent period.) 

Meanwhile, Rhun begat Beli and so forth and after many

permutations we reach my  32-Great Grandfather Rhodri “Mawr” (“Mawr” meaning “the Great”) ap Merfyn, King of Wales, from 855 toAD-878 AD  (pictured left). From there we continued through a number of kings and princes until Gruffydd ap Cynan, Prince of Gwunedd in 1081. Gruffydd (pronounced Griffith) had a son named Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd, who was my 24-Great Grandfather and another son named Owain ap Gruffudd, King of Gwynedd (pronounced Gwenith), 1137 AD-1179 AD. 

(By the way, note that I refuse to change to the use of C.E. and B.C.E. [Current Era and Before Current Era]. Just because the cynics of the world fear God so much they want to eliminate any reference to his Deity doesn’t mean I’ll go along.)

Owain was my 24-Great Grand Uncle and his grandson, my second cousin, was Llywelyn Fawr ap Iowerth. (Fawr is not a given name, but a descriptive add-on, and just like “Mawr”, means  “The Great”.) 

Llywelyn Fawr was great enough in his day that he took as a wife the illegitimate daughter of John Lackland, known as Joan of England (pictured left). John Lackland was the King of England at the time and is best known for signing the Magna Carta. As a result of this union I am a 24^th cousin to Queen Elizabeth II. I suppose if enough people were to die and her grandchildren would stop having babies, I would have a claim to the British crown.  

All this is ancient history having little to do with who I am

today. It is interesting to discover one has a bit of Royal DNA, but it doesn’t buy me any castles or put a farthing in my pocket. Yet there is an interesting tidbit, a coincidence of time, in this past.

Llywelyn Fawr had a son named Gruffydd who had a son also named Llywelyn (pictured right). This was Llywelyn the Last, the final REAL Prince of Wales. He was also my 4^th Cousin. Cousin Llywelyn the Last died at  Buellt (Bu-lith) on December 11, 1282 during King Edward I of England’s conquest of Wales. As Fate often does just to have a giggle, the soldier who killed my cousin Llywelyn, was an ancestor of my friend, Ronald Tipton.

Of course much of history is full of uncertainty and it is disputed exactly who killed Llywelyn the Last and in what manner. According to legend, he was accidentally chanced upon (which is basically true) at the Battle of Orewin by forces of Edmund Mortimer and Hugh Le Strange. Attempting to flee back to his own forces he was pursued and and killed by a lone lancer, a soldier completely unaware of whom he was. Sir Robert Brody was the alleged soldier named in contemporary ballads of the time.

Other accounts claim while the captured Llywelyn was kneeling in prayer Stephen Frankton of Ellesmere came behind and struck off his head. It is a fact Llywellyn’s head was carried to King Edward, displayed in th city pillory of London with ian vy crown and then carried to the Tower of London where it was set over the gate for the next 15 years..²

King Edward then had the audacity to proclaim his own son, Edward II. the Prince of Wales and ever since there remains an English pretender using that title. Quite frankly, I have more claims to that title then Prince Charles.

Footnotes:

 

1. Owen M(organ) Edwards (right)

Hanes Cymru (History of Wales)

Company Publishers Cywreig

Wales

1901

Referenced by Charles Hoffman Thomas in a letter dated August 5, 1905 to my Great Uncle Benjamin Franklin Meredith II. 

2. Paul M. Remfry (right)

The Final Campaign of Prince Llywelyn

Castles of Wales

1998

Also genealogy research by this author and Ronald W. Tipton. (Below)

Days of Writes and Snowes.

My writing had fallen off during the mid-years of the 1970’s. Life had become too crowded and busy. I had continued my studies at Temple University until the end of 1971 and I didn’t formally enroll at Camden County College until 1977, so there was no formal education going on in the center of that decade. I did take a couple courses there in between for my own self-development, I guess you could say.

I took a two month course in Basic Auto Repair, it being a time when you could still get under the hood and have a chance of recognizing something. There wasn’t a computer dictating every move. I had such tools as a timing gun, battery tester and did such basic tune up procedures as gapping the points and changing the spark plugs, timing the engine and adjusting the carburetor, putting in new filters and so on. I think the last car I ever changed spark plugs myself you had to take half the engine apart to even see them. 

