My husband JP and I threw our daughter Ruby Zypora a party in the park for her first birthday last Friday. We invited a slew of people – some we work with, many we know from the neighborhood. George’s brother Michael arrived with his omniscient smile, professorial beard and garb, and a six pack of Corona in response to our BYOB invitation. On September 11, 2004, seven months after JP and I married ourselves in Gondola #90 as it carried us up Aspen’s Ajax Mountain, we celebrated our marriage at the Aspen Institute/Aspen Meadows. For the opening, we premiered our 30 minute, surrealism-esque short film that Michael narrated, which we edited at Michael’s studio.

Stephen Stranahan, the third son of Duane Stranahan and middle brother between George and Michael, prepared a Family Tree, in which he outlined the genealogy of the Stranahan line dating back to 1818 when “a Scotch-Irishman from County Down [Alexander Stranahan] immigrated to Philadelphia.” Stephen’s introduction continues:

He [Alexander] married [Jane Shannon], and his wife bore him a son [William]; but she died soon after. He married again [Elizabeth Allen], moved west, and died of old age in the rich heartland of Iowa.

His first son [William] stayed behind, married [Sarah Ann McCleerly] and had three children [Robert Allen, William Duane, and Eva]; but he too lost his wife. [William] married again and became a successful farmer in western Pennsylvania; yet, depression stalked him, and he took his own life.

His first son [Robert Allen] grew up on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. He married [Elizabeth “Lizzie” Fulwiler Whitehill] the daughter of a Civil War surgeon, and loved her dearly – though he left her often, seeking fame and fortune. [Robert Allen] was a pickle merchant in St. Louis, a pioneer in the gas industry in Buffalo, and a hotelkeeper in New York and Boston. [Lizzie] supported him in all his ventures and brought up their five children [Ada, James W. (died at six months), Frank Duane, Lillie A., Anna Roberta, Spencer Udell, and Robert Allen, Jr.] to value the closeness of a home that she herself had not experienced. [Robert Allen] died too soon, but not before he had inculcated his children with his curiosity, optimism, and ambition.

Their three sons [Frank, Spencer, and Robert], so attuned by nature to talent and opportunity, invested in a French cyclist [Albert Champion] and a product that might bring the thrill and convenience of the motorcar to even the working class. One brother [Spencer] died – too young. His brothers [Frank and Robert] went on to build a company [The Champion Spark Plug Company] that became renowned and respected around the world; brought leisure, education, and the blessings and challenges of wealth to four generations of Stranahan families; and fueled a legacy of faithful, responsible, and creative philanthropy wherever these families still live, in towns and cities across this country.

Frank Duane (FD) Stranahan, Robert and Lizzie’s oldest surviving son, was George’s grandfather. Frank was only twenty-one when his father died in 1898, and so he took over as head of the family and his father’s position as the manager of the Hotel Savoy in Boston. Frank established his first business, the Tremont Garage Company in 1905. By the time FD’s brother Robert Allen Jr, ten years his junior, had graduated from Harvard in two and a half years, FD had established the Stranahan, Eldridge automobile sales and parts service, the Coolidge Corners Company, and ran the New England operation for acetylene tanks that rested on running boards to fuel headlamps.

Robert began working with his brother Frank sometime in 1905, about the same time that Frank was issued majority shares in the Albert Champion Company, where he also acted as President. But by 1910, the Stranahans had a falling out with Albert Champion, and, therefore formed the Champion Spark Plug Company. They quickly moved the business to Toledo, Ohio, where the burgeoning automobile company provided more opportunities. Although Frank and Robert were equal partners in the business, Frank became the Treasurer for the company, and Robert, the President, most likely because Robert had fixed the issue of imperfect and unreliable sparks plugs. Lizzie, their mother, was also made an equal partner in the business in 1912.

Champion Spark Plug became the major supplier and then sole supplier for the Willys Overland car company. Soon thereafter Ford Motor Company also made Champion their sole supplier of spark plugs, until 1961.

