10-30-98



11 November 2010

Family Heritage

By

Duane K. Bickings

Chapter 1

When you look through an old family photo-album you usually see black and white snapshots of relatives you either never met, or never knew well. What then is the attraction when you gaze at those pictures? After all, they are dead and gone, they lived in a different time with different daily routines than we have today. Well, I believe that what we see in those photographs is ourselves. We inherited not only genetic chromosomes from those men and women, but just as importantly, some personality traits, some habits, hopes, fears, and unfortunately, some secret personal struggles passed from generation to generation. Who were these people, and what were they really like? Would I have chosen them to be my friends if I were their age at the time? I have done my best to discover as many routine things about my relatives as I could which might unlock the mystery of who they were. Genealogy is the study of world history on a personal basis, in which the cast of characters are my own relatives. Uncovering what part my ancestors played in the drama of world events is what family history is all about. Many of these are disjointed anecdotes, but that is all I could uncover. (To be included in this history, the anecdote has to be verified by either a primary or secondary source, which I have documented using footnotes). Because they didn’t keep diaries, most of their memories have become mists swept away by the broom of time. This journey is still worth the effort, however, because these were the fathers and mothers, husbands and wives who over a span of generations have influenced me more than I’ll ever know. The best way to honor these men and women is to never forget who they were, and what they did.

In the 17th century the Kingdom of Sweden was a European “Great Power” and one of the major military and political combatants on the continent during the “Thirty Years” War. By mid-century, the kingdom included part of Norway, all of Finland, part of Prussia, and stretched into Russia. Perhaps inspired by the riches other Great Powers gathered from their overseas colonies, Sweden too sought to extend its influence to the New World. In 1637, prominent Swedish stockholders formed the New Sweden Company to trade for beaver pelts and tobacco in North America. On nine separate expeditions over the next seventeen years, a total of three hundred eighty-nine Swedes embarked from Stockholm and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to establish farms and small settlements along both banks of the Delaware River into modern Southern New Jersey, Delaware, and Southeastern Pennsylvania. The families of the 5th expedition, aboard the vessel Swan, left Stockholm on August 16, 1642, stopped for provisions at Gothenberg, Germany, headed for the Azores, and weighed anchor at the Caribbean island of Antigua on December 23rd where the crew and passengers spent the Christmas holidays. They then set sail north for the final leg of their voyage, and on February 15, 1643, Jonas Nilsson (1620-1693), my first ancestor to come to America, disembarked from the Swan and set foot at Fort Christina, now the site of Wilmington, Delaware.[1] The beleaguered settlement at New Sweden was overjoyed to have more of their countrymen join the little colony. Jonas was one of twelve soldiers assigned to construct and garrison Fort Elfsborg, near present day Salem on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, to guard against Dutch and English ships. Jonas served four years as a soldier in the New Sweden Militia, at a wage of ten guilders per month. Just as Englishmen read the King James Bible (printed in 1611), the Lutheran Swedes read the Bible of King Gustavus Adolphos (printed in 1618). Jonas later acquired 270 acres in Kingsessing (now West Philadelphia) where he was a successful tanner, built a “logg” house (Swedes, being descendents of the Vikings, were skilled in the use of an axe to shape timbers) and he and his wife Gertrude Svensdotter (1630-1695) raised eleven children.[2]

It wasn’t long before the native Indians, the eastern Delawares, were insisting that in exchange for their furs, the Swedish traders should give them firearms, ammunition, hatchets, kettles, hoes, a variety of metal utensils, brandy and rum. Over the years the Indians became more and more dependent upon European goods for performing agricultural, hunting and domestic tasks. This economic dependence, coupled with countless deaths from exposure to European diseases to which they had no immunity, led to the collapse of the Indian life as a separate culture. The New Sweden colony was never as successful as New England, for a variety of reasons. Few Swedes had any desire to emigrate to the New World. Sweden itself was a forest country with room for immigrants. Finally, there was no religious compulsion, as in the case of the English Puritans, to induce Lutherans of Sweden to leave home. In 1654 the political situation suddenly changed when New Sweden was attacked and surrendered to Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Commander of New Netherlands (now New York City), who had a military force larger than the entire population of New Sweden. The Dutch wanted to control the very profitable fur trade, which in 1654 was exporting over 10,000 beaver pelts to Europe each year. Also, tobacco, (“stinkingeweede” in Swedish) which was grown in Northern Virginia and Maryland, was transported overland to the port at Fort Christina and then shipped back to Europe. Settlers into West Jersey developed unsurpassed apple and peach orchards, and began marketing apple cider. In 1664 New Netherlands in turn was conquered by the English who sought to eliminate the Dutch as commercial competitors, and to consolidate the Hudson and Delaware river valleys with the English possessions in New England and the Chesapeake colonies.[3] Once William Penn gained Proprietary control of Pennsylvania, he advertised land to immigrants at low prices and religious toleration, so the flood of immigration of Germans, Welsh, and Scots-Irish into the Delaware river valley commenced. Jonas’ second son, Mounce Jonasson (1663-1727) was an Indian trader, built a house of Pennsylvania field stone in Aronameck (the site of present-day Bartram’s Gardens). In 1701 William Penn offered to relocate the Swedes further inland away from the English in Philadelphia, so Mounce and fourteen other families accepted this offer and surveyed 10,000 acres on the upper Schuylkill River in what is now Amity Township in Berks County. This land provided access to transportation and fishing rights for each family and together they settled the Old Village of Morlatton in Berks County (this settlement was renamed Warrensburg in 1780, then renamed Douglassville in 1828). Because Mounce was proficient in the Indian dialects of Algonkian and Iroquoian, he was often called upon to help negotiate treaties with local tribes. Swedish sons took their father’s first name and added ‘son”, in this case to form Jonasson, which was eventually anglicized to Jones. In 1716 Mounce built a 2 ½ story sandstone house that still stands as the oldest documented dwelling in Berks County. Over the years the Jones family grew, cleared the 402 acres of land Mounce had acquired, and with the exception of isolated outbreaks of smallpox, led quiet and peaceful lives. (The Amity Township tax list of 1731 begins with Mordechai Lincoln, the future President’s ancestor.)

Mounce’s great-grandson, Peter Jones III (1749-1809) bade his wife and infant twin daughters, Ruth and Elizabeth, farewell on January 5, 1776 and enlisted as a private in the 4th Pennsylvania Battalion commanded by Colonel Anthony Wayne. This unit immediately marched with the Pennsylvania Brigade to reinforce the battered American force which was retreating after the failed invasion of Canada, and then performed garrison duty at Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, New York. Peter was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in September 1776, and a month later was assigned to the 11th Pennsylvania Regiment. At this point in the War effort General Washington despaired that the Continental Army might collapse from the discouragement of repeated defeats at the hands of the British, and the lack of food, ammunition, and reinforcements. Peter stayed with the Army, was promoted to 1st Lieutenant in April 1777 at which time the 11th Pennsylvania joined Washington’s Headquarters. In late August 1777 a British Army of 14,000 men under General Sir William Howe sailed up the Chesapeake Bay to attack Philadelphia from the south. On September 11th Washington ordered the 11th Pennsylvania, now part of the 2nd Brigade of Anthony Wayne’s Division, in a defensive position at Chadd’s Ford of Brandywine Creek with orders to prevent the British from crossing. The 11th Pennsylvania was down to just 189 men when the Battle of Brandywine began at 11 a.m. Hessian General Knyphausen ordered his Corps of four German regiments and nine British regiments totaling 5,000 men to advance against the Americans. The 11th Pennsylvania and other Continental regiments fought bravely in the sweltering heat and humidity and withstood one severe attack after another for over seven hours until Washington’s right flank was broken by British General Cornwallis. The Americans were forced to withdraw throughout the night to seek better ground.[4] This was a costly defeat, with over 1,300 American casualties, and enabled the British to occupy Philadelphia, the nation’s capital, largest city and port. Peter became sick during the six-month winter encampment at Valley Forge, and since he had served for 2½ years, he was discharged on June 24, 1778. His last pay voucher at Valley Forge stated that he earned $27/month. I thought that was a lot of money for that time until I remembered the expression “not worth a Continental”, because the currency of our new nation was nearly worthless! After the War Peter and his wife Katharina (the Swedish spelling for Catherine) Kerlin (1756-1844) built a log cabin as their first home, had fifteen children, and farmed three hundred acres of land in Amity Township. A booklet containing this and other genealogical information was read and distributed at a large family reunion held on Saturday, July 10, 1926 in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. My mother remembers her grandmother, Stella Eisenberg Bach, taking her to this festive occasion in which hundreds of people rejoiced in the pride of belonging to such an extended patriotic Christian family.

Lawrence Eisenberg (1763-1826), the son of a German immigrant, settled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. After his first wife died, he married Peter and Katharina’s daughter, Ruth Jones (1775-1826). Lawrence and Ruth bought a ninety acre farm in Limerick Township in 1794 and it was here that they also had fifteen children, each given their Mother’s maiden name as their middle name. The Eisenberg homestead was reputed to be the best tilled and most productive farm for miles around, primarily raising wheat. They loaded the wheat, or milled wheat flour, on conestoga wagons to make the 60 mile, three day trip to deliver the goods to the port of Philadelphia for sale and export to Europe. The conestoga wagon was the main freight carrier before railroads, was been developed by German immigrants in Lancaster County, had a Prussian blue body, red wheels, and the driver walked alongside, rather than on a seat in the front. Most farmers planted the same crop repeatedly, which depleted the soil after a few harvests, then they simply cleared more land. The German farmers, however, introduced crop rotation and the use of fertilizers. Workingmen wore woolen breeches, knitted stockings and linen shirts, and the women helped raised flax, spun yarn into clothes, made candles and cooked meals in the hearth. These frontier families were self-sufficient and isolated, raising their children protected form the influence of outside culture. Lawrence and Ruth sold their farm in 1824 for $2,163, and both died two years later. Their ninth child was Samuel Jones Eisenberg (1806-1861), a miller, who with his wife Lydia Yerger (1804-1873) had eight children, the fifth of whom was my great-great grandfather David, and they lived in Franconia Township.[5] The Jones and Eisenberg families attended St. Gabriel’s Church in Douglassville, a congregation that described itself as “English-Swedes” This juxtaposition of terms says something about English and Swedish people worshiping together in an English Episcopal Church that had evolved from a Swedish Lutheran background. This church was established in 1720, and originally built with logs hewn from nearby forests. In 1801 a new stone edifice was erected (where services are still held), and the log church continued to serve as a school until it was destroyed by fire in 1832, so many of my ancestors attended school here.[6]

During the Civil War David Y. Eisenberg (1840-1917) served as a private with I Company of the 129th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment (which was part of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 5th Corps in the Army of the Potomac) from August 1862 – May 1863, so he was involved in the battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. When the regiment was originally formed (for a nine month enlistment) it had 26 officers and 575 men. At the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862 the Confederates occupying the high ground could not see the Union force massing to their front, but at 10 a.m. the fog lifted suddenly to reveal a spectacular scene – “A slight but dazzling snow beneath, and a brilliant sun above, intensified the reflections of fifty thousand gleaming Federal bayonets” recalled a Confederate soldier. At 1 p.m. the first Federal division began its assault up Marye’s Hill against the entrenched defenders, and three hours later six divisions had successively been repulsed with terrible casualties. At dusk the 3rd Division of the 5th Corps was ordered to make a seventh and final assault to break the Confederate position. The 3rd Division, consisting of eight Pennsylvania Regiments, witnessed its Commander, Brigadier General Andrew A. Humphries, bow to his staff in his courtly manner and say “Young gentlemen, I intend to lead this attack myself. I presume, of course, that each of you will wish to join me?” He then shouted the attack order to the regiments “Men, it is our turn to go in … Officers to the front”. Although they had just witnessed over three hours of slaughter, and each man doubted the success of another frontal attack across open terrain, the men of the 129th and the rest of the Division didn’t waver, but resolutely closed ranks. With a stubborn determination to obey orders and do their duty, they moved forward. The regiments traversed in good order over the lines of dead and wounded left in previous charges, and the caps of some men were subsequently found within fifty yards of the infamous stone wall, but the 129th was finally repulsed by devastating fire from the Confederates, suffering 16 killed and 126 wounded. A bitter cold descended on the plain that night with the temperature dropping below zero, and hundreds of Federal wounded still lying on the field froze to death. (The famous American poet, Walt Whitman, visited the Federal camp at Fredericksburg immediately after the battle searching for his brother, and officer in the 51st New York Infantry Regiment. Whitman wrote two poems about his observations of the aftermath of the battle, and later wrote three poems about this volunteer work at an Army Hospital in Washington D.C.) The Army of the Potomac has suffered a crushing defeat, but in the winter encampment of 1862-1863 discipline and training gave rise to a renewed Army ready to fight again. At the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 3, 1863, the 129th sustained additional casualties of 42 men killed or wounded.[7] but most Confederate units were themselves badly depleted. (In 1892 the Commanding Officer of the 129th , Colonel Jacob G. Frick, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor with the citation “At Fredericksburg he seized the colors and led the command through a terrible fire of cannon and musketry. In a hand-to-hand fight at Chancellorsville, he recaptured the colors of his regiment”) On May 25, 1863, the Regiment was formally disbanded, and David quietly marched home from the killing fields of Northern Virginia, eager to resume his life as a civilian.

By the time of David’s death, his Army pension was up to $22.50/month. At first I was puzzled why David even received a pension because I knew that he wasn’t wounded in the Civil War. Then I discovered that in Philadelphia on July 24, 1866 he got into an argument over the politics of Reconstruction of the South with another passenger who pushed David from a street trolley-car as it rounded a curve, and his right shoulder and arm were crushed. He could never again perform heavy manual labor, so he became a watchman for the wealthy families who lived in the opulent brownstone residences on Broad Street. David first applied for a pension in 1892 because just two years earlier the 51st Congress had passed the Dependent Pension Act that “a permanent physical disability need not have originated in the service”. (This Act overnight doubled the number of pensioners, wiped out the federal budget surplus at the time, and was considered such an reckless extravagance that the Republicans lost their majority in the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections of 1890, and the White House in 1892.[8]) David’s last name was apparently misspelled “Eisenberry” when he was mustered into the 129th Regiment in August 1862. Interestingly, everyone must have thought it would be impossible to get the Government to correct that original error, so for the rest of his life, in correspondence with the Pension Office David signed his name Eisenberry, and even his physicians participated in this charade by referring to him as Eisenberry in their sworn affidavits concerning his injury![9]

As a young woman my great grand-mother, Stella Mae Eisenberg (1873-1957) attended “The Baptist Temple” at Broad and Berks Streets in Philadelphia, and grew spiritually under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Russell Conwell who gave the famous sermon "Acres of Diamonds”, and founded Temple University. In 1893 Temple Baptist was the largest Protestant Church in America[10] with a seating capacity of 4,600, so Stella was part of a dynamic evangelistic congregation. Stella’s mother Sarah Baker (1841-1878) had died in childbirth with her eighth child. On her deathbed she instructed her husband David which homes to place each of their six surviving sons for adoption, but directed that David “always keep Stella with you”. Years later, a young man named Harry Bach from Pottstown, Pennsylvania, who was a salesman in the Harness Department of Strawbridge and Clothier’s Store in Philadelphia, asked to court Stella, and she consented only if he started attending church with her, which he did. After their marriage, Stella’s domineering stepmother interfered and eventually forced Stella to choose between her new husband or the Eisenberg family, and Stella meekly succumbed to this coercion. Harry left Stella and their young daughter Carrie in 1899, so both mother and daughter moved in with Stella's father, David Eisenberg and step-mother at 1626 N. Willington Street, a middle-class three-story red brick rowhouse. Such a dwelling had six rooms, sat on a lot 18’ x 50’, and cost about $1800 to purchase, or $12/month to rent. Over three hundred thousand of these cracker-box units were built between 1880 and 1920 to house the ballooning urban population in Philadelphia[11]. Stella remembered the sights and sounds of city living at the turn of the century such as wagon-wheels on cobblestone streets, and the lamplighters illuminating the neighborhood each evening. Harry Bach filed for divorce on August 14, 1901, the final decree was granted on September 20, 1904, and neither alimony nor child support was required. Stella never spoke of Harry, apparently she was shamed by the failed relationship, regretted that she wasn’t permitted to work through the problem with him, and she strictly followed Scripture in never considering remarriage.

Harry’s father, William P. Bach (1845-1920), had a short but memorable military career. Reared on a farm near Cedarville, Pennsylvania, he attended district schools, and in August 1862 he signed a three-year enlistment in Company H of the 68th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, and in December 1862 he first “saw the elephant” in heavy fighting at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Seven weeks after the Battle at Chancellorsville, the 68th, now reduced to only 320 officers and men, arrived on the field at Gettysburg on the evening of Wednesday July 1, 1863. The next morning Union General Sickles positioned the 68th, which was part of the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 3rd Corps in the Army of the Potomac, in an ill-advised defensive salient at the infamous Peach Orchard. At 5:30 p.m. Confederate General Longstreet ordered Barksdale’s Brigade, led by the 21st Mississippi Infantry Regiment, to attack the Federal units along the Emmitsburg Road. Seventeen-year-old Private Bach was re-loading his .577 Enfield musket when shrapnel from an exploding cannonball tore into his right foot, then he was shot in the left leg with a Reb minie ball. The 68th Pennsylvania suffered heavy losses, 13 killed, 126 wounded and 13 missing, thirteen of the seventeen officers were hit, and when the Regiment was flanked by the 17th Mississippi at 6:00 p.m., it was forced to yield the ground[12] and withdraw. Bach was dragged to the rear by two comrades to a stone wall near the Trostle Farm where he was nearly bayoneted to death by a Reb sergeant. The fighting raged on into the early evening as Hood’s Division overran nearby Devil’s Den, and the 15th Alabama went clawing up Little Round Top. The Confederate surge was finally stopped at 6:45 p.m. by the 20th Maine commanded by Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. Private Bach lay in great pain on the battlefield through the night, and the next day heard the artillery barrage and musketry as General Robert E. Lee ordered the valiant yet doomed “Picket’s Charge” against the Union center. It was forty-eight hours before a surgeon dressed his wounds, and surprisingly didn’t amputate his leg.[13] On July 1-3, 1913, William Bach returned to Gettysburg to participate in the 50th Anniversary ceremonies of this engagement. (If you visit the battlefield, visit the monument to the 68th, and Bach’s name on the State of Pennsylvania Monument). Gettysburg was the greatest and bloodiest land battle in our nation’s history, with over 50,000 casualties on both sides. It was the turning point of the Civil War, and the defining moment in the lives of each man who fought there. As President Lincoln said in his famous Gettysburg Address “…But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”

The primitive medical treatment and evacuation of the Union wounded at Gettysburg is horrific to contemplate. Since General Lee retreated to Northern Virginia the day following the battle, Union General Meade immediately followed, taking with him most of the surgeons and ambulances. There weren’t enough stretcher bearers, doctors, medical supplies, or food to adequately care for over 12,000 Union wounded left on the battlefield. The situation quickly became desperate as the over-worked medical officers that did remain struggled to cope with the overwhelming number of suffering men needing attention. Water was in such short supply that the surgeons merely wiped the blood off their cutting knives onto their soiled aprons before operating on the next man, thus unknowingly spreading infection among the very patients they hoped to save. Hundreds died each day from exposure to the relentless July heat and humidity. Over the next five days, casualties such as Private Bach were loaded onto wagons, transported to the train station in the town of Gettysburg, then placed on boxcars, with straw and hay as their only bedding material. The trains transported the wounded to one of the many hospitals that had been established since the beginning of the war to deal with the carnage of the Eastern theatre. These hospitals were primarily located in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Wilmington and Philadelphia since they had railroads to the front lines.[14] Bach was initially sent to Jarvis Army Hospital in Baltimore. I have a copy of a letter he wrote to the Surgeon-in-Charge of Jarvis, dated August 12, 1863, just five weeks after the battle, in very stylish penmanship “Sir, I have the honor to make application to you for a furlough for fifteen days being anxious to visit my home. I was wounded at Gettysburg, Pa. Hoping this may meet with your early approval. I am, Sir, Respectfully, Your Obdt Servt, William P. Bach, 68th Penna Volunteers”. He later convalesced in Satterlee Army Hospital (surrounding what is now Clark Park in West Philadelphia), which was the largest Civil War hospital covering sixteen acres of ground with twenty-one wards containing 4,500 beds. He was fitted with a leg brace that he wore the rest of his life, was discharged from the Army in May 1864, (for reason of “lameness, caused by a gunshot wound to the leg, fracturing the tibia”) [15] and returned home to Pottstown and started a harness business. In gratitude for his service to his country, in 1889 he was named Postmaster, and he was later the chief burgess of Pottstown, president of the school board, and trustee of the First Baptist Church.

William’s grand-daughter, my grandmother, Carrie Esther Bach Peterson, (1895-1968) was an accomplished pianist, petite at 4'11" tall, and a devoted homemaker. She met her future husband in 1915 when Nana was studying piano at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and working at the Pressler Music Store selling sheet music by playing the compositions for customers. She was a gifted seamstress, and made her own clothes, especially the “Gibson Girl” style for young women, and read Collier’s magazine to keep up with the latest fashions. The best pick-up line that Christian Peterson could come up with to get Esther’s attention as she was walking to work one day was to say to her “I like your hat!” but that was enough to begin their relationship! After Esther and Christian were married in February 1917 at 1626 N. Willington and their honeymoon in New York City, Stella Bach lived with them forty years until her death. My mother said that Stella Bach was the gentlest person she ever knew, and a meticulous homemaker. On her deathbed in 1957, she became comatose on a Monday, but seemed to hold on to life until Friday evening when Pop came in from being out all week working in the Delaware Bay. As he bent over her frail little body, she sensed his presence, opened her eyes and whispered the words she had been waiting four days to say, "Christian, thank you for taking care of me all these years". She then fell into a deep and peaceful sleep, and died a few hours later. After Pop's death, Nana lived with our family off and on for seven years. Older people living with their children was common place back then. People felt a grudging obligation to care for their aged relatives, fully cognizant of the inconveniences, not the least of which was the tension of attitudes represented by three disparate generations living in close quarters. More than once I would attempt to circumvent my parents' instructions by soliciting support from my indulgent Nana. She would intercede on my behalf, only to be reminded by my father that her presence in our household was welcome, but any attempt to undermine his parental authority would not be tolerated. I sensed the twinge of humiliation she felt, yet she preferred this social arrangement to that of an impersonal nursing home.

Denmark in 1883 was undergoing a political and economic transformation. The loss of the Schleswig-Holstein War to Prussia in 1864 had been a shattering and humiliating experience. As Germany grew in military power, her small neighbor to the north was very vulnerable. Additionally, large scale imports of North American and Russian grain into Europe caused a sharp decline in grain prices in the mid 1870s, creating great hardship for farmers in Denmark. As a result, in 1883 over 10,000 able-bodied young men from Denmark set sail for a better life in America.[16] My maternal great- grandfather, Jens Christian Pedersen (1865-1940) from Esbjerg, Denmark, the son of Anders Pedersen (1843-1931) and Ane Jensen (1842-1915) was one of those immigrants. Imagine his parents’ sorrow as they bid farewell to their eighteen year old son at the train station in Esbjerg as he leaves, alone, to travel to a ‘New World’ perhaps never to return home again. Jens embarked in Bremen, Germany, one of six hundred ninety-five passengers aboard the “SS Nuremberg”, and that ship completed its voyage to Baltimore on June 27, 1883.[17] John went to work for his mother’s brother who was master of a four-masted coasting vessel carrying fruit from the West Indies to Philadelphia. He migrated to Greenwich, New Jersey, and started as a day laborer on oyster boats, and had vowed that he wouldn’t marry until he had bought his first boat. Adopting the American form of his name, John Peterson and his wife Elizabeth “Lizzie” Bangel (1869-1942) lived at 245 West Commerce Street (they sold the house in 1942 for $6,000 following Lizzie’s death), and attended St. John’s German Lutheran Church. In 1909 John, Lizzie, their son Christian and two daughters Helen and Marie returned to Denmark for a month-long visit, sailing aboard the Transatlantic oceanliner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. (eleven years earlier this ship captured from Great Britain’s Cunard Line the coveted “Blue Riband” trophy and pennant as the fastest ship in the world, making the crossing from New York to Liverpool in five days and twenty hours. The Lusitania and Mauritania later won the honor back for Great Britain.)[18] Anders had earlier written his son, John, and told him there wasn’t enough room in their home in Esbjerg for all five guests, so the three children would be placed in neighbor’s homes. John didn’t like that idea, so he sent his father $3,000 to build an addition to the home so they could all be together! (From the countless stories I’ve heard of John’s generosity to both friends and strangers, I’m sure this $3,000 was merely a way to bless his father without embarrassing him).

My maternal grandfather, Christian John Peterson (1896-1961) was born in Greenwich (where his classmate, Mary Bacon, would one day become our family physician), graduated from West Jersey Academy then attended Pierce Business School in Philadelphia. West Jersey Academy was founded in 1852 by the Presbyterians with the mission to “meet the need for the education of boys on a moral and Christian basis”. It was a boarding school where the cadets dressed in military uniforms, learned how to drill, the core curriculum included Greek and Latin, and a local historian wrote “blue-blooded families of Bridgeton and surrounding areas sent their sons to West Jersey Academy”. It shut down in 1910 because the rise of public education in general, and Bridgeton High School in particular, eclipsed the popularity of private school education. Christian worked at the Excelsior Trust and Saving Fund Company in Philadelphia where he met his future bride, and persuaded her to relocate to Bridgeton when he decided to return to the oyster business. He ran the business until my Dad bought him out in 1956. Pop and Nana (the grandchildren's names for them) had five children, and built their imposing three- story 3,100 SF home on 301 West Broad Street in 1926 for $13,000! Pop was diagnosed a diabetic in 1951, and eventually died of a heart attack. I've heard the observation that Petersons die of heart problems, and Bickings die of cancer. Pop was very reserved, and never called Dad “Harold” but always referred to him as “Army”.

The family business started in 1892 when “Captain John” Peterson had saved enough money to buy a 1/32nd interest in the eleven ton, two masted schooner named the Wood Duck. In 1902 he bought his first ship, the seventeen ton Flying Fish. In 1908 he built the thirty-eight ton Christian John Peterson (known as the CJ) at the Greenwich Shipyard. In 1929 he built the Esther Peterson also in Greenwich. Then in 1936 Christian purchased the fifty-five ton Laura Wilde which had been built in 1927 at the Dorchester Shipyard, and renamed her the John C. Peterson (known as the John C). I worked on both the CJ and the John C as a deckhand as a teenager. These were about 80' long, 21' wide, built with white oak wood that had cured for about two years, and approximately eight men could sleep below deck. The galley had a coal-burning stove , and the cook always made hearty meals. The crews would be out dredging in the Delaware Bay from Monday morning to Friday afternoon catching about 400-1200 bushels of oysters a day. These schooners were easier to manage since the fore and main sail could be taken in one at a time, by fewer hands, and with a lighter rigging than would be needed by the sloop, which was the workhorse of the pre-1900 fleet. The schooners carried over 3,000 square feet of canvas sails, and had two 52” dredges to catch the oysters. Planters such as John Peterson would off load their oysters to a shipper in Bivalve, who would then pack them on cars of the Central Railroad of New Jersey which ran from Bivalve on to Philadelphia. The most profitable years of the oyster business were from 1910-1925 when South Jersey led the entire world in oyster production, usually harvesting 3.6 million bushels per year and employing approximately 2,500 men. One old salt described Port Norris on the Maurice River as being similar to a gold rush town of the old West because so much money was being made so quickly.[19] John and his son were both risk takers in business, willing to commit all their net worth to finance the next year's planting. John sold the family business to Christian in 1917, but continued to captain one of the boats each spring planting season until 1930 when he finally retired.

In Colonial America paper was the key to communication, so paper manufacturing was in high demand. The first, and largest paper mill in America was established by William Rittenhouse on Wissahickon Creek in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1690. Paper wasn’t made from wood back then, but from linen rags. Since it was a very slow, manual process, other mills were needed. In 1746 Conrad Sheetz, a veteran of the Rittenhouse operation built a new mill on Mill Creek, and produced such a quality product that he attracted Ben Franklin as an investor. Franklin bought most of the paper for his printing company from this mill. When Sheetz died in 1771 his widow rented the mill to John Friedrich Bicking (1730-1809) who ten years earlier had purchased 350 acres in Lower Merion Township (formerly a Welsh settlement) in Montgomery County where Mill Creek flows into the Schuylkill River. Over the six-mile course from its headwaters at Dove Lake, Mill Creek has an elevation change of two-hundred fifty feet, had clear fast-running water with no lime, and was forty feet wide at the confluence with the Schuylkill which made it perfect for waterwheel-powered mills. Frederich built his large home on a hilltop overlooking a hamlet of his paper mill, a two story house, a spring house, a smoke house, four tenant houses, a large barn and stable and a one hundred acre farm.[20] By 1776 Frederich was such a respected business owner that he was awarded a contract by the Committee of Safety of the Second Continental Congress to manufacture paper cartridges and wading for bullets for the Continental Army[21] from his own mill, and he supplied paper for Continental currency from the Sheetz mill. As an example, the minutes of the Continental Congress for Monday, May 13, 1776 read “A letter from General Washington, of the 9th, was laid before Congress and read. Resolved: To Frederick Bicking, for paper for the continental bills of credit, the sum of 416 pounds.” The following year, the bank notes to pay the troops at Valley Forge were printed on his paper. Friedrich and his wife Mary Unvergast (1732-1782) were married at and attended St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Germantown, and had five sons and five daughters. Frederich bequeathed the paper mills to his youngest son Frederick who later sold the business in 1821 because by that point the British began to export paper to the United States cheaper than it could be produced by the mills and the hand-made paper industry collapsed. Some mills tried to adapt by converting to producing gunpowder, but by the mid 19th Century steam energy had replaced flowing water, so water mills ceased to operate. [22]

There is an interesting notice in one of the German newspapers in Philadelphia dated March 27, 1761 that “Friedrich Bicking, of Lower Merion Township, advertises that his [indentured] servant, Jacob Bueck, age 18, has run away”.[23] Negro slavery wasn’t socially or morally acceptable in the Middle Colonies, but white servitude was commonplace. Each spring Agents would go to towns in Germany advertising the freedom and opportunities in Pennsylvania. Poor and usually illiterate Germans would agree that in exchange for passage to America, they would serve a legally binding term, usually four years, to the American who paid the Agent the cost of passage. The westerly voyage across the Atlantic took up to twelve weeks, and because of disease, overcrowding, rancid food, and nonexistent ventilation below deck, tragically over 50% of the immigrants died en-route. When the ship carrying Jacob Bueck landed in Philadelphia, Frederich, one of several businessmen who needed cheap laborers, boarded the ship. The prospective buyers inspected the servants, judged their states of health and morality, conversed with them to discover their degree of intelligence and docility, and finally, if satisfied, bought them and took them home. The scene was very similar to Negro slave auctions, except that the servant, being white, had certain legal rights recognized by each of the Colonies. It has been estimated that between half and two-thirds of all German immigrants to Pennsylvania from 1720-1775 entered through white servitude.[24] Frederich landed in Philadelphia on August 15, 1750, one of 500 passengers aboard the Royal Union out of Rotterdam by way of Plymouth.

