Note: This information was supplied by Paul Carleton Seymour.

WESTLEY FRANCIS¹¹ SEYMOUR (Westley Carleton¹¹, Clinton Henry¹⁰, Gilbert⁹, Willet⁸, William Jr.⁷, William⁶, Samuel⁵, Samuel⁴, Matthew³, Thomas², Richard¹), born 1944 in Sidney, Delaware, NY, died 2005 in Kings Bay, Georgia. Married Sandra Greene, daughter of William Paul Greene and Florence Bowermaster.

Note: The following article was written by Paul Carleton Seymour.

Dad at 17, looking a little like James Dean

Dad……. Dad was, as I've also been described as ever so often, an enigma. I'll start by characterizing him by his most basic traits. He was a smart guy. He missed the National Merit Scholarship by half a point. He was way too humble to ever mention it, and never did, to anyone, but I learned about it from Grandma. Not too shabby, is a phrase he used to use from time to time. I concur for a small town boy competing with all the big city kids down in “The City” as we all called New York City back in little ol' Sidney. The proof follows:

As he barely missed the National award, he was thus awarded the New York State equivalent, which offered him a full ride at any school in the State. He was also recruited by Northwestern in Chicago due to his football skills combined with his academic performance.

But Dad was a small town boy, as at heart, so am I. Therefore, although NY is home to 3 Ivy League schools, Columbia, Cornell, and Colgate, of which Cornell and Colgate are both close to home in Sidney, he chose the University of Buffalo. That was because his big brother, Dick Curtis, was there working as a coach in a prestigious private high school, Williamsville South, where he continued for his career, becoming athletic director. There, although away from home, he would have some family nearby.

Dad started to major in engineering, but dropped out after a year or two, because he suddenly became a father to yours truly in March of '63, and in the spirit of the 1950-60's America, he felt that he needed to go to work and support his family, although Grandma was way more than willing to have us at 41 Bridge. A telling story that Dad told me about his time at UB, was that he was inducted as a member of the Jewish fraternity. As I've pointed out in other places, both Dad and I, are completely non-religious. He was no more Jewish than the King of Saudi Arabia. They were just the guys that he got along with, and therefore wanted him in their fraternity. The point of this little anecdote is to show how open-minded Dad was. This is a trait that came down to him through the centuries, I think, and has been continued with me, and hopefully has found its way to you. Recall Edward the Protector's (and his friend King Henry's) distaste for the corrupt Papacy, and his efforts to create a more just Church in England?

As for me, it's carried on. I've lived in the heart of Islam (Saudi Arabia), and Buddhism (Thailand), as well as Christianity, and find them all similar. Can everybody else be wrong? More likely, they all are. I personally find myself equally at home with Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians, all of whom I've lived with day to day at one point in my life. I learned at an early age, thanks to my Dad, that we're all basically the same at heart. We'd like to be able to live peacefully, and raise our families, and love and play as we please. The particular book that you choose to find meaning in, be it the Bible, Koran, or whatever, really doesn't, in the end, matter that much.

Also, I mentioned before that Grandpa was a big naturalist, and this was passed on as well through Dad. We visited the best zoos on the East Coast during our vacations. The Philadelphia and Washington zoos being the most famous ones, but by no means the only ones.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Dad was a great football player too, which is part of the reason he was recruited by Northwestern. As is today, finding a good, tough ball player, who also scores in the top 2% on the Regent's exams, is a hard combination to find. In his senior year he played both ways, at fullback, and linebacker, for a Sidney High School team that went UNDEFEATED. I don't care what league you play in. When you go undefeated, you were a bad ass bunch of proud s.o.b's….

Dad had some really great traits, others of which I've also shared in other parts of this little documentary. He took very good care of me, and was always there when I needed him most. His loyalty, integrity, and honesty were always unquestioned by EVERYONE who knew him. He was, and remains, the most honest and honorable man that I've ever known. Again, as I keep learning through this research, apart from a very few notable exceptions, this is a constant Seymour trait of which I'm very proud of, and try to carry on. Successfully, I'll dare say. Here's a family portrait from about 1966. Vietnam War warming up, and Mom and Dad doing what they had to so they could take care of the family, which they always did, without fail, and Mom making sure that we were a solid family unit, like arranging this portrait and passing it on….

