I AM AN AMERICAN, TOO

For the second time this week Yuma Conservatives have spread false rumors on national TV claiming the Democrats are committing voter fraud in Yuma County. It is not true. This is Sally Sheridan speaking. I am telling you that it is not happening.
I care about America. I have worked for BOTH parties. I have been a Republican and I have been a Democrat. I care more about America than I ever cared for either party. We vote. That’s how we do it here.
I resent being intimidated politically and I take it personally. Let me tell you a true story. Six years ago, 2004. I was doing phoning and other volunteer tasks for the Democratic Party. I have done it for Republicans in the past, too. I was raised to be interested in politics. Also in 2004, I was caring for a father whose mind was slowly, slowly failing. It was my duty to help my father fill out what turned out to be his last ballot for the Presidency of the United States. I guess I knew that at the time. He cared a lot about the Republican Party and had held elective office for eight years.
The year 2004 was a year when I did not favor the incumbent administration and was actively working to unseat them. I felt terrible, terrible, when I, myself, had to mark his mail-in ballot in exactly the opposite way as I had marked my own. It was tempting. I could have marked it my way. I had the power. But I didn’t do it. I marked every single choice exactly as my Dad said. I hated doing it. I felt like I was going to be sick. But I did not fail him and I did not betray him. I am an American. We vote and then we count the votes and that’s what I believe is the best political system on earth. I believe in it even if it means I know my side is going to lose. I would rather lose the election than lose my country.
I was so repulsed by the experience that I actually carried my Dad’s mail-in ballot in my purse for two days and just played with the idea of “forgetting” to mail it. But I always knew in my heart that I would mark his ballot the way he wanted it and I would mail it in plenty of time for it to be counted. I am an American.
I have not been political on my Facebook page purposely. I set it up as my genealogy and family tree page and I want to keep it that way. Today and in this one Note I am political. I am asking my Conservative friends to ask themselves one question and I do not particularly want to know the answer. Do you share my picture of what it is to be an American? Specifically, if the 2012 election were to be held today and your elderly parent wanted to vote for Barack Obama or whomever the Democratic candidate would be, would you believe in America enough to faithfully fill out their ballot and mail it in or would you not? Do you believe in the American political system of government that much? Would you do the ballot the correct way or would you subvert the political system? Don’t tell me, just play out my situation in your mind and think of what you would do if you were in my place.

My Six Degrees of Separation from Marilyn Monroe

I learned last night that I may share a 5th great (5 greats) with Rev. Billy Graham. Someone at Ancestry.com says Billy Graham is the 4th great grandson of my Hans Casper Culp. I posted a message saying, “Where did you get this information?” I did a quick search on the Internet and I couldn’t find the nexus. In genealogy, if they can’t show the connection then it is just speculation.

On the other hand, I do have the documentation that shows that I do share a 2nd great grandfather (Christian Bowman/Bohrmann) with a woman named Eleanor Silliman Goddard. That makes her my third cousin or first cousin twice removed.
Apparently, she was a close friend of Norma Jean Baker, having been raised in the same foster home as Norma Jean.

Here is the information I have beginning with her connection to my great great grandfather Christian Bowman. The information comes from my cousin Linda Culbertson Pound. The first sentence shows the connection.

Genealogy of Linda Culbertson Pound(and Sally Sheridan)

39. ELEANOR BARBARA4 ROECK (NETTIE LAWRENCE3 WILSON, SARAH (SALLY) FRANCES2 BOWMAN, CHRISTIAN (BOHRMAN)1) was born 18 Oct 1907, and died May 1983 in Los Angeles County, Glendale, California. She married ERVIN SILLIMAN GODDARD 13 Jun 1925, son of CHARLES GODDARD and MARY BOYD. He was born 30 Jan 1904 in Holland, Bell County, Texas, and died Dec 1972 in Los Angeles County, Malibu, CA.

Notes for ELEANOR BARBARA ROECK:
Menard Messenger
Vol. IX No. 46

Thursday, September 7, 1916

(page 1)

Mrs. Ferd Wilson and son Douglas of Sanderson and daughter Mrs. Jerry Monroe of Sheffield came in Wednesday of last week in their Ford for a visit at the Roeck home. Little Miss Nellie Roeck who has been visiting in Sanderson returned with them.

