Edna Davis Fairley

birth: June 1883
location: Texas
death:
location:

father: James Anderson Monroe Davis
mother: Malissa Jane Castellaw

spouse: Cornelius Ethel Fairley

1900 census

1910 census

1920 census

1930 census

1940 census

death

children with Cornelius Ethel Fairley:

H C Fairley - 1903

C E Fairley - 1910 census

1910 census
location: Scurry County, Texas
date: April 20, 1910

C E Fairley  head  male  white  32  married - 10 years  Texas  farm labor
E P Fairley  wife  female  white  26  married - 10 years  3, 3  Texas
H L Fairley  son  male  white  9  single  Texas
H C Fairley  son  male  white  7  single  Texas
U M Fairley  son  male  white  4  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M23W-LGW : accessed 26 April 2017), E P Fairley in household of C E Fairley, Justice Precinct 3, Scurry, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 234, sheet 5A, family 80, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 1588; FHL microfilm 1,375,601.

C E Fairley - 1920 census

1920 census
location: Kern County, California
date: February 4, 1920

C E Fairley  head  male  white  41  married  Texas  machinist  oil company
Edna Fairley  wife  female  white  36  married  Texas
Herbert L Fairley  son  male  white  19  single  Texas
Houston Fairley  son  male  white  17  single  Texas
Uel Fairley  son  male  white  14  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHQS-CX9 : accessed 26 April 2017), Edna Fairley in household of C E Fairley, Township 16, Kern, California, United States; citing ED 112, sheet 53A, line 5, family 489, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), roll 100; FHL microfilm 1,820,100.

C E Fairley - 1930 census

1930 census
location: Los Angeles, Long Beach County, California
date: April 16, 1930

C E Fairley  head  male  white  53  married  Texas  oil field
Edna Fairley  wife  female  white  46  married  Texas
Dr. H C Fairley  son  male  white  27  single  Texas  dentist

"United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XCJG-6YY : accessed 26 April 2017), Edna Fairley in household of C E Fairley, Long Beach, Los Angeles, California, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 1131, sheet 23A, line 22, family 691, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 130; FHL microfilm 2,339,865.

Felix Davis - 1920 census

1920 census
location: Pleasanton, Atascosa County, Texas
date: February 4-5, 1920

Felix M Davis  head  male  white  41  married  Texas  tank labor
Nellie Davis  wife  female  white  39  married  Texas
Percy H Davis  son  male  white  17  single  Texas
Leon E Davis  daughter  female  white  14  single  Texas
Graham Davis  son  male  white  11  single  Texas
Warren D Davis  son  male  white  9  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCM5-QZV : accessed 26 April 2017), Felix M Davis, Pleasanton, Atascosa, Texas, United States; citing ED 11, sheet 13B, line 77, family 48, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), roll 1773; FHL microfilm 1,821,773.

Felix Monroe Davis - death

location: Pleasanton, Atascosa County, Texas
date: December 8, 1948

"Texas Deaths, 1890-1976," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K39T-G37 : 5 December 2014), Felix Monroe Davis, 08 Dec 1948; citing certificate number 50266, State Registrar Office, Austin; FHL microfilm 2,223,077.

Felix Davis - 1930 census

1930 census
location: North Pleasanton, Atascosa County, Texas
date:

Felix Davis  head  male  white  51  married  age @ 1st marriage 20  Texas
Nellie Davis  wife  female  white  50  married  age @ 1st marriage 19  Texas
Grayum Davis  son  male  white  22  single  Texas
Warren Davis  son  male  white  20  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HG54-HN2 : accessed 26 April 2017), Nellie Davis in household of Felix Davis, North Pleasanton, Atascosa, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 12, sheet 2A, line 35, family 36, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 2288; FHL microfilm 2,342,022.

F M Davis - 1940 census

1940 census
location: Atascosa County, Texas
date: April 8, 1940

F M Davis  head  male  white  60  married  Texas  car inspector for railroad
Nellie Davis  wife  female  white  58  married  Texas
Davis Davis  son  male  white  20  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KWN6-V3B : accessed 26 April 2017), Nellie Davis in household of F M Davis, North Pleasanton, Justice Precinct 8, Atascosa, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 7-12, sheet 4B, line 71, family 69, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 3979.

