He or she is a chip off the old block; the apple (or acorn) does not fall far from the tree; like father like son; these are all idioms that express the same idea that children are often very much like their parents. The truth is every child is a twisted combination of the genes of two families not only do they take after Mom and Dad but the grandparent genes have a way of skipping a generation and showing up again.  I, like most parent am proud of just about everything my kids do but also like most parents I am particularly proud when I see my kids do something that reminds me of myself.  Each of my children has done things at one time or another that caused me to stand just a little bit taller and smiled just a little bit broader.  These blog post are intended to one day be put together into a book for my children. One of the Chapters will be about the times when I was not only proud of my children but when I could see the reflection of myself in them.

My youngest child Noah is fast becoming a very impressive young man.  Noah like the rest of the family loves music and can eat his weight in cheese dip. He is a straight A student like his Mom and Melissa (his oldest sister) and reads voraciously and has an artistic flair like his other sister, Kristina.

Noah waiting to shake the hand of President Clinton

Noah is only eleven so he is still developing and trying to figure who he is and what he is going to be.  It is exciting to see him exploring the world around him, and all the different possibilities.  Whatever he decides to do with his life it is clear he has his Dad’s love of history.  I would like to say I taught him to love history but the truth is I did not have anything to do with it. He taught himself. When he was just a little fellow he got a ruler as a prize at the fall festival at church. On this ruler were the faces of all of the American Presidents. Noah wanted to know who those men where and why they were important. He has taught himself all about the presidents. He has also learned about the first ladies. Whatever he does in life I think Noah will always have an interest in the people of the past and how government works. It pleases me that he and I share this area of interest and that he came to it on his own.

It also pleases me that Noah cares about other people. This past week was Noah’s parent/teacher conference. All his teachers love him but one teacher went on and on about how he had used his share time to talk about bullying. He encouraged the other kids not to bully and to take up for others when they are bullied. Most of the other eleven years olds use they share time to tell of a new toy or a family outing.  Noah used his time to try to influence the behaviors of his friends in a positive way.  It was clear that Noah not only impressed his teacher he actually moved her.  When we ask him about it he acted like it was no big deal.

This story has been floating around in the back of my mind ever since we met with the teacher.  Noah on his own initiative at eleven used his share time to tell a story in a moving way in an effort to motivate his class mates to respond in a positive way. Hmm, who does that for a living?  Of course I first thought that is just like Dad. I am a lawyer and that is what I do. Then I thought that is also like his Grandpa Warford who was a Baptist preacher. It is also very similar to the many salesmen he has in the family like his grandpa Weir and great-uncle Chuck.  Noah has boldness, a love of people and a persuasiveness that would help him be a great salesman, preacher or lawyer. Who knows what he might be but whatever he does I hope he will always keep his love of history.

My Mammaw, Sallie Warford, was a true homemaker in the way few women are these days. No offense to anyone but my Mammaw raised three boys without benefit of many of the modern appliances we have come to regard as necessities. One of many things Mammaw did to care for her family was to make quilts. The picture above is of Sallie Warford with friends from the Lonsdale Arkansas Quilting Club. Mammaw is third from the left. It is a rough estimate but we suspect this picture was taken around 1949.  What we know is we have a picture of Mammaw wearing this same dress in about 1949 or 50. Our estimate is far from precise because Mammaw was know to mend and wear clothes for years and years.  The picture could just as well have been taken in 1959.

Mammaw’s ability to mend any fabric was legendary in the Warford family. In 1977 she came a stayed with us for a few days and one day she decided to help my mom with the laundry. Well, she discovered that my brother and sister and I had all sorts of clothes that had holes in them. Now most of these were undergarments and socks and the holes were in places no one would ever see. These garments were on there way to the trash can at our house but Mammaw could not stand throwing away these clothes. Mammaw insisted on mending every garment in the house.  Where holes were to large to close with stitching she used an old tee-shirt to create a patch and plug the hole. The patches were strong and comfortable. No rough edges on the feet or bottoms of Mammaw’s family.

For graduation in 1978 Mammaw gave me a quilt as a gift. This blanket was on my bed when I was single and after I got married it has always remained nearby.  It has covered many house guest, hosted many picnics and been a play area for all my children. Eventually it was falling a part.  One year for Christmas my wife, Mandy, found a women who was able to mend it and put it back in the same condition it was in when I got it.  This was one of the most thoughtful Christmas gift I have ever received.  The quilt is in the second picture – above right.  It will always be one of my most prized possessions.

Sallie Louise Teague Warford was my paternal grandmother. I called her Mammaw. Mammaw was born February 12, 1910, at least that is what she reported throughout her adult life but census records actually call this into question. Sallie Teague show be listed with the rest of the family in the 1910 census but there is no Sallie Teague. The census does however show a Nellie Teague age 1. This raises several possibilities. Was Sallie originally called Nellie? Was Nellie another child that died before reaching her first birthday? Could Sallie have actually been born in February of 1910 or later? Did the census taker just write the name down wrong?

