Generally Speaking

By Sandra Shores Brown

Behind me stretch four generations of military lives. This book is for the most part, the story of my life as the daughter of a two star general and the wife of a three star general. It recounts the fascinating lands I was either fortunate enough to reside in or visit and as an adult I went into these civilizations and continents with fire in my belly to capture the cultures, the landscape and the people with my two Nikons hanging off my neck. Even after retirement it was hard to shed my peripatetic life style so I went to China, Bali, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

It's a story about doing the best you can with the cards you are dealt, about making your way through difficult moments and supporting your children and your husband and keeping it all together. The military is not an easy life but it is a good one. And I do not hesitate to recount some of the more wretched events.

For the most part it has been a charmed life. I write about unique incidents: having a gun fired at my car on an early morning trip to the airport in Bangkok. Of a shoot-out in a Pamplona, Spain square and of being reunited with a childhood friend in Oslo, Norway - then a young prince - and at the time of the visit the Crown Prince and now the King.

During our two year Italian Odyssey we received a letter from the Countess Chinigo of Ravello for a dinner at her villa above the Amalfi Coast. We did not answer. But on the second effort, we did and thus visited her numerous times in her little gem of a villa.

I was a lucky, lucky woman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483652566

Sandra Shores Brown

The author lives with her husband, their two horses, two rescue dogs, and two insane rescue cats. They live very close to the low hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains west of Leesburg, Virginia. She spends her time reading, writing, and riding.

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Copyright © 2013 by Sandra Shores Brown.

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 08/14/2013

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

The Early Years

Jimmy and Black Jack Pershing

Grace and Von Roy Shores

Murder in the Barnyard

Cherokee Injuns and The Oklahoma Land Rush

Leaving Panama and The Tarantulas

Tillie’s Biscuits and The Ravens Nest

Ardmore, Oklahoma, Here We Come—Again

Cessation of Hostilities

The War Was Over

Medieval Medicine

The Anchorage

The Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island

Cockroaches and Coal Dust

Catching Up With The Rituals of The Catholic Church

Yocomico

A Luxe Summer Camp at Andrews Afb

Harry Truman’s Inauguration

20 January 1949

Where Had All The Goodies Gone?

Our Voyage Across The Winter Seas of The Atlantic

Arrival in Oslo, Norway, on 1 January 1950

Oslo Ridehus on Drammensvein

Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki

The North Cape, Northern Norway, and The Arctic Circle

Arrival in San Bernardino, California

Atomic Detonations in Nevada

Saint Mary’s Academy in Alexandria, Virginia

The Brain Wasn’t Taxed and The Fingers Went Unnoticed By The Sisters of The Holy Cross

Wright-Patterson Afb—and Little Jimmy Shores

The University of Dayton

Jeri’s Yellow Antique Mg

Stewart Afb, Newburgh, New York

Wernher Von Braun Speaks at West Point

The Air Force Academy

Loretto Heights College, Denver, Colorado

A Sweet Romance

From Colorado To Mcchord Afb Tacoma, Washington

Starter Marriage

My Beautiful Pink and Peach Golden-Haired Baby Arrived in October

Easter Earthquake 1964 9.2 on The Richter Scale

From The Frigid Clime of Alaska to The Swelting Environs of Arizona

The 4454th Tactical Fighter Squadron

A Brown-Eyed

Handsome Man

Good Morning, Viet Nam!

An Easy Egress into the Arizona Sunshine

Officers’ Wives Club Obligations

Run to Ground

We’re Going To Send You To The Pentagon

The Perfect Storm Precedes Our Relocation to The Pentagon

Leaving Tucson in Trail

Tamarack in Vienna, Virgina

Next To Difficult Run Creek

Killer Goes to Summer Camp at Korat, Thailand

A Confluence of Coincidences

So Here Comes the Scourge of the Orient, Fancy Ballroom Dancer, and Wild Horse Rider

Martial Arts Maneuver

A Steep Learning Curve to Catch Up With Living an Overseas Military Life

The Marathon Known as Christmas

Dancing The Rigadon at Mayor Lazatin’s in Angeles City

Murder in Manila

My Pretty and Much-Loved Pegasus

Clark Ab and the Retail Operation Known as the Mad Money Mart

The Wing Commander’s Advisory Council to The Stables

The Long-Awaited Ori Retake

The First Fil-Am International Horse Show

Hong Kong, Kowloon, and The Star Ferry

A Heist on Menopause Row

Good-Bye, Clark! Hello, Okinawa! Ye Gods!

Negotiating The New Tasks of The Distaff Side at Kadena

A Little Escape and Evasion

Some Rest and Recreation

Iridescent India

Kashmir, India

Cambodian Refugees Arrive on World Airways

Spring in Kyoto and A Combat Mission to Tokyo

Arrival of The Shiny New F-15 Fighters

A Blue-Ribbon Panel

Good-Bye, Little Island! Buddha Bless You, and I Never Want to See You Again

The Red Brigade Terrorist Organization Has its Way With USAFE Headquarters

The Glory That is Greece

Yuko Arrives for A Thrift Tour of Europe

Auf Wiedersehen, Germany! Bienvenue, Belgium!

