Cosmos’s Family History

Cosmos Faith Journey

Why are there so many fake Cherokees?

Father’s Family mostly German and Scandanavian including part Laplander

My family history is complex and many-layered. I did a DNA test a few years ago and have updated it since then.  The DNA test had a few surprises.  According to family lore, pieced together from what my father, Mother, Uncle, and Aunt told me over the years is that the Aller Family (paternal side) is descended from Hessian mercenaries who came to the US around 1775 to fight for George Washington.  After the war, they settled in Pennsylvania, later moved to Ohio, and my grandfather made the trek to Washington State, where he was one of the founding fathers of the Yakima fruit industry, which took hold in the 1920s with the development of irrigation.   He was also an avid horticulturist and invented the Edison Apple and green asparagus.

My father got his BA degree from the University of Washington and was a Rhodes scholar, studying in Oxford, getting an MPA degree,  Later he obtained a Ph.D. from Harvard University.  He taught at CAL State SF for 40 years before he died in 1985 of cancer.  He had one brother and three sisters, all of whom have passed on.

He served as the Undersecretary for Labor for President Kennedy and President Johnson and was a local politician serving as President of the Peralta community colleges, and as President of the Berkeley Co-Op where he resided.

According to the DNA reports and family lore, the Aller family is descended from French Huguenots who settled in the Aller river valley near Hamburg.  The family name was transcribed in English as either Aller, Allard, Eller, Ohler, or Oller and anyone with those last names is distantly related to me.

My ethnic background consists of (from my grandfather, Curtis Cosmos Aller, Sr.) German, French, Dutch, and Scotish, from my grandmother, Inga Maria Olsen, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Russian, Jewish, and Laplander (Sammi) ancestry.    According to DNA records, we also have Ukrainian, Mongolian, Basque, and Italian ancestry. We also probably have distant relatives throughout Latin America as Allers were among the Spanish who conquered Latin America. Aller is a common name throughout Latin America.

Mother’s Sad Tale – Part of the Lost Tribe of the Cherokee Nation

According to my mother, her family is descended from the lost tribe of the Cherokee Nation.  They were Cherokees who ran away into the Ozarks in Arkansas, Missouri, and Eastern Texas, intermarrying with other five civilized tribes members (Choctaw, Creek, Osage, and Seminoles), Scotts, Irish, Dutch, French, English settlers, and escaped black slaves.  They are a small group less than 30,000 people, and their DNA samples have not made it into most commercial data banks according to Ancestry com.

They have been fighting for decades to gain both Federal and State recognition but so far the two Cherokee nations (the Oklahoma branch and the Eastern band) are opposed to such recognition because they  consider their claim to being Cherokee  very weak, as almost none of them retain any Cherokee culture or language, and most of their claims are that their great grandfather or great grandmother might have been1/4  Cherokee at best. And they could also be Choctaw, Creek, Osage, or Seminole for that matter . They are mostly white, and some are African American as well. Almost none of them have any documentary claims, and most also do not have any DNA evidence either.

The real reason for the opposition according to the self-proclaimed Ambassador of the Cherokee Nation whom I met at a State Department formal consultation with the Indigenous tribes, which is a formal consultation required under the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Indigenous which the US joined in the 1990s, the two Cherokee nations don’t believe that the lost tribe has enough Cherokee ancestry to be considered members of the tribe, and they also don’t want to have them to be able to open a Casino in Arkansas, or Missouri and they also don’t want to share BIA money with the Lost Tribe of the Cherokees.

But he added,

“We all know that they are our lost tribal members,”

and he supported recognition.

They remain a lost tribe.  There is a ballot initiative in Arkansas that if it passes will give them at least State level recognition.

The DNA test does not reveal any native ancestry for the above reasons, but does reveal French, Dutch, Scottish, Irish, and English ancestry, and 1 percent Nigerian.  My grandparents spoke Cherokee; therefore, my mother must have been at least ¼ and that makes me at least 1/8 Cherokee, which is good enough for me.  If they ever get recognized, I will pursue getting recognized as well.  In honor of my mother.

My mother ran away to the Bay Area where she ended up working as a Pacific telephone operator, later as a real estate broker and business manager for my father’s economic

She often said

“Every ten years, the world flips
And all the nuts roll downhill
To California
That is how she got there
Part of the planetary nut reconfiguration program
PNRCP A little known federal ABC agency “

I have included my father’s and mother’s obituaries following seven poems exploring my family’s rich history.

