Another Genealogical Mystery Solved... And Roots in Ireland.

In my last genealogical entry just a few weeks ago, I had discovered the identity of my second great-grandfather John McLaughlin -- My mother's father's father's father.  And we had learned that he was a Civil War combat veteran.  But, as you may recall, there were some remaining questions.  At least one of those questions has been answered.  Recall how I closed that blog entry: "The next challenge is to figure out the mysterious whereabouts of "Mary A." listed on the grave marker as "wife of John" and "mother" (of James Louis?) who for some reason never lived with John when censuses were being tabulated.  What's that about?"

That really posed two questions.  Who is Mary A? And who is James Louis' mother?  Here's what has transpired.

I had written a letter to the Washington County Historical Society, asking if they could look for any old news articles about John.  Lo and behold, a few days ago, I received his newspaper obituary from 1894.  Here's a transcription:
"A veteran of this place, died at the residence of his son, Mr. James McLaughlin, on Saunders street, at 2 o'clock on Sunday morning. The deceased had not been in his usual health for about two years past. He became worse last August and has since steadily declined.  Funeral services were held at 10 o'clock Tuesday a.m. at the church of Our Lady of Angels, and was very largely attended, the members of Post Tanner being present in a body.  The Rev. Father McLoghlin officiated.  The interment was in Smith's cemetery. The deceased was born in Mansfieldstown, Parish of Darver, County Louth, Ireland, in 1826, making him 68 years of age at the time of his death. He married Miss Bridget Hoy about 44 years ago, who died five years subsequent to their marriage. Mr. McLaughlin came to this place when a comparatively young man and has since resided here. He is survived by one sister, Margaret, and one son, Mr. James McLaughlin, who is married and has a family of bright and promising children. Mr. McLaughlin was a veteran of the late war, he having enlisted in Company F, 169th Regiment, in 1862.  He was a color sergeant during the engagement at Fort Fisher and was the first to plant the flag on the fort.  In the engagement at Cold Harbor he received a severe wound by being struck in the right shoulder blade with a piece of a shell. The wound undoubtedly produced permanent injury to the lungs. At Fort Fisher he saved the life of Gen. Alden, rescuing him from a perilous position. Gen.  Alden was at his side when he received the terrible wound at Cold Harbor and was able to give valuable evidence in assisting him to obtain a pension. Gus. Vaughn was Captain of the company in which Mr. McLaughlin served and both men were together when Capt. Vaughn was shot and killed at the explosion of the Petersburgh mine. Mr. McLaughlin dragged his body from the wreckage and debris and assisted in the burial. The following well known residents of this place were members of the company: Daniel Cummings, James M. Waters, Caleb Earl, Julio Benjamin and Eben Blin. The deceased fought in thirty-two battles, remaining in the Service from the time of his enlistment until the close of the war in 1865.  He was one of the charter members of A.H. Tanner Post G.A.R. whose membership at the time of its organization numbered thirty.  Although the post has at present a larger membership than when first organized, it is not so strong in numbers as a few years ago.  These latter years are making havoc in its ranks.  Time, while it does not cause such immediate mortality is more deadly than volley or broadside.  This soldier, whose courage and tact enabled him to pass through the ordeal of so many battles finally was compelled to surrender his life through an attack of hemorrhage of the lungs.  If any man could justly claim the title of American citizen it was this man.  He was honored and respected by his comrades and his remains were borne to their last resting place by the following members of the Post: P. Casey, John Davey, Edward Marshall, James O’Reilly, C.B. Tinsley, and James T. Boyle."

Notice that one specific citation, "He married Miss Bridget Hoy about 44 years ago, who died five years subsequent to their marriage. Mr. McLaughlin came to this place when a comparatively young man and has since resided here. He is survived by one sister, Margaret, and one son, Mr. James McLaughlin, who is married and has a family of bright and promising children."  John McLaughlin had been married and widowed early in life, having had one son.  This explained all the census years during which he lived with a son and his sister Margaret.  I still haven't figured out who the mysterious Mary A. is, but I have no doubt I shall figure it out.  By the way, one of those "bright and promising children" was my grandfather, William Clinton McLaughlin, known to me as "Grampa Will."

For now, I am pleased to have found the marriage record of John McLaughlin and Bridgett Hoy (Hoye), dated 18 August 1849.  They were married in Whitehall, New York.  This means that John migrated to the US and settled in Whitehall before 1849.  I suspect he traveled with his sister.  Of course, I'm thrilled to know precisely where in Ireland this branch of my tree took root.  It's the tiniest county in Ireland, on the East coast, directly below the Northern Irish border.  There's so much more research to do...

Charlie and Brenda...Part 2: The Great Race Years

Charlie Stroud stands by the 1937 Packard at a Great Race rest stop

How it started -- In 1996, my friend Bob King asked me if I'd be interested in restoring my 1932 Plymouth coupe and using it to participate in the Great Race (also known as the Great American Race).  This is an annual event, held since 1983, in which vintage cars compete for substantial prize money in a long distance precision endurance rally.  King's offer was that if I'd restore the car, he'd pay the entry fee of several thousand dollars.  He'd navigate and I'd drive, and if we won any prize money, we'd split it.

I spent nearly two years restoring the car, which I had acquired in 1962 while in the Navy.  In June of 1998, Bob and I set out from Tacoma, Washington, on a grueling 4,545-mile trip to Haverhill, Massachusetts, in a 66-year-old car.  We made it in one piece and actually won a few dollars from the $250,000 prize pool.  The story of that experience is told in my Great Race Website.  When we returned from the Great Race, my wife Margo and I decided to throw a celebration party.

