Sunday, June 2, 2019

What's in a Surname?


On April 3rd, 2019, after years of contemplating, I went down to the St. Johns County Court House and appeared before Judge John M. Alexander to restore my legal name. When I was born, my name was Richard Mark Allison and on April 3rd, I restored it back to that name. My mother, Donna and my father, Billy Joe Allison were married at very young ages. He was 21 and she was only 19 years old. A year later, I was born. Shortly thereafter, they divorced.
My mother quickly remarried a man from Sardis, Mississippi named Hillman Johnson. They were married when I was only two years old, so as you can imagine, Hillman was the father that I grew up with and the only father that I knew. Hillman and my mother went on to have three children together named Sharri, David and Gary. Unfortunately, my brother David was killed in a car wreck at age 32 back in 1993. Hillman passed away a few years later in 1996 at the age 57 of cancer. I miss them both dearly.
I can vividly remember my first day of school at Meadowcliff Elementary School when my mother pulled me aside and told me that she had changed my name to Richard Allison Johnson. I also remember crying about it. I didn’t like it at all. I knew my name to be Richard Mark Allison and I didn’t want my name to change. Truth be told, I have been mad about it ever since. I always had a problem with my name being changed. Looking back, I had a hard time believing that my father Bill signed off on an adoption when I was six years old. I was told on more than one occasion that I was adopted by Hillman Johnson. I never really thought to ask Hillman about it. I just took my mother’s word for it.
A few years ago, I looked into the process for legally changing my name. In St. Johns County, the court’s instructions said that I had to get the original court order of any previous name change if I was wanting to restore a former name. A few years ago, I decided to contact the State of Arkansas and get a copy of the court order for what I thought would be my adoption papers where my name was changed. When I got the court order, I was stunned by what I found. I was never adopted. My mother simply had changed my name. All this time, I had thought that I was adopted. My mother didn’t change it when I was in the first grade, either. She changed it when I was about to go into Catholic High School for Boys when I was almost 15 years old! Everything that I had been told about when my name was changed, the fact that I was adopted, how Bill Allison had signed off on the adoption, all of these statements were simply not true. Even my sister Tami Allison thought that I was adopted. Tami had told me how upset my father was when my name was changed. He had just moved to Arkansas around this time, too. I’m not sure if that was a factor, or whether my mother had to change it to get me into Catholic High. My elementary and junior high records were under Richard Allison Johnson and I needed to have that name in order to gain admittance into Catholic High. That is my best guess.
Quite simply, I was flabbergasted by what I had discovered. Of course, my first thoughts were the universe needs to be restored and that meant that my birth name needed to be restored. However, I did not want to hurt the feelings of my mother. I am sure she thought she was doing the best thing for me. Plus, I did not want to hurt my Johnson siblings by them jumping to conclusions that I was favoring my Allison siblings over them. So, I gave it all very thoughtful deliberation. I spent a couple of years thinking about it, in fact. I finally came to the conclusion that it has nothing to do with my mother, or my Johnson or Allison siblings. My first son’s name was Reese Cannon Johnson and he died of SIDS in 1989 and I certainly gave a lot of thought to restoring my former name, because of him, too. After, all I could not change Reese’s last name, or rightfully expect my wife Natalie, son Marshall and daughter Rudi to change their names, because of what at first glance may seem like a “hair brained idea” to most people. In the end, my reason for changing my name is out of respect for my father Billy Joe Allison. Pure and simple. He was a true American hero and I think most anyone would agree with me learning the facts about his life.
My father Bill joined the Army in February of 1950 when he was only 15 years old. He joined the Army and quickly went off to fight in the Korean War. Imagine serving in the Korean War as a teenager! All Korean War Veterans received medals and decorations not only from the U.S., but also from the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the United Nations. Bill served eleven months and eighteen days in Korea. I am still trying to piece together his Korean War Army record, because as some of you may be aware, there was a fire in St. Louis that destroyed almost all the Army records prior to 1973. As a result, I am on a scavenger hunt looking for clues.
