I have briefly mentioned this on another thread but several months back, one of my maternal cousins asked about a "family crest". After correcting the term I had to tell him that our grandfather bore no arms that I ever knew of but I didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t or for that matter why his children couldn’t devise arms in his honor. He is 89 now and suffers from Alzheimer’s disease so while I have involved him a bit he doesn’t remember what I might have shown him before.
I have gotten in contact with my Uncles and they seem to be all for going ahead with this. My plan is to present my Grandfather with several alternatives at once, find out which he likes the best and use his selection as his arms. I will probably show the selections to him a few times to see if he makes the same selection more than once. That would be ideal at any rate.
To that end, I have decided to create a selection of arms based on certains things that I know about him and some suggestions from my mother and uncles. First, a little background about my grandfather. His name is Richard Lloyd Jones, he was born April 13, 1924 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He was married to Marve Belle Clemens on February 28th, 1942, and she bore him 3-sons and 1-daughter. He served with the 87th Infantry Division in Europe in WWII as an Anti-Tank infantryman.
He worked as a house painter, automobile upholstery installer, and an autobody repairman. He also served nearly 50 years as a minister, pastor and traveling evangelist for his church. Though not highly educated, he is a learned man, self taught in most things and was an accomplished landscape/portrait painter and wood craftsman. On a personal level, when my own father left our family, my grandfather stepped into that role for my sister and I.
He any my grandmother were married 67 years until she passed away in 2009. In addition to 4-children, they have 14-grandchildren, 50+ great grandchildren and currently 3-great great grandchildren.
My thoughts on design started with my grandfather being as strong as oak. This first set uses the acorns and the oak leaves to illustrate that. Where 4-acorns are displayed they represent his 4 children. They also allude to his service with the 87th ID (Acorn Division). I have included the cross shapes to allude to his faith as well.
http://imageshack.us/a/img706/4039/ka3t.th.png http://imageshack.us/a/img845/2237/k0k9.th.png
I started with the oak leaves but later moved to the cross raguly because I thought the counterchanged oak leaves a bit too much.
This second set was centered around the suggestions from one of my uncles about my grandfather being protective like an eagle. In the first, the roses allude to my grandmother who was especially fond of flowers and gardening. The per chevron divisions allude to where they were from, the Loess Hills area of Western Iowa.
http://imageshack.us/a/img21/605/mhlp.th.png
This last one is something that came to me about a month ago. It is based on a reading of Hebrews 11:10 where Abraham placed his faith in God and he made of him a great nation. In my head these arms translate, "He built the foundation of his house (the rompu chevron) on Christ (the lion) and He (Christ) made of his house a great multitude (the stars)."
http://imageshack.us/a/img541/1323/wx1b.th.png
I also have a version like this last one but with an engrailed greek cross in the base but I am not sure how I feel about it. Tincture isn’t important right now so that is why these are all black and white. I figure I will print a selection for my grandfather, find the one he likes and then offer him different tinctures at that point.
So, tell me what you think, which you would throw out and what alterations you might have? I haven’t checked for any conflicts with any other arms so if you see something that looks too much like someone else’s arms let me know as well. After I narrow them down, I will present them to my uncles and finally to my grandfather.
there is a soft spot in my heart for the "chevron romp" charge - it made it through most of my refrigerator tests :p
I would toss the first three acorn versions, but that last one is really nice. In fact it’s my favorite of the bunch.
The two eagles are keepers for these purposes, but I don’t know why you don’t have a version with acorns instead of roses also.
The lion and stars looks too much to me like a military insignia. Perhaps it is the way so many stars are arranged in tight rows instead of the way I’m used to seeing semy of stars. I don’t care for it, but I don’t know that I don’t care for it so much as to toss it out. On the fence.
You could create a cross with the edges cut like the lobes of oak leaves, sort of a hybrid of raguly and nebuly and use that for option 4. Or combine that with the roses (roses growing among oak trees?) and save the eagle for the crest.
The foundation of the house being represented by a chevron rompu is a bit of a malapropism. "Rompu" means broken, and a broken rafter is hardly an apt symbol for a strong house.
Joseph McMillan;100542 wrote:
The foundation of the house being represented by a chevron rompu is a bit of a malapropism. "Rompu" means broken, and a broken rafter is hardly an apt symbol for a strong house.
Another interesting to keep this is switching out the lion for the eagle (the eagle could fill the space nicely). As Joseph mentioned, "rompu" means broken and if the rompu chevron is a broken home then your grandfather (the eagle) could be the one holding it up and keeping the family from falling apart (as you did say he stepped in to help raise you when your father left the family).
Incidentally, the rompu design is my favorite with the cross raguly/acorns being my 2nd favorite.
j.carrasco;100543 wrote:
Another interesting to keep this is switching out the lion for the eagle (the eagle could fill the space nicely). As Joseph mentioned, "rompu" means broken and if the rompu chevron is a broken home then your grandfather (the eagle) could be the one holding it up and keeping the family from falling apart (as you did say he stepped in to help raise you when your father left the family).
