{"id":28138,"date":"2014-11-27T16:02:47","date_gmt":"2014-11-27T23:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=28138"},"modified":"2014-11-27T16:02:47","modified_gmt":"2014-11-27T23:02:47","slug":"why-im-thankful-on-thanksgiving-and-always-for-my-nomadic-dudley-ancestors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/27\/why-im-thankful-on-thanksgiving-and-always-for-my-nomadic-dudley-ancestors\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m Thankful On Thanksgiving (and always) For My Nomadic Dudley Ancestors"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a very personal post and will be atypical\u00a0of my usual blogging regimen but I decided to share with family and friends and anyone else who might have an interest.\u00a0 For some reason my thoughts often turn to this very subject on Thanksgiving holidays, both present and past.\u00a0 It’s near the top of my list of things to be thankful for and my list is a long one.<\/p>\n

I’ll be forever grateful for the nomadic tendencies of my Dudley ancestors and I’ll explain why at the conclusion of this post.\u00a0 First a little history,<\/p>\n

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\"dudley<\/p>\n

\u00a0Image copyright Jim Dudley, used by permission<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Dudley clan is English and several of my direct paternal ancestors were among\u00a0the Baron’s Dudley of Dudley Castle in the town of Dudley, West Midlands, England.\u00a0 One of those Dudleys was John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who was beheaded for his attempt to set Lady Jane Grey on the throne of England.\u00a0 This image of part of the castle\u00a0was taken by my cousin Jim Dudley several years ago.\u00a0 There’s not\u00a0a lot\u00a0left of the castle itself – some of it was destroyed by order of\u00a0Parliament in 1646 and some destroyed by fire in 1750.\u00a0 But what is left provides some visible evidence of the historic roots of my family.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/sup><\/p>\n

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\"gov<\/p>\n

My great (x8) grandfather was Governor Thomas Dudley (1576-1653).\u00a0 Thomas was\u00a0a Puritan who because of religious persecution in England sailed with his family to the new world in 1630.\u00a0 He was\u00a0second in command of\u00a011 ships and about 700 puritans who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony.\u00a0\u00a0 He and Simon Bradstreet were chief founders of Cambridge, Massachusetts and Thomas was governor of Massachusetts four times.\u00a0 He was a founder of Harvard College and as governor signed its charter in 1650.\u00a0 He had 8 children and I am descended through his son, Reverend Samuel Dudley.<\/p>\n

Thomas was a nomad (by my definition at least) and is the reason my family is\u00a0in North America.<\/p>\n

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\"oliver<\/p>\n

Most of the Dudley’s lived in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont\u00a0for the next several generations.\u00a0 Among them was my great great grandfather Oliver Hunt Dudley who was living in Boston in the early 1830’s when he and his\u00a0family were converted by early Mormon missionaries.\u00a0 They almost immediately moved to\u00a0Nauvoo, Illinois to be with Joseph Smith and most of\u00a0the rest of the Mormons but due to\u00a0persecution and\u00a0mob violence they left Illinois when Joseph Smith\u00a0and his brother Hyrum were murdered at the Carthage Jail and eventually followed Brigham Young to Utah in 1850.\u00a0 Another nomadic\u00a0Dudley.<\/p>\n

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\"joseph<\/p>\n

Oliver’s son, Joseph Smith Dudley (1851-1928), was my great grandfather.\u00a0 Apparently due to a tragic\u00a0killing (more about that event\u00a0here<\/a> if you have the interest)\u00a0Joseph traded his Utah farm for one in Hillspring, Alberta, Canada and moved his family there in about 1912.\u00a0\u00a0Yep, another Dudley nomad.<\/p>\n