Winston - 1932 Plymouth Model PB

We washed and waxed and parked the car, affectionately known as "Winston," in a prominent place on our front lawn.  I think we fed close to fifty guests that evening, and among the celebrants were Charlie and Brenda Stroud, whom we had befriended when we worked together at an aerospace firm in Huntsville.  Margo had compiled over an hour of videotape that she had taken during the race that captured the excitement of each night's arrival in a different city, the revealing of the day's scores, and the large crowds that cheered us on and admired the cars.

We had decided to serve a buffet-style dinner to best accommodate the crowd we expected.  As our guests lined up for the buffet line, the videotape would be running in our great room where folks could enjoy it.  One who enjoyed it a lot and watched it more than once through was Charlie Stroud.

After dinner, Brenda was helping Margo in the kitchen.  Charlie came up to me and said, "I watched your video and heard your Great Race stories.  This looks like the most fun you can have with your clothes on."  I had to agree.  He then went on, "I've got a son who lives in Ohio that I'd like to get a lot closer to.  This looks like the kind of thing we could both enjoy."  Within a week, Charlie informed me that he had challenged his son Bill.  "I told him all about the event and he seemed interested.  I told him that if he'd buy a car, I'd pay the entry fee."

Within just a few weeks, Charlie called.  "I heard from Bill today.  He said that there was a 1937 Packard in the driveway and that I had better get my wallet out.  Thus began the saga of the Stroud boys participating in the Great Race.

Charlie (second from Left)
and Brenda Stroud, are shown with Charlie’s
navigator, son Bill Stroud of Ohio (on right), and
support team member, Wayne Gerin (far left).

The competition, 1999 -- I believe Charlie and Bill first competed as a team in the Great Race in 1999.  That year, the rally originated in Marietta, Georgia, and ended in Anaheim, California.  They drove the car down from Ohio to Huntsville where they were able to get some practice in and calculate their acceleration and deceleration time losses in order to be somewhat competitive in this precision rally.  One of the great Stroud legendary stories occurred during that year's event.

The Stroud's car was traversing a very rural area in southern Arkansas enroute to the next overnight city of Dallas, Texas.  Both Bill and Charlie were Texas A&M graduates and very proud of that fact, so they had notified the Dallas Aggie alumni organization to encourage their membership to come out and greet "Team TAMU" as they arrived that evening.  Many alumni were planning to greet the Strouds at the day's finish line.  (Each day the Great Race ends with a giant finish line setup of an inflatable gate, VIPs, an announcer greeting every car and informing them of their daily score, and often a military band.  It's a big deal with thousands of spectators.)

As Bill and Charlie were cruising along in rural Arkansas, suddenly the 1937 Packard died.  The Strouds were somewhere in the middle of the pack that day, so lots of cars passed them, one every minute, as they tried to troubleshoot the car by the side of the road.  At the end of the procession of competing cars would be the dreaded "sweep truck," a large roll-on tow truck that follows the Great Race every day and brings broken-down participant cars to the finish line for the day.  Charlie and Bill were not going to be brought in on the sweep truck!  What might their Aggie buddies think?  So they came up with a typical Stroud plan.

They pushed the disabled car into some nearby bushes where the sweep truck would not spot it.  After they saw that the truck had safely passed, one of them hitchhiked to a pay phone to contact a tow truck.  They then got towed to a repair shop where the car was quickly brought back to life.  As I recall, it was a clogged fuel line, easily repaired.  They were soon on their way, albeit several hours late by the Great Race clock.

Meanwhile, the staff of the Great Race was frantically trying to determine their whereabouts.  Several participants had seen them working on the car by the side of the road, but then, they simply vanished.  The sweep truck crew swore they hadn't seen anything.  Had they gotten lost?  Lots of Team TAMU fans had waited patiently by the finish line, but had eventually given up on their team and gone home.  Finally, as the Great Race staff was dismantling the last of the P.A. system and guardrails, the chagrined Team TAMU crossed the finish line.  The story became part of Great Race lore.

The car ran just fine throughout the rest of the rally, all the way to Anaheim, but both Bill and Charlie felt they could be a little more competitive with the more responsive acceleration of a rebuilt engine.

2000 - Before the 2000 rally, Bill and Charlie brought the Packard to Huntsville to replace it's tired straight-six engine prior to the start of the race.  The plan was to then drive it to Boston.  They acquired a spare engine and turned it over to a local engine rebuilding shop where unfortunately the mechanic assembling the engine put the exhaust valves in the intake valve positions and vice versa.  Unfortunately, exhaust and intake valves are made of different alloys and are heat treated differently.  The engine would run, but the valves would wear out very rapidly.  The rebuilt engine was put in the car with its hidden flaw.  By the time Charlie drove to Boston and realized the problem, it was too late.  Charlie had the old engine brought from Huntsville to Boston and replaced it in the hotel parking lot and got started a day late in the competition.  To complicate things further, at the last minute, Bill had other commitments that prevented him from participating, so Charlie had invited my old navigator, Bob King, to accompany him.  In spite of these complications, Charlie and Bob drove very competitively and represented themselves well in the 2000 Great Race.

