A Visit to Fawley Manor - June, 1979

Editors note: Family genealogy has been my passion since the mid-1970s. One wonders when a passion might be somewhat dangerous, knowledge that I found out after the fact! as you will find out at the end of this article. Further research now suggests that our Moore family was NOT EVEN descended from the Moores of Fawley, suggesting that it was an unnecessary excursion, but I must admit that I enjoyed it immensely. All of the pictures were taken by me during my visit in June, 1979 and underlining a word is referencing a picture near it.  All images as well as the letters at the end of this post can be clicked on to enlarge them for better viewing.

A Visit to Fawley Manor
June, 1979
David E. Jeffreys, Jr.

I knew what to look for as I had seen pictures of Fawley, but when I first spotted the big manor house resting against the crest of the hill, it seemed bigger than reality. Its Victorian appearance loomed before me, especially that embattled tower that contains the staircase. Also on that first impression, I was disappointed that it did not just stand there by itself, but all kinds of agricultural buildings crowded around, some within a few feet of the house itself.

A few moments after knocking on the door, Richard Dawson came to the door and welcomed me, as he had been expecting my arrival. Immediately he apologized for his mother, Mary Dawson, that she was almost blind and could not be a good hostess. I imagined a little old white-haired lady who was blind and feeble. Richard is probably in his mid-twenties. He invited me into the kitchen for a cup of tea, and asked me if it would be all right if we went into the town of Wantage for dinner as meal preparation was difficult for his mother. I assured him that would be fine. Soon feeling uncomfortable that I was imposing on this family since I had invited myself because Richard's personality affect is rather dull, I heard rapid footsteps on the staircase, and Richard informed me his mother was on the way in. She appeared and was I surprised to see a very vivacious lady approximately in her late forties. A very sincere gracious person who seemed genuinely glad to see me with story after story to tell. Now I felt comfortable. Driving the five miles into Wantage for dinner, Mary pointed out the Ridgeway as we crossed it and explained its significance as an historical road. Mary insisted that we walk around Wantage so that I could see the town where Alfred the Great had been born. Following this we went into a pub named The Bear at 7:00 P.M. where I had lager beer, potato soup, fish and chips and tea. We finally returned to Fawley at 10:00 P.M. just as it was getting dark, since England is so far north in latitude.

Before going into Wantage, Richard had given me the grand tour of the house itself, showing me most of its 34 rooms. The staircase was the most interesting feature, but many of the rooms were also interesting, especially the chapel on the top floor.

Since it was almost 11:00 P.M. and bedtime, Mary warmed some milk for us and we sat around talking about Fawley and its occupants. She thinks it is probably haunted as one visitor related his bed being levitated several years before as he slept in the chapel. Luckily my bedroom was a flight down the stairs from that; I conceded however I would welcome Sir Francis Moore's ghost if he would consent to answer some questions. Well with Mary's hot water bottle, I locked my bedroom door, went to bed, but Sir Francis never appeared. The bedroom that I was assigned was the one in which the three Moore girls’ names were etched, which pleased me greatly as I had heard about them.

I was up at 7:00 A.M. the next morning (Tuesday, June 12) and was I suddenly disappointed that I had not started taking pictures on the perfectly clear afternoon and evening before. The fog had rolled in and was thick enough to cut with a knife. After breakfast of a boiled egg, toast and tea with the Dawsons, I did take a number of pictures, inside and out.

At 10:00 A.M., Richard and I left for a day of exploring. First we went one-half mile to the north to the village of Fawley. There with an old knowledgeable man who is retired and lives in the old vicarage, we explored the old graveyard looking for Moore graves, but without success since it was so overgrown. From his own house, he showed me a painting of what the old church had looked like. We then explored the rest of the village of Fawley and it was then that I learned that it was the setting "Marygreen" in Thomas Hardy's novel, Jude the Obscure. The old man pointed out the thatched roof cottage that was the bakery, and the schoolhouse. We also saw the "new" church, which is now over 100 years old, a beautiful example of Gothic architecture. The inside was magnificent and to think it was only a country church. Then the old man took us over to his house to show us the beautiful formal garden he had constructed in his retirement. Returning to the interior of the church, I did a brass rubbing from an old brass memorial that must have been in the old church while the Moores were in residence in the area.

Richard and I drove on into Wantage where I wanted to stop and browse in a bookstore (Miller's); I purchased a copy of Jude the Obscure, a book about the Ridgeway and some books about Wantage.

At 12:40 P.M. we arrived in Oxford. The first object was to get a parking disc in order to park there--a funny cardboard clock on which one set one's arrival time. We stayed in Oxford for two hours walking around the colleges and stores. I found Blackwell's, a rare book store, where I bought a small 200 year old medical book written in Latin. Lunch was upstairs over a shop in a small restaurant named the Nosebag that Richard was familiar with. My lunch consisted of Shepherd's Pie, garlic bread and strong cider. We then walked along The High (main street) peering in shops, bought stamps at the post office and walked down to Christ College to take pictures.

At 3:00 P.M., we left Oxford and drove to nearby Abingdon where I wanted to investigate some medical equipment. After a search we found Oxford Medical Systems on Nuffield Way, right across from the MG factory. Dr. Paul Brankin took me on a grand tour showing me the factory where our 24 hour EEG monitoring equipment was made. He took me into research and development to show me the spike-wave detector which is coming off the drawing boards into a working model. Meanwhile during my tour of Oxford Medical, Richard sat in the car refusing to come inside since the place was of a "medical" nature.

We left Abingdon at 6:00 P.M. returning through Wantage to Fawley. Richard, Mary, and I then returned at 7:00 P.M. to The Bear in Wantage for dinner where this time I had Gammon (ham steak) with a fried egg and chips, a pint of lager beer, lentil soup, rolls and butter, and tea--not necessarily in that order. We talked for a couple of hours with Mrs. Root, an old widow who had been a world traveler living in the Himalayas and Far East. Back to Fawley for a cup of warm milk before turning in after a very long eventful day.