The scariest part of this course was the first assignment; take your car to a car wash and wash the motor. Everyone was sure their car wouldn’t start after power spraying water all over it. The day I went I stopped at a Pep Boys and bought some wire drier. Lois and I drove to a nearby do-it-yourself car wash. I was shaking when we got there, I was that nervous. Since I was a kid I had seen cars sputter out after driving through a deep puddle and the idea of actually hosing down the motor seemed crazy to me. But I flipped the hood, and with trepidation, made that engine shine. Much to my surprise I had no problem starting it.

I took a second course the next year. This had nothing to do with cars. This was a Japanese form of Martial Arts called Aikido, or loosely translated, “The Way of Harmony of the Spirit”. What I liked about it was everything was self-defense. With a name like that one might think it was a gentler, kinder self-defense than some of the other forms of battle. True, there were no offensive or aggressive movements and you were urged to avoid a fight if at all possible, but if your attacker persisted the object was to disarm them quickly and effectively. Effectively usually meant you left them dead or maimed. It did have its brutal aspects. For instance, if some bully grabbed your shirt front you could easily twist him away and drop him to the ground. As shown in the illustration this was not particularly gently done. It might just leave him writhing about with a broken finger and dislocated shoulder, but it effectively took any fight out of the bully. 

There was a good bit of that “harmony of the spirit” stuff mixed in because it was all wrapped around Far Eastern religion and philosophy, even though my class was a modern form. There was a lot of talk about your “ki” and your opponent’s “ki”. Ki is kind of like your essence or spirit and aiki is focusing on that spirit and controlling it.

 An example of one exercise was this. Imagine you are fallen into mud on your hands and knees. You now focus on the “ki” of the mud, that it is sucking you down and you cannot pull free. You are pulled deeper and deeper. Soon, without a sense that it is happening, you find yourself flat on the floor imprisoned by this nonexistent mud. To escape you reverse gears and focus on your own “ki”, and soon you have pulled free and are standing.

This kind of thing seemed silly to me, frankly, perhaps a form of self-hypnosis. Nonetheless, it worked magically. You could use that imaginary mud to your advantage to pin a much bigger opponent and keep him contained. You are on top and now you key on that mud and it is pulling you down, further and further, except now your opponent is beneath you and the mud is sucking him down and down and he can’t push you off. The mud's suction has become your strength. I saw some of the smallest young women in the class hold some of the largest men helpless applying this technique. I learned to apply it to a number of life situations. Am I trying to open a pickle jar for the first time? I could picture some force turning it beneath my hand and pop, the stubbornest jar would surrender to the force. Maybe I was becoming a Jedi Knight.

I had become very engaged at Welded Tube,  especially in 1976 when I took on the duties of the Computer Systems Manager along with being Assistant Controller. More and more of my time outside of work was taken up by Church. Still my writing career continued to some extent.

Into the early ’70, of course, I was still writing features for “Philadelphia After Dark” and poetry here and there. In 1970 two of my poems had been selected for inclusion in an anthology of modern American poetry, Dance of the Muse. My last short stories from “Magazine of Horror” also appeared at the beginning of that period.  In 1974, “Animal Lover’s Magazine” bought and published my essay, “Ian”. Other of my work was being published unawares, so I never received the payments due me. “Conjured” appeared in the  March issue of “Startling Mystery Stories”, which featured me as one of the authors listed on the cover. This was the same magazine that published Stephen King’s first professional story in 1967, a year before I sold my first to “Magazine of Horror”. Both publications were owned by the same publisher, Health-Knowledge, Inc. of New York, NY.

Meanwhile two of my previously published stories were included in overseas anthologies. “Last Letter from Norman Underwood” (entitled “La ultima carta de Norman Underwood”) was included along with work by Robert Bloch and others in La Chica de Marte y otros relatos (The Mars Girl and other stories). “Les Oeuvres D’Elwin Adams” (“Writings of Elwin Adams” was in the collection, Histoires D’Objects Malefiques (1975) edited by E. C. Bertin, which also contained a story by Robert Bloch, Agatha Christie and others.

By then I wasn’t writing about the kind of spirits that go bump in the night, but about the Spirit of God. In 1976 I helped the teens in the Word of Life Club do their own magazine, “Teens on the Scene for Jesus Christ”, for which I occasionally wrote an essay or poem, but mostly edited what the kids wrote. Then in 1977 came my play, “Words of Life”, which I directed and we performed about the area.

