I’m proud of my name. My wife will tell you that I am somehow convinced that all Willetts we run across must be relatives of mine. I realize that’s probably stretching it a bit, but I was told as a child that some genealogical researcher or other had made pretty much that claim, with a tale (an improbable one, it now seems to me) of an old man named Willett, last of that name, with no heirs, who adopted and raised a boy as his own son; that boy then took the name Willett in honor of the old man, and all Willetts since are descendants of that boy.
Yeah, I know, I said it seems improbable to me now. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel a stronger relation to other people named Willett than I suspect your average Smith does to other Smiths: there just aren’t as many of us as there are of them.
And so, just for fun, I’m launching a new Hassenfeature: the Willett of the Day. (Not that there’ll be a new Willett here every day, but most days, I hope.) 
And who better to start with than Robert Edgar Willett, better known as–you guessed it!–Ed Willett.
Born March 7, 1884, Ed Willett was a Major League pitcher. He played with the Detroit Tigers of the American League (1906 – 1913) and the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League (1914 – 1915).
You can read all about him on Wikipedia–and here’s his baseball card!
Is there a family resemblance? I’ll leave that to you to judge.
