Papa Stories: 2. I Am Papa

There are grandfathers, granddads, grandpas, and some are called gramps, but I am Papa.

I like my name, Richard Earl Crocker. Richard is my father’s middle name and Earl is his first name. My grandfather’s name was Everett Crocker but I called him "GranPAH." He liked to tease, loved my Grammy (Velma) and lived in Maine. His first son was my “dad.”[1] His family lived along the North Atlantic coast for many generations. [2]

GranPAH Crocker worked hard and had a store called the "Trading Post" in West Bath, Maine. He sold old things called antiques. Once my GranPAH took me to an auction and bought me a "red hot dog." In Maine when I was little hot dogs where red! GranPAH also gave me some change and I bid on an old coffee tin. When I opened it there many little things like rubber bands and paper clips inside that I played with for a long time.

My GranPAH’s father’s name was Gardner [3] and his grandfather was called David. Most Crockers from New England are descendents from William Crocker who came to England four hundred years ago from a place called Devon, England. He attended the Anglican Church but after just two years in the New World he became a “Puritan” and joined Rev. John Lathrop's church on Christmas day in 1636. When Pastor Lathrop left his home to plant a new church and found a new town called Barnstable, William went with him. This famous colonial pastor is your ancestor through Nana. Isn’t that fun to know that before America was a country that Papa and Nana’s family members were friends in the same church!

Do you remember two special trunks at our house? Downstairs there is a brown trunk from my grandpa and upstairs there is a little larger one with leather straps called a “steamer trunk” that belonged to Nana’s grandfather. Both are special because they come from a grandfather and because they both contain very special family memories. I hope that these stories are like those trunks in that they will let you share in some very special memories.

I liked spending time with my grandfather and now it is my turn to be Papa! I like being called Papa by six very special grandkids [4] and even by some of their friends! What are special names that people call you that you like?

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[1] This is the earliest picture I have of my dad with his parents, taken about 1928.
[2] In our family tree, my children were the first in 13 generations not to be raised along the North Atlantic Coast
[3] Our ancestry through Gardner’s wife Lena Pero goes back to the first settlers of Canada
[4] Taken in 2005