My Family

Recently it came to my attention, that I seldom mention my family in this blogsite. One reason for this omission, among others it being the most important, is that my blog IS about San Antonio (and south-central Texas), and none of my blood relatives live closer than Georgetown and Cedar Park, north of Austin. I live in San Antonio by myself, solo.

However, that's no reason to not include anything about my family. So here is the scoop on the Grahams.

My mother and father, Thelma (nee Sansom) and Frank, still live in Boise, where for the most part I was raised. They divorced the year after I moved to Texas the first time. Both of them are well into retirement; in fact, my last visit to Idaho was for my dad's retirement party in A.D. 1994.

I'm the oldest of three children. My sister Debbie now lives in Berkeley, CA, where she's studying for the Episcopal ministry in one of their seminaries on the Bay. She's a year and a half younger than me, but while we were children, folk often considered us to be twins! Our "baby" brother, Patrick, is an EMS medic in Pocatello, Idaho. He served one tour of duty in the US Army, and now is about to re-enlist. He is married to LaRae, who by a previous marriage had a couple of children, including Zane. Zane just returned to the States from a tour of duty in Iraq, with the Army.

That's my family of origin. As for my immediate family, I married Ellen on 19 August A.D. 1978. I had met her at TCU in Fort Worth, during my first sojourn in the Lone Star State. She was born and raised in Tampa, Florida, and had received a Bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University. Her mother's family are Tennesseans, so our marriage was at the family church, Martha's Chapel UMC, in rural southern Montgomery County, near Clarksville. Ellen had just received her Master's in psychology from TCU when we wed. In the late '90s she added a PhD from TSU in Nashville; she was the first to receive a PhD in psychology from that institution. Doctor Ellen Graham's birthday is 22 October.

After I commenced my tour of duty in the US Army, we had a son, David Dwight, born on 14 November A.D. 1981 in Darnell Hospital on Ft. Hood Army post in central Texas. David is the only native Texan in the family. The Lord blessed him with two great talents: drawing (he had an earlier career goal of being a professional cartoonist) and acting or drama. Currently David tours with the Christian drama ministry the Covenant Players. He's engaged to marry another CP trouper next summer. She is Allison, from Nebraska.

Ellen and I lost another child, Rebecca Ruth, to stillbirth in 1984. Then our youngest, Sarah Elizabeth, was added to the family, on 30 June A.D. 1986, at Baptist Hospital in Nashville. Sarah began studies at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, but is currently working full-time at Convergys, an outsourcing company (phone work) for which I worked about a year when it first opened its branch in C'ville.

I confess that I was far from a model father or husband. This would sum up a significant portion of why the other three are still in C'ville (David currently being on Christmas break from CP) while I'm sojourning here in S.A. Ellen and I separated a couple other times in the late '90s; this one goes back to the end of 2001. I was in a 7-month unemployment crisis when it began, and came to S.A. in search of work after all possibilities in C'ville seemed to be exhausted.

As for the family located closest to me, they would be Uncle Chuck, my dad's oldest brother, and Aunt Alice (a native Texan), who after he retired from the Army a Major General spent a few years in the Atlanta, Georgia, area before moving to Georgetown. This move not only put them in Aunt Alice's home state but also close to their eldest, my cousin Susan, who lives with her husband and children in Cedar Park. My guess (without consulting a road map) is that both towns are about the same distance from here, altho' Georgetown has the advantage of being right on IH 35 north of Austin.

So there's the scoop on my family.