Tag: Les Green

Les Green, born Leslie H. Walker

new amended birth certificate

Les Green.Savannah GA.1998My new discovery is that I now have evidence that my father was born Leslie H. Walker in Binghamton, NY. I had been misled that it might have been Wesley Walker, based on the listing in the 1930 Census.

After failing to find a birth certificate in Wilkes-Barre, PA, where I thought he might have been born, I read some genealogical clues. One suggested the New York State Archives, in the same building as the state library in Albany.

I discovered a set of microfiche. It lists every birth in New York State – excluding NYC – by year, and alphabetically within the annual listing. For 1926, “Walker, Leslie H., Bing, 26 Sept.” I have to think it was no accident that Agatha named him similar to Raymond C. Cone’s elder daughter Lessie.

Now I could apply for his real birth certificate. The birth certificate I’d seen since 1974, dated from 1944, listed McKinley Green as Leslie Green’s father. I now know it may have been the “real” birth certificate. Or a legal fiction. Thanks to Melanie for the following:

According to this: “As a portion of the estimated 6 million adoptees, our New York adoptees have two ‘official’ birth certificates. The original one, which truthfully states the information about their physical birth, including their original names, their natural parents’ names, the hospital, doctor, date, time and weight, becomes forever sealed under a court of law when their adoption is finalized.”

Birth certificate #2

“At that point, the new adoptive parents are issued a new amended birth certificate which might or might not state the real birth information such as date, time, hospital and weight, and replaces the natural parents names with the adoptive parents names ‘as if’ the child was born to them. The name of the child is also reborn and all identity from the point of finalization on is replaced.”

Ha! So the registrar didn’t screw up. McKinley and Agatha didn’t lie. And this suggests heavily that McKinley Green actually adopted Leslie H. Walker by 1944, though my father’s surname shows up as Green as early as the 1940 Census.

Since November 2019, obtaining Original (Pre-Adoption) Birth Certificates are now available for adoptees from New York State. “Direct Line Descendants” are also eligible to access it. “A Direct Line Descendant is a child, grandchild, or great grandchild, etc. of the adoptee.” I qualify.

I’ve applied directly to the City of Binghamton office of Vital Statistics. New York State’s queue for old birth, marriage and death certificates is about 15 months.

Agatha Green, and McKinley and Les

5 Gaines Street

Agatha GreenThe result of my great reveal is has been quite heartening. People are impressed, as they ought to be, about the moxie of my late grandmother, Agatha Green, nee Walker, as well as their affection for my dad, Les Green.

I realize that I hadn’t remarked much about her in this blog. Well, except here. That’s because she died when I was nine, in 1964. While I remember her fondly, as I noted, I have only two broad memories. One is that she was my Sunday school teacher. The other is that she taught me how to play canasta on her kitchen table.

My parents and I lived on the second floor of 5 Gaines Street in Binghamton. But at some point in the early 1950s – probably by the time my sister Leslie was born – we moved to the first floor. McKinley and Agatha moved upstairs.

As I’ve mentioned, I fell down the hallway stairs from the second floor to the first when I was about three, in 1956. No doubt I was visiting one or both of my grandparents. As a result, a have a tiny knot under my lower lip where facial hair refuses to grow. It’s not some sort of “soul patch” affectation.

Pop

Now McKinley I’ve written about several times, going back to the earliest months of this blog, and also here and here and here.

So this new information requires a balancing act. Discovering my biological grandfather doesn’t mean my sisters and I abandon our affection for Mac. At the same time, I know my father must have suffered, not just from Raymond Cone, but the off-again, on-again relationship between Mac and Agatha.

They were married in 1931, living together in 1932, but by 1936, they weren’t. In 1940, Agatha and Les lived with her parents, while McKinley was in a boarding house, and this was still true in 1943. Yet on the faux birth certificate that my father obtained from Binghamton, NY, McKinley was listed as Les’ father. (But Mac was a poor liar; he listed how old he was in 1944, not in 1926 when Les was born.) Mac and Agatha Green are together again by 1946.

Several people have asked me what I’m feeling. That’s why I write, to try to figure these things out. I’m still working on it. I appreciate the outpouring off support in my journey. Well, it’s OUR journey, really, Leslie’s and Marcia’s and mine, attempting to sort out the myths from the truth of our lineage.

Les Green was a “rare folk singer”

I figured Ed Link and Les Green met at one of Link’s business locations by the airport or maybe elsewhere, or through Link’s involvement with his charitable foundation

Les Green is rare folk singerI will always remember a visit c. 1985 I made to Charlotte, NC, where my late dad Les Green lived since 1974. I was SHOCKED to discover that he talked about me to his colleagues about how smart I was, how I would look up things I didn’t know. He talked about me? He LIKED my intellectual curiosity? I had always thought that it had annoyed him.

