Ancestors records of military service

My grandfather PaBud's registration card from 1917
I never had the chance to meet him. He passed away
3 years before I was born. I have a 48 star flag that covered
his coffin. One of my most prized possessions.

My Grand Dad's registration card from 1917. He walked across Europe with frost bite so bad
he could hardly walk after the war. He also suffered from PTS occasionally. He passed away just
before my 10th birthday.

Besides these great Americans, my father and his two brothers all served in the Military. The oldest, Buddy, piloted landing craft in Italy and then in the Pacific theater during World War II. BJ served in the Army during the end of World War II and then with the Air Force during Korea and Vietnam. My father was in the Navy during the Korean War. 

Though they all came back home some were never the same. Buddy was always on edge and when there was a loud noise he would just go back to his days in the service. BJ was so ashamed of the way the American people treated Vietnam vets that he chose to live in Europe during the best years of his life. My father was blessed to return pretty much like he was when he went in. 

Friends of mine in the neighborhood I grew up in served in Vietnam and some paid the ultimate price. Some were disabled but made it home. I honor their sacrifice and their family's sacrifice by fighting to keep our country the way our Founders wanted it to be. We all should consider our self BLESSED to live in this country where we have the liberty and freedoms that they fought and died for. 

This weekend take a minute and say a prayer or just have a minute of silence for those that paid the ultimate sacrifice if not to make us the country we are today but to help spread the freedom that we enjoy today. 

My own personal Father's Days

Harrison and BriAnne(BiBi)

I have always considered the next two days as my personal Fathers Days. It's not because of gifts I receive each year on those days. It's because of the gifts I received 22 and 18 years ago, our son and daughter. I remember those days almost like they were yesterday. 

LeAnn and I were at some friend's of ours when her water broke about midnight. We went by the house to get her pillow and the bag she had packed for the event. We then headed down the road to Grand Prairie Hospital where the long ordeal began. We were put into a room and test were run. Since she had not yet started dilating or having contractions we were told to get some rest. She was in a bed and I was in a chair but neither of us got much sleep with the nurses coming in ever so often to check on her status.

It was like that for most of the next 18 hours till one of the nurses came running in and said they were going to have to do a C-Section to get our son since his heartbeat had begun to slow. She was rushed down the hall to get prepped for surgery and I was told to sit in the room. Then a nurse showed up and gave me some scrubs and told me to change. As I nervously changed from my clothes I was worried if I could make it through the birth. I always had a difficult time watching videos of friends surgeries and had even passed out during a movie. I was a little squeamish about blood to say the least.

In about 20 minutes the nurse came in and told me to follow her. She took me to the delivery room where LeAnn was all covered and people were standing all around her. I was told to sit by her head and talk to her. She was shaking so I thought she was cold but she said it was from the drugs they gave her. I held her hand and talked to her until they were ready for me to watch.

When told to stand up I was amazed by how unfazed I was by the scene in front of me. They had already did the incision and were reaching in to grab our son. As they brought him out and I told her he was beautiful. A nurse brought him over to me and told me to go with her to be weighed and measured. As we were walking down the hall the fire alarms went off, kind of a warning for things to come with Harrison. They measured him, weighed him, printed his feet and put a bracelet on his leg all while I was present to assure us and them there was no mistake later.

When we left to take him back to the recovery room where they had moved LeAnn we were met at the door by firemen with axes and hoses standing on the other side. We stood to the side and left after they had all entered and walked down the hall to give Harrison to LeAnn so she could hold him for the first time. It all became real at that moment and I can't explain the anxious joy that I experienced.

For the record there was no fire in the hospital that night. Some kid had just pulled the alarm in the hall outside the nursery.

From that moment on everything had changed. We had become a family and everything I did from then on was for them more than it was for me. Four years later, almost to the day, we were again in a hospital delivery room. This time she was scheduled to be induced early in the morning. I think she got her first shot at 7 in the morning. The next 12 hours were the most emotional and exhausting time of my life. Watching her struggle with the pain and contractions over and over wore me and a friend of ours out and I was doing next to nothing.

