Smokey LeGrand

My Dad and I adopted Smokey from the Houston SPCA in 1969. She was his favorite cat and lived a long long life with him after I left home. He loved her so much he had a portrait painted of her. Today would be my Dad's 98th birthday.

PawPaw and Friends

Two more pictures of my Dad with Smokey and Tam in his favorite recliner.

My Parent's Wedding

Here is a picture of my parents on their wedding day September 1, 1940 and a story my mother wrote about their journey to their new home in Boothville La..

Cinco de Mayo

Today would have been my father's 96th birthday. He loved that his birthday was on Cinco de Mayo, a day filled with lots of parties and celebrations in Texas.

My dad with my sister and me

Henry Fain LeGrand

My grandfather Henry Fain LeGrand was the was the son of Dr. Peter G. LeGrand (1845-1890) and Petronia Olena Fain LeGrand (1854-1936) of Weatherford, TX. They married in 1870 and had 6 children:

Henry Fain (1872-1946)
Alma Lillian (1874-1909)
William (1876-?)
John (1879-?)
Mary Edna (1881-?)
Francis Cecil (1885-?)

Henry spent most of his life in Weatherford and like my father, worked for Gulf Oil.

My father never knew his father but my mother went to visit him when my father was in Kuwait and I have a letter he wrote to her about her visit saying how proud he was of his son. He died shortly after her visit while my father was stationed in Kuwait.

My Dad

For Father's Day this year I've decided to honor my dad, who died in 1998, by posting some pictures of him from his earliest years through adulthood, at work, and at play.



Here are some early pictures.

This picture shows him with his mother, Sarah Effie Meads Huebner and his aunts Ida and Rena. Even though you can't really see him very well, I've included this picture of him in the car. This may have been one of the first cars he had ever seen and it's easy to imagine his excitement at being able to sit in one.

My father was very proud of this picture. It was his first suit and he was probably feeling very grown up wearing it. You can see what a handsome young man he was.

At work.

A true engineer, he loved working in the oil industry and loved all things mechanical.

At Play.

The cute little baby in this picture is his granddaughter Erin. They are sitting on his porch at the house he built on Lake Livingston. When I say he built the house I mean he really built the house. He was the contractor and did most of the work himself. He probably enjoyed building the house as much as he did spending time there after it was finished. The other picture was taken in Mexico when we were on vacation.



Here are two more pictures I found. The first was taken in Florida at Parrot Jungle. In the other picture he is enjoying the company of his 3 grandchildren, Tamara, Emily and Erin.

This was taken after he received a promotion at Gulf Oil and they needed a picture of him for one of their publications.

Another picture of my dad, this time with my daughter, probably taken on his boat dock on Lake Livingston.

Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad would have been 95 on May 5th (Cinco de Mayo). This picture was taken on a trip a few years before he died when we went to Huatulco, Mexico. He loved water, especially the beautiful beaches in Mexico. Over the years we went on many trips together but I believe this was the last one.

My Dad, Bill LeGrand

My dad was born in Houston, Texas on May 5, 1916. His mother was Sarah Effie Meads and his father was Henry Fain LeGrand. He spent his childhood in Houston and Bryan and after graduating from high school enrolled at Texas A & M where he received a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering. In 1940 he started working for Gulf Oil and he continued to work for them until he retired in 1978.
I didn't have a really close relationship with him as a child but we became closer after my mother died, and had a really good relationship when I became an adult, especially after my daughter Tamara was born. He really adored her and they spent a lot of time together when she had breaks from school. Today she works in the same industry he worked in and I think that would have made him very happy. He would have been really happy if any of his grandchildren had gone to A & M
but none of them did. He absolutely loved A & M and attended all of their football games with his friends Joe and Jesse.
After my mom died he had to start cooking for us and became a wonderful cook. Everybody in my family remembers how wonderful some of his meals were especially his spaghetti and meatballs.
He loved water and fishing and after he retired built a house on Lake Livingston. He also built a lot of the furniture that was in the house. He could build just about anything . He enjoyed taking his boat out on the water at sunset or sitting on his deck sipping his scotch and soda.
He also loved cats and always had at least one. When I was in high school we adopted a gray kitten named Smokey from the SPCA and he kept her for many years and even had an oil painting done of her which I still have. He also had several strays who adopted him over the years including a black cat he named Shadow, because she followed him everywhere, and a gray Tom who called my dad meow (that was his joke).
He died on June 6, 1998 from complications from a stroke he had had over a year earlier. The stroke left him partially paralyzed and he was very unhappy, so his death was a relief, but I still miss him, especially on Father Day.