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Middle name, birth and death dates from Terry Rasberry from Travis County, Texas records.

Notes for ERVIN SILLIMAN GODDARD:
Chapter 3 of the book "Marilyn Monroe, the Biography" by Donald Spoto states that Marilyn Monroe was taken into the Goddard home after the marriage of Doc Goddard and Grace McKee.
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1930 Census, Tarrant County, Texas:
1216 Pennsylvania Avenue (apparently an apartment house)
Goddard, Irvin S. Head R (rented) M W 26 Texas Arkansas Tennessee
Eleanor W F W 23 Texas Texas Texas
Eleanor D F W 3 Texas Texas Texas
Irvin S M W 2 Texas Texas Texas
"Irvin"s occupation is listed as "Sanitation Inspector"
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Ervin's SS application, dated 4/22/1937, gives his address as 3107 Barbara Court, Hollywood, Calif, and his place of employment as Unusual Pictures, 6823 Santa Monica Blve., Hollywood.

SS application copy is in my files. lcp

Children of ELEANOR ROECK and ERVIN GODDARD are:
i. ELEANOR SILLIMAN5 GODDARD, b. 17 Dec 1926, Travis County, Texas; d. 17 Feb 2000, Santa Monica, CA.

Notes for ELEANOR SILLIMAN GODDARD:
Reference to comments made by Eleanor (Bebe) concerning Marilyn Monroe are found throughout the book "Marilyn Monroe, the Biography.", by Spotos Foster sister of Marilyn.
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Birth
GODDARD ELEANOR THOMPSON 12-17-1926 f TRAVIS ELEANOR ROECK ERVIN S. GODDARD

Obit
GODDARD, Eleanor "Bebe"; 73; Santa Monica CA; Los Angeles T; 2000-2-17

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Obituaries; Eleanor Goddard; Monroe Companion
The Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.; Feb 17, 2000; MYRNA OLIVER;

Abstract:
Eleanor "Bebe" Goddard, a foster sister and teenage friend of Norma Jean Baker, better known as Marilyn Monroe, has died. Goddard was 73.

Six months her junior, Goddard long outlived Monroe, who died Aug. 5, 1962, at age 36 of a drug overdose that was ruled a suicide. Described in recent years as "a grandmotherly woman in a tight perm," Goddard spoke at observances of the 25th, 30th, 35th and other anniversaries of Monroe's death conducted at the star's crypt in Westwood Village Memorial Park.

Goddard and Monroe met and became close friends when, after each had been in a series of foster homes, they spent several teenage years in the Van Nuys home of Goddard's father, Ervin S. "Doc" Goddard and his new wife, Grace McGee Goddard, a close friend of Monroe's institutionalized mother, Gladys Baker.

Full Text:
(Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 2000 all Rights reserved)
Eleanor "Bebe" Goddard, a foster sister and teenage friend of Norma Jean Baker, better known as Marilyn Monroe, has died. Goddard was 73.

Frequently a spokeswoman at gatherings of Monroe fans, Goddard died Friday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica. Her friend Steve Campbell said the heavy smoker and activist for smokers' rights, who attributed her health problems to air pollution surrounding her Burbank home, died of emphysema.

Six months her junior, Goddard long outlived Monroe, who died Aug. 5, 1962, at age 36 of a drug overdose that was ruled a suicide. Described in recent years as "a grandmotherly woman in a tight perm," Goddard spoke at observances of the 25th, 30th, 35th and other anniversaries of Monroe's death conducted at the star's crypt in Westwood Village Memorial Park.

Goddard and Monroe met and became close friends when, after each had been in a series of foster homes, they spent several teenage years in the Van Nuys home of Goddard's father, Ervin S. "Doc" Goddard and his new wife, Grace McGee Goddard, a close friend of Monroe's institutionalized mother, Gladys Baker.

Campbell said this week that many of Monroe's anecdotes about hardships growing up--beatings, hunger and the string of foster homes- -were actually borrowed by the star from Goddard's early experiences.

Goddard told fans about the happy days she and Norma Jean spent going to movie theaters and dreaming of becoming film stars. She said the two girls shared clothes and makeup and talked for hours about whether they would achieve fame.

In 1991, when Goddard revisited their old Van Nuys High School for presentation of a picture of Monroe, she described her famous foster sister: "She was just a really average girl, except she was so much more beautiful than average."

