George Ross Crithfield IV is my nephew. George Ross Crithfield III is my eldest brother. George Ross Crithfield II was my mother's first husband and my older siblings' father. George Ross Crithfield I is no blood relation.
Did your brain make that record scratch noise? Did you tip your head to the side like my dog does when I run through the house in a towel?
In my last post, you were introduced to Emma Nevada Pauline Kleine Goforth Crithfield. Emma's first husband, Charles Goforth, died of complications from diabetes before the advent of insulin. She remarried my older siblings' grandfather Henry Crithfield. Henry Crithfield was born Henry Haueise in Brookfield, Missouri, in 1887.
From here the story gets just a little shaky. My mother always told the story that as a teenager, he was "farmed out" to help support the family. Some boys who went to live as hired hands were treated brutally, starved, beaten like rented mules. Henry, however, went to work for Mr. George Ross Crithfield, who was kind and treated him like a son. Later Henry took this foster father's last name.
Other evidence (swiped from his granddaughter Janet's public tree on Ancestry.com--I should probably have asked before posting this) suggests that Mr. Crithfield and his wife Mary adopted Henry at the age of two following his mother's death. His brothers and sisters were adopted by other families.
Either way, the impact of Mr. Crithfield's kindness has impacted my family for four generations of namesakes--but he is no blood relation.
