(There are a few pictures, so this page will take a minute to load)
Musical Accompaniment: Couperin, Francois (1668-1733); Le Baricades
Misterieuses; baricades_misterieuses.mid; Lory Werth: http//members.fortunecity.com/flatpickin/mididl.html
Current Generations
"Weird Name"
Our little twig of the ancient tree settled in Memphis, Tennessee. I was an ordinary kid from the South--who just happened to have a really weird name.
"Bill's Kids"
Not counting other marriages, my parents had three children. My father, William Thomason Fazakerly, named the first two of us after himself (Billie, born Jan. 13, 1946, & W. T., Jr., Dec. 05, 1947). When my youngest brother came along Dec. 28, 1950, my mother decided that two children named after her husband was enough. She named him Chris after her mother (Gladys Christine Meshew Finch).
My Father:
William
Thomason Fazakerly
1918-1968
Just how many people were named: William, Bill, Billy, Billie, Willie,
or Will in this family? Some were in the same families (father & son) and some in the same generation (1st cousins).
Well, if we start from Chicago (1856 city directory & 1860 census) there was:
William
Fazakerly; Born England; his only son was Bryan Fazakerly (there has been some speculation in the family that
he may have been named William Bryan, but
there is no proof of that; he went by the name of Bryan);
Bryan's mother, Margaret, wife of the above William, remarried in 1865 and
married William Thane; they had a son, William Thane, Jr. (Bryan's
half brother)
Bryan
Fazakerly: His 1st son was William Bryan Fazakerly;
William Bryan Fazakerly: His only child (son) was William Bryan II;
William
Bryan Fazakerly, II: Two of his sons had the name William:
George William Fazakerly: (no
children) &
William Bryan Fazakerly, III: He has a son named:
Nathan William Fazakerly
Bryan Fazakerly's other son,
George Mitchell Fazakerly, had one son named:
William
Thomason Fazakerly: Two of his children were named after him:
Billie Lynn Fazakerly; (two children; no Williams!!! Enough is enough!)
William Thomason Fazakerly, Jr. (no children)
And nearly everyone of these people had nicknames associated with
the name William!
Mind-boggling isn't it?
"Genealogy?"
As it happens, my family did not talk much about "the past". They were too busy trying to survive "today" and weren't interested in genealogy back then. I had to learn to become a real pest to get some answers and I'm glad I persevered.
Top row: Mama: Martha
Louise Finch Mulkey Fazakerly Matthews (yes, this is all one person)
& Billie Lynn Fazakerly
Bottom row: Chris Lee Fazakerly & William Thomason Fazakerly, Jr. (Tommy)
Memphis, Tennessee 1966
Our Grandmother's dining room (Nanny: Gladys Christine Meshew Finch);
One of our favorite hangouts
Nanny's House
Mrs. Gladys Christine Meshew Finch
“We’re Not Alone”
I was an adult before I ever heard our name mentioned outside of our family. I was in an elevator at the Baptist Hospital in Memphis (where I was training as a student nurse) and a doctor told me he knew of some people in Mississippi with my name but he thought that they spelled their name differently. When I mentioned this to my father, he said that our family lines weren’t connected. I was flabbergasted. I thought we were the only ones around. Years later I found out they spelled their name Fisackerly.
Russian Jewish Girl?
My husband was born in Georgia and I was
born in Memphis. I thought James' parents understood that I was
a girl from the South--and not just living in the South. After meeting his mother, she told me that, because of my name, she was expecting a foreign
girl--a Jewish girl from Russia!
(That would have been perfectly fine with me! How wonderfully
exotic and interesting.)
I was astounded to realize the effect my "weird" name had on
others. I guess I thought that after leaving school, things would be a little
better. Wrong. After I was married I thought how wonderful to have such an
ordinary name like Harrison. Only later did it became popular--in the USA--to
hyphenate last names. I wish I had thought to do this--I've missed the familiar
little burden.
