About Me

The Genealogical Basics

For all of the genealogists who may find their way to this website, here are the vital statistics:

• Born: June 7, 1948 — Rochester, New York, USA
• Father: Howard Elmer Hendee — January 1, 1925, Webster, New York – November 10, 1992, Bradenton, Florida
• Mother: Virginia Phelps Hendee — September 10, 1921, Northampton, Massachusetts – August 20, 2026, Port St. Lucie, Florida
• Married: Joanne Jarvis Hendee — September 4, 1971, Webster, New York

And now for the less official details.

An Adventurous Beginning

I was an adventurous person from the very beginning.

In 1952, when I was four years old, my family was living on Parkview Terrace in Rochester. I attended a Catholic school on St. Paul Boulevard. My friend and I would walk to St. Paul Boulevard, board the city bus, and ride to school for a dime.

One day, however, we decided that instead of getting off at school, we would stay on the bus and see where it went.

Eventually, we arrived in downtown Rochester. We were fascinated by the people, the buildings, and everything that seemed so much bigger and more exciting than our neighborhood. There was just one small problem: we were lost.

Fortunately, one of my mother’s friends from her bridge parties happened to see us. She recognized us, figured out what had happened, and got us safely home.

I am 78 years old as I write this, and in many ways, that little adventure is a pretty good description of how things have gone throughout most of my life: get on the bus, see where it goes, and figure things out along the way.

Learning Outside the Classroom

I was always interested in learning, although I was never particularly interested in school.

When I was eight years old, I joined the Cub Scouts. I discovered that this was a kind of learning I really enjoyed. It was hands-on, practical, and adventurous. I eventually became an Eagle Scout at 15.

At 17, I became a Quartermaster Sea Explorer. Through Sea Exploring, I learned celestial navigation and earned my FCC license. I loved being on the water.

In 1966, a group of us sailed out of Brooklyn, New York, aboard the Merchant Marine ship USS Rose, bound for Bremerhaven, Germany. We were representing the American Sea Explorers and spent a month overseas.

It was a great adventure, and it gave me an early taste of something that would remain important to me throughout my life: seeing the world and meeting people from different cultures.

The Navy and Seeing the World

I finally graduated from R. L. Thomas High School in 1967. Not long afterward, I came home and announced to my mother and father that I had joined the United States Navy.

My duty Stations were:
• Great Lakes Training, Chicago, Ill. 10/1967
• Kingsville, Texas Navy Air, VT22 12/1967 – 10/1968
• Da Nang, Vietnam, NSA, Near 1st Marines 12/1968 – 12/1969
• Newport, R.I. USS Norris (DD859) 01/1970 – 04/1970
• Honorable Discharge 04/1970 and Home

My travels took me through the American Southwest, Alaska, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, and other places. What I enjoyed most was not simply seeing new places, but meeting the people who lived there and learning about the different societies and cultures that make up our world.

Those experiences stayed with me.

Coming Home and Starting a Family

When I came home from the military in late 1970, life began to take a different direction.

I spent a couple of months at my parents’ house while I worked on establishing myself. Then I reconnected with the true love of my life—the girl who had lived across the street from me years earlier, Joanne Jarvis.

My father helped me get a job in the Research Department at Eastman Kodak Company, where I worked as a technician for five years.

During this period, Joanne and I were married on September 4, 1971. We eventually purchased my Uncle Jim Hendee’s house in Pittsford, New York.

In 1974, I entered St. John Fisher College, now St. John Fisher University, where I studied Mass Media/Communications and Anthropology.

To the surprise of both my family and myself, I graduated in 1978.

Hendee Documentation and the Printing Business

While I was working and helping Joanne through the University of Rochester School of Nursing, I started a small business called Hendee Documentation. The business was registered with the Monroe County Clerk’s Office, and I believe the registration may still exist.

It was a good little business, but it simply did not produce the income I needed.

I eventually took a position as a Sales Representative with Carey Associates, Rochester House of Printing, an art and printing firm. That experience introduced me more deeply to the printing industry—and also to some of its challenges.