Family History Poems

Index

DNA Tests Do Not Lie or Do They?
Family History Revealed
My Mother’s History
Father’s Son
Thoughts on Visiting the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC
Mary Geneva Wilson Aller, There’s Method to Her Madness
Curtis Cosmos Aller orbit
Mary Geneva Aller Orbit

DNA Tests Do Not Lie or Do They?

I sent way
For one of those DNA tests
That promises to reveal
Your ethnic heritage

The only problem is that claim
Is not yet true

The results were surprising
To say the least

Family lore would have it
That I have 18 nationalities
In my tangled family history

Mostly Northern European
Part German, Norwegian, Swedish, Finish, Danish, Dutch, Laplander, Russian, Scottish, Basque, Mongolian, Jewish, Spanish, and French from my father
Part Cherokee, Dutch, Irish, Scottish, English, Italian, Nigerian, and French from my mother
100 percent born and raised in Berkeley

The DNA results showed
that I am 68% northern European
with trace elements of Jewish, Basque. Italian
Mongolian and Nigerian stock.

No native American at all
And my Germanic last name
For some reason
Did not register at all

Go figure
I said
And I read the fine print
The state of the art is such

That claims that they can tell
Your ethnic background
Are exaggerated
The fine print read

Explaining why it is often inaccurate
The Cherokee background
Disappeared
Because my branch of the Cherokees
Disappeared into the mist of time
Part of the lost tribe of the Cherokee nation

Part Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole
African Americans, Scotish, Irish,
English, French and Dutch.

Who fled to the Ozark mountains
To avoid the trail of tears.

The German background
Got swept up into the northern European thing
And at the end of the day
I remained as much
a mongrel
breed as anything else

Typical American
I suppose

Overall
A fascinating experiment

Family History Revealed

The DNA results
Revealed some aspects
Of whom I am

Where I am from
But not everything
Was revealed

And much of my history
Remains hidden

My father was from Yakima
Ran away to the Bay Area
Where he became a college professor

Taught the dismal science economics
Along the way
He met my mother

And after a whirlwind romance
had four children

My older brother,
Me
Younger brother
And sister

My Mother was a refugee
From the dust bowl
Fled Arkansas
In the late ’30s

Never looked back
Settled down
In the Bay Area

Yet the south lingered on
She trained herself
To speak without an accent
by listening to the classical radio deejays,

The only time the southern came out
Was when she was talking to her sisters
She was the 10 of 11 children

Father was a moonshiner
A Cherokee medicine man to boot
Lived life in the Ozark mountains

She had two sons
From a prior relationship
That went south
We never really knew them

My father was an atheist
And a morning person

And a man with a plan
For everything

My mother
More make it up
As she went along

And a night owl

How and why
They met and stayed together
Is beyond me

They had a stormy relationship
My mother always said
Germans and Irish
Don’t mix
And never should marry

She also said
The world is divided into morning people
And night owls

And they are doomed
to marry each other

Yet I suppose
There was real love
Beneath all the drama
And bluster

My Mother’s History

One day many a year ago
My mother spoke to me
About her family’s tangled history,

She spoke to me
Of lies, half-truths, and myths
Some of which may have been true

And throughout the evening
Her history came alive.

She was born in the hills
of North Little Rock
The 10th of 11 children
Of an ancient dying race.

The Lost Tribe of the Cherokees
who had run away
Refusniks
Refugees who fled in the hills.

Part of the lost tribe of the Cherokee nation
Part Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole
African American, Scottish, Irish, English
French, and Dutch.

Who fled to the Ozark mountains,
To avoid the trail of tears.
Rather than join the rest
In the promised land
Of Oklahoma.

They did not exist
I did not exist.

The BIA told us
No Indian scholarship
For you

Since you can’t prove
You are in fact
Of Native American ancestry,

I asked my mother
What does this mean?

She said
No BIA money for you,
My non-Indian Cherokee son.

