Ancestor Spotlight: Abner Gates “Jim” Hathaway

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Last month marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of my Grandpa Jim, who died in 2007. It seems only fitting to honor him by reflecting a bit upon what I know of his life, and what our relationship meant to me:

I knew my Grandpa by reputation long before I met him in person: his first wife, my Grandma Flora, spoke well of him and freely shared old pictures of him, as well as interesting stories of their years together, without any bitterness. In fact, my mother and grandmother did such a good job of transmitting their affection for my grandpa through the tone of their conversation, that it was easy for me to love him on first sight when I finally did make his acquaintance in about 1978.

Although my grandma always referred to Grandpa Jim as “Ab” or “Abner”, he had long since adopted the name of his little brother, James Stuart. His brother wasn’t really using the name at the time, having passed away in 1923 at 10 months of age.

Grandpa’s original handle – the one his parents gave him – was the name Abner Gates Hathaway, a name steeped in significance and heavy with history. In one stroke, he became the namesake of both his 2nd great-grandfather, Abner Hathaway, who fought in the American Revolution, and his great-grandmother, Susannah Strong Gates, whose family tree reads like a “Who’s Who” directory of colonial and frontier America.

As Grandpa told it, being honored with such a distinguished name came at some cost socially, and the mantle didn’t always rest easily upon his youthful shoulders. He recalled his name being the butt of plenty of jeers and jests from his peers during his school days. Living in an area with a high concentration of German immigrants, his middle name automatically became “wie geht’s?” (German for “what’s up?”) instead of Gates, and the rise of a popular comic strip in the 1930s entitled “Li’l Abner” did not help matters on the mockery front!

While I suspect his name change in mid-life from the outmoded and folksy “Abner” to the modern and manly “Jim” was inspired far more by economic innovation than emotional reparation, it also seems likely that those memories of childhood ridicule  made it far easier for him to overcome sentimental attachments to his birth name, when the moment of decision arrived.

At his core, Grandpa was an “idea” man: he was very bright, had great powers of imagination, and a tremendous capacity for creation.

He enjoyed tinkering with electronics in his workshop, and inventing practical improvements for his home. I remember an occasion when I visited his home in the 1990s, and he showed me the home alarm system he had built and installed himself.

-Auralie