Our Family History

You may have already read in the Introduction that Lurline and I were born on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Many people ask us about how we met. That's quite an interesting tale, but has a page to itself.

I've long been interested in genealogy. In particular, how come it is always the practice to trace ancestry through the male line of descent? Why do kids normally take their fathers' surnames? It used to be easy to deal with names, but less so today. Many women like to keep their original surname when they marry. Many couples don't officially marry. It's getting harder to discover your ancestry.

My forefathers and foremothers came almost exclusively from a small part of West Yorkshire, around the towns of Leeds and Bradford. The name "Webster" is a trade based name, which derives from the Old English name for a weaver. West Yorkshire has been a textile centre for centuries and it is probable that the family name derived from an ancestor who carried out work as a weaver in the Middle Ages. My parents were both in the textile trade. Dad was what was known as a "warp twister" and Mum worked as a weaver for many years.

My parents married in 1936, the year that Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry his American love, Mrs. Simpson. Mum and Dad were keen cyclists, riding their tandem machine all over Britain in those carefree days. When war came, Dad served as a volunteer in the Auxiliary Fire Service at first. As the need for older conscripts grew, in 1942, Dad was called up into the West Yorkshire Regiment and after training, served in the Far East. He fought with the 5th Indian Division in Burma and contracted a number of tropical diseases out there. I believe it was a combination of these and a particularly difficult job of work after the war that contributed to his early death from heart problems in 1966.

Mum had four children. She passed away at the age of 84 in 1996. My elder sister, Brenda, now lives in Nova Scotia, Canada. She's a talented artist and has exhibited her works widely. My brother Martyn runs a mobile automobile engineering business in the Bradford area. He also served in the Royal Air Force, initially as a motor transport fitter and latterly as an Air Loadmaster on Hercules transport aircraft with No. 36 Squadron. He was in the crew of one of the aircraft that evacuated refugees from Dacca in Bangladesh during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1970. My younger sister, Joyce is married to an automobile engineer and lives in Keighley, West Yorkshire.

My maternal grandfather, Daniel Hilliam, was a carpenter. He came from a family of small farmers. He and his wife Rose had seven children, four of whom are still living.

Dad's father, Frederick Webster, was a chauffeur to a titled gentleman. He was, I believe, the first person in Yorkshire to drive a motor car at the end of the 19th century, when his employer bought one to replace his horses and carriage. Grandfather Webster served with the Army Service Corps on the Western Front during World War 1, his expertise with horses coming in very useful in the horrors of the Flanders mud.

Great-grandfather Webster ran a pub in Bradford. Apparently, it had the reputation of being a rather rough place, frequented by the most unsavoury characters in the town. His son (Fred) married Lily Brown, who was a member of a renowned local family of brewers. As far as I can discover, several generations of Websters were innkeepers.

I'm a fourth-generation Californian. I guess like most Americans, my ancestry is rather complex. My Dad's family, the Sturgills, originally settled in Kentucky in the 18th century. Their ancestry is German/English. Great-grandfather Sturgill and many of his family made the pioneering trek to the West in a covered waggon in the pre-Gold Rush era of the 1800's to settle in the Los Angeles area. On the way, my great-aunt Lulu was captured by Comanche Indians. They held her for some weeks, but treated her very well. Before returning her to her family, they presented her with a beautifully beaded tomahawk, which we have kept as an heirloom. I actually knew Aunt Lulu, who lived to the ripe old age of 99. She was a redoubtable woman!

My mother's family were immigrants from Ireland who settled near San Francisco. Grandfather Ralph McCrary was involved in the building of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Grandfather Marion Sturgill was a rancher in Orange County, LA. He died before I was born, but I'm told my Dad was quite like him in many ways. I've managed to root out a picture of my grandpa:

My Dad spent a lot of his early life in the orange groves down there in Southern California - an area that he always treasured, and where he is buried. Unfortunately, my father contracted leukemia in the 1960s and fought it for over 16 years. He passed away in 1976.

My Dad aged 12

During World War 2, Dad served with the US Navy and took part in the Normandy Invasion of June 6th 1944. I have his diary from those days, which is a remarkable document, expressing many of his thoughts and chronicling the events that led up to the end of the war. He spent some time in England before D-Day, and always wished he could return there one day. I suppose I had to do that on his behalf. After the war, Dad worked as a jeweller and for a time he and Mom ran their own store. Due to his illness, he had to give up the store, but continued to work in the trade until his death.

Dad in 1972

Mom still lives in Modesto, CA. She's made several trips to Europe to visit us, but we miss being close to her, especially now that our own children are growing up. Before retiring, Mom worked as office manager for a group of doctors. She enjoys classical music and art and plays the piano.

Mom with Cherie the dog and Toshi the cat

The last picture's a bit dated, because sadly, Cherie and Toshi are no longer with us. Mom has two new cats now, Sasha and Toshi II.