Entries from March 2006 ↓

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March 16, 2006
John and Julia took at swing at Okeeheelee Park today in Royal Palm Beach Florida.

Filmed by Dad aka Julian Seery Gude

I posted some pics I took of John and Julia today at Okeeheelee Park in Royal Palm Beach. For those of you from afar this is a regular weekly stopping point in our ‘parks of West Palm Beach’ tour’ Every day (at least that is the goal) I take John and Julia to a different park. Usually in the morning. We go to a different park each day to keep our lives filled with variety. An especially good day is when we visit a park we’ve never been to before. This doesn’t always work out but it’s worth the risk Look for the pics in my blog sidebar (it is on the right towards the bottom).

I was doing some business blogging research for a project I’m doing right now and bumped into something unexpectedly that was quite interesting. It’s called flow. Apparently this goes back about a decade and seems right up my alley and I have no idea how I missed it. Apparently I was under a rock that year.

Here’s a couple of good articles to give you the idea:

Fast Company Article: The art of work

A post on Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders productivity/life hacks site

I had the great opportunity to meet Jeanne Gude Taysom on the phone today. Jeanne is indeed in Tempe, Arizona as I was theorizing on an earlier post I made here from some internet research I performed yesterday.  What a wonderful lady!  She is full of wonderful personality, spirit and loads of interesting stories about the Gude family. She and her Husband have lived in Arizona for about 50 years and have five children.  I can’t wait to learn more about her immediate and distant family and all the research she has performed. Our conversation jumped quickly from generation to generation with me struggling to keep it all straight as I tried to reconcile bits and pieces of stories from my family with endless records I’ve stared at on paper in libraries and more recently online, and it was amazing to hear someone talking about real people as she knew them, or from her accounts of first hand conversations with family members that are now departed.
She has been researching the family since 1951! Her depth of knowledge about our family goes so far beyond what we know in my immediate family as to be mind blowing to me.  Although Jeanne knew of my Grandfather Arthur and his two brothers, she had no knowledge that both Arthur and Buck had kids. Of course these kids would become what we refer to in our immediate family as the East Coast and West Coast Gude’s (even though we’re all from the East Coast). Although, I must follow up with Jeanne and see if she remembers talking with my Grandfather Arthur as my Aunt Pat recalls that a Twin was the one who contacted him a long time ago and verified that they were related. This is intertwined with Pat remembering that this Twin was in Colorado and I don’t think Jeanne lived there from our chat today so we have lots of little pieces of information to put together.  Pat is sure that Arthur spoke of the Twins as well from his first hand knowledge, which would make sense since Jeanne’s dad would have been Arthur’s Uncle.

I had a fun conversation with Pat today and she was equally excited to learn about Jeanne and I know Dad will see my e-mail to him about this in Australia when he awakes soon.

One reason that she thought I might be Robert Gude’s son is that she saw in my O.J. post that I had lived in Australia. The Blizzard’s brother Oscar has a son Robert, who, if I have my facts straight, moved to Australia! So, there may still be a closely realted Gude in Australia. What a small world. This also makes me think of the lady who reached out to us from England that had been given up for adoption. Her dad was a Gude and she had traced him to Australia. I recall that she reached my mum in the end and that we passed information around the family trying to help but couldn’t. Too bad she didn’t meet Jeanne, she could have helped her! I was such an idiot I kept interrupting Jeanne so I never got a chance to learn more about Robert’s travels to Australia and so that will be high on the list for the next conversation.

Hi  – this is an open letter to Jeanne Gude Taysom who contacted me via my blog on February 27, 2006 after reading my blog post on our mutual relative, O.J. Gude.  Unfortunately, the e-mail address that you typed into my blog is not working. In any event I can’t locate any contact information for you so I am posting my letter to you here in the hopes that you will return to this site and see that I would love to talk with you about our family (as you’ll read below we are definitely related).

Here is my original reply to you that I tried to send February 28, 2006.

Hello Jeanne,

It is so wonderful to hear from a relative as we are such a small family. Your comments were really interesting and leave me wanting to ask all sorts of burning questions! From reading your comments I think I was also able to piece together exactly how we are related, though I am not Robert’s son.