A friend of ours and her father were in the room with us. Lorie was there by request and Nathan was in the room checking up on her for the families. When it was time for the final push the nurse left to get the doctor but before leaving told her not to push. Yea, right! When she began pushing Nathan was on the phone with LeAnn's mom, who was home staying with her mother who was ill at the time, and was blocked from getting out by all the other people in the room so he got the show of his life from the couch in the room. When BriAnne was born we knew that instantly she was going to be the last one. We had our boy and we had our girl. Nothing else was needed. We were complete.

This Saturday Harrison is 22 and Sunday BriAnne is 18. It is hard to believe that our kids have grown up so fast into these amazing adults they are today. It seems like it was just yesterday I was dropping them off at daycare with their bottle of Coffee and Cream. Today as parents we couldn't be prouder of either one of them. They are both independent thinkers and remember most of the things we have spent years teaching them. I love each of them infinitely more than they will realize until the day when they have the joy of parenthood. I look forward to that phase of our lives. Together with LeAnn I think we will make perfect grandparents.

PS: Back to her first pregnancy with Harrison, the friends we were hanging out with that night, we saw them pretty regular from the time we started dating and all through her pregnancy. That night her water broke was the last time we ever saw them. They must have moved during the first 2 weeks to a month after Harrison was born and we have yet to hear any news about them since. It's like they disappeared off the face of the earth. I have looked for them on Facebook often but to no avail. It's weird how friendships end sometimes but this is the strangest I have ever heard of.

My father

My Dad, Bert E. Glover was born September 28,1931 in De Leon, Texas. His father was WW I veteran Marion Bud Glover and his mother was Bess Estelle Pilcher Glover.  His father was gassed in WW I and never really recovered from it and as a result he couldn't work enough to support their family. So Dad worked from a Cushman Scooter delivering milk as a kid and dropped out of high school in the 11th grade to help the family through some hard times.

Dad joined the Navy in 1949 and went to boot camp in Chicago. When he got out of boot camp as a fireman second class he was assigned to the USS Macomb DMS 23. On the Macomb Dad was sent into the Mediterranean to recover mines left over from WW II. On the cruise he went to Libya,  France, Italy, Lebanon and Tunisia. Dad was honorably discharged on December 31,1953.

The Flag that covered his
casket during his funeral

Letter from President Bush

Not to long after he got home Dad met my Mom, Tina De Harrison and they were married on January 4, 1955. While in the Navy he became acquainted with the barbers and liked the conversations he had with them while getting his hair cut and decided that is what he would do for a living. For the next couple of years while Bert was going to Barber School they lived in Handley, Texas. After graduating they moved to Irving to work for Cliff Shasteen's Barber Shop. He would work for Cliff until he passed in 1991 then he took over the shop for the next 5 years.

 I was born in 1962, my brother in 1964 and my sister in 1966. We lived on the same street for 35 years in 2 houses. Dad worked 6 days a week and took one week of vacation a year. This gave me the work ethic that made it possible to get to where I am today in my profession. We weren't rich by any means so when we were younger we went fishing a lot and picnicked at area lakes on the weekends or just took a drive into the country for entertainment. Sometimes we would go to Great Southwest Airport and watch planes land and depart. One of the biggest times we had was going to the drive-in and watching a double feature. It was always fun and all about spending quality time with the family.

One of Dad's joys was listening to his antique radios and finding some song he hadn't heard in years. He would also listen to the Grand Ole Opry and Roy Acuff. He would imitate Bashful Brother Oswald, Acuff's dobro player, making us all laugh. His favorite was Hank Williams Sr. though and he had all of his records. Sometimes he would get his fiddle down and try and play with them or try and teach us to play. These were good times.