Her family and Bill Clinton family
Were related

Bill Clinton and I are distant cousins
When I met him
I related my family history
He concluded that we were indeed cousins

Said I could call him Cousin Bill
And he would call me Cousin Jake
And said he too was part Cherokee
Irish, Scotch, French
And African American

Part of the lost tribe
Of the Cherokee nation

I told my mom
This story

She said
It was true
She was a distant cousin
Of Bill Clinton

Still did not like
The lying SOB

Her people disappeared
From history’s eyes
And DNA data banks

My history was over
As was hers

And so,
I learned at last
The painful truth

That due to the genocidal crimes
of politicians so long ago

My mother’s people
Lost their land, their culture,
and their hope

And became
downtrodden forgotten people

Hillbillies they were called
Living in the hills and mountain dales
Clinging to the dim fading memories
Of their once glorious past
As proud Cherokees

Now no one knew their name
The old ways were forgotten
And the new world never forgave them
And they never forgave the new world

As they lived on
In the margins of society
Forgotten people

And I vowed that as long as I lived
Their history would not die
As I knew the truth

And I would become a proud
Cherokee
And make my mother proud of me
And my accomplishments

When I am feeling down
I recall her stories
and her warnings

And realize it is up to me
To live my life
To let the Cherokee in me
Live his life

And in so doing
My mother’s history does not die
It lives on in me
Until the day I die

Long live the Cherokee nation
Long live my mother.

Father’s Son

I am my Father’s Son
I lived all my life
Fighting against turning
into a carbon copy
Of my father

And I failed as my father emerged
From the darkness of my soul
The full German personality
And Scandinavian background
becoming clear

And peered out
and liked what he saw
As I became him

step by inexorable step
Turning into my father
As he had turned his father
And his father in his father

Since the dawn of time
We have played this game
Sons turning into their fathers

And watching grandsons
Start the Cosmic dance
all over again.

Thoughts on Visiting the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC

Sam Adams
Had never been
To the Holocaust Museum,

Despite the fact
He had lived
And worked in DC for decades

One day after he retired
He said to himself

It was long past time
To finally see
the holocaust museum

He went the week
After Charleston,
When the mob had chanted,
Jews will not replace us.

The museum affected him deeply
He had just confirmed
Through DNA
That he had at least 10 percent
Jewish ancestry

Among the 18 other nationalities
Swirling among these bloodlines

Sam Adams was concerned
Those elements of antisemitism
We’re emerging among
The MAGA crowd.

But he dismissed
The fears that Trump
Was another Hitler
As liberal hyperbole

It could not happen here
A new holocaust
Would never happen
But now he was not so sure

Wit and Wisdom of Mary Aller, There’s Method in Her Madness

Poetic Version for April 2021 Contest – Write an Elegy Poem Writing Com Dew Drop-In Prompt Posted April 14, 2021 (April 13 Est)

The Wit and Wisdom of Mary Geneva Aldridge Aller -“There’s Method in Her Madness” Dedicated to My Mother Who Passed on July 31, 2005.

We are here today
To celebrate the life
Of Mary Geneva Aldridge Wilson Aller,
My mother.

As we are gathered together
to mark her passing
On to another, better world,
I thought we should reflect
On her life and its meaning.

Therefore, I have a message
That I hope we all leave here today.
I call this speech,
‘the wit and wisdom of Mary Geneva Aldridge Wilson Aller,
” there’s a method in her madness.”
Which was one of her favorite Shakespeare quotes.

I hope we will see the wisdom
That my mother tried so hard to impart
And what I hope
I have learned
from 52 years of watching
The life of my mother.

What have I have learned?
From Mary’s life
And her death

And what we can all learn
From her 85 years of experience
In this mad crazy corner
Of the world, she loved so dearly.

She was a true Berkeley original,
and it is only fitting
That we bury her

Here are a few blocks
From where she spent
Much of her life.

What can we learn?
From Mary’s life in this world?
Her favorite song from a musical was

“stop the world.
I want to get off.”

And today she gets her final wish
As she leaves this world
And moves on to another world.

My mother grew up
In Arkansas
In what could best be described
As hill country folk.

She was the 10th child of 11 children
Born on a family farm in the 1920s
High up in the Ozark mountains
North of Little Rock, Arkansas.

She graduated from high school
And lit out for the west coast
just as millions of people
Fled the dust bowl
of the late ’30s and ’40s.

She arrived in the SF area
And settled in Berkeley.
she hated being considered an Oakie
and lost her accent

She cultivated an accent
She learned from
The classical radio deejays.