It's Wednesday morning now (my wedding anniversary--June 13 with Sara back in the states) and I go out and take a few more pictures of Fawley, but it is still not clear! Mary fixed me a big breakfast of cornflakes, two boiled eggs, toast and tea, and then I told her farewell. Richard refused to come down for breakfast or to tell me goodbye, despite his mother's pleading with him to do so.

ADDENDUM: Upon returning to the states I received a postcard from Richard posted two days after my departure with White Horse on it, a monument carved into the chalk many centuries earlier--a monument that Richard had wanted to show me very badly, but there had not been time. Also, Richard had suggested while I was at Fawley, that I should look up his cousin, Rev. Jim and Polly Jones of the Episcopal Church in Coral Gables, Florida, where I resided on my return. I called Rev. Jones and he wanted to know how Richard was. He explained to me that he had visited Fawley earlier, found Richard (as an adult) playing with his teddy bear on his father's (who had committed suicide) grave. Rev. Jones had sought medical help for Richard, who had been hospitalized and diagnosed as schizophrenic. He had been discharged on medication to return home. This explained why Richard was so reluctant to go inside Oxford Medical Instruments with me.

A number of years later I learned from Mrs. Ruth Lumley-Smith who lives in the old schoolhouse at Fawley, that Richard murdered his mother by stabbing her with a knife in the kitchen of Fawley Manor house in June, 1981 – just two years after my visit. Perhaps that was why I locked my bedroom door each night, rather than the fear of any ghosts!

History of Fawley Manor and the Dawson family

by Mrs. Ruth Lumley-Smith written in 1991

Neurodiagnostics & Sleep Disorders Medicine

Neurodiagnostics has been the focus of my professional life. It all started with an interest in EEG while I was working in Dr. Blaine Nashold’s neurosurgical research laboratory at the VA Hospital in Durham, North Carolina when I was in high school. Dr. Nashold’s interest in those days was finding a treatment or cure for Parkinson’s disease and he had a particular interest in stereotaxic surgery. Before using these methods on humans, we used stereotaxic surgery to implant various substances such as alcohol and carbon as well as ablative surgery (cutting out small sections) deep in the brain around the globus pallidus, the thalamus, and the putamen. This was just before the discovery of dopamine and how it can be used to treat Parkinson’s disease. After the surgeries, the animals were sacrificed and we looked at their brains under the microscope to see the various changes. Dr. Nashold had trained with Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute and became my first mentor.

In order to see if the surgeries were working in humans, it was necessary to develop objective methods of measuring muscle rigidity and together with the physical therapy department at Duke, he developed a machine to stretch and measure the resistance of the biceps muscle which he called the myograph. After leaving Duke and Durham, my first job was at the Parkinson Institute in Miami, Florida in 1963 where I used the myograph in the treatment of Parkinson patients.

Following my 2 year tenure at the Parkinson Institute, I branched out in the EEG (Electroencephalography) full time. This eventually led to EMG (Electromyography) and evoked potentials which I specialized in until 1985 in Florida.

Next, after over 20 years in the Miami area which progressed from Paradise Found to Paradise Lost, I decided to return home and my farm (Lady Slipper Cove). Then I used my neurodiagnostic background in the Sleep Diagnostics field as I set up the first Sleep Disorders Lab at UNC-Hospitals in Chapel Hill, NC. Under my leadership from 1986 to 1992, this lab grew from a basic research one-bed lab to a two-bed clinical lab.

In 1992, I relocated to Wilmington, NC to be Director of Neurodiagnostics at New Hanover Regional Medical Center, where we provided EEG, EMG, EP, LTM (epilepsy monitoring), intra-operative monitoring, and sleep diagnostics.

Then in 1996, I branched out on my own as a Neurodiagnostic Consultant which eventually led to full-time employment as an Applications Specialist for Nicolet Biomedical (now VIASYS NeuroCare) based in Madison, Wisconsin, though I continued to live in Wilmington.

More about my professional life following its chronology during my exciting life in service to my fellow man.

Parkinson’s Institute, Miami, Florida

In 1963, I left Duke and Durham, NC and moved to Miami, Florida to start a new job at the Parkinson's Institute. While working with Dr. Nashold, I was on the team that developed the "myograph," an instrument designed to measure the rigidity of the arm muscles of the Parkinson's Disease patient in order to quantify the rigidity. One of these instruments was built at Duke for the Parkinson Institute and I went there to clinically monitor the progress (worsening) of the rigidity. At the Institute the patients had regular out-patient physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy in an effort to slow the course of the disease. It was also about the time L-Dopa was discovered.

Next in 1965, I wanted to expand my horizons by moving into EEG (Electroencephalographic) Technology clinically. I had already done some of that on a research basis at Duke (and the Durham VAH). So I started working with Michael Goodson, MD in Miami providing clinical EEG services at a number of hospitals by carrying around a portable EEG machine. These hospitals included Cedars of Lebanon, North Shore, North Miami General, Parkway General, St. Francis, Mt. Sinai, and the Miami Heart Institute. At that time, I believe that only the large Jackson Memorial Hospital had their own EEG laboratory. After a couple of years on Biscayne Blvd., we moved the office to Lincoln Road on Miami Beach.

EEG

The best part of this job was our extra-curricular activity on Thursday afternoons, when Dr. Goodson closed the office to go sailing on Biscayne Bay. The craft was a little too large for him to maneuver it in and out of the marina at Dinner Key, so he needed another crew member and that was me. First thing, every Thursday morning, I checked the weather report to find out how choppy the waters would be. One trip was out to Fowey Rocks and on the way back, the wind died and we were becalmed. The water was like glass. Dr. Goodson started up the tiny outboard on the back, which we usually used to only maneuver in and out of the marina slip, and we proceeded back into Dinner Key. Hours later we arrived, but Dr. Goodson was too late for the Medical Board meeting at the hospital that night. On another trip, we were out in the middle of shallow Biscayne Bay at low tide when our keel ran aground. We sat there a couple of hours waiting for the tide to lift us off the sandbar. Probably the most memorable trip out on Biscayne Bay was watching this large catamaran approaching us rather fast. As it went by, Richard Nixon and Bebe Rebozo waved to us.