The Strouds, in their 1937 Packard Model 115-C
leave the starting gate in Atlanta, June 17, 2001

2001 - The 2001 Great Race went from Atlanta to Pasadena and both the Strouds, father and son, were once more in the running, again in their 1937 Packard Model 115-C four-door sedan, but now with its properly-rebuilt 100-horsepower engine.  "Team TAMU" was emblazoned on the car with Texas A&M logos and signage.  There was no doubt the Aggies were in town.  Bob King and I were part of that race and enjoyed the camaraderie we had with the Strouds.  Of course they had an entourage and his beloved Brenda was their senior cheerleader.  In the 2001 Great Race, the Strouds demonstrated that they were VERY competitive.  They placed third or fourth in the largest division of competitors, the Sportsman Division.  I think it was obvious to everyone that the Strouds were out to win.

2002 saw Team TAMU once more chasing the winner's prize.  Charlie flew to Ohio several weeks before the start date so he and Bill could hone their skills and improve their accuracy.  Perhaps a little explanation of how the rally works is in order:
Participants attempt to follow precise driving instructions exactly.  The instructions are presented to the participating teams 10 minutes before their scheduled departure times each morning.  Cars are spaced one minute apart and the sequence of start each day is determined by drawing lots the previous evening.  They are evaluated at several check points during each day's run and their times are compared to the “perfect” time (as established by a very precise measurement of the course beforehand and computer simulation of a vehicle following every instruction to perfection) for that portion of the rally.  A zero score is perfect.  Penalty points are assigned for each second early or late.  Scores are cumulative.  The lowest score wins.  A “factor” is applied to the raw score to come up with the adjusted score (older cars have an advantage).  Overall winners are determined by the best score of the first 10 stages plus the combined scores on the last two stages.

There are four main competitive categories:  Rookie Class, Sportsman Division (in which Charlie and Bill were competing), Championship Division, and X-cup.  Rookies are first year competitors, Sportsman entries are experienced, Championship entries are VERY experienced and X-cup is a special category for high school teams.  An Ace is a zero (or perfect score) on a leg, meaning the car completed the leg in precisely the allotted time for that leg.

Team TAMU's listing as it appeared in the 2002 program for the Great Race
You have to love Charlie's derby and ascot

The 2002 rally was unusual in that it didn't go from coast to coast.  The founder of the Great Race, Tom McRae, had announced that after twenty years of putting on the event, he was retiring.  As a result, the organization had difficulty finding sponsors for the 2002 competition.  They shortened the course somewhat, starting with a three-day tour of Texas and then heading west.  The event started in San Antonio, then progressed to Houston; Dallas/Ft. Worth; Clovis, NM; Rio Ranch, NM; Williams, AZ; Scottsdale, AZ; Chula Vista, CA; ending in Anaheim, CA.  Instead of its usual 14-day duration, the rally would be a total of 9 days, including the so-called "Trophy Run," a one-day "warm-up" conducted while in San Antonio. 

Each day the Strouds were in the top three or four in the scoring.  They had done their homework.  The rally requires intense focus and consistent driving.  Acceleration and deceleration must be as uniform as possible and Charlie, as the driver with Bill as navigator were on a roll.  Finally, as the 120 participating teams rolled into Anaheim to the finish line, it was announced, "Team TAMU -- Charlie and Bill Stroud -- have WON the Sportsman Division of the 2002 Great Race with a score of 1:04!!!  Charlie and his wife Brenda live outside of Huntsville in Brownsboro, AL, near Hampton Cove.  Bill and his wife Chris live in the Akron, OH, area.  They first got interested in Great Racing after seeing the video tapes taken by Margo Mead during the 1998 Race.  They have competed ever since in a 1937 Model 115C Packard Touring Sedan."

For their hard work, the team proudly representing their alma mater took home a check for about $40,000.  For the Strouds, that only whetted their appetites.

A 1924 Buick 4-cylinder chassis,
similar to the one Charlie resurrected

Preparing for the 2003 Great Race, Charlie and Bill decided to acquire an older car.  Part of the scoring system that is used in the Great Race gives a slight advantage to older vehicles.  It applies a handicap factor based on the year in which the participant car was manufactured.  Bill and Charlie would now compete in the Champions Division, so they wanted to employ every means possible to get an advantage.  They attended a vintage car auction in Auburn, Indiana, in the fall of 2002, to find their new steed.  It turned out to be a very tired 1924 Buick Model 35 roadster.  They moved it to Charlie's home in Alabama, where he would transform it into a competitive, 2-seat open racing machine.  Charlie labored over their car for the next several months.  He upgraded the brakes and fuel and electrical system, all within the allowable limits of the regulations.  He modified the engine where possible to make it more reliable.  And soon, it was time to depart for Livonia, Michigam, home of Roush Racing (Jack Roush is a long-time supporter of and participant in the Great Race.), from which the race would start en route to Daytona, Florida.

They towed the Buick to Michigan.  After the technical inspection, the father-son team discovered some items needing attention, including replacing the lubricant in the differential.  So on Friday, June 20, 2003, as Charlie was under the car, tightening a bolt, his life changed.  He suffered a major brain aneurysm.  As I recall, he told Bill, "I'm feeling really strange."

Charlie was rushed to a hospital in Livonia, where he would remain for weeks.  He would undergo surgeries to relieve the pressure on his brain, but Charlie was in for a long recovery.  The Strouds' rallying days had come to an end, but hadn't those days been enchanting?  More to follow...

