The Stolen House

Stories / By /

The Stolen House at 77 Stanley Place in Houston, TexasIn honor of the 16th anniversary of the death of my father, here’s a story I wrote this morning about a stolen house. I’ve been researching this story for years and Rip seemed to be telling me last night that it was time to finish it. The best part of the story to me is the newspaper photo of the house Rip lived in when he was young.

Research for this story came from the following sources;
Real Property Records from Harris County Clerk
1901 – 1955 Houston Chronicle Archives
1896 and 1907 Houston, Harris County Texas Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
1907 – 1955 Morrison & Fourmy Directory of the City of Houston
Texas birth, marriage and death records

…Edited 10/27/20, 10/28/20 and 11/01/20 to add some newly found evidence and a map of the exact location of Stanley Street.
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Forest Park and Rose Garden

Tributes / By /

Cherry with a Budweiser toast at Rose Garden in the heightsOn the 9th anniversary of Rip’s passing, Cherry and I went to Forest Park Lawndale cemetery. I flagged down a passing maintenance guy and had him clean all of the ant beds from around Dad’s WWII plaque. Really nice guy and he did an good job of getting rid of the ants.

Then we walked around the Garden of Gethsemane Catholic section for an hour or so remembering so many of the surnames that were on the stones. On the way home we took a reminiscing tour of the North side. After almost getting run over by a big red traveling billboard of a van with a Polish eagle on the side and a driver that I know well, we stopped at one of our old customers, Triple A Restaurant on Airline, for some delicious chicken and dumplings.
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One For The Books

Stories / By /

A Hundred Years of Texas Waterfowl HuntingWow, I’m sitting here in absolute astonishment with tears welling up in my eyes. The Lord has always been good to me but what just happened is really hard to comprehend. I’ve been moping around this morning trying to put together a photo tribute to my father, Walter ‘Rip’ Smock who died almost 8 years ago. Tomorrow is Dad’s birthday, he would have been 89 years old. A few minutes ago, the mail carrier knocked on the door with a package.
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World War II In The South Pacific Slideshow

Vintage Photo Slideshows / By /

Most of these photos were taken in the Marshall Islands in 1944, during World War II. Rip was in the Navy and served on an Aircraft Carrier in the South Pacific. His Navy buddies nicknamed him ‘Smokey’.

The descriptions were taken from writing in Rip’s albums or from the back of the original photos.
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Hunting and Fishing In The 40’s Slideshow

Vintage Photo Slideshows / By /

Most of these old Texas hunting and fishing photos were taken in the 1940’s either at the old Chocolate Bayou shack or at the Christmas Bay camp between Surfside and San Luis Pass. The descriptions were taken from writing in Rip’s albums or from the back of the original photos.

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This Is Casu

Military / By /

During World War Two, Dad served in the US Navy CASU 35 unit. Over the years, Dad told me some stories about what his unit did during the war. I recently found this article taken from the August 1945 issue of Our Navy magazine. It explains in detail how important the CASU units were in our military offensives in the South Pacific. The images included with this article are Dad’s original photos of his unit, CASU 35.

This article reprinted from Wartime Press

Our Coral Carriers Helped Turn the Tide of Battle
By Vern A. Miller
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