Gail (Irvin) Cox

Ancestors

Descendants

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Gail Cox [send private message] and Paul B. Irvin [send private message]

Gail is a Friend (Quaker) descendant, but not a Quaker

About our Family Tree

If you are a family member, even a distant one, get in touch with me and I'll put you on the trusted list so you can see our entire tree.

About Me

Writing this in 2016 I'm an almost 70 year old grandmother of four who has discovered genealogy as a hobby and loves the idea that it is something of value I can give my family. My biggest regret is that I didn't get this hobby younger in life when I could have recorded more family stories.

My husband and I currently live in North Georgia in a 117 year old antebellum which is a constant work in progress. Anyone who has ever owned an old house knows that it is truly a daily love/hate relationship.

We bought our home over thirty years ago when the sellers were just looking for someone who would tear it down in exchange for architectural antiques so they could sell the land. It was in VERY bad shape.

Luckily I was smart enough to marry a guy who can fix just about anything. So now after decades of work it looks like Scarlett could prance out the front door.

We are getting up there in age and my fella needs to get off 40 foot ladders. A few years back he painted the entire outside of that big house himself with a brush and roller. Two coats. At our age that isn't going to happen again.

It is a constant war between us and the squirrels that seem to have the idea that wooden houses were put there for them to chew on. See those columns? The base under one went bad and my resident genius figured out a way to lift that column all alone with no help and install a new base under it. I'm telling you it pays to marry someone who can not only move your world but can also figure out a way to move a tall column by himself when that needs to happen. I won the lottery the day we married.

But now our "This Old House" is for sale. Time to move on to a new chapter. We will be moving from almost 6,000 square feet to a little over 600 and leaving Georgia for a place on the ocean in Florida. In exchange for giving up all that space my new genealogy office will have an ocean view, and I'll never again have to hate the very sight of a squirrel:

Another huge advantage of moving to Florida is that my grandkids are growing up fast. Pretty soon they'll be teenagers and far more likely to want to spend time with grammy and grandpa if we have a beach to offer.

I'm currently writing a story for my grandkids what it was like to grow up in Cocoa Beach, Florida in 1950's. After opening his law office my father was heavily involved in city government, getting Cape Canaveral hospital built, starting the Cocoa Beach Rotary club and developing real estate. Today Cocoa Beach is wall to wall condos and no longer completely dependent on the government and missiles flying through the air from Cape Canaveral. Big change.

When my family arrived in Cocoa Beach the mid 50's it was difficult (almost impossible) to find housing. Government contractors had hired people who when they arrived and found there was no housing. We lived for a short time on the dirt road that was Orlando Avenue before my father finally was forced to rent two houses (two or nothing), and agree to buy the furniture in both just to get a small two bedroom concrete block home for his family which included four kids. That house we rented was at the end of Meade Ave on the beach where some years later Rick Stottler developed the Cocoa Beach pier. At the time Meade Avenue was an over grown dirt road where snakes were a frequent sight but our backyard was miles of what was then very thinly populated beach. The picture below is me holding my brother where the pier is now, looking toward the cape with nary a building in sight. Now it hotels, condos and vacation resorts.

I remember the first red light being installed in Cocoa Beach celebrated on the front page of the local paper two issues in a row. My sister and I would walk alone a mile and a half on the beach to Jake's Bowling Alley for a soda because it was the only place that was air conditioned and to us all that cold air was a treat and a marvel. In those days kids didn't need as much watching as they do today. The television reception was a couple of black and white fuzzy channels that didn't broadcast past eleven at night, no one we knew had air conditioned homes, and our telephone number was just four digits.

After a time we moved to the newly built Convair Cove in Cocoa Beach and after four or five years to a sprawling house at the end of Surf Drive where we were once again living directly on the ocean. A close family friend and client of my father's was Jack Moline who also served with my father as a city commissioner. I babysat for he and his wife more weekends than I can count. Jack Moline later developed Cape Winds where John and I have just purchased what will soon be our new home. Life moves in circles.

Growing up I was privileged to watch history being made right at my door. When I was a young adult I worked in the Cape Canaveral Administration Building as a documents security librarian until I got itchy feet and took myself and my high level security clearance and went off to conquer Washington D.C.

Then I got married. Moved to Germany for a year while he finished his time in the army. Came back. Moved to California. After a few years we had a child. I got myself unmarried, the first in my family ever to get a divorce. Moved back to the Cape and then after a few years, with my son in tow, followed my parents when they retired to North Georgia. I sold a little real estate and then met a southern guy and got married again. Built a new family. And lived pretty much happily ever after.

(I have a little sign in my office that reads: To marry a second time is the triumph of hope over experience. Thank God, hope won.)

For decades John and I owned a trade school which taught high end wallcovering business owners. By the time we retired we had graduates in all fifty states and seven countries. As a part of that business we worked with all the major wallcovering manufacturers developing and testing their new products. John was in demand as a speaker as well as a teacher while I worked on marketing our business. Later I taught myself video editing and web design and we released a video course which was one of the first of its kind.

After our retirement I kept myself busy with designing and programming websites and teaching newbies how to navigate the internet. The internet was, and is, this bookworm's delight. I worked with the first search directory on the internet (dmoz) which supplied the newly formed google with content for its searches. I bought and sold domain names and did research using all the tools the internet supplied. It was a heady time. For me it was like discovering all the riches of the largest libraries at my fingertips. Pretty much heaven on earth.

I'm always happy to meet distant cousins and will gladly share any family information that I have.

Essay Pages on Wikitree and in Google Docs

I have found essay writing to be sometimes easier to do and read on google docs when illustrations need to be put in the midst of a description. Therefore some of the links below will take you to my shared google docs. I have put links on those essays back to this page so you will find it easy to navigate back. The links to google doc essays open in a new window or tab.

1. A Family Story
2. Unintended Consquences and Family Trees.
3. A list of my family names and where they came from fround by clicking: FAMILY NAMES
4. The ship Johan Simon Heller and his father Johann Christoph Heller came to America on is The Winter Ship Galley.
5. The 1903 book that contains the genealogy of the Duryea family is the Documentary History of the Nederdeutsche Gemeente

New York

1. Links and more can be found for Village of Sea Cliff
2. Brookville, Long Island, New York Church that played a strong part in Duryea family history Wolver Hollow Dutch Reform Church
3. Long Island Cemeteries. A page giving information on Long Island Cemeteries that have a relationship to our Tree. Long Island Cemeteries
4. Quaker Records: Jericho Meeting

Pennsylvania

Family Story

1. Page on how municipalities work in Pennsylvania. Municipalities Summary
2. A look at the Delaware River Gap in Pennsylvania. The Gap
3. Heartbreaking Destruction in Philadelphia The Destruction of Monument Cemetery.
4. Middle Smithfield Township Information
5. Smithfield Township, Monroe County, Information
6. Stroud Township Information
7. Monroe County Information
8. Shawnee Information
9. Poplar Valley, Stroud Township
10. Pike County Information
11. Northampton County
12. Prospect Cemetery
13. Shawnee Presbyterian Church
14. Neighbors Unrelated people who were living in Monroe County at the same time of my ancestors.
15. Asylum Township Information
16. Mt. Bethel Presbyterian Cemetery

Advance Directive

To aid WikiTree in the administration of my account should I be incapacitated, or in the event of my death, I hereby give permission for all private profiles I'm managing to be transferred to the following WikiTreers, whether or not they are currently on the Trusted Lists:

Paul Irvin Cindi Irvin Bill Irvin