Feats of your Ancestors

Joseph D. Wallace:  served the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War at Pearl Harbor, where he worked on a team that developed the first computer systems for the Pacific Fleet.

Lonnie Wallace:  a pipefitter (welder).  A U.S. Navy Seabee in WWII in the Phillipines.  Taught the first desegregated welding class in Houston.  
Daniel Clark Wallace:  Was nearly killed by falling timber near Temple, Texas which crushed part of his skull.  Afterwards became a Baptist preacher who travelled around East Texas and surrounding states in the Big Thicket.  Later owned a Gulf filling station on Airline Drive in Houston.

William W. Wallace:  ran with a rough crowd in Waco in the 1870s.  Avenged his brother's murder by his brother-in-law, outlaw Bill Posey.  Later in life, he ran the "Poor Farm" in Bell County, near Killeen, Texas.  

Washington S. Wallace:  was born in North Carolina in 1824.  Brought his family to Texas sometime after 1850.  Allegedly related to "Bigfoot Wallace," the famous Texas Ranger.

Louisa Lott:  born in Spanish Florida, she came to Texas with her family at the age of 3.  She survived three husbands in hard pioneer days and lived to be 83.  Her last husband was an Aikman, supposedly an ancestor of Troy Aikman. Three of her daughters married Wallace brothers.

John Lott:  an Austin Colonist who brought his family to Texas.  He ran a general store, saloon, inn and stable in Washington-on-the-Brazos, and was a Commissary for the Republic of Texas during the Texas Revolution.  (See Davy Crocket receipt.)

Laura Juanita Eheman Wallace:  eldest of three sisters, she raised them and kept house for her father and uncles when her mother died when she was just 11.  Raised a family, taught school, drove a school bus, and later was for decades the secretary to the dean at Houston Community College.

Gracie Mae Caldwell Eheman:  orphaned young, she and her brother were raised by an aunt and uncle.  She married young, and died at the age of 36 of TB.

William Joseph Ehemann:  a pipefitter (welder).  

Mary E. Martin Wallace:  earned a 4-year full scholarship to study at Catholic University, Washington, D.C.  Raised a family and devotes much time to volunteer work.

Sidney Augustus Martin:  a geophysicist who first helped develop "thumper truck" technology for Humble Oil Co. (later Exxon), then took his expertise to MIT during WWII where he worked on a team that developed radar for planes.  He worked for Exxon his entire career, then retired to Colorado, where he took up downhill skiing at the age of 70.  Twenty years later he moved to Wimberley, Texas, where he still lives.

Sidney Alexander Martin:  an accountant who spent his career with the Burlington Railroad in Fort Worth.

Ann Elizabeth Martin:  earned her B.A. at Rice Institute and then went on to Columbia to earn a Masters' in Library Science.  She served as librarian at Mt. Carmel High School in Houston, then became the head librarian for all schools in the Diocese of Galveston-Houston.  (Her son, Uncle Bob, also went to Rice and also is a librarian;  he received his Ph.D. from UNC Chapel Hill, served as Texas State Librarian for five years under Bush, and is now Director of the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services, and also interim Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts.)

Robert Dru Martin:  a carpenter and builder who built much of the original Humble Oil Baytown refinery (now Exxon).  He was very active in civic life, serving on the Goose Creek ISD School Board for many years, and serving on the Draft Board during the Vietnam War.  He built the house his family lived in, which is still visible from the Fred Hartman Bridge if you know where to look.

Ida Margarata Brisbois Martin:  earned a newly-created nursing degree in one of the first-ever classes at the University of Minnesota, and received further certification at the Mayo Clinic.  Went to Miami, Arizona to work in a hospital there;  and there she met and married her husband.  

Marian Douglas Martin:  Born in Texas, she studied piano in Vienna with Leopold Godowski before WWI.  She taught piano lessons for many years in Ft. Worth.  Later she helped to create the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.  

Sidney Reinford Ensor:  Born in London, where he trained as an apothecary and surgeon, he was in St. Charles County, Missouri by 1836.  He spent his life there, travelling around the county on horseback and performing surgeries on kitchen tables.  

John Sibley:  came from St. Albans, Hertforshire, England, and settled in Salem, Mass. in 1629.  He took the Freeman's Oath in 1635, was a Selectman for Salem, and attended the general court at Boston.

Samantha Izora Taylor:  eloped in 1863 at the age of 14 with a handsome Yankee officer who was bivouacked in her father's home in Harrisonville, Missouri, during the Civil War.  She raised 8 children and died at the age of 94.

Parmenas Taylor:  Major in the U.S. Army during the Revolutionary War.  Born in the Virginia Colony.  After the war, he raised his family on a plantation in Tennessee, on the French Broad River near Dandridge.

William White:  Colonel in the U.S. Army during the Revolutionary War.

Joseph Tougas dit Laviollette:  French-Canadian present at Fort Vincennes, Indiana in 1778 when Gen. George Rogers Clark took the fort for the Americans;  Joseph made his oath of allegiance to the U.S. (His brothers were in Clark's company.)  He raised his family in Wabash County, Illinois, near Ft. Vincennes.

Guillaume Tougas dit Laviollette:  From Normandy, France, he came to Montreal and then to Ft. Vincennes before the American Revolution.