I would love to correspond more and would love to chat on the phone so we could swap stories.  I also have other family, of my father’s generation that are Gude’s that are closer to your generation who I’m sure would be interested in corresponding further as well.

Although I’m still relatively young (37) I have been pretty interested in family research for a number of years. It is also fair to say that everyone in the family is pretty interested in our family history, so I’m sure whenwe can touch base we will all have a lot to talk about.  Though, I would hardly boast about my family research because my steps to document things have been haphazard! Even so, my work has always focused on going back in time as far as possible, rather than branching out to find living relatives, which as I write this seems incredibly stupid! After all, the family who are alive are the best resources at filling in gaps and of course have so many good stories to tell as well.

Let me give you a quick run down on how I’m related to OJ. That way we can see how you and I are related and learn more about our sides of the family (if you are willing).

Since you mentioned that OJ was your Grandfather and Arthur your Dad I’ll go back to that common reference point.

Per my records OJ had six children.

1) Oscar Jay Jr.
2) Frederick George (this is my Great Grandfather whose nickname was ‘The Blizzard’)
3) Arthur James (reading your note it looks like this was your dad)
4) John R.
5) Nanette (married name Bayne)
6) Mary (married name Burdick).

At the time of OJ’s obit, where I took this information from, Oscar Jay Jr. and your dad Arthur James were both listed as living in Bunnell, FL. Mary lived on 7th Avenue in NYC and Nanette lived in Grenwich, CT. John was in Queens and my Great Grandfather Frederick George was in Bogota, NJ.

So if I have this correct, your father and my great grandfather were brothers.

My great Grandfather Frederick George had three sons:

1) Oscar Jay
2) Frederick George
3) Arthur James (born 1911)

All family names as you can see.

Around 1920 my great Grandfather Frederick George moved with his family, including my Grandfather Arthur, from NYC to Bogota, NJ.  Unfortunately the middle brother, Frederick died there at around 16. My grandfather Arthur and his brother Oscar eventually started farming together. First in NJ and then in upstate New York (Sidney). My Father Lorenz, my Aunt Pat, and a cousin of ours, Fred Gude, were all born in Sidney. Around 1948 Oscar and Arthur parted ways amicably, Oscar moving to Southern California (Upland) and Arthur going to Langdon, New Hampshire.

Oscar had three children:

1) Frederick George (for reference born 1936)
2) Ellen
3) Lillian

All are still living in Southern California around the Upland/Ontario area and have been there since the 40′s. I know this part of the family well.

My Grandfather, Arthur James had two children who are my father and Aunt (both grew up in NH after starting out in Sidney, NY).

1) Lorenz James (my dad, born in 1942)
2) Patricia Carol (my aunt, born in 1946)

My aunt Pat never had kids and lives in Northern California. She’s one of the people who would be fun to talk with as she’s got a good memory for this stuff. My dad is still alive and lives most of the time in Perth, Western Australia, though he makes it back to the States for trips quite often.

Fred Gude, Oscar’s son and our cousin, the one born in 1936, lives in Upland California. Fred is a little older than both my dad and aunt Pat and as such has some deeper memories of the family from the past. Out of the living family on my side he is the oldest.  He’s a really good one for passing down a lot of family stories as well, including OJ stories. Fred had two kids (Cheryl and Daniel). His Sisters Ellen and Lillian have children as well (I was around them when they were still young but all are grown up now.

My Dad had two sons Lorenz Jr. and me, Julian. Unfortunately my older brother passed away about 6 years ago. He lived much of his life in Australia.

I myself have four kids. Two from my first wife (Maxwell Gude and Charles Gude) and two with my second wife (John Seery Gude and Julia Seery Gude). My two oldest boys live in Northern California and spend summers with me here in Florida. My two youngest kids live with me in South Florida where my second wife is from.