My father was born in Cabot, Arkansas and after serving six years and six months in the Army, he decided to join the Air Force as his marriage with my mother was ending. I am still investigating this fact, but I believe that he literally walked out of the Army right into the Air Force without much time in between on September 10, 1956. I was born about two weeks after he joined the Air Force. Bill was awarded several medals and decorations during his time in the military. He spent a total of ten years, six months and six days serving his country which amounted to a significant portion of his life as you will see later.
There were a lot of family dynamics in place in September of 1956 that kind of forced Bill and Donna towards divorce. About all my mother would ever tell me about it was there was some infidelity involved and that was her reason for getting a divorce. However, I do believe my grandfather was a major influence too. He was the domineering type. I am sure that he did not want his 20-year-old and only daughter to leave Arkansas and her family with a new born baby.
Bill Allison, like my mother, remarried right away. He married his second wife Margaret also when I was two years old. This was not exactly the activity of a womanizing philanderer. If he was that kind of individual, he would have never jumped into another marriage. Instead, he would have spent his 20’s chasing women, don’t you think? This did not happen. I am sure my mother was heartbroken at the time that her marriage to Bill didn’t work out, but in retrospect, there are a whole lot of people in both the Johnson and Allison families that would have never existed if they did not get divorced. Children and grandchildren specifically. Think about that for a moment. Sometimes things happen for a reason. A lot of very good people came into being as a result of Bill and Donna’s divorce, so their divorce turned out to be a blessing! It was all part of God’s plan.
When Bill was in the Air Force, he was an aircraft electrician and mechanic. I am still researching this fact, but I believe that he was stationed at Big Springs Air Force Base which was later renamed to Webb Air Force Base in Big Springs, Texas. Bill met Margaret while in Big Springs and they had their first child, Tami. After a short stint in Midland, Texas, they moved to Arroyo Grande, California to be with the rest of Bill’s family. Bill and Margaret went on to have a son named Jon and another daughter named Kelly who were both born in California. After moving to Arroyo Grande, Bill became a police officer. After several years, the Chief of Police position became available in a nearby city, Grover Beach and my father applied for it and was awarded the job. Now you and I both know that not just anyone gets a Chief of Police position. There has to be a lot of good qualities to get a job like that. Leadership, respect among peers and others, not to mention the politics involved. Obviously, Bill Allison fit those requirements and knew how to navigate the political aspect of it.
As I was growing up in the Johnson family, I never had any contact with Bill Allison. I suspect it was because my mother, in her mind, was protecting me in some way. I can understand that, but how I wish it was not that way. Her relationship with him was so short, so I always wondered, what did she really know about him? After all, they were not even married for two years. Her knowledge of him had to be very limited. My mother was not the source of information that I needed.
When I was starting high school, Bill Allison accepted the Chief of Police job in Camden, Arkansas. I was told later by my sister Tami that he wanted to have a relationship with me when I turned eighteen years of age. His wife Margaret also verified this fact to me. At that point, I would be free to make my own decisions. Of course, I would have loved to have met my father and gotten to know him. Unfortunately, it was not to be.  He passed away when I was finishing my senior year of high school. I was 17 years old at the time. Bill was only 39 years old when he died. I will never forget his funeral. If you have never seen a police officer’s funeral in person, let me tell you it is quite a spectacle. The thing that made such an impression on me at the time was the local police and especially, the Arkansas State Police in attendance. It was quite an impressive turnout. It was like all of the Arkansas State Police was at his funeral.
This was the only time that I was able to see my father. My first encounter with him was when he was lying in that casket with his Chief of Police uniform on. I touched him and immediately began to cry. I cried for what was lost between us. The missed opportunity. We were both in the State of Arkansas. So close, yet so far away. Bill did not get a chance to meet me as he had hoped and planned on. Tami had told me one time that whenever they had talked about the three kids in the Allison family, he would always correct them and remind them that there was one more Allison kid, …Ricky.