Friedrich’s first-born son Richard Bicking (1753-1803) served as a Sergeant in the Montgomery County Militia during the Revolution, and fought at the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777.[25] Each county in each state was required to recruit at least one battalion of able-bodied men between the ages of 18-50. They would drill two days per month, would be called to active duty no more than sixty days each year, and each man was expected to provide his own musket and clothing. The mission of the Militia was to defend against an invading enemy, and to provide enforcing authority for the local Committee of Safety to suppress enemies, ie, “American Loyalists” to the British Crown. Because these were part-time soldiers, General Washington avoided using them in battle due to their undependability under fire, and the habit of militiamen to simply leave whenever they were needed at home. The most tangible contribution of the militia, however, was the political education of the populace. In 1776 the great majority of Americans were neither Patriot nor Loyalist, but neutral because they didn’t understand the issues involved. The very act of enrollment and participation in drilling forced most adult males to declare themselves by signing loyalty oaths.[26]

George Rex Jr. (1720-1772) was commissioned a Justice of the Peace of Heidelberg Township in Northampton County (now Lehigh County) in 1757, and on March 1, 1758 during the French and Indian War he signed a petition to the colonial government, asking for protection from the marauding Indians who were murdering and scalping pioneer families on the Pennsylvania frontier, and recommended construction of a fort on Blue Mountain just west of Germansville. Seven months later, from October 1-26, 1758, just twenty-five miles away from George Rex’s home, the most important Indian Congress in American history took place. Several hundred Indian chiefs and leaders from thirteen nations such as the Iroquois, Oneidas, Senecas, Mohawks, Western Delawares, Wyandots, and representatives of Tribes from the Ohio River Valley signed a Peace Treaty with the British Government. The Treaty of Easton formally ceded all land west of the Allegheny Mountains to the Indians, and the Pennsylvania and Virginia colonists agreed never to enter that territory to homestead. This treaty effectively split the French and Indian alliance, and ended the bloodshed in the backcountry.[27] Once peace was restored, George concentrated on enhancing his holdings, and by 1762 his taxes were the highest of any landowner in Heidelberg Township, and at the time of his death he owned 519 acres. The Rex family attended St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Germantown (where the Bickings also attended). George’s son, Wilhelm Rex (1743-1812) served as a Corporal and Quartermaster in the Northhampton County Militia (5th Company, 3rd Battalion) from 1777-1780 during the Revolution[28], then after the War ended Wilhelm moved to Roxborough Township in Montgomery County.

Wilhelm’s son, Heinrich Rex (1788-1864), was born outside of Philadelphia in an exciting era. The city had a population of just 37,000 citizens, the previous year fifty-five of our Founding Fathers had written the United States Constitution, and the immigration from Germany was resuming after being halted during the Revolution. Interestingly, the influx of Germans since 1708 had raised great concern among those of English ancestry. On May 9, 1753 Benjamin Franklin had written to a friend “ …they (the Germans) who come hither…not being used to liberty, they know not how to make modest use of it…few of their children in the country know English. They import many books from Germany…they have their own newspapers…the signs in our streets (Philadelphia) have inscriptions in both languages, and some places only in German. They begin, of late, to make all their bonds and other legal instruments in their own language, which (though I think it ought not to be), are allowed in our own courts, where German business so increases, that there is continual need of interpreters…In short, unless the stream of importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon outnumber us”. Even the brilliant Dr. Franklin was short-sighted about the contributions of Germans, because during the Revolution, Pennsylvania provided twelve regiments, eight of which were German-American. During the 19th Century the Germans in Philadelphia, because of their precise and disciplined natures, would become engineers, manufacturers, and leaders in business. The German population in 1788, however, responded to this covert disdain in two ways: those who remained in Philadelphia formed the German Society of Pennsylvania which became a legal advocate for the rights of immigrants and social reform.[29] The other option was for those pioneer-minded souls to strike out in the recently designed Conestoga wagons to explore the frontier west of the Appalachian Mountains, traveling over Ridge Road in Roxborough Township where the Rex family had settled as blacksmiths.

My Dad’s paternal great-grandparents were Josiah Bickings (1814-1890) and Heinrich’s daughter Melvina Rex (1821-1908), who in 1860 lived at “10 Mile Stone” (a rural designation meaning ten miles from center city Philadelphia traveling northwest on Ridge Road).[30] They attended the Reformed Dutch Church of Roxborough, and had eight children of whom five lived past infancy. On June 8, 1835 the cornerstone of the church building was laid, and certain parishioners volunteered to help with the construction. Josiah was a carpenter’s apprentice at the time, and after work over the course of several weeks built an elaborate spiral wooden pulpit. The founding pastor wrote in his journal of the influence of the American Temperance Society, and preaching a sermon against the doctrine of universalism. (Twenty-two years later the congregation elected to change denominations to become the Roxborough Presbyterian Church).[31]

Germany in 1848 was fragmented and retained much of the feudal system, with most of the thirty-nine states still ruled by kings or princes under their own laws and armies. Democratic opposition had been building for many years, and when a series of failed harvests sparked food riots, armed uprisings against the aristocracy erupted throughout Germany, and the state of Baden was one of the centers of the revolution. My paternal great-great grandfather, Michael Oberle (1810-1870) joined the rebellion against the Grand Duke of Baden, and was also a political activist as the National Assembly convened in Frankfurt to draft “Basic Rights for the German People”. Unfortunately, in 1849 the Assembly was forcibly disbanded by Prussian and Austrian troops, and revolutionaries such as Michael became disillusioned with the absence of democracy in their homeland. That same year he emigrated with his wife, Elizabeth Arnold (1821-1905), and their young son Frederick to New York City, and eventually to Philadelphia. There had been relatively few immigrants in the years 1776-1846 from Europe. The reluctance of many countries to permit emigration, plus the wars that occupied much of the period restricted the movement of people across the Atlantic. Thus, during the formative years of our nation, the social institutions that developed were decidedly WASP, or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. In the decade from 1846-1856, however, immigration exploded to over 3 million, primarily from Germany, Ireland and Great Britain. There was an immediate reaction from nativists, or native-born Americans, who saw danger in cultural pluralism, and equated national strength with national homogeneity. The European Sunday, for example, violated Puritan sensibilities. The Germans were the most conspicuous offenders, as they hurried from church to a merry afternoon in music halls and beer gardens. The Catholicism of the Irish was another incendiary issue of the period. The fear that the authoritarian nature of the Catholic Church was incompatible with American principles and institutions led to countless confrontations about what it meant to be an American.[32]

Michael’s occupation as a tailor was cut short by blindness, and although Elizabeth lived in America for fifty-six years, she never learned to read or write English. My Dad's maternal grandfather, Frederick Oberle (1848-1929) married Mary Hamilton (1848-1914) they lived at 3312 Amber St., had ten children (of whom only five lived past infancy) , and their second daughter was Mary Oberle (1882-1928) whose first husband, Thomas Kennish, died in a factory accident in 1908. Ten years later, Frederick's younger brother, Lafayette Oberle, was an outspoken German sympathizer during World War I, and the object of acts of vandalism for appearing Un-American. In an attempt to preserve the Oberle name in Philadelphia, Frederick purchased a large number of War Bonds to prove the family’s patriotism.

Frederick worked over 30 years for the John B. Stetson Company in Philadelphia, rising to the position of Superintendent of the Philadelphia hat manufacturing facility, and retired quite wealthy from all the stock Mr. Stetson awarded him.[33] Mr. Stetson was a committed Christian who attended Temple Baptist (where Stella Bach and my grandmother also attended). The Company facility at 4th Street and Montgomery Ave. consisted of 25 buildings on 9 acres of land, and in 1915 employed 4,000 men and 1,400 women who produced 11,000 hats every day! Mr. Stetson showed a paternalistic interest in the welfare of his employees by such enlightened initiatives as building the Union Mission Hospital in 1887 to provide health care, the Stetson Building and Loan Association which provided mortgages to employees, classes in English, American history and government for immigrant workers to become U.S. citizens, a baseball team that played in the Philadelphia Industrial League, a Boy Scout troop, a dental clinic, and a company paper called The Hat Box. Most important of all, however, were the nondenominational Sunday school and Tuesday morning prayer services at the plant, and the famous annual company Christmas party. The 1920 party for instance gave turkeys to all the married men, hats to the bachelors, and gloves and candies to the women. The company had such a fine reputation that there was a waiting list of applicants. They preferred to hire relatives of employees, corroborated by the fact that Frederick’s two sons Louis and George were also on the payroll. Frederick knew John B. Stetson well, and was influenced tremendously by this enlightened Christian businessman and visionary.[34]

Josiah’s son, Henry Bickings (1850-1915), a carpenter, married Clara McDowell Cornell (1859-1930) and they lived at 756 W. Manatawna Ave. After Frederick Oberle's wife Mary died, widower Frederick ironically married widow Clara Cornell Bickings, whom he met at the wedding of their children (my Dad's parents). Mary Oberle Kennish had married Everett Rex Bickings (1879-1957) a house builder, and they moved to Somers Point, New Jersey, in 1922, but Mary tragically died of breast cancer in 1928. Dad's most painful childhood memory was returning home from school the day she died, and her not responding to his daily cry " Is anybody home?" with her predictable and reassuring "Here I am, Harold!" As a child, I can recall Dad always asking that question when he came in the back door from work each evening, and Mom, knowing this deep hurt, made it a priority to always be there to respond "Here I am, Harold!" After Mary Oberle Kennish Bickings died in 1928, Everett, being was a very private man, almost reclusive, was selfishly unwilling to take care of Dad, so he initially lived with his grandparents Frederick and Clara in Somers Point until their deaths.

My father, Harold Everett Bickings (1917-1998) was born in the Roxborough ward of Philadelphia. He was a football player of local renown in the Ocean City High School Class of 1935 ( a 6'2", 218 lb fullback, linebacker, and kicker) and played many of his games in the Convention Hall in Atlantic City where the Miss America Pageants are held. This was the era of leather helmets without face masks, and drop kicks. After high school he therefore enlisted, and in lieu of basic training, a concept which did not exist at the time, proceeded directly to his first assignment, the 62nd Coast Artillery at Fort Totten, New York, in the Queens borough. The 62nd was subdivided into A Battery (Searchlights), B&C Batteries (3" Guns), E&F Batteries (50 Caliber Machine Guns), and Dad was in F Battery. Interestingly, I stayed at Fort Totten for a week thirty years later in July 1965 when I was a Boy Scout tour guide for the 1964-1965 New York City World's Fair held nearby in Flushing Meadows Park. Dad was on the Post Football Team, therefore exempt from many of the banalities of Army life. Fort Totten would play Army teams from other posts around New York City - Fort Hancock (Sea Coast Artillery), Fort Hamilton (18th Infantry), and Fort Jay (16th Infantry). Each summer his unit would travel to Fort Ontario, New York, for live firings. Dad was discharged in 1939 and attended New Jersey State Teachers College at Glassboro, New Jersey (since renamed Rowan University) where he met Esther Peterson. (Their first date was to go see the movie “Wizard of Oz”, and at Mom’s funeral in October 2008 we had Nancy play “Over the Rainbow”). Mom said Dad was very shy around girls, and would blush easily. He was too respectful, because Mom thought he would never kiss her! When Dad asked his future father-in-law for his daughter's hand in marriage, Pop knew Dad only made $42/month as any Army Corporal. Pop queried "Can you support my daughter in the manner to which she is accustomed?" Dad bravely replied, "I'll try, Sir." Mom and Dad had their wedding rehearsal on Friday night at 9:15pm and were married at 3:00pm on Saturday June 14, 1941 in Berean Baptist Temple by Dr. Charles H. Shaw. Mom's Matron of Honor was her sister Marie, and Dad's Best Man was George Gernerd, his former boss at Swift & Co. (In 1928 Gernerd had been awarded the Carnegie Hero Fund Medal and a $1,600 scholarship for saving a woman from drowning, and he later played football at Muhlenberg College).[35] Elizabeth Stanger played the organ, and the music listing was Because, At Dawning, Ave Maria, and I Love You Truly. The reception for 55 guests was in the Cumberland Hotel Ballroom, and the menu was fruit cup, chicken croquettes, peas, French fries, wedding cake and ice cream. Other interesting notes: the color scheme was a “rainbow wedding”: bride’s gown was white marquisette and lace made with a square neck and long sleeves, matron of honor wore rose, and the two bridesmaids (Betty Ruff Peterson and Lottie Bonham) wore daffodil yellow, and blue. Mom’s little sister, Betty was the flower girl, Lang’s Florist cost $35, wedding dress $20, veil $16, Gardenia corsages $3, Schofield Photography $30, Mom’s crystal pattern was The Diane by Cambridge, her flat silver pattern was Etruscan by Gorham. Mom and Dad honey-mooned in New York City, stayed at the Times Square Hotel for $5/night, attended a live radio broadcast, and watched history in the making. On June 17th they took the subway to Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees play the Chicago White Sox. Joe DiMaggio went 1 for 4 in what turned out to be game #30 of his record-setting 56 game hitting streak![36] Dad was recalled into the Army in 1941, went to Anti-Aircraft Artillery Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Camp Davis, North Carolina, then was assigned to the 71st Coast Artillery at Washington D.C.

In October 1918 Nana was four months pregnant with Mom, and Nana was careful not to contract the dreaded Spanish Influenza. Before the year was out 675,000 Americans would die from the flu - more than the total of all Americans to die in WWI, WWII, Korea and Viet-Nam combined! It was an epidemic that knew no borders, killing over twenty-five million people worldwide. The worst month in the United States was October, when 195,000 people died. The resulting national hysteria generated various speculations on how the disease began, the most xenophobic being that the Germans had landed a U-boat off the East Coast and dropped off canisters containing the deadly microbes.[37] Nana Bach urged bed rest, salts of quinine, aspirin, and everyone wearing a protective cloth “flu” mask until her daughter and as yet unborn grandchild were past the danger. My mother, Esther Mae Peterson Bickings, was born in the house at 196 Commerce Street in Bridgeton, the second of five children. Mom was the Vice-President of the Bridgeton High School class of 1936 her sophomore, junior and senior years. I once asked Mom why her high school yearbook had the prediction that ‘one day Esther would be a missionary in the Belgian Congo’. She replied that her classmates knew how active she was in church activities, and how her life was changed by attending the Percy Crawford Pinebrook Bible Camp in near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, in the Pocono Mountains. Percy Crawford was a popular young Evangelist in the Delaware Valley in the ‘30s. Mom was attending this camp on August 2, 1934 when she got an unusual telephone call from her father. Pop said that the night before a strong storm came through Bridgeton where his three oyster boats were temporarily docked in the Cohansey River. Violent winds broke the boats loose from their moorings, and one of the boats, the CJ Peterson, slammed into the Commerce Street Bridge, completely destroying it. The town’s traffic was disrupted, and Pop told Mom that the Peterson family wasn’t real popular at the moment!

During WWII Mom’s brother John was a 1st Lieutenant pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps flying C-47 cargo planes in the 62nd Troop Carrier Squadron of the 314th Troop Carrier Wing, stationed first in Tunisia and Sicily in 1943, then in February 1944 his unit was reassigned to Saltby, Leicestershire, England. His unit dropped paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division into Normandy on D-Day June 6, 1944, on September 17, 1944 he dropped British paratroopers near Arnhem , Holland, delivered fuel to General Patton’s 3rd Army’s tanks advancing across France, and also dropped supplies to the beleaguered troops of the 101st Airborne Division surrounded at Bastogne at the Battle of the Bulge. The 62nd relocated to Poix, France, in February, 1945 to be closer to the front lines. A special family story is that in 1943 when John was leaving to go overseas to fly combat missions in North Africa, Nana Bach feared for the safety of her oldest grandson. She presented him a pocket Bible that her father, David Eisenberg had carried with him during the Civil War. She said that ‘God’s Word had kept her father safe from harm, and prayed it would bring her grandson home’. John was touched by the keepsake, and always had it tucked in his flight jacket when he flew missions. After the War, Uncle John opened a Zenith Appliance store in Bridgeton, and would always sell to relatives at his cost. Whenever a family member entered his store, he would jokingly yell out to employees and customers alike “well, here is a sale, but no profit!”

Her freshman year of college Mom attended the New Jersey State Teachers College at Trenton, then transferred and went three years to Glassboro, graduating in 1940. She would spend the weekend at home, and take the train from Bridgeton to Glassboro each Monday morning, and live in the Laurel Residence Hall during the week. Interestingly, racial discrimination wasn’t as prevalent as modern revisionists would have us believe, because out of ninety-four graduates in that class that paid college tuition during the depths of the Great Depression without government loan assistance, eleven were black! Mom loved to dance, and was especially fond of the Glenn Miller Band. "Moonlight Serenade, In the Mood, Chattanooga Choo Choo, American Patrol, and I've got a Gal in Kalamazoo" became favorites of mine. When any of these songs came on the radio or stereo in our home, we became almost reverent in our hushed silence! You could see the look on Mom’s face as she listened to those songs, obviously reliving the dance steps, the sound of the band, her dresses, and the youthful energy she had back then. After she and Dad were married, she taught school for two years, choosing to be a full-time homemaker when my sister Stella was born. Dad had worked at Swift & Co. as a meat handler, then a foreman from 1939-1941 when he was recalled into the Army. After the War, Dad returned to Swift & Co. and was promoted to the plant supervisor in Camden. Several nights a week after work he would take a train to Philadelphia and attend the University of Pennsylvania Evening School of Accounts and Finance. In 1949 he left Swift, they moved back to Bridgeton, and Dad started working for Pop. In the summer of 1950 when the Korean War broke out, Dad was again recalled back into the Army. His unit, the 94th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, 2nd Armored Division, left by troop ship out of Galveston in July 1951 for Germany to defend against a possible Soviet attack in Europe. He returned in February 1952, so I was five months old when he first saw me. Mom told me she got my name from a journeyman baseball pitcher with the old St. Louis Browns, Duane Pillete. I think the only notable thing about him was that his father, Herman Pillette pitched for the Detroit Tigers 1922-1924 as a teammate of Ty Cobb.

By 1958 the Peterson Packing Company had 2,400 acres under State lease in the Delaware Bay, a wharf in Bivalve and Greenwich, oyster beds in Delaware and Virginia, the two boats, the CJ Peterson and John C Peterson, and a shucking house in Bivalve where upwards of 110 workers opened the oysters. I remember all of that, and it was an impressive, bustling company. Then a slow decline sapped the life out of the entire industry. U.S. food production had to be increased to support the requirements of the war effort in WWII, so the restriction of using sail only in the Bay was lifted and diesel engines were introduced in 1945. This made catching oysters much more efficient, but it depleted the supply. The human population of the Delaware Valley doubled from 1910-1960, and human use of fresh water limited oysters of this absolute necessity for their reproduction. When Dad returned from Germany, he resumed working for Pop as a deckhand on the oyster boats. In 1953 he made a thinly veiled threat that he would leave if Pop didn't give him more responsibility and captain one of the boats. Pop relented, and Dad eventually bought the business, with Pop carrying the note. In 1958 the parasite MSX destroyed almost the entire oyster population in the Delaware Bay. Whereas in 1915 there were over 400 oyster boats in the Bay, by 1962 there were less than 50. Dad was a resourceful small businessman who responded to this virtual collapse by diversifying the company in opening a breading plant where, in an assembly-line environment, the oysters would be covered with bread crumbs to facilitate deep fry cooking. In 1962 he purchased the Newport Seafood Company, a fish market in Ventnor City, New Jersey, just south of Atlantic City. On Saturdays and vacations I would work there. My jobs were to peel shrimp and throw live green shelled lobsters into pots of boiling water which would turn the lobsters red and kill them. The best business day was Friday when the Catholics, who were enjoined from eating meat on that day, would buy fresh fish from us. In 1964 Dad purchased a smaller dredging boat, the Vigilant (a skipjack built in Maryland of pine instead of white oak) so he could plant and harvest oysters in the Great Bay near Atlantic City. By the early 1970s however, it was obvious that the industry would not recover. Dad decided to ride it out until he could retire, but in the meantime Hal, and later John came back into the business. They stayed until 1986 when Dad took advantage of a generous offer to sell to a firm in Connecticut. Hal and John left the business to pursue other careers, the shucking house was demolished, and the boats were retrofitted down to the keel. I went to Port Norris and Bivalve with Dad years later and was astonished at how an entire way of life had literally disappeared. All the great shucking houses were gone, the tenant housing for the workers were leveled, the wharves were collapsing, hulls of once magnificent schooners were beached and rotting, and the natural vegetation along the Maurice River had reclaimed its dominance. It is sobering to witness such a brutal end of a once proud way of life. As I walked with Dad along the old wharves, for the only time in my life I saw him visibly grieve as he felt the past tugging at his heart. The oyster captains and crews were a rugged breed, working against punishing elements of icy winds in the winter, or limp sails hanging lifeless in the heat of a summer day, dangerous seas with boats capsizing and crews lost, back-breaking and monotonous labor as a deckhand. We are left with only the photographic memory of the romantic sight of hundreds of schooners under full sail, the fierce independence and authority of a captain, and the satisfaction of sons then grandsons growing up in the business then taking over from their fathers. As a boy I used to accompany my Dad to the Palomino Restaurant in Port Norris, a small diner where the prominent captains would sit on stools at a counter for early morning breakfast or just coffee. I was so proud to be permitted to sit near men of such stature and strength. I am grateful for the brief time I was part of that era. My work ethic was shaped in that very demanding and uncompromising world. My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather each set an example of hard work, honesty, thrift and perseverance that I have tried to emulate.

Chapter 2

1954-1970

Address: 21 Woodlawn Avenue

Bridgeton, New Jersey 08302

Bridgeton was a town of about 18,000 people, originally settled by the Swedes in 1686. Its name is descriptive - three bridges cross the Cohansey River that runs through town. The largest employers when I grew up there were an Owens-Illinois glass manufacturer and numerous processing plants for agricultural products. Tomatoes were a significant cash crop, so Ritters Ketchup Plant was an economic mainstay. In late August each year, over one hundred trucks loaded with recently picked tomatoes from nearby fields would line up on Broad Street waiting to deliver to Ritters. The pungent smell of recently processed hot ketchup wafting through town for a three week period was almost nauseating. Trucking companies transported out potatoes, asparagus, apples, peaches, and milk from the nearby dairies. State Highway 49 each summer carried a steady caravan of cars and stationwagons loaded with beach paraphernalia headed to the " Jersey Shore ". Bridgeton had one high school, one radio station (WSNJ), a local hangout, "The Sweet Shop" where soda fountain jerks served coke floats while the jute box blared deafening dance tunes each afternoon, and the one movie theater, "The Laurel", where a teenage rite of passage was to neck on the back row until a uniformed usher shone a flashlight at the couple breaking up their Friday night tryst. There was so much history and tradition - the old Broad Street Church built in 1795 still used for city-wide Thanksgiving Day services. The Cumberland National Bank built in 1816 where my family had always banked. The high school football stadium was supposed to have been built in eight months in 1938, but it dragged on for two years, prompting local wags to say that President Roosevelt’s New Deal WPA didn’t stand for the Works Projects Administration, but rather “We Poke Along!” Bridgeton was a quiet little town, an ethnic melting pot of German, Italian, Jewish, Polish, Japanese (many of whom in 1942-1943 were transferred from the internment camps in California to work in the fields for Seabrook Farms), and African cultures.

At school during the late '50s and early '60s we had air raid drills. We thought it was kind of amusing to stand in the hall of Hopewell Township School with your arms around your head and covering your face. I had no comprehension of the psychological pall that the specter of nuclear attack had cast over the American mentality at the time. At one point in the third grade I didn't have anything interesting for our weekly "Show and Tell" time, so I decided to wow 'em by memorizing Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. After I recited the speech in its entirely for my class, the teacher, to my chagrin, paraded me before five other elementary classes in our hall to replicate my feat. I learned at a tender age what would later be reaffirmed in the military, "If you stand out in a crowd, you're going to get volunteered for something" John Kennedy was the first President I can remember. JFK’s 64 live press conferences televised from the State Department auditorium were a treat because of his witty and clever responses to questions, and how telegenic he was. In October 1962, I followed the developing Cuban Missile Crisis by reading the New York Times newspaper each day. The gravity of the situation became clear to me when JFK gave a speech on TV one evening announcing that he had ordered a U.S. Navy blockade of Cuba. My brother Hal laughed at something he said, and Dad snapped at him and said, "This isn't funny, we are on the brink of a nuclear world war." I had trouble going to sleep that night. I kept listening for the whine of some incoming Russian missile. Space was a prominent part of my education through the fourth grade. Each time there was a manned flight (Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn) we would have the radio newscast piped into each schoolroom over the PA system. At that time we had school prayer, and the teacher would have us bow our heads and pray for the astronaut's safety.

Each summer starting in 1957 all the family would go to Ocean City for 2 weeks. We rented an apartment, usually the second floor of a home about three blocks from the shore, near 26th and Wesley where Grace Kelly’s family had a summer home. Dad worked as usual, but Mom and us kids would get up late and spend all day at the beach. I would raft and body surf, get tanned, search for sea shells, play pick-up games of volleyball, ah the halcyon days of the Beach Boy era! At night we dressed up to go on the Boardwalk. We would go to a movie, listen to a concert on the Music Pier, or just stroll up and down the shops that lined the 2 ½ mile Ocean City Boardwalk. On Sundays we would attend the Ocean City Tabernacle, a non-denominational Protestant Association that actually founded Ocean City in 1879, then go to Simms Restaurant on the boardwalk for milk and a sticky bun. I can recall Aunt Clara in 1959 when she was the hostess at Watson's Restaurant in Ocean City. Watson's was a popular seafood restaurant about three blocks from the boardwalk, and the line waiting to get in on those tranquil summer evenings by the seashore would often be over a block long. If Mom, Dad, Stella, Hal, John and I were in the back of the line, Aunt Clara would spot us and call out "Party of six in the back, your reservations are ready". We would sheepishly walk past everyone else in line knowing that a) Watson's did not take reservations, and b) there were always at least four other parties of six ahead of us. Watson's had a gimmick that under certain plates were tickets to obtain free fudge at a shop called the Copper Kettle on the boardwalk, and Aunt Clara always surreptitiously arranged for one of us kids to have a ticket under our plate. The waitresses were college girls who got tickled at Aunt Clara's playfulness.

In 1962 after being a Cub Scout for two years, I joined the Boy Scouts. Troop 99 of the Cohanzick District was the largest troop in South Jersey and was affiliated with the Central Methodist Church in Bridgeton. We had troop meeting each Monday evening from 7:00-8:30 p.m. I was in the Beaver Patrol, one of six patrols in the troop. We went on weekend camping trips about every two months to a different state park in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I'll never forget the first camping trip I went on to the Delaware Water Gap State Park cradled among the Kittatinny Mountains in Northwestern New Jersey. We didn't arrive until 11:30 p.m. Friday, and on the drive up, kids from my patrol were throwing things out the back of the station-wagon in which we were riding. We were long on enthusiasm, short on good judgment. When we got to the campsite, our Scout Master, Tech Hetteroth, a large barrel-chested man about 45 years old who was with the 1st Marine Division in the Pacific in World War II, was infuriated with our behavior and told us our punishment would commence early Saturday at 5 a.m. He got us up, made us dig latrine holes until 7 a.m., permitted us to eat a meager breakfast and then made us run laps until we dropped. The rest of the trip included hiking, crafts, and field cooking. It was ironic that when I first went on camping trips, I took, or rather Mom packed, a large duffel bag full of clothes. By the end of my scouting years, I barely filled a small knapsack full of things I needed - what a veteran. In April 1965 I completed the requirements for the rank of Eagle Scout. I just loved the merit badges, they were so colorful on my sash. As soon as I got a new one, I would pester Mom to sew it on as quickly as possible, and I would swell up with pride as I gazed at it each night before I went to bed. Boy Scouts was a very significant part of my life growing up. I learned how to set goals, then accomplish them. I learned basic skills, responsibility, and small unit leadership. After I made Eagle, I participated in the Sea Scouts for about a year, then dropped out of Scouting when I got involved in high school athletics.

Our daily cuisine was varied and had alot of fried foods. For breakfast on weekdays Mom rustled up either hot oatmeal, cream of wheat, french toast, or scrambled eggs with plenty of orange juice. For supper we had seafood at least twice a week - flounder, roe, scallops, clams, crab, and naturally, oyster stew. Other meals included sauerkraut and pork with mashed potatoes, scrapple, meatloaf with corn or beans from our garden, spaghetti, fried liver with onions (yuk!), split pea soup with ham, and corn or apple fritters. On Sunday we either had a roast with mashed potatoes and gravy (my only culinary skill was mashing out by hand all the lumps out of the potatoes), lamb with mint jelly, or pork. Mom liked to bake desserts, and Dad had an intemperate practice of buying pastries from a local bakery. Our strawberry patch each summer provided us ample provision of delicious strawberries all winter to complement Mom's shortcake.

In 1959 Dad took me to my first major league baseball game at Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium at 21st and Lehigh in Philadelphia to see the Phillies play the Milwaukee Braves. I’ll never forget seeing the field for the first time, and thinking how awesome the green grass was! Shibe Park, built in 1909 with just 33,000 seats, was the first steel and concrete ballpark, had a brick colonial revival exterior, and the most distinctive feature was a French Renaissance church-like dome on the exterior roof behind home plate.[38] This classic old ballpark was the home field of the Philadelphia Athletics from 1909-1954, so Ty Cobb, Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson and Lou Gehrig played ball there. During the “Golden Age of Ballparks” (1909-1913) Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, Chicago’s Wrigley Field, Boston’s Fenway Park, and Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field were built. The urban setting was a central part of their character. Designed to be in harmony with the architecture of the neighborhood, these ballparks had to conform to the layout of the city streets, creating interesting angles and contours. I think that baseball is timeless, and attending a ballgame makes a connection with people from one hundred years ago. Back then, men wore a tie and a Stetson Hat, women wore dresses, you traveled to the game not in cars, but rather by trolley or horse. Since there was no P.A. system or electronic scoreboard blaring noises between innings, the only sounds you heard were the crack of a ball against the bat, and the vendors calling out their wares. Decorum was always expected and maintained, and certain parks observed moral proprieties (beer wasn’t sold within Shibe Park until 1961!) It was such a tranquil setting against the bright green grass, no wonder city dwellers referred to that place as a ball park. A hobby has been to attend a game at every major league ballpark in the country. So far I’ve been to the three “Classic Parks” Fenway, Wrigley, and Yankee Stadium. I have also been to several of the “Retro Parks” - Camden Yards, Jacobs Field, and The Ballpark at Arlington, Houston, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. Since they keep building new parks, this hobby will be a lifetime pursuit!

During the summer of 1966, I began working for my Dad. He bought some clam grounds in the Great Bay on the New Jersey shore. More specifically, he purchased about twelve acres of bottom, and the acreage was divided into lots or sections by straight tree limbs stuck into the ground. The water depth in these inlets along the shore measured eight to fifteen feet. He also had two garveys, open decked boats about 25 feet long, 6 feet wide, with sides about three feet high and in-board engines. Hal and I (and later John) would get up at 3:30 a.m. each weekday, get dressed and go to the kitchen where Dad would be sitting at the table drinking a cup of coffee reading his Bible. We would then drive to Oyster Creek, a commercial marina where our boats were docked, get in the boats and travel the four miles out into the bay, and start working by 6 a.m. We used either tongs, which are scissor-like tools that had teeth at the ends to scoop up the clams which were sitting on the top of the mud bottom, or we used rakes with long handles. We would simply let the tide drift us along in the boat and the rake would scoop up the clams. As we got to the line of our lot, we would dump the clams in our boat, start up the engine, and travel to the opposite side of the lot and repeat the process. It was strenuous work for your upper body and legs because you had to continuously pull up a rake loaded with clams. We had a transistor radio playing the entire day. I memorized every rock-and-roll song written between 1966 and 1970. We stopped at noon each day because it would get unbearably hot with the sun reflecting off the water. We would then start counting and separating the clams by size. I usually caught around 1,600 clams per day. We then bagged them up to deliver to a shipper who purchased them from us. These clams were delivered to restaurants in the Atlantic City area that evening, and most people were unaware that they were eating clams less than eighteen hours out of the water. I once calculated that I caught approximately 105,000 clams in my abbreviated maritime career. Each spring vacation from school we overhauled the garveys - scaling off the barnacles, putting a protective copper coating on the bottom, painting, and working on the engine.