Interesting idea. If you can let the lion stand for the grandfather, then having it sejant erect affronty (as in the Scottish royal crest) with its paws supporting the chevron rompu would be very evocative. As in, a coat of arms with that and nothing else.
Scottish royal crest:
Lots of good thoughts and suggestions. Joe, thank you for the interpretation of the Chevron rompu. Not sure how I feel about supporting a broken family as it was just my mothers particular branch that was broken but he definitely had served as our patriarch for most of my life. I will have to draw a lion affronty version to see how that looks.
I would agree that of the acorn designs shown here the one featuring the cross raguly is my favorite as well. I have a hand drawn version with a counterchanged raguly saltire but I only placed a single acorn in base on that one. Then again a single rose in base on that design might be a good design as well.
I wasn’t sure about the demi-eagle with the chevronny base. Reason being is I was considering gold for the chevronny pattern and silver for the eagle. Would anyone think that a tincture violation if they were the same color?
Thank you to everyone for your thoughts. If anything pops into your head on these, please do not hesitate to share. The only bad suggestion is the one you don’t give.
Given your grandfather’s situation, your approach, and your involving other family members, is commendable.
I rather like the first design (quarterly with four oak leave in cross
counterchanged etc) but apparently I’m in the minority.
I agree with the earlier comment that the design with the rigid rows of stars in chief looks more like a military unit insignia; also IMO way too busy. Maybe with fewer stars scattered in a less regimented fashion?
The symbolism of the chevron rompu, as noted, is a bit iffy; but if’s not unattractive & less likely to visually (even if not technically) infringe on dozens of arms with a plain chevron between three whatevers.
Thanks for including us in this project!
mjsmith;100545 wrote:
I wasn’t sure about the demi-eagle with the chevronny base. Reason being is I was considering gold for the chevronny pattern and silver for the eagle. Would anyone think that a tincture violation if they were the same color?
I don’t think so. It might look a little weird, though, in small scale - you know, like the eagle had an over-sized tail.
Yesterday, my Grandfather celebrated his 90th birthday. All four of his children where in attendance as well as many more grandchildren, great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. He doesn’t know any of us but I was amazed to see that he can still sing church hymns like he just came from a service. It was nice to able to get my uncles all together in one place to review the designs I had come up with for my Grandfathers arms.
To have him partcipate in the process, I printed out several of the designs with the various crests that I had devised for them. We had him look first at black and white versions of the arms and then I added colored versions of them. These are the arms, tictures and crest that he chose. Actually "chose" is a bit of an understatement. He fixated on the picture I printed of the arms and then held on to the page just staring and smiling.
http://thumbnails101.imagebam.com/32000/de491b319996212.jpg
I am so happy to have him be able to participate in this process and to have it done in the setting of so many family members was even more special. I was so suprised that he selected these arms. With the exception of gold over silver, they are exactly what I had envisioned for him from the beginning. The next step is to have my uncles devise a motto for the arms. My plan is to have it translated into Welsh to honor that heritage.
A bit about the arms: The cross raguly represents my grandparents love of God and faith in Jesus Christ no matter what troubles they encountered. the 4-acorns are symbolic of their 4-children. The horse’s head in the crest is symbolic of my Grandfather (he really loves horses) and the flower is symbolic of my Grandmother. Being together in the crest symbolizes their love for one another. One change that is to be made is to replace the flower with a Bleeding Heart Flower (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) which was my Grandmother’s favorite flower (which I did not now about previously).
Thank you all for your input on this. It really helps to have individuals such as yourselves be able to confirm your likes and dislikes about the designs and to help create a more excellent coat of arms.
Nice job!!
Very nice. Well done from start to finish.
One minor quibble (not about the arms themselves): ease up on the highlighting on the acorns. In the thumbnails I thought the two on the red field were argent until I opened up the full-size image.
Very nicely designed arms, and well thought out. And I agree with Kenneth on the highlighting as I thought the exact same thing.
I took your suggestions to heart in these renderings. Still just shield and crest at this point. I’m waiting on a consensus from my uncles about a motto but I did want to get everyone’s take on the Bleeding Heart flower. Additionally, I had a cousin make a simple tincture suggestion for the crest based on the last horse my grandfather owned, a chestnut horse named "Rob Red" and I wanted to get your take on that.
So without further adieu:
http://thumbnails112.imagebam.com/32493/c57677324926039.jpg http://thumbnails110.imagebam.com/32493/3d6da6324926042.jpg
mjsmith;102018 wrote:
I took your suggestions to heart in these renderings. Still just shield and crest at this point. I’m waiting on a consensus from my uncles about a motto but I did want to get everyone’s take on the Bleeding Heart flower. Additionally, I had a cousin make a simple tincture suggestion for the crest based on the last horse my grandfather owned, a chestnut horse named "Rob Red" and I wanted to get your take on that.
So without further adieu:
http://thumbnails112.imagebam.com/32493/c57677324926039.jpg http://thumbnails110.imagebam.com/32493/3d6da6324926042.jpg
Very nice. If the horse was a chestnut, it has to be red, especially with that name, so I vote for the first version.