She then became involved
In labor and democratic politics.
She became a telephone operator
union president,

Later was a real estate salesperson,
And became involved
with the save the bay movement
And the league of women’s voters.

During the 60’s she accompanied
My father to Washington DC
When he was undersecretary of labor.

She could not wait to get back
To her beloved Berkeley
Because she felt at home
In the zany openness
of the bay area

She once said

“Every ten years the world flips
And all the nuts roll downhill
To California
That is how she got there
Part of the planetary nut reconfiguration program
PNRCP A little known federal ABC agency “

She hated DC
As it reminded her why
She left the south so many years before.

In later years, she helped my father
In his many political campaigns
And was his business manager for almost 10 years
when he ran an economic consulting business.

When she retired,
She kept her love of reading
Until just a few short years ago
When she finally
Was no longer able to read.

That for me was one
Of the saddest parts of her final years
As she loved to read.

What we all learned from Mary
– Mary’s wisdom can be broken
Down into four areas:

Question authority,
Think for ourselves
read everything there is,
And always do the right thing.

She always told us that we should question authority
and that we should never trust experts.
she said often what is an expert?
Just a guy with a PH. D
And we all know what means –
Piled high and deep.

and she laughed
As she was married to PH. D
And hated campus politics.

She hated with disdain
Almost all politicians
Except for Truman and Kennedy
And she had her own Truman story

She thought they were all crooks and liars,
Especially the southern-bred types.

She believed though in equal opportunity
And hated republicans as much as democrats.
No one ever measured
Up to her lofty standards
Of ethical behavior.

She often told us to do
The right thing.
But she refused to tell us
what would be
As we had to figure
That out on our own.

My concluding thoughts
Are on reading the lifelong
Love of books

That she gave me and my siblings.
She read an average of three to five books
Per week every week of her life.

We were always trading books
Stocking up books on our visits
To the family library
As I thought of it.

I have taken a part in the library
With me and will treasure all the books
That she shared with me and my siblings.

she always had an opinion
About everything.

One of her and my favorite books
Was the world according to Garp
And there was a “world according to Mary”

Where what you saw was what you got
And if you did not like her opinion,
then you had best get out of the way

Because Mary,
Was afraid of no one
And always stood her ground no matter what.
With Mary “what you saw was what you got.”

But I am happy that she
Let me in the “world according to Mary”

And I have lots of stories
from her life that would make great fiction,
For, in Mary’s improbable life,
Life was truly stranger than fiction.

Because my mother grew up in a Christian family,
It would be appropriate to read a bible quote.
my mother was raised as a Baptist

Although she left the church
After asking the minister,
“if god created the world,
Who created God?”

Here is one of her favorite bible quotes

Ecclesiastes 12 (King James version)
Ecclesiastes 12
1remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.
2while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
3in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,
4and the doors shall be shut in the streets when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.
5also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets:
7then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto a God who gave it.
8vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
9and moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
10the preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
11the words of the wise are as gods, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.
12and further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14for God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Her minister friend said the short version is

” life is good.
Then we die
And it gets even better.”

When Mary was a telephone union president,
word came down
that she was invited
to meet Harry Truman.

She replied
I don’t want to meet
Harry unless he wants to meet me.

Hearing that quip,
Harry was amused
And sent his advance team to talk

Some sense into that feisty fiery woman
Out in SF
that Mary Aller.

Two government types,
dressed as I do,
showed up

Asked her if she was a communist
She responded
Boy, are you stupid?

If I were a communist, would I tell you?
I don’t think so.
Where do they get people?
Like you anyway?

The SF chronicle captured the moment
With a huge headline,
“Harry meets Mary.”

This sums up my mother’s fearless feisty
Stubborn personality and yes,
Truman was one of the few politicians
That got the Mary aller seal of approval

Now my final Mary story
Sums up her life for me.
In 1974 I was in this play,

“the madwomen of Chailoit”
Where I played the waiter
Whose line was
“she’s not mad.
She’s the madwomen of Chaillot.”

But Mary was in the audience
And I lost my character
for a moment and said,
“she not’s mad,

She’s the madwoman of Berkeley, oops I meant Chaillot.”

Brought down the house.
I went home thinking I had done it,
insulted my mom in front of the whole school.

She laughed
And said that was okay

as she liked the phase.
I said

“well, Mary,
You are my madwoman of Berkeley
And I’ll have it no other way.

she laughed
And that was the end of it,
until now.