Felix Monroe Davis

birth: May 12, 1878
location: Athens, Henderson County, Texas
death:
location:

father: James Anderson Monroe Davis
mother: Malissa Jane Castellaw

spouse: Nellie Martin

1880 census

1910 census

World War I draft card

1920 census

1930 census

1940 census

death

burial

children with Nellie Martin:

Oliver Davis - 1902
Hubert Percy Davis - 1903
Leon E Davis - 1906
Grayum Davis - 1909
Warren David Davis - 1911

Monroe Davis - 1910 census

1910 census
location: Live Oak County, Texas
date: April 25, 1910

Monroe F Davis  head  male  white  31  married - 10 years  Texas
Nellie Davis  wife  female  white  29  married - 10 years  4, 4  Texas
Oliver Davis  son  male  white  9  single  Texas
Percy Davis  son  male  white  8  single  Texas
Leon Davis  daughter  female  white  5  single  Texas
Grayum Davis  son  male  white  2  single  Texas
James Davis  father  male  white  77  widowed  Georgia

"United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M2QQ-C6N : accessed 26 April 2017), Nellie Davis in household of Monroe F Davis, Justice Precinct 1, Live Oak, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 93, sheet 5B, family 82, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 1574; FHL microfilm 1,375,587.

Margaret Amanda Davis

birth: May 1876
location: Texas
death:
location:

father: James Anderson Monroe Davis
mother: Malissa Jane Castellaw

spouse: Charles Madison Kelly

1880 census

1900 census

1910 census

1920 census

1930 census

children with Charles Kelly:

Eva Kelly - 1894
Elizabeth Jane Kelly - 1896
Charles B Kelly - 1898
Ida Kelly - 1901
Warren Kelly - 1903
Melba Kelly - 1906
Wallace Kelly - 1908

Charles Kelly - 1930 census

1930 census
location: Bailey County, Texas
date: April 2, 1930

Charles M Kelly  head  male  white  69  married  age @ 1st marriage - 23  Missouri
Maggie Kelly  wife  female  white  53  married  age @ 1st marriage - 17  Texas

"United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HGBB-WW2 : accessed 26 April 2017), Charles M Kelly, Precinct 2, Bailey, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 3, sheet 1A, line 33, family 11, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 2289; FHL microfilm 2,342,023.

Charles Kelly - 1920 census

1920 census
location: Sylvester, Fisher County, Texas
date: March 12-13, 1920

Charlie M Kelly  head  male  white  58  married  Missouri
Maggie Kelly  wife  female  white  49  married  Texas
Warren Kelly  son  male  white  16  single  Texas
Melba Kelly  daughter  female  white  13  single  Texas
Wallace Kelly  son  male  white  10  single  Texas
Henry Williams  hired man  male  black  widowed  Louisiana

"United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MC93-V3J : accessed 26 April 2017), Wallace Kelly in household of Charlie M Kelly, Sylvester, Fisher, Texas, United States; citing ED 77, sheet 9B, line 59, family 176, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), roll 1796; FHL microfilm 1,821,796.

Charles Kelly - 1910 census

1910 census
location: Midland County, Texas
date: April 26-26, 1910

Charles Kelley  head  male  white  49  married - 16 years  Missouri
Maggie Kelley  wife  female  white  34  married - 16 years  7, 7  Texas
Eva Kelley  daughter  female  white  16  single  Texas
Bettie Kelley  daughter  female  white  14  single  Texas
Charles Kelley  son  male  white  12  single  Texas
Ida Kelley  daughter  female  white  9  single  Texas
Warren Kelley  son  male  white  7  single  Texas
Melba Kelley  daughter  female  white  4  single  Texas
Wallace Kelley  son  male  white  1 4/12  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M2QW-HG9 : accessed 26 April 2017), Eva Kelley in household of Charls Kelley, Justice Precinct 1, Midland, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 163, sheet 6A, family 83, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 1576; FHL microfilm 1,375,589.