Our family church was Berean Baptist Temple, a three hundred-member congregation under the auspices of the American Baptist Convention. Established in 1893, only three successive pastors held the pulpit from 1902-1975, a reflection of the church's predictability. Countless "three point sermons and a poem" depicted Jesus more as a moral teacher than a Savior. I dutifully attended Sunday School and children's choir, and was an usher in my high school years. The sanctuary was ornately designed, with polished oak ceiling trusses, a sprawling pipe organ, and beautiful stained glass windows. On sultry August Sunday mornings long before air conditioning, it was humorous to observe everyone vigorously fanning themselves with those colorful hand-held fans donated by the local funeral parlor. I can recall that by the 11th grade I wasn't getting anything out of church, and would pretend to be busy doing usher duties in the foyer because I couldn't bear to sit through another dry and meaningless philosophical discourse sprinkled with religious platitudes.

My freshman year at BJHS (Bridgeton Junior High School) I took Civics, English, Algebra, General Science, and Typing. The week before school started my sophomore year, the BHS "Bulldog" football team went to an eight day football camp which was actually a secluded resort in the South Jersey pine barrens with cabins that could sleep about eight guys. The athletic regimen consisted of getting up at 6 a.m., doing exercises until 7 a.m., breakfast, padded drills in the morning, lunch, scrimmage in the afternoon, and then we would stagger to a lake where we'd just sit, exhausted and sore, in the cool pine water. After supper the coaches conducted blackboard drills going over individual assignments for each play, and finally Taps at 10 p.m. My sophomore year I took Geometry, Biology, Spanish, English and World History. Once a year during my high school years Mom and Dad took John and me to New York City for a weekend. We would stay at the Essex House, eat at a nice restaurant, see a sporting event at Madison Square Garden, then attend a Broadway play on Saturday evening. The next morning we usually attended Norman Vincent Peale's church, the Marble Collegiate Church in Lower Manhattan. Mom and Dad had taken “escape weekend” trips to New York City their entire marriage, and had attended the original stage productions of Sound of Music , My Fair Lady , and Camelot.

“This is not what I want to do on a Saturday” I grumbled to myself. It was February, 1968, and I was a high school sophomore bent over on the deck of the John C in the Delaware Bay. It was one thing to work summers for Dad, but now even on Saturdays during the school year, when all my friends were playing basketball, seeing girls, or just sleeping late! I thought it extremely unfair to be forced to work such a grueling and physical job as a deckhand. It was cold, windy, and I was soaked from the waves crashing against the bow as I held on for safety. (The movie “The Perfect Storm” accurately depicts life as a deckhand). Dad was not only steering the John C, but more importantly he was controlling the dredging. This entailed having the deckhands on both sides of the boat throw overboard a dredge which would drag along the bottom for about five minutes until full of oysters. Dad would then pull in the dredge using a mechanical winch. When the dredge reached the surface, the deckhands would reach down to pull it on board, dumping out the contents of oysters and loose shells. We would then throw the dredge overboard once again for another drag. My daily quota was to cull out 35 bushels of oysters. Each time I had filled my steel-wired bushel basket, I would stand up, find a burlap bag, and dump the bushel of oysters into the bag, then quickly get back to work as the next dredge was coming to surface. As an immature 16 year old, my only goal was to reach my quota as quickly as possible so I could quit for the day. Then it happened. I was about to dump my 10th bushel into a separate bag when Dad leaned out of the pilothouse and yelled to me “What are you doing?” I was in no mood for answering obvious questions, but since he was the captain, and I was the captive, I held my tongue and replied “I’ve finished my bushel, so it’s time to bag it”. He shocked me by saying “No you haven’t. That bushel is only ¾ full. Pick it up and shake it and see what you have”. Because I could tell that arguing was pointless, I complied. Sure enough, when shaken, the oysters settled and were far from the top of the basket. Dad looked at me and explained “When a customer opens a bag of oysters with my name on it, he is paying not only for a product, but also my reputation for honesty. Put more than a bushel of oysters in a bag, because a man’s integrity is worth more than mere money”. Years later, I was sitting in church one Sunday and heard a sermon on Luke 6:38 “Give and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” As that long-forgotten incident came rushing back, a smile slowly came over my face. I am grateful to have had a Dad who courageously put a speck of sand in the midst of my complaining and grumbling. Just as a pearl is created by sand irritating an oyster, so too a job requirement, an act of discipline, or an object lesson can be the catalyst that one day will be recognized as a pearl of wisdom.

My junior year I took Spanish II, US History, Physics, Algebra II and English. Our English Lit class occasionally made day trips to Princeton University to see a local repertory company perform a Shakespearean play. Then my senior year I took English, Trigonometry, Chemistry and U.S. History II. The 1969 football season I was 5'8" tall, 185 lbs, and a left guard (#66). John was a sophomore 6'3", 215 lbs, and next to me at left tackle (#75). We were 3-5-2 that year. I was named to the All-Cumberland County Football Team my senior year, which meant that I was chosen as the best left guard among three schools - Bridgeton, Millville, and Vineland. John was a much better player than me, and in his senior year was properly recognized by his selection to the All-South Jersey Football Team, as the best left tackle among over fifty high schools. Quarterbacks, running backs, and receivers obviously get all the press and name recognition, but I really enjoyed playing an inconspicuous position. It was gratifying to have a back return to the huddle after a spectacular thirty yard run, the crowd cheering him, and he looks you in the eye and whispers, “Thanks for the block." I suppose that the station of left guard on a football team fit my persona. Our schedule included Atlantic City, Vineland, Cherry Hill West, Oakcrest, Cherry Hill East, Pennsuaken, Holy Spirit, Mainland, and Burlington. My most memorable game was against our archrival, the Millville "Thunderbolts". The previous year they humiliated us 76-0 when most of our first string players were injured. So my senior year we were bent on revenge. The week prior to the game, townspeople crowded the practice field psyching us up for the contest. Saturday morning the Chamber of Commerce gave us a steak breakfast and by kickoff at 1:30 p.m., a throng of 5,000 was in the stands. My opponent was their right defensive tackle, W.C. Gaskins, a 6'2", 240 lb black athlete who ran right through me the first play of the game to sack our quarterback. The only way I could contain him was to throw cross-body blocks all afternoon, tangling up his legs. He kept kicking me in the ribs each play, but there is something worse than getting pummeled, and that is letting your QB get decked, so I kept throwing those blocks. It was a glorious day, our team playing with a single-mindedness and confidence while W.C. was beating up on me. When the final gun sounded, we had won 22-8. That evening I didn't go the Victory Dance, my ribs were so bruised I could hardly breathe, let alone move about. We used to have a little tradition at home after a game, if we won Dad cooked us a steak dinner, but if we lost we got hot dogs.

I didn’t date in high school because Dad had convinced me that guys who spent time with girls were soft, and not real men. I suppose he used this stratagem to keep me from being distracted from my goal of going to West Point. Anyway, there were two or three girls I thought were cute, and I enjoyed being with them. I would go over to their homes to have dinner with their parents who thought I was real nice - they figured I was harmless enough around their daughters. I did take a girl to the Senior Prom because Dad said I needed to learn how to conduct myself with a young lady. The turn of the century song “I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old Dad” summed up my love life. I was physically attracted to girls, but wouldn’t get serious until I met someone like Mom. I had alot of questions about girls, and Mom and I would have many late night talks. She was very encouraging, interested in what I was feeling, and personified a Christian lady for me.

I graduated from high school 11th out of my class of 590, and was mesmerized with the thought of departing for West Point to the extent I was beginning to mentally and emotionally distance myself from my high school friends. I was stupefied at how adults could live so mundane an existence, living in the same town year after year, having the same friends, seeing the same sights, and displaying such a provincial attitude. I never fully enjoyed life at the moment, because I was always looking to some future expectation that would finally give me peace. Only as an adult have I begun to appreciate my youth. I think it was George Bernard Shaw who wrote, "Youth is a wonderful thing, too bad it has to be wasted on the young."

Chapter 3

1970-1974

Address: Company E-1, USCC

West Point, New York 10996

The United States Military Academy at West Point is located approximately fifty miles north of New York City on the west bank of the Hudson River. Founded in 1802 on the recommendation of George Washington, over the years this institution has become the repository of a heritage of values and traditions exemplified by three hallowed words - Duty, Honor, Country. An overwhelming sense of history permeates the entire post, where such distinguished men as Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas McArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower had their youthful characters shaped. To take one's place in "The Long Gray Line", the continuum of young men who for 168 years had stood ready to defend our nation was a solemn privilege. Rather than relinquish one's identity, each cadet becomes a unique reflection of the noblest of human choices, selfless devotion to a cause greater than oneself. I entered West Point at 7:30 a.m. on July 1, 1970. The Class of '74 matriculated 1,350, and we lost fifty the first day, one hundred more by Labor Day, finally graduating 833 on June 5, 1974. Nobody said it was going to be easy. The justification for, and morality of, U.S. involvement in South Viet-Nam was an emotionally charged issue from 1965-1975. I viewed as a fait accompli that upon graduation four years hence I would become Second Lieutenant cannon fodder in what in 1970 had the appearance of an interminable conflict. Around 9 p.m. that first day at the Academy, my entire class was herded into South Auditorium in Thayer Hall for an introductory briefing. After forty-five minutes of information about what was expected of us, a Major opened the program up for questions. A new cadet asked what was foremost on everyone's mind, but were hesitant to voice, "Sir, what do you think of the War in Viet-Nam?". A pregnant pause ensued, no one moved, not even a cough broke the tension of the moment. To his credit, the Officer did not evade the issue, but offered a stirring response that I shall never forget (paraphrase) "There is continuing public debate concerning the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia. An Army Officer must ever remember that he is a Servant of the State, and the elected leaders of government must be given the latitude to determine, no matter how slowly, or at what cost in human lives spent on a foreign battlefield, the course of our nation. The Officer Corps must never pursue military power to usurp the reins of government whenever we disagree with our civilian leaders. After the reality of two years of combat, I believe there is something far worse than my dying in what history may one day regard as a controversial war, and that is to recant my sworn oath to defend the Constitution, and disrupt the normal process of the people altering the policies of our country through democratic elections." As I sat there trying to grasp the significance of that speech, I remember thinking to myself that one day I wanted to have strength of convictions like that.

The first two months are endearingly termed "Beast Barracks". It is similar to basic training, except that we were treated as apprentice officers. One of the most illustrative events I can recall was a particular bivouac towards the end of July. At twilight some mess trucks brought in our meal. Up to that point, the upperclassmen had always exercised RHIP (rank has its privileges). Yet as we stood in line for the food, the seniors did not exercise their prerogative, but let us go first. When I later asked why, one senior replied that in case there wasn't enough food, it was more important for us, the subordinates, to eat. Honor is a basic tenant of the Academy. The Honor Code "A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate anyone who does" is based on the concept that intent is more important than the action - “did you intend to deceive, or to withhold information?” There was zero tolerance, and no appeals, just immediate separation from the Corps. I have made it a practice to disclose any potentially negative situation, and my recommendation on how to deal with it, to my superior within one hour of my recognizing the situation. I will let him decide how serious it is, and if he agrees with my assessment. I admittedly run the risk of raising the specter of something that may never occur. A Commander once told me “Make sure you tell me bad news rather than my Commander surprising me with the bad news.” More importantly, however, is that each of us should be accountable to someone, and since human nature will always rationalize and justify one’s actions, we must be willing to have everything we do, say, or even think exposed to the light of day. I will not compromise my honor for career, possessions, or reputation.

The daily regimen of Plebes Monday through Friday was:

5:30 a.m. Reveille

6:00 Inspection by Squad Leaders

6:15-6:50 Breakfast

7:00-7:30 Clean rooms for inspection, and last minute studying

7:30-12:00 Classes

12 p.m.-1:00 Lunch

1:00-3:15 Classes

3:30-5:45 Intramural sports or parades

6:00-7:00 Dinner

7:10-10:50 Mandatory study restricted to your room

11 p.m. Taps

Saturdays we had class until noon and then an inspection parade until 1 p.m. We then had free time until 6 p.m. Sunday but couldn't leave the post.

The United States Corps of Cadets (USCC) during my years at the Academy had 4,200 men (women were first admitted in 1976), and was organized into four regiments. Each regiment was then subdivided into three battalions and each battalion had three companies. My company for the four years was E Company in the First Regiment. My class of '74 in E-1 started out with thirty-four and we graduated twenty-seven. (Our most distinguished classmate was Dave Patreus, who would be promoted to 4 Star General and command U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq 2007-2008.) Plebe year at USMA (United States Military Academy) was replete with both physical and academic hazing. Physical hazing took various forms - proper posture was developed by having one's heels against a wall and holding a pencil horizontally against the same wall with the back of the neck for three minutes; if that Plebe showed even a flicker of anger or frustration a clandestine "character building" session after Taps would be conducted with five or six upperclassmen screaming emotionally charged insults trying to get him to crack. Mealtime in the Mess Hall was often interrupted by demands of the Plebe to recite all the athletic and social events occurring that week at the Academy, plus any or all of the approximately twenty-five speeches, songs, and other snippets of West Point lore. We had calculus 1 1/2 hours a day, six days a week for the first year. Other academic classes Plebe year were: Engineering Drafting, Astronomy and Astronautics, Basic Engineering Design, English Composition I and II, World Regional Geography, Spanish I and II, and Fundamentals of Military Science I and II. Required PE classes were: boxing, wrestling, survival swimming and gymnastics. For intramural sports I played football in the fall, wrestling in the winter, and cross-country in the spring. Hand held calculators by Texas Instruments were being field-tested throughout the Corps my last semester, but the entire four years I was there we depended on the slide rule, or "slip stick" to perform mathematical calculations. To ensure we studied, there was a daily quiz at the beginning of each class. I lost twenty lbs the first four months. We were not permitted to have radios or stereos in our rooms until after Christmas. I didn't go home until December 19th, almost six months from when I last left. I had trepidations about flunking out, therefore I studied all the time. It was a relief to finish my Plebe year, although it hadn't changed me much. I had always derived my self-esteem from my accomplishments, but that performance treadmill was getting increasingly steeper since I had to compete with outstanding academic, athletic and leadership talents exhibited by other West Point cadets.

After a thirty day leave in June 1971 I returned to the Academy. Our second year of summer training took place at Camp Buckner, a resort-type facility about twenty miles outside the post nestled in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. The camp had huge lakes, and approximately 14,000 acres of forests available for military exercises. It was really a picturesque setting. The eight weeks there we acquired advanced combat skills - night patrolling, mountain climbing and rappelling, helicopter assaults, escape and evasion techniques, negotiating obstacle courses, weapons proficiency (M-60 machine guns, mortars, M-79 grenade launchers) and small unit tactics. We double-timed everywhere and got in phenomenal physical condition. Academic classes my second year were: General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, Physics I and II, Differential Equations, Probability and Statistics, Psychology, Solid Mechanics, Comparative Literature, History of Modern Europe 1500-1870 and 1870-1960, Intermediate Spanish III and IV, and Military Science Command Functions. To borrow a phrase from Plebe Calculus, "It should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer" that the curriculum of USMA was eclectic. I can recall a chemistry class in "The House of Pain" (Bartlett Hall, the Science Building). Each day we had to work graded problems standing up at a blackboard. Once I made a careless mistake on a problem and the instructor, Major Haslett made the sobering observation, "Mr. Bickings, that stupid error, resulting from your carelessness, is the reason why you're in Section #7 instead of Section #1." (In each subject you were ranked in Sections, limited to fifteen cadets each, according to GPA). At first indignant at his remark, I soon made an honest self-appraisal and realized that my impulsiveness could prove to be a fatal flaw. I decided to compensate for this foible by emphasizing attention to detail and exhaustive planning and organization in every endeavor thereafter. As a result of tearing a shoulder muscle in boxing class Plebe year, I had to swim about 1,000 yards each day my Yearling Year to rehabilitate my arm movement. One afternoon, only one other cadet was in the pool area, Mr. Polosi, a junior who was being "silenced" by the Corps for cheating, but because of a legal technicality could not be dismissed. I lifted my head out of the water to do a turn, and he asked me, "Want me to count your laps for your?' I thought to myself, what a gracious gesture, so I nodded - since I couldn't speak to him.

Following the end of that academic year, I and about three hundred of my classmates flew to Fort Benning, Georgia for Jump School (parachute training). The first week was Ground Week: getting into shape by running two miles each morning on the "airborne track", and learning how to do PLFs - parachute landing falls. The second week was Tower Week: exiting from a 34-foot tower onto a wire that carried you fifty yards away, simulating exiting an airplane. The third week was Jump Week: making five jumps from an Air Force C-123 plane flying at 1300 feet altitude. From the time of the order "stand up - buckle up" to the static line, to literally getting pushed out of the door by the rush of the guys behind you, to getting caught in the prop blast was sheer terror, but once that chute opened, floating effortlessly through the air for approximately one minute was an indescribable thrill - until the descent came to an abrupt and jolting landing. We received our "Silver Wings" (a uniform insignia) at the school graduation on June 30, 1972.

That afternoon, per my written orders, I boarded an Air Force C-141 plane bound for Mannheim, Germany. Since there was little heat on the plane, and it's cold at 20,000 feet altitude, we were issued blankets and a lot of coffee. I was assigned to C Company, 5th Battalion, 68th Armor, 8th Infantry Division for 30 days to experience the life of a Second Lieutenant. I was in the field most of the time on tank firing ranges at Baumholder, except for a three day tour that the local American Express office sponsored to Paris - what an memory! The Cathedral of Notre Dame , the Eiffel Tower, Napoleon’s Tomb, the Arc de Triumph, Moulin Rouge Night Club, Versailles, and an underground wine cellar in the Champagne district. I completed my assignment, then commenced a thirty day leave seeking some adventure. I flew alone Frankfurt to Tel Aviv, Israel. I stayed in Tel Aviv that evening, and the next day took a public bus to Jerusalem where I spent three days meandering around the city and its environs - the Mount of Olives, the Old City. I then went to the Dead Sea, Tiberias, the Sea of Galilee where I swam all day, then back to Tel Aviv. I traveled alone through Israel for six days. I flew into Rome, stayed there two days, then took a train to Basal, Switzerland. I hopped a fence at midnight to board a train that was leaving the station for Germany, but I didn't have a chance to purchase a ticket, and I didn't have any Deutsche Marks with me. I thought that having American Express Travelers Cheques would be accepted by the train porter so I could buy a ticket on the train. But, as Johnny Carson would say "Wrong, locomotive breath." I was arrested, booted off the train at Freiburg, Germany, and spirited to the local jail, where I was incarcerated. I finally got out when the constable exchanged my American Express Travelers Cheques into Deutsche Marks. I got back on the next train passing through to Frankfurt and caught a 747 back to New York City. The seven weeks I spent alone in Europe and the Middle East gave me confidence in my ability to handle myself in new situations. My parents were aghast at my brief escapade. For two weeks no one had any idea as to my whereabouts, and in retrospect I suppose that it wasn't very judicious on my part, but it sure was fun.

Mom drove me back to the Academy to start my third or Cow year, and I remember sitting in the passenger seat of the car disconsolate that I would fail the toughest academic course of that year, EE - Electrical Engineering. I knew I wasn't a good student at math and science courses, but had a predilection for languages and history. I feared the embarrassment of having to tell people that I flunked out of West Point, and then completing my degree at another college. Mom tried to encourage me, but I doubted the confidence she had in me. I was growing tired of facing new challenges in my own strength. The other courses that academic year were: Physics III, Thermodynamics, Topics in European History, History of Russia, Military Readings in Spanish, Spanish Language through Literature, Introduction to U.S. Constitutional Law, The Uniform Code of Military Justice, Military Science Combined Arms Operations, U.S. Government and Economics of National Security. In January 1973 I was selected to be part of the contingent from West Point to travel to Washington D.C. to march in President Nixon's second inaugural parade. The weather that day was bone-chilling, but marching up Pennsylvania Avenue past the President's reviewing stand in front of the White House was quite a thrill. Former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower was in the reviewing stand next to President Nixon and Vice President Agnew. In February 1973 I was despondent about not yet meeting a Christian girl with whom I could develop a close friendship. I remember praying earnestly one evening for the Lord to introduce me to someone I could relate to and who could help me with an obvious void in my life. I couldn't discern the nature of the void at the time, but I now know that it was a lack of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

One of my favorite courses was Spanish. I had taken two years in high school and now my third year at West Point. We were frequently required to give individual extemporaneous talks of approximately three minutes in Spanish, the topic of which our instructor presented to us as we ambled to the front of the room. Spanish helped my self-confidence because I felt literate in another language. As a result of my fluency in Spanish, I was selected to be an exchange cadet for two weeks in June 1973 to the Mexican Military Academy - the "Heroico Collegio Militar" in Mexico City, along with three other USMA Cadets. We lived in barracks at their "West Point" in the heart of Mexico City for ten days. We went on numerous tours, and to the United States Embassy for a reception one evening where I met the Chinese and Soviet Ambassadors. We then flew to Acapulco for four days and stayed at Las Brisas, a resort with villas on the side of a mountain overlooking Acapulco. At this point all of the grousing about the spartan existence of being a USMA cadet dissipated in the gentle breezes off Acapulco Bay - “ Pinch me to see if this is a dream!” We were provided jeeps, and each villa had a private pool strewn with fresh hibiscus flowers each morning. The owner of Las Brisas hosted a soiree for us, many of the local luminaries attended, and each of us had a beautiful senorita as a date, but her mother came along as her chaperone! When I left there, I started my First Class Trip. All seniors traveled to different military posts around the country to garner firsthand information concerning which branch they would like to select. We first went to Fort Benning, Georgia (Infantry), then to Fort Bliss, Texas (Air Defense Artillery), Fort Sill, Oklahoma (Field Artillery) and finally to Fort Hood, Texas.

While at Fort Sill, at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 16, 1973 at a Lieutenant Colonel's residence just north of Snow Hall, I met the blind date that I had previously signed up for - it was Nancy. I was immediately enchanted by her petite beauty ( she was 5'1" tall, and 98 pounds) and demure demeanor. She had just completed her sophomore year at Texas Woman's University in Denton, Texas. My first thoughts of her brought to mind Philippians 4:8 “Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things." Within about thirty minutes I knew that she was the answer to that prayer in February. We visited that evening at the Fort Sill Officer's Club. As I recall, we subtly explored each other’s attitudes towards work, school, religion, family, etc. As the night waned, it became obvious to both of us how much we enjoyed each other's company. I left Nancy at midnight as she boarded a bus in front of Snow Hall to return to Denton. She had been wearing a long evening gown, but had now changed into a blouse and short skirt. I remember thinking “Wow, the girl I’m falling in love with has great legs!” I would next see her in Fort Worth where she was a contestant in the 1973 Miss Texas Pageant as Miss Texas Women's University. Not knowing anybody in town, I was sequestered in a hotel in Fort Worth for five days and only got the opportunity to visit with Nancy twice - both times with her chaperone. I had never before attended a beauty pageant and found the talent competition interesting, the evening gown competition captivating, and the bathing suit competition breathtaking! I met Nancy's parents, Clarence and Jean Zabel, and her sister and brother-in-law, Judy and John Hayden, for the first time that week. Nancy and I next met for the Labor Day weekend in 1973. I flew into the new Dallas-Fort Worth Airport shortly after its recent opening for air traffic, then she came up to Bridgeton for the Columbus Day weekend, at which time I asked her to marry me. I flew into Amarillo on December 26, 1973 to visit Nancy's home in Hitchland for the first time. The evening of the 27th, with Nancy seated beside me, I asked Clarence and Jean for their daughter's hand. I felt awkward and inarticulate in expressing my feelings, but Clarence accepted my pledge to love Nancy and care for her, and I was very relieved. The next day Nancy and I drove to Collins Jewelers in Liberal, Kansas to pick out her engagement ring. Our engagement period was a whirlwind romance characterized by long distance telephone calls and airplane trips, patronizing both Bell Telephone and American Airlines. It was a dangerous time, because we were play acting to impress each other, rather than discovering if we were truly compatible. I pray that one day our girls will avoid repeating that mistake, and will not only seek spiritual discernment from mature Christians about a young man, but just as importantly, will act on warning signs rather than naively hope they can "live happily ever after."

Academic courses my Senior year were: Bridge Design I and II, The Napoleonic Wars, U.S. Wars 1773-1968, Topics in European History, International Relations, National Security Seminar, Readings in Philosophy, and U.S. Army in Stability Operations. I would graduate with a Bachelor of Science Degree with an elective concentration in National Security and Public Affairs. In the Academy's effort to produce "Officers and Gentlemen" any Public Display of Affection (PDA) was prohibited. It wasn't considered genteel to hold a young lady's hand, embrace her, or - gasp - kiss her in public. One can imagine how a group of red blooded young men were chafing at this Victorian Code of Conduct. The Academy did, however, provide a harmless outlet for these yearnings. "Flirtation Walk" is a secluded sylvan path winding along the edge of the Hudson River that was off limits to Officers. Cadets and their "one and only's" could stroll and stop under "Kissing Rock", as if one needed a rock to suggest kissing! In February 1974 each senior selected his branch (one of the combat arms) and first post. I chose the Field Artillery because of the proximity of Fort Sill to Texas Women's University so it would be only a two hour drive to Denton to see Nancy each weekend that I was at the Officer Basic Course. I chose Fort Riley, Kansas as my first assignment because it was close to Hitchland, and I didn't want Nancy to be too far from her parents after we got married. I selected to go to Ranger School, and eight-week Army infantry leadership course in the mountains of Southern Georgia and the swamps of Northern Florida because everyone else was - but it was a half-hearted decision, succumbing to peer pressure. I didn't want to be away from Nancy for eight weeks, and I was tired of being hazed.

Towards the end of my senior year, I was ambivalent about leaving the Academy. My enthusiasm for academics was flagging rapidly. I wanted to get out and be productive, but on the other hand, I knew that in the future I would be nostalgic about West Point. I would sit in the Mess Hall as the evening meal was winding down, and knew that I’d never be able to recapture one single day of being a cadet. I felt so natural in a uniform, so at peace with an ordered, formal life of tradition and respect for authority. I loved to walk out to Trophy Point at night and meditate as I watched the barges journey silently and inexorably up and down the Hudson River. I was proud each day of my cadet career, and felt a tremendous obligation to reciprocate the time, effort, and money spent on me to become a commissioned officer. My final class standing was 321 out of 833. Nancy, Mom and Dad, Stella, Jean and Clarence came up for my graduation on Wednesday June 5, 1974 - the day I had dreamed of since that memorable July 1st four years earlier. I was grateful to share this important moment with Nancy, that she had a clear idea of that season of my life. I was also pleased that the West Point experience brought such joy into Mom and Dad’s life. Now to begin my 30 year Army career!

Chapter 4

1974 – 1979

Nancy and I were married on Saturday, February 1, 1975 in the First Foursquare Church in Guymon, Oklahoma. It was a memorable weekend that began with the Rehearsal Dinner on Friday evening. My brother John was my Best Man, and Nancy’s sister Judy was her Maid of Honor. Saturday morning all the men in the wedding party traveled to Leo and Lit Hall’s home on their ranch south of town. She graciously served a bountiful country breakfast of steak and eggs, bacon and sausage, biscuits and gravy, fruit and coffee. I remember reading her father’s diary (her father was Charlie Hitch, uncle of Henry Hitch who was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City) of pioneering to the Oklahoma Panhandle, or “No Man’s Land” in the 1890s, bringing his family in a conestoga wagon to the very land where the house stood, to homestead. Clarence had worked for Leo and Lit in the early 1950s, and Lit always adored Nancy. The wedding ceremony was at 6 p.m., and I was more than a little nervous. I kept wondering if I was selfless enough to have a relationship with another person, every day! Nancy surprised me by singing a solo to me, and she was a truly beautiful bride. Nancy’s Uncle Phil Demetro officiated. We took pictures after the ceremony, then traveled the twenty miles back to Hitchland for the reception at Jean and Clarence’s house. Nancy and I left around 9 p.m., drove to Amarillo where we spent our wedding night at the Hilton Inn. The next day started our drive to Denver where we honeymooned for about five days. We were so practical, we would rather save our money for furniture than spend it on an expensive trip.

We set up our first home at 1026 Eisenhower Circle, Apartment #5, Junction City, Kansas. It was about 900 square feet, two bedroom unfurnished, and rented for $170/month. I began my first Army posting as a Second Lieutenant at nearby Fort Riley, Kansas. We visited churches until we found one that we liked - First Christian Church in Junction City. A couple in their late 40s, Bob and Marge Ingmire, became our surrogate parents. They had two girls Judy and Nancy’s ages, and Bob and Marge were a real blessing in our lives. They would invite us over for Sunday dinner, take us out water skiing on Milford Lake, and were always there when we needed them. We joined a bible study group through the OCF (Officers Christian Fellowship) at the invitation of our next door neighbors, Joan and Ed Fowler. Also newly married and about our ages, Joan and Ed were Charismatic Christians and great spiritual role models. A job, possessions, clothes, or furniture held no attraction for them, rather, knowing God and enjoying His presence was their reason for living.

After graduation from West Point, I attended the Field Artillery Officer Basic Course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, from September - December 1974. I lived in one of the high rise BOQs (Bachelor Officer Quarters) on post. The course’s Program of Instruction emphasized three major topics. The first was Field Artillery Gunnery as outlined in FM 6-40, the Artilleryman’s bible. This was the pre-computer Army, so all calculations to determine the direction and altitude of the cannon, and the distance to the target, were made manually using a type of slide rule. The second topic was learning the primary function of a Field Artillery Second Lieutenant, that of being a Forward Observer. Computers and satellites are now used to determine the map coordinates of the target, but my generation had to rely on map reading and gauging distances visually using binoculars. We spent alot of time on the firing range practicing the “Call for Fire”, directing and adjusting the shells fired from the cannons several miles to our rear. The third topic was understanding the operation and maintenance of the M109 Howitzer, a self-propelled 155mm cannon.

On December 15, 1974 I signed in at Fort Riley, Kansas for my first Army assignment, to the 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery, 1st Infantry Division. 1st ID had 15,000 men and organized:

1st Brigade 1/2 Inf, 1/28 Inf, and 1/63 Armor.

2nd Brigade 1/18 Inf, 2/63 Armor, and 4/63 Armor.

Division Artillery 1/5 FA and 1/7 FA (both 155mm) and 3/6 FA (8”).

Division Support 1/4 Cavalry, 1st Supply and Transport, 1st Medical, 121st Signal,

1st Engineer , and the 701st Maintenance.