While Robert Allen Jr. and his wife Agnes produced five daughters and two sons (Elsie, Nancy, Dorcas, Robert Allen, Jr., Marcia, Frank Richard, and Barbara), Frank Duane and his wife Marie Martin had only one son, Duane Stranahan, George’s father.

My Dad was an excellent shotgunner, proud of his skill and quite competitive too, as he was with his other sports, fishing, skiing, and tennis. He denied the competitiveness, he was not competitive in other aspects of his life⎯well, I think drinking in those days was perhaps often a matter of competition, and he was a keen competitor there for sure. During duck season he hunted every weekend and brought home his limit every time, which in those days was twenty ducks, now it’s two.

The farmland of northwest Ohio is well suited to corn and hogs, the cornfields were home to thousands of pheasant, and most farmers were happy to let hunters into their fields, for the birds were regarded as a minor nuisance. I would walk behind my father through the cornrows; and as we approached, a bird showed one of only two responses; the less common was to slink away quickly and silently, the other was to explode into flight with startlingly loud wingbeats, there to take its chances with my Dad’s aim.  I remember once being instructed to go to the opposite end of the field and walk towards my Dad, hoping to frighten some birds towards him and into shotgun range; which did indeed happen and the shot rained down on me like a sudden hail storm. When we got the birds home I pulled the long tail feathers and kept them as souvenirs, usually stuck into what I imagined to be my Robin Hood cap.

Duane and his first wife Mary Virginia Secor (“Did”) produced four sons and two daughters (Duane, Jr. – known as Pat, George Secor, Stephen, Michael, Mary Celeste, and Virginia). Duane and Virginia were divorced in 1974 after forty-one years together; Duane later remarried. George’s parents are both deceased, although they lived very long and productive lives. Duane lived for 95 years (1903 – 1998), and Virginia 91 years (1906 – 1997). Unfortunately they lost one child, their youngest, Virginia (“Dinny”), in 1993, when she died of brain cancer in Boulder, Colorado leaving behind a son and daughter. At the time of this writing, all of George’s other siblings are alive.

We ate everything my Dad shot, it was his code. Wild pheasant was always served with Bread Sauce. Stick three cloves in ½ an onion, simmer this in milk, add plain bread crumbs until it is too thick, then thin to the right consistency with cream. This was complemented with toasted bread crumbs; slice a nice piece of breast meat, spread with bread sauce and then sprinkle with the crumbs, oh boy. The L.L. Bean Game & Fish Cookbook, Random House, 1983 has a chapter on pheasant, as well as a chapter on raccoon, that bakes, roasts, braises and sautés the bird in garlic, shallots, bacon, bay leaf, Marsala, brandy and other strong flavors. I have tried these, and pheasant is a case where simple is correct; bake the bird, baste it with butter, and serve it with the simple bread sauce. My Dad was not just a good shot, he had the hang of how food ought to be served.

Pheasant didn’t just live in farmer’s cornfields, they walked and shat our lawn and spent their evenings in our sweet corn. I remember a night when I was ordained to sleep between rows of sweet corn with a Remington .410  pump to blast a few of the bandits as they stole juvenile kernels. The night was noisy with cicadas, and it’s true as they say, corn makes growing sounds, squeaks and pops, in the night during warm July nights. As I listened to the surprising sound of corn growing, I knew I heard the scratchings of pheasants poaching, but couldn’t locate a clear target, shining my Boy Scout flashlight around from within my sleeping bag, and finally fell asleep.

The U.S. Forest Service decided sometime in the late ‘50’s to plant some pheasant in the Woody Creek drainage. They released several dozen or so between Stanley’s and Casady Creek. Within a day they were seen scurrying down the irrigation ditches, emigrating to a lower altitude, a closer relationship to corn fields. So, In Woody Creek, perhaps we need more recipes for raccoon. Boil ‘em, don’t bake ‘em, think horseradish and white wine not ketchup and sherry. If you don’t have a ‘coon in your own backyard, call me, we got a plague of ‘em here.

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