Uncle King

I’m not sure how she found me, but yesterday here came an email from a pleasant sounding woman who says that Alexander King Wilson was her great uncle. Mine, too – but by marriage.

Uncle King (as he was known in our family) married my great aunt Dora Espy on August 7, 1895 right here in Oysterville at her parents’ home. They, of course, were my great-grandparents, R.H. and Julia Espy who on Dora’s wedding day were celebrating their own 25^th anniversary.

Aunt Dora

The wedding was smallish by today’s standards but, if the surviving pictures are any indication, it was quite an affair. They were married by the Baptist minister Rev. J.T. Huff (who lived in the Espy home for twelve years and was the impetus for R.H.’s purchase of our present-day house from Tom Crellin – for a parsonage!). Julia’s sisters came all the way from Oregon for the affair, King’s brother was best man, and the noon meal afterwards was catered by the chef at the Breakers Hotel.

Uncle King was an attorney, originally from Maryland, and was practicing law in Portland at the time of their marriage and that is where they lived for their first ten years together. Then they moved to the up-and-coming suburb of Oswego where they were both active in community affairs. At the time of his death in 1918, King was mayor of Oswego. They had three children, the last of whom died about twenty years ago.

The Wedding Feast, 1895

Aunt Dora lived into old age (until 1955) and was my very favorite of all the “greats.” She loved to tell about the olden-days and was the one in the family who had all the ‘bawdy’ stories! It was Aunt Dora who told about the young man-about-town who kept a snippet of pubic hair from each of his conquests and bragged to the other local boys about his ‘souvenirs.’ And it was Aunt Dora who remembered (and talked about) the ‘fancy ladies’ who occasionally came to town in the days of her childhood – the ‘beautiful creatures’ her mother wouldn’t allow her to speak to.

Of course, I never met Uncle King, but he must have been quite a guy to have married spunky Dora Espy! His great-niece is planning a trip our way in March and I hope we manage to meet so I can gather in a few more of the puzzle pieces regarding yet another family connection!