Humble, Texas Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtjTPVTlvVc

The above URL will take you to a video posted on YouTube. The video was made by Bobby Panzarella, youngest child of Dr. Panzarella who practiced in Humble for years. Bobby is Buddy Norris' age and, though he's an MD (specializing in Emergency Room medicine, I'm told) his passion appears to be film making. Some years ago, he showed a movie he'd made about Humble to the crowd gathered at the Alumni. I'm not sure if this video is the same video, but I thought I'd give you all the opportunity to see it.

Enjoy!

Richard Shelby

Shirley Shelby Purswell has sent along this photo of Richard Shelby, Darlene Shelby and their daughter, Terry.

I'd like to again invite you all to send along both old and new photos of your families. Contact me if you have any questions about doing so.

Photo Recap-Kids Photo

Kids in photo ID'd as:

Theresa Novak
Mary Louise (last name unknown, but she lived with Aunt Velma)
Jared Foster
Tonya Dunn Franklin

Adults in Background:

Jimmy Dunn
Mitch Norris
Jimmy Novak

Photo Recap-Miscellaneous Family Group

This ID on people in the photo is incomplete but the recap is as follows:

Geraldine Slaughter
Chester Slaughter
Virginia Willis
(Guy in yellow shirt, unknown)
David Willis
Lorie Willis (David's Wife)
Jerry Willis
Robert Foster
Bobby Benardino
Harper Shelby
(unknown dark haired girl)

Any ideas on the unknowns?

Photo Recap-The Uncle Lewis Photo

Okay... Recap time... the general consensus identifies the people in the photo above as follows: (if this isn't correct, let me know.)

Jennifer Shelby
Jean Shelby
Lewis Norris
Jimmy Novak (in the background)
(woman in pink shirt, unknown)
Evelyn Norris
Edna Crockett

Memorial Day 2008

"Vietnam Reflections" by Lee Teter

Granite Walls

In August of 1966, I saw my husband of two weeks board a plane at Houston's Hobby Airport. It was the first leg of a trip that in six weeks would put him in the rice fields of Vietnam. I knew he would be gone for a year. As the doors of the aircraft closed and it pulled away from the boarding ramp, I was near hysteria, but I never once thought he might be seriously injured or killed. I was very naive.

Edward’s duty, as a machine gun-toting infantryman, was dirty, dangerous, and lonely. It was lonely because he saved his sanity at a time when it wasn't an easy thing to do. He closed in on himself, not letting anyone inside his mental suit of armor. Seven months into his tour, he was injured jumping from a helicopter on the side of a hill, to stand guard over injured crewmembers of a downed helicopter. His injury ultimately saved his life. He found out later many in his company were killed a week after his own injury.

Edward finally got back to the U.S. after a month in Vietnam spent dragging himself around on a homemade crutch, then a month in a hospital in Japan in a body cast. He flew home in a burn patient evacuation plane, glad enough to endure the horror of that flight to be back in "the world". He spent the remainder of his obligation to our government in hospitals and recovering in an army unit at Fort Hood, Texas.

It took thirty years of waiting, piecing together bits of information he volunteered, and gently probing, to get a picture of the horror he endured in those seven wretched months. Since he suffers no flashbacks, or post-traumatic stress, it’s been possible to move on with our lives. We have put that awful time he spent in Vietnam behind us. He suffered, but he came home alive. More than 54,000 men didn’t.

In August 2000, we visited the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, DC. The trip to the capitol was a spur of the moment thing, a side trip from our late summer visit to Tennessee. While Edward stood at one of the catalog directories, looking for the name of a friend, a German tourist with a thick accent and a camera asked him if he was a veteran. The tourist then asked permission to photograph Edward as he examined the book. Edward agreed. I stood back while the photos were taken and thought to myself how lucky I was to be standing by watching my husband examine the book. But for the grace of God, I would have been looking for his name on the wall. The German tourist finished his photo shots, and quietly asked me "Is he okay?" I must have looked at him oddly, because he asked again, "Did he come through it okay?" I nodded “Yes,” with a big knot in my throat.

Today, in light of the U.S. war in Iraq and the horrors our young men and women have endured there, I have to wonder now if we will again memorialize soldiers killed in the line of duty in granite and bronze. Will we again memorialize our young Americans who have died in a foreign land with a memorial? Will there be bronze statuary of young American soldiers handing out food packages from a Hummer while another mans a machine gun atop the vehicle?

Granite and bronze awash in tears are poor substitutes for living, breathing human beings. Can’t we find another way?

Joy N. Vyoral
© October 12, 2003

Grandma Norris' REAL Name

Using the Norris Family Yahoo Group, family members have engaged in a discussion over the past several days of Grandma Norris' full name. Everyone seems to remember the same basic name... just some question of name order and spelling. If anyone else has some idea, it would be helpful if you'd let the rest of us know, especially if you have some sort of documentation.

Again, let me encourage you to join the Norris Family Yahoo Group if you haven't already. I have listed the URL below which will allow you to go directly from this blog entry to the family group site. All you need do to join in is to click on the "join group" button and the site will send an email notifying the moderator to approve your membership. (This step is necessary to keep the spammers and porn 'bots out of the group.)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/norris_group/

Email me if you have any questions.

Mishael E. Norris, Jr. and Boyd O. Norris

This photo was evidently taken in 1939, based on the Fox copyright stamp on the back. Dad had his 14th birthday that year. I'm not sure when Uncle Boyd was born so I would judge him to be maybe 8-10 years old. I'm struck by how much Charles Holcombe looks like Uncle Boyd in this shot. This is certainly an interesting little window on the lives of two country boys.