Have EEG, will travel! Dr. Goodson and I flew to Nassau, Bahamas, where a preacher had murdered his wife. The preacher's attorney was hoping that the neurological exam and the EEG would provide some fodder for his defence, but alas he turned out to be normal. So that our trip would not be a total loss, he asked if we could do an EEG on a high school girl who for no reason would suddenly start shouting obscenities in class. Well during her EEG, abnormal rhythms started coming from her temporal lobes, she sat up, and started shouting those obscenities. I went to her side of the narrow exam table fearing that she might fall off; she grabbed me and pulled me down on top of her, shouting f**k me, f**k me, f**k me! Indeed, she did have a seizure disorder.

Another patient who was having headaches was Jackie Gleason, and I performed an EEG on him.

About this time, my wife, Sara, and my son, Brian (born 27 Oct 1965), and I moved into a home we bought in Coral Gables, where we would live until 1985, with a move back to North Carolina. My son, Greg, would be born later on 20 June 1970.

EMG & EP

Though it was difficult to give up those Thursday afternoon sailing outings, again I needed to expand my horizons to encompass some additional neurodiagnostics, so I went to work for Wayne Tobin, MD in 1968. Now I had the opportunity to add new procedures to my arsenal in addition to EEG. Dr. Tobin now became my second mentor as he had studied EMG with Fritz Buchthal in Copenhagen, and then set up the EMG lab at NIH. He had returned to his Miami hometown to set up a private practice. His teaching approach was "See one, Do one, Teach one!" Dr. Tobin led me into the EMG exam room and told me to lie down on the exam table. He then performed a median nerve conduction velocity and shocked the hell out of me! Next, he told me to get up from the table, and he proceeded to lie down on it with his arm outstretched and told me to do the same nerve conduction velocity test on him. So here I was shocking my new boss. He told me to turn the voltage higher, as it was not enough, so that it would be supramaximal. With trepidation, I did so and learned how to perform a median nerve conduction velocity. So as he left the room, he told me to clean it, and in a moment returned with a patient, whom he asked to lie down on the exam table. Looking at me with a twinkle in his eye, he told me to perform a median nerve conduction velocity on her and walked out the door closing the door behind him. From that experience, I learned that I had to be observant and learn all that I had seen. Some years later, he was bragging on me to some of his colleagues telling them that of all the students he had ever had including his medical students, that I was the fastest learner than he had ever had. I looked at him and asked, "What choice did I have?" His training helped me to pass the first ever technologists registration exam given by Jasper Daube, MD of the Mayo Clinic, in EMG/NCV in Philadelphia in 1980 with the registration number of R.NCS.T#6, and helping him to train others in neuromuscular disorders over the next 15 years. Dr. Tobin loved to express his little truisms. One of them was "The Hammer [ed. reflex] Never Lies". Another one I remember was "When One Diagnosis Won't Do, Try Two!" Once while doing an EMG with him, I said, "Oops" in front of a patient about something that had just happened. After the patient left, he was quick to reprimand me to NEVER say "Oops" when with a patient. Dr. Tobin also held the philosophy that "bigger was better" especially when it came to growing the practice, and when something went just right, he would utter "Just like downtown!"

Later the practice expanded as Howard Zwibel, MD and Michael Aptman, MD joined the practice. Dr. Zwibel collected historic antique medical instruments and displayed them in a curio cabinet in his office, which was quite impressive. Dr. Zwibel never ate lunch, but could be seen reaching into his lab coat pocket for M&Ms. We were afraid that patients might get the wrong idea and think he was popping pills. He also had a habit of having his patients walk down our long hallway to evaluate their gait. I might be at the other end of the hall, and as the patient walked away from him toward me, he would mimic their gait comically. Then he would put on his straight face, and tell them to turn around and come back toward him. It was not easy for me to look professional and keep my composure. Dr. Aptman flattered me after joining the practice by calling me "Professor!" The practice grew and grew adding more physicians, technologists, and support staff, and it all started with just Dr. Tobin, myself, and Reva, the secretary who became the business manager.

One of my more memorable experiences was with Dr. Zwibel, when again I had EMG machine, will travel. This time we went to Haiti to perform an EMG and NCVs on Jean Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier. From the airport we were transported to the home of the embassy official where we spent the night. The next day we were taken to a theater in Port-au-Prince where we transferred into three black Buicks (we weren't allowed to ride together) escorted by the Tonton Macoute on a high speed trip on narrow back country roads to the villa that Duvalier had some distance from the capital. We sped by the locals cooking their meals alongside the road, and I feared that the cars would hit some of them, but I was just as sure that if it happened, it would be a hit and run. Arriving at the villa, Baby Doc and his wife Michelle, were watching videos of which Baby Doc had a large collection. The doctors interviewed the patient who only spoke creole french, but Michelle interpreted with her fluent English. Her primary concern was that some medications that a local doctor had prescribed might cause impotence. His medical history revealed that after spraining an ankle, the local doctor had put a cast on it for months, and when the cast came off, he had severe weakness in the leg, which had prompted our visit from the states by the State Department. The testing proved that no great harm had been done, and that his weakness was just from long disuse atrophy resulting from the cast. To show his appreciation, Baby Doc gave each of us a collector's set of gold and silver coins that had been cast in his honor.

While at the Tobin, Zwibel, Aptman, PA medical practice, I would go on to learn evoked potentials, biofeedback, and thermography. Just as in Dr. Goodson's practice, I would travel around to hospitals in the Miami area (primarily Cedars of Lebanon, Doctors Hospital in Coral Gables, South Miami Hospital, and Baptist Hospital in Kendall) providing EEG and EMG/NCV services along with other technologists that joined us.

