Via email from Brother Doug who has been writing biographies of various family members:
My mother was born 100 years ago today at 3:35 AM. She only weighed 5 lbs 6 oz at birth and the doctor who delivered her was concerned because she was reluctant to start breathing. She was named Grace Ellen King after Charlotte’s Aunt Grace who had played a major role in raising Charlotte on Mill Creek outside Walla Walla.
Grace Ermyn Davies (Aunt Grace) was born June 18, 1855 in Missouri as William Walter Davies and his wife, Ann Elizabeth (Jones) Davies, were crossing the plains on their way from Wales to Utah to join the one true church in Salt Lake City. Grace was named after her maternal grandmother, Grace (Roberts) Jones who came to Utah from Wales two years later and pushed a hand cart across the plains and reached her daughter and son-in-law on September 22, 1857. Grace Jones died at the commune outside Walla Walla and is buried in an unmarked grave beside what is now a farm field. Ann Elizabeth (Jones) Davies is buried in an unmarked grave in the middle of the farm field where the commune was.
Charlotte was my maternal grandmother.
One of the great regrets of my life is that I didn’t get to speak to my grandfather, a WWII Navy vet, or almost any of his generation, as an adult. My grandfather died when I was 15, and I was a typical 15 year old, in that the world revolved around me, and I wasn’t interested in that boring old stuff anyway. As a sort of hedge against that happening to my kids, I took the time to record what were essentially interviews with both of my parents. I now have hours and hours of their recollections, from their early childhood on, in their own words. Personally, I consider the recordings to be priceless.