Family Discovered, Family Lost

I suffer from ADGD (Attention Deficit Genealogy Disorder).It's when you start researching one ancestor, but get distracted by another ancestor, which causes you to bounce around to different ancestors only to end up doing a lot of work with very little to show for it! I am trying my best to get everything organized and recorded, so hang in there.

Today I received word that we lost a family member, one that we have never met.  This is a branch of the family that I just discovered this past week and I was so sorry to hear of his passing.  I would have so liked the opportunity to meet this man, our dad’s first cousin.  I do hope to connect with his younger brother, Tony Wiggens, after he has had time to mourn his brother Larry’s passing.

When I first started messaging Tony, he informed me that his brother (who was 82 years old) was in very poor health and was in the ICU in Vanderbilt Hospital. He told me that Larry had recently had an aortic valve replacement and  that he was “in the battle of his life”. He said that he had undergone 3 heart by-pass surgeries in the last 35 years. Sadly he lost his battle today.

                                                      Larry and Jeanette Wiggens

  

Larry Wiggens was the oldest of two sons born to Lottie Mae Goodwin Wiggens.  Lottie was the youngest child of Felix Grundy Goodwin and his second wife, Nora Shaver Goodwin. 

Lottie was only a year and a half old when her mother passed away.  According to Tony, our great grandfather Felix was in Arkansas at the time of Nora’s passing.  He said that Felix called Nora’s daddy and told him that he needed to come pick up the body and the three children, as he was unable to care for them.  Nora’s daddy, J.M. Shaver boarded a train from Tennessee and traveled to Arkansas to claim his daughter’s body and to take his grandchildren home with him.

According to Tony, his mother did not remember ever having any contact with her father, Felix, after her mother’s passing.  She told Tony that she and Hester Louise (Aunt Heck) and Felix Clinton (Uncle Major) were basically raised by their aunt,  Trilby Shaver, who was only around thirteen years old when her sister Nora’s children came to live with them.

So much information is coming at me and I love it.  I will continue to connect with as many family members that will talk to me, and I am taking notes as furiously as I can. 

I love this picture of our cousin Larry Wiggens, son of Lottie Mae Goodwin Wiggens and Thomas Marion Wiggens.  It may be just me, but I can totally see a family resemblance to our dad.  Tony tells me that if he can find a picture of his Uncle Felix Clinton Goodwin, that I will be amazed at the family resemblances I will find there.

I am sure that there will be many more posts involving this branch of the family tree, now that I am in contact with Tony.  I am so excited to find living members of the Goodwin tree that can fill in a few of the blank spaces.  I am loving this genealogy journey!!!