Jose Mendoza Lopez (1910-2005)

    Jose Mendoza Lopez, Medal of Honor recipient, was born on July 10, 1910, the son of Cayetano and Candida Mendoza de Lopez. Although military records list his birthplace as Mission, Texas, he was born in Santiago Atitlán, Mexico. In 1935 he purchased a false birth certificate in order to join the United States Merchant Marines. His early years were difficult. Lopez never knew his father and had been told by his mother that he had drowned. After his mother’s death from tuberculosis when he was eight and with no way to support himself, the boy headed to the Rio Grande Valley. As a youngster, Lopez attended little school and worked in the cotton fields around Brownsville to support himself while living with an uncle or other friends. In his teens, Lopez hitched a ride on a freight train and ended up in Atlanta, Georgia. A local boxing promoter, impressed with Lopez’s athleticism, arranged some amateur fights for the youngster. Needing shoes, Lopez turned professional. From 1927 to 1934 Lopez, billed as “Kid Mendoza,” compiled a record of fifty-two wins and three losses in the lightweight division. Years later, he stated that the highlight of his boxing career was when he shook hands with Babe Ruth in Atlanta before a bout. From 1935 through 1941 Lopez found employment in the Merchant Marine working on ships and traveling the world. After a period of employment in Hawaii, he was on a ship headed to the United States when he heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

    After his arrival in California, authorities wanted to arrest him until he convinced them he was Mexican not Japanese. In 1942 Lopez returned to Brownsville and married his girlfriend, Emilia Herrera; she was his wife of sixty-two years until her death in 2004. Together they had four daughters and a stepson from his wife’s previous marriage. With his wife’s support, he enlisted in the United States Army and spent a brief time at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio before going to Camp Roberts (California) for basic training. Assigned to Company K of the Twenty-third Infantry Regiment, Second Infantry Division, Lopez’s unit trained in Northern Ireland where it prepared for the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe: D-Day. Described as short and stocky, the five-foot-five, 130-pound Lopez excelled in combat. Assigned to a weapons platoon, he set foot in Normandy on June 7, 1944. Although wounded on D-Day plus 1, Lopez refused treatment and evacuation and was determined to remain with his unit. He participated in the hedgerow action near Saint-Lô, the fight to take Brest, and was involved in steady combat in France and Belgium for the rest of 1944. For his efforts, Lopez was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

    On December 17, 1944, Sergeant Lopez witnessed the Germans launch their offensive in the Ardennes against Allied forces in the Battle of the Bulge. Situated with Company K near Krinkelt, Belgium, Lopez took action on his own. Holding a heavy machine gun, Lopez found cover in a shallow hole and positioned himself. Taking aim at the soldiers surrounding a German Tiger tank, he immediately fired and killed ten of the enemy. Despite enemy fire from the tank, Lopez held firm and killed twenty-five additional Germans who were attempting to outflank him. He avoided blasts from the tank until one landed close enough for the concussion to lift him off the ground and throw him backward. Lopez recovered quickly, avoided being outflanked by the Germans again, reset his weapon, and fired to protect Company K. Then, using the dense forest for cover and constantly on the move, Lopez continued to fire and kill Germans. Eventually he met up with a few of his fellow soldiers to establish another defense point, where he continued fire until his ammunition was exhausted. In an operation that lasted from 11:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., Lopez killed more than 100 enemy soldiers - more than any other American serviceman during World War II. His efforts stabilized the flank and provided time for his company to regroup which eventually caused the Germans to bypass Krinkelt.

    In a ceremony in Nuremberg, Maj, Gen. James A. Van Fleet presented Jose Mendoza Lopez the Medal of Honor on June 18, 1945, for his “gallantry and intrepidity, on seemingly suicidal missions in which he killed at least 100 of the enemy, were almost solely responsible for allowing Company K to avoid being enveloped, to withdraw successfully and to give other forces coming in support time to build a line which repelled the enemy drive.” With the end of the war in Europe, Lopez returned to Texas and worked for the Veterans Administration in San Antonio. Shortly after the war, upon a visit to Mexico City, he was honored with la Condecoracion de Merito Militar, Mexico’s highest award for military valor, by Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho. Lopez also took great pride when Mexican President Miguel Alemán Valdés invited him to Mexico City and honored him with the Order of the Aztec Eagle in 1948. In 1949 he reenlisted in the United States Army and was assigned to the Second Infantry Division. At the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, Sergeant Lopez returned to combat until a ranking officer, learning he was a Medal of Honor recipient, ordered him to the rear. For several months, he retrieved bodies and registered them for burial until being reassigned to Japan. Lopez remained in the military serving as a recruiter and working in a motor pool where he was responsible for its maintenance operations and crew. In 1973 he retired with the rank of master sergeant.

