Happy Birthday Grandpa Jack - 1893 - 1968

Dumont W. Weston was born on July 28th 1893 in La Crosse, Wisconsin, one of 6 children of a prominent lumber dealer. He left home at 12 or 14, according to his story or his brother's, to lead a colorful life as everything from lab assistant at the University of Chicago, to delivering ice to Chicago speakeasies, to farm laborer in North Dakota, to carney barker in a traveling carnival through much of the Midwest.

He was in North Dakota when W.W.I. broke out so he, and all the men in town, joined the local National Guard and were immediately mobilized. He was sent to South Carolina for basic training then to New York and a troop ship bound for France.

After his discharge he returned to Chicago and opened an ice business. In 1918 He married Agnes Galvin, the daughter of a Chicago policeman. He and Agnes had four children. Jeanne and Jack were born in Chicago. On a vacation trip to Los Angeles Agnes found it a better place to raise a family than Chicago and refused to return to Chicago. Dumont (Jack) sold his business and moved to California. Gary and Michael were born in Los Angeles.

Sadly, Agnes died in 1939 2 days after Christmas. He was to be married 3 or 4 more times, outliving all but his last wife, Lila Lee, who lived well into her 90s.

Grandpa Jack was a fun loving, colorful and entertaining man. Uncle Gary once observed that Grandpa Jack pretty much devoted his life to having a ball. And he was, for the most part, successful.