As a kid, Dad was a huge fan of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies. As he got older he loved John Wayne movies and passed that on to his kids. He would also enjoy the occasional Chuck Norris and Steven Segal movie and after my son Harrison was born, many times you would find them in his room watching a  movie together.

Dad was well known in our town. He cut some of the police officers and most of the football players and coaches hair. He had cut three or four generations of some families.  He would be interrupted often, when we went out to eat, by his customers and would spend 30 minutes talking to them and would eat his dinner cold much of the time. He loved high school football and could tell you who was the head coach of lots of schools across the state. I went to my first football game when I was little over a month old with my parents and my dad and I went to many more till he was diagnosed with cancer. Going to the football games was something we looked forward to all year till football season started and I missed it once he couldn't do that much walking any more.

He was a great husband to my mother and she was a great wife to him. They were perfect examples of  a successful marriage and I think that is why none of us kids has divorced. We saw them work through their problems and never quit loving each other. He was a great father and would do anything that was possible to help us when we needed it. He would do the same for his 3 grand children.  The thing about my Dad was he never missed a chance to tell each of us that he loved us.

His parents on their
wedding day in 1921

       
When he was nearing the end and chose not to go through the chemotherapy any more we would sit at the dining room table drinking coffee and talking about my future. He begged me to quit smoking and told me he was proud of the man I had become. Our last visit I could tell he was very sick and I told him he didn't have to keep fighting for us, that he could go ahead and rest for now. On the next Tuesday, March 18,2003, when I got home from work my brother called me to tell me that he had passed away. We had his viewing the following day which turned out to be the first day of the Iraqi War and on the next day he was buried next to his Brother and Grandfather.
         
Dad, we will always miss you till our last breath and will love you for eternity. I am always striving to live up to your standards that you set as a man and father. I fear I will always fall short, but people tell me more and more that I look and act just like you. That makes me smile beyond belief. Thanks for all you provided for our family but mostly for just being you.

There is a bronze marker
at the foot of the grave.

My father's connection to November 22,1963

Bert Elmo Glover 1931-2003

Although my father grew tired of talking about it after many years of interviews by FBI agents I still find it interesting to know that he had cut Oswald's hair before that day in Dallas in '63. My father's barber chair sat in front of a sink and mirror just like many did. Above the mirror was a picture of the frigate he served on in the Navy during the Korean War. So my father knew something about serving our country.

He would tell us when we were young that he cut Oswald's hair and we didn't understand the meaning of it. I would see Frazier, the man that took Oswald to work that day, in his shop from time to time when I would be there sweeping the floor or the occasional shoe shine. He was a distant man who would not join in the conversation when there was others present but when he was alone with my father they would talk and laugh and enjoy each other's company. I think in some small way my father knew what time answering the same questions year after year had done to him.

When he talked about Oswald he said they would have lively conversations about politics and that once or twice they had to ask Oswald to leave. My father didn't take fools well. Though a Republican, at least I believe he was, he had respect for President Kennedy due to his service in the Navy during World War II and the other barbers did too and they didn't allow anyone to talk down about him or America too often.

Oswald's wife was staying in a house around the corner from the barber shop with Miss Ruth Payne. I met Miss Payne a couple of times too at football games or at diners where we would go eat for lunch. She was a nice woman too.

Back to the FBI interviews now, when I first started searching for our family tree I found an odd link that said Warren Commission on it. I didn't pay it any attention at first then I opened it and couldn't believe what I saw. It was my dad's, Buddy Law's and Cliff Shasteen's interview reports.(report is linked here) I  read it and printed it out and took it to work to show my co workers and when I was off that night I took it to my parent's home to show them. He wasn't interested at all in it but my mom did read it that night.

My father was a barber in Irving,Texas for over 40 years and many times had cut hair of 3 generations of the same family. They all called him Bert and he knew each of them by their names too. He would talk about high school football, fishing in the gravel pits or local politics since his boss was a city councilman in the city.