Another little anecdote–As I noted earlier Dad dropped out of college to take care of us. This was a major source of disappointment to Grandma, who had dreamed of a better future for her son. Because of this turn of events, Grandma taught me how to cook as a young lad of 9 or so, fearing that I might get married at an early age for the lack of a meal, which still cracks me up to this day. She also told me as an adolescent that she would gladly pay for a discreet service for any young lady which I might have the misfortune of knocking-up should it ever be necessary. What a great lady. Trust me, I'm not speaking with any sort of irony here. Should you think otherwise, we can meet in the parking lot….

Below, a portrait of Paul and Tammy in about 1968. Is that really me?? I wish I actually grew up to be that good-looking. Here I had dark green eyes, while Tammy's are bright blue. It's funny how eye color changes over the years:

Now on with the Sidney/Binghamton, NY phase of this little branch of the Seymours. Anyway, after making the hard choice to do what needed to be done, Dad then became a union apprentice welder. With an IQ of 130 or so…it went about as you might expect. He spent a couple of years as a union sheet metal tradesman, in which he did very well. For example, he became a specialist in arc welding sheet metal, which as I understand, isn't something that just any guy can do. After getting predictably bored with this, he then became a more white-collared guy in the heating and air conditioning business (HVAC). This he did as a sort of para-professional engineer, as he obviously had the intelligence and aptitude, but lacked the PE qualification for reasons noted above.

Over the years he became a specialist in designing heating and air conditioning systems for new commercial construction projects. He would first design, and then estimate the cost of, HVAC systems based on the building blueprints, bid the price, and if low bidder, would then manage the installation project with the goal of doing it at the profit he had estimated. Fairly high stress occupation, I would guess, and he routinely suffered from gastric ulcers. I would also guess that at his rate of pay for all of this, which was relatively meager, he was a key asset to those companies for which he toiled.

Here's a portrait of Sandy in about 1960:

:Mom was a gregarious lady. She was also big and strong, affectionate, and above all, selfless. I can tell one short story which will illustrate a few of these qualities. Her “little” brother, Bill, goes about 6'3“ 240 lbs. Mom, whenever she would see him, including in her 40's, used to like to bear hug, and pick him up well off his feet. Hell, I'm not even sure I could have done that at 25, and I go 6'1” 190.

When we were young, Mom and Dad were corner workers with the SCCA, which was the organization that ran all racing events at Watkins Glen back in those days. It was unpaid, and more of a social event than anything. We spent dozens of weekends camping in the infield of the track with the rest of the corner workers. These were great times for me as a small boy. I walked around that track, including the pits, like I owned the place. Keep in mind that in the late 60's and early 70's events like the Can Am, Trans Am, 6 hours, and the granddaddy of them all, Formula One, were all held there. To this day I have an autograph book with names like Mark Donahue, Jackie Stewart, Mario Andretti, Ronnie Peterson, Jacky Ickx, and on and on, and on. Going around there, seeing all the beautiful people driving Lotus', Panteras, Ferraris, etc., plus the guys with long hair and their beautiful exotic girlfriends, speaking French, Italian, Portuguese, etc. filled me with the desire to see other places.

Once, after the 1972 6-hour race (prototypes were always my favorite cars, with the best being the Porsche 917) Isn't that a beauty? A total monster too. There'll never be another like it. It was driven by some of the best race car drivers in history, and some of them admitted to being scared by it.

Okay, back to the Glen…I went into the paddock area where the winners, Mario Andretti, and Jackie Ickx, were sitting next to their winning Ferrari jabbering. The car was roped off, and people were standing 6-7 deep around. I was about 8, and snuck up to the rope under the elbows of the others. I stood there looking at these guys with my autograph book open, contemplating how much trouble I would get into if I ducked under the rope and went over to them. Just then, one of the drivers' girlfriends saw me, and I gave her my best puppy dog eyes. She smiled and lifted the rope up for me to go under. Even at eight I could see that she was a sexy girl, and the guys next to me were grumbling and whining, “why does he get to go through” I was loving it as I walked over to the drivers and they signed my book.