Charlie and Brenda...Part 1: Meeting Charlie Stroud

Charlie Stroud
1926-2019

How it all happened -- In May of 1984 my employer, John Cockerham & Associates, sent me to California on a job.  I was to work with a senior Vice President of our firm named Charles D. "Charlie" Stroud.  I'd only been working for Cockerham for about a month, so I knew very little about my new workmate.  I learned quickly that I was among the chosen who got to share their life experiences with Charlie.  We ended up becoming lifelong friends.

As a way to save money for the customer, Charlie and I were housed together in a two-story apartment in Inglewood, about 7 miles from our place of work, the Hughes Electronics facility on El Segundo Boulevard.  Initially, I was not crazy about living with this "old guy."  I rather enjoyed my privacy when I had to travel on business.  Also, I was newly sober and treasured the independence of having my own rental car to get to AA meetings a couple times a day.  It turned out that my concerns were needless.  Our apartment was big enough that neither Charlie nor I ever lacked for privacy, and the company provided me with my own personal rental car to get to my meetings.  I ended up loving the living arrangement.

The job --Our company had a contract supporting an Army Project Office at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, AL.  This office managed a program at Hughes that was developing an improved optical sight for the M1 Abrams tank.  The program was nearly a year behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget.  The Army wanted our company to put some people on site to do a bottom-up analysis to determine if the program management could be improved.  Needless to say, the good folks at Hughes did not exactly welcome us with open arms. 

The Hughes building where Charlie and I worked

The Charlie I got to know -- For the first few days, we had not been issued our Hughes ID badges and were restricted to a tiny, windowless office.  We needed an escort to leave our office to go to the bathroom, the cafeteria, other people's offices, or the exit.  Charlie only put up with this situation for about 3 or 4 days, at which point he demanded to talk to the Vice President of the Division in which our program was being managed.  He made clear to this individual that whether or not Hughes liked having us on site, we happened to be working for the customer who was paying the bills.  Charlie suggested that if we didn't have our free-access badges by the end of the day, he would find it necessary to involve the Colonel for whom we were working.  Our badges showed up within an hour and we were given a slightly larger, although not extravagant, office.

I quickly learned that Charles Dow Stroud II did not tolerate incompetence or needless bureaucracy.  He was extremely self-confident without being arrogant.  On more than one occasion while at Hughes, Charlie would call a vice-president or director-level manager and "educate" them with the certainty that he knew what he was talking about.  Most of them had the highest respect for this outsider, especially when they learned a little bit about his background..

Having been born and raised on a hardscrabble ranch outside of Boerne, Texas, Charlie was a proud graduate of the Texas A&M University in an engineering discipline.  He had worked at Boeing for many, many years, culminating in becoming their Director of Operations at Cape Canaveral in the heyday of the Apollo program.  I would describe him as a very temperate, methodical, analytical manager with a remarkable ability to synthesize diverse information.  And he carried himself with what the Navy used to refer to as "Command Presence."  When Charlie Stroud spoke, people listened.  He was the perfect mentor for me as I made the transition into the world of management consulting.

He frequently made the point to me that as companies grow larger, they also grow less efficient.  He believed that as things got more bureaucratic, they were more prone to broken communications.  He demonstrated how to take advantage of this communication paralysis.  And this story also reveals Charlie's mischievous side.

As I mentioned, our office left a lot to be desired.  We had only one desk and our requests for a larger office with two desks and a whiteboard had gone unanswered.  One day, while prowling the halls, Charlie noticed a couple of gentlemen in a large office with multiple desks and a huge whiteboard.  The sign adjacent to their door stated "Army Audit Team."  Charlie introduced himself, explaining our mission, and asked how long they planned to be on site.  It turned out they were leaving the next day.  Charlie came back to our office, which happened to be on the same corridor and suggested we pack up our stuff and get ready to move.  The next day we watched until the auditors had left their office (It was really two normal offices combined.) and we made our move.  Within fifteen minutes, we had relocated.

The next morning, a crew from the facilities department came by to remove the desks and other office furnishings.  All Charlie said was, "We're going to be here longer than expected.  Now, they're telling us we might be here a few more weeks."  He never actually said we were the Army auditors, but the crew must have assumed that.  We occupied that office for the remainder of our stay.  And somehow, Charlie figured out the phone extensions so we could notify our contacts of our new numbers.  Charlie had correctly surmised that in such a gigantic organization, it would take months for anyone to figure out that we were professional squatters.

Our work at Hughes turned out to be very beneficial to the Army and to the program.  Because of Charlie's extensive Boeing experience, he was acutely sensitive to scheduling bottlenecks.  I would conduct interviews with Hughes personnel to discern the details of their processes and convert these to logic diagrams.  We still drew these by hand rather than having a computer graphics program generate the diagrams.  After I would complete modeling part of their system, Charlie and I would go over the flow diagram and discuss alternatives and options that might be beneficial.  As a team, he and I pointed out several areas in which the schedule could be compressed without impacting quality.  I think by the end of our stay, the Hughes Program Manager hated to see us leave.

A Fiat like Charlie bought in L.A.