Though I enjoyed my association with Tobin, Zwibel, Aptman, PA medical practice, I was becoming less enthusiastic about the Miami area. When I had arrived in 1963, Miami was "Paradise Found" and by 1985, Miami was "Paradise Lost." We had recently seen the Coral Gables police in front of our home having discovered a Columbian body from a supposed drug deal gone wrong. In addition, the Cocaine Cowboys had just had a shootout at a drugstore in Dadeland Mall across from our office in the Dadeland Medical Building. One evening, at 10 PM, Miami Vice had portrayed a cocaine lab explosion, and following that in the 11 PM news, the reality of the same story which had occurred just that day was reported. Thus, I had come to the conclusion it was time to relocate my family to North Carolina.

So I pulled up stakes and returned to my family farm in Person County, North Carolina which I now call Lady Slipper Cove.

Unfortunately later in 1995, tragedy struck Dr. Aptman's family.

See: http://www.melissainstitute.org/documents/CR_02_Final.pdf

Sleep Disorders ~ UNC-Hospitals, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

In 1986, Brian Boehlecke, MD of the Pulmonary Medicine department at UNC-Chapel Hill, already was director of the Pulmonary Function Laboratory and he wanted to add a sleep disorders program as well. What the pulmonary department lacked for this endeavor was the neurodiagnostic expertise needed for recording EEG and scoring sleep; thus, I was hired to become Technical Director of this new venture. It started out rather slowly, partly because Dr. Boehlecke wanted me to spend time in the Pulmonary Function lab to learn more about respiratory function, as it would be critical in studying many sleep problems, especially sleep apnea. So, I learned to do PFTs: spirometry, lung volumes, drawing and analyzing arterial blood gases. The relationship between oxygen and carbon dioxide balance during sleep became of critical importance. At first, we did sleep studies in the evenings in one bed in the Pulmonary Function Laboratory. Most of these patients early in sleep disorders medicine were extremely obese patients, often with tracheostomies, and children with various kinds of respiratory distress, which became worse during sleep. Soon, we needed more equipment which we begged and borrowed from the medical school, and moved the lab to the eighth floor, where there had previously been an ICU. It continued to be a one-bed laboratory, but we began to see a wider assortment of patients, including neurodiagnostic cases such as narcolepsy and nocturnal seizure disorders. Soon, Brad Vaughn, MD, a neurologist became involved in the department. Sleep disorders medicine was growing not only at our hospital, but everywhere and we needed more space because the clinical demand was increasing over the research demand. Next we shared space with the peripheral vascular lab, where they used two of the exam rooms by day and we used them at night. We were also becoming more sophisticated with new equipment and the ability to monitor our patients using infrared closed-circuit TV with VCR recorders. This picture shows me at the 16 channel Grass polysomnographic machine watching and documenting the wave forms as they were printed on over 1,000 feet of paper each night for each patient.
I worked in this capacity for six years, which was demanding on my own sleep needs, because I worked Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night shifts from 8:00 PM - 6:00 AM and then a daytime shift from 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM on Friday. The Friday morning was for case conference, followed by the Sleep Clinic where I saw the patients along with Dr. Boehlecke, Dr. Vaughn, and other physicians. Friday afternoons were spent scoring, preparing reports, and administrative functions.

During this period in 1990, I sat for my RPSGT boards, passed and became RPSGT # 480. I was getting burned-out because of the schedule and because I was the only sleep technologist. In 1991, the physicians saw the need for help and hired another sleep tech to help me. My schedule did not change however, and not being a "spring chicken" any more, I decided I had paid my dues working nights, and started looking elsewhere.

New Hanover Regional Medical Center, Wilmington, North Carolina

Next in 1992, I was offered the position of Director, Neurology Lab at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington. Unfortunately, this meant leaving Lady Slipper Cove, but some sacrifices have to be made sometimes on our journey in life. Wilmington became my new home town and I still love living here. So now I guess it was not a sacrifice at all, because I have the best of two worlds! Living on the coast means warmer winters and cooler summers, being near the beach, and many other amenities.

As the new Director of the Neurology Lab, I was given responsibility for neurodiagnostics and sleep disorders with the seventh largest regional medical center in North Carolina. When I arrived in 1992, there was not a computer anywhere in the department, just some old typewriters and analog equipment. Just before my arrival however, the hospital had purchased a new two-bed computerized sleep system from Nicolet Biomedical in Wisconsin. The highest priority on my agenda was to get this new computer acquiring data, so that we could catch up with the huge backlog of scoring that needed to be done. Next, I hired a secretary for the department and purchased a computer system for her to prepare reports and keep databases. As time went on, my boss, Dick Jones, one of the VPs of the hospital was very understanding in helping me to budget purchases to completely digitize the Neurology Lab, including EEG, EMG-NCV, long-term epilepsy monitoring, evoked potentials, and intraoperative monitoring. So during my tenure, we went from the dark ages of analog to the present age of digital technology. Patient advocacy and technologist education were also my focus during this period. I was a founder of the Carolina Sleep Society, served as its president, as well as the president of the Southeast-Southwest Association of Sleep Technologists. At the national ASET oganization level, I served as journal and newsletter chair. The Neurology Lab grew in staff and services being provided with outstanding quality. Technologists attended more educational seminars and became registered with REEGT, REPT, RPSGT credentials. At one time, we had more RPSGTs on staff than any other sleep center in North Carolina. My biggest failure however was to get the sleep center accredited, because I could not succeed in getting one of our sleep physicians board certified. Our sleep center hosted several regional sleep conventions and one of them was at the Blockade Runner hotel on Wrightsville Beach. Our keynote speaker was William Dement, MD, who is famously known as the "father of sleep medicine" because of his pioneering research. After picking him up at the airport, he wanted to freshen up before an appearance that afternoon on local TV, so I brought him to my home. We had a wonderful discussion over a cup of tea, and he autographed my copy of Principles and Practices of Sleep Medicine.