Anyway, back to Mom and Dad. Dad was one of the first stringers at the track. For all the big races he would be stationed at Turn 1, where most of the action happens. Although there were other women besides Mom who also worked the races, they weren't allowed to work the F1 race. Our last year there, Mom asked for, and was granted, the right to work, even if on the back straight were not much happens, the F1 race won by Ronnie Petersen that year. It was also the year that Francois Cevert, Jackie Stewart's teammate, was killed in practice. Mom flagging the race was a big deal. She was definitely the first woman corner worker at an F1 race in America, and very likely, the entire world.

Below is a series of photos that someone caught at an amateur regional event at Watkins Glen in 1970. Skip and Sandie are in the matching white pants and black jackets (Mom in her Gilligan hat), running away while an old H Production bug-eye Sprite makes a surprise visit to the corner worker's station:

This cracks me up. Adrian obviously had a sense of humor. Back in 1970 it was allowed. By the mid 80's being a good judge of frogs and women would be considered politically incorrect, and in bad taste. Adrian would be shunned for having such letterhead.

A big surprise for these 2 guys who were just having a nice chat at the track. Dad, here stepping aside along with Mom, while strongly suggesting that they might consider a quick change of location as well.

Skip and Sandie quickly on their way back to help.

This one cracks me up. Over on the left you have Skip and some other guy already planning their big story for the after-hours beer party, while on the right are Sandie and the other guy's wife pushing the wrecked car out of the way.

As I said, Mom was completely selfless. A good example, on my sixteenth birthday, she gave me her car.

When Mom gave it to me, it didn't have the custom wheels or tinted windows. Dad got me a summer job at the company where he worked, and I worked as a helper's helper. I'm not kidding. You can't get any farther down the totem pole than that. I got the $2.65 per hour minimum wage, and 40 hours a week for the whole summer. At nights, Mom also got me a part time job as a janitor at our dogs' veterinary clinic, where I cleaned out every animal's cage and swept and mopped the floors and took out the garbage. So I was putting in about 50-55 hours a week at age 16, which is when I started paying my share of taxes too.

Why? You ask. Well, because about 2 weeks after my 16^th birthday, I took the car out with a couple of friends to an isolated dirt road near the St. Johns River where the track was wet and slippery after some heavy rains. I was sliding that baby around and we were having a good time. I know it's just a station wagon, but it did have a 304 (5 liter) V-8, and I had the speedometer reading about 50 while the car was only moving about 10 with the wheels spinning like crazy. Until…..I hit a dry patch and caught traction. That threw me sideways into the brush where a wheel dug into the sand and it rolled over. Just a slow, lazy half roll and we ended up on the roof. As we were now lying on the ceiling, we crawled out through the broken windows. Then reality set in, and I had to decide the next move. I went in to a bit of a panic trying to figure out the phone call home…..I suggested to my two friends that they might want to walk home, while I walked to the nearest pay phone. To my great surprise, and relief, Mom and Dad weren't angry with me at all. They quickly got there, took a look at the upside down car, and gave me a big hug and said they were glad I was ok.

Whew!, but with that out of the way, I quickly started to feel sorry for myself since I was back to a carless status. Therefore the summer jobs. A phone call back to Sidney got the cash for the initial body work from Gramma & Gramps, but it was truly ugly. They just jacked out the roof, and applied primer. So each week the meager pay checks went for a different upgrade. Paint job, wheels, tinted glass, new upholstery, carpet, and finally an ear blowing stereo. It was a tough summer, but like most memories, the toughest times turn out to be the best memories in the long run.

Although I was hugely grateful to Mom, I don't remember thanking her enough for that. She never had another car the rest of her life. At this time we were living in Jacksonville, Florida, and after that she took the bus downtown and back to the suburb of Arlington every day.