“Benny Hill”
The next time I heard our name I was watching a Benny Hill program. I was grown up and married by then. During one of his routines, he casually mentioned a Mr. Fazakerley. He pronounced it like we do, “Fa-zack-ly”. No big deal for him to pronounce our name. When I mentioned this to my father he said that England was where we originated. Thus the seeds of curiosity were planted. However it was years later before I started taking this genealogy business seriously and my father died before I could "grill him" on our ancestors.
“Big BooBoo”
The next time I encountered our name, we were living in Lecanto, Florida and I got a call from a lady named, Mrs. Fazakerley who lived “a hill away” in a community called Beverly Hills, Florida. We talked for a while and she mentioned that her husband or his family had lived in New York. She mentioned a few names and said there was a story about “a black sheep” in his family, etc. After a while we agreed to talk again later and compare notes. We never did. I was young, busy with two children, and I was working full time. When I did think about her call, the fact that she was from New York and spelled her name differently led me to believe that we were not connected. Sadly I was not thinking about genealogy then. This has been one of the worst mistakes of my life and it caused me to miss an opportunity of a lifetime. As it turns out my great grandfather was born in New York. This lady could have been a gold mine of information.
“Abbreviations and Nicknames”
My grandmother had her own nickname that came about because people had a hard time saying "Mrs. Fazakerly". Someone called her "Miss Zack" and the name stuck. She was known her entire married life as "Zack". Even her kids and grandkids called her "Zack" or "Miz Zack".
"Ironic Twist"
When my husband & I lived in Galveston, Texas in the 1970's, we were practically neighbors to my second cousin, William Bryan Fazakerly. Neither one of us knew the other existed. We never bothered to check the phone books to look for other Fazakerlys because we both just assumed there weren't any! I never learned about this wonderful person until just a few years ago. We were both stunned to find out that we had been within ten miles of each other and we never had a clue. Talk about the proverbial "two ships passing in the night"!
"Hi Ho Silver!"
Not long ago, a lady named Helen Fazakerley wrote to me and sent me her history. She had a delicious sense of humor and signed her letters "Hi Ho Silver". (To be technical, the correct phrase was "Hi-YO Silver", but I got her point.) Anyone who grew up in America in the 50's and watched cowboy shows on Saturdays knows the "Lone Ranger" (Clayton Moore). He was a masked man that did good deeds; he was a Texas Ranger and lone survivor of an ambush; he had only one friend and companion, an Indian, named Tonto (Jay Silverheels). His faithful horse was "Silver". What's this got to do with Fazakerleys? Nothing except that Helen was making a point about feeling like the "Lone Ranger" with our unique name. The only other Fazakerley she had ever heard of outside of her husband's family was a Fazakerley that her husband had written to in California years ago (he never got a response).
“Gathering at the Table”
We really had a thing about gathering at the
table. Food was serious business. Something not to be trifled with.
There were some fabulous cooks in our family. I was going to list the good
cooks; but, outside of a few of the men in the family, all were good cooks. I try to keep the tradition going.
Mama worked at some nice restaurants and would come home and try new recipes. I
was her favorite guinea pig. The only thing I couldn't eat was wild game. And I
didn't like catfish, or walnuts. (The catfish tasted like the river smelled and
I got deathly ill when I was young from eating some bad nuts and I never forgot
it.) For years everyone in the family knew to fix my portion of Waldorf salad
without the nuts. It wasn't long before they got tired of that and made me pick
them out.
Thanksgiving, about
1987
One of our favorite times together
Billie & Tommy
(Didn't compare to Nanny's Dinners, but mine came pretty close.)
William Bryan Fazakerly and his cousin, Frances Fazakerly McDaniel by the Fazakerly Monument, Forest Hills Cemetery, Memphis, Tennessee, May 19, 1997. They are first cousins & both turned 80 this year.
BACK (Billie's Background; Past Generations & Billie)
NEXT (Acknowledgements: James, Martha Jane, Josh, Pets)