I was born in San Francisco in 1951, to Henry and Barbara Hoover. My father was born in Chicago in 1915 to Norwegian immegrants (his mom spoke only Norwegian at home for decades), his father is renowned for being the fellow that could move a seven-story brick building miles to another location, using poles for rollers, block-and-tackle, and drawn by stout horses. The Hoover family moved to Nebraska shortly after my father was born and there they raised corn and hogs. Dad spoke many times of walking nine miles to school in six foot snow. He told of how, during the mid-1920's and especially during the depression, how he and all the other boys brought their .22 rifles and single-shot shotguns to school where they all lined up neatly by each student's lunch box, ready to hunt along the road for that night's dinner. There were never any fights or shootings, for in those days they all possessed the qualities of respect and honor. Tornados could not end their farm, but the dust bowl did, and in the mid-30's the family packed up the tin lizzy and headed to California. For awhile they setteled in Modesto, but the "Grapes of Wrath" were such that they moved on to San Francisco, and in soon the war began and when it finally ended , Dad returned from the army and met my Mom.
My mothers side of the family goes back the Butler family and the Duke of Ormond in Ireland as early as 1066 AD. Apparently, after centuries of serving their king, some of the Butlers left the strife of the 30 Years War for the new world. Peter Butler I is recorded as having arrived in 1635 abord the ship JAMES, his daughter's birth is recorded as being 1650 in Boston. Direct descendants included John Butler, who served as a lieutenant in the French and Indian Wars. His son Phineas Butler and Phineas Butler II served in Revolutionary War, with Phineas Butler II being a Sargent in the Cavalry and serving in the campaigns at Saratoga, Ticonderoga and was with General Washington's troops at Valley Forge. He is celebrated for having been the first to settle a new land called Maine, clearing the land, planting crops, drawing other settlers and reputedly killed an attacking bear with an ax. A distantly related Major General Richard Butler served in the Revolutionary War as well (later killed by Indians in 1791), with five of his sons serving under General Washington. Lafayette is quoted as saying " Whenever I want anything well done, I get a Butler to do it."
A more distantly related Pierce Butler was a signator to BOTH the Declaration of Independence AND the Constitution. Other Butler ancestors also fought with Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. in the war of 1812. A most notorious Butler (distantly related) was Benjamin Franklin Butler, born in Mass. in 1818 who became a famous lawyer, was a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, voted for Jefferson Davis at the convention, but once Lincoln won and the Civil War broke out, Lincoln called upon Butler, as the head of the Mass. Volunteer Militia, to be a brigader general in the Union Army. Gen. Butler did what Lincoln only dreamed of doing, being the first to free slaves by military force. Butler then used freed black slaves in his Army of the James as combat troops to prove the worth of the black fighting man. The literature details many casualities, but also tells of great faith and inner strength where wounded soldiers, after having been treated for having lost both legs, crawled, by hand, back to the front lines to help load rifles for their comrades. The South placed a bounty on General Butler's head (kill on sight), the ONLY such bounty issued during the Civil War.
After the war, he became a congressman, and is famous for issuing a report to congress on the KKK. He was responsible, in part, for the 14th amendment and initiating the impeachment of President Johnson. He later became the Governor of Mass., ran for vice-president on the Greenback party ticket, and got sick and died on his way to argue a case in the Supreme Court in 1893.
One of his descendants, Simpson D. Butler was a representative in the Colorado Legislature in the early 1920's (this would be my great-great grandfather).
His daughter Nona, born in 1899 was a survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and lived to see the year 2001. My mother, Barbara, served in the Coast Guard in WWII, guarding the San Francisco docks with a jeep and a Smith & Wesson .38. I attended a parochial elementary school (St. Cecilias) and public juinor high and Lincoln High School, attended San Francisco City College, attended various other colleges in California, and a police academy.
I have two daughters from a previous marriage to a lady of Peruvian origin. Daughters Heather and Kim are graduates of San Francisco State University. Heather, my eldest, is employed at the U.C.S.F. Medcial Center. Kimberly also works at the same medical center and, last September, gave birth to my first Grandson, Aaron. Over the decades, I have worked as a salesman for gunshops and police supply stores, owning a small one myself before I moved here in the early 90's. I also was a deputy sheriff in a very poor county in the 1970's, and a highly-compensated high-tech security consultant in the 80's and 90's. Once relocated here, I designed and sold many of the innovative security and camera systems used at many of the hospital, government and high-tech companies in the Treasure Valley. (I am currently a Financial Planner and Independant Insurance Agent)
California can be a very strange place. In the early 1960's, people in San Francisco had honest happy smiles and were warm and open, much like Boise is still today. Thru the magic of Fabianism (incremental attacks), California slowly became less free. The people no longer friendly and smiling, they are stressed and oppressed. It costs $2,500 per month to rent an apartment in San Francisco, insurance for your car can be $3,000 a year and auto registration $500 to $1,000 a year. Parking tickets can be $500 to $1,300. Everything is taxed. One must comply with the prevailing thought of the flock. People there are told that Republicans and conservatives are bad, gun owners are bad, property owners are bad, religion is bad, morals are bad. One is as likely to fall victim to the police state as they are to fall victim to criminals. It is a dangerous place. About the best thing I can say about it is that it is a good place to be FROM.
The bad thing is that the attitudes and insanities of California are headed this way, a little of it via the people moving here, but most of it is decided by large enities. For example, when the population of the Treasure Valley area hit a pre-determined figure, the "big-box" companies automatically began to move into the area. I remember when I first saw the Boise Town Square Mall and thought these people were nuts to be putting a big mall in the middle of 100's of acres of cow pasture ! I guess it was a case of "if you build it, they will come" for now the cow pastures are paved over and built up. Many of the smaller local businesses have been hurt as a result of the big-box stores, but it wasan't Californians demanding them, it was the big corporations in search of a market population.
The other bad thing is the ideological war, for there are think-tanks out there in California and the East Coast that think that Idaho is "out of line" in the way people here think and behave, and they are gonna fix that for us. Harvard-educated lawyers have come and worked as cub reporters for small newspapers in smaller Idaho cities. Teachers and professors come from "enlightened" areas to help us "outgrow our backward way." Believe me, something evil this way comes. These people plan on winning. They live among you, but they think you are somehow inferior, you are their project, their mission. They don't like me, for I endeavour to expose them at every turn.