When he retired my brother brought his son to see him for one last haircut and I was there for a burr for old times sake. I haven't grown my hair back since and now I'm not sure it can grow long enough to not be called a burr.

The day after he retired he went to the doctor and they told him he had cancer. He had the surgery to remove half of his lung on the day the plane crashed on Long Island in New York. We watched the news while he was in surgery. He would go on doing his chemotherapy treatments for about 18 more months. My parents even moved back to his hometown for retirement and drove the 250 miles round trip to get his treatments for a while.

He knew they weren't working and decided one day that he had had enough of them and that drive. He met it on his own terms and was ready for whatever would come his way. The weekend before he passed we sat at the dining room table and I told him I was sorry for disappointing him when I had and I also told him he could quit fighting it whenever he was ready. Leaving them after our visit that weekend was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Anyway, that next week on Tuesday my brother called and told me he was gone. The next night while we were at the viewing the Iraq war started. My brother in law Rick was in the Marines and stationed at the Pentagon working for intelligence at the time and told us that he could tell us now that it was started. We sat up late into the night talking about my day and watching the news show us what was happening in Baghdad.

I know I have rambled but I thought I would talk about the man my father was for a bit after telling you about the biggest bit of history of his life. My father never knew the things that I found out later about our family tree which include an interpreter for Ben Franklin, Revolutionary War Colonel in the militia, Civil War Colonel and even a martyr in England for religious reasons by Bloody Mary. Somehow he lived his life like the people I have learned about since his passing by serving this great country and teaching Sunday School for a time. He was always happy and would talk to a tree if it said hi to him. I live each day trying to be like him but I will always fall short of that goal. I love him more and more each day and talk about him more each day too. For me it doesn't get easier to live without him. Every time there is a John Wayne movie on or I hear a Hank Williams Sr. I think about the times we had just talking and watching a movie or sitting and listening to the Grand Ole Opry and he is with me.

Happy Anniversary LeAnn!!

Happy Anniversary LeAnn!!

LeAnn and I in 2009

     I have been blessed to be married to LeAnn for 21 years now. We were married on November 14, 1992(Valentines Day in November). She is a gift from God that I needed at a time when I needed it most. She gave my life meaning and a purpose. It hasn't always been easy but I wouldn't trade the last 21 years for anything. We have 2 great kids, Harrison and BriAnne(BiBi), and a beautiful home. I even have great in-laws. Without her none of this would have been conceivable for me.

When we first got together friends of ours would tell people we knew that there wasn't anyway that this would last. They didn't see the friendship that turned into love. Over the years we have become closer and closer and now can read each other's minds in some weird way. She is the rock of this relationship and always tries to keep me from being my negative self. My love for her is endless and grows each and every day.
   
I U Sweetcakes!! To the moon and back!!

Harrison wanting us to pick him up

"With this ring, I thee wed..."

Following the preacher with Jody and Jeff past my parents

LeAnn being escorted by her Dad

With my parents afterwards

Military Service from Revolution to Viet Nam

Military Service from Revolution to Viet Nam

     

      Many of you know that I have been working on my Glover family tree for about 15 years now. Today I have been thinking about why my family is in America. I have written here about Robert Glover and how he was executed as a  religious heretic during the reign of "Bloody" Mary. Within another 100 years the Glover family had immigrated to Virginia in America after fleeing England for Holland. I have yet to find the year or which they immigrated but happened about 20 years after the Mayflower. They had to run away from their home due to religious persecution and found a home where they could practice whatever faith they had.

      After they immigrated to Virginia during the next century they started moving South, first to North Carolina where William Glover was Governor before the Revolutionary War. One of his sons, Joseph, was a Colonel in the South Carolina Militia during the American Revolution. Also during the war Louis Lestarjette acted as an interpreter for Benjamin Franklin in France in later 1776 and the first few months of 1777.

