Every family, I have found, offers a story of how their child was named. Maxine and I made a deal. She would pick the name for a girl. I could name the boy. When the third girl arrived, Maxine compromised. She accepted Michaela because there was no Mike.
Three years later, “If it’s a boy, let’s name him Kelson.”
“Where did you get that?”
From Walt Whitman “the kelson of creation is love.” I explained that ‘kelson’ was the archaic spelling of ‘keelson’—-the strengthening member atop the keel to which shipbuilders attached the ship’s ribs.
The lady was adamant. “You’re not going to name a son of mine after a boat.”
When the fourth child–the only boy–arrived, the lady suffered pain in her hospital bed. When asked could we name him Kelson, she closed her eyes and muttered, “Call him anything you want.”
Today’s 63-year-old Mayor of Heath Texas, a suburb of Dallas, is Kelson Richard Elam.
Photo by Africa Studio at Shutterstock
