John Clyde Parker (I15437)
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Personal Facts and Details
  Events of close relatives | |
| Birth | 5 April 1898  23 23 Scottdale, Pennsylvania |
| Marriage | 26 July 1930 (Age 32) Lucile Madeline Dennison - [View Family (F5906)]
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| Occupation | Civil Engineer |
| Death of father | 4 September 1954 (Age 56) Frank Ruff Parker (I15440) (Age 79) - [Relationship Chart] |
| Death of mother | 23 December 1962 (Age 64) Olive Etoil Anderson (I15442) (Age 87) - [Relationship Chart] |
| Death | 7 March 1977 (Age 78) Camden Clark Memorial Hospital, Parkersburg, West Virginia |
| Universal Identifier | E7DCAB8C75A4D511973400E02931A951F89B |
| Veteran | World War I |
| Lodges/Organizations | Association of Retired Government Employees |
| Burial | St. Francis Xavier Cemetary, Parkersburg, West Virginia |
| Last Change | 22 June 2006 - 23:07:36 |
Notes
 Note |
He worked for the U. S. Government on the locks and dams along the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. Note from David P. (Pat) Parker: Granddad was very quiet and seemed to speak only when he felt he had something to say, but when he did speak you wanted to hear it. He always looked a little like ' 'Bing' ' Crosby to me and he had a beautiful baritone voice. He did not sing often but when he did it was usually at Christmas time and he always sang Silent Night in German. He was able to converse in Pennsylvania Dutch. He was an average sized, average framed man who always dressed nicely and he was light on his feet which he proved once in a while by dancing a little jig. He smoked cigars and a pipe and I always loved the smell of either. He was great with his hands andspent time in the basement of his house in Parkersburg, where he and grandmother retired to, building things out of wood; he was extremely artistic. He would sketch things on various pads he had stored in a desk he had built in hisbasement and which we grandchildren would get into and try our hand at, also. He built his basement shop completely by hand. Because he was an engineer he designed tools to make it easy to move heavy loads in the basement. He visited craft shows at fairs and such and got ideas from watching the woodcrafters and viewing their projects and he would go home and duplicate them; manyof these crafts are still made and sold today in WV and, I'm sure, in other states as well. He would save peach pits and let them dry up and then he would carve little boats and turtles and other things out of them with nothing but a pocket knife (he seemed to enjoy works in miniature more than any others). He found a walnut shell one time which he cut with a saw and when placed flat it appeared to have his name's initials [JCP] spelled out. He, also, enjoyed gardening. At the house he and my grandmother lived in at the Gallipolis Locks and Dam on the Ohio River, his last place of employment prior to retirement, he had one room with nothing but pots of African Violets. That was such a great house, a paradise for rambunctious children. Dad would take me, my brothers, Mike and Tim ,down by the river and he would skip stones across the water's surface as we counted how many times it would skip before sinking into the water; then we would try our version of it but usually just endedup throwing stones in the river. The property the house stood on was fairly flat and there was only one or two other houses in the area and they were several hundred feet apart (I didn't realize that this was Government land and the houses were used by the employees of the locks/dam) and there was this bigpaved area which we all learned to ride our bikes on. There was a weather station on the property near the locks itself and I was fascinated by the windindicator, its propeller spinning wildly and the little airplane design turning to keep facing into the wind. Granddad, also, seemed to do all the cooking; I don't ever remember my grandmother cooking a meal at their house; and hewas a good cook. And I've never been able to capture that special taste of peanut butter sandwiches the way he made them; always on whole wheat bread with butter. He usually kept a tin of oatmeal cookies in the bottom of a cabinet which had its own tin cover. A special treat for us kids was when we visited and the adults might have a little drink of bourbon mixed with 7-Up andthey would have a Maraschino cherry in the bottom of the glass so granddad would make us a cup of 7-Up with just a little cherry juice in it and a Maraschino cherry in the bottom. |
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Family with Parents - [View Family (F5907)] |
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Family with Lucile Madeline Dennison - [View Family (F5906)] |
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