What I can tell you about me, mine and anything else about "Towners"....

Hi there! I will assume for the moment that you, like I, are trying to find links to other Towners. When we do searches it seems as if many of us are out there. I thought it would be easier to just put up this FAQ in hopes that those seeking Towners can decide whether or not I am a likely suspect in the "family tree"
To be quite honest, if you were a "Corkin" we would more likely have a possibility of being related. That being said, I shall proceed with data.

I never got to know my grandmother as she died before I was born. I only have brief recollections of my grandfather. His name was George Towner and he had ties to England as far as I was told unspecifically. My grandfather and grandmother were not able to have children. But on one snowy winter night, there came a tapping at their front door. When my grandmother opened the door, to her astonishment, there was a well-wrapped baby in a basket. That baby became my father and bearer of the Towner name. The "authorities" weren't going to let my grandmother keep the baby, but at the hospital, she lied about how she had come to posess the child and they bought the story. After issuing a certificate of birth, my grandmother left with the baby.

The baby had not been well cared for. It appeared that whoever had him had been feeding him a diet of "Perigoric" to keep the baby from crying and make him sleep. Later in life that proved to set the stage for him becoming an alcoholic.

They named the lad Thomas Morgan Towner. I know little about his young life up until he married my mother, Marian Corkin. The Corkins lived in Michigan in the Lansing, Flint, Pontiac areas. Good Irish family that never liked to get together.

Thomas was a handsome devil! He was primarily involved in "sales" as a profession. On the side he played trumpet in bands and was quite the filanderer. He liked the night-life and could sell snowballs to Eskimos. My mom became enamoured with him at the old "dance down at the lake" like they used to have before gang-warfare. You know, the big-band sound and all that. Well, he was a dashing lad and swept her off her feet. Back in those days though you got married. And so they were.

They had my brother, Terrence Morgan in June of 1938. In 1944, before I was a year old, they returned to Rochester, New York and settled in a brick home out near Greece. About that time Thomas began to have serious problems with drinking and became more and more abusive to my mother and less and less "responsible" work-wise. In fact, one night he came home very drunk and loud and actually fired off a pistol he kept. The bullet went throught the cieling and floor and whizzed by the bed I was asleep in. After that my mother had had enough. So at the ripe old age of three, my mother and father separated and she moved us into the city of Rochester. For 7 years we lived at 71 Primrose street a short distance from the entrance to Kodak and right next to John Marshall High School. I attended P.S. #41.

Thomas had occasional contact with us. He would show up with gifts at Christmas etc. but wasn't much on the support-side economics. Fortunately, my aunt Grace Wagg who was kin to the Towners was a VERY wealthy woman and saw to it that we were taken care of and that Thomas didn't get crazy when he visited. The only visitations I really remember were when he would take me for the afternoon and we would end up in some bar with one of his "girlfriends". My brother, being 6 years older than me knows more than I was ever told.
To my recollection, Thomas had a lady in Pennsylvania as he worked for General Electric there. As I have been able to garner information from people, I have been told that he sired 3 to 5 children with this lady. There is disagreement on the makeup of the genders. I think there were 2 boys and 3 girls, but it could be the opposite and the numbers may be wrong. They may have moved from PA as well. I am not sure. What I AM sure about is that I have a couple of half-brothers and/or sisters out there whose father's name was Thomas Towner. Of course I am assuming he used his real name too.

If you are able to piece together recollections of such a person (Thomas Towner) discussing Rochester, Lansing, bands, etc., we might have a link! The man died in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1966 so I assume he lived there for some time.

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or CLICK HERE IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE TOWNERS WHO HAVE VISITED ME.

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PAGE LAST UPDATED 12 FEBRUARY 1998

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