A Family Narrative

Robert Appleby
1852-1934

Tonight I have been involved in a thread on Facebook about growing up in Pasadena, Texas. It has been a wonderful journey down memory's lane as we shared stories and photos that literally brought back to the forefront of our minds things that had been hidden away in the recesses of our minds.

Those memories became the springboard for my own family journey. It was in the midst of all those wonderful memories that it dawned on me that my Appleby family was more like a Clan than a family. A Clan is a family but it is an extended family consisting of parents, children, cousins, husbands and wives who interact as a family. It is a place where aunts and uncles are more like you mom and dad and cousins are more like brothers and sisters.

Within the Clan there seemed to always be some sort of ongoing rivalry but when any member of the group was threatened from outside the group there was a closing of ranks and in some cases the election of a War Chief.

Now this was not something that happened in my generation. It was the result of a long journey that began when Robert Appleby stepped foot on Virginian soil and swore allegiance to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1749. There was a certain wanderlust in our branch of the Appleby family tree so that by that within a couple of generations his  grandchildren had left their footprints and name across Kentucky (then a part of Virginia) and by 1819 was one of five families who were forming the community along Cane Creek that became Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

It was out of that Missouri group that my branch of the tree would grow into its own Clan. Robert and his wife Polly Flowers brought Charles Appleby into this world and Charles and His wife Rebecca Scott gave life to my great grandfather Robert. Robert, sometime after the age of 12 (1864-65), moved with his uncle in North East Texas (now the Plano-McKinney region). On September 2, 1877 he married Martha McGehee and took up farming in Collin County, Texas. Robert and Martha were, as one relative put it at the time . . . "dirt poor." They had no money and no real proper house . . .  all they had was a plot of land, each other and their hopes dreams and asperations.

They didn't have much in the way of the fineries of the day in which they lived but they did have a rock solid faith in God and were known for their character and integrity. They were the beginning of this thing I call my "Appleby Clan." Robert and Martha had eight children (William Lee, Mary Frances, Claud Elberta, Maude Jane, Clyde Delroy, Dora Florence, Minnie May and Jessie Jefferson). Claud Elberta was my grandfather.

For me, my fraternal grandparents were the head of the Clan. My grandfather was a man of great faith and a man who lived that faith. My grandmother, likewise was a woman of great faith and action. I believe it is from her that my girls have received their own drive.  If My Grandmother had been born in my generation she would most likely have been head of some large organization . . . . either business or charitable.

During my lifetime my grandparents, Dad and Momma as they were known, were held in high esteem by their children.  Those children were Ruth Agnes, Buford Marion (my father), Melvin Victor, Edna Mae and James Carroll.  As long as either lived they were held in high regard and honor by their children and grandchildren. Their faithful walk with the Lord was honored in the churches to which they belonged and through which they served. They did not possess much in the way of material wealth to hand down to their children. What they passed down was more significant than material wealth . . . they passed along the sense of family and its importance; they handed down a heritage of integrity, loyalty and fairness; they also passed along a sense of inclusiveness for extended family. As someone who was once a member of the family by marriage and now divorced remarked to me, "Once you become a part of your family it is virtually impossible to extricate yourself . . . you still treat me as though I was still in the family."

They also lived in close proximity to one another from the 1870's until the 1970's. That's almost 100 years. They seemed always manage to live in the same area. To be sure a few would move away, then when the head of the Clan moved the rest of the family, family by family, gravitated back to the same geographical region as the head of the Clan. For my older cousins, most of their memories of family and growing up are anchored in the Orange, Texas area. Indeed, that is where my own journey began.  Several chapters of fascinating family history come from the time spent in Orange.

However, when I was growing up Pasadena, Texas was where pretty much all of the Appleby Clan was gathered.  It didn't matter if your last name was Appleby, Rich, Grace or Caplinger, you were in our family and a part of the Appleby Clan. Others would be added as time past and children grew up and married.

Mom & Dad's Wedding
London Jan 13, 1945

Pasadena really was "our town." We had our annual family conclaves and a whole host of minor gatherings from the late 1940's through the late 1960's.  We worked there, we worshipped there, we were educated there; we formed friendships that will last a lifetime there; we fell in love and married there; our children were born there; and we buried our parents and elders there.

In time, college, war, marriage and jobs began to scatter the cousins (my generation) all across the country. What once was a local clan within the greater Pasadena Nation became the scattered "Clans of Appleby" as we experienced our own family Diaspora. One by one the "Old Ones" who inhabited the land and set the family's character and preserved our heritage began to enter the great beyond. Now that generation has completed their journey and my generation has become the "old ones" among us.  Each cousin has become the head of their own Clan in another place.

This family into which I was born by the grace of God has a marvelous history, and honorable heritage and a story worth knowing and sharing. I remember my father's words to me as at the age of 18 I walked out of the Houston Federal Building where I had just registered for the draft. He said, "Son if they call you to service remember who you are and (1) don't volunteer for anything, they'll send you where they want you or need you, (2) don't do anything you'll regret later in life and (3) don't do anything that would bring dishonor to our name." By our name he meant the Appleby name.

By the way, for you family members who might be reading this you need to know that while largely pacifists at heart that Appleby family members . . .  your family . . . . has served this country in every major war from the American Revolution to the Iraq War and done so with honor. A few have given their "full measure of devotion" . . . . at least one during WWII, one in Korea, and one in Endo-China.

A Our Last Christmas Gathering
2008

I sometimes long for at least one last great a gathering of the chiefs and their families in one last conclave. I don't know if it is a doable thing but it would certainly be a good thing. To have an opportunity to pass down to our children and our children's children the wonderful story of the grace of God as it has played out in our Appleby Clan.  It is a wonderful story . . . I can only hope that we don't forget the story and it gets lost in the sands of time.