Nearer My God to Thee

The City of Light

The Social Scene at Shape

How I Saw Belgium in Three Years

Oslo, Norway, May 7-11, 1983

The Palace and The Prince

A Trip to Northern Norway With The Norwegian Air Force

Normandy, Brittany, and The Bees

Parade in Saint-Tropez

Historic Hallucinations

Tomorrow For Olde England We Sail

My Mother, Long Ago Worn Out, Took Her Leave

Topkapi Treasures In Turkey

From Atop These Pyramids, Forty Centuries Look Down Upon You

Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Giza

The Golden Hills of Jerusalem

Madrid, Toledo, The Prado, and El Escorial

The Girls Hit The Road

Grand-Hôtel Du Cap-Ferrat

Pamploma, Spain, and the Shoot-Out in the Square

Pietro Annigoni, Florence, Italy

The Marvel That is Morocco

Ah, Sunshine at Last—Bella Napoli

We Kept The Generals Waiting This Time

Izmir, Turkey

The Anatolian Plain of Turkey

Adjustments to The Luxurious Living Quarters

In Search of A New Officer’s Aide

Terrorist Activity and A United Response

The Countess Chinigo of Ravello

The Security Team Blows in and Out of The Villa, Nancy And John Leave, And The Cat Community Continues To Thrive and Enjoy Our Backyard

The Cats in

The Rose Garden

A Telegram From Turkey

Glorious Greece and Meteora

Kenya and The Farm at The Foot of The Ngong Hills

The General and The Pope

Houdini Escapes Another Move

Arrivederci, Roma

My Other Mother, Evelyn Brown

Century City, California

Retirement, 1988

First Came El Tahawii and Then Maxximum Bey, Our Arabian Boys

Angels Adorned With Gossamer Silk Webs and Nordstroms

I Have Loved You Dearly, More Dearly Than The Spoken Word Can Tell

Music Swelled Across The Aisle as Our Eyes Met

Friday Night On The Town

Wildlife Photo Shoot in Montana

Oh I Know, After Twenty Two Years in Reston, Lets Move!

The Wedding

The Taipan Takes A Wife

In The Arms of The Angels, May He Find Some Comfort There

Author’s Bio

The Book of Sandy

Sandy’s Book List

Dedication

To Pearl Shores Brown and Sandra Shores Brown,

my two very beautiful granddaughters.

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank Ron Hall for his help with the title, his wife Wilma Hall for her enthusiasm and suggestions and for Robert Taylor my editor who never faltered and supplied endless patience. To my lifelong friend Ted Goldenberg for his input and faith in me, to my niece Kristin Duskin-Gadd for doing a creative edit. And to Gene Augusterfer for his optimism and his wonderful insightful suggestions. And a thanks to the Albrights: Diane and Jim for ‘being there’ and feeding our equines and even us over the years. And for the push from my little elf friend Norma Robbins and my sweet Sylvia—both of them for their copious encouragement from the beginning. And my dear son Brian and his wife Karen for their early edits. And a smile for Shannon and Wynelle who were there from day one and never told a soul and last but not least: Anat Prager who told me I would succeed and to dear Deb Matthews who backed me and assured me, and relentlessly vowed to me—Hey! you’re not crazy.

And for every person whose soul touched mine along this sometimes frustrating but nevertheless rewarding effort. I love your all.

Last but not least I wish to express my gratitude to Shary Shores, Gary Shores and Susan Cook Henry for culling their photo files and sending me treasured family photos for the book.

Preface

Did you ever think at any given moment in time, at any second of your existence, that that miniscule moment is unique for all eternity? There will never ever be a second like it again. The sands under the seas will shift, the tree leaves will move and rearrange themselves, the sky will surge and reform their clouds, the bugs and birds and animals will make minute adjustments as they move along their life spans, and you and you alone will live your life—every movement, every moment—totally unique in its unfolding. Of all the possibilities of your heritage and its long stream of time and beings behind you, you have emerged after a two-hundred-thousand-year span of history. What a wonder to have been given these lives of ours—to watch the changes in those we know and love and to love our new generation as it emerges; such a gift is this singular and rare eruption into our own time in space and the here and now. You come to realize what an extraordinary trip you’ve had and how blessed you’ve been. I thank God for so much—my family, past and present; our extended family and friends; my home and my pets; and so far, health. This is my story. It’s the recounting of what I took and did and did not do with it—my life.

The Early Years

The wagon came lurching and slewing out of the mountains, the metal wheels spitting up stones and dust in its wake. The canvas-covered ribs of the prairie schooner billowed puffs of grime, causing those on the rough bench to cough and wipe their sweat into rolls of dirt across their faces. Seeping silt set down a cover into the interior across their belongings: trunks, some pieces of furniture and cookware, a few items of china wrapped in clothing. Inside was a military family heading toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado to their north, the Rockies behind—by then, a fading vision of where the family had begun their ramble. The road eventually dropped south toward the boulder-strewn desert of New Mexico and then, farther south, an angular right turn into the Arizona Territory and their next duty assignment. This was my great-grandparents with their three daughters and is nearly all I know of their lives.

This is my story of four generations of my military family, whose perambulations crossed and re-crossed the previous tracks of their forebears for well over a century, reaching as far back as the Revolutionary and the Civil Wars; however, this account predominately deals with the wanderings stretching from the mountains of Colorado in the late nineteenth century through most of the United States, then repeatedly to the Pacific and the greater landmass of the Orient. That was only one generation’s adventures in service to their country. My own saga begins in Panama in the twentieth century into the current twenty-first century.

It’s also about the wars these generations lived through, some fought in, including the Spanish-American War, the Second World War, the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, and toward the end, the Gulf actions, if viewed only from a distance. It is a story of adventure in human endurance—a coming-of-age for me in the unsettling Cold War era of the fifties and a life later immersed in a myriad of vibrant and exotic cultures around the globe. Rather than list the countries and places that this entails, I will take you on this journey with me.

The narrative of these four generations begins with Lillian because she is the matriarch who connects the four prior generations of military families to the present time. She herself was the daughter of an army couple stationed in Colorado at a military fort with their three daughters. In her childhood, back in the late 1800s—and to hear her tell it—she walked miles along a dusty, rocky Colorado mountain road to school and back.

Knowing Lillian and her penchant for avoiding physical exertion, it’s more likely that she walked a lesser distance. Whatever the route to her schoolhouse destination, the roads in those days were marked much as they were when I drove them in the fifties, sporadically filled with rustic farms, small streams, fields of wildflowers, and expanses of dusty scrub growth with the resplendent Rockies as a backdrop.