But the most important event during this period had nothing to do with business.

Our daughter, Meredith Anne Hendee, was born on June 9, 1980.

Discovering the Apple Computer

In 1982, I became General Manager of ABBA Press, a small art and printing company that specialized in letterhead, business cards, and forms. The company operated from a small building near Kodak Park.

It was at ABBA Press that I became fascinated with something that would ultimately change the direction of my career:

the Apple computer.

My brother-in-law, Tom, introduced me to my first hands-on experience with an Apple IIe. Many years later, he generously gave me that very computer. I still have it today, sitting in my home office like a shrine to where it all began.

At the time, I used to visit a business-supply store in Rochester called Leon’s. I would stand there and stare at the Apple computers they sold. They cost far more money than I had, but I desperately wanted to learn how they worked.

Then I had an idea.

If I could convince the owner of ABBA Press to purchase an Apple IIe for the company’s accounting, I would have access to one and could learn more about it.

It worked like a charm.

And I learned.

TRANSCAT and the Macintosh Revolution

About six months later, as I was leaving ABBA Press, I received a phone call from a company called TRANSCAT, a division of Transmation.

They told me they had heard that I was knowledgeable about Apple computers and wanted to discuss employment.

That afternoon, I was working for TRANSCAT.

TRANSCAT was a small division of the Transmation Corporation. It produced a catalog focused on the petrochemical industry and sold test instrumentation.

I was fortunate to work with a couple of older MIT-trained engineers who were just as curious about this new technology as I was. Within a year, we had justified the purchase of an entire state-of-the-art Apple Macintosh system.

TRANSCAT also sent me to Compugraphics in Boston, where I became a certified typesetter.

This was an exciting period. The personal computer was beginning to transform the graphic arts and publishing industries, and I found myself right in the middle of that transition.

My work with Apple Macintosh computers and electronic publishing eventually became recognized within the Rochester graphic arts community. Somehow, I even ended up being included in Marquis Who’s Who in Marketing.

For someone who had once been much more interested in learning than in school, it was quite a ride.

Case-Hoyt and the Move to Miami

One of the greatest honors of my career was going to work for the Case-Hoyt Corporation of Rochester, New York.

My father always said that Rochester was the crown of the graphic arts industry in the United States, and that Case-Hoyt was the jewel in that crown.

I was proud to become part of it.

Eventually, Case-Hoyt was purchased by Avante Printing, owned by Joe Arriola of Miami, Florida. The company subsequently moved its operations to Miami, and I was moved there as well.

My role was to develop new systems and teach the staff about Apple computer systems and the software applications associated with them.

In many ways, this was the culmination of my career.

Eventually, Avante was sold to another company from England. Some employees were rehired, while others were let go.

I was let go.

I did some work for other companies afterward, but the work was no longer really my type of work. Eventually, I simply walked away and retired.

It was not a particularly happy day.

But, as has happened many times in my life, one chapter ended and another began.

Life Today

Today, I am happily retired.

Joanne and I have been married for more than five decades, and our family has grown considerably since those early days in Rochester.

Our daughter, Meredith, has raised two wonderful grandsons, and I am tremendously proud of her.

I am also very proud of our son, Paul Jacob Hendee, a retired Marine. Paul is married to Amy Vu, and together they are raising our two beautiful granddaughters.

Joanne and I continue to enjoy traveling all over the globe. Joanne volunteers as a retired nurse with the Area Agency on Aging.

As for me, I spend much of my time working on our family history and genealogy. After all these years, I am still curious about where we came from, how our families became who they are, and the stories of the people who came before us.

I also enjoy playing my bass guitar.

And, of course, I continue to play with technology.

This website is part of that continuing adventure. It gives me a place to explore my interests, preserve our family’s history, share what I discover, and hopefully leave something useful for the generations who come after us.

Looking back, that four-year-old boy who stayed on the bus just to see where it went probably had the right idea.

I have been doing pretty much the same thing ever since.