né Carroll

Seventy or so years ago, wondering why the name I was stuck with (Carroll Weller, Jr.), I asked my father, Thomas Carroll Weller (who was always called Carroll), where his name came from. He said he was named for an uncle named John Thomas Carroll. Growing up, I knew and was told absolutely nothing about that uncle. Browsing online yesterday afternoon, I came across his grave (1855 - 1936) and the grave of his wife Mary Flemming Weller Carroll (1870 - 1948) in Live Oak cemetery. 

Mary Weller and John Thomas Carroll were married at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Jacksonville, Florida, where my ggf was rector after his 1889 retirement from St. John’s, Jacksonville. Mary (b.1870) was one of my grandfather Alfred Weller’s sisters*, the next older child than Alfred (b.1872).

 She and another sister, Hallie, died the same year, 1948. I don’t remember Mary or her name ever being mentioned during my childhood, but Hallie, “Aunt Hal” to my father and his sisters, was often mentioned lovingly, and always seemed special to my grandfather. Though I don't recall ever meeting Hallie, I do remember that my father and Pop drove over to Live Oak for Aunt Hal’s funeral in May 1948. But why I’ve no memory of Mary I cannot imagine; especially seeing that they apparently were close enough at one time for my father to be named for Mary's husband.

I can understand including the surname Carroll, but why my father was called Carroll instead of Thomas beats me. I even came across a silver beltbuckle once, engraved CTW, and asked about it. My parents explained that Mom, my father's mother, had given it to him years ago, having it engraved CTW because she couldn't remember whether his name was Thomas Carroll or Carroll Thomas and concluded it was Carroll Thomas because he was always called Carroll. My mother (né Louise Gentry) who, because of tension between the Gentry and Godfrey/Coley families in Bluff Springs two generations earlier (maybe another story for another time but probably not) had an uneasy relationship with Mom (né Carrie Godfrey), happily regarded the CTW beltbuckle as disgraceful. 

Anyway, had my father been called Thomas, I could visualize a different life for myself growing up a generation later; and probably today I'd be running for president against Bernie Sanders. But being called “Carroll” had to be explained (and dammit, it's a surname and it's spelled Carroll not Carol) throughout my growing up years, and was a source of unending selfconsciousness. I’ve told the rest of the story here before, but it wasn’t until my eighteenth birthday, September 14, 1953, my first class at the University of Florida, that I was saved by a class roster listing me as Weller, Thomas C., Jr. and checking the roll the professor called “Thomas Weller?” No longer "A Boy Named Sue," I answered, “Here" and have been here ever since.

Thomas+ (né Carroll)

* pic: thanks, Mike McKenzie