Father's Day on the USS Midway

My wife and son planned out a trip to the aircraft carrier USS Midway for Father's Day.  We arrived bright and early to beat the crowd.  A gorgeous day up on the flight deck!

Looking back towards downtown.

 Troy trying the cockpit.

 Teo trying the cockpit.

 His dad nursing the wound he received from the canopy.

 Dave's turn!

 The boys inspecting the landing gear while their dad checks out a weapon.

 Troy to the bridge!

 Teo in the "Boss" chair.

 Troy on the anchor chain.

 Down below.

 Troy and Teo having an excellent time.

 You can't see it, but their dad is a dark corner back behind me making a bit of noise with the ship equipment.   Just seconds after I took this photo...

...yet seconds before this photo he had that equipment making very loud, unsettling noises.  You can see that on Troy's face.  I don't blame you Troy.  I turned around right after I took this photo to see whether he was making the ship sink...

We Love Our City

 There's no place like San Diego.   The sleepy little city in the very corner of the United States.

We kind of lucked into moving here and we've never looked back.  Thanks to everyone who makes this great city great.

An Evening Dockside at Lake San Marcos

Brian Setzer

We had great fun seeing Brian Setzer this weekend!  A few snippets of the party in full swing... thanks everyone for coming out!

Marcellous Flernoy Awbrey, 1845-1905

 One of my great-great-Grandfathers is Marcellous Flernoy Awbrey.  This is a photo of him as a young man, I would guess in the late 1860s or 1870s.

 Another photo of him from roughly the same era.

 Marcellous' daughter Annie married into the Barker family in the late 1800s in Texas.  This section of the family tree is shown to the right.

Marcellous was born in Longlick, Kentucky to William and Jemima Awbrey.   I'm not positive that Jemima's maiden name was Veale, but have heard mention of that on some websites.

 Marcellous' father died when he was six, at the age of 50.

As a young teen, Marcellous joined the 5th Regiment of the Kentucky Cavalry, Company B, on the Confederate side of the Civil War.   I'll try to find more information on his time in the 5th Regiment in a future post.   So far, all I know for is that he was a Private and was a Prisoner of War at some point .

 After returning from the war,  Marcellous married my great-great-Grandmother Nancy Catherine Garwood, and they proceeded to have eight children, four boys and four girls.  As the timeline above shows, four of those children beat their parents to the grave. [note: it now appears to be 3 not 4]

Before 1870, the family had moved to Stamping Ground, Kentucky where the second child, Annie Evelyn Awbrey - my great-Grandmother - was born.  Stamping Ground is so named because bison used to frequent a spring there for decades if not centuries and it formed a bowl-like depression in the earth.  Marcellous listed his occupation as "Farmer" in the 1870 census with a personal estate value of $300.  In the 1880 census, Marcellous was still shown as someone who works on a farm and his wife Nancy's name is shown as "Nannie", probably her nickname.  By 1882 Stamping Ground had 300 residents, four stores, two blacksmith shops, one school with 45 students, one distillery, one hotel, one undertaker, one photographer, four doctors, two churches, a "colored" school and church, a Masonic Lodge and a wool factory.

 Sometime after the birth of their sixth child, the family moved to Wilbarger County in Texas.  Two more children, Marcus and Artie, were born in Texas before their mother Nancy passed away in 1898 at the age of 53.

Their daughter Annie married my great-Grandfather a few counties over in Tarrant County (Forth Worth) during this time.

 Here is a photo of Nancy and Marcellous later in life, I would guess during their time in Texas.

The 1900 census shows Marcellous as widowed and renting a farm in Texas.  Curiously it shows three others in the household:  Marcus who would have been 17, Artie who would have been 14, and William shown as 23 and born in 1876.  Apparently the other report of William's death at age 5 is incorrect.

 Later in life and after the death of his wife Nancy,  Marcellous returned to Kentucky and there he died in 1905 at the and age of 59.

I'm not sure what brought Marecellous back to Kentucky as it is unlikely any of his children were there.  We know that daughter Annie was out in Texas with her new husband John Washington Barker,  daughter Addie would have been under 10 when they moved to Texas so surely she remained in Texas as an adult, and the other four children born in Kentucky had all passed away.  Well, three given examination of the census data that shows William was alive and well in Texas.

 This is what the main street in Carrollton looked like when Marcellous returned.  I'm not sure whether he lived in the city or in the surrounding countryside.

 A historical marker explaining the origins of Stamping Ground.   When the area was settled in the 1800s, the spring was put to good use producing - what else - whiskey!

One of the whiskey brands produced at Stamping Ground.