The 1/5 FA had 37 officers and 500 enlisted men. A,B and D Firing Batteries each had six M109 Howitzers. There was also a Service Battery which transported the ammunition (the artillery shells and powder bags) food and gasoline when we were in the field on maneuvers, and Headquarters Battery which included the Battalion Commander, the Executive Officer or XO, the S1/Personnel section, the S2/Intelligence section, the S3/Operations section, and the S4/Supply section. I was assigned to A Battery as a Forward Observer and Battery Maintenance Officer. There were four major events that highlighted our training year. The most important was the Battalion Test, conducted over a three days and two nights in the field, in which inspecting officers from Division staff would present us with various combat scenarios and grade our responses. For instance, at 1 a.m. we would get a ‘march order’ to move all our equipment and men, using blackout drive, to another location several miles away. During the road march we would invariably be attacked by an opposing force, and have to deploy our unit to meet that threat. We would be timed to see how long it would take us to pull into the new position and how long before the first rounds were fired downrange. The second major event was the Nuclear Weapons Inspection. Our battalion had the capability to fire tactical nuclear projectiles each of which could effectively destroy one square mile. I was Alpha Battery’s Special Weapons Officer, which meant that I had a team of four EMs and a Sergeant who would assemble and disassemble the various components that made up a Nuclear 155mm projectile. I was granted a Top Secret security clearance after the FBI did a thorough background investigation on me. Another officer and I would be graded on decoding cryptic messages which gave authorization from the President to launch these weapons, and specified the target’s map coordinates and the size of the explosion. This type of inspection had zero tolerance, and if an officer made a mistake, he was usually cashiered out of the Army. The third major event was the Annual IG, or visit by the Inspector General. The first two events evaluated the unit’s combat readiness, the IG evaluated the unit’s compliance with Army Regulations concerning the Mess Hall, Barracks cleanliness, Motor Pool procedures, individual qualification on the M-16 rifle and M-60 Machine Gun, and CBR (Chemical, Biological and Radiation) training. The fourth and most exciting event was REFORGER, or Redeployment of Forces to Germany. Each October and November the 1st ID was evaluated to test its readiness to deploy to Germany to provide the initial reinforcements for U.S. Army units stationed there which would be expected to be overrun by a surprise Soviet military invasion of Western Europe. The 1st ID had tanks, howitzers, trucks and jeeps prepositioned in secret underground storage locations in West Germany, and our mission was to fly to Germany, get in our assigned vehicles and speed off to battle positions in the Fulda Gap to try to stop the Soviets. In 1975 for instance, the 1/5 FA loaded up in C-140 cargo planes at an Air Force Base in Salina, Kansas, flew to Mannheim, Germany, and immediately went to the field to participate in war games, that year the British and West Germans against the Canadians and Americans. The maneuvers lasted twelve days, we went without showers, shaved each morning using cold water in our helmets, ate boxes of C-rations, and slept sitting up in our howitzers or jeeps. One time we were out of drinking water, and as we were driving through a small farming village I ordered my jeep driver to stop and I gave a woman who was working outside her home two of our canteens. In a few minutes she returned from inside her home and gave the canteens back to us, and as we drove off we started drinking only to realize that what she had given us was homemade wine! When I returned to my battery and told my First Sergeant, he grinned and quickly gathered up as many containers as he could, and he and the other sergeants went back to that village for some more “water”! Another time I hadn’t eaten in two days because there hadn’t been enough food for the officers. Around 9 p.m. 2LT Joe Lindsey and I drove a jeep into a nearby farming village to have supper at a Gasthaus. It was crowded with local farmers sitting around drinking beer, and no one spoke English. We ordered a meal as best we could, sitting there in dirty combat fatigues, and I happened to look on the wall next to our table. I saw a neatly framed collage of photographs of young men in German military uniforms, obviously from that village, who had been killed in World War II. Talk about feeling awkward - I realized that those men from that village weren’t Nazis, they were just patriots who went off to war to defend their country. During that 1975 REFORGER, the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox played their memorable World Series. Each evening one of the games was played the NATO General Staff wisely called an administrative halt to the war, and from about midnight to 3 a.m. we would be buttoned up in our howitzers under blackout conditions, and listen to the games broadcast over Armed Forces Radio. (In 1980 at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City I saw Johnny Bench, the Hall of Fame catcher who played for the Reds in that Series, sitting in the stands as a spectator. I went up to him, introduced myself, and related that story, and his face lit up to hear the impact those games had, to even “stop a war”!) After the war games concluded, we went to Grafenwohr, which was a Panzer training center in WWII. It was eerie to see Nazi swastikas still engraved in certain parts of the barracks where we stayed, and to think that on this very post many Panzer units trained which in 1939 blitzkrieged into Poland, in 1940 invaded France, and in 1941 attacked Russia.

I was the Alpha Battery Executive Officer, or XO, from July through November 1976, and it was one of the high points of my life. The Battalion Commander during that time was LTC Leonard A. Eason, a highly demanding, uncompromising, technically competent field officer who forcefully resisted the mediocrity of the post Viet-Nam U.S. Army. A little background is that in the mid 1970s Congress voted to cut off aid to South Viet-Nam and also slashed the budget for the U.S. military. My years in the Army were plagued with inadequate funding for repair parts, which meant that our vehicles could barely run to get out of the motor pool. We were constantly frustrated by demands of those four major events I described, and equipment that was always dead lined. Discipline among the troops was difficult because the caliber of the enlisted man was so low. A high school diploma wasn’t required, so we had men who could barely read or write. Drug use was so rampant that at least once a week I would walk through the barracks and find men smoking marijuana, and have them arrested and then issue an Article 15 under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Racial tensions were also high. The other Academy graduates from the Class of 1974 and I were in shock, disillusioned at the gap between the ideals of West Point and the reality of the Army. Eason used to tell me that an officer’s standards should never be influenced by his environment; that is, an officer should never lower his personal standards or expectations for excellence just because of inadequate resources. Before Eason took command, the sergeants had lost all respect for officers, because Majors and Colonels would lie about the status of their vehicles on monthly unit readiness reports, for fear of adverse Officer Efficiency Reports if they told the truth. Eason, however, always told the truth on those reports, and it cost him his career, because he was forced to retire in November 1976 when he had completed his twenty years. I shall always remember Lieutenant Colonel Eason as a true Army line officer, not a politician or technocrat who masquerades in a uniform.

Eason’s successor had spent too much time in staff jobs, and too little time with line units. Within two weeks of taking command, he relieved me as XO of A Battery. It was a devastating and humiliating blow, but to be honest, I brought alot of it on myself. Whenever faced with mediocrity, I responded emotionally rather than calmly, I was confrontational, and would complain about the unprofessionalism of the officer corps. The new Bn Cdr viewed this as unacceptable behavior for someone with sensitive Nuclear Weapons responsibilities, and he had me reassigned to DivArty S-4. To my pleasant surprise, all of the officers in 1/5 FA went to him and told him he had made a drastic mistake, that I was one of the best officers they had ever served with, and he, the new Bn Cdr, just didn’t comprehend the depth of the problems line units faced, and the unorthodox methods officers had to use just to get the job done. Interestingly, within four months of this incident, I was back in the battalion as Asst. S-3 and the Battalion Special Weapons Convoy Officer, successfully taking the battalion through our Nuclear Weapons Inspection in May 1977. I realized, however, that when faced with problems I had to remain calm, be patient with subordinates, keep my opinions to myself, and do the best I could with what was within my influence. I needed a change, and this coupled with the problems Nancy and I were facing led me to request reassignment to Korea.

On July 2, 1977 I landed in Kimpo Military Airport outside Seoul, South Korea. I in-processed for two days, then got a bus to Camp Page, near the city of Chun Chon, which is located just south of the DMZ. At Camp Page the 4th Missile Command had administrative responsibility for the 1/42 Honest John Rocket Battery, 4th Support Company, 117th Aviation Company (UH-1 “Huey” helicopters), 226th Signal Company, and the Weapons Support Detachment (WSD). I was assigned to WSD which consisted of seven Nuclear Support Teams, each of which comprised a 1st Lieutenant, a Staff Sergeant, and four enlisted men. The ROK (Republic of Korea) Army had artillery units with nuclear capability, but all nuclear weapons remained under the control of the U.S. Army. Therefore, if the North Koreans attacked, each of the seven WSD teams would transport either 155mm or 8” nuclear projectiles out to ROK Artillery batteries, where my team would assemble the projectile, do the gunnery calculations, and perform loading and firing procedures on the ROK howitzer. Each week my team would take the two helicopters assigned to me, and transport simulation projectiles out to ROK Artillery batteries in field locations all over the countryside of South Korea. It was an interesting assignment, especially when I pulled duty at the post Emergency Action Facility, a bomb-proof bunker where I had to monitor cryptic nuclear weapons message traffic. The presence of a “red telephone” with a direct line to the War Room at the Pentagon added a touch of drama to this Cold War era environment.

I lived in a Quonset hut with another 1st Lieutenant, Tim Peterson who was also a 1974 USMA graduate. I led Tim to the Lord the second week we were there, so we became real close. We had bible studies together, played racquetball, ran, and conducted missions together. Everyone viewed me as the most technically competent officer in the unit, and Tim was the best leader. From the first day in WSD I tried to implement the lessons I learned the hard way back at Fort Riley. I was calmer, less confrontational, complained less, and more positive. I tried to get reassigned to the 2/17 FA in the 2nd Infantry Division so I could get some more XO time with a line unit, but the 4 MSL CMD Commander, a full Colonel denied my request. He didn’t think line duty was that important to one’s career, in fact, it was harmful because the risk was high for mistakes, and it didn’t provide visibility with Congressmen, Senators, and Pentagon staff officers who could help your promotion to General. He also implied that troop duty was all rote, therefore intelligent officers needed a greater challenge in a job. I sat in his office listening to him make these comments, and I thought to myself, ‘You are precisely the kind of self-serving officer Eason warned me about, and if this is the mindset of Colonels and Generals, then I don’t fit in’. Maybe I’m too ordinary, but I loved being a line officer, working with troops in the field, the thrill of being part of a unit occupying a position at 2 a.m., under cover of darkness, with ground guides leading the howitzers into their positions. I would be out in front “laying the battery”, or aligning the cannon tubes parallel using an Aiming Circle, a type of survey instrument. Men would be stringing out commo wire so I could talk on field telephones to the crew chiefs in each howitzer, while the Fire Direction Center was calculating the elevation and quadrant numbers to give to the guns. After laying the battery I would start walking around checking the status of the projectiles, fuzes and powder bags, emplacement of the collimeters, machine gun positions sketching their overlapping fields of fire, and establishing communication with Battalion Headquarters to handle Emergency Message Traffic. Sitting across from that Colonel I suddenly realized that all that was considered a necessary but disagreeable “ticket to be punched” for those officers who want promotion, but to me it was the whole essence and joy of being an Artillery Officer.

I therefore called the Department of the Army and told them I would resign my commission on June 5, 1979 when I had fulfilled my obligation. During the first six months in Korea I had lost weight, going from 185 lbs. to 160 lbs. by the time I finally returned from Korea in June, 1978. Our last year in the Army I was assigned to TCATA (TRADOC Combined Arms Testing Agency), at Fort Hood, Texas, during which time I applied to work at the First National Bank of Amarillo. I had no idea what career I wanted to pursue, but I figured that spending time at a bank would give me an overview of business in general, and after a few years I would have a clearer idea what I wanted to do. I interviewed at First National, and was hired as a Credit Analyst for $13,000/year, taking quite a pay cut from the $24,000 I was making in the Army. I went to summer school at West Texas State University in nearby Canyon, Texas, the 1st and 2nd summer school sessions to complete basic accounting and finance courses necessary for my new job as a credit analyst.

I ran the Dallas White Rock Marathon on Saturday, December 2, 1978, completing the 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 51 minutes. With over 4,000 entrants it was quite a colorful spectacle, and the athletic ambiance of the occasion buoyed me up to the 20th mile, where I abandoned any illusions that I was having fun as I “hit the wall”. My legs felt like mashed potatoes with no sensation whatsoever of muscle tone. Although my breathing never became labored, my lower back unexpectedly began aching. I feared that five months of dedicated preparation covering over 1,000 training miles got me to the 23rd mile, but no further, and I’d be forced to drop out of the race. It was at that moment that I realized how much I really wanted to accomplish this goal. The reason I finished the last three miles of that marathon in Dallas was that I had worked too hard to quit. I collapsed at the finish line, totally debilitated and nearly dehydrated. My feet were bleeding (I ran in the Adidas “Country” all- leather shoes, now archaic). Three hours, two Cokes, three Hershey candy bars and a steaming bath later my body finally started to relax. My love of running came full circle years later when Kambry started to run on her own at about age 15. We would run seven miles together each Saturday morning, and in 1998 started running races together. I would give her pointers such as to how handle hills and how to pace yourself at the beginning of the race. I look forward to a 10k Race one day when I am 75 and she is 45 years old!

Chapter 5

1979 – 1984

In June, 1979, we moved to Amarillo, Texas, where we bought our first home at 4004 Lynette Drive, a 1,750 SF three bedroom brick house for $48,000. I worked at First National Bank of Amarillo, and Nancy teaching music at Paramount Elementary School and piano lessons in our home. In April 1981, we began attending Trinity Fellowship Church in Amarillo, a charismatic body of about five hundred people. Larry and Devi Titus were the new pastors, and they had an immediate impact on both our lives. Larry modeled and taught on the husband as the Servant-Leader, truths I had never seen or heard before. Devi in her Women’s Bible Studies gave Nancy clarity and balance to her confusion over excesses Nancy observed growing up Pentecostal. Nancy was the Choir Director, and derived personal fulfillment from church, and more importantly, becoming a mother when Kambry was born in 1981, and then when Ashlyn was born in 1984.

Kambry was born on Monday August 17, 1981 at 5:08 p.m. at the High Plains Baptist Hospital in Amarillo. When the delivery room nurse laid her on a nearby table, I leaned over her and whispered “Hello Kambry, I’m your Daddy.” A moment later they let Nancy hold her, and that was a thrilling sight to see Nancy’s joy holding her firstborn child. The nurses then put a cheap dressing gown and knit cap on her little head, and I unknowingly planted the seeds of her becoming a fashionista when I said to her “Kambry, this is the last tacky outfit you will ever wear in your life!” Nancy and I were excited the day we got to take her home, but were a little apprehensive because there would be no one around to give us advice on how to care for an infant. The next Sunday Nancy took Kambry to church, and everyone fell in love with her, and commented how much jet black hair she had. About two months later during a Sunday evening service, I had just fed Kambry her bottle, and put her on my shoulder to burp her. The pastor just then started to pray, so the whole congregation became silent. In the middle of the prayer, Kambry let out what seemed to be the loudest, deepest burp ever heard, and everyone near us started giggling uncontrollably with heads bowed and eyes still closed. It was so funny. Nancy and I had an agreement that Sunday through Thursday nights she would get up in the middle of the night to feed Kambry when she started crying, and I would get up Friday and Saturday nights since I didn’t have to work the next day. Sure I was tired, but it was such an intimate feeling to hold her in my arms in the rocking chair in our living room, with the room so quiet and dark, and the only sounds were Kambry sucking on the bottle, and pausing to take an occasional breath. Those are moments I shall always treasure.

As Nancy was being wheeled into the delivery room on Monday March 9, 1984 at 8:22 a.m. at the High Plains Baptist Hospital, we still hadn’t decided between Ashlyn or Bethany if it was a girl, but had agreed on Marshall if it was a boy. Nancy told me to pick the name when the baby was born. When Dr. Williams held her up for Nancy and me to see, I thought that this little girl just looked like an Ashlyn. When the delivery nurse laid her on a nearby table, I leaned over her and whispered “Good morning Ashlyn, I’m your Daddy.” The most striking feature was her big, bright eyes. All the nurses commented on how beautiful her eyes were, and how one day they would melt boy’s hearts! When we took her home, it was amazing how much she spit up after taking her bottle. It is a wonder that she gained any weight at all. Sometimes I had to change shirts two to three times a day because Ashlyn would spit up all over me. One night I was rocking her and , as usual, she spit up, but this time it went all over the rocking chair, so I had to get Nancy out of bed to help me clean it up. As early as six months old Ashlyn figured out how to cross her eyes. She knew we would all start laughing, and she must have enjoyed being the center of attention, because she would cross her eyes whenever there was a crowd of people looking at her - what an actress! Nancy took the girls home to Guymon for ten days in the summer of 1985 while I stayed here and worked. It was night when they returned, so I was home. They got out of the car, came into the kitchen where I kissed Nancy, then Kambry, but Ashlyn hugged me and held me tight, and didn’t want to let go. She just held on, and I was so touched by her longing for the security of my arms that I walked with her out in the front yard and just stood there with her, not wanting that moment to ever end. Isn’t that interesting, one hug so many years ago is one of the fondest memories of my life.

I began work at FNB Amarillo on August 17, 1979. Since these were the days before personal computers, my first job was to take the balance sheet and income statement from companies that borrowed money from us, and perform ratio analysis to determine if that company could reasonably repay the debt. I continued to attend West Texas State University using the GI Bill two nights/week through May 1983 when I completed my MBA (Master’s degree in Business Administration). I was promoted to Commercial Loan Officer in September 1981, and handled loans for oil & gas exploration, apartment construction, and wholesalers in the Amarillo area. I got a great foundation in banking due to working with two excellent mentors, Don Powell who would eventually become Chairman, CEO and President of the bank (in 2001 he was selected by President Bush to be the Chairman of the FDIC in Washington D.C., and in 2005 President Bush asked Don to coordinate the federal relief of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina), and Pete Dallas. I know that the Lord brought these two quality men into my life who really cared about me, professionally and personally. They invested alot of time showing me technical aspects about lending, taking me with them on customer calls, including me in decisions, and giving me responsibility. Their greatest gift however was the brutal honesty in coaching me about my lack of tact in customer and employee relationships. I no longer reacted emotionally, and always remained calm, but I hadn’t yet learned patience. When I saw either an employee or customer who didn’t grasp what I thought was an elementary truth, I tried to force the issue. I was too intense, and it showed. Don and Pete kept telling me to relax, and not be so direct. I made the mistake of openly questioning what I considered fundamental management principles that bank leadership was neglecting. In 1984 First National Bank of Amarillo started charging off millions of $ of bad loans, and the Federal Bank Examiners came close to closing the bank for mismanagement in precisely those areas I called attention to years before. Regardless of the accuracy of my observations, I was wrong in how I approached the matter. I did so with arrogance, impatience, and borderline insubordination. I faced a dilemma of many young workers, ‘what do you do when you don’t agree with your boss?’ At a minimum, I should have been more respectful of Don and Pete as my authority. I should have been more loyal, and not talked about them behind their backs. I should have rested in the Lord, trusting Him to resolve the conflict rather than me trying to force my solution. Pete approved my attendance at the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Class 26, a three-year program which I completed in 1985.

By early 1984 it was apparent that I would not be considered for promotion, so I began looking for another job. I interviewed and received offers from three out-of-state banks, but none of those jobs seemed to be the Lord’s will, so I waited. Then in October I received a call from a headhunter about a position in Little Rock. I came here, interviewed and really liked the bank, the city, and believed this was God’s will for our lives.

Chapter 6

1985 - 2008

I accepted a position with Worthen Bank & Trust in Little Rock, Arkansas, and we moved to the bedroom community of Maumelle on February 15, 1985. Our home at 5 Hornrimme Place was a 2,230 SF four bedroom brick house, and cost $118,500, with a mortgage of $80,000. (we had sold our Lynette home for $ 63,000). We built our home at 31 Chatel Drive in 1996. The house would be 2,900 SF, two story five bedroom brick home, and cost $227,000, and a mortgage of $145,000. We sold this house in 2005 for $307,000, and Superior Bank paid for all the closing costs and relocation expenses to Birmingham.

I began work at Worthen Bank & Trust on December 3, 1984. By the end of that first day, I was appalled at the lack of procedures and controls, the casual work ethic, and poor loan underwriting. I had learned my lesson, however, and kept my opinions to myself. On April 8, 1985 the bank wired $52 million to a securities firm in New Jersey that, without any prior indication of financial difficulty, took bankruptcy thirty minutes later. Worthen’s entire capital base was wiped out, and we were on the verge of being shut down by the Federal Bank Examiners. The deep pockets of the principal owner, Jack Stephens, however, kept the doors open. The Executive Management of the bank was fired, new people came in, and then the real problems surfaced. Over the previous two years, the bank had made over $150 million in bad loans that had to be charged off. The lack of procedures that I saw that first day had crippled Worthen. The stock price plummeted from $36/share to $4/share over eighteen months. We started to re-engineer the bank, with new procedures, loan policies, forms and people. We had to go out quickly and tell valued customers the new way we had to do things, requiring much more information to substantiate the repayment of their loans. I displayed the tact, patience and loyalty that I lacked in Amarillo. By the early 1990s the banking industry had cleaned up alot of its loan quality problems, and the next phase was consolidation.

In 1994 Worthen was acquired by Boatmen’s Bankshares out of St. Louis because Worthen didn’t have the capital to invest in the necessary computer infrastructure to compete. In August 1996 Boatmen’s was in turn acquired by NationsBank, formerly North Carolina National Bank out of Charlotte. NationsBank promoted me to Executive Vice-President managing Commercial Banking for not only Little Rock, but the surrounding markets of Hot Springs, Pine Bluff and Conway. My role was to manage a loan portfolio of $500 million consisting of commercial clients with annual sales between $4 million and $250 million. I had fifteen account officers, and fifteen support staff reporting to me. Then in 1998 NationsBank merged with Bank of America, and suddenly I was working for the largest bank in the United States, with over 170,000 employees world-wide. In 2001 my position was moved to St. Louis, but I didn’t want to relocate, so Bank of America generously offered me a severance package of one year’s salary. I interviewed at a number of places, and accepted the position of Chief Credit Officer at Superior Bank, with another 20% increase in salary . This was a great job, and in May 2003 Arvest Bank and its owner Jim Walton (the son of Sam Walton, the Wal-Mart founder) purchased Superior Bank

In 1988 Worthen gave me a membership at the Pleasant Valley Country Club (#2400). I had never before even had a golf club in my hands, so I took some lessons, hit countless buckets of balls at the practice range, and started playing about once a week. It is hard to pick up a sport as an adult, and it was several years before I felt comfortable on the course. I play about twenty-five rounds a year, and prefer to walk and carry my bag because the pace of play is slower, plus I believe walking is the essence of the game (I usually walk 18 holes in about 2 ½ hours). One of the joys of golf is being the first to tee off early in the morning, and walk down the fairway to my ball, and glancing back to see a trail of my footprints in the dew. The game has a wonderful rhythm, feeling the grass as you walk and listening to the wind. Your real competition is yourself, because when you are playing well you know it must end, and when you are playing poorly you think it never will. I love to go to the practice putting green after supper in the summer, and just putt for an hour as the setting sun brings out the soothing shades of green on a golf course. The common denominator of all golfers around the world is neither the courses nor the equipment, but the USGA Rules of Golf. I consider uncompromising adherence to the Rules (especially 13-1 “play the ball where it lies”) more important than my score at the end of a round. A low score reveals talent and experience, complying with the Rules when no one is looking reveals character (one reason I may be so philosophical about this is that I have a 18 handicap!) My dream is to play a round of golf at Pine Valley, New Jersey; St. Andrews, Scotland; and Augusta, Georgia.

I used to go duck hunting about five times a year. Bank of America hosted several duck hunts each December and January, and we would invite valued clients to various commercial private hunting lodges near Stuttgart, Arkansas such as Double Deuce, Five Oaks, Prairie Wings, and Circle T. It was great camaraderie to be served a steak dinner with about fourteen men, then sit and visit about each other’s businesses in a great room with a big screen TV and a blazing fire until 10 p.m. You are awakened at 5 a.m., go to the boot room and put on your camouflaged neoprene waders and jacket, and the guide drives you over trails to the launch point. There your group gets in a small jonboat and motors in the darkness to a duck blind in timber or a steel pit in a rice field. Arkansas is a haven for ducks migrating south each year from their breeding habitat in Canada. The waste rice from the autumn harvest, and the acorns from nut tall and willow oaks are the preferred food for ducks. The essence of duck hunting is standing knee deep in water in flooded timber when the air temperature is about 30 degrees. After taking my position next to a tree I would lock and load three shells into my 12 gauge shotgun, a Remington model 870, and wait silently and motionless as the guide “calls” the ducks into our hole. It is spectacular to see the aerial acrobatics of a group of mallards with the rosy fingers of dawn as a backdrop. When they work to within forty yards the guide yells “take ‘em” and you push the safety off and fire away! The stillness of the morning is suddenly punctured by the echoing of shotgun blasts. The unbridled enthusiasm and power of the Black Labrador lunging through the water to retrieve the fallen ducks is a sight to behold. The three hours waiting for ducks passes quickly when a storyteller is in your midst. Classic tales like “De Shootinest Gent’man” by Nash Buckingham are retold each hunting season. When you have bagged your limit, you return to the lodge where the men regale each other with all the funny moments from that morning’s hunt over a huge breakfast the cooks have prepared. I take home and cook every duck I shoot. My dream is to one day shoot and mount a wood duck with its dazzling colors.

We tried to create a world of security, grace, and beauty and for the girls so their personalities would be shaped by what is good. The time period that captured their fancy was the Edwardian era, circa 1910. Their dolls came from American Girl collection. “Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea” videos, and the Walt Disney films “Pollyanna”, and “Mary Poppins” portrayed the elegance of the period, and the strong family relationships and respect for authority that existed. Another movie that shaped their view of the world was “The Sound of Music”. I would guide us as a family to watch certain old movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s on the cable TV stations American Movie Classics, and A&E. These movies would have uplifting themes which I hoped would reinforce for the girls the values we were teaching them. The CBN Christian animated cartoons “SuperBook” and “Flying House” came on each morning at 6 a.m. I would begin recording each day, and after Kambry and Ashlyn finished breakfast they would go into the TV room and watch that day’s episodes. I did this to visually introduce them to Bible teachings. The greatest impact on the girls though was having their Mother home with them all day. This meant that they could arise when they woke up. They would eat a good breakfast and not be rushed. Nancy would take them to one of the many parks in our neighborhood in Maumelle to play with other children. In the summer, they would spend almost every afternoon at the swimming pool. I will always be grateful to Nancy for being such a wonderful full-time Mother, a much harder job than any other career.

Another indelible influence on Kambry and Ashlyn’s worldview has been Brookhill Ranch Summer Camp near Hot Springs. Starting the summer after their 4th grade year, they attended this camp run by Hettie Lou Brooks and her family, spirit-filled believers who see this as a ministry. When we picked Kambry up after her first time there, Nancy and I weren’t sure she would like it because she was such a homebody. But she was so excited about her week long experience that for three days she wanted to relive every moment there ”Daddy, ask me what I did Tuesday afternoon”, “Daddy, ask me what I had to eat Thursday night”, “Daddy, ask me what my activity was each morning.” Ashlyn tells us how much she missed us each year when she asks “Can I stay another week?” Both girls loved and admired many of the high school and college counselors, and I am pleased that Kambry and Ashlyn had great role models like that at an age when Mother and Daddy weren’t “cool”. Kambry’s desire to attend Baylor University was due to her observing the Christian character of the college-age counselors at Brookhill, many of whom were attending Baylor. I’m also gratified that the girls’ image of a Christian young man was also formed in large part by being around quality Christian young men who were counselors at camp. It is reassuring to a parent that an experience like Brookhill has such a positive impact on your child’s spiritual life. Ashlyn accepted Jesus as her Savior at Brookhill on June 18, 1998, which makes it even more meaningful.

Nancy and I have taken several memorable vacations with the girls. The first was driving back to New Jersey from Little Rock in October 1986. We didn’t have much money, so Nancy sold “Christmas around the World” items at people’s houses 3 nights/week for 2 months, and the $600 she saved paid for our trip. We stayed at Super 8 motels, ate at “Shoney’s” and drove through picturesque horse farms in Kentucky, and toured Monticello and Williamsburg (where we ate spoon bread at “Christiana Campbell’s Tavern”). We were astonished at how many different crops were being harvested on our trip there and back. Another trip was in July 1999 when we flew into Philadelphia,, got a rental car to drive to Bridgeton and the beach at Ocean City, then on to New York City. We stayed 2 nights at the Plaza Hotel, saw “Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway, visited Ellis Island, the New York Stock Exchange, Empire State Building, and Times Square. Early one morning Kambry and I ran 4 miles through Central Park. We then drove up to West Point to show the girls the Military Academy, then through Connecticut to Newport Rhode Island, where we rented a sailboat going out into Narragansett Bay, and went on the Cliff Walk. The last leg of the 2 week trip was up to Boston, where, among other things, we went to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox play a ball game, and walked the Liberty Trail up to Bunker Hill.

In March 2003 we flew to Honolulu, and the first night there we celebrated Ashlyn’s 19th birthday by having dinner at the Surf Room at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, then the next day we took a 30 minute Hawaiian Airlines flight to Maui. We stayed 6 nights at the Ka’anipali Beach Resort, went snorkeling at Molokini, drove to the top of Haleakala to see the sunrise, then continued on the “Road to Hana” with Nancy and Ashlyn in the front seat of our Dodge Sebring convertible, and Kambry and I in the back seat whining until we stopped at the “Halfway to Hana House” at mile marker 17 to get fresh banana bread and Guava juice.

Nancy and I flew to Europe in July 2004 to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We met Ashlyn in London, where she was part of the 6 week “Baylor in Great Britain” program (as Kambry had done 2 years earlier). Nancy and I toured the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abby, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, and we dressed up to attend a BBC Proms Concert at Royal Albert Hall. We used our Hilton Honor points to stay six nights free at the Hilton London Hyde Park on Bayswater. We made day trips via train from Paddington Station (“Mind the Gap”) to Hampton Court, Windsor Castle, and Bath. Then we took the Chunnel to France, checked into the Hotel Mayfair Paris just off the Concorde Plaza, walked up the Champs de Elysee to the Arch de Triumph, then to the Eiffel Tower, and that evening went on an evening cruise up the River Seine. The next day to the Louvre and Notre Dame, then a day trip to Versailles where Nancy got embarrassed when, as we were walking up to the palace, she absentmindedly took what she thought was my arm, but turned out to the be arm of a complete stranger! Late the next afternoon we boarded a sleeper train to Salzburg, Austria. We left Paris at 5:15pm from the Gare de l“Est, enjoyed the countryside until dark, and the porter woke us up at 4:44am to serve a continental breakfast in our compartment. In Salzburg we went on a “Sound of Music Tour”, attended a dinner/concert of Mozart music, and decided that this was the highlight of our trip.

We returned to Maui in September 2007, this time with Brian, using Delta Airlines frequent flyer miles for all five tickets. The first night in Honolulu we used our points to stay free and the Hilton Hawaiian Village. The next morning I got up at 5:30am to go for a walk before everyone arose. I was strolling on Waikiki Beach, when in the early dawn I saw someone coming out of the water. I thought to myself, “who would be swimming this early in the morning?” I was astonished to see it was Brian, so I asked him what he was doing, and he replied with a grin “I may never make it back to Hawaii, so I wanted to say that I had gone swimming on Waikiki”. After touring Pearl Harbor and lunch at the Surf Room at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, we flew to Maui and we stayed at our timeshare at the Sands of Kahana.

My cars have been a 1973 Mercury Montego, 1980 Chevrolet Chevette (the worst car I ever bought – part of GM’s response to the oil crisis of the mid-70s, this first fuel efficient auto from Detroit only had 71 hp, and rattled. After my bad experience with this car, I would never again buy an American made car), 1983 Audi 4000 Diesel (used), 1992 Toyota Camry and then a 2002 Toyota Camry. Nancy has driven a 1971 Ford Galaxie 500, 1984 Ford AeroStar Van, 1988 Ford AeroStar Van (the 1984 was a lemon), 1996 Dodge Caravan, and a 2003 Toyota Sienna. Before the girls went to college we bought them each a new Honda Accord because I wanted them to be safe driving the approximately 400 miles from Little Rock to Waco, Texas to attend Baylor University.

After Ashlyn graduated from Baylor, she worked at various jobs, but didn’t have a peace. After a lot of prayer we decided she should attend Texas Women’s University to obtain a Texas Teaching Certificate in elementary education. Nancy and I helped her financially, but as I told her, I wasn’t subsidizing her, rather I was making an investment in the children she would teach in the future.

Nancy and I moved into 695 Lake Crest Drive, Birmingham, Alabama on July 10, 2005. ($425,000/ 2,900 sf) I had begun work at Superior Bank of Alabama on January of that year as the Chief Credit Officer. My former CEO of Superior in Arkansas had asked me to relocate with him and 3 others to form the new management team, with the promise of 186,000 stock options and a 3 year severance package. The plan was to acquire 3 banks in Florida, then sell the bank in 3-5 years, and move back to Little Rock. Early on, however, the CEO and I had disagreements about making aggressive real estate loans. I thought is too risky, and he thought we could sell the bank before any loans went bad. By September 2008 our differences became too great, and he asked me to leave the bank with a one year severance package. It was a real blessing, because six weeks later the bank got into loan trouble, had to take TARP money from the government which meant no severance packages to departing executives. After a short break, in which Nancy and I vacationed in Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, I started doing consulting work for banks in the Atlanta area.