When I say,

“Mary, you were one of the most
original people
Whoever lived,
And I treasure the fact
that I was your son.

You were at times
Very difficult to deal
With but in the end,

Your good karma
Will outlive you
As you always did the right thing,

and for that
And all the other words
Of wisdom, I learned over the years,

I salute you,
Our beloved madwomen of Berkeley.

the prompt was to write an elegy poem.  I delivered this at my mother’s funeral in 2005.

Curtis Cosmos Aller

Dr. Curtis Cosmos Aller Jr.

The Life Summary of Curtis Cosmos Aller

When Curtis Cosmos Aller was born on 16 November 1889, in Carrollton, Carroll, Ohio, the United States, his father, Daniel Wilbur Aller, was 24 and his mother, Drusilla McCausland, was 22. He married Inga Pauline Olsen on 30 September 1917, in Bremerton, Kitsap, Washington, United States. They were the parents of at least 2 sons and 3 daughters. He lived in Summit view, Yakima, Washington, the United States in 1930 and Election Precinct 108 West Summit view, Yakima, Washington, the United States in 1940. He died on 12 August 1956, in Yakima, Yakima, Washington, United States, at the age of 66, and was buried in Terrace Heights Memorial Park, Yakima, Yakima, Washington, United States.

Parents and Siblings

Daniel Wilbur Aller

Male1865–1925 • Male

Drusilla McCausland

Female1867–1944 • Female

Siblings

(5)

Curtis Cosmos Aller

Male1889–1956 • Male

Ira Erasmus Aller

Male1891–1939 • Male

Lora Aller

Female1893–1969 • Female

Walter Lorin Aller

Male1899–1982 • Male

Chester Aller

Male1913–1993 • Male

Spouse and Children

Curtis Cosmos Aller

Male1889–1956 • Male

Inga Pauline Olsen

Female1894–1967 • Female

Marriage

30 September 1917
Bremerton, Kitsap, Washington, United States

Children

(5)

Curtis Cosmos Aller

Male1918–1985 • Male

James Curwood Aller

Male1921–2007 • Male

Jean Celeste Aller

Female1925–1988 • Female

Harriett Ann Aller

Female1931–2009 • Female

Wilma Fay Aller

Female1931–2021 • Female

Name Meaning

Aller

Curtis

German: variant of Ahler.  Other variants include Eller, Oller, Allard and Ehler.

Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.

Possible Related Names

“variant-name-Ahler, Eller, Ohler, Oller

There is an Aller river in Germany, and in Spain and there is an Aller village in Sussex country, England.

Aller History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

• Origins Available:
•  Germany

The name Aller comes from the German region of Westphalia. The tradition of adopting hereditary surnames came to Germany after the 12th century, and the names of places where people lived were a primary source. Many local names carry the prefix “von”, meaning “of” or “from,” which was originally an indicator of land ownership, and is sometimes a mark of nobility. The Aller family originally lived by an alder tree. Ancient records reveal the name Aller is derived from the Old German word elre or alre, which means alder. There are also numerous places named Eller in the northern German states, such as the Rhine and Moselle areas, which adopted the name of an old stream called the Ellera. Thus, the name Aller is both a topographic surname, a type of local surname that was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, church, or type of tree, and a habitation name, a type of local name that was originally derived from pre-existing names for towns, villages, parishes, or farmsteads.

Early Origins of the Aller family

The surname Aller was first found in Westphalia, where the family emerged in mediaeval times as one of the notable families of the region. From the 13th century the surname was identified with the great social and economic evolution which made this territory a landmark contributor to the development of the nation.

Early History of the Aller family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Aller research. Another 77 words (6 lines of text) covering the years 1354, 1424, 1680, 1690 and 1730 are included under the topic Early Aller History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Aller Spelling Variations

In the medieval era, many different cultural groups lived in the German states. There are thus many regional variations of German surnames from that era. Westphalians spoke Low German, which is similar to modern Dutch. Many German names carry suffixes that identify where they came from. Others have phrases attached that identify something about the original bearer. Other variations in German names resulted from the fact that medieval scribes worked without the aid of any spelling rules. The spelling variations of the name Aller include Eller, Ellers, Eler, Aller, Aler, Ellern, Ellere, Elera, Ellera, Ellerer and many more.

