MORE OF THE PIERCE CLAN...........................

Now for an account of Dad's siblings and their spouses and offspring.  These people you remember for the most part.  You will also remember some eventa I include here, but maybe there will also be some new things that you did not know.  So here goes.

Dad was the third child of four children born to Alvah and Edna Pierce.  I think all four children were born in the Danielson area, most in the home where they lived.  In those days, many women had their babies at home and did not have access to a hospital.  Uncle Luther was the first born, Aunt Esther the second born,  Dad was the third child and Uncle Richard the baby of the clan.  They were all within two to five years of each other, so grew up together, beginning with the frame house built for the family after they moved from that original old homestead, then at the big white home in Brooklyn, which you all remember. and which is now part of the Pierce Memorial Home for the elderly. 

I will attempt to write for  you what I remember as being told me by the various members of the family, but I may not remember the sequence of everything.  Uncle Luther was the first born. As was often the case, your grandmothr and grandfather made their home with his parents. This was often the case with young married people of that day.  But then Grandpa Pierce had a home built for Uncle Luther and his beginning family which is where they lived I think for some time before eventually moving to the big white house in Brooklyn town.   Uncle Luther was born in that frame house and was followed two years later by Aunt Esther.

When Uncle Luther was in his late teens or early twenties, the Second World War erupted, and he joined the army.  During the period of his training in the service, he was sent to Dothan, Alabama, where there was a large training base. There was a big Southern Baptist church in town where Aunt Fran attended, and she and her friends held regular events for the young men living on the nearby military base. Uncle Luther - being brought up a good Baptist - attended the Baptist church and also went to their gatherings for the soldiers, which is where he met Aunt Fran.  She was a Southern belle, and has never really lost her Southen accent and charm.  They made their home in Brooklyn, where they lived in a small house not far from his parents.  Later on, Luther and his family moved into a spacious home, on the next property to the Pierce home you grew up with as children. When they were younger, there were some marital problems for a while, but they wer resolved and they have had a long, happy married life. For some years Uncle Luther owned and flew his own small plane and Aunt Fran learned to fly that also.  They have always kept in touch with us - even came to Africa to see us, and always visited on furlough.  They moved to Miami from New England to take an assistant pastorate in a large Baptist church there. Uncle Luther had a radio program in Miami which was quite popular as a religious program of those days. From there he took a fulltime pastorate in Hallendale, Florida, north of Miami, and we visited them there one Easter time on our furlough.  They moved back north again and ended up in Pittsfield, Massachusettes, where Uncle Lu servd as an assistant pastor in a Congregational (?) church.  They built themselves their own home in the woods of the hill country there, and finally sold it a couple years ago and moved to Florida again. They live near Roger and his wife in central Florida and plan to remain there.  They, of all the family, have kept in best contact with us through the years.

Aunt Esther was a charming lady.  She had married fairly young,  and I never knew that husband. When I first met Aunt Esther, she lived in Yale and then New York City, where she worked in the publishing house of the Episcopal church.  Sh worked in their junior high educational department, developing written SS materials, for some years.  In New York she met Uncle Averill (distant relative of Averill Harriman, the well know at the time New Yorker)  and they seemed to have a good marriage. They were both New Yorkers, kind of artsy, and fun people really.  They had no children and so adopted children - Alice and Philip. Alice was also very artsy like her parents, and eventually ended up out in Hollywood where they live until this day.  Phillip married also, and he was an educator.  His wife is a dear person, but unfortunately bcame an alcoholic.  They finally moved up to Vermont, thinking a change would be good for her, but she remained an alcoholic.  Phillip and she were finally divorced, he has remarried, they both live in Vermont as well as Uncle Averill, and they share the children.  What is it they call them - wishbone children, pulled in two directions.  They were all at Aunt Esther's funeral on that cold, wintry day in Vermont. And they all still live in the same area up there.

Aunt Esther's funeral was a time of gathering for the family. During the ceremony, communion was served up front by the woman priest officiating. We went up by rows to take communion, and Philip was there with his newly engaged wife as well as his divorced wife. I went up with the divorced wife to take communion and their young son went up with us too.  If you did not want to sip the alcohol in the chalice, you crossed your arms in front of you over your chest, and as I stood by the young son, he crossed his arms as did his mother.  This because of her alcoholism. I had never seen that before.

The youngest of the Pierce offspring was Uncle Richard.  He studied for the ministry at Andover-Newton Seminary in New England, I think a congregational seminary.  They had been married several years and had no children, so they decided to take two boys as foster children. These boys were brothers. They had a beautiful mother (I remember meeting her) but she was too busy running around to care for her boys and so gave them up for foster care.  Dick and Jean were elated, but after several years they realized the mother would never give the boys up for adoption, and so they decided to send them back and at that time adopted their two girls, Sally and Susan.  You kids knew those girls growing up. Sally is divorced from her military husband of some years, and lives with her children in Maryland. Susan married a loser, and she had one daughter. He left her and she married another loser. She lives near her folks in Hartford, CT, and her parents often care for their granddaughter.  They still live in the same little house they bough back in the beginning of their marriage.  Jean retired recently from the town library where she was librarian for many years. Uncle Richard is still active in his local church near where they live.  Baptist I think.  

One furthere paragraph about the Luther Pierce children....The oldest, Roger, rose to the rank of major in the United States army.  He retired from the army, married an older lady, whom he had met on marathon bike rides, which they both love.  They seem happily married and live in Florida near his parents.  Larry was the second son, loved his trips to Africa, played the piano like a pro. He married young, actually a Christian girl, but after several years of marriage - and no children - she divorced him.  He was single for a while, but finally married Rose.  We met her once when we were on tour near them in Florida.  She was a total mismatch for Larry, and she had two or three grown girls of her own from a previous marriage.  Several years ago, Rose died suddenly.  The girls made life hard for Larry - took all his money, furniture, etc.  And he finally died unexpectedly from (I think) a heart attack.  Jimmy was next in line in the family, and again I think he was divorced, then married again.  We went to their wedding as were in Nyack on Home Assignment. That wedding was so hard on Grandma Pierce, as it was so very secular, with a wild  reception after the dry ceremony.  Both Jimmy and Alan married women who had already been married and wre divorced/ They "inherited" children through their divorced wives, and they all live in Massachusettes near each other I think.  It is interesting to note that Uncle Lu and Aunt Fran do not have a single biological grandchild.  And of the four Pierce children, only Dad and Luther had biological children.  The rest were adopted.

And I thiink that about sums up the Pierce progeny!