A blessing the Lord gave me was to participate in short-term mission trips. Since I was conversant

in Spanish, I could share the gospel with the people we were privileged to be Jesus’ hands and feet. March 2004 Honduras Construction trip

June 2004 Honduras Medical trip

May 2007 Honduras Medical trip

April 2008 El Salvador clean-water drilling trip

June 2009 Nicaragua clean-water drilling trip

El Salvador Living Water Trip - 2008

Friday July 4

I flew from Birmingham to Houston on Continental Express 2-1 plane, and stayed Friday evening at the Hilton Garden Inn on JFK Blvd. just outside the George Bush International Airport using my Hilton Honor points. Since I didn’t know anyone on the team, I just looked for people with LWI shirts.

Saturday July 5

Met the team at Terminal E of the airport – Don Parker (30) Team Leader, Jonathan Magnus, Lois Henry (3), Greg Eddlebrook (3) and Doug White (they were both professional engineers with Shell), Celia Tirador, Eli Ramirez, Joe Torres, Matias Perez. We sat on the plane for one hour because of mechanical problems, then had to change planes and gates. Arrived in the San Salvador Airport after a flight of 2 hours 40 minutes on a Continental 3-3 plane, and a time change. We loaded our luggage on top of a Toyota van, and it rained on us, so we thought our bags would be soaked, but they weren’t. It took 2 hours to drive on CA-8 to our location, Oasis Beach Lodge at Salanitas, a series of bungalows rented out for $100/person/week. On the horizon we could see freighters steaming in and out of the port of Acajulta. I roomed with Jonathan, Doug and Greg. That evening Don gave us the Rules of Engagement, and asked us to tell 2 things no one would guess about us. We also talked about how to witness, and an effective opener is to ask “what are your dreams” Several of the men are from Sugar Creek Baptist Church, in Sugarland, Texas, which is where LWI founder Harry Westmoreland attended. Trip cost $1800.

Sunday July 6

I got up at 6:00 am to have devotions, at breakfast I learned about ultra high temperature (UHT) milk, then we drove to a small, local church service Tabernaculo Biblico Buatista – Amigos de Israel (a branch of the main church in San Salvador that has over 5000 attend each week. The pastor is on TV and radio). This county church had a tin roof, dirt floor, and the women had uniforms of a white blouse (with the church logo) and blue skirts) and entire service was in Spanish. When we got back to Salanitas, it was low tide and we could walk out to the rock outcropping 100 yards from shore where a 10 ft. white statue of Jesus had been erected. At the high tides of 6am and 6pm the waves crash against the stone retaining wall so loudly at first I thought it was thunder. That afternoon we went out to the drill site to set up. It is located at an aldea called Culote, in the Acajulta Districto, Sansonate Departamento. To have a well drilled, the community must commit to providing a 20x20 piece of land deeded to the village, sand, gravel, mud pits, arrange for two local huts to serve as a staging area to store the LWI equipment, and an armed guard each evening. Several meetings are conducted with the community leaders to ensure their commitment to these requirements.

Monday July 7

I would get up at 6:00 am to have personal devotions looking out at the ocean. It was very special seeing the waves crash against the white statue of the Savior, as if Jesus is walking on the water. After personal devotions we had group devotions at 7:00 am sitting under a thatch-roofed hut, then after breakfast drove to the well site. We used one of the two pneumatic drills (LW -100) the ministry owns in El Salvador. Each drill bit costs $7,000, and two have been stuck, therefore lost, in the previous 3 years of drilling. Each well costs $2,000 to drill, so the team meets half the expense, and LWI fund-raising the other half. You always know how deep you are because you add 5 ft. sections of pipe. Typically you hit water at the first water table at 30 ft., continue through gravel (sanitary seal) till you hit the second table. A compressor forces air down the drill pipe, out three orifices of the bit, forcing water, mud or gravel to blow out the 6” bore hole. Local farmers brought the sand on a wagon pulled by oxen, and the men had machetes. The children are either barefoot or wear sandals, the houses have dirt floors with dogs and chickens wandering in and out, and the existing wells are hand dug to 30 ft., and are polluted. We hit the 2nd water table at 4:00 pm. We went back to our lodging, showered, had supper, and you rinse the washed dishes in water with Clorox, because there is no hot water to kill the germs. Sometimes I would get so hungry, I would get a tablespoon of peanut butter. Don Parker is a great team leader, he stays out of the way of the drilling operation, and intervenes only if there is a problem. He made a point of spending time with each person to share his passion for Central America.

Tuesday July 8

Each morning I would walk about 50 yards to a hut with 3 sinks and 3 showers. Then when dressed I would walk around the circle drive for exercise, like I did in Tegucigalpa. If the first day is drilling the well, the second day is developing the well. After perforating the bottom section of pipe to serve as a screen/filter system, we lowered 10 ft. sections of 4” PVC pipe into the hole, and then let it gush for about 2 hours. Then we inserted chlorine to clean out all the impurities we had introduced during the drilling process. There was a lot of time available during this phase to witness to the villagers. I talked a lot with Pablo who owned a corn field nearby, and Carlos who was a soldier in the 1980-1991 civil war. As poor as the local farmers were, the teenagers had really nice uniforms to play soccer. They talked about the national teams and stars that they root for. We had cheese sandwiches for lunch each day, so I was very hungry at night. When we got back to the Oasis, I helped Delores, the full-time cook, snap green beans as we talked in Spanish. Each evening about midnight I would half wake up and think there was a violent thunderstorm, only to realize that it was only the waves of high tide breaking against the retaining wall. El Salvador has granted LWI a NGO “non-government organization” status; therefore it doesn’t have to pay any taxes. The average daily wage is $5.45 which explains why so many Salvadoran men leave their families to work in the United States, but unfortunately, after two years of sending money back home, they marry again, and abandon their Salvadoran wife and children.

Wednesday July 9

Today we inserted the sucker rods into each section of galvanized pipe, and lowered the pumping mechanism into the hole. Then we connected the well head which is made in India (LWI purchases about 100 at a time and stores them in-country). We had lunch at Carlos Morales Morales’ home, he set out tables in his yard, plastic table cloths, and we had soup with vegetables from his garden, roast chicken (that he had killed that morning) and tortillas. It was such a poignant scene to have such a relaxing meal with fellow co-workers hosted by truly grateful people. That afternoon, Celia and Katy Shields, the permanent missionary in El Salvador, gave health and hygiene lessons to the children and mothers. There is book of LWI lesson plans to introduce the concept of germs (using sprinkles to demonstrate how germs are spread) pictures of everyday life to discuss good and poor hygiene, and what to do – wash hands, boil water, build latrines and wash food. A 3 legged stool represents diet – the red leg is protein (beans, rice, fish) to help us grow, the white leg is carbohydrates (corn, tortillas, potato sans sugar) to give us energy, and the green leg is vegetables and fruits to keep us from getting sick.

Thursday July 10

We had an outdoor church service at the soccer field to pray and distribute Bibles, and a dedication ceremony for the children to start pumping the water. We emphasized that this water was to be used only for washing hand, washing food and human drinking (not for washing clothes or giving to animals). After supper we all talked about the most memorable events of the past week. Joe mentioned the discussion that I led with him, Matias, Eli, Doug, Greg and Don on Tuesday evening in which I asked the older men to give advice on how to be a good husband.

Friday July 11

We left the Oasis to drive to Apaneca, a quaint little pueblo about 4000 ft. attitude where it was a lot cooler than in the lowlands. We had a flat tire, so Esduardo and Stanley took the van to buy a replacement while the rest of the team went to El Jardin de Celeste, a “finca cafetelera” where I had a slice of banana pie and two cups of the best coffee I’ve ever had (since the coffee beans were raised on the nearby fields all around us). We later stopped at Pollo Campero, the main chicken fast food franchise in Central America. We then drove on CA-1 into San Salvador to stay at the Hotel Miramonte. We all took turns around the computer at the registration desk checking e-mail and the market since we had been on a technology fast all week. We went out to a pupuseria that evening for supper, then back to bed. But I told people that I needed a chocolate fix.

Saturday July 12

We had to leave the hotel at 3:30 am to make it to the airport in time for our 6:30 am flight. Several people bought me Snickers bars for the flight as a gag. Because I had a long layover in Houston, I sat and had a cup of coffee with Ray Williams who was coming back from a trip to Guatemala, I flew to Little Rock because Nancy was doing Ashley Taylor’s wedding.

Chapter 7

2009 – Present

I travelled to Washington D. C. in March to interview for the position of President & CEO of Adams National Bank, a $300 million dollar institution that had severe loan problems. I never thought I would ever get the chance to be a bank CEO, but Nancy and I believed it was God’s will for our lives, even if it meant being apart for a season. I signed a lease at 1111 Army Navy Drive, Apt 1207, Arlington, Virginia 22202 ($ 1,285/month for a 575 sf efficiency). The most humbling day of my life was August 10th, when Nancy and I unloaded our Penske moving truck, and I walked in that small, barren, empty apartment. I felt like a failure, since I couldn’t find a banking position in Little Rock, and this meant Nancy would have to live alone in Birmingham.

We sold our home in Birmingham in November for $ 406,000. Because of the depressed housing market, we took about a $75,000 loss from all the money we invested into the property, but made it up by buying 54 Marcella Drive in Little Rock ($407,000/4,100 sf).

Nancy, Ashlyn and I flew to London for Christmas 2009 (using our Delta Sky Miles, and Hilton Hotel points).

One of the joys of parenthood (: is moving your child every year until they marry, and although I’m not going to say Ashlyn moved a lot during college and her working career after Baylor, within an 8 year period she lived at Collins Dorm, LL Bean, Bagby, 16th Street, Downtown Lofts, Hewitt, Southwestern, Westside, Caruth, Breman.

Washington D.C. Journal

2009 - 2010

August

• RiverHouse Apt 1207 is 550sf, $ 1,275/month + $ 100/month utilities. The 3 buildings (James, Potomac and Ashley) were constructed about 1960. James has a dry-cleaners, laundry, exercise room, and is always maintained very well. I take the Blue Line to work (Pentagon City-Pentagon-Arlington Cemetery-Rosslyn-Foggy Bottom-Farragut West). The bank loads $ 120 the 1st of every month on my SmartCard to cover the fare. The Metro is very clean (it prohibits eating and drinking) and safe from any fear of crime.

• As Nancy and I entered the Pentagon City Metro Station for the first time, we were confused about how to purchase passes. An elderly man walked up to us, and helped us navigate the process. We remarked that he could have been an angel in disguise

• Nancy and I walked the entire Mall one Saturday morning at 7am as the sun was rising over the Capital Building. It is 2 miles from the Capital to the Lincoln Memorial.

• Nancy practiced taking the Metro to Union Station, then the MARC to BWI airport. She cried because she was so stressed and I lacked empathy for her anxiety. Every time I see that bench at Union Station I regret that moment.

• We toured the National Archives together. A young boy in a family behind us said out loud “Why are we waiting in line just to see some pieces of paper?” We talked about the movie “National Treasure” which was filmed there.

• The first Saturday she was gone I drove into the city and walked four miles from Foggy Bottom through GW University, old Executive Officer Building, Blair House (where on April 17, 1861, Francis Blair, acting on the direction of President Lincoln, offered Robert E. Lee the command of the Union Army), the White House, Treasury Building

• Visited Foundry Methodist Church where Bill and Hillary Clinton attended. FDR and Winton Churchill attended here Christmas morning, 1941. Liberal churches have a mantra “Justice and Equality”, code for the gay-lesbian-transgender religious orthodoxy around Washington

• One Sunday afternoon went on the Blue, then Green line to see a Nationals baseball game. The ball park is on the Anacostia River, and they should have a view of the Capital Dome from the field, but that didn’t work out. I called Nancy just to make the connection with her since we have seen a lot of parks together over the years

• Played bridge at the International Monetary Fund building. The Director was very curt with people, so I won’t return. We played in a huge atrium

• Visited the Pentagon Memorial and the Air Force Memorial and Iwo Jima Memorial. I like to look a map and feel that I am “making memories - gaag!”

• On a day trip to Richmond, stopped at the Fredericksburg Battlefield National Park. It was sad to see a housing development on the slope leading up to Marye’s Heights, where so many Federal soldiers died.

• Got lost one rainy Saturday afternoon driving Glebe Road across Chain Nail Bridge at Little Falls on the Potomac River. But, the best way to learn your way around is to get lost a few times

• Walking down city streets I have seen Eleanor Clift of Newsweek Magazine, Bob Schaeffer of CBS News, Bill Schneider of CNN, Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine, and I spoke in the elevator to Nina Easton, Fortune Magazine bureau chief and commentator on Fox News

• Southwest Airlines flies out of BWI and Dulles (the Metro Silver Line will be complete in 2013). I prefer to fly Delta out of Reagan (DCA) because it is so easy to hop on the Metro back to my apartment.

• The Adams National Bank corporate office is on Connecticut, directly across from the Mayflower Hotel. Many times, foreign dignitaries stay at the Mayflower because the side street, DeSales, provides good security.

September

• Drove to Bridgeton, stayed with John, went to church with Hal and MaryAnn. It was 148 miles one-way.

• Had difficulty figuring out how to get on I-295 from my apartment. Abandoned the idea of crossing the Sousa Bridge, instead going on South Capital, past the ballpark then across Douglass Bridge

• Walked the Chinatown, Penn Quarter neighborhoods. I would then review the route on a map, memorizing all the streets for future reference. I was surprised the Chinatown Friendship Arch is only 25 years old

• Attended a Friday noon service at St. John Church where President H.W. Bush attended, and a bronze plaque designates # 54 “the President’s Pew”

• Black tie dinner the Carnegie Institute to raise money for a local charity, Turning the Page

• Visited the National Cathedral one Sunday service, which is the campus of both the National Cathedral School for Girls (Lynda and Luci Johnson attended here), and St. Albans School for boys

• Had breakfast with George Hall at the Mayflower Hotel restaurant. We stood outside on a street corner and prayed.

• Walked Adams Morgan (the neighborhood at 18th and Columbia named for the merging of two previously segregated schools, Adams (white) and Morgan (black), crossing the William Taft Bridge and Duke Ellington Bridge one Saturday morning.

• Saw the Uline Arena where the Beatles performed 48 hrs after the Ed Sullivan Show

• Went up the Old Post Office tower, then to the National Museum of American History. I would return to this museum countless number of times, but this first visit was overwhelming, there is so much to see. The Star Spangled Banner has 15 stars and 15 stripes.

• Sunday went to the National Gallery of Art (white dome). I’m not really into art, but the building is huge, donated by Andrew Mellon

• Visited McLean Bible Church. Lon Solomon has been the pastor since 1980, a converted Jew, and his radio spot “Not a sermon, just a Thought” is very popular in the area. The music is fabulous, 10 piece string section, 10 piece brass section

• Nancy and I visited the Supreme Court Building, walking up the 44 marble steps and passed under the famous words “Equal Justice Under Law”

• I obtained a library card to be able to enter the Main Reading Room, and attended a Tuesday evening orientation of how to use the Library of Congress. I went back that next Saturday and sat in the room as the afternoon sun reflected off the wooden panels. It is one of the prettiest rooms in all of Washington

• Over lunch one day toured the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. At one station where $100 bills were being printed, a worker had penciled a sign that read “more money is printed here in 3 minutes than I will earn in my entire lifetime!”

• Toured Arlington Cemetery one Sunday afternoon. It was a warm but sunny day, and I didn’t remember how long a walk it was from the Arlington House to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Nancy later commented that the first place tourist should visit is the spectacular view of the Mall from Robert E. Lee’s former residence.

• Toured the Newseum on Pennsylvania Ave over lunch one day. I wasn’t that impressed, perhaps because it is one of the few places in Washington that charges admission

October

• Attended “Red Mass” at Cathedral of St. Matthew. John Roberts, Sam Alito, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Sonia Sotomayor. I arrived at 7:30 am for the 10:00 am service to make sure I would get a seat. It was quite a moving service, and we prayed for the Justices in general, and Chief Justice Roberts in particular.

• One day over lunch took the Red Line to the Old Pension Building. Starting about 1880 the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was the most formidable special interest group in the United States, and Congress would give them anything they wanted to secure their votes.

• Walked the Georgetown neighborhood, and climbed the Exorcist Steps.

• Attended New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, I didn’t want to sit in “Lincoln’s Pew”, which he rented for $65 per year (the custom in those years instead of tithing)

• Witnessed the annual Halloween DuPont “High Heel Race”. Adams Bank has been a sponsor of this event for years, and some still refer to Adams as the Lesbian Bank, since it catered to homosexuals in the DuPont area since 1978.

• Walked the Columbia Heights neighborhood, then drove to see the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (where Luci Baines Johnson was married in 1966)

• Nancy, Ashlyn and I attended a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center where the acoustics were phenomenal. The Hall of States and Hall of Nations with all the respective flags is impressive. The three venues are the Concert Hall, the Opera House, and the Eisenhower Theatre. The copper bust of Kennedy is 8’ high.

• Discovered the French Ambassador’s residence in Kalorama Heights. It is my favorite house in the district.

• We met at noon Friday to tour the Holocaust Museum. The section with all the abandoned shoes was the most poignant.

• Visited the National Museum of Natural History (green dome) and saw the Hope Diamond

• I had signed up several weeks in advance for a one-hour tour of the Pentagon, saw the chapel located where the plane hit on 9-11. The Secretary of Defense office (3E880) which means 3rd floor, E ring, corridor 8 and office number 80. Also the interior courtyard is one of the few places where one is not required to salute a superior officer, and the hot dog stand is known as “Ground Zero Café”

• My bridge partner, Russell Allen (Exec Dir Wash Ballet) and I play bridge every Tuesday evening at the Army Navy Country Club. There are only about 10 tables, so it is very relaxed. The Director is USMA ’55, and the view of Washington from the dining room windows is spectacular.

• Ate a Chili Half Smoke at Ben’s Chili Bowl, which took 2 days off my life. The food wasn’t that great, but it is a local tradition, Bill Cosby goes there every time he is in town, and Barrack Obama went there within one month of becoming President.

• On a day trip to Richmond, stopped at the Yorktown Battlefield National Park. I walked the redoubts that Alexander Hamilton led the final charge in October 1781. It was puzzling to visualize how the British allowed themselves to be trapped with the York River at their back.

• Nancy and I walked around the Tidal Basin on Sat morning, then drove to Annapolis to join John and Jayme for a Navy football game. “Jack Stephens Field, Navy - Marine Corps Memorial Stadium” Stephens, 1947 USNA grad, donated $ 10 million to expand the facility

November

• Served as an Arlington County Election Official in Precinct 8 and we used electronic pollbooks and WINvote electronic voting machines for approximately 1,100 voters

• Went to a Washington Wizards NBA basketball game at Verizon Center. I could see why people say that Chinatown on a Saturday night is the “Times Square” of Washington

• Visited the National City Christian Church where President Lyndon Johnson attended

• Toured the National Postal Museum next to Union Station. I had no idea that Franklin Roosevelt was such an avid stamp collector, and he actually designed some stamps.

• Visited the Luther Place Memorial Church

• Walked the Capital Heights (14th and Columbia) neighborhood where the DC Government has done a good job developing the area into an upscale light-retail environ.

• Toured the National Portrait Gallery the “old Patent Office” over lunch one day. During the Civil War, this was converted into a Federal Hospital, and the poet Walt Whitman worked there as a male nurse. Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Ball was held here. The most famous work is the “Lansdowne portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796, and two of the 12 copies of this original that he painted are in the East Room of the White House and the U.S. House of Representatives Chamber. By 1796 Washington was weary of sitting for portraits, but his friend, William Bingham, a very wealthy Federalist, and his wife, Ann, considered one of the most beautiful women of the day, persuaded him to sit for Stuart as a personal favor.

• Drove through the Palisades neighborhood to visit Glen Echo park and the restored Carousel, and Spanish Ballroom. This was a popular resort from 1900-1960, a trolley line extended from downtown out to Glen Echo.

• Played bridge at the Beth el Hebrew Synagogue on Seminary Road. A lot of tables, probably 100, and they always promise a partner

• Drove through the Navy Yard (saw the NCIS building and Latrobe Gate). The Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) residence is located here

• Walked across the footbridge to the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial and island. I was surprised that such a large monument is in such an out-of-the-way location

• Attended an Arlington County Board meeting on a Saturday morning. Arlington is the smallest county in America (26 square miles) has no cities, just neighborhoods, and is very efficient, ie, drivers licenses, voter registration, stickers for personal property taxes

• Started visiting with Fred Downs on the Metro. He is the Veteran Administration’s Director of Prosthetics, lost his left arm on Jan 11, 1968 as a combat platoon leader with the 1st Bn 14th Inf 4th ID, wrote “The Killing Zone - My life in Viet-Nam”, lectures at West Point, and ran the 1983 Marine Corps Marathon in 3:03!

• Walked through the Eastern Market one cold and rainy Saturday morning

• Vice-President Biden’s motorcade speeds down Connecticut Ave in a 6 car motorcade each morning from his residence at the Naval Observatory

• Drove past the Cairo Hotel, which prompted the Heights of Buildings Act of 1910 which states that no building in the District may be 20’ higher that the width of the street it faces

December

• I had applied on-line for tickets to the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, which was held one very cold Thursday evening - Randy Jackson, Cheryl Crowe played piano, the President and his family lit the tree. I got there at 4:00 pm, and the program didn’t begin until 5:30 pm. I called Nancy because I wished she was there with me, it was quite a sight, and a treat to be part of such an important national event. The current National Christmas Tree was planted in that spot in 1978.

• Christmas concert by the Air Force Band at Constitution Hall on Saturday afternoon. I was disappointed by the totally secular song selections. A lot of local high schools hold their May graduations in this Hall. This was the location where Marion Anderson was denied permission to sing in 1938, so First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a DAR member, resigned in protest, and arranged for Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter

• Christmas concert by the Marine Band at Wolf Trap on a brisk Sunday afternoon. Patches of snow on the ground, children’s choirs, hot chocolate, it was really a great day.

• Toured the Masonic Temple in Alexandria, dedicated to George Washington. It had memorabilia from the ceremony of laying the cornerstone of the Capital Building. The tower is visible from Hains Point

• Joined McLean Bible Church at a congregational meeting one Wednesday evening. MBC has over 11,000 people who attend each Sunday, and its mission is to share the message of Jesus Christ with secular Washington.

• Helped organize the Arlington Men’s Group (Pentagon City) met for the first time at the Au Bon Pain in the food court. I decided to take the lead in this group by hosting the first session in January in my apartment. Members were Alan Baribeau, Erik Adams, Doug Oliver, Jordan Northrup and John Fetherston. We started rotating among each other’s homes, and we began an overview of the Bible which took all of 2010.

• Toured the Peterson House (located across 10th Street from Ford’s Theatre) where President Lincoln died. It was incredible that such a great life ended in a cramped boarding house with his legs dangling over such a small bed

• Attended the Washington DC Annual Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Convention Center (Adams bought a table of 10). Suzanne Clark was the featured speaker, she is the daughter of Joe Clark of Clark Construction, the leading contractor in the District, and an important contributor to S.O.M.E.

• Visited the National American Indian Museum, such a politically-correct disappointment for placement on the National Mall

• One Sunday morning, well before dawn, I drove into the city, parked, and started running. The most beautiful sight I’ve seen in Washington is standing at the apex of the Viet-Nam Memorial, totally dark, and looking east seeing the Capital dome illuminated, and then looking west, and seeing the Lincoln Memorial illuminated. There wasn’t another person around, and it was a special moment.

• Stopped in the Main Auditors Building at 14th and B, SW, which was constructed in 1879 for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. In 1914 BEP moved to its current location, and Auditors for Navy, State and Treasury moved in. Several of the annexes have been demolished to make room for the Holocaust Museum

January

• Played bridge one Saturday morning at the Knights of Columbus facility on the former Saegmuller estate in Reserve Hill, Arlington. Was told that Richard Jing, of the Alpharetta, GA, bridge club (whom I played against in July 2009) became the youngest Life Master in ACBL history at 9 years and 6 months of age

• I was a guest of Bob Davis for lunch at The Metropolitan Club, founded in 1863 by Union Army generals, and frequented by Grant, Sherman and Sheridan after the war. Moved into the current 5 story building at 17th and H Street in 1905, beautiful mahogany-walled library, men’s athletic/squash club, main dining room, and 2,500 members

• Hosted my Men’s Group in my apartment, the dessert was a red velvet cake I served with the help of my friends Harris and Teeter.

• Visited Christ Church in Alexandria. Both George Washington and Robert E. Lee attended this church, and Lee was a Deacon there. The pews have swinging doors, elevated pulpit (there was the joke about Finklestein making Jesus a robe, the ensuing popularity, and the partnership named not Finklestein and Jesus, but Lord and Taylor!)

• Attended a monthly meeting of the Penn Quarter Neighborhood Association at Ford’s Theatre. Viewed the Presidential Box where Lincoln was shot, and records show Lincoln having been to this theatre 12 times to see various plays, and the attendance that tragic evening was almost 1,600 (the tour guide explained why there are now only 625 seats “Americans are larger than in those days!”. There was no Presidential Seal in those days, so a portrait of Washington was used instead, and that portrait is visible in the photograph Matthew Brady took of the box the day after the assassination.

• Toured the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and loved the “Salon Doré”, the gilded room constructed in Paris in 1773 and installed in the museum in 1928.

• Attended the 97th Annual Alfalfa Dinner, at the Capital Hilton. Perhaps the premier social event of the year and the ultimate “insider’s” club of 220 members wearing a medallion, the program itself is a collector’s item. It had snowed that day, so I was wearing a tuxedo riding the metro into town. Protocol is everything, $200/plate dinner of lobster and filet mignon, Friar’s club type humor. Joe Lieberman, the Alfalfa Party candidate for President, gave a hilarious acceptance speech. Five new members were inducted into the club, one of whom was Rupert Murdock, the founder of Fox News. Warren Buffet, VP Cheney, Chief Justice Roberts, President Bush (41), Justice Alito, Colin Powell, James Baker, George Shultz, Paul Volker, Alan Greenspan, Hank Paulson, Timothy Geithner, Sandra Day O’Conner, Dianne Sawyer, Andrea Mitchell, Wolf Blitzer, Steve Forbes, John Glenn were in attendance.

• I spent more time exploring Georgetown. Famous addresses are: 3307 N Street (John Kennedy 1957-January 20, 1961), 2920 R Street (Katherine Graham entertaining government and intellectual elites from 1951-1996), 2805 P Street (Dean Acheson used to walk from here every day to the State Dept with his close friend Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, who lived at 3018 Dumbarton) and this was the location of a farewell luncheon for Harry Truman the afternoon of January 20, 1953, after he left office before departing for Missouri. Georgetown after the Civil War attracted freed blacks, housing declined, and in 1871 when it was incorporated into the District of Columbia, it lost its identity, being referred to as “West Washington”. In 1950 Congress passed the “Old Georgetown Act” which promoted the gentrification of the neighborhood.

• Toured the Renwick Gallery, I thought the building more impressive than the paintings

February

• Nancy and I went on the thirty minute self-guided White House tour (through the office of Senator Blanche Lincoln, D-AR, who is facing a tough re-election battle in November, so she if very accommodating to requests) as a blizzard was descending on Washington. We were impressed with the Green Room’s water-green silk fabric that Jackie Kennedy selected for the walls, and I recognized the 1767 portrait of Franklin she persuaded a philanthropist to donate. The Cross Hall wasn’t as long as we expected, and the East Room and State Dining Rooms were smaller than appear in photographs. The oval shaped Blue Room was very elegant, as were the Bellange chairs and 18’ ceilings

• We got 24’” of snow and lost electricity (Dominion Virginia Power) for 23 hours on Saturday, and the following Wednesday we got another 10”. Nancy’s flight back to Little Rock was delayed until Saturday because MARC wasn’t operational. This winter season D.C. set a record of 55”. Nancy and I got “cabin fever” and got on each other’s nerves by Thursday, so I took her out for supper Friday night and then we watched the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

• The bank was closed Mon-Thurs. Wednesday was a total white-out with high winds. Betty called me each evening to decide next day’s status, she then left a voice mail for employees. The local television stations ran footage of a snowball fight in DuPont Circle that attracted over 2,000 participants!

• When I drive to work I take Route 27, cross Memorial Bridge, east on Constitution, north on 18th St, takes 12 minutes covering 4.0 miles

• My running route in the morning goes around the Pentagon, and I can see the Washington Monument, the Capital dome, and the Jefferson Memorial lit up in the darkness. In the early morning hours work crews are always digging grave sites at Arlington Cemetery because there are about 15 burials per week.

• Met Father John Adams at So Others May Eat (S.O.M.E.) founded in 1970 to serve the poor and homeless of Washington D.C. I got a tour of the facilities, and discussed my responsibilities as a new member of the Advisory Board

• Visited the Botanic Garden, a real delight. The current exhibit “Orchids, a Cultural Odyssey” had the most pleasant fragrance I’ve ever encountered. The galleries on the desert had realistic dry heat, and the jungle had a fine mist to replicate a rain forest

• Went of a tour of the State Department Diplomatic Reception Rooms on the 8th floor of “New State” (old State was the original War Department Bldg on 21st St. The Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room, which seats 250 was magnificent (this is where the Kennedy Center Honorees have a formal dinner the Saturday evening before the taping of the show on Sunday) The balcony faces south overlooking the Mall and the Lincoln Memorial. I also saw the Dean Acheson Auditorium, where President Kennedy held 64 Press Conferences, some of which I watched live on TV

• Across from my apartment is the Pentagon Row Plaza, and each November an outdoor skating rink is installed, and it very popular, especially on week-end nights. It is fun to see so many young people skating, especially small children who push little buckets which provides them balance

• Once a week over the lunch hour I take the Red Line to Metro Station, then walk to the Barnes and Noble on 12th Street.

• Drove past Sidwell Friends School on Wisconsin (children of Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Nixon, Clinton and Obama attended here)

• Met James Thomeson for supper at Rosa Mexicano. We said goodbye in the lobby where he was staying, the Hotel Monaco. The D.C Post Office was located in this building 1866-1899 (and the first public building lighted by gas) until it relocated to 12th and Pennsylvania.

March

• Attended a hearing of the Senate SBA Committee. The Rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building is ornate, and is where Senators give live TV interviews. The Caucus Room was beautiful, and was where hearings were held on the Titanic sinking in 1912, Teapot Dome in 1923, Army-McCarthy in 1954, Watergate in 1973. I spoke to Senator Mark Pryor D-AR, and he remembered that I had been with Worthen 20 years ago! When the second senate office building was constructed in 1958 it was originally referred to as the New Senate Office Building, so before renamed Russell in 1972, the first senate office building was called the “Old S.O.B.”!

• One Sunday morning before daybreak I ran around the Lincoln Memorial then across the Memorial Bridge. It was brisk, you could see the eternal flame on JFK’s grave on the hillside below Arlington House, and all streets were quiet. It was really beautiful seeing the monuments lit up against the dark backdrop, and the Potomac River was so peaceful

• Went on a tour of the Capital conducted by two staffers from Sen. Pryor’s office. (I was the only tour this week, but in the summer they will conduct about two tours daily). I was surprised to learn that the only Senate Caucus room is in the Russell SOB, and Sen. Pryor has 25 people on his staff, and his offices take up all one side of a wing of the second floor. We walked through a tunnel to the Russell SOB where we boarded the private subway (built in 1909) to the Capital Building. The Old Supreme Court chambers, where the Dred Scott verdict was rendered, is in the “Crypt” level, then we walked through the Rotunda to Statuary Hall, the House chamber 1819-1860 and where John Quincy Adams suffered a stroke at his desk. Then to the Old Senate Chambers, where from 1820-1859 the great debates over slavery were held, and finally to the House gallery. Upon our return I had lunch in the Dirksen cafeteria. The new Visitors Center is massive, and efficiently organizes the large tour groups.