She was always a bookkeeper, and always worked for multinational companies which affected my career choice later. While I was in college, she was working for Touche Ross which is now Deloitte & Touche. I guess I inherited her skills with numbers, and ended up majoring in accounting. I started off to be a lawyer, but after the first semester of working part time, and taking a full load of classes, I realized that I would never survive that kind of schedule for eight years, and to be a CPA was only five, and Mom assured me that they made a good living. So that's what I did.

On to a different subject, here's a photo of Tammy before junior prom at Ft. Caroline Junior High School in Jacksonville.

Here's a photo of Skip at a NASCAR race in Bristol Tennessee, about 1996. This was a great trip that we took together. Camping in the infield, like the old days at Watkins Glen. It also turned out to be a classic race, in which Dale Earnhardt, after hitting virtually everyone in the field during the night, then spun Terry Labonte coming off the final turn, who spun across the finish line ahead of Earnhardt for the win. Dad would talk about what a great time this was for years afterwards.

Below, a photo of William Paul, Florence Bowermaster, and Sandie Lee Greene in about 1945 shortly after Grandpa Greene returned from the Pacific.

Note: I found out that the eagle pin is the “ruptured duck” that means he was honorably discharged, and therefore not AWOL, I suppose.

He was a marine and survived the landings, and subsequent battles of both Peleliu, and Okinawa. The battle for Okinawa is more well known, but Grandpa said that Peleliu was much worse. The battle of Peleliu, based on my research, isn't very well known, it appears due to a bit of a cover-up. According to the accounts that I've read, the capture of Peleliu wasn't strategically necessary. From a strictly strategic perspective it could have been bypassed and cut off. It was invaded and captured strictly due to a pissing contest between Generals McArthur and, I think, Nimitz for the rights to invade and recapture the Philippines. The casualty rates, especially amongst the marines who are the first ashore in a naval landing, were extremely high at both places.

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/peleliu/default.aspx “The American assault on Peleliu, in the Palau Islands, had the highest casualty rate of any amphibious invasion in terms of men and material in the entire war in the Pacific.” There's the link above if you'd like to read more.

The odds of a marine surviving both were 50/50 at best. The carnage, again based on my research, was incredible. His marine (jar head) nickname was pretty funny-Willy P Greene. I'm not sure if this should be followed by a question mark, or not. Luckily for us, he was one tough sun of a gun, and like GG Grandpa Alvin Cuyle before, although we'll never know, it makes me wonder about the poor guys that fought against him. In the photo he just looks like any guy with his wife and kid, doesn't he? Glad to be home, I imagine….

Grandpa wouldn't talk about it at all. Like many veterans of war, I guess he was psychologically scarred by the experience. He did say that on one of the landings that he had at least two, and I think I heard three landing craft shot out from under him, and had to swim for another. Can you even begin to imagine the adrenaline that must have been flowing? A huge explosion, and shock wave, and suddenly you're gulping salt water, feeling around to see if you've lost any body parts. Wow….

In my foreign travels I've had, more than once, debated with people about whether or not it was morally correct to drop the two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Never let anyone tell you it was wrong. There are many reasons why. First, let's remember that WWII was a just war on the part of America, unlike the many which have followed in my opinion. America was attacked by the Japanese, and had no choice but to defend itself. Second, you can bet any amount of money that if the Japanese had built a nuclear bomb first, LA or Washington would have been reduced to rubble, and we'd all be speaking Japanese today. Third, and possibly most relevant, it was estimated that about 1 million American soldiers would have been killed in an invasion of Japan, including probably Grandpa. Some of the idiots with whom I've debated the subject just shrug their shoulders at this piece of factual information. As if to express, “a million less Americans, that'd be a good start”. What they don't bother to consider, in their haste to hate America, is that in the event that a million American soldiers were being killed, they would take 2-3 million Japanese with them. When you remind them of that, then they seem to care. Therefore 150,000 killed by the 2 bombs actually saved millions of lives. Hell, the Japanese refused to surrender after the first bomb, which indicates their mentality at the time. They fought to the death, and never surrendered, which is why the casualty estimates for an invasion were so high. Okay, back to more pleasant topics.