When she became a presence in my life, she was a typical substantially built grandmotherly figure of those years, the forties. There were no curves left, and she always seemed, in her photos, to be encased in some small floral print housedress, which, come to think of it, was even a bit elegant on her despite the girth. No photographs that show her as a young woman remain. She must have been attractive because even at eighty-nine, at the end of her life, her facial bone structure was still handsome; her skin remained relatively unlined.

After the covered wagon trek from Colorado around the turn of the last century, her army father and his wife and three daughters arrived at Fort Huachuca, Sierra Vista, Arizona, an army outpost east of Tucson. It wasn’t far from Geronimo’s boulder-strewn stronghold. The scorching heat of the desert somewhat ameliorated there due to the rise in elevation above the land to the west. Their journey must have been considered a perilous one at the time as the Apaches were still playing cowboys, cavalry, and Indians in their red rock desert domain. Alas, many details of the jolting journey are lost, but they made it to their destination and to Lillian’s destiny in the form of one James Francis Doherty.

Jimmy was the leader of the fort’s military band, of all things. We know this much to be so as there remains a photograph of him still on display in the Fort Huachuca Museum. At least it was there fifty years ago. The two married, and Jimmy went off to war as Gen. Black Jack Pershing’s enlisted aide. At the conclusion of that conflict, he was going to resign, gather his wife, and return to his home state of Connecticut. Word was that Jimmy came from a well-to-do family but was snared by the lure of combat and hotfooted it into the cavalry.

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Jimmy and Black

Jack Pershing

But Black Jack had other ideas and asked him to remain as his enlisted aide. Jimmy demurred. Sweetening the deal, the general offered to promote him to second lieutenant. Thanks just the same, but Jimmy was heading back east. So Black Jack upped the ante and said he would make him a first lieutenant. I can see Jimmy mulling that one over, his charming Irish smile bursting forth with a General, make me a captain, and you’ve got a deal.

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Ethel, Marion, Lillian, Grace and Jimmy Doherty

Is that true? It has gone down in the annals of family history, and if it isn’t, it’s a heck of a story, so I’m going with it. A caveat here: James Francis had kissed the Blarney Stone—for all I know, at its original site—and I wouldn’t put it past him to dream up this little fable. Like many an Irishman, he loved a good story. However, the dates of his birth and those of the conflict coincide, so maybe it’s true after all.

After Arizona, the two traveled to Honolulu, where, in 1912, their oldest daughter, Marion, was born. My mother made an appearance about four years later at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, then followed with the birth of their third and last daughter, Ethel. Later, the family would go by ship to Manila in the Philippines and then north to Fort Stotsenburg, in Pampanga Province on the island of Luzon. At the time, the fort was an army outpost and would eventually become the largest military installation under United States command outside the continental United States—Clark Air Base. When we as a family, the fourth generation of the Doherty clan (now known as the Browns), arrived there at Clark in 1978, the freshly painted white concrete pillars that marked the entrance to the old fort were still standing, with black lettering reminding current generations of the old army post. They are located close to the entry to the polo grounds. The area later evolved into a large segment they kept manicured for parades, but during our tenure there, it became the polo grounds again at last. It had come full circle. The ponies were again thundering across the grassy expanse.

With or without General Pershing’s battlefield commission, Captain Doherty remained in the cavalry, retiring some forty years later, approximately 1942, as a colonel with the usual retirement ceremony, cake, punch, and two of his daughters in attendance. In the photographs, Jimmy was in his dress blues, still a good-looking man in his late forties. Jimmy and Lillian left Tallahassee, Florida, and retreated to a little place they had purchased on Eldridge Avenue in Mill Valley, California, in what turned out to be, many years later, prime real estate.

The pretty cottage, later enlarged, had been built long before their retirement for the staggering sum of $1,750. Upon separation from the army and their return to the redwoods and piney hills of Mill Valley, they decorated it sumptuously with English chintz and prizes they had collected over the years, with many Oriental objects acquired from Hong Kong during the Philippine assignment. These consisted predominantly of porcelain, exquisitely embroidered linens, carved Chinese chests lined with cedar, an enormous service of antique Canton china, and thick Chinese rugs, which were eventually passed down again and again, now enhancing the homes of their many grandchildren. Not so thick anymore, but still lovely accent area rugs. As kids, we galloped over them and didn’t give them a second glance, never remotely suspecting that someday they would grace our own floors.

Later, while dispersing my own mother’s household items, neither my sister nor my brother wanted the elegant monogrammed linens Lillian had acquired from the Chinese community while stationed in the Far East and Panama. There are stacks of them in the Napoleon III chest of drawers I use as a buffet in the small dining area off the kitchen. Few people today entertain on the level requiring such labor-intensive table coverings. The hand-sewn detailing, thick embroidery, and embellishments on them are fabulous reminders of a bygone elegant age. Tissues are tucked between them in hopes of preserving them for a future generation.

Over the years, the Eldridge Avenue interior seemed to never change. Set in place in the early forties, it stayed graciously appointed through the fifties, remaining as remembered from early family visits up until I drove my boys over the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County for their last visit with their maternal great-grandmother on our way to a new assignment and the return to the Philippines of the fourth generation.

Lillian was not a stranger to the boys as, for a period of time, she had invested in a small home behind her daughters’ homes. She was back in Arizona again. She would spend winters there, surrounded by her daughters and their brood of the O’Connor girls (Tony, Terrance, Micael and Brendan). Uncle George defied the fact he was not blessed with male heirs and made up for it with by the names bestowed upon his female line. All of whom grew into really beautiful women. As in models and movie stars. Then in the spring, a return to Mill Valley for the gentle climate of the Northern California summers.