In 1995, I began to consult for Nicolet Biomedical as time allowed. Most of our equipment was the Nicolet brand, and I had become an expert user of the products, so the company wanted me to consult and teach new users how to perform various tests. I would take my vacation time and travel to labs around the country to consult with them. Then in 1995-1996, under the leadership of Jim Hobbs, the hospital embarked on a downsizing campaign, which in my opinion was being very detrimental to the hospital. Early retirement and severance were offered throughout the ranks of the hospital, but mostly I saw my management colleagues deciding to leave including some of my own employees, so though a painful decision as I had thought this would be my last job, I joined them. Unemployed, I hung out my shingle as a full-time neurodiagnostic consultant.

Nicolet Biomedical, Inc., Madison, Wisconsin

So in March, 1996 I started my own Neurodiagnostic consulting business. As a part of that, I approached several hospitals to start scoring their sleep studies that might have a backlog because of vacations, and lack of personnel. Soon I was scoring regularly for three hospitals, who overnighted their studies on disc and with quick turnaround time, I returned the scored studies scored on disc with hardcopy reports. This was an excellent way to keep busy while at home and not on the road traveling. But Nicolet Biomedical who had already used my services while I was employed at NHRMC, began to call me more often to help salesmen sell their products and also to teach lab personnel on site how to use the equipment after the sale.

Nicolet also started using me as their regular instructor for Madison-based classes for Ultrasom, and other neurodiagnostic products. So I was at the company headquarters in Madison six to eight times a year for a week at a time. In no time, my calendar was completely filled. Perhaps, the most surprising part of this was that hospitals and labs who used to view me as just another technologist, now viewed me as the expert! Most of all, I really enjoyed teaching; and every teaching experience led me to new discoveries as local technologists taught me their techniques and shortcuts, as well as having to research deeper into the software code of the products I was representing to find answers. Increasingly, I did become an expert and more valuable to Nicolet Biomedical. In 2000, the company was without a product manager for EEG and sleep, so the vice-president, Dave Stephenson, asked me to represent those products at the three annual regional "2000 and beyond" sales meetings in Acapulco, Athens, and Bangkok. What a great time I had traveling that year and previous to that in 1996, I have done the same in Seoul, Korea and Beijing, China. Now I was traveling to almost every state in the USA (except for Alaska and New Mexico), but to Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Asia!

Then in December, 2000, while I was teaching a course in Madison, Dave Stephenson asked me to join the company full-time as an Applicatons Specialist. Actually my duties did not change, but I was now working for the company with benefits, instead of working for myself. This rigorous pace continued until 2004 when my limb-girdle muscular dystrophy became so severe that I could no longer handle the travel requirements. From then until my retirement in 2006, I provided full-time customer phone support from my home in Wilmington.

The Digital Story of the Nativity

ALWAYS Wear Your Seatbelt !

My Father and His Brothers

Many of you who follow this blog know that I have a keen interest in genealogy.  My maternal family, the Moores, have prolific documentation in libraries around the country because of the first three generations in this country and their accomplishments.  You can read about Stephen Moore elsewhere on this blog and on my other blog www.stephenmoore-mounttirzah.blogspot.com.

However, I have also been interested in my father's family, but there is not the same paper trail and I can go back only 4 to 5 generations.  What has long fascinated me is that a Paul Jeffreys and a Osborne Jeffreys traded at my 4-great grandfather's (Stephen Moore) store on Mount Tirzah.  Without success so far, I have tried to link Paul and Osborne Jeffreys to my family.

Here is a picture of my father with his brothers that I discovered.  My guess is that the picture was taken circa 1932 when my father would have been about 30 years old.

 --Back row: Frank, David "Elmo" (my father), Leslie;
Front row: Lyle, Grey (with sister Louise's son Earl in front of him), Alvin, and Marion. 

 It is interesting that this just includes the men.  Perhaps there is another picture of the sisters who include Louise and Hazel.  Christine the youngest daughter died at the age of six in a tragic accident.

Here are my grandparents, Florence and Rufus Jeffreys, which of course are the parents of the above brothers.

Here are pictures of my father along with his colleagues at the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee. Group photo along with closeups lifted from the group picture:

Memories of my Paternal JEFFREYS Family

By David Elmo Jeffreys, Jr.

My grandparents, Rufus and Florence Jeffreys. Grandfather Rufus died when I was 18 months old, so I do not remember him at all. Grandmother Florence however died just before my tenth birthday, so I remember her quite well. Of course, long before I was born the family lived first on their farm northeast of Creedmoor, and then a large white two-story house with a gingerbread bordered wrap-around porch on the northern edge of Creedmoor. This house was approximately where North Main Street intersects with US 15. There was a large lawn of oak trees and the eastern edge of the property was bordered by the railroad tracks. My father showed me this house when I was a little boy, and he said the trains could be pretty noisy at night. Unfortunately that house no longer exists. Around 1922, Rufus and Florence moved to 614 Milton Avenue (now 614 Buchanan Blvd.) in Durham, another two-story home which still exists today, though I believe it was white rather than beige back then.

I remember visiting this house as a little boy and was intrigued by the push-button light switches. Rufus owned a little neighborhood grocery down the street from the house. After Rufus died, Florence lived there a few more years before she sold it. Then she went to stay at her children’s homes for various periods of time. Right after my parents were married in August, 1935, they lived with Rufus and Florence for a couple of months while the apartment they had rented was finished being still under construction. Both my mother, Sara, and her mother-in-law, Florence, were very strong-willed women and did not get along. After the Milton Avenue home was sold, various articles of furniture came to our house. Included were a very large spinning wheel, a small spinning wheel, a tiny footstool, a beautiful loom-woven wool bedspread, and two very low thatched-seat straight back chairs. I still have these chairs and bedspread to this day. After surgery for breast cancer, Florence lived with us for a few months. Because her arm became very swollen with the removal of the lymph glands, my father arranged a sling from a low limb of our sweet-gum tree in the front yard, so that she could keep the arm elevated. It was summer and Florence took delight in the flowers in our yard telling me all their names. At high noon, she had me notice that the sun was directly overhead and that I had no shadow. Where the sun was located in the sky was important to her because she was an artist. At the time she would occasionally do some sketches on a sketch pad. Also, she painted a number of oil paintings, but the only one that I have seen is the one which I own that Aunt Hazel gave me after Florence’s death.

