CHAPTER II
I have always felt, and have often expressed, that I am from a lost generation. My grandfather Dooley was born in 1778, and fathered twenty-one children by two wives. His second marriage took place when he was forty-five years old, and his bride, my grandmother, was sixteen. My father was born when his father was sixty-six years old, and I was born when my father was fifty-four years old. In the atmosphere of today's economy, one speculates how a family of twenty-three could possibly exist.
I remember my father telling that many meals consisted of mush and milk, with the entire family circling a large kettle of mush, dipping their spoons in the common container.
I have no recollection of any detailed accounts of my Dad's family, except a recollection of my father re-telling some accounts which had been told to him by his mother. The family moved from the south via Virginia to Kentucky, where they lived in a fort. The men worked in the fields, while being guarded against marauding Indians, and the women and children
remained within the safety of the fort.
I have a little information I gained from one Robert Dooley, who at the time of our conversation was an internal auditor for the Weyerhaeuser Company. I had a telephone call early one morning when we were living in Dayton, and the caller opened the conversation by asking if the "R" in my name stood for Rueben. I replied in the negative, but told him I had an uncle Rueben who had been a Carmelite preacher. He explained that Rueben was a popular name in
his family, and he had a grandfather several generations removed who bore that name.
This established proof that we had common ancestors.
He had stopped in Dayton on his way east on business to search some records in Preble County for historical facts concerning the Dooley family. He related that he had been researching the family history for a number of years and had discovered that several Dooley's had played important roles in the Revolution.
His research revealed that the family originally settled in Alabama, and he found one county in that state in which every resident was a Dooley or closely related to a Dooley.
The family moved from Alabama to Virginia and thence to Kentucky. After the Indian situation had been settled, they moved to Preble County, Ohio, where my father was born in 1844. My grandfather died in Preble County and is buried there.
My widowed grandmother moved her flock of children to Grant County, Indiana, four miles west of Marion, where they settled on a farm. I remember visiting my uncle Dick, who lived in the home place, with my father after my mothers death, and I recall we had roast opossum and sweet potatoes for dinner.
To be continued