Jimmy Doherty died of heart complications and was buried at the Presidio, then an army post and now a national park, in San Francisco. Lillian later became afflicted with Alzheimer’s and/or dementia. It was well known that she became more and more difficult as time passed. She refused to use an airmail stamp, too costly. And her devoted neighbor was stealing from her—taking her silver—as if she would miss one of her three sterling tea services. Of course, the woman was not stealing. Years before, Jimmy had told her that after retirement, he wanted her to just sit in her floral-covered chair in the living room, not worry about a thing, and just look beautiful. Maybe that relaxed life accounted for her flawless skin as there was nothing to disturb her peace of mind. She took him at his word. Jimmy, by inviting her to just rest and decorate the living room, was thus not providing any stimulation to her mind. One has to suspect that, as a result, over time, so much of it seemed to slip away.

All three Doherty girls eventually married West Pointers whom they met while visiting their older sister, now Marion Zimmerman, already established with her aviator husband in San Antonio, Texas. They were all beautiful women, but Grace, my mother, was the loveliest of them all.

Grace and

Von Roy Shores

As a young girl, photographs of my mother showed her to be pleasant-looking but plain. In her twenties, she grew to resemble an even prettier version of Katharine Hepburn. She had morphed into a stunning star in her own right, with rich wavy chestnut hair, wide-set blue eyes, and an expansive smile, framing perfect teeth. I don’t think she ever knew how lush and lovely she really was. She was lucky and retained her looks well into her fifties.

While in Texas on that trip to visit her sister, she met and married Von Roy Shores from Ardmore, Oklahoma. They eloped from the San Antonio area to New Braunfels, a small Texas town that probably made quick marriages easily negotiable for the nearby military members. Roy was a good-looking guy himself, resembling a shorter version of a cross between Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper. My parents must have been a very handsome young couple. The only photos of that era remaining are the ones taken later when I was born. The rest consist of official air force photographs from one duty station to the next. By the time I made an appearance, they were in Panama.

The paternal grandfather input was Von Roy Shores Sr., a traveling shoe salesman from the Rocky Mount, North Carolina, region who lighted in Ardmore, Oklahoma, around 1911, met my great-grandfather, John Edward Hamilton, who owned the shoe emporium in town and who, in turn, one has to assume, introduced him to his second child, his daughter Faye. The Hamiltons’ first child, Raymond, died in Colorado about 1917—during the great influenza epidemic that decimated most of the military stationed there at the time. When Faye married my grandfather, she was eventually presented with a one-carat diamond set in platinum, and John E. Hamilton built a Craftsman-style home for the newlywed couple. At the end of her sixteenth year, Faye produced my father. They went on to have three more children: Elizabeth, Edward, and Martha Raye. I can’t imagine my great-grandparents, the Hamiltons, being thrilled with this early marriage, but I know my grandmother, and if she wanted Roy Sr., she would have him!

My aunt, beautiful Elizabeth, with her startling and very deep cornflower blue eyes and her wavy black hair, started out as an equestrienne, a show jumper, but left that behind to ratchet up her love for speed. She went on to acquit herself quite well in the aeronautical field. Already possessing a pilot’s license, she served until 1944 as a WAF during the war, stationed out of Asheville, North Carolina, helping to ferry aircraft inside the United States. Edward, the oldest, an exceptionally handsome man, was a naval officer in World War II, and the lovely, sweet Martha Raye, the baby, left this world a young woman due to breast cancer in 1958.

That one-carat diamond ring mentioned above, given to Faye by Granddad, now glimmers on my own finger. It took a circuitous route to my hand; willed to me by Faye, it was temporarily diverted onto the hand of her daughter Elizabeth. When I learned of the will, I was able to ignore the deviation, for after all, Faye was her mother. I was just an adored granddaughter. Humor aside, what became an issue was the final acquisition of that ring, which traveled even farther on its circumvention onto my hand and required a courtroom drama in Ardmore. I’d hate to be a judge. His finding was logical and cut through the chaff that had blown up around the whole affair. What’s right is right, and everything else fell by the wayside. There was, however, a lot of angst until the final words were spoken. The ring, worn by my grandmother long before I knew her, seemed part of her body, so it was doubly precious to me. It was restored to its rightful recipient about forty years late. Now it is worn every time I leave the house as my good-luck charm that connects me to Faye. I was grateful for the support of my cousins Shirley and Gary, a tall ruggedly handsome Texan, much like his father was, elegantly dressed for the court appearance and not looking a thing like he did the last time I saw him in 1953. I kept calling him Ed since he looked so much like his dad. However, the delivery of said ring—maybe I should lay off the courtroom TV channels—and ancillary events were burdened with some staggeringly sad and tragic occurrences. The ring became a side issue. I digress. Back to the more recent ancient history.

The marriage of Faye and my grandfather did not last, and my granddad moved out to their ranch north of town. We as grandchildren were free to come and go through the years and stay with both Faye and Granddad. On summer days in Oklahoma, between duty stations on our way from one place to another, during our visits, we were driven out to see him and his cows and horses. The Oklahoma temperatures were so steamy the macadam roads ahead would turn vaporous, and we could see puddles and lakes of water form before us on the road, disappearing as we came upon them. As kids, the ranch was a wonderful destination, but looking back, I realize it was a hardscrabble operation located in a dry and dusty area with a barn settled down below the house and a smattering of livestock. The grasses were short and seared but sustained cattle and kept the animals fat enough. Enough, I guess, to earn the title of ranch. The place was probably not too far up the rung from the dust bowl domiciles. It’s no wonder the Okies put their mattresses on top of their cars and drove to the West Coast.

We would often make it a point to visit Granddad at the ranch for Sunday pancake breakfasts. They were a marathon of sorts to see who could consume the most from his iron skillet. The house was a bare-bones abode, everything appearing gray, from the walls to the plank floors, and the fusty aroma arising was that of a man living alone without the benefit of a woman’s touch. Dry, dusty, sweat-soaked. He must not have made much use of that wrought iron hand pump over the well outside the kitchen door. This is an observation, not a complaint. We loved him. My only concern was that he used Brer Rabbit Molasses on those griddle cakes in lieu of the little red tin of Log Cabin maple syrup. The molasses were not sweet enough.

