Established March 31, 2000   164,114 Previous Hits        Monday - January 25, 2010

Editor:Tommy Towery                                                     http://www.leestraveller.com
Class of 1964                           Page Hits This Issue     e-mail ttowery@memphis.edu
Adivsory Board: Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly, George Lehman Williams, Patsy Hughes Oldroyd
Contributors: The Members of Lee High School Classes of 64-65-66 and Others
Hits this issue!
Port Aransas, TX. - Sue and I are on vacation in Texas for a couple of weeks, but I will try to continue publishing Lee's Traveller while we are here.

Again it saddens me to announce the loss of another classmate.

Please include your class year with your e-mails.
T. Tommy
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Last Week's
Mystery Photo
This Week's
Mystery Photo
      From Our
      Mailbox
Sheila Carroll Jandebeur
Class of '66
Aug. 23, 1948 - Jan. 17, 2010

Sheila Carroll Jandebeur, 61, of Huntsville died Sunday at a local hospital. The family plans to have a private service later Spry Funeral Home of Huntsville is honored to serve the family.

Remembering Sheila

Darla Gentry Steinberg - I believe several of us will be sending you our "eulogy" on the death of Sheila for the web site. By the way, thanks for continuing to publish the site as a way for all of us to keep connected. I was so sad to hear the news of Sheila's death. I did something I have not done in a long time...I dug out the old high school yearbooks. Sheila's message in one of my yearbooks says it all and brings back so many memories of those wonderful Lee years. Sheila wrote: "We have so many memories - Anchor Club and all our great plays - 'Stage Door' and 'Ladies in Retirement' and I hope there will be more to come. Remember all the pajama parties and the sleep we lost, having so much fun. I hope we'll always be friends." We actually DID stay good friends for many years after that. Though we went to different colleges, our group stayed in touch and remained friends. Kathy Harris Jones, Jennifer Brown Demarcus, Lynn Bozeman Van Pelt, Linda Collinsworth Provost, and Sheila and I even had weekend "get togethers" with our children when they were young. And now Sheila is gone. Very sad.
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Lynn VanPelt, Class of '66 - I'm sure others have emailed you about Sheila Jandebeur's death.  Sheila and I were very close in high school and for a few years after.  Sheila was alwayd fun to be around and never missed an opportunity for an adventure.  We rolled yards together, sneaked booze together.  She was the driving force in our first few reunions.
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Eddie Jackson - I still have mine,EDDIE A. JACKSON  FATHERS NAME home address 1617 E Clinton AVE. Huntsville ALA. 2/10/48 p protestant o positive blood type ,not shown on your brothers tag.I think we were under threat of Nuclear attack from Russia,Or It was a way to identify us In case of a major disaster.
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Charlie Hancock - I recall wearing "Dog tags" like the ones shown. Seems like it was the mid 1950s. The cold war was on. My Mother insisted I wear the tag. I did for a while. Soon it was uncool to do that.

In Vietnam, I had plastic slide in covers and a boot lace for the chain so they didn't clink together. I still have them somewhere.

Charlie Hancock, Navy Corpsman;
First Marine Division, R.V.N. 1971

You have to be young to do that stuff.
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Last Week's Mystery - Expanded
by Tommy Towery
Class of '64

I was happy to have my memory of the school kid dog tag validated with the responses to last week's mystery photo. I remember getting a set of the dog tags myself when I was a student at East Clinton Elementary School. I think it was around 1955 or so. That was during the "Duck and Cover" era when we practiced that and people were buying pamphlets on how to build bomb shelters. My personal memories of this event also includes memories that after a few weeks of wearing them some of the students started using them as early ways of declaring their undivided love (or like) of someone by swapping them with their romantic interest. That meant that had the bomb ever gone off, the bodies would have been misidentified because it was rare that someone had on their own personal dog tag.

In my research on the web to further document the dog tag facts, I came upon the image of the book above. I too think it was extremely optimistic that anyone would really think they could survive an atomic bomb attack, and we all knew that because of the missile facilities at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville was a primary target for the Ruskies!


Ghosts of the East Coast: Doomsday Ships
By Karl C. Priest

In the early stages of the Cold War an impending "Doomsday" weighed heavily upon the minds of Americans. President Truman instituted the Federal Civil Defense Administration which began issuing brochures, films, and radio advertisements to prepare citizens to survive a nuclear attack. Dog tags were issued to many school children who also went through "duck and cover" drills as they were trained to curl up under their school desks after a nuclear bomb detonation flash of light. Siren tests sounded at regular intervals and national and local publications ran articles about the imminent danger of nuclear war. Radios were marked with triangles at stations that would be used by CONELRAD1 broadcasts which would kick in as soon as all regular broadcasts ceased after the alarm sounded. Some American citizens were building backyard bomb shelters while local government, as well as private corporations, established larger shelters under various buildings. Many believed the best of these efforts were hopeless in the event of a nuclear nightmare.

Duck and Cover -- Deja Vu All Over Again
By David Greenberg

It takes a leap of historical imagination to conceive how the Cold War's nuclear attack drills, dog tags for school kids, and backyard bomb shelters could ever have been taken seriously.
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Subject:Book
Dianne Hughey McClure
Class of '64 

I would really have a hard time choosing one person because three people played a big roll in my school years. One you have written about so I would focus on the other two. Carolyn McCutcheon Hanks would be the subject of a book about my best female friend in high school. This friendship continued until her death on Jan 26 2004. She is still missed very much and always will be. The other book would be about Tommy Towery, I think you know him, my best  male friend in high school,although I knew him many years before then. I could not write a book about one without including the other because they each have a special place in the friendship area of my heart. I can no longer tell Carolyn thank you for her friendship,but I can tell Tommy so "Tommy thank you for your friendship".
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Subject:Bob Walker Book
Jeanne Ivey Embrey Carter

Tommy...I just finished reading your book about your friendship with Bob Walker. I didn't know if I could finish it once I started because I had so many tears spilling down my cheeks. What a beautifully written tribute to your best friend.....we should all be so lucky to have such an enduring friendship!
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Subject:Book
Shirley Jones Moore
Class of '66

I enjoyed reading your book in memory of Bob Walker. Not everyone has a true friendship that last that long. I have been friends with Andrea Gray Roberson '66 since we were in the first grade at Lincoln School. I would be interested in purchasing your book A Million Tomorrows if you still have copies. Let me know and I will mail you a check.

(Editor's Note: My first book, "A Million Tomorrows ... Memories of the Class of '64" is still available but I am not in town at the moment. I'll give some information about it when I get back home.)
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Research Help Requested

Kellie Vaughn Bentley - From Facebook

I just happened to stumble upon your FB page after you commented (or posted?) a note on one of the Huntsville remembered groups. I actually read your old HSV books a while back and keep meaning to email you. I am a recent UAH grad (English/Technical Comms) and am working on a book on the history of UAH. It's been several months since I read your book (I've been working on this project for 2 years, but had to stop briefly for a job change and then a move). Anyway, I vaguely recall you moving to Memphis and I wasn't quite sure of the time. Your book does a wonderful job describing the scenery of HSV during the time UAH was built and really "got going." I was curious if you had any friends/family who attended UAH or if you had any tales about that area (Holmes/Jordan/University "Athens Pike"/etc.) or the life of college kids in HSV during the 60s and 70s?

(Editor's Note: This request came through Facebook, but if you can help her please contact me and I will put you in contact with Kellie.
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This group is not a Lee High School group, but many Generals danced to their music at lots of the teen dances we attended during out time at Lee. Do you know who they are?  School and class year with emails please.
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