 |
Info |
|
William's granddaughter, Evelyn (Addison) Frazier, left the only known eye-witness description of William Howell Woodmancy (courtesy of Frank A. Frazier of Flagstaff, Arizona):
"When I first remember him, he was in his seventies already. He died when he was eighty years old. My memories show me a man who stood at least six foot two or three inches tall. His body was not stooped like so many men his age but held proudly and he stepped out as briskly as a man half his age. His eyes were blue and held a perpetual twinkle. His nose was slightly hooked due to having been broken in his young manhood. Folks used to call it a Roman nose to be polite. He wore a full beard and mustache. He kept it trimmed to a becoming length but was inordinately proud of the fact that it had never been shaved off from the time it first came into full bloom upon his face. Both hair and beard were curly and not entirely grey. The hair was worn long enough to curl up all around his head and worn parted on both sides with the top-knot rolled into a long curl along the top of his head. He was quite vain about that top-knot because he almost lost it at one time. Being very meticulous about his appearance, he loved to affect Prince Albert frock coats, silk top-hats and a cane when he went out for his daily long walk.
"As for important characteristics, I being only a small girl at the time, remember him principally as a rather proud, slightly vain, but altogether kindly old gentleman whom I loved very dearly. However, in another day, before, long before, I was born there were others who must have known him for many other characteristics. Chief among them, I think, was his vast restlessness and a most prodigious desire for adventure. He never quite got over it because he could never sit still. If the weather were such that it was impossible for him to go for his daily walks from 8 a.m. to noon and again from 2 to 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon, he had the most annoying habit of pacing the length of the house back and forth for hours on end like a caged lion. In fact, you almost expected to hear him roar. During the last year of his life he even moved my grandmother 200 miles from their farm to the town where we lived to be near my mother. The longest time he ever stayed in one place was about 12 years. His adventurous and roving disposition took him all the way around the world and into just about every state and territory in our own country.
"He was well educated -- gentle enough to love playing the pipe organ in church and to sing many types of songs with his pleasant tenor voice and yet tough enough to hold his own among some of the worldís toughest characters on the high seas, through the gold rush of 1849, and through many other adventures across the length and bredth of this huge land of ours. At most of the stages of his life there are few who would have guessed that this man was, by trade, a tailor. In fact, he rarely ever did practice his trade and then most often as owner and boss of the shop."