Murder in the Barnyard

Close by in the backyard and near the rusty hand pump was a tree stump. The top showed an elaborate pattern of crosshatch marks, the ax ever ready with its head slammed into the top of the stump. The stump and ax were used to prepare and ready the chickens for frying. It was a grisly, chaotic scene, with the chickens churning up dust, running in circles (both before and after beheading), their wings flapping in terror, and all of us standing, watching the murders, our hands over our mute mouths, attempting to quell the horror. It’s one thing to see and tuck into a platter of fried chicken, another to view the route it took to get them there.

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Faye Shores

But split family aside, especially beloved was Faye. She was my friend and never failed to support me and take up my cause. To add to her curriculum vitae, she gave me my first sip of Coca-Cola, maybe to settle an upset stomach—they advertised it then as having mythical properties for every disorder imaginable. The die was cast. I never got over that first swill of sweet syrup. Photos in my tattered pink baby book, wherever it is, show a sturdy toddler behind a giant-sized and partially sectioned Hershey candy bar—the remnants of which are displayed on a white tablecloth, my mouth and fingers sticky with brown goo. Faye is off to the side and behind me; only her apron and my delight with her largesse show.

Luckily, chocolate never became an addiction. Coca-Cola? Oh yeah. She also had an affinity for the three-ring Barnum & Bailey circus that, due to her influence, we enjoyed frequently over the years. Her favorites were the elephants. I was drawn to the striped red-and-white Venetian wooden cane with its sparkly silver top, the braided silky golden tassel tied under the glitter. A harbinger of things to come: gold and glitter. In those days, when the circus came to town, it was a magnificent event—the three rings of performing animals, the clowns, the candy, the big top! For a book that gives you a realistic atmosphere surrounding those events, check out Water for Elephants.

The town of Ardmore in the forties was small, still relatively oil-rich, and an easily negotiable area for a kindergartner and first grader. Strangers smiled and spoke a warm hello on the streets between the cousins’ back-and-forth meanderings. Today, that seems absolutely amazing that a kid of that age would be turned loose, but that was the case. Every block was etched in our minds like a road map. At the end of the second street, down from Faye’s, was a huge draw, a small and narrow white clapboard general store with penny candy. Beneath a long glass counter were arrayed a row of fat glass jars displaying countless colorful sugary selections. Anyone that lived that long ago can probably remember the smells of those places. Or at least remember they had a unique odor of old buildings and penny candy. It’s an aroma lost to our current times, but if you’ve ever been in one of them, you will know exactly what I’m talking about.

The town itself, I suspect, had not changed much since my grandparents met and courted. Downtown, wide cobblestone streets had grown up around the train station with the checkered red-and-white Purina Feed sign visible on the tall grain silo near the depot. Oil money must have accounted for the three or four classically beautiful buildings lining the boulevard-sized main thoroughfare. My father, a son of that city, recoiled in horror when I suggested that he eventually retire there. His reply was something to the effect that he had spent half his life getting out of there, so why would he go back? He had wanted to go into medicine, but the Depression years put a dent in the family funds, so financially, that became out of the question. After he attended Oklahoma A&M for two years, he found a way out with an appointment to the United States Military Academy. It is safe to say he never looked back, except to visit his dearly beloved mother. And for that reason and our bountiful collection of cousins, we loved Ardmore.

This being Oklahoma, while in Ardmore, we were exposed to the Western music of those times—the old 1930s and 1940s twang and hillbilly yodeling. Cold, Cold Heart and Detour just plucked at my little heartstrings. Hank Williams was king—that is, until Elvis arrived. But that was twenty years down the road.

Hillbilly music has its roots in the Scottish and Irish melodies that came when the country was settled, and it hit my Irish heritage chord with a zing. In kindergarten, I could sing all of Don’t Fence Me In. A classmate, Norma, from my high school senior year in Ohio confided to me that her family would put her on a table with a cowgirl hat and boots, and she danced and sang that very song for family assemblies. Assuming I sang as badly then as I do now, I don’t recall any suggestion of a stage performance of that nature.

Whereas Mother’s heritage was pretty much Irish from both sides, my dad’s was a mixed bag. Once, when I inquired, he said, Scotch-Irish. In actuality, my cousin had traced back, generations before, to an obscure Swiss village. Whatever else was in the stew, there is a great-grandmother lurking a few generations prior to his birth, hidden in the background on his father’s side because when my dad was young, this was not a topic of discussion. Injuns.

Cherokee Injuns and The Oklahoma Land Rush

The digging of the historians and my cousins Shirley and Bill have it that our great-grandmother was part of the Cherokees that walked the Trail of Tears at least for a distance, originating from around Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Since my grandfather Shores was born in Rocky Mount, that gives credence to the rumor. I celebrate this part of my heritage and hope it is true, but that wasn’t so much the case back then to the old-timers. No one ever even mentioned it. It wasn’t that long before they had all been at each other’s throats and hairlines.

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Maybe one of the tribe?

photo by Sandra Brown

The story is that my great-grandfather was a trapper but around the house enough to father a staggering number of children. My cousin swears the number was seventeen. Either he was a pretty bad trapper, or they’d hunted the lands to a standstill. Later in life, when he was on the losing end of almost acquiring a bearskin, his wife, Elizabeth (a.k.a. Squaw Woman), was left with no money and no recourse. She took the children still in her care and returned to the reservation. One of their oldest, my grandfather Von Roy, the shoe salesman, was already on the road, fathering little Injuns of his own.