I remember Florence’s funeral well, especially on the long drive from Durham to Creedmoor in limousines that had electric windows, and finally her interment in Creedmoor Cemetery.

Rufus and Florence Jeffreys Children

Louise Jeffreys was the oldest child. She had married Leon Lyon and they moved to Buffalo. Though Louise rarely came south to visit, she did remain in close touch with her and her husband’s Granville County roots. Many of the other siblings went to Buffalo to visit them. In fact, my parents went to Buffalo, NY on their honeymoon, and of course visited Niagara Falls. See picture below in my parent’s narrative. I only remember Aunt Louise and Uncle Leon visiting down south one time, and I believe that it was at Uncle Frank and Aunt Myrtle’s House on Englewood in Durham. I must have been very young, because the only thing that I remember was Uncle Leon giving us bus transfer tickets!

Frank Jeffreys. I remember visiting Uncle Frank and Aunt Myrtle only a couple of times when they lived on Englewood Avenue in Durham, but apparently one of those times was at Brenda’s birthday party. Brenda is on the back row left with the huge mouth closed grin and I am on the right in the striped shirt. After the fourth grade, the Frank Jeffreys family moved to Raleigh. Unfortunately, soon after, Aunt Myrtle died of cancer. Frank then starting courting Bernice Gaddy Smith and I vividly remember him bringing her to a Sunday evening dinner at our house; he seemed to be seeking approval from my mother, his sister-in-law and this was after my father had died. Bernice charmed us all and she and Frank were soon married. Before they were married, I remember Frank bringing Brenda over to Durham giving my mother money to take Brenda shopping for new Easter clothes. Soon after the marriage, I went to Raleigh for a sleep-over one weekend. Bernice took us to a Saturday matinee movie “The House of Wax”, a horror film in 3D starring Vincent Price. Well, it scared me to death. Bernice was up all night Saturday night comforting me and trying to help me get to sleep. Uncle Frank was always around, but he was an extremely quiet person and mostly kept to himself. I only wish that I had gone with him at least one time to visit his farm, where he, my father, and the other siblings were raised -- the Jeffreys homeplace that I never saw.

Alvin Jeffreys. I only remember seeing Uncle Alvin one time and it was pretty tragic. The story that my mother told me was that Grandmother Florence did not approve of the young lady that Alvin had fallen in love with and somehow destroyed their relationship. Afterward, Alvin had lost his will to be a productive citizen and became homeless. Somehow, my father did keep in touch with him, and one day we went down Broad Street to a laundry/dry cleaner. Alvin was working at the laundry and was living in the basement with the equipment. My father was taking him some clothes to wear.

My father – David Elmo Jeffreys, Sr. First, about my father’s name. For some reason, Louise, Frank and Alvin could not say “David” with it sounding something like “Dabid,” so Grandma Florence said that from that time on, he would be known as “Elmo.” And thus, to the entire Jeffreys family, my father was known as Elmo, which always sounded strange to me when I was around any of them. The reason is that at home and all the rest of the time he was called “Jeff.” My mother and all of her Moore family called him Jeff. His business colleagues also called him Jeff. So to me, my father was always Jeff. Since I am a “junior,” it is probably good that he was never called David; otherwise, I would have been called Junior. And so I have always been called David, although some friends have nicknamed me “Dave” from time to time. I actually prefer “David” over “Dave” but I’ll answer to either. I’ve never been called Elmo or Jeff, for which I am happy. Well, so much for names.

As mentioned above when my parents first married, they went on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls and here is a postcard made from a picture of them there.

My father was a real family man and participated in my playtime, whether teaching me to ride a bicycle or assembling a wagon for me. Our family was closer to my maternal relatives and after church spent almost every Sunday afternoon at the Moore family farm. My father always timed our return to Durham on Sunday evening, so that we could listen to “Amos and Andy” on the car radio. My parents loved to play cards with friends, so on most Friday or Saturday nights either their friends were at our house or we were at their house with my parents around the card table playing Bridge or Canasta. I learned early on to play both games, as well as Solitaire and Checkers. My father loved having a garden in summer probably as a result of growing up on a farm. He either had one across the street up at the corner of Broad and Sunset or over on the Hobby’s land which is now Northgate Shopping Center. We always had tons of fresh vegetables, though I hated shelling butter beans. Mother canned most of what we did not eat on the table, and there was always plenty from the huge one-acre garden at the Moore farm too. Dad could be quite a disciplinarian too usually using his belt, such as the time I lost the car keys in the summer garden at the Moore farm. Mother on the other hand used freshly cut switches from the yard. They were strong on discipline, but the worse whipping was one that I got in the basement taking a shower with Bobby. We had been playing in the water and pretty much soaked the entire basement in water when my father walked in. A belt on a wet naked body is not easily forgotten. However, my father was never abusive, even when he had been drinking. Unfortunately, alcoholism led to this premature death when I was only eleven years old.

Bobby, who is biologically my first cousin, was adopted by parents a couple of years before Dad died. The adoption brought Bobby back into the Jeffreys family and he then had the opportunity of getting to know his Jeffreys relatives. This was especially true of his getting to know Brenda, his biological sister, who had been adopted much earlier by Uncle Frank and Aunt Myrtle. It is too bad that Bobby had such a short time with my Dad without really getting to know him. But my mother did a superb job of raising us boys alone through our teen years.

