Talk about my generations. This is a photo of Samuel Walker and his grandson, Leslie H. Green. The baby Samuel is holding is Les’ first-born, who is me. Everyone in the family called Samuel Father, including me.
Samuel was born in Virginia in 1873. I am not certain who his parents were. A hint from someone else’s tree on Ancestry suggests that his father was Robert A. Walker, born 28 April 1817 in Brookneal, Campbell County, VA, and died in 1889 in Pittsylvania County, VA. Or maybe he was the son of Richard Walker of Virginia.
Likewise, another hint suggests his mother may have been Julia Cousins, a black woman born c. 1835. She had seven children aged 25 to six, all but Sam with the surname Cousins. This likewise requires more investigation. There was also a Julia Walker associated with Sam Walker.
What is clear is that Samuel married Mary Eugenia Patterson in Pennsylvania in 1899. The couple lived with one of her sisters in 1900.
Samuel and Mary Eugenia had at least nine children. Loren, b. 1906, and Mildred, b. 1919, died in infancy.
The family moved to Binghamton by 1920. The 1930 Census listed Samuel, a janitor; Mary Eugenia; Agatha H., my grandmother, b. 1902; S. Earl (1904-1961), Stanley E, b. 1910; Vera, b. 1912; Melissa C (1914–1955); Jessie Garnett, b. 1916; Morris S, b. 1918. And Wesley (b. 1926).
Mary Eugenia died in 1944, so I don’t recall her.
Agatha’s siblings
I remember all of Grandma Green’s siblings who reached adulthood except Melissa. All of them in their 40s and 50s were terrified of this little old man in his 80s. But Wesley, who was really Leslie – the Census taker must have gotten it wrong – was actually Samuel and Mary Eugenia’s grandson, fathered by Raymond Cone. Maybe there was a bit of prevarication there. Les was NOT afraid of his grandfather, at least when I saw them together.
While McKinley Green married Agatha in 1931, they were apart as much as they were together before my father’s 18th birthday in 1944, even though Mac adopted my dad and officially took his last name before then.
So, Samuel/Father was very much a father to my dad, probably more of a benevolent one than he was to his own children. Samuel Walker died in June 1963, less than a year before my grandma Green passed away.