Meeting Edward Upton
PENNYPACKER REUINION
Leland and I attnded the 1977 Pennypacker Reunion at Pennypacker Mills, PA.
I had gone there hoping to find the parents of my William Pennypacker, father of Phoebe.
I was so disappointed to not find the connection I so wanted. The problem was that there were so many William Pennypackers that I hadn't been able to connect him to his own parents.
They had classes about the history of the family going b ack into the 1300's.
In one class I told of my quest to the man sitting next to me. He pulled out his handwritten notes,, looked up my William. He had copied this from Samuel W Pennypacker's own writings.
"William Pennypacker, removed to the Wabash."
THERE IT WAS!!! MY CONNECTION TO THE PENNYPACKER FAMILY!!! I WAS THRILLED!!!!
I knew the helpful man was an astromer, but did not remember his name.
This morning I have been working on the Upton family and found this obituary and I found him. I am so glad I can put his name into Family Tree and hopefuilly soon his work will be done. when I found his obituary and saw that he only died about 35 days ago. I like to believe that he is ready for the gospel and found me to find him.
I AM CONSTANTLY AMAZED AND GRATEFUL AT HOW THE SPIRIT OF ELIJAH LEADS ME BY THE HAND AS I GATHER MY FAMILY ONE CLICK AT A TIME.
Background of why I was researching my Pennypacker family., My own line is done (??) Is it ever done??
When I received my Pennypacker Newsletter this month I read the research that Edward Upton, b. 1902, had done on our Pennypacker origins. I deceided to research him and put him into FamilySearch Tree.
This opened up my ability to gather his family in.
I thought, this man deserved to be qualified for temple work, I am going to find the vital data and put Edward into Family Tree. So I started researching the family.
The first person I found was Edward's wife, Anna Margaret Pennypacker. She is a granddaughter of Samuel W. Pennypacker who did a lot of ressearch on the Pennypacker Family in the early 1800's and collected and preserved our family bibles and other important documents. He is the one who restored Pennypacker Mills which is now a well visited historical site. It was one of those documents that Edward Key LLoyd Upton used that gave me the connection to my Pennypacker line.
So far I have found 20 descendents of Anna Margaret Pennypacker.
Edward Key Lloyd Upton LDTV-MJK
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"Sadly I did not have the honor of meeting Professor Upton,..."
- Robert Lionheart
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Edward Key Lloyd Upton. Marblehead native Edward Key Lloyd Upton, a Harvard-educated astronomer who taught at UCLA and was, at one time, the Associate Director of the Griffith Observatory, died Tuesday, July 30th in Los Angeles after a long battle with cancer. He was 81. Dr. Upton was born on March 23, 1932, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the grandson of Roger Upton, founder of the the United States Power Squadrons, and the great-great-great grandson of Francis Scott Key. From his earliest days, he was fascinated by the stars, lugging telescopes onto friends garage roofs and the rocks at Goldthwait Beach to watch meteor showers and lunar eclipses. He graduated from Marblehead High School in 1949, Harvard in 1953, and then served with the Army Map Corps on the remote Ulithi Atoll in the South Pacific, improving the accuracy of navigational maps through the use of astronomical observations. After leaving the Army, he obtained his doctorate degree in Astronomy from the University of Michigan, conducting part of his research with NASAs Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. Upton taught at UCLA for a number of years before becoming the Associate Director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, receiving both the Universitys undergraduate and graduate Distinguished Teaching Awards in a single year. Dr. Ed Krupp, the current Director of the Observatory and a former student of Dr. Uptons, recalls Dr. Upton as a gifted teacher who was imaginative, luminous, and entertaining. If Dr. Upton was an extraordinarily effective and memorable teacher, it was because he possessed a passion and curiosity about the universe that was both inspiring and contagious, as well as the rare ability to make cosmic concepts exciting and understandable for the average person. He could explain the cosmos in terms of a sorority, the LA freeways, or whatever reference would help his audience understand the concepts at hand||with an excitement and sense of poetry that made not just sense, but art, of the heavens. Of the annual Leonid meteor showers, for example, Dr. Upton once wrote, The Leonid meteors at their peak are capable of producing the grandest display of celestial fireworks known to man. For about an hour or so the heavens seem to burst open and pour forth a deluge of shooting stars. The spectator stands agape, his mind numbed, his eyes dazzled, and his soul thrilled by the sight of shooting stars appearing by the hundreds... perhaps even thousands per hour." Behind the poetry, there was also brilliant science. In 1977, Dr. Upton won the Hughes Aircraft Company Griffith Observer Science Writing Contest with, as Dr. Krupp describes it, a completely original, disciplined, prescient, and compelling analysis of the Leonid meteor shower that laid down the foundations for the predictions of the 1999 Leonid storm, which occurred as he predicted. Dr. Uptons research into stellar calibration was published in professional astronomy journals, and his writing about the Comet Kohoutek was released as a pamphlet for the general public. Dr. Uptons passion and enthusiasm extended far beyond the stars, however. Growing up in Marblehead, he became proficient on the baritone horn and was an enthusiastic member of the Marblehead High School Band, Harry L. McKennys Concert Band in Ipswich, and Marbleheads Okommakamesit (Oko) Veterans Fireman Association band. He also played in the Harvard Band (where he helped develop the "fake Latin" version of the Harvard fight song), and he found every opportunity to celebrate music in life. He once climbed Mt. Washington with some friends to salute the sunrise with a brass fanfare, and he rigged a baritone mouthpiece to a length of garden hose to create a "French Hose" that hed play at LAX to send off or welcome friends and family because, as a family member put it, "he loved the acoustics of airport waiting areas." He was a vigorous and engaging storyteller, a charismatic song and activity leader for the Boy Scouts, and an enthusiastic participant in any mischief or fun that his son, nephews, or nieces might concoct. That sense of childhood glee and wonder never left him, and it meant that he left a rich trail of laughter and smiles behind him, wherever he went. But throughout all his travels, his heart remained in Marblehead, where he requested he be returned upon his death. Dr. Upton is survived by his son, Frederick Scott Upton, his sisters, Nancy Ann Upton Wallace and Lane Upton Serota, three nephews: David Wallace, Ron Milam and David Milam, and four nieces: Gail Wallace, Lane Wallace, Hannah Serota and Pamela Serota Cote, as well as five grand-nephews and nieces: Kern, Tyler, Kinana, Ben, and Miles. A graveside service with military honors will be held for Dr. Upton at 1:00 pm on Saturday, August 17, 2013 at Waterside Cemetery, followed by a memorial service at the Old North Church on Washington Street in Marblehead, at 2:30 pm. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to the Harvard Band: 74 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Published in The Marblehead Reporter from August 10 to August 17, 2013