My father was an excellent businessman. He and Mother paid off the home mortgage very quickly. Then he bought the 100 foot property that was vacant next door on the north side of our house. Since our house sat on a 50 foot property, he divided the two parcels into 75 feet each. That gave extra space so that he could build a nice side porch onto our house. [The picture to the right shows my father and myself after the porch had been added to the house, but before the duplex was built. “A chip off the old block!”] There is where we spent many summer hours noted above preparing the garden vegetables that had been picked that day. Later on, after my father died, Mother enclosed the porch and made it into a bedroom for me. On the other 75 foot plot of land, Dad built a rental duplex as a business venture. It was then residential and Mother kept it rented mainly to Duke interns and residents and their families. She was able to pay off the mortgage on it from my father’s life insurance proceeds. Since my father was an insurance salesman and superintendent for the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee for over 30 years (his only employer), he made sure that we were well insured. My old childhood neighborhood has changed and it is mostly business rather than residential. The duplex income now is from businesses. It now happens to be tax season, which reminds me of the Sunday afternoons my father spent with my Aunt Alma as they filled out their annual income tax returns. My father was a math whiz.

His desk in the L&C office, 414-418 Hill Building (101 Corcoran Street, Durham) impressed me with his adding machine, etc. To this day, I have some of promotional materials that he would hand out with his name on it such as a ruler, and a wall thermometer that looks like a ship’s wheel. Every five years, the company gave him a new L&C signet ring showing the number of years service. There was a ruby for each five years until he received his 25 year ring with a diamond in it. That diamond is now included in another ring that also has a diamond that my mother had given me when I lived in Florida. My father also gave my mother a beautiful engagement ring with over a carat diamond in the center encircled by smaller diamond facets around it in either white gold or platinum. It was accompanied by a wedding ring with small diamonds in it. Tragically, the engagement ring was stolen off my mother’s finger in her final illness, but they could not get her wedding ring off. Both rings had been willed to her granddaughter, Laura; but unfortunately, Laura only got the wedding ring.

Marion Jeffreys. Uncle Marion and Aunt Rena lived in Oregon, so I only met the family one time when I was a child. They came to North Carolina to visit with their son, Lee. Lee was older than me, a bully, and beat me up. That is all that I remember about them.

Grey Jeffreys. Of all my father’s brothers and sisters, I was closer to Aunt Ruth and Uncle Grey than the others even though they lived far away in Merrick, NY. Before Bobby came to our house, our family drove to Long Island to visit them. We went to the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and Coney Island. Richard and Chrissie made fun of my southern drawl, especially the way I said “water” and “Studebaker.” And of course, I thought the way they talked was just as funny. Richard took me down to a little boat on the estuary, and just the two of us went for a boat ride. While there, I enjoyed the wonderful food that Ruth and her mother, who lived with them, prepared. I will never forget to drink my milsch, dunke brot, and eat the wonderful goulash! After Bobby was adopted and my father died, Bobby and I went to visit them alone on the train. We got on the “Silver Meteor” in Raleigh and were met in Pennsylvania Station in New York City by the family. Bobby and I had been so excited riding the train, that we had not slept all night, as we got on the train in the evening and arrived in New York the next morning. Ruth and Grey had our sightseeing day all planned out for us. We took a boat ride around the island of Manhattan. I was so tired and sleepy, that I slept throughout most of the trip to the gentle rocking of the boat. I do remember seeing the Statue of Liberty and the UN building from the boat, but that is all. We had a great time visiting them.

Both Ruth and Mother were registered nurses, so there was a lot of shop talk when they were around each other. Mother was a real career nurse, but she so envied all the time Ruth was able to take off work for extended vacations, especially as they began taking them to Florida. Ruth and Grey owned a couple of different beautiful Airstreams. They pulled them to rallies all over the country, but in their later years, almost every winter came to Homestead, Florida to stay a few months. My wife, sons, and I were living in Coral Gables, Florida at the time. We spent many hours on Sunday afternoons either visiting them in Homestead or them visiting us in Coral Gables. That is when I really got to know them. Grey had a little side business of hanging garage doors. In Coral Gables, we had a very small detached stucco garage at the back of our house which had been built in 1926 by George Merrick. The garage door had been covered with plywood, and we used the garage for our laundry center, bicycles, and storage. Grey was just insisting that he hang a garage door for us and that we should use the garage for our car protection. We had a 1966 Dodge Dart at the time, and I told Grey that I was sure that the car would not even fit in that little garage. So Grey and I got into an argument and out came the tape measure. You see that garage had been built when there were Model T and Model A Fords! It turns out that with the Dart’s front bumper against the back wall, the garage door would have lowered onto the trunk deck about a foot in from the taillights and rear bumper. That was the end of the garage door discussion.

Ruth and Grey were so wonderful. Ruth had that Airstream and its limited storage space designed perfectly and was able to prepare a full meal at a moment’s notice in it, just as if she were at home. Grey gave my parents a beautiful “Plymouth” mantel clock as a wedding present. It was always on the living room mantel and my father constantly fussed over it, keeping it running perfectly. I still have that clock at my farm.

Leslie Jeffreys. Uncle Leslie worked on the mail train between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, GA. In the time before airmail became common, a lot of mail was transported by train and there were special mail cars on the train that sorted mail and delivered it to cities and towns along the tracks. Therefore, he was out of town a lot of time working. When not working, he lived with Aunt Hazel, Uncle Pitt, and Jane on Knox Street and had a room upstairs. I do not remember seeing him too many times, because he was kind of quiet and reclusive. However, one time I remember going into the basement workshop where he worked on model airplanes. He fueled up one engine, spun the propeller with his fingers until the engine started making a loud racket!

Hazel Jeffreys Pittman. Aunt Hazel and Uncle Pitt lived in a beautiful brick home on Knox Street in Durham, and we visited them often when I was a child. I remember the formal dining room at a holiday dinner with everything so beautiful, and I was afraid that I would get something on the white table cloth. Their living room had two special features – a beautiful bay window and a built-in cabinet beside the fireplace. In the bottom of the cabinet was a door behind which were toys for me to play with. Since I was five and a half years older than Jane, I resented her when she was born, because she lived there and now owned “my” toys. There was also a beautiful sunroom on the front of the house. Mother and Hazel were lifelong friends, as well as being sisters-in-law. Both were members of Duke Memorial United Methodist Church and the Minnie P. Gates Bible class and active in the church. For the last few years of my mother’s life in Durham, she and Hazel would phone each other daily to check up on each other since they both lived alone, with the proviso that if either didn’t answer the phone, the other would call for help. Hazel had inherited the rare gene in the family for red hair, which she passed along to Jane. Both Mother and Hazel were born in 1910, but Hazel outlived Mother by seven years dying at the age of 93. Mother also told the funny story of dating Uncle Pitt first, but then passing him on to Aunt Hazel.

