SUPPLEMENTAL FILE

Individual Record For

Henry Clay McCoy

Photograph of Addie, and Clay McCoy, Genes Paternal Grandparents

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Addie, Gene and Clay on Genes fourth birthday

The day Gene arrived in California

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SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF

ADDIE AND CLAY

My paternal Grandfather, Henry Clay McCoy, just Clay to his wife Addie and his friends, was a hard-of-hearing mild mannered man. A millwright by trade, he travelled all over the United States in his work, and eventually settled about 1922 in the town of Montrose, a tiny village at that time in the northwest foothill suburbs of Los Angeles, California where he built aHouse on Waltonia Drive. He was a staunch, "rock ribbed" Republican, and when not working on weekends, holidays and family get togethers Clay always dressed in three piece suits with a gold pocket watch suspended from a gold chain in his vest pocket. In later years, after he had retired, Clay loved to sit under a tree in his yard smoking Cotton Bowl twist tobacco in a curved stem briar pipe while tapping out long letters on an old Oliver typewriter to his brother Curt who was still back in Indiana on a farm. Clay was not a daily drinker but he periodically liked to go into the town of Montrose to tipple a few in some of the bars along Honolulu Avenue. I seem to recall that on at least one occasion he fell and injured himself while staggering home along Waltonia Drive.

Sometime after their children were grown Addie began travelling with Clay to his jobs. They had a Model T Ford which Addie drove, but it wasn't just in the car that Addie was in the driver's seat. She was an eccentric, manipulative, strong willed woman very much taken by the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, and, I believe, she worked as a practical nurse. Addie claimed to have asthma, and no one even presumed to light up tobacco in her presence. After having given birth to six children (all boys), Addie had a separate bedroom from Clay in the house on Waltonia Drive, and it is a kind understatement to say that housekeeping was not Addie's primary interest. Her bedroom overflowed with stacks of old newspapers as did the kitchen sink with dirty dishes, pots and pans. As a young child I frequently slept in the same bed with Addie, and I remember listening with her to the radio in the early morning. She liked to listen to a Spanish speaking station. When I asked her what the man was saying she said, "I don't know but isn't it a beautiful sounding language." When she eventually had to be moved out of the house into a nursing home my father and uncles found several hundred dollars stashed among the old newspapers in her bedroom.

One brief anecdote will reveal a little of the relationship that prevailed between Addie and Clay. In the kitchen they had a "breakfast nook" where, when I was staying with them, we would all eat our meals and especially breakfast. One morning grandpa was buttering his toast and Addie said, "Look at that, he can't even butter toast properly. He never puts the butter out to the edge of the bread." Clay ignored her and continued buttering the toast. I'm not sure he even heard her, but that little put down impressed me so much that I rarely butter a piece of toast without thinking of Grandpa and Grandma McCoy.

Of the six boys born to Addie and Clay only three survived to adulthood; twins, Harry and Harold, and my father James Bonner. Harry was involved in insurance sales, Harold was an executive with Pure Oil Company and my father, Jim, was a musician, then a jack of all trades eventually becoming an electrician. I know that one boy of the other three, Maurice, was killed by drunken policemen in an auto accident on Christmas Eve. The bio material left by Uncle Harry states Maurice was "killed in an accident" and that the other two boys "died very young."

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Link to LDS Family Search Files:

Henry C McCoy

Submitter(s): Gene C. McCoy E-MAIL

Date Submitted: 16 June 1999

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About this File:

This File is a collection of genealogical information provided by Gene C. McCoy. The information has not been verified against any official records. Since the information in Supplementall File is contributed, it is the responsibility of those who use the file to verify its accuracy.

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Copyright

) 1999 by Gene C. McCoy