Photo Page 1 | Photo Page 2 | Photo Page 3 | More Family Photos

The other half of me -- my mother's side -- is from the Bishop family. I've received some information from family members and found a fair amount of information on the Internet.

I knew both of my maternal grandparents, but not well enough.

My grandfather was born and grew up in the coal mining country of West Virginia, and left at an early age to join the U.S. Navy. After one tour, I think, he was discharged from the Navy and enlisted in the U.S. Army. After a 30-year career, Luther retired as a captain.

Luther was not a big man, but I understand he could take care of himself. I understand he was the golden gloves champion in his weight class when he was stationed in Hawaii.

My father met Luther Wirt when they were both in a military hospital during World War II. I think it was after my father bailed out of an airplane. The tail section of the airplane smacked him in the head and knocked him "cross-eyed." Luther took my father to meet his family, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Phoebe Mae Branham, born and raised in Kentucky, was my grandmother. Two things about my grandmother stand out in my memory. First, she liked the way I called her "Grandmother." And, second, she had the most beautiful hair. Long and black. I don't recall ever seeing a gray hair. Most of the time she had her hair braided and wrapped in a bun. At night she would take it down and brush it.

According to a note from one of Grandmother's relatives, she and her sister Beth took eggs to a store to sell them. They wrote their names and addresses on some the eggs. Walter Bishop bought the eggs and gave Phoebe's name to his brother Luther. Luther and Pheobe Mae corresponded and he proposed. They met at a train station.