On ancestry.com some family trees list Nellie as a child that was born and died in about 1909 and shows Sallie being born about the same time. Other family trees list Nellie as an alternative or second name for Sallie. It is not uncommon for names to be miss-spelled or misunderstood in the handwritten census records of the early 1900s but that seems unlikely here for two reasons: first, because the name is very clearly written in 1910 (it is definitely Nellie) and second because Nellie was a family name. In fact, Sallie had an Aunt Nellie that was 11 years old in 1910.

I was hopeful that the 1920 census might resolve the question but it is anything but dispositive. The 1920 census does not show a Nellie Teague at all but shows a Sallie age 10. Again that could be because Nellie was Sallie or because Nellie had died and Sallie was not born until 1910. If Sallie was born in February 1909 then she would have been 10, on January 1, 1920 but would have been 11 when the census was completed in May 1920. If Sallie was actually born in February of 1910 she would have been 10 when the 1920 census was taken. So, the 1920 census could support either possibility.

There are many possible explanations but the two most likely explanations are either that Sallie was originally called Nellie and it was changed for some reason or Nellie was a different daughter, and Sallie was not born until 1910. If anyone out there knows the answer or has proof of Sallie’s birth date or proof that Nellie was or was not a separate daughter, I sure would like to know the answer to this mystery.

My family, like many families in this country, has a tradition of military service. We are not war mongers or part of some warrior class; no member of our family has ever attended a military academy and only one of the people pictured above sought the military as a career. I do not wish to diminish the service of those who were drafted and did there duty but I think military service at least in combat units should be on a volunteer basis.  I am of the opinion that in a free and democratic society any war that cannot be fought with volunteer troops should not be fought. There is no greater form of democracy than a muster.  A muster is an assemble in preparation for battle.  It is far to easy for politicians to vote to send other people and other people’s kids to war to permit a draft.  If the government cannot muster a volunteer army to fight a war that is a pretty good indicator the people of this nation are not behind the war and we should stay home. All that said, I am proud of my families tradition of military service.  

This picture was put together as a Veteran’s Day salute to the many members of our family that have served in the military. Left to right on top – Eddie Warford, US Army; Fred Griffith was regular Army before WWII and served most of the war in the First Special Services Force ( Devil’s Brigade); Jinnings G. Burruss was an assault boat driver, USN, and served in the Battle of Okinawan; William Armand, USMC, Vietnam; Kenneth Warford, USAF, Vietnam; David Warford, USN; Jerry Warford USAF, Vietnam; Olga Griffith, Olga was my grandmother and she was not a veteran but she was a welder and built warships during WWII and I choose to honor her with the other veterans in my family.

May God bless the many Veterans that have served this country and especially bless the many warriors that suffer still from wounds, both physical and mental.

Jinnings Burruss was born December 23, 1920 into a very different world than we live in today. His life would span almost a century and he saw extraordinary change. When Jinnings was born neither the star spangled banner or the pledge of allegiance had been officially adopted.  The President of the United States was Warren G. Harding.  Harding was the 29^th President of the United States and Jinnings would live to see 15 more presidents.  Jinnings lived through the roaring twenties, the great depression, the Second World War, the Cold War. He saw the berlin wall go up and watched it torn down.

I don’t know who wrote Jinnings’ obituary but they did an excellent job honoring Jinnings life.  The obituary said Jinnings was raised during hard times. That is exactly how Jinnings would describe his childhood.  Jinnings was born at a time when most rural Americans had no electricity, no running water and no indoor plumbing and the Burruss family had less than most. There was no TV, no radio and only one newspaper. It was not distributed to much of the state but it didn’t matter since most Arkansans could not read.

I love history and I love talking to people older than I am about the historical events they lived through. Unfortunately it is getting harder and harder every year to find people that are older than me.  One day I was talking to Jinnings and I asked him what he could remember about when the stock market crash in 1929.  Jinnings said, well, I recon I probably heard about the stock market crash but it didn’t mean anything to us we were already poor. Jinnings and his brother Hugh were helping support the family at an age when kids today aren’t allowed to stay at home without supervision.

Jinnings Burruss was a proud veteran of World War II and it was suggested that I might wear my old army uniform today in honor of Jinnings service.  I would love to have worn my uniform but regrettably I no longer fit in my uniform. The only part of my uniform I can still get on are these airborne wings.  Today I proudly wear my airborne wings in honor of my fellow veteran Seaman Jinnings Burruss.

When Jinnings joined the Navy he boarded a train in rural Arkansas and got off at the “U.S. Naval Training Center, the Bronx, New York City.  It was a great adventure. One he never forgot. The last time we talked when he was still at home he was still amazed and went on and on about what it was like for a small town country boy from Arkansas to end up in NYC.

He would go from there to California and then cross the ocean.  Jinnings would eventually take part in the Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, the battle was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific theater of World War II. Four army Divisions and 2 Marine Divisions were landed on the Island. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945.