Charles Madison Kelly - 1900 census

1900 census
location: Scurry County, Texas
date: June 16, 1900

C M Kelley  head  white  male  Jan 1862  38  married - 7 years  Missouri
Maggie Kelley  wife  white  female  May 1876  24  married - 7 years  3, 3  Texas
Eva Kelley  daughter  white  female  Feb 1894  6  single  Texas
Bettie Kelley  daughter  white  female  March 1896  4  single  Texas
Charles Kelley  son  white  male  June 1898  2  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M354-1F1 : accessed 26 April 2017), Maggie Kelley in household of C M Kelley, Justice Precincts 3-5, Scurry, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 135, sheet 11B, family 196, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,241,668.

Becky Haney and D N Walker marriage

date: September 1, 1889
location: Limestone County, Alabama

Gaines C Smith is witness.

Auschwitz History 5098.03

Review of Commandant of Auschwitz

Partial review of Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp

Spies in Arabia - Review

Spies in Arabia

Priya Satia, writes Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East to examine the establishment of the pre-war intelligence community in the Middle East and the eventual establishment of Britain’s covert empire following World War I. Of particular focus is the cultural characteristics of Edwardian intelligence agents and Britain’s use of air control in Arabia. Satia greatly contributes to the scholarship of British occupation in Arabia, and Spies in Arabia is a lively and interesting work.

            Satia begins by answering the question of why Arabia was important to the British. The region provided a land route to India where the British ruled indirectly as we read in Ideologies of the Raj by Thomas R. Metcalf (3). Arabia also provided a place for heroic action, which took the form of intelligence gathering. This beginning is important for our purposes because we can better understand why the British desired a presence in Arabia and how they overcame obstacles there. The British relied on intelligence agents for information from the interior of a land shrouded in mystique. Due to a weakened military force in South Africa, the rise of German power and imperial ambition, and political rumblings inside the Ottoman Empire, it became ever more important for the British to improve intelligence gathering methods in the Middle East (15).

            The cultural world of British agents proved the most interesting for me to read. Satia argues that upper-class British citizens with an eye towards literary careers found in Arabia a place to exploit their dreams (61). The agents sought a respite from political changes happening in Britain. In short, Arabia provided redemption from industrial, social, and political life in Edwardian Britain (72).  Satia argues that British agents’ fascination with Arabia shaped information gathering. “Interest in Arabia flooded Edwardian society just as that society had begun to steep itself in metaphysical enquiry” (96). In general, the British considered Arabia as a land of myth, mystique, and wreathed in an atmosphere of unreality (91). No other region had a biblical past quite like Arabia and Satia surmises that that past added a sense of otherness and mystical aura (84). Desert travel was travel back in time that required the agents to be healthy and not dependent on the trappings of everyday Edwardian society. Gertrude Bell believed that minimalism in the desert was ideal for spiritual and aesthetic redemption (92). Most agents argued for immersive travel through the Middle East to gather greater insight into the area. They were profoundly interested in the deepest secrets of creation while at the same time gathering information on politically- and militarily-useful information (97). It is understandable that the romantic years of the war and post-war offered opportunities for intelligence gatherers to fulfill dreams of adventure and storybook ardor (80). Arabia was the natural choice for adventure-seeking intelligence agents.

            In laying the groundwork for a covert empire, Satia explains the challenges the British intelligence agents had as they attempted to “Orientalize” themselves while collecting information. Despite adopting styles, habits, and mannerisms of Middle Eastern peoples, they experienced quite a bit of trouble in their endeavors. British agents characterized the Middle Eastern people as never telling the truth, estimating, or otherwise being coy. Natives were also known to mix fact with mysticism. For example, in a report submitted as intelligence by Mark Sykes, he relayed a mythical story as told by a sheikh in response to an inquiry about agricultural activities in the area. The sheikh went on to tell a story about two owls falling in love and the issues they encountered. Sykes made use of the story because it was generally believed by the agents that even the most outlandish recounting contained some truth or useful information (100). This is just one example of many that Satia uses to clarify for readers the difficulty agents faced. They were left to their own devices to translate what they had gathered into useful information. In addition, it is clear from Satia’s chapter about the cultural world of the agents that they used the intelligence gathered as an outlet to hone their literary skills.

