Grandpa Samson: Part 1--Early Years

I decided that I needed to write about a very important person who was in my life for a mere short 20 years--my Grandpa Samson.

Grandpa was born on April 13, 1884, in Mohawk Hill, in New York State, on the Tug Hill Plateau region. John Walter Samson ("Grandpa" or "Pop," as he was known to his sons) was the fourth child born to Bernard Samson, who immigrated to the USA from Luxembourg as a child, and Maria Witzigmann, who was of Swiss descent. Grandpa had two older brothers, Louis (pronounced "Louie," in the French manner, and Joseph; an older sister Anna; and five younger brothers, only two of whom survived to adulthood (Martin and Nicholas). Louis, and Martin never married. My grandfather was very close to his sister Anna, who married George Kraeger and lived at, worked on, and eventually inherited Anna's Uncle Michel Samson's diary farm in Constableville, NY. Uncle Louis was a lumberjack; Joe married and farmed on Mohawk Hill (maybe on his father Bernard's farm?); Martin never married, but I don't know what his profession was (haven't investigated that far yet); and Nick married Josephine Bernadt, a second cousin related to his grandmother, Anne Bernadt, my great-grandfather Michel Samson's wife who had emigrated from Luxembourg with her husband and children (apparently at least one of her brothers had also emigrated; this was Josephine's grandfather, most likely). Both John and Nick were carpenters.

My grandfather met my grandmother Rosa Shibley (Rose) when she was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse after she had completed Normal School, which was teacher training school/college. She was four years younger than Grandpa, and they were married in November 1911, when she was 23 years old and Grandpa was 27. They moved to Utica, NY, the largest city in the area. My Uncle Nick and Aunt Josephine also moved to Utica; they never had children and were very close to John and Rose.

About 10 months after their marriage, John and Rose had their first child, my father. When I asked Grandma one time why they had named my father "Floyd," which we thought was an odd name, she replied, "That was your grandfather's idea; after that, I named the children." How funny!