• Nancy and I drove the 204 mile/3 hour trip from Arlington to Virginia Beach for Pat Robertson’s 80th Birthday Celebration. We stayed in the James River Lodge, the first night had dinner with Scott Ross and his wife Nedra (of the rock and roll group the Ronettes) attended a taping of the “700 Club” Friday morning. Bob McDonald, the Governor of Virginia and a 1989 graduate of Regent University law school spoke a reception at the Virginia Aquarium, and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Singers performed, then a black tie event Saturday evening with Larnell Harris singing, I visited with Ben Kenchlow (1975-1988) about Danuta Soderman, and Nancy visited with Terri Meeuwsen (1993-present). Part of the birthday party Saturday evening was fireworks, and Handel’s Firework Suite was played in the background. At the Communion Service Sunday morning Kenneth Copeland spoke, and 188 family units gave a total of $2,000,000 for the construction of a new chapel and Divinity School for Regent University.

• Visited the Cannon House Office Building, and its elaborate Caucus Room. Opened in 1909, Cannon had 397 offices for each representative in the 61st Congress, and 14 committee rooms. A directory of all House members details that 3 digit room numbers were in Cannon, 4 digits beginning with “1” were in Longworth HOB, and 4 digits beginning with “2” were in Rayburn HOB.

• One Sunday morning with the Reflecting Pool drained, I walked the entire length down the middle! Spent a lot of time looking at the WW II memorial, and read the Jefferson Pier stone near the Washington Monument. The “56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial” on an island in Constitution Gardens has their names inscribed in stone as their signatures appear on the document. Steven Hopkins of Rhode Island who had palsy, and had to steady his writing hand with his other hand, turned to his colleagues and said “My hand trembles, my heart does not”

April

• Walked the campus of Georgetown Law Center, an oasis in the middle of Judiciary Square, near Union Station. This “T14” law school has been at this location near the Capitol Building since 1891

• Drove past Gonzaga College High School “God is Purple” on North Capitol Street.

• Went for a walk on a beautiful spring Friday lunch break. Down K Street past McPherson Park, Franklin Park (where Andrew Jackson had water wells drilled for the White House, so it originally was called “Fountain Park”, and the 12th New York Infantry bivouacked in 1861 to protect Washington, and the impressive Franklin School). Then to the U.S. Mint sales office at 9th and H where I bought a roll of 2009 Lincoln Presidency cents, then up Massachusetts past Thomas and Scott Circles.

• The next day, I toured the Congressional Cemetery (John Phillip Sousa, J. Edgar Hoover buried with his parents and sister), and many locals walking their dogs in the park (there is a web-site Cemetery , that for a $200 annual membership people can let their dogs roam within the cemetery – this is how the cemetery raises money for up-keep, since, contrary to the name, it is not owned or operated by Congress or the federal government)

• On Sunday I volunteered for the 38th Credit Union Cherry Blossom Run, beautiful weather 51 degrees, 15,694 runners from 50 states and 20 foreign countries, the event raised $ 923M for Children’s Network. Starting corrals by color (Yellow “elite”, Red, Blue, Orange, Green and Purple) 3 minutes apart. Very well-organized, I was at the finish line for the Ethiopian and Kenyan winners who ran 10 miles in 45:43. Bill Rogers won the event 1978-1981.

• That evening attended the 40th anniversary celebration of S.O.M.E. at First Baptist Church on 16th Street. Mark Russell the political satirist entertained, and referred to Father John as the “Albert Sweitzer of Washington, D.C.”

• “The White House Garden Tour” held each April and October since begun by Pat Nixon, was a real treat. I got a timed-ticket for 10:15 am, entered through the SE Gate, was handed a program describing which President or First Lady planted what tree, walked up the circular drive to stand at the South Portico entrance (and called Nancy), and looking south past the Washington Monument to the Jefferson Memorial is a beautiful vista. I stood looking at the Rose Garden for quite a while, looked through the windows of the Oval Office to see the flags behind the President’s desk. Continued around the circular drive past where Marine One lands, and the Marine Band was seated serenading the visitors (I again called Nancy so she could be part of this experience with me) then exited SW Gate.

• Walked though the campus of Gallaudet University, it was so quiet because all the students were using sign language. It is laid out like an old Army post, unfortunately it is in the Trinidad neighborhood, so police security is important.

• One Saturday morning I parked at the Cleveland Park metro stop, then ran 3 miles down Connecticut to Farragut Square, taking the metro back. Then I drove to Marat School, originally the Woodley Mansion, summer White House of Presidents Van Buren and Polk, and home to George S. Patton, and War Secretary Henry Stimson.

• Attended the memorial service for Dorothy Height at the National Cathedral (Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul). To get good seating, we were seated by 7:45 am for the 10:00 am service. President Obama gave the eulogy, Camille (Mrs. Bill) Cosby spoke, Maya Angelou read Psalm 139, Hillary Clinton sat with Nancy Pelosi. Jesse Jackson, Harry Reid and Joe Biden also attended. The service was carried live on TV.

• The emblem of the District of Columbia is the coat of arms of George Washington’s ancestral family. A 14 century stain glass variant of the coat of arms is in Selby Abbey in England

May

• On a Saturday morning Mall Walk, Stan and Jane McClellan, Nancy and I helped out at the “Wall Washing” in which the 1st Saturday of each month veterans groups wash the Viet-Nam Memorial Wall. Pvt Jimmy Derbyshire Panel 27W Line 86, and 2LT Frank Giles Panel 46E and Line 46 were from Bridgeton and both killed in Viet-Nam

• Drove the 14 miles down the Parkway to Mount Vernon. Tickets were $15 each, we toured the Mansion first (my favorite room is the Large Dining Room which is 16’ high) then we walked the grounds, and spent about 3 hours in the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center, which may be the finest museum I’ve ever seen. “Monuments in Washington memorialize people’s achievements or speeches, Mount Vernon memorializes a man’s character”.

• Over lunch toured the DAR Memorial Continental Hall. Completed in 1910, it was originally a large auditorium (where the Washington Naval Conference 1921-1922 was held to try to constrain Japanese naval expansion in the west Pacific). When Constitution Hall was dedicated in 1929, Memorial Hall became the DAR Genealogical Research Library. This is truly a WASP enclave, a repository of the values of the Revolutionary War era citizens, which today would be considered politically incorrect.

• Over lunch toured the John Marshall Park, Victims of Communism Memorial (a replica of the student-made statue erected in Tiananmen Square in 1989) and the most understated and humble memorial of all, the Franklin D. Roosevelt stone at the National Archives

• Organized a tour from the bank of the Federal Reserve Building (tours are given only to groups from financial institutions or university economics majors). The grand staircase was Italian marble, and the Board Room was absolutely impressive. It had a 21’ ceiling, silk wall coverings, a huge oval shaped board table, and original currency from various dates on display on the walls. It was in this room from 24 December 1941 – 14 January 1942 that President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill planned World War II strategy. I sat in Ben Bernanke’s chair, and I felt my IQ rise 20 points!

• The Treasury Building tour lasted one hour, portraits of all Treasury Secretaries are on the walls. In 1820, adjacent to the White House, were four 3-story brick buildings for State, Treasury, War and Navy. The east (30 columns, 36’ high of solid granite) and center wings of the new Treasury Building were completed in 1842, then the south, west and north wings were added by 1867. The President administers the oath of office to each new Secretary in the Cash Room (embarrassing inaugural ball the evening of March 4, 1869)

• Stopped to fill up for gas at the Embassy Gulf Service Station (1937) at 2200 P Street

• Had lunch at the Old Ebbitt Grill with Larry and Janice Walther, delicious clam chowder

• Had breakfast with Wally Loveless at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Quite a place, every President since FDR has had an inaugural ball there, all the dignitaries for JFK’s funeral, the Beatles visiting Washington after the Ed Sullivan Show

• Toured the American Red Cross building led by a docent. “Dedicated to the Women of the North, and the Women of the South”, 50 years after the end of the Civil War, emotions were still strained in our nation. The symbol is the inverted Swiss Flag to denote neutrality (the founder was Swiss). In Muslim countries it is known as the Red Crescent. The Tiffany Windows in the 2nd floor salon are priceless, protected by bulletproof glass.

• Ran 4 miles down Mass Ave. from the National Cathedral to Union Station, and later stopped for water in the newly renovated “Social Safeway” on Wisconsin.

• Took a tram ride around the National Arboretum est. 1927. I need to return to see the hillside of azaleas in April, and the maples in October. It was so peaceful, and the fragrance was beautiful, and the Capitol Columns were impressive.

• Toured the McCormick Apts/Andrew Mellon Place, 1785 Mass Ave, in which each floor is 11,000 SF, and was the most luxurious apartment in Washington D.C. in 1920.

• Watched the Wednesday “Twilight Tattoo” military pageant at Fort McNair (Washington Arsenal) then walked past magnificent columned Officers Quarters of LTG and GENs. The Fife & Drum Corps and Drill Team of the 3rd Infantry (Old Guard) performed

June

• Ran 4 miles from the Jefferson Memorial to Hains Point and back. It is amazing how many planes land at Reagan before 8:00 am on a Saturday

• The Titanic Memorial is dedicated to “the men who gave their lives to women and children”. It had been located where the Kennedy Center now stands.

• Visited the National Zoo, saw the Pandas, which in Nepalese means “eater of bamboo”. Veterinarians keep constant vigil with TV cameras monitoring their health, especially from the effects of the heat in the summer

• Sunday evening walked around the Mall and found “Kilroy was here” at WWII Memorial, site of the Rainbow Pool.

• Worked the Virginia Republican Primary, Arlington County Hume Precinct 8, we processed 129 voters (Stephanie Zietz, Kathi Wells, Marilyn, Jean)

• Had lunch at the Bistro Bis (88% of meal sales from Democrats) with a bank director, David Bradley, and Ralph Neas, former head of “People for the America Way” the most liberal advocacy group in the United States.

• Toured the Anderson House at 2118 Mass Ave, headquarters of the Society of the Cincinnati, founded 1783 by officers of the American Army who fought in the Revolution.

• Ran 4 miles from the Jefferson Memorial down Maine Ave/M Street to New Jersey, then to Independence and back

• Visited the 12 acre Meridian Hill Park (unofficially Malcolm X Park) which was the site of Columbia College (predecessor to George Washington University)

• Attended a lecture moderated by Edwin Meese III at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy institute “think tank” next to the Thurgood Marshall Building.

• Had lunch with Bob Davis at the Lafayette Room in the Hay-Adams Hotel, where “the only thing we overlook is the White House”. Delicious salmon, and elegant style. President Obama and his family stayed here for two weeks prior to his inauguration because the Blair House was occupied

• Over lunch toured Voice of America, which occupies the old Social Security/War Dept Broadcasting in 45 languages, governed by a board of 4 Democrats and 4 Republicans appointed by the President, is the news they report “politically correct”?

• Walked to the libertarian “think tank” Cato Institute at 10th and Mass Ave to attend a lecture on nuclear proliferation. They have well-reasoned position papers on display.

• Toured the Phillips Collection. For 5 minutes I sat on a bench gazing at Renoir’s Luncheon of a Boating Party, “capturing an idyllic atmosphere of glorious weather, a day at the river, food and wine in the company of friends”. All the models were the artist’s personal friends.

• Ran from 20th & B across Memorial Bridge, along the bike path of GW Parkway, across Key Bridge into Georgetown, past Washington Circle, down 23rd Street

• Attended a concert of the U.S. Army Strings at Brucker Hall at Fort Myer, through the Hatfield Gate. Walked on Summerall Field where Orville Wright flew in 1908 and the President attends retirement parades for senior officers. 26 Victorian residences make up “Generals Row”. MG and LTG are on Lee Ave., on Washington Ave. is Quarters One (Army Chief of Staff: McArthur 1930-1935, Marshall 1941-1945, Eisenhower 1945-1948) and on Grant Ave. overlooking Whipple Field is Quarters One (Army Chief of Staff: McArthur 1930-1935, Marshall 1941-1945, Eisenhower 1945-1948,) Quarters Six is the Chairman of the JCS, and Quarters Seven is Air Force Chief of Staff. The entire post is small, about ½ mile wide and 3 miles in length, forming a crescent around Arlington Cemetery. By law there are 302 general officers in the U.S. Army, of which no more than 12 can be GEN.

• Donated blood at the Red Cross national headquarters 2025 E Street NW, in a very large and spacious room. Very well organized, not cramped like the trailer I donated in February

July

• After church I drove to the Great Falls Park and walked the Patowmack Canal constructed between 1785-1802. This project demonstrated that if the strategy is wrong, no amount of effort, money or intelligence can help you succeed. Because the winter froze the river, and there was a drought in summer, the fee income from barge traffic couldn’t make it profitable.

• Toured the Decatur House built 1818 by Benjamin Latrobe. Interesting features are original pine wood floors, kitchen on 1st floor (with firewall and brick floor as fire protection), enamel button instead of wooden button in base of banister to show house had not debt, residence of Martin Van Buren who hosted Peggy Eaton’s acceptance into “polite” Washington society in 1829

• Attended the Evening Parade at Marine Barracks at 8th & I Streets with Nancy. The “parade deck” is 200 yards by 30 yards, bounded by the Commandant’s residence on the North. Impressive illuminations of marching, the Marine Band playing “Stars and Stripes Forever” on the spot where John Phillip Sousa would have conducted it for the first time, seeing the English bulldog mascot Chesty XIII, and the spotlight on the bugler playing “Taps” to conclude the ceremony. Congress authorized the Marine Barracks to fly the flag with 15 Stars and 15 Stripes

• Nancy and I attended the 11:45 am service at the National Cathedral. She didn’t want to go forward for communion but she did anyway, and the taste of the wine, even on the wafer, was pungent. The acoustics are wonderful, and this is the 5th largest cathedral in the world.

• We went to the top of the Washington Monument late one Sunday afternoon. I had forgotten all the memorial stones on the inside visible as the elevator slowed on the descent. The original elevator in 1885 took 10-12 minutes (now it is 70 seconds). Next year the 896 steps will reopen for those wanting to walk down.

• Got back from a week-end in Bridgeton (my 40th high school reunion) went swimming Sunday afternoon, got into the apartment elevator with 8 others and the electricity went out. We were stuck for 35 minutes, the Arlington Fire Department came and let us out. Dominion Power is a much more dependable company than Pepco (Potomac Energy Power Company, which serves the District and Maryland). I started lap swimming at the pool behind the Potomac River House (there is also a small pool behind my building, the James River House)

• Walked to visit with a prospective board member who is an attorney at Patton & Boggs, the largest and most influential lobbyist firm in Washington D.C. The location interestingly isn’t K Street, but 2550 M Street near Georgetown. Tommy Boggs, the son of the former House Minority Leader Hale Boggs, started the firm openly dedicated to lobbying members of Congress, which until that time, was not considered a respectable career for an attorney. I walked through the Foggy Bottom Historic District to the Metro

• Attended an Army Band Concert on the west steps of the Capital Building. It was cool looking down the Mall past the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial on one side, and down Pennsylvania Ave down the other. Several people sat on blankets on the grounds. It was low humidity, I wish it had been like that 2 weeks prior for the Evening Parade.

• Ran from my apartment on a running path along Hwy 27, across the Memorial Bridge, around the Lincoln Memorial, and back; about 4 miles

• Saw a movie at the Uptown Theatre in Cleveland Heights. Built in 1936 with a single screen 79 feet wide and 40 feet high. The Uptown was host to the world premiere of Dances With Wolves on October 19, 1990, and the projector broke down twice. A beautiful lobby

August

• Toured the Organization of American States (OAS) building on 17th and Constitution. The Hall of Americas (where the Panama Canal Treaties were signed in 1977) is a magnificent room, 100’x65’x45’, similar to the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The building was completed in 1910 because of the $ 700,000 contribution of Andrew Carnegie, at the request of his good friend, Elihu Root, then Secretary of State.

• The exhibit at the FDIC headquarters is very well done. The timeline from 1933 is very informative

• On Connecticut Ave I met and spoke with General Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to Presidents Ford and Bush 41, who since 1994 has run a International Advisory Firm, Scowcroft Group. It is interesting how many people who once held such high positions of power in the federal government choose to remain in Washington, but live on the periphery of power, and can be seen walking like any common citizen.

• Ran from the National Cathedral down Wisconsin (formerly High Street) down Pennsylvania past the White House to MetroCenter station

• Visited the Army Air Force Mutual Aid Association at 102 Sheridan Drive, Fort Myer. Entered through the Wright Gate.

• Visited Dumbarton Oaks estate, the Music Room in particular, where in 1944 informal talks were held among American, British and Russian diplomats (Cordell Hull, Andrea Gromyko) to lay the groundwork for the United Nations. The art work in the Music Room is fabulous, there are two Flemish tapestries from 1480-1520

• Walked 18 holes of golf at the East Potomac Blue Course (6,600 yds, slope 115). Every hole has a view of the Washington Monument, and several holes on the back 9 display both the Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. It was hot, 96 degrees, I drank 2 gallons of water, it took the front 9 to get my rhythm, then I made shot par on 4 successive holes # 10-13, afterwards I stopped to eat at Phillips Seafood Restaurant.

• Took Helen Bjoko and Francina Jones to the Palm Restaurant as appreciation for their efforts in the Accounting Department. Saw Paul Begala, a Democratic Party consultant.

• At the Folger Shakespeare Library, located directly behind the Supreme Court building, the Docent (a local attorney) led a wonderful one hour tour. We saw on display one of the 79 First Folios printed in 1623.

• Toured the Ronald Reagan Building. Bush 43 had inaugural balls there in ’01 and ’05. It is ironic that a President who railed against big government has the 2nd largest government building named after him!.

• I walked past the Internal Revenue Building on Constitution, and above the entrance were the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society”

• Another running route mid-week is along Arlington Ridge Road to 23rd Street and back. Arlington Ridge originally extended from Old Towne Alexandria to the Key Bridge into Georgetown. Much of the road was leveled when the Pentagon road system “the mixing bowl” was constructed in 1942.

• One Saturday morning ran out East Capitol Street past Lincoln Park to the National Guard Armory.

• Toured the Woodrow Wilson House 2340 S Street, where President Wilson lived from Mar 4, 1921 to Feb 3, 1924. He was almost blind, crippled (but refused a wheelchair) as a result of a stroke. He and his 2nd wife Edith purchased the 10,000 sf “Gentlemen’s Home’ (first floor reception rooms, living quarters upstairs) in 1921 for $ 150,000. It was extremely interesting to see the bathrooms, closets, kitchen, since 85% of the furnishings are exactly as there were in 1924. The last social function Edith held was a luncheon in 1961 for the new First Lady, Jackie Kennedy. My docent, 81 year old Dick Goodwin

September

• Ran from my apartment to the WWII memorial, and coming back past the Pentagon was stopped by 4 different police cars, as they were beginning to blockade all streets in anticipation of the 9-11 memorial service at 9:37 a.m. to be attended by President Obama and the families of the victims.

• Took Terrell Braden to lunch at the Oval Room restaurant on Connecticut

• Walked to a lecture at the Brookings Institution at 1785 Mass Ave. Founded in 1916, Brookings is the #1 Think Tank in the United States, was commissioned by FDR to study causes of the Great Depression, was tasked by Truman to prepare an organizational scheme for the Marshall Plan, and is funded in part by the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation.

• Took Boris Orcev to eat at the Caucus Room restaurant on 9th Street, owned by Tommy Boggs and Haley Barbour.

• Joined the West Point Society of D.C. and attended the Fall Luncheon at the Fort Myer Officers Club. Sat at a table of 1974 and 1975 grads, visited with Larry Adair, Co. A-1, retired MG, now working for a Defense Dept contractor. The FMOC has 3 ballrooms on the 2nd floor, and a very nice restaurant on the main floor. It hit me that this is a fraternity of retired military officers that I am not part of.

• Nancy and I drove the 85 miles to Gettysburg. At the Visitors Center, we saw a film, and were amazed at the Cyclorama painted in 1885. Then a licensed battlefield guide drove us in our car for 2 hours around the battlefield. We visited the monument for the 68th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment at the Peach Orchard, where my great-great grandfather, Pvt William P. Bach was wounded, and then we found his name listed on the State of Pennsylvania monument. In the museum Nancy innocently asked me why any parent would name their son “Stonewall” Jackson?

• 1791 L’Enfant plan, Boundary Street was renamed Florida in 1890, “Eye” Street, “Que” Street, there was no “J” Street, Du Pont Circle was Pacific Circle. Of the 50 states, 48 are Avenues, California Street and Ohio Drive. After the letters of the alphabet are exhausted, streets begin the 2nd alphabet of 2 syllables (Calvert) then 3rd alphabet 3 syllables (Brandywine). The Organic Act of 1871 merged the City of Washington, City of Georgetown and Washington County into a single municipality. High Street in Georgetown was renamed Wisconsin in 1895 when all the streets were renamed to conform to the L’Enfant plan. Alexandria County was renamed Arlington County in 1920.

• Foreign Diplomat auto license plates have the designations such as DCY4001, which means “Diplomat” then the 2 letter country code, in this case People’s Republic of China, the 4 digit actual auto designator

October

• One Saturday I drove to Vienna to a coin store, and tried a new route home. Got lost, and pulled into the entrance of the C.I.A. Headquarters in Langley, VA, on the Old Georgetown Pike, Hwy 193. As I stopped to look at my map, 3 Federal police cars quickly surrounded me, and demanded to know why I was trespassing on Federal property. It took about 10 minutes to get resolved, and I am surprised how average citizens are now suspects. The last time I had been to Langley was in January 1973 when my West Point contingent of cadets came for President Nixon’s 2nd Inaugural Parade, and we were given a tour and briefing at the Old Headquarters Building of the CIA. The original CIA headquarters was on Navy Hill, 2430 E Street, occupying the buildings of the old Naval Hospital before it relocated to Bethesda in 1942.

• Lon Soloman, McLean Bible Church Pastor said on Sunday that his vision is for the church to have a satellite campus at the Uptown Theatre on Connecticut

• Walked to Lafayette Square, and walked through the atrium of the Federal Appeals Court Building, the former location of the Rodgers House, where the assassination attempt on then Secretary of War Stanton occurred the night President Lincoln was shot. Next door is the Dolly Madison House, where she lived from 1837-1849 after President Madison died. In 1887 the house became the first location of the Cosmos Club.

• Nancy and I had coffee, green tea and Danish in the sidewalk café of the Willard Hotel (where the Peace Conference 1861 was held, and Julia Ward Howe wrote the lyrics to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic on November 18, 1861). As we toured Mike and Judy McClendon, I discovered the bookstore and small museum beneath the Jefferson Memorial. At Mount Vernon I walked down to the wharf, along the woodland trail (oak and hickory) and the Treading Barn.

• Walked two blocks to the American Enterprise Institute for the panel discussion “What have they done? The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act”. It was very enlightening with brilliant speakers. This was my favorite public policy forum that I’ve attended.

• Walked to the National Museum of American Jewish Military History on R Street. About 20 different exhibits from WW1 through Iraq War, and an interesting one was detail about the 14 Jewish soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor. The most poignant exhibit, however, was created by the mother of Pvt Sandy Kahn, an 18 year old from Kearny, NJ, who was killed near St. Lo, France, on 11 July, 1945. Special memorabilia chronicles his birth, growing up years, high school, basic training, the telegram notifying his parents of his death, and a typed letter from an eyewitness who described how Sandy was killed. I have never seen such a gripping personal memorial, which is entitled “The bravest battles are not fought on the battlefield, but in the heart of a Mother who loses a son in war”

• Visited the Spy Museum on F Street. Cost $18, but well worth it. Could take 2 hrs to see everything from enigma machines, to a letter from Mata Hari, to Cyber War, to the Red Terror in the Soviet Union.

• Took a tour of the Kennedy Center. Saw the Presidential Box in the Opera House, the 1,735 lights in the chandelier are replaced every 3 years, the docent explained that the Grand Foyer is the longest hallway in the world (longer than the Washington Monument is high!), and the view from the Roof Terrace is the most spectacular view I’ve ever seen of the Potomac River. The Embassy of Saudi Arabia is in a prominent location nearby.

• Ashlyn flew in to spend a weekend with me. When I drove back from BWI the Douglass Bridge was under renovation, so I took the Whitney Young Memorial Bridge. At the WWII memorial I spent time looking at all 12 bas reliefs, then we went to Georgetown University and walked into Gaston Hall, the gothic auditorium on the 4th floor of Healy Hall, then I bought her a sweatshirt at the bookstore.

• Signed up for the Murals Tour in the Main Interior Building. Commissioned between 1937-1939, these frescos depict land management and the depression era in a very vivid and colorful style. I learned the interesting history of the Department of the Interior ( Home Department, or Dept of Everything Else) in that at its creation in 1849 as just the 4th Cabinet Department established, it absorbed the Land Office from Treasury, Patent Office from State, and Indian Affairs from War. The great source of political power (and corruption) was the Pension Bureau, the darling of the Grand Army of the Republic. From 1852-1917 Interior was located in the old Patent Office, from 1917-1935 in what is now the GSA building on 19th, and moved to its present location under the leadership of Harold Ickes in 1935. Over time, Interior spun off what is now the departments of Agriculture, Labor, Commerce, Education, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Transportation, and the IRS

• Ran the Marine Corps Marathon 10K in 68:40. Starting at the Smithsonian Castle, there was a Marine color guard, singing of the National Anthem, and a howitzer booming the start. The route took us past the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, across the 14th Street Bridge, into Crystal City, then down Route 110 past the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery and finishing up the hill to the Iwo Jima Memorial. Many groups of runners ran with shirts honoring KIAs in Iraq and Afghanistan. One shirt said “Pain is weakness leaving the body, well, the pain wasn’t leaving my body!”. The Marathon, the 4th largest in the U.S. and the 8th largest in the world had 21,856 runners, and the 10K had 10,000

November

• Heard Oral Arguments for 35 minutes at the Supreme Court Building. Beginning the 1st Monday in October, the Court generally hears two one-hour arguments a day, 10am and 11am, Mon, Tues and Wed, with the attorney representing each side allowed 30 minutes to make a presentation and answer questions. My spectator group was only supposed to be in the Courtroom for 3 minutes, but it wasn’t a controversial case, so not many people were waiting in line. The Court Chamber is 44’ high with a coffered ceiling, the raised bench behind which the Justices sit is mahogany, and crimson drapes hang very dramatically. All the Justices asked questions except Thomas and Roberts. The Chief sits in the middle, and the Associate Justices sit alternately in order of tenure, the newest on the Chief’s far left, the next newest on his far right, so Scalia, the most senior Associate is seated immediately to Roberts’ right. When they ask questions, their tone of voice often indicates their position on the case before them. I then toured the bookstore and ate lunch in the cafeteria.

• The last Tuesday I was a resident here I arose at 2am, drove into the town, parked at my spot at 21st and Constitution, and ran one last time. It was a clear sky, and brisk weather. I found the plaque for Alaska and Hawaii inserted into the plaza in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and the inscription, 18 steps from the chamber, commemorating Dr. King’s “I have a Dream” speech. I am very grateful for my health, this gift the Lord has given me to live here for a season in my life, and that I can now go home to Nancy.

• Nancy and I packed my things in a Penske rental truck and left Arlington on Saturday November 6th at noon, and drove 1,047 miles arriving in Little Rock at 5 pm on Sunday

Appendix A

Lists of Favorites

Music

1. Handel - Water Music

1. Mozart - Clarinet Concerto (especially the 2nd movement)

1. Mozart - Piano Concerto #20 (especially the 2nd movement)

1. Mozart - Horn Concerto K412

2. Mozart - Don Giovanni (especially “La ci darem la mano”)

1. Beethoven - Violin Concerto

1. Beethoven - Piano Concerto #5

1. Beethoven - Symphony #5

1. Dvorak - New World Symphony

1. Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto #2

Books

1. Homer - The Iliad

1. Thucydides - The History of the Peloponnesian War

1. Plutarch - Parallel Lives of Illustrious Greeks and Romans

2. Shakespeare – Henry V (especially Act 4 Scene 3)

1. Cervantes - Don Quixote

1. Dumas – Count of Monte Cristo

2. Murray – Waiting on God, Humility

1. Chambers – My Utmost for His Highest

1. Freeman – George Washington, 7 volumes

2. Grudem – Systematic Theology

Movies

1. Random Harvest

2. Pride of the Yankees

1. The Bishop’s Wife

1. It’s A Wonderful Life

1. The Quiet Man

1. My Fair Lady

1. Fiddler on the Roof

2. Lonesome Dove

1. Last of the Mohicans This film illustrates the frontier experiences of Mans Jonasson, Peter Jones and George Rex.

1. Gettysburg (1993) This film illustrates the Civil War experiences of William Bach and David Eisenberg

Hymns

1. He Lives

2. In the Garden

3. This is my Father’s World

4. My Faith Has Found a Resting Place

5. Trust and Obey

6. How Great Thou Art

7. It is Well with My Soul

8. For the Beauty of the Earth

Appendix B

History of Family Financial Stewardship

1. Peter Jones, Jr. left the following will dated May 29, 1772

“ I give and bequeath unto my wife my bedstead and all the furniture, three of my best chears, one iron pott of her choice, two pewter dishes, six pewter plates, my tea kettle and six pewter spoons, one milch cow to be her choice out of all my cattle. Also, my saddle and the fourth row of apple trees from the meadow. To my eldest son Peter I give and bequeath all the remainder of my real estate, my negro man, (historical note: eight years later, in 1780, Pennsylvania passed the Gradual Abolition Act, which was the first emancipation statute in the United States) and rent of my plantation. To each of my daughters Elizabeth, Pearse, and Judith I bequeath 50 pounds when each erives at the age of 21 years. I also direct my son Peter to give my youngest son Ezekiel two years of schooling and provide for him sufficient meat, drink, apparel, washing and lodging and at the experation of said two years schooling shall bind him to a trade as my said son Ezekiel shall chuse. I also give to my son Ezekiel my big musket gun when he erives at age 21 years. I make and ordain my wife Ruth Jones and my son Peter Jones executors of this my last will and testament hereby revoking and making void all former wills made by me. Signed in the presence of said Peter Jones, and the two witnesses, John Kerlin and Nicholas Bunn.”

2. On March 23, 1929, Frederick Oberle established a Trust for the benefit of his descendents. The Trustee was the Provident Trust Company of Philadelphia (now PNC)

The Trust was initially funded with

154 shares of The Pennsylvania RailRoad Company

(This stock was $110/share in 1929, paying an 8% dividend, but by 1932 it

had plunged to$7/share in 1932, paying a 1% dividend)

456 shares of John B. Stetson Company

450 shares of Bankers Securities Trust of America

Assignment of a $5,000 life policy from Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York

Assignment of two $1,000 life policies from Aetna Life Insurance Company

The income of the trust was to be paid to the descendents, per stirpes, until 20 years after the death of the last family member who was living at the date the trust was created. He excluded his sons Louis and George , and their descendents, from the estate. Frederick named the First National Bank of Ocean City as the executor of his will.

3. Christian Peterson, apparently made cautious by the Depression, invested his wealth primarily in Turnpike Bonds and Municipal Bonds. His favorite financial saying was “10% of wealth is making money, and 90% is knowing what to do with it.” He had sold the Peterson Packing Company to my Dad in 1956 for $550,000, carrying the note himself. The debt originally was to be paid over 10 years, but when the oysters died in 1958 Pop reworked the note to be interest annually, and principal repaid only when the business made money. In his will Pop directed that after his wife’s death the proceeds of their estate, approximately $550,000, was to be distributed $75,000 to each child, $5,000 to each grandchild, and $10,000 to the Second Presbyterian Church in Bridgeton. By 1964, however, the oyster business had collapsed to the point that it was impossible for Dad to repay a $550,000 note because the business wasn’t worth it. He told Mom’s 2 brothers and 2 sisters that he would turn back ownership to the family unless they agreed to a reappraisal of the business to determine its current market value. They initially objected because they thought Dad was trying to cheat them out of their inheritance. They eventually agreed to an outside, objective appraiser who valued the business at not $550,000, but $55,000! This strained the relationship among Mom’s brothers and sisters because they received a lot smaller inheritance than they had anticipated.