Yahoo Family Group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/norris_group/

I would like to encourage those of you who haven't already done so to sign up for membership in the Norris Family Yahoo Group.

You can click on the URL at the top of this post to go to the group site. Then it is only necessary to click on the "join the group" icon and you're in.

I've posted a couple of questions this morning having to do with Grandma's and Grandpa's names. I hope some of the family knows the real answers.

Easter Memories.....

One of the pleasures of having articulate adult children is having a window on their childhood memories. Their memories are like time capsules. It has always amazed me though, to hear them talk about the things they remember as children. As the adult on scene when many of their childhood memories were made, I usually have a very different perspective on the events.

When Geraldine sent along the photo of Grandma Norris sorting Easter eggs after a hunt, a beloved childhood memory came flooding into my mind. I know, from other similar photographs in my parents’ photo albums, that this type of Easter scene must have occurred year after year. In my mind’s eye, there is a flash of Grandma with an apron filled with colorful eggs. Then, the flash of memory with Grandma on her knees sorting the eggs with various grandchildren crowded around. I wonder if, back then, Grandma had any idea that something that was probably just another holiday chore for her would fast forward 60 years to be a beloved memory for some of her brood.

The thread of family memory runs through us all. As much as the blood in our veins ties us together so do these memories.

(Can anyone identify the children with Grandma in the Easter egg photo>)

Arm In Arm

Geraldine sent along this photo of Grandma and Grandpa to share with us all. Geraldine says she doesn't recognize the house in the background. Does anyone else?

Charlotte's Family

Cheryl Smith Kilgore, David Smith and Bob Smith, children and husband of Charlotte Holcombe Smith.

Cheryl and David are the children of Charlotte Holcombe Smith, the grandchildren of Ernestine Norris Holcombe and the great-grandchildren of Mishael E. Norris, Sr. and Zola Dunman Norris.

Velma and Joe Shelby

Thanks to Shirley Shelby Purswell for sending along a photo of her parents. Shirley is the only daughter and oldest child of Velma Norris Shelby and Joe Shelby, and the grandchild of Mishael E. Norris, Sr. and Zola Dunman Norris.

Three Guys and A Doll

L-R: Charles Holcombe, Charlotte Holcombe Smith, Jack Norris, Mike Norris

This is my favorite of all the photos in the blog so far. What a great photo of the two oldest Holcombe siblings and the Norris brothers! Thanks to Geraldine for sending it along for us all to enjoy.

(Charles and Charlotte, only son and oldest daughter of Earnestine Norris Holcombe; Jack and Mike Norris, only children of Lewis Norris; all are grandchildren of Mishael E. Norris, Sr. and Zola Dunman Norris.)

Yahoo Family Group Site

There now exists in "Yahoo Groups" a group site for our family. Yahoo Groups hosts these sites for a variety of group possibilities... sports, hobbies, romance, education, etc. Happily, a Yahoo Group is the perfect way for our family members to carry on discussions on a variety of topics.

Very soon I will send everyone on my e-mail contact list an invitation to the site. In order to join and be able to post at will, you must ask to join. That is the only way to keep the spammers and bots from entering.

If you would like to find the site yourself and speed up the process, go to Yahoo Groups, search with "Mishael E. Norris" and ask to join.

If you have any questions, e-mail me direct.

50th Anniversary?

Shirley Shelby Purswell sent the photo of Grandma and Grandpa and all the "kids".

I remember when the photo was taken and I want to think it was taken on their 50th anniversary. I could definately be wrong about that. I can see Buddy in the right frame of the photo hanging on the stair rail and I'd judge him to be five or six. That would make the date along about 1958 or 1959. Does anyone have the information on when Grandma and Grandpa were married? I think it would be nice to try to date the photo.

Shirley, like Geraldine, has sent along some really great photos. I would like to encourage you all to do the same... not just the old photos but photos taken more recently... of your families, your family activities. Mother's Day is coming up and I am quite certain there will be photos taken of our various family get-togethers. Be sure to send them along and we'll ALL enjoy them.

And in that vein, Happy Mother's Day to all of you!

Happy Birthday, Edward!

Happy Birthday to Edward Vyoral who is 63 today.

Loooooooooking goooood!

William Butler and Elizabeth Smith Norris

This is another photo sent by Geraldine Crockett Slaughter. It is of William Butler and Elizabeth Smith Norris, parents of Mishael E. Norris, Sr. I'm wondering if anyone has any actual memories of them or may recall stories of them.

Zola Dunman Norris at age 16

Another thank you to Geraldine Crockett Slaughter for sharing the photo of Grandma Norris as a young woman of 16.

As always is the case with photos appearing on the family blog, feel free to save the photos to your computer.

Mishael E. Norris, Sr. as a Young Man

Thanks again to Geraldine Crockett Slaughter for the electronic copy of an old photo of Grandpa Norris as a young man.

A reminder... you can right click on the photo and save it to your computer. It can then be printed if you'd care to have a hard copy of your own.

Grandma and Grandpa Norris

I'm sure many of the "grandchildren" have seen this photo of Grandma and Grandpa Norris. Geraldine Crockett Slaughter is sharing this electronic copy with us. According to Geraldine, this photo was taken about 1954.

The location is the old place out in Bordersville, specifically in the "living room" which was the room on the left, just off the front porch. To my (admittedly flawed) memory, the house faced north and the room was on the east side of the house. (Correct me if I'm wrong about that.) The wall behind Grandma and Grandpa in the photo was the inside wall and on the right as you came in the room off the porch.

The photos on the wall behind them are (L-R) Louise Dunman, Grandma's niece, a graduation photo of Earnestine Norris Holcombe, Mishael Norris, Jr. with a small photo of Joy Norris Vyoral inset into it.