One summer in my senior year of high school, out in the garden with my father, he was staking beans, and I noticed his deep, really deep, tan, and standing close to him, I saw how very dark his hair was, right to his suntanned scalp. My comment was Your hair is so black. His immediate staccato reply was It is dark brown. Hah! Had I hit a sensitive nerve? Years later, I put it together and thought how closely he must have resembled that Cherokee grandmother. With his heavily hooded and ever-so-slightly-tilted Asian eyes, his features finally adding up. Standing on the back deck a couple of days ago, my husband tugged at the fringe of hair on the nape of my neck and said, Your hair is so dark here. From my father, I replied. Cherokee, he said. Well, so they say. Whatever the mix consisted of, through the Hamilton line, it went back through the Civil War to the Revolution. When I read the name of one of the ancestors, he was listed as an almoner… no idea what that job was at the time. Now I’ve been told it’s someone who handles monies. A paymaster? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The family history gathered says Alexander Hamilton is back there as is Pocahontas—from the Tidewater area of southern Virginia—our line from one of her sons. Maybe I should apply myself and find out for sure, but… I like history, so maybe someday I will. Lots of Indian involvement back then. It all seems a little far-fetched. Literally.

My paternal great-grandfather—Faye’s father, John Edward Hamilton—had come west from Russellville, Arkansas, with the Oklahoma Land Rush and had grown into a bit of a powerhouse when he lighted in Ardmore as a young man and later a much-respected elder statesman. However, when I came along, he was elderly, probably about ninety-two, and our paths weren’t destined to cross for all that long, but I do remember him when I was dressed in a striped pinafore, holding me in his lap, his gaunt face above and behind mine, reading to me as he rocked us along whatever adventure he was recounting from the book. Maybe it was mostly the photographs of that scene that I recall.

He was born before the Civil War. How far the generations stretch behind when it is possible to recall being held by a man whose birth predated that fearsome conflict. It puts such an awesome spin on how long our remembered contacts go back. I loved him and my great-grandmother Minnie fiercely, only ever so slightly less than I adored their daughter, my grandmother. Now my son has himself been held by a woman who was born in 1898—his own great-grandmother Faye. Number wise, that will stretch through three centuries. If ever lucky enough to hold a grandchild of my own, that baby will be held by a woman who was held by a man from the mid-1800s. And to think I hated math!

History-wise, my cousin Bill did some checking in the seventies and had a huge family tree drawn up after he, Aunt Liz, and my sister made a trip down to Rocky Mount to meet with some elderly Shores cousins, and with that information and necessary paperwork, he enrolled his daughters in the Daughters of the American Revolution. He called me one day from the DAR headquarters, telling me that they weren’t supposed to do this, but if I could come down, talk to the lady he had been dealing with, bring my mother’s and father’s birth and death certificates, she would accept that, combined with his work, and enroll me. I doubt I had those certificates on hand. I hate to drive in DC, and belonging to any organization is anathema, so the possibility slipped by. Do I regret that bit of laziness? Not so much. It’s certainly more verifiable thanks to my cousin’s hard work than Grandfather Doherty’s dealings with Pershing. The thing that gives his story veritas is that the dates of the Spanish-American war do jibe with his life.

So my parents and their year-old firstborn came to the end of their Panama tour. Nothing remains, of course, in the then-unwrinkled little brain. The thing people talked about later was Mother coming upon the cradle to frequently find tarantulas happily nesting on the sheets and covers. Well, there you have it—fuzzy moving playthings. The photos that remain picture Lillian leading my block-like little body and chubby legs strolling down the walkway beside the huge tropical Panamanian houses on stilts. Yes, the Dohertys were everywhere. Perhaps they were even stationed there. No one who would know remains. By then Jimmy had moved on from the cavalry and was in the army air force himself. So it was here in these tropical environs that my circuitous journey from Panama to the Potomac began.

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Von Roy Shores and Frank Gillespie Sr.

Leaving Panama and

The Tarantulas

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We had been in Panama a year, surrounded by many of the offspring from the class of 1936. Brice Jones, Ted Goldenberg, and I were lumped together in a playpen, with more to follow. When happy hour arrived, the mothers would gather us up, take us to the officers’ club, and settle us on top of the bar while happy hour began. Drinking and smoking during pregnancy was rampant back then. They didn’t know any better. As time passed and we were reunited with our playpen mates, it seemed that few of us took up the habit of tobacco or alcohol. My take is that because we hated being around it through the years and waited until we could escape the odiferous zephyrs, we didn’t pick up the habit.

Departing Panama and gathering up his now-growing little family, my dad was assigned to the California Institute of Technology for his master’s degree, and we lived close by in a lovely, bucolic Pasadena suburb. A year later, my sister Sharon made her debut at March AFB in Riverside. Such a tiny scrap of humanity—my father was terrified of touching her, afraid he would damage her fragile little body. This was not an auspicious beginning in their bonding process. All that comes to mind of that two-year tour are photographs of being in the front yard guarded by our Doberman pinscher, Kurt. They could leave me to amble about, while he kept me in a confined area. No cars mowed me down, and I didn’t wander off. Looking back, I find that a little drifty in the parenting process, but maybe there was more to the story. I was two. My sister thrived in the California sunshine, and in the prescribed military time, we left California for a short stint in Michigan, where I quickly made friends with a much older lady living above our set of barracks. Mrs. Phelps. She supplemented my caloric intake with foods that were so tasty I adopted her as a second grandmother. An opportunist early on! Heart-wrenching as it was, we moved again, this time to the more tropical climes of Florida. So my mother led me up the open wooden stairs to the second level of the barracks so I could bid farewell to Mrs. Phelps. I remember that. Laboring up to see her, my stocky legs eagerly seeking the next steep step. Mother had also enrolled me in the Smith College nursery school. One of Mother’s motives for living was to enroll me in some institution of learning. Relentlessly.

Many houses later, we moved into this, our current location. It is the sixtieth domicile. No one believes that, but it is true. You can see how easily one can rack up a number like that if you start early enough. Throw in a couple of wars, a number of moves during the college years, and a total military life, and the ante is upped again and again.

