Family History on my Mother's Side

My great aunt, Wilma Talent, and her husband have been visiting here at my grandparents for the weekend. I decided to snatch up the opportunity to ask some questions about my heritage and those that came before me. My great aunt was happy to oblige and it was a lot of fun filling a bunch of links in my family tree.

I was most fascinated to learn about my great-great-grandmother Mary Knakel (pronounced Ke-Nackel). I may have discovered where I get my love of languages from! Apparently she could speak and write at least 8 languages. Terrific! There's a polyglot in my family tree and I couldn't be prouder to have her blood. I think she led quite a romantic life, in both senses of the word. At one time she was living in a convent in Czechoslovakia where she grew up and almost took her vows to be a nun and belong forever to the church, but for some reason she decided not to. My guess is it had something to do with my great-great-grandfather, Karl Knakel. He left for America and told her that once he could provide for her he would send for her to come be with him. Eventually he found work as a shoemaker so Mary traveled to the U.S. to join him. They got married in Chicago and lived there for a while. Karl also did some carpentry and cabinet making. In 1901, my great-grandmother Pauline was born, the third of 5 children from that marriage.

Pauline was very fond of her father, but sadly he died of cancer when she was only 8. Soon after that, her mother remarried a man by the name of Charles Kus who was also a shoemaker. This was only the beginning of hard times for her. Not only did she resent his taking her father's place, but her stepfather brought his own brood of children to join the already crowded home of 6 making it a family of 13. From that point on, Pauline felt that they had invaded her home and were taking away what was hers. She used to talk about how she remembered her Mama staying up late to sew clothes but they were usually given to her stepbrothers and stepsisters. When she was 13, Pauline's stepfather took her out of school and forced her to work at one of the many cigarette factories located between Richmond and Petersburg (They had moved down from Chicago at some point). Apparently, in those times you could smell tobacco just by driving in to Richmond. Pauline never went back to school but she did love to read quite a bit, as my grandfather told me.

My great-grandmother Pauline's life took a seemingly turn for the better in 1919, when on December 20th, at the age of 18, she married my great-grandfather Raymond Good Sr. in Hollands Springs, Virginia. I'm sure she was thankful to get away from her crowded home. Raymond worked for a time in the coal mines of West Virginia, but then took his wife and two kids (my great aunt Wilma and her brother Grover) back to the Richmond area. Soon after my grandfather, Raymond Wayne Jr. was born.