It was an intellectual curiosity that led me to this photo. You may recall this post from February, featuring a photo of my late mother, my sister Marcia and me standing in the driveway of 5 Gaines Street, Binghamton, NY. It was almost certainly taken by my dad.

I posted the photo on one Facebook group, trying to identify the building in the background. It is a red brick factory that never had particularly identifiable signage that my sisters and I could recall. I since learned that early in the 20th century, it was the home of Star Electric. In 1918 it became Barnes-Smith Co. cigar manufacturers. After being the Bonnie Silk Mill in the 1920s and ’30s, it was one of the first plants of Link Aviation.

WHAT? My father often spoke of his admiration of and affection for Ed Link, who was “a pioneer in aviation, underwater archaeology, and submersibles. He is best known for inventing the flight simulator, commercialized in 1929.”

I figured they met at one of his locations by the airport or maybe elsewhere, or through Link’s involvement with the charitable foundation he and his wife started. Could they have met on the street where I lived?

In the comments, a woman named Kathi, who had attended the same church I did, posted “this awesome pic that was in the Binghamton Press of your dad, me, and my cousin Butch.” My father cropped this specific photo and used it in fliers promoting his singing gigs in the area for a number of years.

My curiosity about the factory across the street led to the source of the graphic for the Les Green one-man PR machine. Dad would have been 93 tomorrow.

Arranging flowers: a Les Green specialty

Les Green used to arrange flowers at a store on the South Side of Binghamton called Costa’s

Les Green.Carol PowellHere is my father with my bride Carol in March 2000. This is Les Green in his element, arranging flowers and the accouterments thereof.

He used to arrange flowers at a store on the South Side of Binghamton called Costa’s. He worked out of there when his regular job was slow, but even when he was working full time. He was VERY good working with his hands, a gift he did NOT pass down to his son.

For several years, he arranged flowers and did decorations for something called the Debutante’s Ball in my hometown, which was geared towards the black community. Often, my sister Leslie and I would accompany him. Now Leslie had an eye for this work, but I was there primarily to schlep stuff. I was a pretty good schlepper.

He also worked on at least two weddings of my mother’s cousins in New York City in the 1960s. I gather he was doing similar things when he moved to Charlotte, NC in 1974.

He decorated the assembly hall at my then-church in Albany in May 1999 for Carol’s and my wedding, showing great energy and resolve. It wasn’t until the end of the reception that she shared with my shocked new mother-in-law that he had prostate cancer. Or more correctly that he was “living with” the disease.

When I referred to Carol as my bride in the above picture, I wasn’t kidding. We’d been married less than 10 months at the time. This was dad arranging his church in Charlotte for a surprise celebration of my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Carol and Leslie and Marcia helped; I’m sure I moved some items.

But what was evident to Leslie and Carol and me for sure was that he was moving just a little bit slower than he did 10 months earlier. He needed a couple more breaks. About five months after this picture was taken, my father would be gone.

Two types of photos look like Les Green in my mind’s eye: him with his guitar, and him arranging flowers. Even 19 years after he passed, he’s still a very real presence.

Les and Trudy: Redhead in San Francisco

Many of the wives were talking about the issues of the day: war, politics, and, inevitably, race.

Les and TrudyI don’t think I told this story before. If I have, in the words of an old friend of mine from England would often say, “Toughy buns.”

In the late 1960s, after about six mind-numbing years at IBM and a brief but productive stint at Opportunities for Broome, my father worked for Associated Building Contractors. I’m not quite sure what he did at ABC, but I imagine it had something to do with safety compliance, since that’s what he did at J.A. Jones after he moved to Charlotte, NC in 1974.

One of the perks of the job was the ability to travel. In 1969, give or take a year, mom and dad went out to San Francisco on a business trip of his. While the men did whatever, the “wives” would have lunch.

At one of these events, many of the wives were talking about the issues of the day: war, politics, and, inevitably, race. Some conversation took place on the latter topic, during which Mom listened thoughtfully, but said nothing. One of the wives, wanting to draw Mom into the discussion, said, “Trudy, what do think?”

Mom said, “Well, being a black woman…” Apparently, many jaws hit the table, perhaps one or two literally.

It is true that the red wig that she wore in the 1960s, which was even brighter in color than this one from the 1980s, made her skin appear even lighter. But she never identified as anything but a black woman.

My father tended to be the more visible, the more outgoing in the couple. So when there was a narrative in which SHE was the chief protagonist, mom enjoyed it immensely. She told this story more than once; there were a few anecdotes that she liked to repeat. I never asked him, but I have to think that dad was pleased that mom was out there, gathering information.

Les and Trudy Green were married on March 12, 1950, and were wed for more than 50 years, until my father died in August 2000.

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