Clifford Boothby Salt (1918-1983) – 52 Ancestors # 52 Resolution

Last year one of my resolutions was to write about my father, thinking that 2018 in December would be appropriate.  He would have turned 100 years old on 16 December this year.  When I started writing this post, I had a week left to follow through on my resolution, here just under the wire is some of what I’ve pulled together about my father.

Clifford was born to Henry and Carrie Boothby Salt on 16 Dec. 1918 at the family farm in Saltair, Ohio.  He was the second son but only surviving child of Henry and Carrie.  I don’t think when he was a child he knew about the baby born before him, and it was more a family rumor than a fact.

The few things I heard about him as I was growing up included that his father had died when he was just over 3 years old, and then that his mother remarried when he was about 6 years old and finally that the step-father had died just a few years later, when Cliff was about 9.  So until at least the age of 9-10 he lived on the family farm in Saltair.  This likely is where his love of gardening came from.  He always had a garden growing vegetables for the family table, and in later years also growing flowers.  For many years (in Indiana) he had enough space in a community garden to let each of us five children have a little garden of her/his own.  I remember his growing zucchinis that seemed as big as baseball bats.

Cliff’s mother’s parents had lived on the farm with them for a time before his father (and grandfather) died (both in 1922).  After the death of his step-father, his maternal grandmother helped take care of him when his mother worked, and I think they moved in to Felicity from the farm.  He attended the Felicity elementary and junior high schools, and then was sent to the Ohio Military Institute (OMI) for high school, as I wrote about previously.

My siblings and I were led to believe that both of my father’s parents were dead by the time we were coming into the world and that was why we never knew them (however, see my post about family secrets).  After the death of his stepfather, we were told that his mother had a lot of problems.  The rest of what we were told was that he went to OMI for high school, worked for about a year after that (in a local shoe factory) and then went to Antioch College.  He met my mother at Antioch and they married just before he went into the Army in World War II.  After the war my older sister was born and then the rest of us followed quickly after her.  Dad didn’t talk much about his life.

Let’s fill this in a little based on what I have learned from doing my family research so far.  Although I picked up clues from my mother’s trying to put together his family story,  I have done my own digging into records, looking for the facts.  First, my father did not know for sure about another baby born to Henry and Carrie (according to my mother).  It wasn’t until I finally found a death certificate (in Kentucky) that I could say for sure that there had been a first baby (stillborn).  A scrapbook kept by his mother, and a photo album belonging to her, and another that was Cliff’s also provided some clues about his life.  He traveled with his aunt (Susan Ruhama Salt) on a number of trips: to the East to visit historical sites; to the West taking in a number of national parks; and to Florida several times to visit family members who lived or spent winters there.

Having found a way to get copies of his college application and a couple of required papers (thank you Antioch Archivist Scott Sanders!), I learned that Cliff spent a lot of time away from his mother by his own report (although he never talked about his grandmother with whom he lived).  My understanding is that some of this time away from his mother had to do with her working as a practical nurse which required her to live-in with her patients.

In his college application, Cliff described himself as liking to read from an early age, which is something he as well as my mother passed along to their children.  In his Life Aims paper, required of Antioch freshmen,  he also described enjoying social activities and being with others, although he did not see himself particularly as a leader.  This is somewhat in contradiction to some of his achievements in high school where he was a leader in his company (military school unit) as well as being recognized for his scholarship.  He called himself generally cheerful, and neat and clean about his dress and habits.

His occupational interests as he started college were business and finances or accounting.  His jobs prior to college had led him to be interested in how businesses worked, and to want to have the knowledge to be able to advance in a job.  He went on to major in finance/accounting, working co-op jobs in this area of interest.  It was his work experience along with his accounting experiences that meant he had life skills to pass along to his children.  He taught us the work ethic that held you responsible for showing up every day you were supposed to and doing the job you were hired to do.  He also taught us all how to use a check book, and how to balance a book/account regularly (although some of us used these skills more than others).