I have quite a few letters from OJ to my family, a copy of his will, various newspaper articles and such. A lot of the letters were sent to my Great Grandfather Frederick George, the one we called ‘The Blizzard’ and to his wife Mary “Mollie.” It may have been that Frederick George was called “The Blizzard” because of all the havoc he created. Unfortunately it is obvious from both the letters and the family stories that The Blizzard was quite an alcoholic. Many of the letters from OJ to The Blizzard are about OJ trying to get his son to sober up and work! This in part is what I was referring to in the story you read of mine.  OJ mentions all of his kids being a ‘burden’ at one point. It seems that he felt a lot of them were simply living off of him and not working hard enough on their own. I have a letter where he writes to The Blizzard where he uses his brother Oscar (your Uncle Oscar) as an example of one of the siblings who was starting to make a success of himself in a humble venture.  It would be great to hear your stories that no doubt speak of OJ from your Dad’s perspective and that of your own.

Hopefully this is some interesting information for you. I know that any information about your side of the family would be very interesting to me and I’d love to learn how your side of the family has branched out. From a family story dating to the 70′s I heard that there are some Gude’s in Denver, Colorado who contacted my Grandfather Arthur James in NH and as the story goes they figured out quickly that they were definitely related.  I understand from OJ’s obit that your dad and Oscar Jr. moved to Florida. Did you all move there after New York and Connecticut?  I heard a family story that The Blizzard actually died in a car crash in Florida. Perhaps he was visiting his brothers – we are not sure.

Sorry if I rambled during this e-mail!  My intent was to try and introduce you a little to my side of the family a little in the hopes that we can learn more about each other.

All the best and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Cheers

Julian E. Gude
(561) 324-1710
e-mail: jinfinite8@gmail.com
1020 Hickory Trail
Wellington, FL 33414

This story is reproduced here for it’s content mentioning Jeanne Taysom, who may in is in fact be Jeanne Gude Taysom, a our relative that recently contacted me via this blog. See my story on O.J. to view Jeanne Gude Taysom’s comment on my O.J. Story and the letter I wrote back to her on this blog after not being able to reply to her via an inoperable e-mail address.

Former Nevitt student discusses make believe Katie Nelson
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 26, 2004 12:00 AM

PHOENIX – To some of the hundreds of Tempe grade-schoolers who heard an expert talk, learning that what happens in the movies isn’t real came as a shock.Bill Zahn delivered the bad news: The rocks are painted foam, the blood is syrup, and the ice cream is really just mashed potatoes.

Despite his expertise garnered while working on the movies Pirates of the Caribbean, Godzilla, Child’s Play 2 and 3, and Star Wars episodes 2 and 3, there was still disbelief.

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Arms out-stretched over their heads, they asked him question after question. “Does Chucky really say the cuss words?” “Are you sure Mrs. Incredible isn’t real?”

The students at Nevitt Elementary, a Tempe Elementary District school in Phoenix, got a peek into how moviemakers turn reality into fantasy, when one of their own, 34-year-old Zahn, came back Wednesday. The animator and visual effects artist now works in San Francisco for Pixar Animation Studios, but his dream of making movies started in the Valley.

It was 1977 when Zahn’s second-grade teacher at Nevitt took the class to see Star Wars as a reward. Each student had read 100 books with their parents at home. Jeanne Taysom (who “Billy Zahn” only knew as “Mrs. Taysom“) got permission from the principal for a field trip to the movie theatre.

“When I saw it, I knew the children would love it. It was just like an old Western.” Taysom said. Now retired, she was among those who came to see Zahn speak to the children in the school library.

“It all started out with that Star Wars movie,” Zahn said. “After that, making movies was a complete obsession. I started drawing tons of spaceships, monsters and aliens.”

Drawing led to making the figures out of clay. Clay figurines led to dressing up the neighborhood kids to make movies of his own with an 8-millimeter no-sound camera.

His mother, Sue Zahn, who works in the school’s publishing center, told the kids she always knew her son would become an artist.

He eventually made it to Los Angeles soon after he graduated from Dobson High School. He made rubber creatures to use in full-feature films, TV shows and commercials such as the Budweiser Frogs series.

For a year now he has been doing computer animation, most recently in San Francisco where he lives with his wife and two children.

The Nevitt students took all this information in stride Wednesday, but remained perplexed about his announcements about the grisly gore of Hollywood movies being make believe.

“That’s what’s so cool about learning here in school,” he told the kids. “If you pay attention to your teachers you might get to do a job like mine where you get to play.”