Chuck with his mother Terrie and Wildermuth grandparents Robert Earl and Dottie, after their drive up from Orlando — c. 1985–1987

Young Chuck Eesley with his mother Terrie and his maternal grandparents Robert Earl “Bob” Wildermuth and Dorothy “Dottie” Davis Wildermuth, photographed in the driveway of 108 Hillcrest Drive after Bob and Dottie’s road-trip drive up from Florida. Confirmed by Chuck Eesley June 2026.

The road-trip thread

The tan Ford Econoline conversion van behind the family is the vehicle Bob and Dottie drove from their Florida home to Marietta. Per Robert Earl’s 1989 memoir, the Wildermuth post-retirement Florida years ran from May 1970 onward — Holly Hill near Daytona Beach first, then his medical-records second-career years in Orlando at Florida Technological University and Blue Cross of Florida. The drive from central Florida to southeastern Ohio is roughly 1,000 miles, fifteen-to-eighteen hours of road. That Bob and Dottie made the trip with the conversion van suggests this was a longer visit than a flight would have allowed — possibly a week-or-more stay in Marietta, with the van as both transport and a familiar comfortable space on the long drive.

The cast

• Far left, standing close to his grandfather: young Chuck Eesley, c. 5–7 years old based on apparent age (placing the photograph at c. 1985–1987).
• Center-left, hand resting on Chuck’s head: Robert Earl “Bob” Wildermuth, then in his early sixties (he was born 1924 and retired in 1970; in the mid-1980s he was 61–63). Red polo shirt, gray slacks, sunglasses tucked into the polo collar — the casual-summer-visit look of a sixty-something retired Lieutenant Colonel.
• Center-right: Dorothy “Dottie” Davis Wildermuth, Chuck’s grandmother, in a pink top and floral mid-length skirt. She is then in her early sixties as well.
• Right: Terrie Lee Wildermuth Eesley, Chuck’s mother — born 1949 so in her late thirties at the time of the photograph. Teal-and-white striped polo shirt, white pants, bouffant 1980s hair.

What this frame records

The maternal-side grandparental visit. Bob and Dottie made the long drive up from Florida to spend time at their daughter Terrie’s house in Marietta and with their grandson Chuck. The photograph is one of the few in this archive that catches the maternal Wildermuth grandparents in Marietta, on the same Hillcrest soil that hosted Chuck’s holiday meals with the Wolfes and his sick-day visits. Bob’s gesture — hand on Chuck’s head — is the grandfather’s quiet claim on the small grandson the genealogist would later inspire.

Bob would write his memoir within two years of this photograph (1989), in which he addresses “future genealogists” directly. Chuck is in the frame as the future genealogist who would eventually answer him.