The car -- One week while we were at Hughes, John Cockerham joined us to contribute to our work and become personally acquainted with the senior Hughes staff.  Charlie complained to John that if he was going to be stuck in southern California for several months, he needed a proper car.  John and Charlie left early one afternoon in the quest for a "proper car."  By the time I arrived at the apartment that evening, Charlie not only had acquired the car, but had turned in his rental car and was now washing and waxing his new pride and joy -- a very tired and much used bright red Fiat 124 Spyder convertible.  Within the first week it died in the apartment parking garage.  Charlie was not about to let this car get the best of him.  We went to a Western Auto store and bought a small basic tool kit.  That evening, in the dim light of the garage, we determined that the fuel pump had given up the ghost.  We called a foreign car parts store and found that the replacement pump cost close to one hundred dollars.  The next day, Charlie took the day off, dropped me off at Hughes, found a foreign car salvage yard, removed a serviceable fuel pump from a wreck ($20.00), put it on his car where it checked out, and came back to Hughes to pick me up.  He looked like Joe Shit the Rag Man, completely covered in grime, but he was beaming.  "We're back on the road, and it only cost twenty bucks!" he exclaimed.  He had enjoyed a fabulous Charlie adventure.  The car ran for several more months, and when we finally left California, he proudly sold it at a profit.

Charlie's beloved Brenda

Personal life -- On the personal front, I learned that Charlie was madly in love with a lady named Brenda, who was employed by Boeing in the Washington, D.C. area.  Most weekends that we were on our L.A. job, Charlie flew to Washington to be with Brenda.  And nearly every Friday, the script went like this:  I had found a Friday evening  AA meeting that I was particularly fond of.  It was held in the back room of a beauty salon not far from our apartment.  In those days, there was a prominent AA speaker named Alabam Carrothers.  This was her AA home group.  As I recall, that meeting started at 7:30 PM.  I rarely missed it.  Before I'd leave the apartment I'd ask Charlie if he wanted a ride to LAX to go see Brenda.  "No, I've decided to stay here this weekend.  I'm just too darned tired to go all the way back East."  I'd go to my meeting, returning about 9:00 PM.  Charlie would be waiting in the parking garage with a small suitcase.  "C'mon, we gotta get to LAX!  I got a seat on the Red Eye.  I think we can still make it."  We'd make the mad dash to LAX in Friday night traffic.  I'd drop him off in front of some terminal.  Amazingly, he always made it on time.  Remember, this was long before security checkpoints and restricted gate areas.  Charlie simply ran to his gate and caught his flight.

The Gentleman -- He was a gentleman's gentleman.  When my wife, Margo, came out to visit for a long weekend, Charlie simply moved out of our apartment.  He wanted us to have our privacy.  And when we arrived at the apartment from the airport, there was a beautiful bouquet of roses with a welcoming greeting to Margo from Charles D. Stroud.  That same weekend, an old friend, Ritas Smith, whom I had known in Oklahoma and who had settled in L.A. invited Margo, me and Charlie to join her for dinner and a live performance of La Cage aux Folles at Hollywood's Pantages theater.  Ritas wanted to meet Margo and properly welcome her to California.  Charlie graciously had accepted and he wanted to "do it up right."  He rented a Cadillac for the night and showed up in a tuxedo with corsages for the ladies!  We all rode in style to a fabulous restaurant followed by a most memorable Broadway musical in Hollywood.  Charlie had figured out how to make the very most of an already great evening.

The hunting club -- Somewhere during Charlie's travels, he had befriended Norm Augustine, a former CEO of both Lockheed and Martin Marietta corporations who had served as Under Secretary of the Army, and later Acting Secretary of the Army.  Through Mr. Augustine, Charlie had gained access to and befriended many, many of the big operators in the 1980's defense and aerospace industries.  One day, he mentioned that he was taking a few days off to go dove hunting in northern Mexico with a small group of these aerospace industry elites.  He said that basically, it was a wealthy gentlemen's club for eating fine food, playing very competitive poker, smoking fine cigars, drinking the very best scotch and bourbon whiskey, and maybe even getting a little hunting in.  For Charlie, during the mid-1980's, it was an annual trek.

The weekend excursions -- There were some weekends that for various reasons, Charlie couldn't fly East to visit Brenda.  If we didn't have to report to work on Saturday, Charlie would inevitably suggest breakfast at the Farmers Market.  We'd get into our casual riding attire, put the top down on the Fiat and head downtown.  The Original Los Angeles Farmers Market is located on West 3rd Street in Downtown L.A.  It's a sprawling affair with a montage of snack bars and specialty vendors, florists, clothiers, butcher shops, fish peddlers, small restaurants, artists, gourmet gift shops, jewelers and the like.  We'd park the Fiat, sometimes several blocks away, stop by a tobacco shop to get two fine cigars, and head for the market.  For reasons I will never understand, Charlie Stroud loved smoked, salted whitefish as a breakfast delicacy.  It was available at a Jewish delicatessen in the Market.  I'd find a booth delivering fresh bacon and eggs and biscuits, and by the time I'd spot Charlie (identifiable by his Greek fisherman's cap), he'd already be diving into a plate of smelly fish, usually accompanied by a cream cheese covered bagel.  After breakfast, we'd get tall mugs of gourmet coffee, sit and read the Los Angeles Times while enjoying our cigars.  We solved many of the world's problems at those weekend breakfasts.  I will cherish them forever, whitefish be damned.