            If the agents had trouble gathering information, Satia describes how perhaps the environment itself gave them more trouble. The British agents had never before encountered a region as filled with mysticism and history as they did in Arabia. Arabia was a land wreathed in an atmosphere of unreality. Not only did the British have trouble surveying the area, for a time they thought it an impossibility. Agents described the land as infinite, immeasurable, interminable, and featureless. How could the British map a country that was constantly blown into a new form every day? The Royal Geographical Society admitted that Arabia was almost wholly without survey in any scientific sense (105).  I think Satia’s treatment of how the British reacted to the land of imprecise borders, mirage, and myth is her greatest gift to Britain’s history in Arabia.

            Satia expertly weaves together the difficulties experienced by the agents in gathering useful information and the trouble the agents experienced with the environment. The author makes it seem like air control was a foregone conclusion in the attempts of colonialism by the British in Arabia. Surveillance practices and methods of coercion became dependent on air control; this turned Arabia into an arm of the British Empire but without outright British occupation.

Given the fact-finding issues with native Middle Easterners and the challenges of desert life and travel, I think Satia presents a convincing argument that the British were faced with more challenges in Arabia than either India, Africa, or China. T.E. Lawrence is credited with being the first to realize the need for aerial control over the region. Satia expertly sets up the need for aerial surveys. By utilizing aircraft, agents were able to extract truth from an essentially deceptive land (159). Air control allowed easier communication between tribes and agents. The Royal Air Force was able to aerially patrol Arabia from a network of bases and coordinate information from agents on the ground in order to bombard subversive or corrupt villages and tribes (240). Air control meant control without occupation and a secret, covert empire.

Agents on the ground in Iraq believed that country was especially suited to aerial surveillance. Given the nature of the environment in Iraq, there were many landing zones, little cover to insurgents, and the British were able to make use of far-flung bases allowed the British to radiate power throughout the country. The British justified air control by believing that air control was chivalrous warfare (242).

Overall what Satia is able to prove, is that although the British began with knowledge gathering in mind, their quest evolved into a struggle for power in Arabia. “The quest for knowledge became entangled with a quest for power” (137). To gather knowledge, the agents simply needed to immerse themselves in Middle Eastern culture and landscape (138). As the war ended and the use of air control increased, the quest for power manifest itself in the covert empire. Air control was used because the more overt colonial rule was a political impossibility (262). The only way the British could keep their hand in Middle Eastern matters was to rule aerially, and thus, covertly. Satia ties this to today’s events in the Middle East where it’s more economically and politically acceptable to control from the air (think: the bombs recently dropped in Syria) than “boots on the ground.”

Generally, I liked this thematically organized book. The reader’s initial impression may be of a haphazard and overwhelming organization, but as one reads the chapters Spies in Arabia becomes easier to comprehend. This book is not for the common reader, nor someone with no prior knowledge of British Imperialism in the Middle East. Satia gives few hints on what an Edwardian character was, nor does she clarify the cultural or political differences between a consul, intelligence gatherer, or agent.

I think there was one aspect missing from the work, and that is the tie between aerial control and wireless technology. One could not have been very useful to the British without the other. While Satia does write that ground agents did not become indispensible with the rise of air control, she never actually examines why.

Finally, the similarities between the problems encountered with mapping the area during the British colonial project in Arabia call to mind Google’s general problem in the same area. If you pull up Google Street View, “Arabia” is a blank map, especially when compared to other parts of the world. Although the reasons why are different, even today the region still maintains an aura of mystery. Today’s society has the benefit of high-technology satellites, drones, GPS, and imagery mapping, but “Arabia” is still shrouded in mystery on one of the Internet’s greatest travel tools.  

Catherine Smith loose ends

Name:Andrew SmithAge:48Birth Year:abt 1802Birthplace:South CarolinaHome in 1850:Division 11, Carroll, Georgia, USAGender:MaleFamily Number:416Household Members:

Name	Age
Andrew Smith	48
Nancy Smith	53
Margaret Smith	18
Sarah Smith	16
Martha Smith	14
Nancy Smith	13
Catharine Smith	10
Stephen Smith	6 Name: A Smith Age: 50 Birth Year: abt 1810 Gender: Male Birth Place: South Carolina Home in 1860: Beat 2, Cass, Texas Post Office: Hickory Hill Family Number: 248 Value of real estate: View image Household Members: Name Age A Smith 50 A Smith 63 S Smith 30 C Smith 20 J A S Smith 18