 Being born in 1934, a soldier in Korea in the early 1950’s, and a paratrooper, these Army guys tended to smoke cigarettes. A lot of cigarettes in fact. Of course, cigarettes back then were not very good for you as we all know today. He smoked as a teenager until his death at age 39 when he died from atherosclerosis. He was having chest pains while at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas and they took him to the hospital. The doctors at the hospital told him that he had a heart attack and he was going to have to change his diet, quit smoking and reduce stress. When they came back into his hospital room later to check on him, he had died. His parents requested an autopsy, because they could not believe it. After all, 39-year old men do not drop dead ordinarily. That kind of thing that had not happened before in the Allison family tree. I got a copy of the autopsy report myself, because I wanted to see it, too. If this would have happened to him today, they would have put a few stents in him, or done bypass surgery and he still would have been around, but it was 1974. Things were different back then. The sad reality.
Imagine if you will, growing up wanting to know your father, but never having the opportunity. Let me tell you. It is an awful feeling. All I ever got out of my mother was the infidelity story. I have never been swayed that he was a bad person. His actions prove otherwise. I knew in my heart that he was not a bad person. In my mind, he was instead the opposite of that, an American hero. The fact that I never knew or met my father has always been a black hole in my life. I’ve always called it “the black hole”, because there is so much information that I would love to know. In an attempt to try and fill this black hole, I went about trying to piece things together on my own. It first started well over twenty years ago when I reached out to my Aunt Betty. I wrote her a letter and said that I would like to meet my sisters, Tami, Kelly and brother Jon Allison. We ended up meeting and it was kind of like the show Long Lost Family, if you have ever watched it.
Like any family, the Allison side of my family has had our share of tragedies. Tami died at age 53 of Lupus and other complications and in March of 2019, my 54-year-old brother Jon died of a heart attack. Jon was a smoker and I cannot tell you how many times that I told him to quit smoking, but to no avail. It is hard to quit those cigarettes. They killed my father and now my brother Jon. About four years ago, Jon had major bypass surgery, but shortly thereafter, resumed his smoking. Jon was such a sweet soul and loved golfing, fishing and his little dog Whoopi. I probably have 500 pictures of that stinking dog in my phone. I went to California with my sister Kelly the first week of May for his Celebration of Life ceremony. Jon was so happy to have a big brother and I was so happy to be his big brother. The last time that I texted Jon was on the anniversary of our dad’s death. I had sent him a picture of our dad that I had edited with Adobe Photoshop. How’s that for goosebumps? Perhaps, our dad wanted to bring him home.
His Celebration of Life was sad at first but ended well as I got to meet his close friends and hear a lot of stories about Jon’s life in California. He had some good friends, a lot of whom were British guys. He used to work at some British Auto shops there in San Luis Obispo and those guys came over to Dena’s house (Jon’s wife) and told some stories and shared some laughs. I wish I could have visited Jon more often. The miles between us made it difficult.
Now, let me ask you something. What if your father wanted to serve his country and joined the Army at the age of 15? What if he knew a war was going on yet joined the Army anyway? What if you knew he was a brave-as-they-come paratrooper who jumped out of those airplanes probably built in the 1940’s? What if he was a decorated Korean War Veteran with a 10 plus year military career? What if your father spent the rest of his life in law enforcement and he was the Chief of Police in not one, but two different cities? Finally, what if you knew he was a dedicated family man and loved his children, even a son that he never knew?
Let me ask you. If you were his son, wouldn’t you be proud to bear his surname of Allison? I have a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice that I earned at age 60 in honor of him and his dedication to his career in law enforcement. Today, I have the honor and privilege of bearing his last name once again. I am the son of an American hero. Why shouldn’t I be proud of that? Now you know why I changed my name back to Richard Mark Allison. The universe has been restored to its former glory.



Richard Mark Allison
Proud son of Billy Joe Allison
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