The L.A. Farmers Market

The reason I'm writing this Blog entry at this time is that I learned this week of Charlie's passing.  There will be two more entries following this one -- the story of Charlie and his son in the Great Race, and the moving love story of Charlie and Brenda in the years following his aneurism.  I need to share with my readers, the wonderful people that he and Brenda were and why I treasured our friendship.  The words of his beloved granddaughter, Elizabeth Cosser, brought his passing to my attention on Facebook:

Elizabeth Cosser - Spring Break. Tomorrow is the last day before Spring Break, so it’s only fitting that I’m lying here soaking up the memories of truly the most amazing man I’ve ever known. I can’t think of Spring Break without thinking of my granddad. My sister, Ashley, and I spent every spring break with him from when I was 9 until after graduation from college. People used to tell us how sweet it was for us to give up our spring break to spend time with our grandparents, but he was not your ordinary granddad. Caving, hiking, dirt biking, horse riding, zip lining from the 40 foot treehouse he built by himself when he turned 70, sailing, dancing, eating, gaming, and so much laughing. He bought me my first car, a ‘94 gray Isuzu manual pick up with no power steering, and made me learn to drive it in the winding, hilly roads of the Smoky Mountains. Ashley and I were his only granddaughters, and we were also his grandsons. Granddad, life, for you, was nothing if it wasn’t an adventure, and most of my greatest adventures so far have been with and because of you, Charles D Stroud. I wish I could have been there to see the look on B’s face when you joined her in eternity. I love you so.

Charlie's other granddaughter, Ashley, also posted a beautiful eulogy on Facebook:

Ashley Stroud Phillips - Charles Dow Stroud, Jr., (Charlie) 1926-2019

My Grandad
Carefree and adventuresome
Namesake of my daughter Charlie
Taught my sister, Elizabeth, & I to repel, go spelunking & ride dirt bikes
Veteran
Loved working on old cars
Won the "great race" in 2002 in a 1937 Packard w/ my Dad
Survived a brain aneurysm at age 75
Loved to garden & eating tomatoes & avocados
Became softer and quieter
Took pilates twice a week til he was 90
Played bridge
Sang too loud in church
Didn't get it all right...but who does?
Paul Newman look alike
Worked with NASA on Apollo 11 and 13
Would always dance when invited

I will always and forever be so grateful for the gift of being next to him when he took a breath and then never took another one. I also can't be more grateful for my sister for caring for him day to day in the final days.

Grief, you are demanding.

Interesting Genealogical Findings...

One view in Ancestry of my immediate family tree

Since I received a subscription to Ancestry.com for Christmas, I've been re-energized in my never ending quest to learn more about my family heritage.  The branch that had proven most frustrating was my mother's father's branch.  My grandmother McLaughlin (maiden name Neddo) had told me that my Grandfather William McLaughlin was the son of a James McLaughlin and a woman named Mary Jane Duffy.  I was told that Ms. Duffy had come from Malone, New York, originally.  That was for many years the extent of my knowledge.

I have figured out that the best way to decode this family lineage is to concentrate on one individual and gather every bit of documentation I can locate that relates to that person.  In the case of "Grampa Will," I collected the U.S. Census information on him from 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940, the New York census from 1915 and 1925, several city directories, his U.S. World War II Draft Registration Card, and his Social Security application and claims.  From these documents alone you can gain insight into when a person was born, where and with whom they were living at various times, how they earned a living, home addresses, when children were born, marriage data, when and where they died.

A typical census entry -- this one from 1930

From these data sources, I determined that Grandfather William McLaughlin was born in Whitehall, New York, on the 10th of June, 1881.  He married my Grandmother, Eva Ann Neddo, on June 12, 1906, still in Whitehall.  By 1910, the newly-married couple had moved to Schenectady and now had a daughter, born on May 24, 1907, who was destined to become my mother.  I learned that my Grandfather was a machinist in the Refrigeration Department of the General Electric Company, Schenectady's largest employer.  Perhaps most important, I was able to identify his parents as James Louis McLaughlin and Mary Jane Duffy.

I learned some things that surprised me.  One fact is that there was a son born to William and Eva who died in infancy.  My mother never mentioned that she had had a brother.  But all this insight inspired me to chase down James Louis to see what I could learn from the archives.  I guessed that he would have been born in about 1850.  I began by searching for a James McLaughlin living in Whitehall, New York, in the 1860 Federal Census.  I found a young man by the correct name who was 10 years old.  The census indicated he was the only child in a household headed by John McLaughlin, an illiterate "Day Worker,"age 40, and his wife, Margarett, age 38.  Now I potentially had the confirmed, documented names of my great-grandfather and my great-great-grandfather.  Further searching revealed that James married Mary Jane Duffy in 1877.  What made this somewhat confusing was that Mary Jane was rather casual about the name she went by in various census interviews.  She might be Jennie or Mary or Mary Jennie or Mary Jane.  I began to believe that James had various spouses at different times.  But on the Federal census of 1900, the question was asked, "How long in the current marriage?"  Both James (now calling himself James Sr.) and Jennie M. (her moniker in 1900) indicate they have spent 23 years married to each other.  They have also produced 6 children.  One of those children was my great-uncle Jim (James Louis, Jr.) whom I remember quite vividly.  He became something of a surrogate grandfather to the Mead children after "Grampa Will" passed away in 1942.

The McLaughlin house
at 349 Summit Ave.

James, Sr. and Mary Jane moved to Schenectady sometime between 1900 and 1910.  James is a "Conductor on a Steam Railroad" according to the 1910 census.  This probably was the New York Central, which served Schenectady.  They are living with 5 children and a boarder named Cora Millett at 349 Summit Avenue, a fairly new neighborhood of attractive frame homes.  I was unable to determine when James, Sr, met his Maker, but he is no longer with us by 1930.  Mary Jane passed away in 1922.