4. Harold Bickings sold the Peterson Packing Company in 1986 for $420,000. He invested this money, primarily in Annuities and Municipal Bond mutual funds. Dad was an astute investor, and every time we talked on the phone, he would refer to some article he had read in the “Wall Street Journal”, and asked me my opinion. I once asked him if he reinvested all his money back into the Company. He replied that he believed in diversification, and over the years he had invested a lot of his money outside the oyster business. In 1995 I helped Dad update his estate planning, and a tax attorney in Atlantic City prepared the wills and created the trusts, and a Smith Barney officer was the Investment Advisor. After Dad’s death, since I was the Trustee of the Estate, I invested the money into 10 year 7% fixed rate life insurance annuities, and by the time of Mom’s death, the, the estate had increased to over $1,600,000. Mom and Dad never touched the principal of the estate or even the interest, living sparsely on just their Social Security check and his salary as the manager of the shucking house for the new owner of the business. Dad had kept approximately $59,000 in cash in the safe in the basement of their house, which was all the Saturday clamming money he had earned over the years. Dad told me that his only expectation of me for my inheritance was that I bequeath more to my children than he did to his. Dad’s favorite saying about money was “Variety is the spice of life, but it takes monotony to finance it.” After Mom’s death, we sold the house at 21 Woodlawn Ave. for $180,000.

5. Nancy and I began tithing 10% of our gross income as soon as we were married, and I believe this is a key to the innumerable financial blessings in our lives. Every year I applied any tax refund to our house mortgage to pay down the debt faster. I carry $1,000,000 in term life insurance with USAA, and $65,000 in whole life insurance with the Army Mutual Aid Association. We pay off our credit card debt at the end of each month. In 1989 I started saving for retirement by contributing 8% of my bi-weekly pay into a 401(k) in which first Worthen, then Boatmen’s, NationsBank, Bank of America, and Superior Bank matched 75% in company stock. I invest our retirement money in the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund. Similar to the wealth my great-grandfather Frederick Oberle derived from Stetson stock options, our net worth increased dramatically from the executive stock options that the bank awarded me each year. For example, in 1991 I was awarded 1,000 options at $12/share, which by 1999 had increased in value to $65/share. Of course, I benefited not only from the bull market of 1994-1999, but also bank consolidations which added a premium at each acquisition. Because of these options, by 1999 we had set aside $160,000 to pay for the girls’ college educations, before they even finished high school. I thought the “tech bubble” was excessive, so I put all this money into cash, thus avoiding the 2001-2003 recession. When Superior Bank was acquired by Arvest Bank in 2003, my Executive Severance Package provided me 2.0 times my salary, so I put this all that money into our retirement account. In October 2007 I felt that the economy was again overheated, this time in real estate, so I went to cash as a defensive measure, and over the next 12 months, God protected me from a 48% decline in market value. In 2008 I received a $430,000 inheritance from Mom and Dad’s estate, and after we paid the tithe, we paid off our house mortgage, then put the rest into retirement.

Appendix C

Harold Bickings September 6, 1917 - April 14, 1998 Born in Philadelphia 137-14-1299

Esther Peterson March 4, 1919 – October 26, 2007 Born in Bridgeton 155-07-1569

Married June 14, 1941

Everett Bickings* June 6, 1879 - February 11, 1957 born in Philadelphia

Mary Oberle* March 1882 - May 14, 1928 Born in Philadelphia

Married February 27, 1916 St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Barren Hill, Penna

Frederick Oberle* May 6, 1848 - May 23, 1929 Born in Baden ,Germany

Mary Hamilton***** April 26,1848 - January 4, 1914 Born in Philadelphia

Married July 29, 1872

Frederick was naturalized as a US citizen on 9-27-1870 in Philadelphia

Michael Oberle*** 1816 - August 24, 1870 Born in Baden, Germany

Elizabeth Arnold**** 1821 - January 16, 1905 Born in Baden, Germany

Robert Hamilton Born in Ireland

Mary Raigen Born in Ireland

Henry Rex Bickings** October 17, 1850 - August 3, 1915 Born in Roxborough, Penna

Clara Macdowell Cornell* March 3, 1859 - October 1, 1930 born in Bucks County, Penna

Married June 13, 1878

Adrian Cornell Born in Scotland

Mary Macdowell Born in England

Josiah Bickings** August 11, 1814 - January 18, 1890 Born in Penna

Melvina Rex** March 16, 1821 - February 14, 1908 Born in Penna

Heinrich Rex***** June 1, 1788 – February 7, 1864 born in Roxborough Township

Susanna Schong***** 1785 – February 18, 1842 Born in Penna

Married February 2, 1811

Wilhelm Rex 1743 - March 20, 1812 Born in Heidelberg Township

Catharina Rex ? - September 11, 1829 Born in Penna

Married 1867

George (Ruger) Rex Jr.****** 1720 - 1772 born in Heidelberg Township

Anna Knaus

Married August 24, 1742

Joseph Bickings 1790 - 1854 Born in Lower Merion Township

Catherine Dickerson 1790 -

Richard Bicking******* September 18, 1753 - July 31, 1803 Born in Lower Merion Township

Sarah Martin

Married November 16, 1778

John Friedrich Bicking******* March 29, 1730 - November 4, 1809 Born Winterberg, Germany

Mary Unvergast******* August 31, 1732 - November 30, 1782 Born in Otwiller, Germany

Married May 26, 1752 St. Michael’s & Zion Lutheran Church

Dorothy Jarret 1741 - July 16, 1805

Married May 11, 1784

April 3, 1763 Frederich signed an allegiance to Crown of Great Britain (naturalized)

* Buried in Atlantic City Cemetery, Pleasantville, New Jersey

** Buried in Roxborough Presbyterian Church Yard, Philadelphia, Penna

*** Buried in Franklin Cemetery, Philadelphia, Penna

**** Buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Penna

***** Buried in St. Peter’s Lutheran Churchyard, Barren Hill, Penna

****** Buried in St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Germantown

****** * Buried in the Bickings private family burial ground (behind 149 Fairview Rd, Penn Valley, in Lower Merion Township)

Appendix D

Christian Peterson* June 24, 1896 - April 14, 1961 Born in Greenwich, NJ

Carrie Esther Bach* July 1, 1895 - September 28, 1968 Born in Philadelphia

Married February 28, 1917

John Peterson* February 27, 1865 - January 1, 1940 Born in Denmark

Elizabeth Bangel* August 15, 1869 - August 16, 1942 Born in Penna

John petitioned for US citizenship 10-27-1887 in Camden, NJ

Anders Pedersen March 9, 1843 - March 23, 1931 Born and died in Denmark

Ane Jensen September 12, 1842 - June 27, 1915 Born and died in Denmark

George Bangel 1830 - ? Born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany

Leia Schmidt Born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany

Harry Francis Bach September 17, 1875- ? Born in Pottstown, Penna

Stella Baker Eisenberg* July 21, 1873 - May 15, 1957 Born in Pottstown, Penna

Married Stella November 22, 1894

William Price Bach Sr.**** September 20,1845 - February 11, 1920 Born in Germantown

Elizabeth May **** December 25, 1847 - September 9, 1913 Born in Pennsylvania

Married June 30, 1866

Mary Ervines

Married December 24, 1916

Francis S. Bach April 10, 1820 – July 30, 1882 Born in Philadelphia

Mary Price May 22, 1819 – November 21,1908 Born in Chester, Penna

Married November 9, 1841

David Yerger Eisenberg** November 28, 1840 - August 1, 1917 Born in Franconia Township

Sarah E. Baker July 15, 1841 - December 16, 1878

Married July 4, 1861

Sarah Yorgey** 1850 - August 15, 1911

Married March 23, 1880

Samuel Jones Eisenberg May 12, 1806 - August 11, 1861 Born in Limerick Township

Lydia Yerger September 18, 1804 - April 16, 1873 Born in Penna

Married September 6, 1829

Lawrence Eisenberg*** June 30, 1763 - October 4, 1826 Born in Penna

Ruth Jones*** July 20, 1775 - September 5, 1826 Born in Amity Township

Married January 12, 1794

Peter Jones III *** October 10, 1749- November 24, 1809 Born in Amity Township

Katharina Kerlin*** November 9, 1756- February 25, 1844 Born in Chester County

Married October 13, 1772

Peter Jones Jr. 1715 – 1773 Born in Amity Township

Ruth Henton 1723 - 1780 Born in Philadelphia

Peter Jones, Sr. 1693 - 1758 Born in Aronameck

Elizabeth Henry 1695 - 1771

Mounce Jonasson 1668 - 1727 Born in Kingsessing

Ingabor Yocum 1670 - 1728 Born in Sweden

Jonas Nilsson***** 1620 - 1693 Born in Sweden

Gertrude Svensdotter 1630 - 1695 Born in Sweden

* Buried in Overlook Cemetery, Bridgeton, NJ

** Buried in Hillside Cemetery, Roslyn, Penna

*** Buried in St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church Yard, Douglassville, Penna

**** Buried in Pottstown Cemetery, Pottstown, Penna

***** Buried in Old Swedes Church Cemetery, Philadelphia

Appendix E

Sources

1. “The Swedish Settlement on the Delaware 1638-1664” Vol I, by Amandus Johnson, Ph.D.

1. “Genealogy of Jonas Nilsson” by Dr. Peter S. Craig, Swedish Colonial Society News, Vol 1, Nmb 7, Spring 1993

1. “Early Americans” by Carl Bridenbaugh

1. “The Pennsylvania Line” by John B. Trussell, on the 11th Pennsylvania Regiment

1. “The Eisenberg-Jones Family Record” submitted to the Daughter’s of The American Revolution, 1926

obtained from the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Penna

6. St. Gabriel Episcopal Church, Douglasville, PA, records on Peter Jones Jr. and Lawrence Eisenberg

6. “History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers 1861-1865” by Samuel P. Bates, on the 129th Penna Infantry Regiment

6. “Politics, Reform and Expansion 1890-1900” by Harold U. Faulkner

6. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C., for Civil War Pension Records of David Eisenberg

6. Web Page on Dr. Russell Conwell

6. “Still Philadelphia - A Photographic History 1890-1940” by Fredric Miller and Morris Vogel

6. “Gettysburg - The Second Day” by Harry W. Pfanz

6. Interview with William P. Bach, Pottstown Daily Ledger, July 1, 1913

7. “Army Medical Department 1818-1865” by Mary G. Gillett

6. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. for the Civil War Records of William P. Bach

6. “A Short History of Denmark” by Stewart Oakley

6. “Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Baltimore 1821-1890” microfilm from the National Archives

6. “South Jersey’s Oyster Industry” by Shirley Bailey, published by the South Jersey Magazine

6. Web Page on the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse

6. Bulletin of the Historical Society of Montgomery County – Vol XI Fall 1957-Spring 1959

6. Lineage Book of the Daughters of the American Revolution #146149 - Volume CXLVII dated 1919

6. “Lower Merion’s Mill History” The Landmark, the Newsletter of the Lower Merion Conservancy Fall 1996

6. “German Settlers in Pennsylvania 1743-1800” by Edward Hocker

6. “Colonists in Bondage - White Servitude and Convict Labor in America 1607-1776” by Abbot Emerson Smith

6. Transcribed from the Pennsylvania Archives (series 6, volume 1, page 938)

6. “1777 - The Year of the Hangman” by John Pancake

6. “The Crucible of War - The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America” by Fred Anderson

6. National Genealogical Society Quarterly - December 1980 “George Rex of Germantown” by Doris Rex Schutte

6. “The German Immigration into Penna ” by Frank Diffenderffer

6. 1860 McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory

6. “Roxborough Presbyterian Church, an outline of its History 1854-1904” by Henry McManus

7. “The Era of Expansion 1800-1848” by Don Fehrenbacher

6. Minutes from the January 20, 1903 meeting of the Board of Directors of the John B. Stetson Company

6. Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865-1970, by Jeffery B. Snyder

6. Muhlenberg College Athletic Department, Allentown, Penna, and the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, Pittsburgh, Penna, for information on George Gernerd

6. Web Page listing the statistics of each game of Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak

6. “Epidemic and Peace 1918” by Alfred Cosby

6. “Take Me Out to the Ballpark” by Josh Leventhal

Sources (continued)

* Pennsylvania Births - Montgomery County 1682-1800 by John T. Humphrey

* 1790 United States Census on Richard Bickings

* 1820 United States Census Records on John Bickings

* 1850 United States Census Records on Josiah Bickings

* 1860 United States Census Records on Samuel Eisenberg

* 1870 United States Census Records on Michael Oberle

* 1880 United States Census Records on William P. Bach Sr.

* 1900 United States Census Records on Frederick Oberle

* Roxborough Presbyterian Church Cemetery records on Josiah and Henry Bickings

* Death Certificates on John Peterson, Elizabeth Bangel, Christian Peterson, Stella Bach, Frederick

Oberle, Clara Oberle, Mary Bickings, Henry Bickings, David Eisenberg, Samuel Eisenberg, Michael Oberle, Elizabeth Oberle, Melvina Rex

* Divorce Court Records on Harry and Stella Bach

* Obituaries from the Bridgeton Evening News on John Peterson and Christian Peterson

* Interviews with Harold and Esther Bickings, Marie Peterson Elwell, Christian and Spencer Peterson

* PNC Trust Department, Philadelphia, Penna for a copy of the 1929 Trust of Frederick Oberle

* Research by Michael Ramage, professional genealogist

* United States Naturalization Records on Frederick Oberle, George Bangel and John Peterson

* Research by Vivian Taylor, Staff Genealogist for the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Penna

* “The First 300 Years – The Amazing and Rich History of Lower Merion” edited by the Lower Merion Historical Society

* Walt Whitman’s Fredericksburg poems – “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim” and “Sights – The Great Army of the Sick”, “The Wound Dresser” and “The Real Precious and Royal Ones of this Land”

* Staley-Bickings Family Manuscript, archived in the Montgomery County Historical Society

* The Federal Window Pane Tax of 1798 for Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Penna, levied on Frederick Bickings

* Map of the Mills of Mill Creek in 1776, drawn by Dr. Douglas Macfarlan in 1937 (Lower Merion Hist Society)

* “Red-tape and Pigeon-hole Generals” by William H. Armstrong, edited by Frederick Arner. Reprint of an 1864 thinly guised account of the 129th Penna Infantry Regiment and its Commander Andrew A. Humphries

* The Historic Preservation Trust of Berks County, Penna on the Mans Jones House

* DAR Genealogical Library, Washington, D.C.

Next Steps

My desire is that one of my relatives, or a descendent in the future, would continue this family research with the same degree of accuracy that I have pursued. I would suggest the following areas need further research:

A lot of information needs to be gathered on:

George Bangel and Leia Schmidt

Robert Hamilton and Mary Raigen

Adrian Cornell and Mary McDowell

Sarah Baker’s parents

Joseph Bickings

What years did Frederick Oberle work at Stetsons? When and where were Frederick and Clara Cornell Bickings married?

Appendix F

New Jersey Family Genealogy

Children of Elizabeth and John Peterson

Christian John b. 07.24.1896 d. 04.14.1961

Helena b. 05.26.1894 d. 03.26.1977

m. Winfred Cawgill

Marie b. 02.27.1901 d. 01.01.1970

m. Roscoe DeBaun

Children of Carrie and Christian Peterson

Marie Anna b. 01.25.1918 d. 04.11.2005

m. Wilbert Ellwell 08.26.1937

Janet

Jimmy

Esther Mae b. 03.04.1919 d. 10.26.2007 NJ State Teachers College at Glassboro

John Christian b. 10.31.1920 d. 03.06.1990

m. Betty Ruff 02.08.1941 b. 03.15.1920 d. 11.01.1995

Spencer b. 11.21.1946 sister Tracy died in childbirth

m. June Canevari 02.22.1969

Scott b. 06.04.1972

Todd b. 11.02.1975

m. Kandy Wescott 04.04.1992

Christian John b. 07.10.1926 d. 09.26.2001

m. Dorothy Eddy 07.09.1949 b. 10.04.1926 Rutgers University 1948

Greg b. 10.07.1950 Glassboro College 1972

m. Kathleen McDowell

Bruce b. 05.08.1953

m. Zina

Christian John III (Chip) b. 02.04.1957 Trenton State Mortuary College 1978

m. Karen Haaf

Diane b. 04.18.1961 Rutgers University 1983

m. Keith Hill

Robbie b. 04.03.1963

m. Carmela Morris

Elizabeth “Betty” Helen b. 06.06.1936 d. 04.15.1980

m. Donald Johnson 03.07.1954 b. 04.14.1934

m. Nancy Price 08.11.1982 b. 07.13.1934

Donnie Millard Jr. b. 09.28.1954

m. Karen Richter 10..24.1981 b. 08.01.1958 d. 09.05.2008

David Kevin b. 11.19.1956

m. Donna Wulderk 08.20.1983 b. 06.17.1958

Darrell Charles b. 04.08.1959 d. 04.20.2007

m. Ingrid Mohr 06.14.1980 b. 12.14.1957

Linda Susanne b. 10.11.1963

m. Frank Loew 10.25.1986 b. 01.03.1963

Children of Esther and Harold Bickings

Stella Bonnie b. 4.24.1943 d. 10.11.1981 Carthage College 1968

m. Bruce Erickson 06.22.1968

Harold Everett Jr. b. 9.30.1945 Carthage College 1969

m. Cheryl Ware 02.07.1970

m. Mary Ann Overdevest Saulin 8.31.2001 Our Lady of Lords School/ Nursing 1970

Duane Keith b. 09.24.1951 West Point 1974

m. Nancy Zabel 02.01.1975 b. 11.11.1952 Texas Women’s University 1975

John Christian b. 07.06.1954 Annapolis 1976

m. Jayme Bonnet 12.19.1976 b. 03.01.1954 Texas Women’s University 1976

Appendix G

New Jersey Family Genealogy

Children of Stella and Bruce Erickson

Matthew b. 12.02.1969 Rutgers University - Camden 1993

m. Jennifer Matarese 07.23.1994 b. 01.29.1970 Rutgers University - Camden 1994

Casey b. 05.15.2003

Laura b. 06.20.1972

m. Billy Harris 08.21.2003

Derrick Swanson b. 02.14.1995

Children of Cheryl and Harold Bickings Jr.

Leah b. 03.18.1971 Rowan University 1995

m. George Taylor 11.14.1992 Rowan University 1996

Jonathan b. 03.01.1991

Dillon b. 01.21.1999

Ryan b. 03.25.2004

Harold III b. 11.03.1973 Trenton State College 1996

m. Emily Beck 11.20.1999 b. 10.11.1974 Winthrop University 1997

Abbey b. 07.07.2005

Molly b. 02.25.2010

Children of Nancy and Duane Bickings

Kambry b. 08.17.1981 Baylor University 2004

m. Brian Ruby 01-08-2005 b. 05.05.1981 Baylor University 2004

Ashlyn b. 03.09.1984 Baylor University 2005

Children of Jayme and John Bickings

Christian b. 04.15.1981 Annapolis 2003

m. Julie Pedrick 08.19.2006 b. 08.11.1978 The College of New Jersey 2000

Caroline b. 11.27.2009

Steven b. 04.13.1983 Texas A&M 2005, Texas Tech Law School 2008

m. Mary Alice James 07.14.2007 b. 03.03.1983 Texas A&M 2005

Conrad b. 05.17.1987 Annapolis 2009

Oklahoma Panhandle Pioneers

Zabel - Schaeffer Pickard - Ferguson

We say time flies, but some people say that time stays, and we go. We enter the starting blocks of life not knowing the length of the race. Our life may be a sprint or a marathon, we are not told in advance. All that we can decide is how we will run. Joseph Feeton has observed that every life shares a common mark, and he calls it “the dash between the dates”. On every tombstone, whether ornate or simple, they put one dash between between the date of birth and the date of death. We get one dash through life. It reminds us of the stark truth. Just as man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people. In the end, men reduce all living to a cold mark on the stone. For those of us who live a life worthy of the Lord, following in the footsteps of Jesus, the end of the dash on earth is the beginning of heaven’s glory. Some ancestors ran well, finished strong, and received an eternal prize. You and I are still in the race.

It’s hard to believe, but an event in 1763 in Russia is still affecting the Oklahoma Panhandle today. That year, Catherine the Great issued a Manifesto promising free land, exemption from taxes and military service, local self-government, and freedom to retain their religion and culture if German farmers would relocate to the prairies of Russia. Catherine had been a 15 year old princess born in Germany when she was pledged in marriage to Czar Peter III. When he died and she became Czarina, she had a lot more respect for the hardworking nature and thrift of Germans than what she thought was the sloth of the Slavic peasants. The following years thousands of people left Germany and Prussia (Poland) to immigrate to the wind-swept prairie of Russia along the Volga River. One hundred ten years later, Czar Alexander III reversed all the earlier reforms, and began persecuting the German and Polish farmers in Russia. Thus began the exodus to the free land of the central United States.

The passage of the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 by the United States Congress led to the settlement of the frontier known then as ‘No Man’s Land”, and today as the Oklahoma Panhandle. Promised 320 acres of free land, poor German and Polish born farmers started planting “turkey red”, a wheat seed they had brought with them from Russia which was resistant to harsh winter weather and drought. Over the next 25 years this pioneering effort, coupled with the increased efficiency of mechanized farming, converted the grassland sod of Cimarron, Texas and Beaver counties into highly productive dry-land wheat farms.

August Zabel “Grandpa Zabel” (1859 - 1934) was born in Poland, and Minnie Roberts (which she explained to people is pronounced Ro ‘ berts) “Grandma Zabel” (1873 - 1925) was born in Russia. They embarked from Bremen, Germany, and landed at Baltimore, Maryland, on July 12, 1892. On his naturalization papers to become a U.S. citizen, August had to renounce his allegiance to the Czar of Russia, but since he couldn’t write his name, he put his mark “X” on the application. They had 13 children: Emma (she was riding alone in a one-horse buggy when the horse was spooked by something in the road, bolted in fear, and Emma was thrown from the buggy and broke her neck. Her husband Gus then married her sister) Augusta, Fred, Anna, Elsie, Herman (all born in Lehigh, Kansas, near the original Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad line), Ed, Sam, Mary, Ernest, Albert, Elizabeth and Minnie. Their first home in Texas County in 1902 was a two room shack, they burned cow chips as fuel, then built their two story “home place” near Hooker about 1919. August demanded only German (low Dutch) spoken at home. “English is what those Irish speak”. He would be gone for months at a time working as part of a thrashing crew following the harvest up the Great Plains as far as North Dakota, so Minnie basically ran the farm. Each evening after supper, she would read the Bible by candle light to all her children and teach them how she wanted them to live. Minnie was a large woman with jet black hair and had severe varicose veins. The older children attended a one room school made of sod through the 3rd grade (August made all his children go to work full-time on the farm at age 10), and the whole family attended the Mennonite Brethren Church in Adams (where Minnie is buried, and her tombstone has the epitaph “Asleep in Jesus”). Her children all reminisced that August was very strict, but Minnie was affectionate, and provided correction with gentleness, reasoning, and encouragement. After she passed away, Grandpa Zabel started attending the Nazarene Church in Hooker, where he is buried.

In 1838, Gottlieb and Katharina Maier Schaeffer left the village of Handwailer, which is on the Neckar River near Waiblingen in the vicinity of Stuttgart, Germany, and traveled southeast over 1,500 miles and settled in Rosenfeld, in the Caucases of Russia, near Stavropol, to take advantage of free land. Both their son and grandson, John Schaeffer (1877 - 1958) were born here, as was John’s future wife Magdalena Hildebrand (1880 - 1918). After almost sixty years, the land couldn’t support three generations of families, so in 1898 the entire Schaeffer and Hildebrand family embarked on a 1,900 mile journey further east, relocating to Hannovka, on the edge of the Western Siberian Plain where more free land was available. (The movie Fiddler on the Roof depicts what life in “the little village of Hannovka” must have been like). Although there is just a three month growing season for crops, the soil is black and very fertile, and there are dense forests everywhere so firewood was plentiful. John, like most of the Schaeffers who moved with him, were farmers who raised wheat on just thirty acres, and it was in this quiet village that their children Phillip, Emma, Mary, John, Paul, Otto, and Lizzie were born. In the winter the temperature could drop to 50 degrees below zero, and they had to shovel away all the snow drifts from the house just to get sunlight in the two windows in their mud huts. To avoid the sons and husbands being drafted into the Russian Army, in late June, 1913, they began what can only be described as a monumental undertaking. John and Magdalena, the seven children, Magdalena’s recently widowed mother, and another family loaded all their belongings into a horse-drawn wagon and drove two days from Hannovka to Semipalatinsk, where they navigated a flat boat up the Irtysh River to Omsk, which took three days. There they boarded a train on the Trans-Siberian Railway beginning the 2,500 mile trek west across the Ural Mountains to Moscow which took six more days. (Another movie, Doctor Zhivago, depicts a family fleeing Moscow to find refuge in Siberia, and that train ride was certainly what the Schaeffers experienced). In Moscow they changed trains to go on to St. Petersburg, boarded a small ship from Libau (Latvia) sailing across the Baltic Sea and North Sea, stopping one night in Liverpool, England, for additional food and water, then began the seven-day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean bound for Halifax, Canada. Landing on August 2, 1913, they processed through immigration at Pier 2, and then continued on the Grand Trunk Railroad from Halifax to Chicago, eventually stopping in Milwaukee for a few months to rest up before the final leg of their journey. The family settled in Shattuck in 1914 because some Hildebrand relatives were living there. After Magdalena died, John married Mollie Laubhan in 1924 and moved to Follett, Texas where he worked as a shoe cobbler, but the family chose for him to be buried back in Shattuck next to Magdalena.

It might be interesting to compare the typical immigration steamer of 1912-1913 with the greatest luxury liner of that era, which will be mentioned in parenthesis. The Schaeffers boarded the steamer Russia (Titanic) which was built in 1908 (1911) in Glasgow, Scotland (Belfast, Ireland), for the Russian-American Line (White Star Line), was 475 feet long (882), had 2 funnels (4), had a maximum speed of 15 knots (24), could accommodate 40 First Class Passengers (739), 56 Second Class passengers (674), and 1,626 steerage passengers (1,026). The Russia made the Latvia/Halifax/New York City run until World War I broke out in August, 1914, when it was mothballed because all immigration across the Atlantic stopped. The Russia was sold to a Japanese company in 1924 and renamed the Huso Maru, and became a Japanese troop ship in World War II. It was torpedoed and sunk off the Philippines on March 17, 1944, by the U.S. Navy submarine Steelhead.

Fred Zabel (1897 - 1985) and Emma Schaeffer (1902 - 1987) were married on February 14, 1920, in Shattuck, Oklahoma. The first six months of their marriage they lived at the “home place” with Fred’s parents before moving into their own house nearby. Emma’s sister, Lizzie, lived with them off and on from 1924 – 1934. Fred and Emma had four children. Wilbert, who enlisted in the Navy in October 1941, and served 17 years until he received a medical discharge due to a disability from World War II. Norma, whose first husband and two infant sons are buried in the Lutheran graveyard in Oslo, (Hansford County) Texas, had breast cancer surgery in 1959. Her son, Larry, was an All-State Oklahoma football player in 1960, but broke his ankle which ended his hopes for a college scholarship. Norma moved to Amarillo in 1965, following her divorce, and completed a 40 year career working for J.C. Penny’s. Clarence was their third child; and Velma Jewel, the fourth child, who with her husband Leonard, pioneered a Foursquare church in Fort Collins, Colorado, 1956-1962, pastored a church in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, 1962-1970, back to Fort Collins 1970-1978, Los Angeles 1978-1983, and have lived in Cameron, Texas, since 1983.

Clarence was born about four miles southwest of Hooker, Oklahoma, just off Hwy 54 (the Frinfrock place). He was called “Bud” for the first year of his life because his parents couldn’t agree on a name! Clarence first attended the Buffalo School, a two room country schoolhouse about a mile from his family’s homestead. On his 10th birthday the family relocated to a farmhouse about eight miles southwest of Guymon, Oklahoma (the King place). Clarence then attended the Frisco School, a one room schoolhouse from the 5th - 8th grades. He experienced first hand the Dust Bowl days of the Oklahoma Panhandle from 1934 - 1937. The worst dust storm was on Palm Sunday, April 14, 1935. A huge cloud appeared about 3 pm, and by all accounts the sky went absolutely black for about two hours. Many people thought it was the end of the world and dropped to their knees in prayer. Clarence said that whenever a dust storm blew at night, he and his brother would go to bed under a moistened bed sheet, and the next morning it would be covered with dirt. Clarence contracted Rheumatic Fever when he was 16, and had to lay out his entire junior year of high school. In 1940 they moved again (the Ritter place). His father wanted him to start working on the farm, so Clarence never had a chance to finish school. He got a “farmers deferment” in World War II, which exempted the last son of a farm family from going to war. Clarence became a Christian in 1946 and was baptized after church one Sunday in the Frisco Creek.

Jean and Clarence were married at the First Foursquare Church in Guymon at 4pm on Sunday, September 8, 1946. Jean’s Maid of Honor was Lural Dryden and Clarence’s Best Man was his cousin, Billy Schaeffer (who died just two years later of a brain aneurism caused by his epilepsy). Patty was the flower girl. After the reception at the Pickard home, Jean and Clarence drove his dad’s 1941 GMC pickup all night long to Canyon City, Colorado, where Clarence’s parents had moved to open a tourist court called “Fred’s Cottage Camp” on Highway 50. (Clarence’s parents were still in Guymon having attended the wedding, so the cottages were temporarily closed up). Jean and Clarence finally arrived at 4am on September 9th, and were attempting to crawl through a window when a local resident spotted them and thought they were burglars! In January 1947 they went to Los Angeles to attend the Foursquare denomination’s LIFE Bible College. They decided that they weren’t called to the full-time ministry, so they returned to Guymon. He worked at odd jobs over the next ten years as a carpenter and painter saving enough money to start his own business. In the winter of 1956-1957 Clarence, with the help from his close friend Everett Rush, built the home at 828 West 4th Street in Guymon for $10,000. The family started “batching it” each summer (the Timmons place) since Clarence worked so late each day. In 1965 the family moved to the little farming community of Hitchland, Texas, to be closer to the farm and ranch land. Clarence got his big break in 1957 when Mr. Ralph Bort, the President of Gruver State Bank gave him his first loan to buy 250 head of cattle. It was a “character loan” since Clarence didn’t have enough collateral or co-signers to warrant the loan.

Hitchland was established in 1929 when the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad laid track across northern Hansford County. Reaching a peak population of 100 in 1948, Hitchland had a hotel, a grocery store, a U.S. Post Office from 1930 – 1955, and the Hitchland School (where Lit Hall taught) was merged into the Gruver ISD in 1954.

Yorkshire is the largest of the 39 historic counties, or shires, in England. The countryside is widely considered among the greenest and most fertile in England, and was the home of Vikings before they were conquered by the Normans in the year 1066. In the 19th century, the coal, textile and steel industries were booming, which led to overcrowding in the cities. The resulting poor living conditions contributed to cholera outbreaks in 1832 and 1848. Tens of thousands of English immigrated to the United States and Canada in the following years to try to start a new life. The White Rose of York was the symbol of the House of York in Medieval England, and has been adopted as a symbol of Yorkshire as a whole. The rose is white in color because in Christian literature white typifies innocence, purity and joy.

