Another Glimpse of Papa

I am still writing the webpage for "Growing Up Fitzgerald".  I am excited for it's completion.  You will get to see a photograph of The Great Brain as a baby.  Other pictures will be attached, too, of the kids at various ages and stages.  Trying to make the text cohesive is my present challenge.

While I was writing it though, I ran across one of my first finds.  Someday I will tell the story of the research side of the project, but for the purpose of this post I will share with you, that I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for when I started, because of that, I was on  a pell-mell hunt.  One afternoon, while I was reading the History of Carbon County,  I ran across this piece (at the time I wasn't sure how prominent Thomas Fitzgerald really was in Price's history.) This clarified it for me.

"Dr. Frank F. Fisk was one of the first people in Carbon County to own an automobile.  In December 1907 Thomas Fitzgerald built a new barn to accommodate his roadster."

 The next paragraph states,

"The roads were rutted and in rainy weather were muddy, making for very slow traveling either with a carriage coach or a new automobile."

 Doesn't that sound like the Pape we meet.  In fact the opening chapter of The Great Brain says,

"If there was one man in all of Adenville who would order the first water closet ever seen in town, that man had to be Papa."

I can just picture Papa finding out Dr. Fisk had a car.  Immediately he'd get one, too, but he'd do better - he would build the first garage to house his automobile.  I can also see every kid in town paying a nickel to see the car, a dime to honk the horn.

I have to say I just love this family.