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| My grandpa, Walter Elliot Tubbs, and me c. 1983 |
His Name in Youth
As it turned out, I spent hours combing through the mentions of my grandfather in a myriad of activities in his teenage and early 20’s. What was interesting is that in most of these newspaper mentions he was named as Elliot Tubbs. When I was growing up, most people called him Tubby, a nickname he picked up while in the Army, except for my second cousins who always called him Uncle Elliot. I thought it was odd because I knew his first name was Walter. Then it dawned on me, his father was Charles Walter Tubbs, but he went by C. Walter or Walter. Since it might be confusing to have two Walter’s in the house, my grandfather must have been called Elliot as a child and my Aunt Helen, his older sister, would have surely had her children call my grandfather by his childhood name. The newspaper articles later shifted to using Walter Elliot in the 1940s, but the name must have stuck for my cousins!
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Ann Arbor High School Yearbook, c. 1931
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| The Ann Arbor Times News November 18, 1925 |
Activities of his Youth
I was a competitive swimmer in my youth and my grandfather was always so proud of me and on rare occasions he would mention he was also a swimmer and would share how much strokes, starts, and turns had changed and even the length of the pool (he swam in a 20 yd pool) since he was a kid. I found numerous articles during his teenage years participating in the Ann Arbor YMCA and Ann Arbor High School swim team. For example, on October 13th, he placed 5th in the “Athletics” division at the YMCA Carnival and 4th in the “Swimming” and 3rd in the “All-round” category. Most times he was a swimmer but I did find one time that he made it to the semi-finals for “Fancsy Diving”! And was on the Ann Arbor YMCA Team (Junior division) planning to defend their state title and he was a “low board diver”.
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| Ann Arbor High School Yearbook c. 1930 |
The YMCA also sponsored treasure hunts and at the first treasure hunt in the summer of 1925, Elliot Tubbs won the event. And he even played in ping pong tournaments!
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| Ann Arbor High School c. 1929 |
My grandfather also prided himself on his singing voice, although I don’t ever remember hearing his tenor singing voice, he was a member of the Glee Club at Jones Junior High and Ann Arbor High School.
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| The Ann Arbor Times News Aug 15, 1924 |
He was also a Boy Scout in Ann Arbor’s Troop 1 and went to Camp Medawewin on Patterson Lake in Pinckney, Michigan and learned about water safety, lifesaving, and techniques for swimming and diving.
Surprising Find
The most surprising find was in 1933, when Elliot Tubbs was identified as an Old Age Pension Bureau census enumerator. This took me down a giant rabbit hole where I learned an interesting lesson in Michigan History!!
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| The Ann Arbor Daily News November 6, 1933 |
Most people know that Social Security as a federal program began in August 1935. What I didn’t know until reading this article was that Michigan began a program that could be considered a precursor to social security! Michigan was struggling with one of the highest unemployment rates (36% vs. 24% nationally) and had many poor houses filled with elderly persons. It became a very controversial law (I found a New York Times article from December 1933), but in 1933, Michigan was one of 10 states who began a program to support indigent persons over the age of 70. They levied a tax of $2 per person (over the age of 21) per year to fund the program. In order to know who to levy this tax against, census takers were hired to scour townships. My grandfather was apparently named the census taker for Scio Township in Washtenaw County, a township he would have been familiar with because his parents were both born there and he was too!
I have reached out to the Michigan Archives and the Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County, but haven’t tracked down the census papers he took…yet!
I am again reminded of the power of newspapers and how they can bring a person's life alive! There was so much more to my grandfather than his military career and it's nice to learn a little more about him as a young man.
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