This is a video of my first cousin’s daughter Helena. Does that make her my second cousin? Or is it first cousin once removed? Who knows, I just know she’s already a star. Her Dad Tom asks her who she likes best Mama or Dada. Mama, Crystal, is trying to get Helena to say Mama.

According to the handwriting on the back of this photograph it was taken in July of 1944 somewhere in Toledo, Ohio. The beautiful young woman in the photograph is Mrs. Robert L. Gorrell and she is 23 years old. The apple cheeked baby is Robert L. Gorrell, Jr. or Bobby. He is 14 months old. When this photograph was taken Robert L. Gorrell, Sr. was serving in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. He was overseas and I have been told he had a copy of this picture with him.

Mrs. Robert L. Gorrell was the former Ellen Matthews. She was barely five-feet tall but was strong, athletic and agile. Legend has it during pep rallies at Scott High School they’d pick a male student to kick a football the length of the field house. As a joke, the young high school-aged Ellen was selected to kick the ball. Everyone in the crowd expected the tiny brunette to daintily fumble the task. Wrong. Ellen was Irish and fiery and she kicked that ball to the opposite wall. The shocked and delighted crowd in attendance at that long ago 1939 era Scott High School pep rally cheered little Ellen. Later, Ellen would be one of the first women to be offered an athletic scholarship to Toledo University. But of course the war interfered with those plans.

Ellen was my grandmother and Bobby is my father. I don’t look like Ellen, I wish I did. She was the grandmother who would let you do anything you wanted to at her house. She would let me stay up late and watch t.v. in her “rumpus room.” She laughed her head off when, as a 3 year old, I told her Shirley Temple movies bugged me. We watched Johnny Carson instead. Her athletic prowess came into play for me when she taught me how to do a back-bend and come back up. She did not “throw like a girl” and tried to teach me the same.  Alas, I do “throw like a girl.”

If you ever shopped at LaSalle’s (now Elder-Beerman) in Westgate you might have met Ellen. She worked there almost until she died. She passed away in 1992. We’re still expecting her decorated cookies every Christmas and her to answer M’ello when we call on the phone.

But I have a lot of stories about Ellen and Robert L. Gorrell, Sr.  and the whole famdamily as she used to joke. Maybe I’ll tell a few here now again. M’bye for now.

P.S. Over at Befrazzled you can read about the other side of my family, the Polish side. I thought I better start with the Gorrells/Matthews before Robin got the jump on me.