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Opinion Page |
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Our beloved mother, and "Ginaw" went to be with our Lord on February 20, 2009. She was born in Ft. Worth, Texas on January 20, 1921 to Cuthbert and Lillian Meek. She spent her childhood on a dairy farm in Cisco, Texas, moving back Ft. Worth, Texas at the age of 11. She was a 1938 honor graduate of North Side High School during the depression. After graduating she went to work to help support the family. That is when she met the love of her life, Scott Furgerson Wimberly. They married February 3, 1940 and lived happily ever after for 52 years when Scott passed away. After marrying they moved to Houston where they lived until 1970 when Vera designed their dream house on the 19th tee box of Panorama Village in Conroe. She was always involved with her children's activities, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, baseball, softball, football, even finding time to crochet, knit, garden golf, and go back to school at Sam Houston University taking writing classes. Two of her childrens books were published by Highlights Magazine, also publishing a childrens prayer book, Please Listen God! in 1978. With all of her writing, schooling and searching for ancestors she took time out to travel to Europe, Hawaii, Southeast Asia, and London. She began her genealogy quest in 1975 and published the Wimberly Family History Book in 1979. She was a Charter Member of the Montgomery County Genealogical and Historical Society, Editor of the Herold [Herald] for 20 years, Member of Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of 1812 National Society of Colonial Dames of 17th Century, Society of Descendants of Washingtons Army at Valley Forge, National Society of Magna Charta Dames, and created a character known as "Mehitabe Higginbotham" that spoke at numerous genealogical society meetings. She was past President of the Pine Forest Garden Club, The Womens Golf Association at Pine Forest Country Club, The Womens Golf Association at Panorama Country Club, and the Texas Senior Golf Association. She was also a past member of The Hughie Call Scribblers Club. And now ? she has gone home for a much needed rest! She is preceded in death by her parents, Cuthbert and Lillian Meek, husband, Scott F. Wimberly, son, Butch Wimberly, sister, Jean Morrow and brother Robert A Meek, Vera is survived by her daughter and son in law, Gay and Darold Lockler, son, Scott Wimberly Jr., her grandchildren, Chris Harbolt, Jennifer Lockler, Trey Wimberly, and Kendyl Wimberly and great grandchildren, Zoey Harbolt and Devin Harbolt-whom she called her handsome dude, her sister in law Ann Meek, along with nieces and nephews and all of her wonderful and dear friends. A special Thanks to Nancy and Stacy of Odyssey for all of their compassion
shown to our mother. Graveside services for Vera will be held Wednesday
February 25, 2009 at 2:00pm at Garden Park Cemetery with Dr. Cliff Herrington
officiating. Visitation is Tuesday February 24, from 5-8pm at Metcalf Funeral
Home. In Lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Caushatti Trace chapter
DAR Scholarship Fund at 595 Texas Park Conroe 77302.
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| Personal Notices: |
I have started the process of publishing
Volume
II of the Wimberley/Wimberly Family History book. It will feature
Lewis Wimberly who was born in Bertie Co, NC and died in 1817 in Smith
Co, TN. Lewis was the father of 18 children from two marriages and most
lineages of the Wimberley/Wimberly families can be traced back to one of
these 18 children. The master database I maintain now has over 21,000 entries
of Wimberley/Wimberly's and other surnames that married into the Wimberley/Wimberly
family.
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| Wonderful Cellular Phone Technology Changes |
| In 1989, I purchased my very first cellular Telephone with Cellular One (now Verizon Wireless) out of Springfield, IL for $180.00. At that time, I was working for thIe State of Illinois, DCCA, and was traveling throughout the state and needed an easier way to communicate with my home office in Springfield, IL then to stand out in the cold and rain at some public pay phone. There was no cellular service at that time in Marion, IL and my phone would not work until you traveled north and west to a point somewhere between Mt. Vernon, IL and New Athens, IL. It was a wonderful technology advancement and I welcomed it with open arms. As you can see in the picture to the right, the Uniden was a large bag phone at about 7.5 lbs. I carried it with pride everywhere, including meetings, restaurants, etc, for none of my peers and few others had the convenience of a mobile telephone at that time. The phone is now retired but can still make emergency 911 calls. |  |
| During the years that
followed, I had various cellular telephones, including the original Motorola
MicroTAC 550, a Nokia 918, and a special Motorola Lincoln
integrated (Analog) cellular phone. I watched the advancement in digital
phone technology but didn't give it much attention because I knew the telephone
I had gave me the ability to communicate. The biggest problem with the
analog MicroTAC was battery management. It did not have much talk or stand-by
time and when you needed to use the phone it probably was out of battery
power and you would always have to change batteries at a critical time.
