Harrison Franklin Wilkins - Documentation

What documentation have you used for this information? Do you have official records? Some of it is inaccurate.

According to what was told to federal workers in 1940, when grandfather wilkins was about 53 and living with his wife and daughter Polly on 23rd Avenue NW in Portland OR, he was born in or around Rolla Missouri in 1887. That is just what they told to the federal government. His wife, Ethel Wilkins, has been documented on her Parker side back to John and Dorcas Parker in Ohio. I am trying to find out more information now on the male Wilkins line.

One of the daughters, Jean Wilkins Cusick, prepared a geneology that she hoped would be made available through the parents to us children of the Wilkins and Cusick lineage. She was trying to enlist my help in 2003 and talked to me excitedly about some new developments in her research of the Wilkins lineage. She told me that she had written to the U.K. and traced much of the ancestry back to 1600-1603 in Ireland when the Catholic aristocracy fled from Cromwell's takeover to the Western Coast of Scotland. Although Wilkins is officially a Welsh surname, the name is very common in the U.K. Aunt Jean said that our Wilkins ancestor was born in the U.K. and came over here from there as a young man, James Wilkins. There are no official birth, marriage or death records of him until 1850-ish when he apparently joined a wagon train with two boys who were his sons. Jean thinks this means that there was a Native mother. The Iriquois records on the east coast (they are a New York tribe) show Wilkins and Cusick as common names among the full blood Indians. There might be something to her theory as she had been working on geneologies and church history for 30-40 years. I am trying to follow up online to fill in the gaps with the Swank and Wilkins families. There seems to be some confusion.

Harrison Franklin Wilkins, Jr. married Donna Brown Wilkins and they were happily married at her death in Lincoln City, OR in 1993. She is descended directly from Isaac Allerton of the Mayflower. Her father was William Ross Brown and her mother was Ella Foster Brown. Ella was a member of the DAR and donated a book with pictures tracing the Foster lineage through Missouri as there are many different Foster families there. I have a copy of her documented lineage that she put together for the DAR. Her sister was Harriet Foster Lowry. Their daughter, Joan Turner, came back from living in Venezuela with her husband, Marshall, of Yale and also the Tacoma Dome fame, and lived a few blocks away from Donna and Frank's house on Dunckley Street in Portland for about twenty years until they moved to the west side. Joan survived her husband and is living in the area as ofi this writing in 2014. One son lives in Washington and their daughter has been living many years with her U.K. husband, although with Scotland's tight election recently seeking to disengage from the U.K., this status could change.

Frank Wilkins had four children: Anne, Ginger, Jim and Mary. He and his wife Donna lived happily and adored each other to their dying day. They were both well educated, well read, and intelligent. They moved to their newly built, custom retirement home at Pacific City on the Oregon Coast after Donna retired from working for Social Services for the State of Oregon. Frank spent most of his working years as a managing chemist at Pennsalt which later became Pennwalt (they made Sure deodorant among other products and helped make bombs during WWII).

Frank was shown the old Swank "homestead" by his grandfather Swank. It was still there around 1960 - between Progress and Raleigh Hills Oregon outside of Portland on a dirt side road. The snake fence was still intact and the small log cabin still there although they both were covered in green moss. He showed them to me and there is a picture in someone's album of Grandfather Swank by an old Model T or something car - nice one - on that road in front of the homestead. I hope that someone will take a picture of it and post it on this website. It would be nice to see some of the photos that were going to be shared after dad died in 2001.

If anyone would like to contact me with facts about the Swanks and Wilkins, it would be welcome. I send out Christmas cards every year with my address and phone number on them. I am also listed in the Parker records. I recently moved but should stay put here for a few years. I was married, divorced, have two post-grad degrees which I enjoy using, and have been in three major accidents in Washington and still need more surgeries to recover from the last car accident (his fault). However, I am getting around well after spending $20,000 on physical therapy so to enable me to be able to climb stairs and use a clutch. Thank goodness for insurance. Injuries are just like old age!

Take care!