John William Pickard (1822 - 1897) and Frances Hutchison (1824-1868) were born in Yorkshire, England. They immigrated to Ottawa, Canada, where one of their children, James S. Pickard “Grandpa Pickard” (1852 - 1932) was born. In 1864 they moved to Elkhart, Indiana, where Frances died in childbirth. Lulu Elizabeth Stephens “Grandma Pickard” (1874 - 1959) was the daughter of Charles and Mildred Stephens. Lulu remarked that she and her father participated in the April 22, 1889, Oklahoma Land Rush, and that her grandmother was full-blooded Sac and Fox Indian. James and Lulu married in 1891 in Mulhall, Oklahoma.

James and Lulu had ten children; John (Jay), Jim, Charley, Nora (who died in childbirth), Forrest “Oakie” (1901 - 1977), Viola (who married Andrew Costner, whose younger brother Walter is the grandfather of actor Kevin Costner), Bill, Ed, Howard and Oral (Grandpa Pickard was 66 years old when Oral was born :), and moved many times across country by horse and covered wagon from Eastern Oklahoma to Rossville (where Forrest was born) to Geary, then to Weatherford (where Grandpa Pickard managed a wagon yard) and finally settling in Guymon Township in 1912. Grandpa Pickard apparently passed on his horsemanship skills to two of his sons. Bill started training quarter horses and thoroughbreds to race in New Mexico, Colorado and New Mexico. Oral took that profession a step further, and he trained horses that competed at Hialeah Race Track in Florida, Belmont in New York, and Santa Anita in Southern California. The movie “Seabiscuit” depicts what training horses was like in the 1930s and 1940s.

Their eldest son, Jay, was drafted into the Army in the summer of 1917. The night before he had to leave home for basic training, his fiancé, Ada Clark, had dinner with the Pickard family. When it got to be so late, she stayed overnight and slept with Nora and Viola. The next morning, after saying farewell to his parents at the homestead, Jay hitched up the team and rig so he and Ada could travel alone to the train station in Guymon for what must have been an emotional parting. Jay would write letters to his parents while he was in France. Forrest said that after his mother read each letter out loud to the family, they would all just sit and cry together because they missed Jay so much. Jay was stricken by Spanish Influenza, and died while serving in the U.S. Army in France in World War I. An Act of Congress in March, 1929, authorized the Secretary of War to pay all expenses for any “Gold Star Mother” of military and naval forces who died in service in the war to travel to France to visit the gravesite. By the time the program ended, some 6,693 women had made the two week pilgrimage. The Act of 1929 did not contain any provision for any member to make the trip except the mother, so the trip was a life-changing experience for many who had never traveled outside their hometown or state. “If you think about it, you are between 50-65 years old, and asked to travel 6000 miles away with a complete group of strangers. You’re on a trip with nobody you know, and although everything is going to be taken care of, it had to be a terrifying experience.” Lulu sailed from New York City on June 15, 1933, aboard the steamer SS Manhattan. Although the Army expected the mothers to break down at the gravesites, they instead showed great strength. One observer said “I think the mothers came out of the experience of visiting the cemeteries feeling that the sacrifice was worth it, that this crusade (the war to end all wars) was necessary and significant”. There is a treasured and poignant black and white photograph of Lulu sitting next to Jay’s tombstone at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery located seventy miles northeast of Paris, where his is one of 6,012 crosses. This picture conveys a thousand unspoken words concerning grief, faith, and pride.

.James Quience Ferguson “Grandpa Ferguson” (1864 - 1930) was born to Andrew Ferguson and Mary Ellen Benlow. James married Mary Ellen Brumback “Grandma Ferguson” (1864 - 1938), and they raised dryland wheat near Hwy 54 between Nevada, Missouri and Fort Scott, Kansas, where their six children were born; Bessie, Eva, Ethel (who married Uncle Alfred, lived in Mullinville, Kansas (pop 215), and used to say “if a diet doesn’t include fried chicken and corn on the cob, it’s not for me”) Mearl, Don (who was kicked in the head by a horse when he was 10 years old, which affected him mentally the rest of his life), and their last child was Leila (1905 - 1978). Grandma Ferguson died while visiting Ethel in Mullinville.

Guymon was established in 1902 when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad extended the line southwest from Liberal to Texhoma. Originally called Sanford Switch, the population growth is as follows:

1910 1,342 1920 1,507 1930 2,181 1940 2,290 1950 4,718

1960 5,768 1970 6,855 1980 8,492 1990 7,803 2000 10,472

As early as 1911, the town had three banks, two newspapers - the Guymon Herald and the Guymon Democrat, four doctors, three hotels, and a number of retail outlets. The Texas County Courthouse was built in 1926. Guymon schools closed one year during the Great Depression due to lack of funds, the city hosted the first Pioneer Days Celebration in 1933, the Guymon Hospital was constructed in 1949, and in 1991 Seaboard Farms built two hog farms in the area contributing to a current 38% Hispanic population in Guymon.

Forrest and Leila were married on October 14, 1923, and she carried a peach handkerchief down the aisle at the ceremony. (A family tradition was started, and that same handkerchief was also carried down the aisle at the wedding ceremonies of her four daughters, her granddaughters, Judy and Nancy, and her great-granddaughter Kambry). Forrest and Leila’s first child, Alice Eileen, lived only one month, unexpectedly dying of pneumonia. She died in Lelia’s arms and that tragedy haunted Leila the rest of her life. Jean, Dorothy and Lois were born in Grandma Ferguson’s house, and Patty was born at a mid-wife’s house in Guymon. Forrest rented about 5 quarters of land, raised dry-land wheat and sorghum, and their homestead was 3½ miles west of town off Hwy 54. In 1941 they moved to a house off Hwy 3. After he retired, they moved into town to 203 S. May Street (phone # 338-3868). Try to imagine Christmas Day 1963, Dorothy and Paul travel and stay overnight, but everyone else lives in Guymon. Seventeen people (the grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins), in that small house, but the closeness of family ties was evident in the laughter, playing Rook (a card game without face cards), kids running around, a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle, and great food, including the family tradition, homemade noodles.

Imogene Lucille (Jean) Pickard became a Christian in 1938 and was baptized in a horse tank that was brought into the First Foursquare Church for the occasion. She attended the Salyer Elementary School, then Guymon High School, graduating in 1944. When Jean and Clarence were growing up, they lived on farms in the country. Each of their families had a chicken house with about twenty hens and two roosters, raised hogs for pork, had ten Jersey milk cows (Jerseys gave richer milk, but the local dairies used Guernsey cows, because they produced a lot more milk), one bull for beef cattle to eat, and a wind mill and water tank. Indoor plumbing and indoor electricity wasn’t installed until about 1946, so outhouses and kerosene lamps were used. Around 1940 they first purchased battery operated radios for family entertainment. A large summer garden would produce vegetables to be canned for the winter, and there was a coal burning pot belly stove in the middle of the house. In essence, each farm was nearly a self-sufficient operation to support one family.

Dorothy and Paul Ritchie eloped and got married in Clayton, New Mexico. Paul played football on a full scholarship at Panhandle A&M College for 2 years, was drafted, took basic training at Camp Roberts, California, then was stationed in Fort Benning, Georgia, where he was a clerk typist in the morning, and played on the post football and baseball teams in the afternoons. After his discharge from the Army, Paul played one more year of football at college, and he and Dorothy graduated in 1955. In their teaching careers they taught at Darrouzett 1955-1958 (Dorothy’s first salary was $2,850/year); Morse 1958-1959; Highland Park Elementary in Amarillo 1959-1969; Alamogordo, New Mexico 1970-1971; and River Road Elementary in Amarillo 1971-1985. Paul retired in 1978 to focus on his investments (he has used the same stock broker since 1972, primarily utilities, and in particular, Consolidated Edison) and golf game, and Dorothy retired in 1985. They took a 22 day European vacation to ten countries in 1968, and especially loved Sorrento, Italy. They also spent a week on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu each summer from 1970-1978. Their three Pekinese dogs were Tuffy, Rusty, and Sandy.

Lois and Phil Demetro (Phil’s grandfather, Demetrius Bobopoulus, was from Greece) were married in Angelus Temple in Los Angeles. While Phil went to college, he worked as a linotype apprentice at the Los Angeles Times, which in those years was a very conservative newspaper. They moved to Texas and established the Irving Foursquare Church from 1954-1958, and Phil worked a 2nd job as a linotype operator at the Arlington Journal. Next, Phil and Lois pastored the Guymon Foursquare Church 1958-1964, the Midland Foursquare Church 1964-1972, and finally the Lubbock First Foursquare Church (where Lois was the Director of the pre-school and kindergarten) from 1972 until their retirement in 1994. Since that date, Phil has worked in the hospice ministry in Lubbock.

Ronny Demetro lived with Jean and Clarence each summer during his junior high and high school years since he loved working cattle, farming and being around horses. Nancy said that Ronnie was like the brother she never had. Ronny and Donny’s main interest growing up was rodeo, with Ronny’s event being bareback bronc riding, and Donny’s was bull riding. During their rodeo “careers” from 1973-1980 they would enter 2 different amateur rodeos most weekends, competing in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado. Ronnie’s largest winning purse was $1,500, and his favorite rodeo that he entered each year was the “Roaring Springs Stampede”. After Ronny and Jan were married they lived on the Timmons Place working for Clarence for two years, then they moved to Fort Worth where he worked for the Vann-Roach Cattle Company as yard foreman from 1982-2000. Since then he has run his own company, Metroplex Rain Gutters, and Donny has been his lead foreman. Lois and Phil’s third son, Randy, was born with the rare genetic disorder Usher’s Syndrome, that causes deafness and gradual vision loss in one out of every 23,000 people. It has been a real witness to observe how Randy has dealt with this disability with courage, perseverance and a happy personality.

Patty worked as a switchboard operator “number please” before she and her husband, Bob Boston, moved from Guymon to Oklahoma City in 1963. Bob worked at General Electric/Honeywell/Control Data 1965-1976, and Organon Teknika 1976-1992 when he retired. Bob was diagnosed with diabetes when he was just 30 years old. From 1965-1967 Patty worked at the General Electric plant on the weather satellite for the Apollo Lunar Module, then she owned and operated the Guthrie Whole Foods Store 1998-2004. Patty and Bob were astute real estate investors, and they successfully bought and sold houses in Oklahoma City, Yukon, Guthrie and Midwest City. Her son, Bobby, graduated with an Education degree from King College, in Bristol, Virginia, and her second son, Jerry Wayne, has worked for Texaco for many years, and loves to hunt elk in Colorado and antelope in Wyoming.

Jean and Clarence’s daughter, Judy (who was born in Liberal because the Guymon Hospital hadn’t been built yet) attended Academy Elementary, and graduated from Guymon High School in 1966, attended Oral Roberts University for two years (Oral personally greeted all the incoming students on moving-in day), then graduated from Oklahoma Panhandle State College in 1970 where she met her future husband, T. John Hayden of Plains, Kansas. His parents, Joseph and Genevieve Hayden had six children: Vincent Edward, Greg, Teresa Marie, Joe, Jerry and John (who loves to tell that his high school football team, the “Plains Plainsmen”, were undefeated the three years he was the starting defensive tackle and offensive guard). John owned the Hayden (Purina) Feed and (Pioneer) Seed Store in Guymon 1976-1985. Judy taught school at Hardesty 1970-1973, Gruver 1974-1976, and Guymon 1992-present.

Nancy attended Guymon schools through the 8th grade, then transferred to Gruver, and graduated from Gruver High School in 1971 (where she was Drum Major her senior year). She received a B.A degree from Texas Women’s University in 1975. Nancy accepted Jesus as her Savior in 1961 when she went down to the alter one Wednesday evening and prayed with her Aunt Lois Demetro, affectionately known as “Punkie”. Lois and her husband Phil pastored the First Foursquare Church in Guymon at that time. Nancy attended the Foursquare Family Church Camp at Siloam Springs, Arkansas, each summer, and she remembers the summer when she was 13, standing alone under a tree one afternoon, and Jack Hayford, who was then the National Youth Director, approached her to introduce himself, and they had a pleasant conversation together.

Clarence’s most prosperous years as a farmer and rancher were from 1965 - 1991. In Hansford County, Texas, he owned 560 acres of Section 18, and 160 acres of Section 23. He rented 640 acres of Section 58 from John and Barbara Kott, and 440 acres of Section 48 from the Thoresons. In Texas County, Oklahoma, he rented 640 acres of Section 26, 320 acres of Section 35, and 160 acres of Section 34 from Mrs. Timmons. He ran about 4,000 head of cattle each year on his own winter wheat and summer pasture, then moved them to local feedlots. His registered cattle brand was 5 on the right hip. When irrigation wells began to be drilled in the Oklahoma Panhandle in 1964 he started raising corn and sorghum for ensilage for his cattle in the feedlots. His daily routine was keeping the irrigating pumps running, doctoring calves, applying fertilizers and herbicides to his crops, and in the winter making sure the cattle had salt blocks, the water in the windmill tanks weren’t frozen, and bales of hay were strewn on the snow covered ground for the cattle to eat. After Clarence sold his land and farm equipment and retired in 1994, they bought a Travel Supreme RV and became “Winter Texans” each January, February and March at the Park Place Estates RV Park in Harlingen, Texas. When back in Hitchland, Clarence’s hobby was restoring old tractors. He rebuilt 14, donating five to the Heritage Museum in Boise City, Oklahoma, and storing the rest in this shed. His favorite was a 1929 McCormick Deering model 2236 (which had steel wheels with lugs, before rubber tires) because this was the tractor on which he learned to farm as a young boy. He also remembers harvesting before trucks, when horse drawn wagons took the crops to town.

Appendix A

Sources

1930 U.S. Census on James Pickard

Death Certificates on Lulu Pickard, James Ferguson

Video interview of Phillip Shaeffer by the Germans from Russia Heritage Society, Oklahoma City chapter, circa 1984

Cassette recorded interviews of Emma Schaeffer Zabel and Elizabeth Zabel circa 1983

Moultrie County, Illinois, Historical Society, Sullivan, Illinois

web site for information on John and Frances Pickard

Find a web site, Salt Lake City, Utah

Schaeffer Family History, author unknown, circa 1986

Pickard Family memorabilia in the possession of Shirley Pickard Wheeler # 806.372.6760

This family history was compiled by Duane Bickings on February 17, 2009

When doing research in Germany, be aware of the following definitions of village name endings:

berg……..mountain or hill lieben……..to be fond of

burg……..castle stadt………city

dorf……...village tal…………valley

feld………field hof………...homestead

heim……..home klein……….little

Appendix B

Immigration to America

Gottlieb Schaeffer b. 08.22.1813 Born in Hadweiler, Germany

Katharina Maier b. 04.23.1823 Born in Hadweiler, Germany

John Schaeffer b. 08.13.1853 d. 09.20.1912 Born in Rosenfeld,, Russia

Elizabeth Humel* b. 08.25.1855 d. 08.18.1916 Born in Rosenfeld, Russia

John Schaeffer**** b. 12.19.1877 d. 06.01.1958 Born in Rosenfeld, Russia

Magdalena Hildebrand**** b. 02.22.1880 d. 02.20.1918 Born in Rosenfeld, Russia

August Zabel ** b. 1859 d. 09.11.1934 Born in Poland

Minnie Roberts *** b. 06.15.1873 d. 09.30.1925 Born in Wolinski, Russia

Fred Zabel***** b. 11.01.1897 d. 03.01.1985 Born in Lehigh, Kansas

Emma Schaeffer***** b. 03.09.1902 d. 03.02.1987 Born in Hannovka, Russia

John J. Pickard Born in Yorkshire, England

Elizabeth Pennington Born in Yorkshire, England

John William Pickard b. 05.19.1822 d. 11.13.1897 Born in Yorkshire, England

Frances Hutchison b. 1824 d. 11.22.1868 Born in Yorkshire, England

James Pickard***** b. 06.07.1852 d. 04.23.1932 Born in Ottawa, Canada

Lulu Stephens***** b. 01.24.1874 d. 01.01.1959 Born in Malden, Missouri

James Ferguson***** b. 03.14.1864 d. 04.26.1930 Born in Sullivan, Illinois

Mary Ellen Brumback***** 11.01.1885 b. 01.23.1864 d. 10.23.1938 Born in Harrisburg, Ohio

Forrest Pickard***** b. 07.08.1901 d. 11.05.1977 Born in Rossville, Oklahoma

Leila Ferguson***** b. 03.22.1905 d. 11.16.1978 Born in Fort Scott, Kansas

William Brumback b. 08.14.1827 d. 01.16.1880

Dorothy Clemens 09.26.1861 b. 06.01.1838 d. 04.16.1894

* Buried in Gnadenfeld Cemetery, Tangier, OK

** Buried in Hooker Cemetery, OK

*** Buried in Adams Mennonite Cemetery, OK

**** Buried in Ebenezer Baptist Cemetery, aka German Baptist Cemetery, Shattuck, OK

***** Buried in Elmhurst Cemetery, Guymon, OK (Ferguson name is misspelled “Furguson” on the tombstone)

Appendix C

Children of Magdalena and John Schaeffer

Phillip* b. 10.07.1900 d. 01.27.1992 Born in Hannovka, Russia

m. Victoria Schoenhals* 10.10.1924 b. 05.05.1905 d. 05.03.1989

Billy* b. 08.14.1927 d. 12.29.1948

Betty b. 05.27.1929

Emma ** b. 03.09.1902 d. 03.02.1987 Born in Hannovka, Russia

m. Fred Zabel** 02.14.1920

Mary b. 11.28.1903 d. 01.06.1992 Born in Hannovka, Russia

m. John Pshigoda

John b. 07.24.1905 d. 1956 Born in Hannovka, Russia

m. Amanda Pshigoda

Paul b. 04.16.1908 Born in Hannovka, Russia

Otto b. 11.02.1910 d. 01.19.1994 Born in Hannovka, Russia

Lizzie b. 02.27.1913 d. 02.14.2005 Born in Hannovka, Russia

m. Caleb Barnum 08.09.1939 b. 08.27.1915 d. 04.11.2005

Ron

Phyllis

Frieda b. 07.15.1916 Born in Shattuck, Oklahoma

m. Vernon Mohr 08.28.1935

* Buried in Shattuck Cemetery, OK

** Buried in Elmhurst Cemetery, Guymon, OK

Appendix D

Children of Minnie and August Zabel

Emma* b. 04.19.1895 d. 03.31.1917

m. Gustav Hamm 04.16.1916

Augusta* b. 12.11.1896 d. 12.18.1984

m. Gustav Hamm** 05.30.1917 b, 1893 d. 1988

Fred*** b. 11.01.1897 d. 03.01.1985

m. Emma Schaeffer*** 02.14.1920

Anna b. 06.19.1900 d. 01.13.1995

m. Solomon Klein 09.28.1930

Elsie b. 03.11.1901 d. 07.30.1954

m. Henry Hintergardt 1927

Herman b. 01.18.1930 d. 02.19.2006

m. Alene Mitchell 01.13.1952

Herman b. 09.15.1902 d. 02.10.1986

m. Bernice Green 07.29.1929

Edward b. 04.18.1904 d. 08.14.1981

m. Lucy Morford 12.25.1935

Sam** b. 06.16.1906 d. 1996

m. Madeline Rackley 02.02.1941

Mary b. 07.20.1909 d. 08.26.1986

m. Covey Depuy 05.26.1934

Earnest** b. 04.22.1911 d. 03.31.1958 Okla Pvt, U.S. Marine Corps

Albert** b. 09.02.1913 d. 03.16.1936

Elizabeth** b. 12.29.1914 d. 03.26.1991

m. Wayne Hecox 05.25.1946

Wilhemina (Minnie)* b. 08.15.1916 d. 04.10.1993

m. Jarret Newberry 1940

* Buried in Adams Mennonite Cemetery, OK

** Buried in Hooker Cemetery, OK

*** Buried in Elmhurst Cemetery, Guymon, OK

Appendix E

Children of Lulu and James Pickard

John (Jay) b. 09.15.1892 d. 10.09.1918

James b. 01.27.1984 d. 05.14.1978 Lived in Vona, CO

m. Marie Lohmann 05.19.1918

Charles* b. 1895 d. 1974

m. Anna Lohmann

m. Beulah McNee

Nora** b. 01.03.1899 d. 09.23.1924

m. Riley Bryan** 10.22.1916 b. 12.26.1895 d. 02.24.1969

Bertha Mae** b. 12.18.1918 d. 05.18.1920

Joseph** b. 03.23.1920 d. 10.13.2002 U.S.Army WWII Purple Heart

Johney** b. 05.21.1922 d. 03.16.2006 U.S.Army WWII Bronze Star

Forrest** b. 07.08.1901 d. 11.05.1977

m. Leila Ferguson ** 10.14.1923

Viola** b. 06.18.1904 d. 04.11.2000

m. Andrew Costner** b. 10.25.1900 d. 04.05.1985

William*** b. 08.12.1906 d. 06.08.1988

m. Majorie McNee b. 1908 d. 1976

Maxine Howell

Ruby Bane

Christine Basgall

Jimmy

Edward** b. 05.01.1912 d. 04.30.1979

m. Martha Grossman 07.20.1931 b. 05.16.1912 d. 08.11.1997

Howard** b. 03.06.1915 d. 10.04.2001

m. Imogene Keller b. 01.11.1916 d. 02.17.2006

Dee Dee** b. 1942 d. 1993 Epitaph reads ‘Our Precious Angel”

Lavonne Thompson

Oral**** b. 08.29.1918 d. 07.29.2000

m. Clara Lening

Larry

Bobby

Shirley Wheeler

* Buried in Resthaven Cemetery, Shawnee, OK

** Buried in Elmhurst Cemetery, Guymon, OK

*** Buried in Las Cruces, NM

**** Cremated in Italy, TX

Appendix F

Children of Mary Ellen and James Ferguson

Bessie Lived in Blufston, IN

m. Shirley Pugh

Eva Lived in San Jon, NM

m. Gus Moore

Ethel* b. 03.18.1893 d. 01.13.1976 Born in Nevada, Missouri

m. Alfred Noland* b. 05.09.1892 d. 05.07.1970

Esther

Carl

William

Mearl** b. 06.24.1889 d. 06.05.1974 Pvt, Air Service World War I

m. Violet** b. 06.08.1910 d. 04.08.1996

Mary

Eloise Brown

Willis

Weldon

Della Lou

Paul

Anna Marie

Jerry

Don** b. 1895 d. 1968

Leila*** b. 03.22.1905 d. 11.16.1978

m. Forrest Pickard**

* Buried in Hillcrest Cemetery, Mullinville, KS

** Buried in Elmhurst Cemetery, Guymon, OK

Appendix G

Children of Leila and Forrest Pickard

Alice b. 08.18.1924 d. 09.18.1924

Jean b. 06.01.1926

m. Clarence Zabel 09.08.1946 b. 07.15.1925 Hooker, OK

Dorothy b 04.24.1929 Panhandle A&M College 1955

m. Paul Ritchie 05.18.1950 b. 05.14.1927 d. 07.28.2009 Stillwell, OK Panhandle A&M College 1955

Lois b. 08.08.1931

m. Phil Demetro 07.20.1952 b. 12.05.1929 Tacoma, WA LIFE Bible College 1954

Patricia b. 03.31.1942

m. Bob Boston 06.17.1960 b. 09.27.1939 Guymon, OK

Children of Jean and Clarence Zabel

Judy b. 08.25.1948 Liberal, KS Oklahoma Panhandle State College 1970

m. T.John Hayden 05.23.1970 b. 09.03.1947 Fowler, KS Oklahoma Panhandle State College 1970

Landry b. 10.27.1977 Perryton, TX Oral Roberts University 2000

Heath b. 10.23.1980 Perryton, TX Oklahoma State University 2003 DVM 2008

Nancy b. 11.11.1952 Guymon, OK Texas Women’s University 1975

m. Duane Bickings 02.01.1975 b. 09.24.1951 Bridgeton, NJ West Point 1974

Kambry b. 08.17.1981 Amarillo, TX Baylor University 2004

m. Brian Ruby 01.08.2004 b. 05.05.1981 Georgetown, TX Baylor University 2004

Ashlyn b. 03.09.1984 Amarillo, TX Baylor University 2005

Children of Lois and Phil Demetro

Ronnie b. 04.15.1956 Irving, TX

m. Jan Moser 09.19.1980 b. 10.11.1955 d. 07.09.2005

Cody b. 08.17.1981 Perryton, TX West Texas A&M University 2003

m. Becky Deal 08.14.2004

Kylee b. 02.20.2008 Amarillo, TX

Amanda (Mandy) b. 09.06.1985 Guymon, OK Baylor University 2008

m. Terry Wood Brown 08.01.2009 b. 11.29.1956 Dallas, TX

Donnie b. 04.15.1956 Irving, TX

Desiree b. 05.27.1984 Guymon, OK

m. Dace Green 12.14.2007

Randy b. 03.22.1959 Guymon, OK

m. Alissa Flud 02.24.1979

Cassie b. 09.20.1982 Lubbock, TX

m. Jason Boyd 05.30.2005

Tyler b. 03.22.1986 Lubbock, TX

Children of Patty and Bob Boston

Bobby b. 03.10.1961 Guymon, OK King College

m. Cindy Hamilton 08.15.1981 b. 11.01.1959

Jerry Wayne b. 04.14.1963 Guymon, OK

m. Haley Burris 02.12.1993 b. 08.10.1968 Midwest City, OK

Avery b. 08.14.2002 Midwest City, OK

Summer b. 01.13.2004 Midwest City, OK

Appendix H

Children of Emma and Fred Zabel

Wilbert b. 03.01.1921 d. 10.31.2002 Cremated in Roswell, NM

m. Evelyn Zeisloft Oct 1947 b. 12.18.1915

Norma b. 04.02.1924 d. 12.06.2005 Buried in Memorial Park Cemetery, Amarillo, TX

m. Lawrence Hill 02.27.1941 b. 01.17.1916 d. 06.17.1984

Larry b. 06.28.1941 Guymon, OK

m. Sue Hale 06.30.1962 b. 12.02.1942

Chantel b. 12.27.1963 Guymon, OK

Cherie b. 08.13.1965 Garden City, KS

Chelon b. 08.19.1969 Wichita, KS

m. Darlene O’Neal b. 10.16.1961

m. Nancy Braddy 07.22.2006 b. 11.13.1956

Reuben b. 09.08.1942 d. 09.11.1942

Norman b. 11.25.1943 d. 11.26.1943

Virginia b. 12.25.1944 Guymon, OK

m. Ed Webb 08.7.1964 b. 08.21.1942 Hutchinson, KS

Christopher b. 08.26.1969 Hutchison, KS

Jason b. 01.01.1974 Hutchison, KS

m. Von Shrock 07.5.1970 b. 07.16.1925 d. 02.03.2002 Buried in Memorial Park Cemetery, Amarillo, TX

Clarence b. 07.15.1925

m. Jean Pickard 09.8.1946 b. 06.01.1926

Judy b. 08.25.1948 Liberal, KS Oklahoma Panhandle State College 1970

m. T.John Hayden 05.23.1970 b. 09.03.1947 Fowler, KS Oklahoma Panhandle State College 1970

Landy b. 10.27.1977 Perryton, TX Oral Roberts University 2000

Heath b. 10.23.1980 Perryton, TX Oklahoma State University 2003 DVM 2008

Nancy b. 11.11.1952 Guymon, OK Texas Women’s University 1975

m. Duane Bickings 02.01.1975 b. 09.24.1951 Bridgeton, NJ West Point 1974

Kambry b. 08.17.1981 Amarillo, TX Baylor University 2004

m. Brian Ruby 01.08.2004 b. 05.05.1981 Georgetown, TX Baylor University 2004

Ashlyn b. 03.09.1984 Amarillo, TX Baylor University 2005

Velma b. 09.15.1932

m. Leonard Angel 09.18.1949 b. 06.14.1929 Canon City, CO LIFE Bible College 1956

Jerry b. 09.30.1950 Canon City , CO

m. Vicki Holloman 05.27.1973 b. 05.02.1952 El Dorado, KS

Michelle b. 10.18.1974 Sterling, CO

Janelle b. 04.03.1979 Arcadia, CA

Sandra b. 06.23.1955 Pasadena, CA

m. Arthur Hanel 11.27.1976 b. 07.29.1953 Cameron, TX

James b. 08.26.1959 Ft. Collins, CO

m. Judy Tisdale 12.29.1979 b. 09.18.1955 Ft. Worth, TX

Tiffany b. 01.03.1981 Temple, TX

Jerrod b. 11.18.1983 Temple, TX

m. Natasha Williamson

Zach b. 02.18.2002

Ethan b. 09.17.2003

-----------------------

[1] “The Swedish Settlement on the Delaware 1638-1664” Vol I, by Amandus Johnson, Ph.D.

[2] “Genealogy of Jonas Nilsson” by Dr. Peter S. Craig, Swedish Society News, Vol 1, Nmb 7, Spring 1993

[3] “Early Americans” by Carl Bridenbaugh

[4] “The Pennsylvania Line” by John B. Trussell, on the 11th Pennsylvania

[5] “The Eisenberg-Jones Family Record” submitted by the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1926, obtained from the Historical Society of Montgomery County, PA

[6] St. Gabriel Episcopal Church, Douglassville, PA, records on Peter Jones 111, and Lawrence Eisenberg

[7] “History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers 1861-1865” by Samuel P. Bates, on the 129th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment

[8] “Politics, Reform and Expansion 1890-1900” by Harold U. Faulkner

[9] National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. for Civil War Records of David Eisenberg

[10] Web page on Dr. Russell Conwell

[11] “Still Philadelphia - A Photographic History 1890-1940” by Fredric Miller and Morris Vogel

[12] “Gettysburg, the Second Day” by Harry W. Pfanz

[13] Interview with William P. Bach, Pottstown Daily Ledger, July 1, 1913

[14] “Army Medical Department 1818-1865” by Mary G. Gillett

[15] National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. for the Civil War Records of William P. Bach

[16] “A Short History of Denmark” by Stewart Oakley

[17] “Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Baltimore 1821-1890” microfilm from the National Archives

[18] Web page on the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse

[19] “South Jersey’s Oyster Industry” by Shirley Bailey, published by the South Jersey Magazine

[20] Bulletin of the Historical Society of Montgomery County – Vol XI Fall 1957-Spring 1959

[21] Lineage Book of the Daughters of the American Revolution #146149 – Vol CXLVII dated 1919

[22] “Lower Merion’s Mill History” The Landmark, the Newsletter of the Lower Merion Conservancy Fall 1996

[23] “German Settlers in Pennsylvania 1743-1800” by Edward Hocker

[24] Colonists in Bondage – White Servitude and Convict Labor in America 1607-1776” by Abbot Emerson Smith

[25] Transcribed from the Pennsylvania Archives (series 6, volume 1, page 938)

[26] “1777 – The Year of the Hangman” by John Pancake

[27] “Crucible of War - The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North American 1754-1766” by Fred Anderson

[28] National Genealogical Society Quarterly – December 1980 “George Rex of Germantown” by Doris Rex Schutte

[29] “The German Immigration into Pennsylvania” by Frank Diffenderffer

[30] 1860 McElroy’s Philadelphia Directory

[31] “Roxborough Presbyterian Church, and outline of its History, 1854-1904”, by Henry McManus

[32] “The Era of Expansion 1800-1848” by Don Ferenbacher

[33] Minutes from the January 20, 1903 meeting of the Board of Directors of the John B. Stetson Company

[34] Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865-1970” by Jeffery B. Snyder

[35] Mulhlenberg College Athletic Department, Allentown, PA, and the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, Pittsburg, PA for information on George Gernerd

[36] Web page listing the statistics of each game of Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak

[37] “Epidemic and Peace 1918” by Alfred Cosby

[38] “Take Me Out to the Ballpark” by Josh Leventhal

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