Since you found the hidden link, I will tell you even more. Probably more than you really wanted to know. Here are some interesting things about me that most people don't know (until now, that is).

My Family Background

My father was raised on a farm in Ohio. My mother is South African. This unlikely pair met at the United Nations and got married. From my father's side, I am an energetic, cynical, iconoclastic troublemaker. From my mother's side, I am stubborn, fiercly independent, and singleminded to an extent that most people cannot begin to understand. This combination of often conflicting character traits is sometimes fascinating to other people and sometimes aggravating. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way.

My Father's Family

  1. Around 1780, Israel Artz was married in Shenendoah Country Virgina. His son was named John. That was John Artz the first. I am John Artz the ninth.

  2. John married a girl from neighboring Rockingham Country named Sarah Hanks they had two sons Jacob Artz and John Artz. Sarah had a sister named Nancy who married Thomas Lincoln. They had a son named Abraham. That's right. Abraham Lincoln. The one and only. Nancy's side of the family did a little better in that generation than Sarah's.

  3. I have a son named Jacob. When I named him, I knew nothing about John and Sarah's son Jacob. My son Jacob also has a brother named John. He also has exactly the same birthday as the Jacob Artz from almost two hundred years ago. Makes you think .....

  4. My great grandfather had four wives (not at the same time). Three of them were sisters. Talk about brand loyalty !

  5. My father ran away from home when he was nineteen. He was a 'problem child'. He went from Ohio to California where he joined the Navy. He shipped out on the U.S.S. Pope which was subsequently sunk by a Japanese destroyer. He spent a few days floating in the water before being picked up by the Japanese and taken to a P.O.W. camp in the Phillipines. He spent the next three years as a P.O.W. He never talked about it. The only thing that I knew as a kid was that he would never take us swimming.

  6. He had a difficult life. He drank too much, and misbehaved a lot, but that was just a cover for the things we didn't know about.

  7. He died in 1969 and was buried in Arlington Cemetary. It took me twenty years before I could visit his grave. Now, I try to get over there from time to time to pay my respects.

My Mother's Family

  1. Half a millenia ago, my mother's family left the Alsace-Lorraine region of France/Germany and went to Holland for religious freedom. At some point (my guess is the middle 1600's) they left Holland and settled in South Africa. They were the Boers, the Afrikaaners.

  2. My grandfather (oupa in Afrikaans) grew up speaking Old Hi Dutch as his first language. Afrikaans was second. And English was third. He was a journalist by profession and worked for the Ambassador from South Afica, which is how my mother landed up at the United Nations.

  3. My grandfather was also a personal friend of Noel Coward the playwrite. Oupa was a dignified gentleman, and I admired him greatly.

  4. During the Boer War, many of the Dutch families were rounded up and placed in concentration camps. Measle epidemics wiped out many of my relatives from that time. Later they began sympathizing with the British which put them in Dutch (sorry) with the Afrikaaners. I do not agree with the Afrikaaner's worldview, at all, but you can certainly see where I get my stubborness from.

  5. There is a family story that one of my forefathers was sitting on the porch of his farm house in the Transvaal. He saw smoke on the horizon from another farm house, decided that it was getting too crowded, and moved further into the wilderness. Independent and antisocial. I have overcome my antisocialness, but it is hard not to be independent.

Things About Me

My Background

Some Quick Facts