Arriving on the next scene in Tallahassee, Florida, and in close proximity to—who else—Lillian and Jimmy, who were preparing for their retirement from the army, we were now into the war years, and in 1942, Von Roy Shores Jr.—or James Francis, depending upon who is recounting the information—made his appearance with a tenuous beginning. He was immediately beset by double pneumonia. Jimmy’s survival did not look auspicious. Dad returned for a brief spell from the war. He was now a full colonel as were most of his 1936 USMA classmates—a meteoric rise in rank, but if you survived during the war, you would be promptly promoted. The trick was staying alive.

The new baby was a tiny presence tucked into a bassinet at the front of the house and was pretty much off-limits. I remember standing beside the bassinet and looking down at him. He appeared pretty uninteresting—as early as four, a serious early lack of maternal interest. That seemed a singular viewing.

Being thrilled to see my dad and not connecting his arrival too much with the dire straits my brother was battling his way through, what I did connect with Jimmy’s illness and my father’s visit was a weighty old black telephone on the hall wall, with the bell-like receiver perched between a metal hook getting a brisk workout during the illness and my dad’s arrival. There was also the issue of having to deal with party lines. For bored housewives, that must have been a boon—you could listen in on other conversations. Jimmy endured for the time being, and Dad returned to North Africa, flew his fighters, and was part of the Tunis expedition.

Eventually, he went on to work on the D-day invasion. With his Caltech background, he was snared into the aspect of the effort in charge of predicting the weather, an issue fraught with all sorts of peril from a career aspect. This task had been assigned to the Army Air Corps. Can’t you see the logic in that? Let’s task the Air Corps. If they flub the prediction, it’s an easy blame. On the other hand, it also seemed an easy call: cloudy with some chance of rain…

With the Doherty’s retirement and their departure back to California, we packed up and moved to North Carolina from Florida. To be close to my aunt Marion and, coincidentally, where my aunt Liz was stationed in the WAF squadron. With her pilot status and living in a barracks, she made sure I learned how to make a bed in the military way—tight square corners—and how to line my shoes up under the bed. Elizabeth Shores Murphy would go on to get her PhD in aeronautical engineering and teach in an Oklahoma university, serve on a NASA board, and attain any number of other prestigious affiliations.

There in Asheville, we were reunited with our Zimmerman cousins, children of the oldest Doherty daughter, Marion, the now-glamorous, later successful Washington State artist in the making. With this built-in band of buddies, we were able to investigate the creepy abandoned haunted house at the end of the street, explore the steep hills and woods around our home, and find, by wooded back trails, ways to their home from ours.

My husband and I found and revisited the residence on a trip through Asheville in the eighties with no effort at all. Forty years later and it was as if I’d been there the week before. The little white house still sits at the top of the hill, fronting the road, the land falling steeply away behind it. In front, just as before, was the sign that tells every passerby that it’s the Raven’s Nest.

Tillie’s Biscuits and

The Ravens Nest

To help my mother in her struggle with three children under the age of five, they hired Tillie to help Mother cope. Tillie was a larger-than-life figure, a big buxom black woman who would call us for lunch every day at noon by ringing a large brass school bell. We would gather around the kitchen table, gazing intently at the radio atop the icebox, waiting for it to inform us of the daily doings of the title character in Our Gal Sunday—a girl from a small mining town in Colorado. Listening with rapt attention and wolfing down Tillie’s biscuits, it was the high point of the day. We loved Tillie. She could cook, and we could consume. She was especially fond of Master Jimmy, doting on him and hugging him to her ample bosom. Even more than remembering her in the flesh, I remember the snapshots taken of the four of us. Tillie in her white apron and her Aunt Jemima headscarf with the three of us lined up in front of her, her proprietary and protective hand on Jimmy’s tiny shoulder. In another of the photos, she holds him, maybe just to keep him within the local vicinity. Jimmy, adorable at nearly a year in faded corduroy bib overalls; my sister, with her soft blond hair, floating around her sweet face; and me in my own white uniform—that of a miniature nurse, with a red cross stitched across the front of the cap, looking forward to playing doctor already. There were some boys in the neighborhood that bought into the nurse’s outfit, which, I have to say, discouraged any further interest in a medical career.

Harbored deep in the belly of the basement of the Ravens Nest was an enormous ornate black furnace that was serviced sporadically in the winter months by impressive loads of smutty coal tumbling down the chute from a ground-floor window above—sustenance for the behemoth lurking below. This cascade created a perfect slide down to the basement if we were able to surmount the nuggets to the pinnacle. Or enter through the window from the outside. Next to the pile on the bottom of the floor, the iron door of the monster would clang open, the flaming interior accepting more infusions of fuel. So many things ran on coal in those days. At the end of one of these ascensions and the plunge back down, Tillie could no doubt confuse us for one of her own children, our bodies, our clothes covered in the soft smudge. It doesn’t take much to keep kids involved, but it sure takes a lot to keep them clean. I believe if I dig deep enough in the recesses of my tiny mind, we were encouraged not to play in the coal. Like, You’re going to have to use the washboard yourself if you keep this up.

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You can tell who is in trouble

It was about this time that Mother decided we needed to record our progress up the ladder of life with yearly professional photographs. Dad, still in Tunisia, was surely requesting them. The day came for our first foray into this endeavor. We were positioned on the chintz sofa in the living room. Photos were produced of Jimmy grinning a gummy grin or reading a storybook seated in Mother’s lap and Shary showing an angelic smile of sweet compliance, which masked a will of iron, and a head full of soft dandelion blond fluff that only took a breath or two from Mother, and the curls would artfully settle. Out of step and visibly vexed at the event, I remember why. My coif—instead of braids or a swoosh of a brush through the lank hair—had been tortured up and scraped back with tortoiseshell combs, the lot of them tucked into a thin tender scalp. The beach full of dead tortoise tines controlled the mouse-brown mess now scraped into a semblance of order—lots of order. Insurrection glared out from my tear-filled eyes. The quality of the sepia-toned photos is excellent, heavy paper with crystal clear images. Dad carried them around in a small leather binder for the rest of the war.