The McLaughlin marker
at the Boardman Cemetery

In searching for a grave marker for James and Mary Jane, I discovered an enormous marker in the Boardman Cemetery of Whitehall, New York, that covers multiple generations of McLaughlins.  The marker not only confirmed that James was indeed the son of John McLaughlin, but led to much more.  In the site called "Find-A-Grave," there was actually a pair of images of this impressive grave marker.  Tantalizingly, it looked as if there might be more engraving on the other three sides of the marker.  

I posted several requests on the Internet hoping to find someone willing to trudge out to the marker and take additional pictures.  One of these paid off.  On a Facebook page called "Washington County, NY, Ancestors," a compassionate lady named Sara Clarkson posted the following: "Do you have the Whitehall Cemetery book - compiled by Charles Moore, 1998? If not, here's the McLaughlin page from the Boardman Cemetery section - you should be able to click on this image to make it larger."  Here's the relevant section:

I thanked Ms. Clarkson for her help and indicated that I'd never heard of the book.  She responded, 

"Charles Moore created a "cemetery records" book for each town in Washington County, NY - and the books are a treasure trove of info about basic names, dates, and family relationships. I first learned about the cemetery records books when I sent an inquiry to the Washington County Historical Society in Fort Edward, NY - another helpful group with lots of info to share."

With this one contribution, I learned that Margarett had never been John's wife, as indicated in the 1860 census.  (This was likely an incorrect entry by the census taker.)  She was his sister!  Later census records confirmed that.  More importantly, perhaps, was that I now had a second direct ancestor who had fought in the Civil War.  I of course started to do Google searches on New York 169th Infantry Regiment, the unit in which John McLaughlin had served.  As with so many genealogical quests, this one would take me down unanticipated paths.

I quickly encountered more source material than I could quickly digest.  There was a Website, part of the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center, that was part of their "Unit History Project," dedicated to the 169th.    I also found a Facebook page dedicated to the unit.  I found a roster of all the men in the regiment, compiled by a gentleman named Steven Wiezbicki.  I learned that Mr. Wiezbicki had also published a newsletter dealing with the unit's history.  Naturally, I contacted Mr. Weizbicki!

Scene from the Battle of Cold Harbor

Mr. Steven Weizbicki is the great-great-grandson of 1st Serg't. Patrick J. Aylmer, Co. G of the 169th.  He is a passionate lover of history and is writing a detailed history of the regiment.  He has worked for years researching and documenting the unit and its people.  He offered to write a detailed historicam biography of my ancestor's involvement with the 169th and I have given him the go-ahead.  As he has been feeding me tidbits of his findings, I have learned that John McLaughlin participated in the battle of Cold Harbor (Remembered as one of American history's bloodiest, most lopsided battles. Thousands of Union soldiers were killed or wounded in a hopeless frontal assault against the fortified positions of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's army.) and Fort Fisher.  He was decorated for valor after the Fort Fisher encounter.  Mr. Weizbicki even located Great-Great-Grandfather John's obituary in the National Tribune, the newspaper of the Union veterans: "McLOUGHLIN. At Whitehall, N. Y., March 18, John McLoughlin. Co. F, 169th N. Y.  The comrade enlisted in 1862, and served until the close of the war.  He was in 23 battles, and at Fort Fisher was the first to plant the flag on the works.  The comrade was severely wounded at Cold Harbor.  He was an honored member of A. H. Tanner Post, which attended his funeral in a body."

The next challenge is to figure out the mysterious whereabouts of "Mary A." listed on the grave marker as "wife of John" and "mother" (of James Louis?) who for some reason never lived with John when censuses were being tabulated.  What's that about?

What's not to love about doing this research?!?

Scouting in Huntsville...

In February, 2010, I posted an entry on this blog describing my personal experience as a Boy Scout in the 1950s.  I ended that post with the following, "Shortly after I arrived in Huntsville in 1978, I was recruited again. Margo and I became scout leaders of a faltering troop and nursed it back to health, after which we took on a co-ed explorer post at Holy Spirit Catholic Church. That's a topic for a later blog..."  It's high time I finished that thought.

Margo and I moved to Huntsville as a newly married couple April, 1978.  I was engaged as a general contractor building a skateboard park about which I have written before.  My first summer in Huntsville was involved with moving hundreds of truckloads of dirt and rock, building an access road across what had been a muddy vacant meadow, and sculpting the ground into the giant forms of bowls and undulating surfaces of the park.  It was the kind of work that attracted visitors and onlookers.

One day a gentleman named Mike showed up and introduced himself as a local executive with the Boy Scouts of America.  He was excited about the construction of this very comprehensive youth facility and wanted to brainstorm ideas for cooperative efforts involving the park and the Boy Scouts.  Naturally, I shared with him my very fond memories of Troop 72 in Schenectady, New York,  I also shared my experiences as a scout administrator on the Gulf Coast during the previous few years.  Then he surprised me by asking if I'd be interested in becoming a volunteer leader in Huntsville.  I responded that I'd have to talk to Margo, as anything I might get involved in would have to be a joint effort.

When I presented the idea to Margo, she eagerly got on board.  Margo had a cousin, Missy Reed, who had been a recognized Girl Scout leader for many years.  Every year, she would bring a busload of New Orleans Girl Scouts to the Mississippi Gulf Coast where they would all camp out at Margo's house.  Girls slept on the floors of every room, having overflowed the available beds and couches.  They would spend these weekends exploring the many attractions of the Mississippi Gulf area, eating S'mores, singing around a campfire, and generally having a blast.  Margo had always enjoyed supporting this great organization.  She was ready to be a Boy Scout volunteer.