On the first day of the battle Jinnings was piloting one of the lead landing craft in the second wave that was to hit the beach. Jinnings could see in front of him that the landing craft in the first wave were getting stuck on a reef and were dropping their load of Marines in water that was waste deep or higher.  Jinnings orders were to drive straight into the beach. Jinnings told me, “I knew that if I went straight in I was going to get stuck on that reef and those Marines would be sitting ducks.”  I may not get this part right. I don’t know much about boats and can’t remember exactly what Jinnings said he did but somehow Jinnings turned his boat in such a way that he was able to drive it either around or over the reef.  Jinnings deliver those Marines to the beach safe and dry.  Jinnings took great pride in accomplishing his mission and putting that handful of Marines on the beach safe and dry. That first landing was only the beginning of the battle and Jinnings would spend weeks piloting his landing craft back and forth to shore carrying men, supplies and eventually wounded.

Jinnings like millions of other veterans serve his country with honor and then he came home and lived the rest of his life with the same honor. He worked hard and raised a fine family that I am proud to have married into.  When I met Jinnings he was retired but he was still working hard. He was working hard at fishing, picking pecans and tending to his garden. Every time we went to Bradford he insisted we take a bag of pecans home.

I met Jinnings and many of you in the summer of 1991 when Mandy brought me to a family picnic. I think it was the 4^th of July. We had a whole table full of casseroles and ham.  For dessert we had pecan pie and homemade ice cream.  After lunch I fell asleep in a lounge chair.  I don’t think the ladies in the Burruss family were too keen on my first appearance in Bradford but before I left Jinnings eased up beside me, he put his hand on my arm, and said, “that Mandy is something special, take good care of her” and then he invited me to come back any time. He always made me feel at home. Jinnings honestly made me feel like family from my very first visit to Bradford.

In preparing this eulogy I of course racked my brain trying to think of the right words to describe Jinnings Burruss.  I was of course looking for something that would sound profound, perhaps spiritual with a little lawyer twist but what I kept thinking was Jinnings Burruss was a happy man. Jinnings Burruss was a happy man.  I began to think about how hard it is in this world of ours to be happy and how rare truly happy people are. I have been thinking about little else for three days and I am convinced that the secret to Jinnings Burruss happiness was contentment.  He loved his family, his community and he loved his life.  Jinnings Burruss coveted no man and he was content with what God had given him.  Jinnings Burruss lived the fruits of the Spirit every day. In him you could see, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control.

Jinnings life was anything but perfect.  He endured many trials and much loss but somehow he never dwelled in the past.  He faced loss, he grieved, and then he looked to the future and lived every day with joyful anticipation.  If Jinnings could speak to each of you today I believe he would tell each of you to celebrate his life, grieve his loss and then look to your future. Live your life with joy and anticipation being content with what God gives you and most of all, be sure to make time to go fishing.

Delivered November 5, 2013, by Lloyd Warford

Without delving too far in to old English common law the basic idea behind an heirloom is that it is something passed down from generation to generation within a family. As you might imagine being the self-appointed family historian I have accumulated a number of items which I consider to be heirlooms. Most of these items have no real intrinsic value to anyone. They are important only because they represent a connection to the to those who have gone before us. My hope is to give each of my children at least one heirloom that will mean something to them.

I have always love photographs. When I was a child I would spend hours rifling through the shoe boxes full of photographs that my parents had collected over the years. As a young adult I dug all of those photographs out of shoeboxes and put them in albums. When I was in high school I wanted to be a photographer and I begged my parents for a 35mm camera. We didn’t have a lot of money at the time and cameras were quite expensive but for Christmas they managed to get me a Pentax 35mm camera.  I love that Pentax but that’s not my most important camera, my most important camera, is a Browning box camera.

This camera belonged to my grandmother, Olga Baker, Armand, Griffith. I consider this camera to be an heirloom and it is my hope that it will be passed down in our family along with the pictures here and the stories behind the camera and each of these pictures.  The first picture (above) is of the Browning camera. The second picture (below) is of my Mom using a camera just like this one to take my picture. We can’t be for sure it is this very camera because there were a couple in the family but this camera is old enough and could be the camera in the picture.  The last picture is the picture my mother took with the camera in the picture. These pictures were taken on or very close to my first birthday in August 1960.

My middle child Kristina has my love for photography and pictures so much so that she has made it her profession and has started her own photography business. In May 2013 two of her pictures were published in the Arkansas Bride magazine. There are a lot of photographers in Arkansas who work hard at it every day and it was quite an accomplishment for Kristina to have to photographs selected for publication. I am so proud of Kristina for having a dream in going after it.

Whether Kristina sticks with the photography as a profession or moves on to other things I will always be proud of her photographic accomplishments and I hope she will always share my love for photography.

Kristina when I leave this world I want you to have this camera. I hope you will care for it and someday pass it on to another member of the family who loves photography asking them to safeguard this camera and these memories.

The last picture is of Kristina with her modern camera and one of her wedding portraits. See more of Kristina’s photography at http://kmwarford.zenfolio.com/