3319 Brest Avenue

Due to lack of any remarkable research findings to report, I will take this opportunity to share some personal memories of early childhood.

My parents were only 22 and 24 when I was born. Their first home was on Brest Avenue in Norfolk. We lived there until just before my sister was born. I was five years old. Here is the house today... the crepe myrtles and shrubs were not there in 1959. There also appears to be an addition on the back of the house that wasn't there.

3319 Brest Avenue, Norfolk Va.
Google Maps, December 2016

I have few but very distinct memories of being in this little house...

Sitting at the kitchen table and discussing possible names for my new kitten. I was probably only two or three years old. Apparently, my mind was only on the food because we named the cat Applesauce.

Breaking my leg falling out of the high chair.

Running crying from the kitchen into the bedroom and into my dad's arms (oddly, I associate this vivid moment with breaking my leg but that does not make sense).

Getting a new dog, a beagle named Butch (wonder what happened to Applesauce?).

The mimosa tree in the backyard, in whose shade we lived and moved in the summertime. I remember having a good sized wading pool where all the neighborhood kids came to swim. My July birthday parties were held at a picnic table under that tree.

My friend David who had a prosthetic leg. He had to take it off to swim in my pool.

My friend (Karen I think) who lived across the street and had a mean dog on a chain in her backyard.

The detached garage that my dad built. I don't remember much about the process of building it, but I do remember clearly what it looked like. If you look closely at the photo above, you can catch a glimpse of it.

Santa Claus (a neighbor dressed up) visiting us in our home and scaring me to death.

A Christmas gift - a large robotic gorilla which came with a cork gun. If you could hit the gorilla in the chest with a cork, it would give a frightening roar and flash its green eyes and start moving menacingly toward you. The thing scared me to death! Isn't it just like my dad to come up with a gift like this for a little girl.

The neighborhood bully who told a group of us younger ones about the "bloody bones" in the window of the creepy house on the corner and scared me to death.

I was a timid child.

My friend Rexanne who lived around the corner (the other way from the creepy house) who shared my same exact birthday. We love to connect about that fact to this day. Coincidentally, she was friends with my future spouse in high school.

My cousins living on the next block (Argonne Avenue). I ran away once and called to my Uncle Sonny to help me cross the street. I don't remember this, but my mother says she was very upset with me.

Sitting in front of the TV every Saturday morning in the living room, patiently watching the test pattern until cartoons came on at 7:30.

I have other memories, such as visiting my grandparents during these early years, but this is the sum total of my memories about living in the house on Brest Avenue.

Asking the Right Questions

erroneous obit

I had reached a stalemate with my family tree - sketchy details with lots of contradictions and unclear relationships.  I started asking questions, and writing them down.  I identified potential sources of information and tested them out. Answering one question led to three more questions.  I am filling up a notebook with questions!  My notebook has tables, and charts, and maps, and lists... organizing the information in a variety of configurations brings up even more questions.  This strategy has given my research such a giant boost, I can't keep up with all the information I'm digging up!

I started with my simplest question:  Was my great grandfather, George Wright Abbott, the son of Gertrude or Sarah?  Records showed Sarah was his mother, but his obituary named Gertrude (his father's first wife).  I knew Gramp Abbott lived with his daughter Miriam when he died - surely she would have known the identity of his mother?  My potential source:  Aunt Teeny (Miriam's daughter).  When I asked, Teeny told me that her mother Miriam had collapsed when Gramp died and was barely able to function much less write an obituary, so the people at Bliley's Funeral Home wrote it.  So there it is:  the obituary is wrong because strangers wrote it.  Mystery solved.  I am confident in saying that Sarah was his mother.

Another question:  Who was Ida Rene's mysterious first husband?  As far as anyone in the family knew, my great grandmother Ida was married only twice - to William B Butler and to George W Abbott. However, the transcription of her marriage record to William Butler gave her name as "Ida Rena [Bryant] Williams."  So who was this Williams guy?  Also, curiously, Ida and William Butler were married in Princess Anne County, though her family was from Southhampton County.  How did she end up in Princess Anne County? This question took me on an adventure to unexpected places.

from Wikipedia:  Princess Anne County in 1895

I decided that the key was with Ida's twin sister Addie.  I started following tangents on her life.  Addie's grandson Charlie Fletcher told me years ago that the family once lived in Princess Anne County, in the Blackwater area.  So maybe this was the connection to the Williams fellow?  Another Ancestry researcher wrote that Eley Bryant, Ida and Addie's father, farmed the "Land of Promise Plantation" in Princess Anne County.  A search on Google maps proved that Land of Promise Road intersects Blackwater Road in what is now Virginia Beach.  This researcher also wrote that Eley was Southern Baptist - the nearest baptist church at the time was located at the corner of Princess Anne Road and....drum roll....Williams Farm Road. Williams?! Could this be the family?  My mother used to buy vegetables from Williams Farm when I was little.  I still haven't identified Ida's first husband, but I'm getting warmer.  The next step is to search the church's records or the Virginia Beach Courthouse records.

Land of Promise-Blackwater - still mostly farms

The Addie tangent led to answers to other questions that I wasn't even asking.  I discovered that she and Blucher moved to Ocean View by 1930.  She and her mentally disabled adult daughter Ruth lived in the same boarding house on Peachtree Street as her son Blucher, his wife Catherine, and their sons Phillip and Charles. This possibly explains why my grandfather Ernie moved from Richmond to Ocean View when he came to Norfolk to look for work - he briefly lived in a boarding house near Addie.  It also ties in with Charlie Fletcher's stories about growing up in Ocean View and remembering my grandfather there.

