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I’ve always sensed that I descended from important people. I just didn’t know any details.
In some distant corner of my childhood, someone mentioned that there had been an attorney in the family. The memory was so hazy that I couldn’t recall which side of the family the attorney was on or even who made the statement.
I imagined the day when the pieces of this genealogical puzzle would come together, and everyone would realize I was indeed the great-great-grand-something of an esteemed counselor or judge.
In true Cinderella fashion, I would be whisked away in a new pant suit and high heels to attend ceremonies, give statements, celebrate the anniversary of a seminal case or two and be photographed standing outside the courthouse named in honor of said relative.
But until that day came and for almost 20 years of my legal journey, people would ask if I had lawyers in the family. “Possibly,” I would respond with nothing else to add. Usually, people ended the conversation abruptly after that.
A couple years ago my mother was clearing out my parents’ basement and emerged with a discolored manila envelope. There, aged to a deep shade of brown but with a striking orange seal, was a certificate from the clerk of the Northern District of New York to one Floyd Hoag of Syracuse, dated Dec. 13, 1923. Cinderella didn’t have to wait until she was forty, but I was willing to set my resentment aside.
Floyd Hoag, I confirmed, was my great-grandfather, a closer connection than I imagined. With my fantasy unfolding, I quickly scavenged my own basement for a frame. I held the 1923 certificate up beside my own diploma like the papers were long lost friends, destined to be hung together. But just before I pounded the nail into the wall it occurred to me that a bit more due diligence might be in order.
I asked my father, who was famously absent-minded and not one for specifics, why he had never mentioned that his grandfather was an attorney.
“Oh, him?” my father said in the same way he might talk about a load of laundry that he left in the dryer for a couple days. “He wasn’t around much. When he was, he showed up in a big black car and I was always afraid. He may have been disbarred, so you might want to look into that.”
My father had nothing else to offer. Google and Lexis offered nothing either, so I sat the 1923 certificate on top of a bookshelf, where it would have to wait in purgatory until I could figure out how this information could be reconciled.
Not long after receiving Hoag’s law license, my mother emerged again from my parents’ basement with a second envelope, a thick one this time. It was a transcript. In 1926, in an administrative courtroom in Syracuse, New York, George Stillwell, a 53-year-old game protector, stood trial on charges by the Conservation Department that he had misappropriated pelts, traps, and firearms.
Stillwell was another family name I vaguely recognized, associated until that point with a fragile set of china and “the big house” on top of the hill from my own grandparents’ home.
In the transcript, 16 witnesses took the stand and told stories about Stillwell raiding their homes, threatening them, hiding in bushes, confronting them in the woods, and confiscating sacks full of muskrats, mink, skunk, and “coon” that had never been accounted for.
Beside Stillwell sat the newly admitted young attorney, Floyd Hoag. In an interesting and unenviable twist, Hoag was married to one of Stillwell’s daughters, making Stillwell my great-great-grandfather. This fact was brought to light in the trial as Stillwell and Hoag tried to bolster Stillwell’s credibility by portraying Stillwell as a family man. Stillwell and Hoag’s defense was thin, but I suspect it didn’t matter.
The new revelations have left me unsure about descending from important people, and the 1923 district court certificate remains atop my bookshelf. However, I am more certain than ever that I follow in a line of messy people, messy situations, and even a legal career that was fraught with perils. The “messy” part tracks. It feels honest, even if it never gets me photographed outside a courthouse.
Armed with the colorful past, I did what anyone from a messy family would do. I waited for the next chaotic family holiday, gathered everyone around and told the tale (props included) of our forefathers’ courtroom drama, the pelts, the questionable ethics, and the young attorney caught in the crossfire.
The chaos really broke loose when I brought out a muskrat pelt. The two large dogs in the room leaped for the pelt, adding to the absurdity.
The real legacy is in how we deal with the messy, the imperfections and the unexpected.
Floyd Hoag’s legacy might not be what I had once imagined, but it’s mine. And with that, the bags of muskrat, the men in the courtroom and the faint traces of my great-grandfather’s questionable legal career became less a disappointment and more a reflection of how complex—and human—our family stories and our legal careers truly are.•
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Kayla Goodfellow is an attorney with Cincinnati Insurance Companies and serves on the board of directors of DTCI. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
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