Grandpa very much enjoyed the outdoors, and traveling. He loved to camp, trout fish the streams of upstate New York, and hunt deer. I used to love the venison meat as a kid. After returning from the War, he also took Grandma on a cross country trip by motorcycle. It's comical to hear Grandma talk about it today.

He, like Grandpa Seymour, also worked a big part of his lifetime at Cintilla-Bendix, and on Saturdays delivered the mail for the post office. In later years he would become Postmaster at some small town, Sherburne, I think. Obviously a hard worker, and when he retired he would take his huge travel trailer down to Florida and spend the winters near Naples, Florida in a coastal campground, and the summers in a comfy but rustic cabin along a good trout fishing stream in rural upstate New York. He enjoyed the simple pleasures in life, like sitting around a campfire eating peanuts. I definitely caught some of those Greene genes, as I can completely understand that type of lifestyle.

As kids, me and Tammy would sometimes go camping with them. They were part of a camping club, Good Sam's, which would get together periodically at a nice State Park and camp as a group. This would usually include a pot luck supper. Grandpa would always throw together a casserole of baked beans, and I remember the other guys teasing him about it-“What kind of beans you bringing tonight Bill?”

Grandma was, and still is a quiet lady. Now into her nineties, she still sounds quite sharp when I talk to her on the phone up in Lake Placid. She's an extremely independent and adventurous lady too. In the fall of 2007, she and my Uncle Bill came down to visit me and Ana Maria in rural Colombia, and she stayed with us at the farm, and enjoyed herself, even dancing salsa, and drinking aguardiente with the locals. This while in her late eighties. She absolutely can't abide anyone telling her what to do, and that's a Bowermaster characteristic that I picked up. “I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees”. I heard that from a British guy that I was hanging around with in Koh Samui, Thailand, and it stuck with me. This trait, though, seems to be in all of the families that I come from. Seymour, Dann, Greene but maybe strongest in Bowermaster. I think it's just a matter of the pioneer blood that flows through our veins. To voluntarily get on a boat in the 1600's to go to a wild place like America in those days, obviously required a great sense of both independence and adventure, and a “Don't tread on me” kind of spirit.

Below is a photo of Grandma Bowermaster Greene at a much earlier age. I did some research on the name Bowermaster, and here's what I found: “The name Bowermaster is Anglo-Saxon in origin. It was a name given to a person who was the official bowerman, which means the servant who attended to the room of the bower.

Until the dictionary, an invention of only the last few hundred years, the English language lacked any comprehensive system of spelling rules. Consequently, spelling variations in names are frequently found in early Anglo-Saxon and later Anglo-Norman documents. One person's name was often spelled several different ways over a lifetime. The recorded variations of Bowermaster include Bowerman, Bowreman and others. First found in Durham and Wiltshire, where they held a family seat from ancient times, long before the Norman Conquest in 1066.” Wow, what a coincidence. The Bowermasters were big in Wilts before the Seymours got there. After the Normans, i. e. Seymours arrived, it was tough times for the Anglo-Saxons. Recall that the Anglo-Saxons were in charge of England for about 500 years after the Romans left and before the Normans arrived (Ch. 1). There seems to be some debate about this name as I also found this: “Americanized form of German Bauermeister, the standardized German form of Burmeister. Burmeister, North German: status name for the mayor or chief magistrate of a town.” Either way it's Anglo-Saxon.

A picture of Paul with Grandma Greene (left), and her older sister Aunt Wanita on a trip up from Florida to Sidney during college, about 1986. Both are going today, in 2010 into their 90's.

Below a portrait of Great Grandpa David Bowermaster and G Grandma Laura Cutter Bowermaster:

One thing I remember about Grandpa Dave is that he was absolutely huge. I think here that he's sitting and Laura is standing.