Disputing an anecdote that the young Marilyn was so skinny she was nicknamed "Norma Jean the Human Bean," Goddard told the students that Monroe at 15 already had a figure dangerous for any teenager.

"We were the same height, same weight, same everything--except the distribution," Goddard said.

Goddard told The Times in 1991 that she had last shared a birthday celebration with Monroe in 1953, the year the actress starred in the hit film "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." She said Monroe invited her foster family to her Doheny Drive apartment for dinner and birthday cake.

"It was not-well-cooked liver and kind-of-tough baked potatoes," Goddard related. "It was the first time I had seen her with a glass of wine and a cigarette, and I was having a fit laughing because she didn't drink or smoke."

The foster sister contributed a lock of Monroe's hair and baby pictures to a time capsule buried at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and scheduled to be opened Aug. 5, 2062, the 100th anniversary of Monroe's death. Goddard also sold personal items of Monroe to collectors and dealers in celebrity memorabilia.

Goddard relished the rise of Monroe's stature as an actress in the decades after the star's death.

"She was so put down by her studio and other people who really didn't know her well when she was alive," Goddard told The Times. "To me it is just a glorious experience that the interest in her keeps increasing and that she is up there thumbing her nose at them."

Credit: TIMES STAFF WRITER
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SS application on June 12, 1944, gives middle name as Silliman. Eleanor's application states that she is 17 years old, living at 1020 Lawrence Avenue., Chicago, Ill. and employed by Wilding Pictures Corp., 1345 Argyle Avenue, Chicago, Ill. .

SS Application copy is in my files. LCP

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Per Terry Rasberry, from Travis County files, Eleanor's middle name was Thompson.

More About ELEANOR SILLIMAN GODDARD:
Burial: Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles, Ca.

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[Final note from Sally]

I was delighted to learn about the connection to Marilyn Monroe but Billy Graham? Not so much.

Where have we Mitchells been for the last 5,000 years?

Where have we Mitchells been for the last 5,000 years?

I have been trying to understand our history as an ancient family. It isn't easy, because I didn't major in science and I don't understand the languages of science. I am a word-person not a number person. I recently asked a question on the RL-21 DNA Project website. I asked them to explain it to me in words since, even though I have been following the discussion on the website, I don’t understand the spreadsheets and scientific jargon that I read there. I said to those experts, “I need words.”

My Question: My closest (Mitchell) match on FTDNA (25/37) is a Basque gentleman. We have been trying to figure out when we last were sitting around the same campfire. I guess it was before L 21 and before there were Basques. Can you explain our history to me?

This is the answer I received and it is a good one:

Answer: [A couple of notes: First, the Bell Beaker culture may have built Stonehenge. That is the prevailing view at this time. Second, the term MRCA means Most Recent Common Ancestor.” Sally]

"Suppose the Bell Beaker Folk were derived from a population that expanded out of the Caucasus with the knowledge of mining and working copper. They might keep this secret to themselves since an advanced technology might give them an advantage over any other populations they might encounter. They might also just be unreceptive to different cultural practices and thus keep to themselves and intermarry. If they found themselves in northern France about 2,200 B.C. they might form a homogeneous population where most of the members shared a restricted pool of autosomal [DNA] values. As the population grew, a segment might choose to branch off in search of new land to farm or sources of copper ore to work. Suppose such a segment moved south into southeastern France and then to the area of the Pyrenees. Groups living in mountain valleys would have geography to assist them in the social isolation they practiced with respect to surrounding populations. Suppose that the L21 mutation occurred in the original Beaker population located in northern France right about the time a group moved south, so that the southern group did not include any L21 members. Or suppose L21 evolved in a group that was socially isolated from the population that moved south, in which case it may have existed for many generations and already have started to spread east and west when the ancestors of the Basques began migrating. If the original populations, or elements of these populations, continued to exercise social isolation from other populations they would retain roughly similar pools of autosomal [DNA] marker values. This might result in people whose ancestry has lived in the British Isles for the last 3,000 years showing autosomal [DNA], and perhaps yDNA, results similar to Basque populations, or some Roma populations, or some Ashkenazi populations, or some ethnic groups from Pakistan, or India, etc. etc. Or maybe not. Based on our current knowledge it could have happened like that, but just because something could have happened doesn't mean that it did." by Ralph Porter.