I did manage to put together a collection of short fiction in 1976 called Sins of the Sons. Most of these stories dealt with psychologic crime, including one conceived by my wife and written by us both (she used the pen name of Jean O’Heaney). Three of the 12 stories would be called ironic humor and two were semi-autobiographic, both based on occurrences during my Boy Scout years: “Death of a Scout” and “A Brother to All”. These dealt with prejudice, hazing and bullying. One story in the collection, “Homicide”, was taken many years later (2011) by Fantasist Enterprises.

Our social life outside of the church was mostly with Victor and Marsha Ernest and with Joe and Linda Rubio. Otherwise there were several people we occasionally visited with connected to the church. I had mentioned the Van der veers, Webbers, McFalls and Biads earlier. We had also become friends with a couple in our apartment complex, a nice young couple who we got together with named Cathy (left) and Dale (right) Yonkin.

They had a toddler son named Andrew.

Another person we became friends with from church was Wayne Bonner (left). He was a young man and independent contractor who was building homes in South Jersey. We had discussed buying a house at the time, but we just couldn’t decide, which was probably God guiding us away from a bad decision.

It was in this period we went with several other couples to the Poconos. We did this both at the end of 1975 and 1976, driving up the day after Christmas and remaining until the day after New Year. We had occasionally gotten together with these people over the years. We met them through Mary Lou Marple Pappolla, one of Lois’ longtime friends from her grade school days. Mary Lou had been one of the Bridesmaids in our wedding party.

Most of the others had been or were coworkers or college friends of Mary Lou and their husbands or boyfriends.  Mary Lou, Ruth, Judy (napping on the left) and a couple others were Social Workers and I think all had graduated from Penn State. I had been a Sociology Major at Temple University, so I was somewhat familiar with the field. There were a number of very interesting conversations indulged in during our gatherings.

I’m not sure if Rich, who went with Ruth was also a Social Worker or not (Rich and Ruth on

right). Mary Lou’s husband, Tommy, definitely wasn’t.

Tommy (in the ledge kitchen on the left and helping get the Christmas Tree off the car roof on the right) and Mary Lou wee so diametrically opposite in all except height (both were rather short, Mary Lou was only 4 foot 10) it was as if Archie Bunker married Maude. She was the college grad, champion of the downtrodden, a vocal Liberal. He was the street-savvy, self-made construction contractor, and a vocal anti-liberal. I can’t quite imagine what dinner table conversations were like at their home, just as I have trouble picturing James Carville and Mary Matalin co-existing. 

I liked Tommy. He was funny and honest, and always ready to help someone. He had poor health in the decades that followed our Pocono outings; I believe he lost his legs probably to diabetes. He died at age 75 in February 2007. His children by a previous marriage, Wayne and Donnamarie sometimes spent those New Years with us at Nemanie Lodge above Lake Wallenpaupack.

We rented out all of Cottage #1, which had room to sleep 10 couples, I believe. It had a kitchen and a great room where we usually gathered in the evenings before a large fireplace and held our discussions. Every couple brought food for the week and we took turns with the cooking. I remember the first night we planned to pop popcorn over the hearth, but no one had brought popping oil. The only oil we had was garlic oil, which cooked up an odd tasting and smelly popcorn. Richard, Tommy and I drove down along the mountain next day and found an open general store where we could buy some oil. (Right, me at Lake Wallenpaupack cabins, 1975.)

While on this trek, Richard spotted an iceboat for rent and we hauled that back to the lodge atop the roof of his jeep. I don’t recall seeing any other people around during those end-of-year trips, we always had the Lake to ourselves. There was a rugged drive from the cabin to the lakefront and we drove down and right out onto the ice. That is how cold was that winter. The ice was thick and strong enough you could drive a jeep right across it. We launched the iceboat and took turns riding the winds. It had a triangular frame with ice blades at each point and a sail. The wind really carried it across that ice and you had to learn how to control the gusts and currents, but man, what fun.

We had a big spread on New Year’s Eve and then blasted in the New Year itself. Those are times I do sometimes miss.

My wife was a very sexy looking snow bunny. We did a lot of sledding down the long slope of the mountain side onto the ice, but of course, like life, afterward we had to make the slough back up with sled in tow. 

1975, ’76 and ’77 went by in a blur of activity and really a kind of peace. As is often said, all was right with the world and the hope was it wouldn’t change.

And then in the midst of everything, Lois looked at me one day and said, “I think I’m pregnant.”   Hey, she had been pregnant seven times so she ought to know, but how was this possible. She had said she her tubes tied after the last loss? Well, she lied and now she was sure she was two months along. 

It was, as they say, a pickle.