11/16/2016
PREFACE
Sylvia June Kennemer Martin
Everyone has the right to know their antecedents. It is important to know what shaped you to be the person you are today. That includes both genetic and environmental factors.
When I first met Sylvia in our early teens, she was a beautiful red haired girl with brown eyes named Sylvia Nelson. We worked together at the Shoals Theatre in Florence, Alabama and roomed together during our class trip to Washington, D. C. After high school, I left Florence to attend the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Sylvia married Teddy Martin from Sheffield, Alabama.
Fifty years later, we reconnected in Huntsville, Alabama. In discussing out lives, Sylvia told me she was actually born in Huntsville and her parents were from Madison County. Since my favorite hobby is genealogy, she allowed me to research her family roots. Sylvia had never known her parents since they died when she was a baby. In the course of my research, we found that Sylvia was never legally a Nelson. She had been reared by relatives named Nelson but never actually adopted.
She is a member of a vast pioneer family in Madison County—the Kennemers. An ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War is buried in Madison County. Sylvia was able to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution based on her relationship to him.
It has been such a pleasure to have assisted Sylvia in discovering her roots.
Virginia Ponds Kobler, PhD
FOREWORD
After reading one of my books, a good friend said, “You need to write a book about my wife.” I replied that I would be interested but I was working on another book at the present time. Sometime later, he mentioned to me again that I should write his wife’s story. He said, “I think you will find that she had an interesting life from a newborn baby to the present.”
The good friend was Teddy Martin, husband of Sylvia Kennemer Martin. Teddy, Sylvia, my wife Patricia and I met for lunch one day, and I began to probe him and Sylvia about her life. Sylvia presented me with a copy of a summary, titled “The Kennemer Connection,” something she had put together mainly for explaining her mixed up genealogy to her sons. Upon reading “The Kennemer Connection,” I realized there was a book about her life that needed to be written. In addition, I knew that I would have to do a lot of research because there were so many missing puzzle pieces in her life. I knew about places like the Dallas Mill Village in Huntsville, Alabama, where some of her ancestors had lived; also, Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where she grew up, which is a hundred miles from Kennamer Cove in Jackson County, Alabama, where many pieces of her ancestry came to life.
The more I found out about her life, in spite of the missing pieces, the more I wanted to know.
Sylvia and Patricia had worked together on Redstone Arsenal for many years and a life-long friendship developed. However, many of Sylvia’s co-workers including Patricia and friends did not know about the puzzle of life that she had put in a box and occasionally would open and try to make pieces fit. Sylvia knows that some of the pieces of the puzzle will never be found, but having enough pieces to make a recognizable picture kept up her search for more. Sylvia and I opened up the puzzle box and spent hours trying to put the pieces together. We found relatives, friends, and strangers who gave us small pieces of information and collectively they turned into a piece of the puzzle.
Huntsville has many historical buildings, but one building that is most meaningful to Sylvia Kennemer Martin is Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama. This is where she made her grand entrance into Madison County in 1937. However, her relationship with Madison County where she was born is unique. Sylvia’s family history, which she did not know for a long period, is the link that has and will always intrigue her throughout her lifetime. In fact, it seems that each time she drives through the Five Points area of Huntsville; she uncovers a new image from her past, sometimes brought on by a familiar building or a house in the Dallas Mill Village, creating vague memories from her very early childhood.
Sylvia grew up knowing that she had a mother, father, grandmother, step-grandmother, foster mother and father, foster grandmother and grandfather, half-brother, two half-sisters, a grandmother who was not related to her, foster grandparents, and at one time a first cousin who was a foster father, and a step mother and step sister. However, Sylvia’s focus was on her real biological parents.
Sylvia vaguely remembers someone telling her that no one wanted her at the age of five months when her mother passed away. Some said they did not want any more dirty diapers to wash, or to take care of a baby. However, after talking to the last connection to the family at that time, Sylvia was told that some of the relatives did stay with her mother and helped to take care of baby Sylvia. The vague memory about no one wanting Sylvia is still unclear and remains a mystery to her.
About puzzles, Sylvia articulated: “I have loved jigsaw puzzles throughout the years and have many to show for it. I have them framed, unframed, stored under the bed, in the garage and in the attic. I become attached to them and have difficulty parting with some of them. I have given some framed ones as gifts to people who probably did not see the value as I did. In fact, my son told me at one point, “Please don’t give me any more puzzles.” I just wanted the puzzles to have a “good home.” I guess you could say I am obsessed with puzzles. However, there was a puzzle relating to my life that I was having a hard time putting together. This puzzle was not made of plastic or cardboard and it could not be framed and stored in the attic or under the bed”.
Billy Stone