Early Notables of the Aller family (pre 1700)

Notables of the period with the name Aller were Wolf Ernst von Eller (d. 1680), who was the Governor of Minden and Sparenberg, a military general, and Privy Councillor for defense to the prince…
Another 34 words (2 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Aller Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

 Aller migration to the United States+

Contemporary Notables of the name Aller (post 1700)+

Related Stories+

The Aller Motto+

Aller History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

• Origins Available:
•  Germany

The name Aller comes from the German region of Westphalia. The tradition of adopting hereditary surnames came to Germany after the 12th century, and the names of places where people lived were a primary source. Many local names carry the prefix “von”, meaning “of” or “from,” which was originally an indicator of land ownership, and is sometimes a mark of nobility. The Aller family originally lived by an alder tree. Ancient records reveal the name Aller is derived from the Old German word elre or alre, which means alder. There are also numerous places named Eller in the northern German states, such as the Rhine and Moselle areas, which adopted the name of an old stream called the Ellera. Thus, the name Aller is both a topographic surname, a type of local surname that was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, church, or type of tree, and a habitation name, a type of local name that was originally derived from pre-existing names for towns, villages, parishes, or farmsteads.

Early Origins of the Aller family

The surname Aller was first found in Westphalia, where the family emerged in mediaeval times as one of the notable families of the region. From the 13th century the surname was identified with the great social and economic evolution which made this territory a landmark contributor to the development of the nation.

Early History of the Aller family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Aller research. Another 77 words (6 lines of text) covering the years 1354, 1424, 1680, 1690 and 1730 are included under the topic Early Aller History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Aller Spelling Variations

In the medieval era, many different cultural groups lived in the German states. There are thus many regional variations of German surnames from that era. Westphalians spoke Low German, which is similar to modern Dutch. Many German names carry suffixes that identify where they came from. Others have phrases attached that identify something about the original bearer. Other variations in German names resulted from the fact that medieval scribes worked without the aid of any spelling rules. The spelling variations of the name Aller include Eller, Ellers, Eler, Aller, Aler, Ellern, Ellere, Elera, Ellera, Ellerer and many more.

Early Notables of the Aller family (pre 1700)

Notables of the period with the name Aller were Wolf Ernst von Eller (d. 1680), who was the Governor of Minden and Sparenberg, a military general, and Privy Councillor for defense to the prince…
Another 34 words (2 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Aller Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

 Aller migration to the United States+

Contemporary Notables of the name Aller (post 1700)+

Aldrige (mother’s maiden name)

Early Origins of the Aldridge family The surname Aldridge was first found in the counties of Sussex , Suffolk, and Surrey, where the Aldridge family held a family seat from very early times. The family had the Saxon spellings of Alderich, Ealdric, or possibly Aelfric before the Norman Conquest)

Mary Geneva Aldrige Aller

Mary Geneva Aldridge Aller Sept. 9, 1923 – July 31, 2007, Former Resident of Berkeley Mary was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and came to the Bay Area in the 1940s and settled in Berkeley where she resided until 2003.

During the 1950s, she was active in the labor movement and served several years as the President of the Pacific Telephone Operators Union. During the late 1950s, she was a real estate agent and involved with the Berkeley League of Women’s Voters, and the “Save the Bay” movement.

In 1952, she made local headlines when she told President Truman’s staff that she did not want to meet him unless he wanted to meet her. The San Francisco Chronicle authored a big article with the Headline “Harry Meets Mary.” She was a long-term political activist and active member of the Berkeley Co-Op along with her husband, Dr. Curtis Aller, who passed away in 1985.

During the 1960s, she accompanied her husband to Washington, D.C. when he served as the Undersecretary of Labor. She returned to Berkeley in 1968 where she worked with her husband until 1984 as the business manager for the Center for Applied Manpower Research. Mary is survived by two sisters, Mildred and Robbie who live in Arkansas. She is also survived by six children, Roger Aller of Sebastopol, California, John (Jake) Aller of Washington, DC, Thomas Aller of Albany, California, Inga Aller of Gualala, California, Richard, and Larry Wilson from her first marriage, and many grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. The family will have a private ceremony Friday, August 3 for interment. Flowers can be sent to the Sunset View Funeral Home, 101 Colusa Avenue, in El Cerrito (510) 525-5111.

Published by Contra Costa Times on Aug. 3, 2007.

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