Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Speck, the Life and Times of Spencer Penrose, breakdown of book Part 2

In Chapter 2, Olson states that the family motto is "Ubique Fidelis" in Latin this means "Everywhere Faithful". That doesn't make sense, now if it had Semper in front of it, which a lot of families used that for a motto, then it would make sense. This motto is also suppose to be what was on a cradle my family used. Since I saw no such thing then I'm not sure if this is true.



Many times, Olson calls us blue bloods and many times refers to my grandparents as cold. As I have stated before both things are untrue.


He has my ancestors right but when he comes to my grandmother's, he says that they were Roman Catholic. This is NOT true, my grandmother's line is Jewish and the Vatican in Rome knows just how Jewish we are. Our Jewish roots goes deep and we have 2 very famous Jewish ancestors.


At the end of Chapter 2 Olson talks about Charles P. Tutt. I do not know why he doesn't state that Charles P. Tutt studied and became a doctor in Vermont. Then he went to Florida, then to Penn. His father in law was a merchant and lived a few blocks away from the Penrose house. This is where his son C.L. Tutt met my family. My Uncle Spence was the only one who liked C.L., my grandfather hated his guts. He saw the true nature in him and told his sons many times to stay away from him. To bad Uncle Spence didn't listen.



Chapter 3 - On page 21 Olson goes into great detail about my grandmother's death. He made the whole thing up. The true story is my dad didn't want to go to school that day, he faked that he was sick. My grandmother had just walked up the stairs to take him some soup, on the way down the stairs she tripped and broke her neck. She died. Now, you have to understand that back then in 1881, you NEVER told anyone that an accident happened inside the house that caused a death. That was taboo. So, the story that she had pneumonia and died from that was the story that was told.

My father was the one who was with her and yes it scarred him for life. He always believed that his father blamed him for his mother's death. He believed that till the day, our doctor was called to the house to see me. Our family doctor knew my grandfather. They got into a conversation that led to my grandmother. My father confessed to our doctor, that his dad blamed him for his mother's death. The doctor said, "I guess you were to young to remember what the rumors were." My father said he didn't know of any rumors. Our doctor told him, rumors had gone around that my grandfather had killed my grandmother. My dad said that it wasn't true and it must have been terrible for his father. So, that's the truth about my grandmothers death, it was an accident. My father always felt that it never would have happened if he would've gone to school that day.



Her death left a big void in all the Penrose men and there was not a day that went by, that they did not miss her and wish she was with them. Their love for her was deep and lasted a lifetime.


On page 22, Olson states that my Uncle Boies got interested in politics at Harvard. Not true, my grandfather chose that profession for him. My Uncle Boies had a poetic nature, he would have preferred to write plays. He did a pamphlet for Mr. Barnum on elephants, that Mr. Barnum used in his circus.


On page 25, Olson says my grandfather was disappointed in Uncle Spence. That's not true, my grandfather understood my Uncle and didn't expect to much of him. It was my father that had an on going conflict with my grandfather.


On page 28, Olson says my Uncle Francis (nickname Friday), comes down with a fever. This part is true. The part that is not true, is Uncle Francis did not become an invalid. Grandfather shipped him off to England after he was better.

and that is it for this time

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