My Dad

I can't continue without giving a much deserved plug and pat on the corporate back to the hard-working and brilliant folks at http://www.ancestry.com/

Without the Herculean efforts of http://www.ancestry.com/ in making millions of documents available online, I would have been stuck peering through countless rolls of microfilm at my local public library in Memphis, Tennessee, searching for small entries among billions of entries in long-forgotten newspapers or censuses or wills or certificates of death or deeds or countless other written records scribbled during many centuries.

And, almost all of my ancestors were not famous or even well-known in any way, shape, or form.

For example, my father, William Roy Stephenson (pictured on the left), was born on 3/12/1927 in Bells, Tennessee. In January, 1945, my father was a senior in the 1945 graduating class of Bells High School (pictured below) and a member of the basketball team there and decided to join the United States Navy.

When you are only 17 years old, it was a brave decision, in my opinion. (I have never been a member of the military).


After basic training, my father was assigned to the USS Monitor (pictured).