Where to begin? There are so many of my ancestors I'd like to meet. Any of them... all of them! But as I pondered this week's prompt, the one person I kept circling back to was my biological grandfather, who I never met.
Many people never have the opportunity to know their grandparents, but I was very fortunate to have a close relationship with all of my grandparents throughout my childhood. The accidental discovery when I was about 14, or so, that the man I thought of as "Grandpa" -- and still do! -- was not my Dad's biological father left me feeling guilty and confused.
I was a naturally curious kid -- some might say nosey -- so maybe the discovery was inevitable. Since all of the adults were well aware of the facts, it may not have been so much a secret as it was just not spoken of. For many years all I knew of him was his name, Leonard Glenn Sutton.
As the years went by and I got older, my grandmother began to share bits and pieces of the story of her first marriage. One of the first vital records I ever sent for was Leonard's death certificate. I learned he was career military, first as a member of the Army Air Corps during World War II and later the United States Air Force after it was established in 1947.
It's easy to vilify the actor in the story who is off-stage and for many years I wasn't interested in researching this branch of my family tree because of what I thought I knew about Leonard. Later when I begin to explore his ancestry, I learned his roots extended many generations back to the colonial period in North Carolina. I learned his parents were Heber Noah Sutton(occasionally Noah Heber Sutton) and Lucy Carson who were married on October 29, 1911, in Greenville, Pitt County, North Carolina. Lucy was a widow with seven children when she married Heber, who was a decade younger.
Leonard was born in Greenville on September 3, 1912, and was the oldest of Lucy and Heber's six sons. It's unclear if Heber and Lucy were legally divorced but when Heber died of pneumonia at the age of 36 in 1928, his marital status was recorded as divorced. Lucy was widowed again, now the mother of 13 children, six between the ages of 6 and 16. (His brothers were George Washington Sutton, Clifton Claude Sutton, Robert Lee Sutton, Hubert Hugh Sutton, and Woodrow Wilson Sutton.)
It was very difficult to definitely track Leonard until he appeared in the 1940 census. Sutton is an extremely common name in the South, North Carolina in particular. I later discovered evidence that the six young Sutton boys were placed into foster care. Bit by bit, Leonard was becoming more real to me and his story provided context for his later actions. Maybe it wasn't as black and white as I'd been telling myself all those years. Maybe his story was more complicated than leaving my grandmother with two young children in the midst of World War II.
My Dad never had the opportunity to know his father. A pragmatist, he also didn't seem to spend much time dwelling on it. I, on the other hand, wish I had the opportunity to meet him and hear his side of the story about his decisions, regrets, and the circumstances of his life. His Air Force career led to several cross country moves, and he later served during the Korean War. Any hope that he might eventually connect with my father and his brother were dashed when Leonard died at the relatively young age of 57 on March 17, 1970, in Aurora, Illinois.
I still don't know what exactly I would say to him if I had the opportunity to meet him. I would hope though, that time and perspective would allow me to truly listen to his life story and I would attempt to understand "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey used to say. More than anything, I would like to answer for myself the question I've always had about Leonard. Growing up, my Dad was always compared adversely to his father by members of the extended family. In particular, that he looked just like his father and so therefore by extension their characters must surely be identical, as well. That's a question I would have been able to answer for myself firsthand if only Leonard and I would have had the chance to meet. Oh, and I'd love to know if he was left-handed too, like my Dad and me!
