In 1859, William Thompson won an important commission to build a government fort and houses in Yankton, then the extreme frontier of the Northwest Territory. Unfortunately, before the young frontiersman could get paid for his work tragedy struck: Indians burned the buildings. The situation left the 21-year-old penniless. It wouldn’t be the first time. An unusual number of financial tragedies befell the hard-working William Thompson […]
Henry de Clifford Anthony Woodhouse Shot Down at Least Five German Aircraft During WWII
This one has always intrigued me: How did the child of New Orleans’ Rebecca de Mendes Kruttschnitt (1889-1974) wind up being a Royal Air Force squadron leader credited with at least five air victories during World War II? Well, Rebecca, the youngest daughter of my second great grandfather, Julius Kruttschnitt, Sr., married Henry de Clifford Woodhouse […]
J.R. Boyce Tells All in Revealing Graveside Interview
This blogger caught up the other day with his third great-grandfather, J.R. Boyce, for a graveside interview at the Benton Avenue Cemetery in Helena, Montana. Though available for only a few minutes before returning to his rightful place in heaven, James Richard (1817-1898) was characteristically gracious and clear-minded during his first contact with a live […]
Walking in the Thompson Party Footsteps
Though I had never ventured this deep into the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona, as I looked at the rock jutting over the path, I felt like I had been here before. Then I realized: I had seen this site in the infamous Arboretum Picnic pictures. I say “infamous” only because my grandfather, William […]
Palatial Party Boat Was Converted Into Lean-Mean-Fighting Machine
Little did grandmother Meanie know as she snacked on the decks of her uncle-in-law’s party boat, the Alder, that those same decks would years later come under daily fire from Japanese warplanes. That’s right, William Boyce Thompson’s 294-foot-long yacht, the Alder, which he used to sail to cushy ports around the world, was donated to the U.S. Navy […]
Jimmy Filor and His Family Died in Plane Crash
Tony Thompson vividly remembers the day in 1951 when his uncle, Jimmy Filor, died in a plane crash. “I remember coming home from swimming at the Bronxville Field Club to find my mother in tears after having learned that Pop’s cousin, who they were very fond of, had crashed, along with his wife and two […]