This tangent led to yet another discovery, one that has been haunting me ever since my son Adam bought a house on Newport Avenue in Norfolk.  Which house on Newport Avenue did my dad live in as a boy? In a search for my grandfather Ernie's address in Ocean View, I stumbled on his address on Newport Ave in a 1952 city directory - there it was - 4306.

"Gramp" standing in front of 4306 Newport Ave in 1954.

4306 Newport Ave today

John Beverly Zaun

My father died way too young.  He had been having some heart trouble for a while, but he should not have died when he did.  The doctor found some abnormalities in a stress test and sent him home anyway instead of admitting him to the hospital.  He did not make it through the night.  His untimely death had a grievous impact on everyone who knew him.  He was one of those people whose deep love of family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers created powerful bonds of affection.  He captivated everyone around him with his penchant for storytelling, friendly teasing, and his uncanny ability to relate to most anyone.  

John, or "Bev" as his family called him, was born in 1930 in Richmond, Virginia.  During the Depression his father, Ernie, moved to Norfolk to seek employment, leaving his wife and young child to stay with family.  Ernie rented a room in a boarding house on 10th Street in Ocean View, finding work as a bookkeeper at Dalton and Bundy Lumber Company.  Mother and son later joined him in Norfolk.  This was a traumatic move for them as family ties to Richmond were strong.  There were frequent letters and trips between Norfolk and Richmond that continued into succeeding generations.

Richmond kinfolk. Top:  John, Teeny, and Dee.  Middle:  Zaun family.  Bottom:  Dee and Bev.

The Zaun family lived in an apartment on 35th Street where John attended J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School, Blair Junior High School, and graduated from Maury High School in 1948.  He was a boy scout (Ernie was the scout leader).  He built his own motorbike, which fell apart underneath him in the street, as witnessed with glee by his then future wife and friend from a school window.  His close friends were inseparable - Harold Thumm, Bobby Brockington, Streeter Morrisette, and Bobby Twiddy.  

John "Bev" and friends in Norfolk

After graduation from high school, John and his friend Bobby Brockington took off for Florida.  They worked in Miami for a time as switchboard operators for a hotel (where, as it turns out, they unwittingly arranged "business" appointments for prostitutes).  I remember him telling a story about falling asleep at the wheel of his early model automobile and driving into a swamp.

with Bobby Brockington in Miami

For two years, John went to a technical institute, Norfolk division of the College of William and Mary.  He got a job with WTAR-TV as a cameraman in the beginning days of television.  He was promoted to videotape technician, and eventually became an engineer.  He retired as the chief engineer of WTAR and WLTY radio after a 40+ year career with Landmark Communications.  He approached his job as he did everything else in life - with optimism, commitment, and passion.  

  

TV commercial filmed at our house.

John loved his work but his preferred occupation was fishing.  He always owned some kind of boat - always a very practical boat, no frills - to transport him and a fishing buddy to favorite fishing holes in Back Bay, Suffolk, and Chickahominy.   He loved all kinds of seafood, and was known to cut open a clam he found at the beach and eat it right on the spot.  His lifelong fishing buddy was school chum Harold Thumm, who later became his coworker and next door neighbor.  But John went fishing with whoever would agree to go -  neighbor Floyd Edge, nephew Calvin, or one of his beloved coworkers Joe Perkins, George Ramsey, and Jeff Dane.  Jeff Dane hosted a long-running local television show on WTAR-TV Channel 3 called "Tacklebox" which sometimes featured their fishing adventures.  He also worked on a fishing show hosted by Joe Perkins for many years.  When John first asked Virginia Crofford for a date, it went something like this:  "If I can't find someone to go fishing with me, would you like to go out on Friday?"  She should have known....

Caught his limit.

John's second favorite occupation was tinkering around with anything mechanical or electronic.  He had an impressive, well organized (though greasy) collection of tools, hardware, and gadgets.  Everything was kept for parts, nothing wasted.  He could fix or build most anything, and would attempt any project that caught his fancy.  He even took up sewing once just to prove he could.  His methods were not always the neatest or the safest, but the end product was usually admirable.  

He must have taken some time off of fishing because he married Virginia in April 1952.  They bought a tiny little house on Brest Avenue in Norfolk where their two daughters were born.  In 1959, his father Ernie died tragically at age 49 of preventable complications from gall bladder surgery.  This was devastating to the family and forced John to become responsible for his mother who was naive and inexperienced about financial affairs.  John once physically threw an unscrupulous suitor out of her house on Witchduck Road by the scruff of the neck.  

He was an actively-engaged, fun, and affectionate father.  He was easy to talk to about anything in the world.  His daughters had the best school projects, the biggest backyard bonfires, the most wonderful garden vegetables in the summer, and the coolest recreational equipment of anyone around.  He made us the very first ever skateboards (from old roller skates), piped stereo music to the back porch (before stereos were portable), built a magnificent ping pong table, installed various high jumps and monkey bars between the trees in the backyard, and created pet enclosures for an ever changing menagerie.  The neighborhood kids all wanted to hang out at our house.  

Ride 'a horsie!

His grandchildren were the center of his universe.  He loved them passionately and without reserve, and they all felt it.  It is heartbreaking to think that they could not have had more time with him.  The loss cannot be measured.  

PawPaw in his glory.