Dudley Lathrop

Dudley Lathrop

I have only the faintest shards of memory of Grandpa Dudley.  What a shame.  As I have written previously, we occasionally visited Grandpa Dudley and Grandma Clara at their farmhouse west of Sparta.  I seem to remember him as sort of jolly and perhaps a bit large, although to a little cookie-cruncher like me, almost everyone was a bit large.

It occurs to me that it is possible to have personally known, even if for the briefest time, a maximum of about fourteen direct predecessors.  This would be the unlikely case if one's parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all alive at that particular time.  That would certainly be an unusual case and for someone to have known even more of them would be an extremely unusual case.  I can claim only eight.

Julius Lothrope and his wife Barbara Howe were apparently immigrants from England and I am suspecting that, like so many people processed through Ellis Island, their names were shortened to Lathrop to make it easier to fill out the forms.  This is just my guess. 

Julius and Barbara were the parents of Frank Lathrop. 

Meanwhile Theodore Cassabaum, his wife Alvina (Unschuetz), and their daughter Alvina were living near Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, their parents having migrated there from Germany.

Frank and the younger Alvina were married and became Dudley's parents.

 In turn Dudley and Clara met, fell in love, and were married in 1921.  I saved this wonderful picture for my few paragraphs about Dudley.

 What a great photograph.  Dudley is as handsome a young fellow as Sparta has ever seen and Grandma Clara is an absolutely beautiful young girl!

I believe that Dudley was quite intelligent as well as being handsome.  I was told very emphatically by my grandparents that he built the first radio in Sparta.  I have a nagging recollection that he worked for the telephone company but I could be mistaken in this.

Again, I would welcome more information in comments below about Dudley and Clara whom I am so grateful to be descended from.