(Patrick Michael Griffin with his family at their home in Nashville, 1906. He built the place himself).

So, the police were not called about the decision of the Board to keep the pool open for only one of the two traditional weekends after the formal closing on Labor Day. But none of the pool rats are happy.

It is not about penny pinching, but rather due to the fact that Peter, the Czar of Bluewater Pool Management, cannot find anyone to do the lifeguarding. All the Poles and Czechs will be gone on their merry way, either traveling or headed back to college in their native lands, the Americans are all back at college and anyone left in town appears to consider the work beneath them.

So, there is a sense of resignation at the pool deck and the remnants of a hurricane barreling up the East Coast that could cast a pall over the last three days of the regular season. And the Carpool bar at Quincy and Fairfax Drive is closing to make room for a high-rise near the Metro Orange line, so there is a lot to be accomplished over the weekend.

(Patrick’s daughters Ellie and Blanche. Picture taken at the home in Nashville).

You may want to know why I am running the picture of my great-great -Uncle Patrick and his family at the top of the story. I only have two images of him- that one in his fancy uniform, and the one contemporaneous to his service in the 10th Tennessee Irish Infantry Division, Company H.

I wrote about his Confederate service, and the wartime union of his sister with my great-great-grandfather James, who deserted the Union Army to be with her. It is quite a tale, set with the backdrop of the War in the West, the less famous but much more sprawling one than the relentless back-and-forth of the armies in Virginia.

I was traveling last weekend and overwhelmed with medical minutiae this week, but I was startled to discover that a distant relative had tracked down some of the stories I had written about Patrick, who was his paternal line.

(Dr. J.W Piggott during his school days at Vanderbilt, 1906).

James introduced himself and commented that “My grandmother was Ellie Nora Griffin Pigott. My grandfather, JW Pigott, roomed at the Griffin home in Nashville while attending Vanderbilt Dental School. After graduating, Ellie and J.W. married and returned to Tylertown, Mississippi, almost all the way south to the border with Louisiana. It was J.W.’s home and the county seat of Walthall County. I understand that Patrick had their home built for them in Tylertown, since he was a chief foreman at the lumber company in Nashville.

(Ellie Griffin, 1906).

“Around 1950, my great aunts Lue and Sudie moved from Nashville to Tylertown and lived in a garage apartment next to my grandmother’s house.”

“I see no mention of my grandmother Ellie or her sister Sudie in our records. They were children to Patrick’s second wife.”

So, now there are three pictures of Patrick M. Griffin, and some of his line of Irish in the West. I had never identified a requirement to call at Tylertown, Mississippi,but there is a reason now: to see kin.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com