Story written down by Brian Swagerty
Clem was an unhappy baby, because, as it turned out, he was always hungry. Clem wanted to eat anything he could get his hands on. Pearl took him to the doctor and the doctor said her milk was not worth a darn and start feeding him solids. At another point due to circumstances Elmer was in charge of feeding Clem. Clem was most impatient with his father at how slowly he was receiving his food and he fussed. Elmer gave up using the spoon and just put the food in front of Clem and Clem used his hands and was then happy with taking care of his feeding.
There is a quality of being super strong in the Swagerty’s. While Clem was at San Quentin, he gave Floyd and John Shreve an extensive tour of the prison. Clem was running up the stairs and John, twenty plus years younger and a runner, couldn’t keep up with him. Elmer, Floyd, Clem, Brian, and Jane have all exhibited this super strength. When Dad was ill and getting weaker, he helped John re-do the back yard. Part of the process was taking many wheelbarrels of dirt out of the back yard. John was trying to out-do Floyd in loading and wheeling out the loads of dirt and Floyd was always ahead. John runs many miles a week and daily unloads 18-wheel truck trailers. At the end of the day, Floyd confided to John, that one of his frustrations of his illness was that he had lost his great strength. John could only shake his head in amazement.
Once, when Brian was working at Heinz Tomato in Stockton, his foreman asked him to help close a rail boxcar door. This foreman knew Brian’s dad, Floyd, through the naval reserves and must have been impressed with his strength. The boxcar door was closed, but the three foot long iron bar that locks the door shut wouldn’t come down into it’s place. Anyway, Brian gained much respect that day among the other factory workers. He grabbed the bar and tried to force it into place. All he did was bend the bar!
Along with this strength is an enormous appetite. There are many stories of Swagerty’s eating beyond the normal. Mary Lou worried about all of her children because they were so skinny and she worried about her milk. As soon as they could communicate that they were hungry they gained weight and were happy. The Brian and Mary Lou family was always amazed at how few pancakes their friends would eat when they stayed the night and had pancakes in the morning. They would be full at one or two, while the rest of us would eat 10-12 each (with eggs), or until the batter ran out.
Lucy would go visit Pearl with her son Walt. Walt wouldn’t eat very much. The table would be piled high and every bit of food would disappear. There was no such thing as leftovers at Pearl’s table. Lucy worried if they could afford the volume of food needed to feed everyone. The plates were piled high. Lucy waited for when Walt would eat like that. He never did. Melva came home from college and remembers being amazed at the volume of food on the table. She was truly surprised that all of the food disappeared.
Brian’s family would go backpacking and camping each summer with a group of other families. One of these friends was a doctor. He was always amazed at the volume of food that the Swagerty’s ate. His theory was that we all had a genetic defect. He said that if we lived during caveman days, that we wouldn’t survive, because we wouldn’t be able to gather enough food for our needs. Brian’s theory is that we did survive because our massive strength enabled us to gather more and/or bully the other clan members to gather for us as well!
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 