Christine Jeffreys. Unfortunately, none of us remember Christine because of a tragic family accident when Christine was six and half years old. As my father related the story, Christine was on the front porch on a beautiful summer day rocking very hard when the rocker flipped over backwards, and she struck her head on the porch floor. Most likely, she died of a sub-dural hematoma.

Lyle Jeffreys was the youngest member of the family. His first marriage was to Nell Hicks and to them were born Brenda and Bobby. The marriage soon broke up and Lyle departed for Buffalo, NY because his sister Louise was there. Brenda was later adopted by Uncle Frank and Aunt Myrtle, and Bobby was adopted by my parents, which was a blessing for both of them as they remained in the Jeffreys family. Lyle married Ernestine after moving to Buffalo. They would occasionally come south to visit since Brenda and Bobby were still in North Carolina. They were also generous at Christmas time sending presents for Bobby and myself.

Jeffreys - Crews Family Tree

Ancestral Family Tree

Rufus & Florence (Crews) Jeffreys

& their children

click on chart to enlarge!

JEFFREYS – CREWS FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

(click on map to enlarge)

Map showing locations of related families in the Creedmoor, Granville County, North Carolina area. Note the BRAGG’S and LYON’S Crossroads. Also see the farms of Minnie CREWS Green (Mama Green) and Rufus & Florence JEFFREYS, which was later owned by son Frank Jeffreys. Rufus and Florence Jeffreys family moved to a home in Creedmoor marked on the map and later to Durham. The cemetery where most of the family individuals are buried is located about a half mile east of the Creedmoor town center.

The JEFFREYS and CREWS were related to the LYON, BRAGG, FLEMING, and GREEN families. Some of them live there to this day.

David G. Crews House

Tar River Road (SR 1635)

Granville County, North Carolina

David G. Crews (1839-1921) built this traditionally fashioned, mid-nineteenth century farmhouse. He left it to his son, Luther, who in turn left it to his son, the second David G. Crews, its present owner. Two stories tall and one-room deep, the house has 6/6 windows set in crossetted surrounds and a long ell that was originally connected to the rear only by a roof. Remaining mid-century interior details include post and lintel mantels, two-panel doors set in flat-angled surrounds and an octagonal handrail at the center-hall stairway. Though later added, the house’s most striking feature is the sinuous band of balusters that frame its front porch.

~Heritage and Homesteads. 1988.

 The Granville County Historical Society, Oxford, NC

David G. Crews & Louisa Fleming Crews Family

click on image to enlarge!

THE JOHN FLEMING HOUSE

East Thollie Green Road (SR 1130)

Granville County, North Carolina

by David E. Jeffreys

The two-story front block of this heavy timber frame house, and the previously detached first floor of its rear ell, were built prior to the Civil War by John (1813-1895) and Nancy Fleming. They also probably raised the mortised and tenoned, one-story structure to the house’s fore that served as the office of “Dr.” Charles T. Burnette, the husband of their daughter, Minerva. (Burnette is said to have practiced as a physician without the benefit of a medical degree.) The Burnettes left the house to their niece and her husband, Minnie (Crews) and M. S. Thollie Green (1876-1950), in whose family it remains.

One-room deep and divided by a center hallway, the house has two-panel doors and generous 8/8 windows set into crossetted surrounds. Although its beaded weatherboards are almost entirely obscured by aluminum siding, it retains its original gable end stone chimneys and square, fluted, front porch posts. Many original features also finish the interior. The upstairs rooms have ceilings and walls of hand-planed boards, five-panel doors wet in simple rectilinear surrounds and simple post and lintel mantels. Downstairs the walls are plastered and similar doors are set in symmetrical, corner-block surrounds. An octagonal handrail and thin vertical stiles serve the stair of the center hallway.

The octagonal form is repeated at the porch railing of Burnette’s office, a neatly finished structure with a boxed cornice, pattern boards and crossetted surrounds that may once have originally been a dwelling. The separate log kitchen than once served the house is long gone, but an early smokehouse, built of pegged timbers and sided with beaded weatherboards, still stands to the rear.

~Heritage and Homesteads. 1988.
 The Granville County Historical Society, Oxford, NC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This house is also known as the “Minnie Crews Green House” and the “Mama Green House.” The dwelling is now the home of Minnie and Thollie Green’s granddaughter, Betsy Hayes, who with her family operates it as a horse farm.

Approximately 1950, my father took me (David E. Jeffreys, Jr.) to see his Aunt Minnie and family and I took some photos of the house with my trusty Kodak Brownie camera. Here is a copy of that picture:

More recently, April 2010, Betsy Hayes invited me to come back to take more pictures of the house:

In addition, I took pictures of “Dr. Barnette’s Office” which stands to the left front of the house:

Thollie Green & Minnie Crews Green Family

click image to enlarge!

The Last Wolf by Mary TallMountain

The Last Wolf

by Mary TallMountain

The last wolf hurried toward me


through the ruined city


and I heard his baying echoes


down the steep smashed warrens


of Montgomery Street and past


the ruby-crowned highrises


left standing


their lighted elevators useless


Passing the flicking red and green


of traffic signals


baying his way eastward


in the mystery of his wild loping gait


closer the sounds in the deadly night


through clutter and rubble of quiet blocks


I hear his voice ascending the hill


and at last his low whine as he came


floor by empty floor to the room


where I sat


in my narrow bed looking west, waiting


I heard him snuffle at the door and


I watched


He trotted across the floor


he laid his long gray muzzle


on the spare white spread


and his eyes burned yellow


his small dotted eyebrows quivered


Yes, I said.


I know what they have done.