The Eyes Of Carlos Fish

Thursday, Jun. 08, 2006 - 10:44 a.m.

When my father died, he took a considerable amount of family folklore with him. I heard a lot of it when I was growing up, and I can remember most of what he told me. But just the same, since he never actually sat down and committed it to paper, there's the chance of loss or degradation through each successive generation. It looks as if I am not likely to have children, and my younger brother, who is my closest living blood relative, doesn't speak to me in order to protect me from getting into trouble when the authorities finally catch up with him, so due to these circumstances, I'm more determined than I have ever been before to find my place in the family history, even if I don't have very many inter-familial resources to work with.

One of the things I did remember my father telling me was that his mother's father was a man named Carlos O'Leon Fish. I love that name. It's just a turn-of-the century, larger than life sort of name that should belong to a great-grandfather from the midwest.

Due to it being such an original name, I thought, what are the odds that Carlos O'Leon Fish just might be registered on a geneaology site somewhere?

So out of curiousity about three weeks ago, I went ahead and I Googled my great-grandfather's full name.

There was absolutely no match for the name "Carlos O'Leon Fish".

But then I stopped my search, and considered something. Once in while, people have been known to inherit outlandish combinations of names which they never actually end up using for business. Maybe at the time, Carlos O'Leon Fish was a mouthful for business associates to pronounce.

So instead, I Googled "Carlos O Fish".

And I got a hit.

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There was a post over in Ancestry.com forum from a lady named Marge Rice. Marge is a retired librarian with a really interesting hobby. She buys old photographs from antique stores, and if the names are present on the back of the photograh, she does enough historical research so that the current descendants of whomever is in the picture can be contacted, and the photographs returned to the families. She had in her possession, a picture of three people, and on the back there was inscribed "C O Fish and family."

So. I emailed her with my request, and told her that I thought I might be a great-grandchild of the man in the photograph. She emailed me back immediately, correlated the info I provided with the research she'd done, and agreed to send the photograph if I'd please be so kind to reimburse her for the cost of her original purchase plus a photo mailer envelope and the postage. Nothing more, as she's not doing it for profit.

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Ten dollars and six days later, I give you Carlos O'Leon Fish:

This picture was taken in approximately 1896. He is with his wife, the former Addie Vampner, and the child in the photograph is their firstborn -- a son named Dale.

As my regular readers know, Dale is my father's name. Dad told me he was named after my grandma Mildred's oldest brother.

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The Landerman women are all basically the same make and model. The females who descended from the sons of Ira Landerman all have extremely generous hips, slightly romanesque noses, large forearms, and alas, chests that will stop defying gravity if given half a chance. We also tend to have these lovely near-triangular eyes which are all ice blue or topaz.

Everybody that is, except for MY branch of the family. MY branch of the family contains a strain of womenfolk who have very large round BROWN eyes. My father had them, and he passed them on to me. (I think dad's sister Aunt Marcia might have them too; I'll have to give her an Eskimo kiss next time I see her and find out what color her eyes are.)

Until just a day ago, I had never seen a picture of any other Landerman or Landerman ancestor that had those same eyes.

But now, I have.

I was showing Carlos around to a few friends online late last night / early this morning, immediately after he'd been scanned in. My friend Laura was the one who noticed the resemblance, without any prompting from me and YMed 'Wow, you guys have the same EYES!'

Yes. The same eyes.

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Finally, here's how Carlos O Fish died. The fourth child mentioned in the obituary was my grandmother, the future Mildred Landerman:

From the Fulton County Indiana obituary archives, 1928:

Friends in this city today [Rochester] received word of the death of Carlos O. Fish, aged 57, a former resident of this city which occurred in his real estate office at San Diego, Cal., on April 27, following an attack of acute indigestion. The death of Mr. Fish, who lived at Buena Vista, Cal., was entirely unexpected. Mr. Fish was born in Fulton county, the son of Mr. and Mrs. John Fish. Twenty-two years ago he moved with his family to Guthrie, Oklahoma. Fourteen years ago he moved to Buena Vista where he has since been engaged in the real estate and insurance business. Mr. Fish while a resident of this county was a school teacher. He also served a term as deputy county treasurer under John R. Barr. When he was 25 years of age, Mr. Fish was married to Miss Addie M. Vampner of this city, who survives him. Other survivors are the parents, two sons, Dale Fish and Hulbert Fish and two daughters, Helen Fish and Mildred Fish all of whom live in San Diego with the exception of Helen who resides in Santa Barbara. Funeral services for Mr. Fish were held in San Diego Monday. Burial was made in San Diego.

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My Aunt Phyllis, my father, and my Aunt Marcia were born after Carlos died. I'm making reproductions of this photograph to send to my father's sisters.

My big brown eyes have gotten me out of a few scrapes in my time, and for that, I thank my great-grandfather, Carlos O'Leon Fish.

So there ya go. And again, a profoundly grateful thank you to Marge Rice for making this happen.

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Have a nice Thursday.

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