Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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On my mother’s side of our family, newborn children were often given the forenames of relatives, perhaps a grandparent, great grandparent, or maybe a great uncle or great aunt.
For example, my first name is William and my middle name is Thomas. I got the “William” from my great grandfather, William Hudson. He lived in North Lewisburg and was a Union soldier during the Civil War. His unit defended the bridges around Washington D.C. Today his Civil War discharge is framed and it hangs on a wall in our house.
My grandmother told me a lot about him when I was a kid. She was too young to remember the day when he left for the war, but she remembered the day when he returned. During the war he had grown a full beard, and my grandmother didn’t recognize him until he picked her up and talked with her.
My middle name came from my grandfather, Thomas Tracy. He was a concrete contractor, and he laid the first concrete sidewalks in Marysville. He and his helper drove his horse and wagon to sandbars in nearby creek beds, where they shoveled the sand into the wagon and then drove it to Marysville.
At the work site, they also mixed the concrete by hand and laid the walkway. Before the concrete hardened, he used an iron gadget to press his logo into the fresh concrete. It was an oval about seven inches long with his name, “T. C. Tracy” inside. When I was a kid I saw those logos all over town. Many years later, when one of those sidewalks was taken out, I retrieved the logo, and put it in our flower garden. I thought that was a perfect place for it. That way we could see it every day.
Laying those sidewalks was hard work, and he had several different helpers over the years. He always said that the best helper he ever had was a boy named Clarence Hoopes. I think he was a teenager, but grandpa Tracy said he could outwork all those older men. Years later, Clarence became a Marysville attorney, as well as our next door neighbor on West Fifth Street.
I might add that even the pets in our family were sometimes named after people, not necessarily family members, but real people. During World War II, my cousin Tom Lockwood, who lived in Columbus, got a new dog. It was an English bulldog. I thought it was a perfect symbol for Churchill and the Brits as they battled Hitler’s Nazis. So Tom named that dog “Winston.” I still think that was a great name.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com