On one of his rare visits home, he brought me a small doll. An Indian maiden dressed in white deerskin, fringe at the bottom with colorful beads sewn onto the bodice and toes of the moccasins. In addition to this largesse was a small leather purse with something that suspiciously resembled pony hide or cowhide adorning the front. Remember those Oklahoma roots? During his visit, a baby tooth was lost, and I diligently made the rounds, letting it be known that I was looking for some serious fiat money from the fairy, like a dollar. When I awoke the next morning, not only was there no baksheesh, the wench hadn’t left one red dime. When complaining to my father that the feckless fairy had passed me by, he suggested checking my new purse; maybe she surmised it might be safer there. My pathetic pout disappeared when the dollar was found right where he said it might be. Fathers are so smart, but bottom line—he set me up!

Never having had a very harmonious relationship with Mother, it had yet to surface to a serious level back then. The following event might have put those gears in motion. After a bath one night, she stood me on the commode so she could towel me off. I was right at throat level. I kept eyeing that tender piece of flesh covering her juggler. My skewed reasoning went something like this: Hmm, I know what meat tastes like, I know what chicken tastes like, I wonder what people taste like? With that, I locked my jaw on the front of her neck. Not much taste. Don’t add it to the dinner fare. I unclenched and withdrew my baby teeth. I really don’t remember her reaction, but one can only surmise it wasn’t favorable. Maybe it is one of those things best consigned to history. She must have thought something akin to Jesus, God, what sort of creature have I spawned? Always ahead of my time—perhaps it was a prescient vision of Dr. Lecter? Well, I was two years short of the age of reason—only five. In some aspects, the rationale and execution were on a Mensa level—perhaps a tad lacking in judgment.

Ardmore, Oklahoma, Here We Come—Again

One year and one visit later from Colonel Shores, it was good-bye to Asheville. The morning of our departure, we had oatmeal for breakfast, a thick pat of butter on top and sugar crusting the thick tan gruel to a sparkling white and, of course, the creamy milk. The dining room table was piled high with household goods. The movers would come later to pack and move us back to Ardmore. The backseat of the car had a baby mattress wedged in, so we could stretch out. I was five, my sister three, and Jimmy one.

Now back to Oklahoma for a two-year stint. We were living in a small Craftsman rental across town from my grandmother, her own mother no longer living outside of town but with her. My academic career was about to begin in the not-so-nearby Catholic school. So here we have a kindergartner trudging a mile each way, five days a week. Oops, make that six; I went to Mass every Sunday alone. Was I following in Lillian’s path? My cousin Shirley reminded me about ten years ago how adversarial my relationship was with the nuns. It was the start of a pattern. Lots of ruler use on my fingers. Being such a tractable child, how bad could I have been? Maybe the attention span was a little limited having begun school early. Maybe they just liked to break fingers. Then another year arrived, first grade, with the same torture at the hands of those frustrated prior penitentiary guards.

Church and school aside, the neighborhood was pleasant, I had been reunited with Faye and Minnie, and an ancient lady in a square brick house at the end of the street had had thirteen children, which was an astonishing fact. The iceman delivered sawdust-covered square chunks for the icebox, and if our paths crossed during the delivery, he hacked a piece off for us. We acquired a wringer washer, and Huckleberry Finn was our neighbor. Given these antiquated appliances, it didn’t feel like we were much removed from Tom and Huck. Rounding out the experience, a black cat adopted us, adding to the household. I wanted to bestow upon him a name that denoted the sweetest thing I could think of—Peaches. Of course, he was a casualty of the next move. The first of a long string of discards over the years, he went to live out his days with my granddad on the ranch. Most of the time, they ended up in good environments, but nevertheless, the beloved Peaches exited our lives. On the plus side, so did the nuns—a trade-off of sorts.

During the war, travel by rail was limited. The troops were surging, and their transportation was the priority. Trains were the main mode of movement in those days, military and civilians alike. For unremembered reasons, Mother had to make a trip, and there was much speculation as to whether she would be able to get space on a Pullman. It was an anxious endeavor. She snagged a reservation, and we finally arrived at the station—all the energy of the hustle and bustle swirling around us, the steam engines firing out hot billows of smoke, the porters pushing luggage racks along the gritty raised platforms, the busy people and troops moving along, and of course, the long green railway cars and the porters calling out, Alllll aboard! Frantic farewells, people hanging out the windows for a last hand-holding until the engine and cars began their slow slide away from the platform. In my memory, it was a colorless experience; perhaps no one wore anything but gray and black during the war, or maybe it was winter. Trains were also a dirty means of travel, with the soot blowing into open windows and cinders stinging, floating into the eyes. Beat the covered wagon, I guess, so it was Good-bye, Ardmore. Hello, California—again.

Nevertheless, the trip began with an auspicious purchase of one of those large boxes: three rows of stacked Crayolas with a flip-top lid, not just the skinny one-row box but every color imaginable or ever created in this extravagant treasure trove of crayons literally at my fingertips, in the signature golden yellow box with green lettering. Some color was inserted after all. However, if her purchase was meant to slow me down and keep me in my seat, it was of limited success.

My grandmother Faye volunteered at the USO, so I was familiar with the young soldiers and grew fond of them. And now there before my eyes was a whole train car lavishly peopled with them in their rough brown uniforms—a sea of soldiers standing, sitting, and just waiting for me. They trumped the crayons. The lure of the men going off to war was too much, and I left my seat to entertain the troops and work the crowd. My poor mother saddled with this lank-haired, bucktoothed youngster with a lazy eye from a previous infection as an infant and a run-in with a blue metal toy plane. A kid not yet realizing her