Our first assignment, after we acquired the necessary uniforms and acccessories, was to try to revive an ailing scout troop at a Baptist church in Northeast Huntsville.  Membership had been dwindling and there had been significant turnover in the adult leadership of the troop.  I described to Margo how Bill Clancy and I had spread the Boy Scout movement in south Mississippi.  When we would visit a rural, predominantly black community for the first time, we'd find the pastor of the local Baptist church.  If we could sell him on the idea of a Boy Scout troop in his community, we were home free.  I suggested we start with the Pastor of this church whose troop we wanted to resuscitate.  We discovered that therein lay our challenge.  The Pastor was only reluctantly supportive of the Boy Scout presence, expressing his concern that it competed with the church's other youth-oriented activities.

Margo and I did what we could to assist this troop, recruiting more parental involvement and support, introducing more formality in the conduct of meetings, expanding the variety of activities in the troop, and increasing the frequency of outings -- hikes, camp-outs, canoe trip, and the like.  Unfortunately, the troop never grew by much during our tenure.  It was a constant struggle to keep parents actively participating in troop activities.  We finally suggested to the local executive that maybe we weren't the right couple to revive this troop.   We had nursed it back to health -- it was now a properly-functioning scout troop, but it was going to require constant care and feeding in order for it to thrive.  I don't know today whether or not the troop still exists.

The executive suggested that we might want to start an Explorer Post at our home church, Holy Spirit, on Airport Road in Huntsville.  That really appealed to us.  The church already sponsored a Boy Scout troop.  An Explorer Post would be a natural expansion of that program for older kids.  Mike, the scout executive, suggested a "High Adventure" Post, a term that was used for Explorer Posts that might undertake any sort of adventure and not be restricted to one area or another.  We got buy-in from the Pastor, Father O'Leary, and held some organizational meetings.  In no time, we had plenty of eager volunteer parents and energetic teen age members.

We tried to make our Explorer Post appealing by planning really exciting adventures.  We got the National Speleological Society to help us with a couple of cave exploring weekends.  We took our post hiking on the Appalachian Trail in north Georgia.  Canoeing on the Tennessee River involved most of our adult volunteers and youth members.

This was a co-ed organization (an idea that took me a while to get used to) so these outings were appealing to the members as social opportunities.  That certainly helped our member involvement.  One night, the city-wide scouting organization held an event called "Huntsville After Dark."  This was an all-night event involving lots of people.  We took carloads of kids on a carefully-scheduled round robin tour that involved visits with briefings at the city jail (including the drunk tank), a courtroom, an all-night radio station, a funeral parlor, the central fire station and its dispatch center, the emergency room at Huntsville Hospital, and a HEMSI location.  It was an exhausting night but very educational.

Perhaps the most innovative outing we did was to take the entire post to a soaring airport in Eagleville, Tennessee, where every individual got to go aloft in a sailplane with an instructor pilot and spend about twenty minutes soaring.  This was an active, innovative group.

Gradually, over a period of a couple years, our parental participation lessened.  The youthful members were just as eager to try new adventures, but it became harder and harder to find the necessary volunteer drivers and chaperones.  Margo and I got to the point where, regrettably, we felt like unpaid baby sitters.  In about 1981, we had to move to Flintville, TN, to be closer to Margo's work in Tullahoma, so we ended our voluntary work with the Explorer Post.  At some point later on, the organization folded.  We learned many lessons from our experience, perhaps the most important of which is the absolute necessity of parental engagement for a youth organization to thrive.

The good news is that the Boy Scout Troop at Holy Spirit Church, Troop 361, is still a thriving, energetic, active organization.

Hershey 2018 Auction Results...

Lot No. 217 at RM/Sotheby's auction at Hershey in early October was a feast for the eyes.  This 1939 Lincoln-Zephyr Convertible Coupe, an older restoration, but cosmetically appealing, exchanged owners for $79,750.

As the description in the auction catalog described it, "A style leader from the beginning, the original Zephyr featured a tall, prow-like grille for its first two years. A new face appeared on the 1938 Zephyr, featuring a low-mounted, horizontal grille that would have a tremendous influence on automotive designers, and soon after many American cars were emulating the late ’30s Zephyr ensemble. Inside, the stylish design aesthetic continued with a central console rising from the floor and a large, multi-gauge cluster acting as an orb-like cornice. Within the large, Art Deco scripted roundel was the speedometer, as well as gauges for temperature, fuel, oil, and battery. A smaller clock sat below. Power came from the trusty 110-hp L-head V-12, shifted through the rugged Zephyr three-speed manual transmission, which would become a favorite among hot rodders of a later generation.

The car offered here is one of the few remaining today of only 640 convertibles produced for 1939, and has spent most of its life in Arizona. Cosmetically restored several years ago, it is beautifully finished in Zephyr Coach Maroon and accented with sparkling chrome. The exterior is elegantly complimented with a tan canvas top and a recently refurbished leather interior. Dual side-view mirrors, fender skirts, wide whitewall tires, and an accessory external spotlight add to the charm of this masterful Art Deco design.

A true icon of streamlined 1930s styling, the Zephyr has become more and more coveted over the years. This is a superb example."

We couldn't agree more...