Famous Athletes in the Family

My last post discussed one of the children of Magdalene Skerstonas Tamosaitis.   Magdelene had seven children.   This focuses on family members of one of Magdalene’s other children, her daughter, Marcella Tamosaitis Howard (b. Jul 1909, Watertown, CT d. Feb 1997 Elizabeth City, NC). Marcella and her husband, Claud Howard, are the parents of Bruce Howard.

NOTE:   Now there are unwritten rules about genealogical blogging about living relatives.  But I feel exceptions can be made for those relatives that have their own Wikipedia pages – since I would consider those among use with their own Wikepedia pages part of the public domain and I am only including the information on their Wikipedia pages….  So with that disclaimer….

We have a couple of baseball players in the family!  Here is Bruce’s official Major League Baseball information from his Wikipedia page:

 

Bruce Ernest Howard (born March 23, 1943) is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball who played from 1963 to 1968 for the Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and Washington Senators. Listed at 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m), 180 lb., Howard was a switch-hitter and threw right-handed. A native of Salisbury, Maryland, he attended Villanova University. His son, David Howard, also played in the majors.

In a six-season career, Howard posted a 26–31 record with 349 strikeouts and a 3.18 ERA in 120 appearances, including seven complete games, four shutouts, one save, and 528 ⅔ innings of work.

Bruce’s son, David Howard, was also a Major League Baseball player and has his own Wikipedia page as well:

David Wayne Howard (born February 26, 1967 in Sarasota, Florida), is field coordinator of minor league instruction for the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball, and a former utility player in MLB who played from 1991 through 1999 for the Kansas City Royals (1991–97) and St. Louis Cardinals (1998–99). Listed at 6 feet (1.8 m) and 175 lb. (80 kg), he was a switch-hitter and threw right-handed. His father, pitcher Bruce Howard, also played in the majors.

 Howard was a solid utilityman, being able to play all infield and outfield positions, and also had the ability to serve as emergency pitcher. His most productive season came in 1996, when he posted career-numbers in games (143), runs (51), hits (92), extrabases (23) and RBI (48), while hitting a .243 batting average. In a nine-season career, Howard was a .229 hitter (362-for-1583) with 11 home runs and 148 RBI in 645 games, including 169 runs, 57 doubles, 14 triples, and 23 stolen bases.

 In 2004, he joined the Red Sox as a minor league coach in the Boston farm system before becoming a scout. He moved into their front office at the close of the 2007 season, spending 2008–09 as special assistant to Boston general manager Theo Epstein. He succeeded Rob Leary as field coordinator in 2010.

We'll see if I uncover any other family members with athletic skill as I continue to research the family   I can tell you - I have none although my 5'9" and growing 14 year old son seems to be a pretty good golfer...  

Remember if you think you are a Skerstonas relative and would like access to the Geni.com family tree please just e-mail me.  You can also send along any ideas for family stories to include as I continue to blog...   I have a list of ideas - but would love to add yours....

A Link to the Lithuanian Presidency...

I’ll lead in this post with the tie in to my great grand-father Joseph Skerstonas.   As previously noted he had a brother, Peter Skerstonas (both brothers were born circa mid 1800’s in Lithuania)

• Peter had a daughter: Magdalene Skerstonas Tamosaitis (b. Jan 1873 (Lithuania) d. Dec 1948 (Nebraska, US)
• Magdalene had a daughter: Marian Tamosaitis (b. Feb 1905 (Waterbury, CT, US) d. March 1953 (Pennsylvania, US)

Marian married Bruce Stulginskis (b. Feb 1903 d. Sep 1955).  Mr. Stulginskis was the nephew of the second president of Lithuania, as noted in this August 29, 1923 Carbondale Daily Free Press Article:

YOUTH STUDIES HERE FOR LIFE WORK IN LITHUANIA(By Associated Press)DANVILLE, ILL—In the little village of Westville, near here, lives Bruce Stulginskis who appears destined some day to sit in the government councils of Lithuania one of the new nations of Europe. Stulginskis is the nephew of Aleksandros Stulginskis, who was elected president of the far away Baltic republic in June.  He lives in the Lithuanian colony of Danville, is studying at the University of Illinois, and is preparing himself for a public career when he is graduated from college. Bruce Stulginskis is the son of a Westville merchant, and since his father’s death the Lithuanian president has been directing the boy's education. According to the plan, Bruce will go from the University of Illinois to the University of Berlin for a graduate course.

I was able to find this press release reprinted in various papers including The Morning Sun of Yuma AZ, The Ada Evening News of Ada, OK and the Evening Independent of Massillon, OH all published between August and September 1923. 

It seems, however, this public career did not come to pass.   According to Martha Palapis’ family history Bruce became an electrical engineer and he and his wife Marian made their home in Pennsylvania. 

A history of his uncle, Aleksandros Stulginskis, found on Litanus.org (http://www.lituanus.org/1995_4/95_4_02.htm) describes:

Stulginskis (b. 1885 d. 1969) was one of the founding fathers and restorers of Lithuanian independence, a member of the Lithuanian Council (Lietuvos Taryba), a signer of the Declaration of Independence of February 16, 1918, the acting prime minister of the Provisional Government in 1919, President of the Constituent Assembly (Steigiamasis Seimas) in 1920 and first constitutional President of Lithuania from 1923 -1926. He was one the most outstanding leaders of the Christian Democratic Party of Lithuania (LKDP) and served as a representative in all sessions of the Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament). He however  experienced all of the calamities of modem Lithuanian history - World War I and the German occupation, the Soviet occupation later during the period of World War II, exile in the camps of Siberia and imprisonment from 1941 until 1954.

                                                             Alexsandros Stulginskis

Joseph Skerstonas was my great-grandfather and Peter Skerstonas was his brother.   A third cousin of mine, Martha Palapis, had done a significant amount of research on the Skerstonas family while she was alive.   She had typed (on a typewriter - not a computer) all of the information she had gathered and distributed the results to those family members that attended a family reunion in 1992.   Although I did not attend the reunion I managed to get a copy of her work.  It is very extensive and I have been able to put all of the data on-line into Geni.com.   So now I have an on-line version of a family tree.   But I want to see if I can turn this data into a story.   I am hoping to take the information that Martha so diligently put together and see if I can find pictures, stories, source documents, etc to help it become a true family story.   Today I went to Martha's memorial service, which gave me the inspiration to actually sit and start this blog.   I will try to regularly update with bits of information and hope to hear from members of our family so that we can grow our story together. 

I'll start with this great picture that I recently received from my mother.   When they last visited, my aunt, Izzy Schwarze, gave my mom some pictures of my Dad, George.   This one is dated 1937 - could be the year my Dad started school.   He was the youngest of the 5 children - 7 years younger than his closest sibling.  From oldest to youngest, by birth year, they were:   Della (Dee) 1917,  Al & Isabelle (Izzy) (twins) 1920, Mildred (Milly) 1923 and George (1930).   They lived on Walnut Hill in Thomaston, CT.   Through the power of Facebook I was able to identify the two other boys as the neighbor's boys and even the name of the bus driver!   That all the Skerstonas kids are smiling except for George is kind of telling - there would be some family feuds of epic proportions in their future!