In emergencies, you could use standard Alkaline batteries in a special
housing but you always had to have a spare battery on hand to insure you
could get the calls you wanted and when you wanted them.
The Motorola MicroTAC was a great leap forward in cellular phone design. I got mine in 1991 and paid over $120 for it. |
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| II upgraded my cellular
telephone in 2004 with First Cellular of Southern Illinois. I got
a FREE Motorola 120e digital phone (see right) that is simply astonishing,
beside the small size, as to the features and what it can do. It has a
mini-browser, text messinger, games, ring tones that are out-of-this world,
and other features that are too numerous to mention. You can also attach
a fax machine to it and fax from anywhere to anywhere in the world. It
has a built-in
GPS receiver that sends, through the telephone connection,
a Lon-Lat address to anyone that pays for the service, including 911 systems.
You will never be lost!
The Motorola 120E has over 260 minutes of talk time and over 400 hours of stand-by time. That is amazing considered the size of the phone and the battery. |
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| IIn 2007, I obtained a Blackberry 8800 smart phone as a gift which is indeed amazing. It has turn-by-turn GPS navigation, internet service, and e-mail service for my many addresses. It makes all of my previous cellular telephones look old and antiquated. The technology on smart-phones is progressing so rapidly that once you purchase one, it is obsolete. My Blackbery has become my primary telephone number. I have AT&T Wireless service which allows me to roll-over all unused minutes each month which saves me considerable money. |  |
| In 2009, I purchased a Blackberry 9000 (Bold) smart phone after my 8800 got the hickups from a operating system upgrade to version 4.5 suggested by RIM (Research in Motion). It has all of the features of the 8800 plus it has the ability to connect to WiFi "hot spots" and to the AT&T 3G network. It also has a better resolution screen and a faster (685mh) processor. The 9000 also has a video and still camera which makes it very valuable in a pinch. My 8800 Blackberry was returned to me by AT&T after they couldn't repair it. I charged the battery and turned it on. It has worked like a charm ever since. Nothing is wrong with it. |  |
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Family Tree Maker is spying on you and your Genealogy files Privacy and security over the internet have
become a major issue these days. It has come to WFG attention that Family
Tree Maker® has taken it upon themselves to include a little program
in FTM Version 9 that gives away a lot of personal information about the
user. It is activated by a file called "aqueduct.dll" stored in the FTW
directory and utilized every time Family Tree Maker is run. A file called
aqueduct.txt
is generated and stored in the root directory of C drive with all the user
information. It is really no one's business what the real name of your
computer is, what hardware you are running, what login name you use, what
dates and times you used FTW, how many files you have, what operating system
you are using, etc. They even go so far as to tell you that they are gathering
in formation to determine usage patterns. (see the below header of the
aqueduct.txt file)
Microsoft's attempt to dominate the computer market Microsoft is attempting to dominate every computer
in the world by little tricks they are pulling everywhere. There are many
pages now on the Internet that will not work unless you have Microsoft
Internet Explorer installed. Microsoft has a special server side page (.asp)
that will only work with Internet Explorer. If you use Netscape Communicator,
it has to go through an "interpreter" which delays the showing of the page
by anywhere from one to five minutes. Microsoft wants to eliminate all
Netscape browses from all computers in the world.
Music and Animation on Web Pages You will notice I do not have any flashing
animation, music or other distractions (other than the
background image) on the Wimberly Family Genealogy page. I am from the
old school that believes if you have substantial data and an interesting
page, you don't have to become a showperson to have people come back and
visit your web page.
Mail-Order Genealogy Offers Every once in awhile I receive an offer in the mail from an outfit in Ohio that seems to state they have my family lineage information and I can get this information in a book they will soon publish. I sent my money in twice for these books in my early days of genealogy and all I ever received was a list of Wimberly's in the United States with their addresses and telephone numbers packaged in with general genealogy rhetoric. If you will look at the small print, the company states, "No direct genealogical connection to your family or to your ancestry is implied or intended." You get exactly what they say you'll get. If you want an expensive telephone book listing only Wimberly's (which is not always up-to-date) then you should order one of these books. Otherwise, steer clear of their offers. You may be disappointed.
If you would like to discuss my opinions with me, please send an e-mail here. This page was last updated on December 22, 2008 Thomas L. Wimberly, Publisher
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