       After the Revolutionary War Col. Joseph Glover's grandson, Sanders II, married Sophia Lestarjette, Louis' daughter, and migrated to Tallapoosa,Alabama. When the Civil War broke out he was acting as armament officer for the Confederacy where his job was to keep the forces armed. He died as a result of a battle in Henrico County,Virginia in 1862. His children moved first to New Orleans where my grandfather Bud Marion Glover was born in 1894 and then finally to Texas where my father was born in 1931.

My father, Bert Glover, 1949

                Both of my Grandfathers served in World War I in Europe and one of them suffered mustard gas poisoning but survived for another 40 years and one of them suffered from Shell Shock and frost bite. My dad served in the Navy during the Korean War but on a minesweeper in the Mediterranean. His oldest brother piloted a Higgins Boat in the Pacific Theater of war. He was present during Iwo Jima and Guadacanal. His other brother started serving in the Army during the police action in Germany after the War and served 12 years in the Army there. When Viet Nam was ramping up he left the Army and signed up with the Air Force and served 11 more years.

               All in all it's a pretty distinguished line of Glovers I can call my ancestors. From religious martyrs in England, Revolutionary War patriots, CSA commanders and veterans of WWI, WWII, Korea and Viet Nam. I am honored to call them my family and can't wait to find out when and where exactly my family immigrated to the new world about 500 years ago. My hope is as you read this you get curious about your own family and begin the rewarding experience of researching your tree. Let me warn you that it is very addicting.

               

This picture is of my Great Grandparents Butler Osborne Glover and Hassey on their wedding day in 1875.








This one is of my Grandparents Bud and Bess Glover on their wedding day in 1921.

Louis de Lestarjette's letter to Ben Franklin

Louis de Lestarjette

This is a letter I found online while researching my family tree. I was flabbergasted to find out I was part French. I hope you enjoy it.

From Louis Lestarjette

als: American Philosophical Society

[Before December 15, 1776]

Honourable Sir,

I take the liberty of offering you my best Services in this kingdom being extremely well versed in both English, and French languages, especially in the French as my mother tongue and brought up in the College of the four Nations at Paris where I was eight Years. Capn. Cochran and myself married two Sisters in South Carolina. I came over with him in the Vessel which he commands, merely to serve the Province in doing the affairs of that Vessel, and explaining to the French merchants the nature of our trade, and the manufacturing the different goods proper for that Country. I have fulfilled my mission, and Capn. Cochran can inform you of my Character. Mr. Dean also has seen a Sketch of my abilities in Paris where I went with Capn: Cochran, and was constantly with Mr. Dean for whom I interpreted the different transactions that were going on at that time. It is not the case with you, Sir, Speaking and Writing the French language properly; but your time will be so much taken up at Paris in matters of Conversation that it would be morally impossible for you to undergo the whole fatigue. I speak and write the French language, I may Say with elegance, and I have nothing else in View in offering to Stay with you, than to Serve the just Cause of America which is become my native Land. It is neither necessity or any motives of interest that lead me to open myself to you on that Subject. I am well Settled in Charlestown where I have a wife and two Children in whom I place all my happiness, and who I dare Say long for my return, but Sir, I would sacrify many enjoyments of life to be attached to so illustrious a Gentleman engaged in so noble a Cause, and whom the whole world admires. The Vessel I came in is to Sail in about a fortnight. Only Say a word, and I’ll Stay. I may venture to advance that you could not easily meet with a French American of my Capacity, and to whom you may entrust the most Secret affairs. I am with the most profound Veneration Honourable Sir, Your most humble Servant.

Lis. Lestarjette

Addressed: The Honourable / Doctr. Frankling

Notation: Lestargette

Lestarjette, Louis 

South Carolina merchant.

Acted as an interpreter for Franklin and Silas Deane in France (December 1776- January 1777). Sailed for South Carolina (February 1777), then returned to Nantes (August 1777). Served in a South Carolina militia regiment (1780) with my 5x great grandfather Col. Joseph Glover and one of his sons. 

I left the language the way I found it in Ben Franklin's papers.