Ancestry

I have ancestors from Switzerland, Germany, England, Scotland, and Ireland. As far as I’ve been able to determine, the majority of the migration from Europe to Virginia occurred during the 1700′s, but it’s entirely possible that some may have migrated as early as the 1600′s or as late as the early 1800′s.   The male line extends back to Switzerland where the surname was Stöckli.  When Hans Johannes Stöckli became a resident of the Virginia Colony in the early 1700′s, he changed his name to John Stickley.  I’m a member of the seventh generation of Stickley’s born in Virginia. As far as I know, I am the youngest member of the 7th generation.

Parents

My father, Roland Floyd Stickley, was born June 25th, 1923 in Augusta County, Virginia.  He grew up in a large family of 12 children, although one died as a baby.  The family was already quite poor before the Great Depression, so they were literally impoverished during the Depression.  My father joined the US Army and fought in World War II.  He served in the European theater of the war. He fought in Germany, France, and Belgium and was injured in France and Belgium.  After returning to the US, he worked a variety of jobs.  He was a tour bus driver in Washington DC,  a guard at the Smithsonian, a hair stylist / barber, and a vacuum cleaner salesman, but he spent the bulk of his working years as a machinist for Westinghouse and several other companies including an aircraft company.  He lived in Maryland, Virginia, Arizona, and Southern California (Chula Vista).  He was also unfortunately an alcoholic, a smoker, and a schizophrenic.  His first wife died in an automobile accident and he later married my mother, who was 25 years his junior.  At about the same time that I was conceived, his health began declining rapidly.  I can only vaguely remember him walking. When I was very young, he had a stroke which left him paralyzed on one side and unable to speak clearly.  My mother took care of him in the house with the assistance of occasional visits from home-health nurses and equipment paid for by the Veterans Administration.  He died when I was ten years old.

My mother, Thelma Marie Raines Stickley was born on April 1st, 1948 in Rockingham County, Virginia.  She had one sister, who was ten years her senior.  She grew up on a fairly large farm near Port Republic, VA.  The house she grew up in had no running water and lacked several other “modern conveniences”.  It was heated by wood stoves.  All of the cooking was done on a wood stove.  Much of the food she ate while she was growing up was grown on the farm and in the garden.  She worked on the farm as a child and was essentially a farm hand for my grandfather.  She married my dad when she was 20.  My parents lived in Maryland for a while then moved back to Virginia.  They had two daughters pretty much back-to-back. Then my mom had to deal with my dad’s alcoholism, schizophrenia, and declining health while raising a family.  Ultimately my mother had to take care of my dad, one of my sisters, her sister (my aunt), and her father as they became more ill and eventually died.  She’s essentially a natural nurse.

Sisters

When I was born, I had two older sisters:  Svonne and Sparkalee.  Svonne was born in 1969, and Sparkalee was born in 1970.  Svonne always seemed “normal” for the most part, but Sparkalee was developmentally challenged.  She slowly deteriorated as she grew older.  At roughly the age of 20, she began having seizures and difficulty walking by herself.  Her condition rapidly worsened.  When she was 21, she was no longer able to swallow.  She received nutrients from a feeding tube briefly.  She died in 1992–the year after my dad died.  The autopsy results showed that she had an extremely rare genetic disorder, called Hallervorden-Spatz disease (also known as pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration).

Svonne attended Blue Ridge Community College, earned two associates degrees, and worked several jobs before going back to school to complete a bachelor’s degree in management at Eastern Mennonite University.  She began working for AIG as a life insurance agent in 2007, but then the economy in general and AIG in particular tanked in 2008, so she’s currently seeking a better job.

Grandparents, aunts, uncles, & cousins

My oldest grandparent was born in 1892.  By the time I was born, only one of my grandparents was still living.  He was my mom’s father, Tracy Lee Raines.  He farmed until he was about 90 years old.  Then he had a stroke which left him paralyzed and disoriented.  My mom took care of him until his death in 2000 at the age of 91.

I had many aunts and uncles, but I was only really close to my mom’s sister, Aunt Janet.  She had diabetes and died in 1999 due to complications from a cat bite on her big toe.  The bite led to an infection which prompted the amputation of the toe.  The amputation and infection triggered a heart attack, coma, and kidney failure. Two of my father’s siblings are still alive, so I still have one uncle and one aunt living.

Since my father had such a large family and my mom’s sister was rather fruitful, I have a huge number of fairly closely related cousins (first cousins and also first cousins once and twice removed).  I’m not extremely close with any of them though.

Family photo

Our most recent professional family photo, taken in 2000: