THE KENNEDY CONNECTION...............

Now on to Grandpa Kennedy's side of the family.  Both Grandma and Grandpa Kennedy (your Grandpa's parents)  were born in Western PA.  I remember that Grandpa was born in Ford City, PA, which means that his parents lived there.  One time Debbi and I were driving to Mahaffey from Pittsburgh and passed right by the little burg of Ford City.  To my knowledge, they never traveled anywhere - except from house to house always in the Pittsburgh area.  They were both tall, large boned people and I remember them only with white hair. .  They were by nature nomads I guess as every time we visited them, it was in a different house, but all in the Pittsburgh area.

Grandpa was a railroad man, and he was a big man, with a deep raspy voice and a heart like a marshmallow.  His mother died when he was young, and the new wife of his father did not want children and so he was relegated to grow up in an orphanage.  I remember visiting Grandma and Grandpa Kennedy when I was young.  They were kind people and I enjoyed being with them.  They were obviously very prejudiced people, as I remember one time when I was staying alone with them, they were living on a hill and at the foot of the hill was a cluster of houses.  My grandmother warned me not to go near there, that those people were "hunkies".  I think they were actually Italians.  And actually my grandparents always lived in quarters that we would consider the poverty level today.

There were five children in the Kennedy clan:  Grandpa, the oldest, then Aunt Vivian, Uncle Fred, Uncle Kenneth and Aunt Thelma.  I do not know if you remember any of them, but again they all lived around the Pittsburgh area.  After Grandpa Kennedy died, Grandma always lived with her youngest daughter, Aunt Thelma. They both attended an Alliance church spasmodically.  Aunt Thelma was a long time single before she married Uncle George.  They produced twins - not identical in any way.  The girl was like Aunt Thelma, tall and normal and the boy was like Uncle George, a bit strange in both looks and personality!  Aunt Thelma was a member of the Aliquippa Alliance church, I suppose until her death. And I have lost track of her children.

Aunt Vivian was a great lady.  She and my Uncle Chuck were a kind of strange couple - he was a very short skinny man and she was a tall, well built lady.  To my knowledge he never accepted the Lord, but she was a faithful Christian all her life.  He was a chain smoker, their house was very tiny, but I always loved going there. They were a happy family and although their house was very small, they welcomed everyone and she was a good cook and very hospitable.  Their children were Mary, the oldest and the one from whom we got the saying in our family - "Pass the food, cousin Mary" as she would never pass anything at the table.  (How is that for trivia??)  The second was also a girl, Virginia, who was my age.  She was a diabetic and married and raised a family right near her folks.

Then there was Charles, called Sonny by everyone.  He married a lovely girl who attended the small Alliance church where Aunt Vivian took her children each week, and they have had a long very happy marriage.  They still keep in contact with us.  He worked in the local steel mills.  Tommy was the youngest and I really do not know what his life was like after childhood.  We probably visited this family more often than the other relatives.

Then there was Uncle Fred.  He had been married as a young man, but I never knew that wife.  He remarried  another lady after a divorce, something that made him a kind of "black sheep" of the family, as divorce was frowned on in those days.  They had one daughter  and we visited them occasionally on furlough.  Uncle Kenneth and his wife kept in contact with my parents until their death.  To my knowledge, they never professed salvation, but they did keep up family contact.  They had two sons, and I always had a good time with them when they visited - Billy and Jimmy.

My Dad attended Whiteside Memorial Bible Institute at the Allegheny Center Alliance church.  I was in that church on tour several years ago, and was looking at the old pictures on the church office walls.  I found a picture of Grandpa Kennedy standing on the back row of his class at Whiteside.  From there he went to Nyack for a year of missions training.

Grandma Kennedy was a student for three years at Nyack Missionary Training Institute. She did not have the money to live in the dorm, so she worked for a wealthy family down on the Hudson river shore, where she helped keep house and slept and thus earned her living.  As soon as Nyack graduation was over, Grandma and Grandpa went home to Marion Hill and were married in the Alliance church there. From there they went directly into ministry, in Buffalo, New York, and from there to French West Africa.