Lloyd Woods' Newsletter

Our Claim to Fame is Our Name's the Same!

Issue No. 3, September 1994

Exclusive Group

The stamped card brought in seven responses, bringing us up to 40 members counting five dead guys whose kin replied. The Post Office also returned six with no record of the particular Lloyd. Once in a while, when the forwarding has expired, they'll send me the new address so that I can update our records.

To give it one more shot, I got one of these compact disks for the computer with 70 million phone numbers and addresses of everybody in the United States. Going through that and looking for Lloyd Wood I found 41 new ones, plus phone numbers and middle initials on many of the others. So I sent out Issue No. 2 to the new ones to see what results I could get. So far we've only picked up Lloyd Herman and Lloyd Orlando out of the 70 million plus a big pile of "Insufficient Address" returns from the Post Office. I thought they were supposed to give you directory service for your 29 cents but I guess that went out some time ago. Then I bought another set of two disks but they didn't even have my name in there! They'll hear from me. To give yourself an idea of the odds on your name being unique here's the count on middle initials:

E         12
A, G      10
D,H,L      8
C          7
F,J,W      5
P,R,T      4
M,N,V      3
O,S        2
K          1
A lot of these are people who haven't given their middle names yet, so I don't know if we'll ever find out if we're unique as far as names go. Plus we've got sleepers with no middle initial yet (75) but with the phone numbers you can call them up and satisfy our curiosity!

New Members

Middle names of those who've joined us since the last newsletter are: I wonder if Gray knows that Lloyd also means Grey?

It's from the Celtic. - LW

My curiosity got the better of me regarding a Lloyd W. Wood out in Kalamazoo, MI. Called since I had gotten the letter back with "Insufficient Address" but found out he had just died a couple of weeks ago. His middle name was William, like mine, so I've got two more to call to see if I'm the only William or not. Sorry to hear of his passing.

More Demographics

The average age of all of us so far has dropped to 57 and 35% of us are retired. The average zip code of responders has moved to 51195 that I guess is somewhere in Iowa. Does anybody from Iowa want to host the convention? For occupations, we have added this time: All in all, we're getting to be a pretty diversified group. At least we have our own pastor now - maybe that will help to stimulate membership! Gene claims he's famous for marrying a girl from Medway, Maine. I hope he can understand her; those Maine people speak with broader "A"s than the Kennedys! (Also, his father was Lloyd Joseph, born in Brantford, Ont. for our roster of Lloyds.)

As his reward for joining us I'll pass along my suggestion for getting everyone to move up to the front of the church. Some Saturday night just move the pulpit to the back of the church, that'll move them up the next time! Better yet, put the pulpit on wheels so they never know where you're going to show up next!

Speaking of famous, our new member, Orlando, tells me there was a Lloyd O. Wood that ran for governor of Pennsylvania some years back. I guess that's about as famous as any of us has gotten. There was a Wood, but not Lloyd, that actually served as governor of Illinois many years back. So much for your history lesson this issue.

Charles had twin daughters coming up 30 years ago. Take my hat off to you - I can't keep up with the one I had! He runs his own bait and tackle place (Woody's) up in Fineview, NY if you're ever in the area. Still curious as to which town his card was sent to.

Profiles

Lloyd Henry, whose picture we featured last time, sent a few notes about himself which I'll pass on to start this section of the newsletter. Seems he ran an electroplating business that plated casket hardware years gone by. The place burned down and all of the new environmental laws made it too expensive to start up again so he retired. Seems these governments often worry more about the spotted owls and the like than how people are supposed to make a living but I guess we do owe it to future generations not to leave a mess to clean up. Back to Henry, he's our sole Canadian member in good standing, has three grown children and is a genealogy fan as well as a stamp collector.

Short Tale - Long Trip

Back during the Depression we didn't get a car until about 1938. Aunt Harriet was an unmarried schoolteacher, a rock-ribbed Republican and a charter member of the local Women's Christian Temperance Union. She had a 1934 Buick with wire wheels and the spare tires in the front fenders. It was, as Dad termed it, a "coach", with steamer-like trunk on the back and flower vases by the doors. Even had an ash tray although Aunt Harriet tried to get it taken out as she was also against tobacco. She was quite short and so looked through the steering wheel when driving.

One summer she offered to take us on a trip around Lake Michigan as well as up to the Soo locks. Dad offered to help with the driving but Aunt Harriet would hear none of that as it was her car. I might add that she was a very safe driver; never drove over twenty five miles an hour. Never. In spite of Dad's occasional pleading, she never went over 25 miles an hour - all the way around Lake Michigan!

When we eventually got back Dad started saving up to buy his own car and we didn't take any more trips with Aunt Harriet. (She did finally get married to a Democrat who smoked a pipe, told dirty stories, and probably would liked to have had a drink or two! He had to sleep in the front bedroom too!) Incidentally, I've decided to send my stories in to Reader's Digest. But remember, you saw it here first should I be so lucky.

Genealogy Corner

Got an ad from Elizabeth Wood, who compiled "The World of Woods" that started me on this club thing. Now she's putting out "The Woods Since 1618" listing 48,471 who have been here in America since then. If I learn anything new from this latest lure for me to spend money on I'll let you know.

What You Told Me

Lloyd Clarke (Sr) tells me he's an amateur radio operator (N4HMD) in case we have any other operators out there. He was born in a real log cabin up in Pennsylvania on a farm called Hargis Creek near Rogersville in Greene County. He sent me quite a few Eastern US updates on street addresses so I'm remailing some of those that were returned for "Insufficient Address". (He must have the disks with 80 million people on them!)

Naah, access to the same web search engines I feature on my Clones page. - LW

Now if I can get him to look up all the Western US Lloyd Wood's maybe we'll get some more results. At least you can't say we're not trying to track you all down! The info is much appreciated.

Homeliest Lloyd Contest

Lloyd Garland out in California tried to sneak past the photo requirement with a bunch of prose about I could find his picture in any dictionary under "ugly" but I've checked four and he's not there. He also passed on that his grandpa had given him a silver dollar and told him to give it to anyone he could find who was uglier than he was. He claims he's still got the silver dollar. Then he insulted his first girlfriend saying she had to put a bag over his head but always brought along two in case it fell off.

Good try, Garland but no picture, no entry in the contest! He winters in Mexico and I think the heat got to him. But don't be too hard on him, he's the California stamp provider and licker.

Life's Little Problems

We're going to have a big problem pretty quick if some of you don't start sending in stories or some material I can print. I've about exhausted my repertoire although I do have one or two more gems that were too ribald for initial issues.

Speaking of problems - for nigh on the past thirteen years now my neighbor has been building a scaled-down airplane in his garage. It's a replica of the F4U Corsair used in WW II and Korea. He's almost finished now putting on the paint and a few other finishing touches so maybe at long last he'll fly it this year. Only one trouble - over the years he's put on a few pounds and instead of being scaled down, as is the airplane, he scaled up a bit! Seems he can't find a parachute thin enough to allow him to sit in the plane and fly it! This calls for a great bit of faith, but after all, he built it himself so who needs a parachute?

Bought one of these shower heads with the hose attached the other day. My wife used it, enjoyed it, and to keep Lloyd on his toes she put it back aimed out instead of into the tub! Gets your attention anyway when adjusting the water temperature! She does have her little ways of getting even!


A newsletter to all Lloyd Woods, by Lloyd William Wood, or LWW.
HTML web version and additional comments by Lloyd Wood (L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk), or LW.