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\"devere<\/p>\n

Joseph’s son, Devere Snow Dudley, was my grandfather.\u00a0 During his life DeVere lived throughout much of the\u00a0west including\u00a0(and in chronological order) Utah, Alberta, Montana, Colorado,\u00a0Washington\u00a0State and California.\u00a0 Here he is on the left, with his brother Joe on a river\u00a0trip in Colorado in\u00a0about 1920.\u00a0 DeVere and Joe were devoted brothers though they were very different from each other.\u00a0 My mother told me that in this photo DeVere has a bottle of whiskey in his hand while Joe has a Bible in his vest pocket.\u00a0 My father Wayne was born in Colorado this same year.<\/p>\n

Are you beginning to see the nomadic trend with the Dudley’s?<\/p>\n

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\"wayne<\/p>\n

This is my dad, Wayne.\u00a0 The photo was taken in 1944 as he was about to ship overseas to take part in the invasion of Okinawa toward the end of World War ll (dad was a radioman and operated a flame thrower).\u00a0 While I was growing up we lived in Cut Bank, Montana, Escondido and Poway California and Grant’s Pass, Oregon.\u00a0 The nomadic trend continues.<\/p>\n

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\"me-7124\"<\/p>\n

Which leads me to, well… me.\u00a0 As an adult I have been significantly less nomadic than my ancestors and from my early 20’s have lived my entire life in Utah.\u00a0 Here I’m on a bird photography trip a couple of years ago\u00a0at the base of\u00a0Utah’s Oquirrh Mountains.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ok, here’s the point of all this.\u00a0 I’m a westerner at heart – I can’t say that strongly enough.\u00a0 I love, crave, the wide open spaces of the American West.\u00a0 I’m a bit of a loner and don’t like crowds (that is likely an understatement).\u00a0 I spend enormous amounts of time camping, exploring and photographing in the western wilds.\u00a0 In me I swear it’s something innate. \u00a0I’d be like a fish out of water if I didn’t have convenient access to such wild and open\u00a0places.\u00a0 If Thomas hadn’t emigrated to the New World and if Oliver hadn’t moved to Utah I’d likely be living in England or somewhere back east.\u00a0\u00a0That’s just not for me.\u00a0\u00a0 If Joseph hadn’t moved to Alberta my dad would never have met my mother.\u00a0 And the list goes on…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My mind often wanders to these vagaries of circumstance and makes me thankful that things turned out the way they did.\u00a0 And I always have those thoughts on Thanksgiving especially.\u00a0 I have many, many things to be thankful for but the nomadic lifestyle chosen by my Dudley ancestors is near the top of that list.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!\u00a0 I hope that all of you have at least as many things to be thankful for as I do.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 It goes without saying that the Dudley women played a huge role in the journey of my family but as any family history buff will likely understand I know much more about the males than I do the females, thus the paternal focus of this post.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a very personal post and will be atypical\u00a0of my usual blogging regimen but I decided to share with family and friends and anyone else who might have an interest.\u00a0 For some reason my thoughts often turn to this very subject on Thanksgiving holidays, both present and past.\u00a0 It’s near the top of my list of things to be thankful for and my list is a long one. I’ll be forever grateful for the nomadic tendencies of my Dudley ancestors and I’ll explain why at the conclusion of this post.\u00a0 First a little history,   \u00a0Image copyright Jim Dudley, used by permission The Dudley clan is English and several of my direct paternal ancestors were among\u00a0the Baron’s Dudley of Dudley Castle in the town of Dudley, West Midlands, England.\u00a0 One of those Dudleys was John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who was beheaded for his attempt to set Lady Jane Grey on the throne of England.\u00a0 This image of part of the castle\u00a0was taken by my cousin Jim Dudley several years ago.\u00a0 There’s not\u00a0a lot\u00a0left of the castle itself – some of it was destroyed by order of\u00a0Parliament in 1646 and some destroyed by fire in 1750.\u00a0 But what is left provides some visible evidence of the historic roots of my family. \u00a0     My great (x8) grandfather was Governor Thomas Dudley (1576-1653).\u00a0 Thomas was\u00a0a Puritan who because of religious persecution in England sailed with his family to the new world in 1630.\u00a0 He was\u00a0second in command of\u00a011 ships and about 700 puritans who…<\/p>\n

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