    In retirement, Lopez remained active and spent time with his wife, children, and grandchildren in San Antonio. The Mexican-born Lopez also took the opportunity to talk with young people about his love for America. He found civilian employment, sometimes holding two jobs at a time. To stay in shape, Lopez jogged until he was eighty-eight and met with a physical trainer three times a week until early 2005. In January 2004 Lopez attended the inauguration of President George W. Bush; having attended earlier ones for: John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. In his final years, Lopez was hindered by frail health and used a walker. Before his wife’s death in 2004, he devoted much effort to taking care of her. On May 16, 2005, he died of cancer at the home of his daughter, Maggie Wickwire, in San Antonio. At the time he had been the oldest surviving Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient in the United States. Lopez, a Catholic, was buried with full military honors at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. Jose M. Lopez Middle School in San Antonio and Jose M. Lopez Park in Mission were named in his honor. A statue of Lopez also commemorates the veteran in Veterans Park in Brownsville. Source 

CITATION

On his own initiative, he carried his heavy machine gun from Company K's right flank to its left, in order to protect that flank which was in danger of being overrun by advancing enemy infantry supported by tanks. Occupying a shallow hole offering no protection above his waist, he cut down a group of 10 Germans. Ignoring enemy fire from an advancing tank, he held his position and cut down 25 more enemy infantry attempting to turn his flank. Glancing to his right, he saw a large number of infantry swarming in from the front. Although dazed and shaken from enemy artillery fire which had crashed into the ground only a few yards away, he realized that his position soon would be outflanked. Again, alone, he carried his machine gun to a position to the right rear of the sector; enemy tanks and infantry were forcing a withdrawal. Blown over backward by the concussion of enemy fire, he immediately reset his gun and continued his fire. Single-handed he held off the German horde until he was satisfied his company had effected its retirement. Again he loaded his gun on his back and in a hail of small arms fire he ran to a point where a few of his comrades were attempting to set up another defense against the onrushing enemy. He fired from this position until his ammunition was exhausted. Still carrying his gun, he fell back with his small group to Krinkelt. Sgt. Lopez's gallantry and intrepidity, on seemingly suicidal missions in which he killed at least 100 of the enemy, were almost solely responsible for allowing Company K to avoid being enveloped, to withdraw successfully and to give other forces coming up in support time to build a line which repelled the enemy drive.

Section AI
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 28.579, -098° 25.976

Bailey Hardeman (1795-1836)

    Bailey Hardeman, War of 1812 soldier, Santa Fe trader, mountain man, a founder and officer of the Republic of Texas, thirteenth or fourteenth child of Thomas and Mary (Perkins) Hardeman, was born at the Thomas Hardeman station or stockade, near Nashville, on February 26, 1795. His father was a prominent frontiersman who served in the North Carolina convention that considered ratifying the United States Constitution at Hillsboro, North Carolina, and in the Tennessee state constitutional convention of 1796. Bailey spent his early years in Davidson and Williamson counties, Tennessee. He was a store proprietor, deputy sheriff of Williamson County, and lawyer in Tennessee. At eighteen he served as an artillery officer in the War of 1812 under his father's friend Andrew Jackson in Louisiana. On June 19, 1820, he married Rebecca Wilson, also of Williamson County. The next year he joined his father and his brother John on the Missouri frontier west of Old Franklin. There he met William Becknell and became involved in the early Santa Fe trade. Hardeman was in the Meredith Miles Marmaduke expedition to New Mexico in 1824-25. He and Becknell trapped beaver along the Colorado River north and west of Santa Cruz and Taos and narrowly escaped starvation during the winter of 1824-25. On his return trip to Missouri, he lost two horses and a mule to Osage Indian attackers, but his overall trading profits must have been considerable. He was able to finance the Santa Fe trading trip of William Scott in the summer of 1825.

    Several years later he endowed Hardeman Academy at Hardeman's Cross Roads (later Triune), donated lands to Wilson's Creek Baptist Church, and opened a tavern and store, all in Williamson County, Tennessee. A few years after his return to Tennessee he moved from Williamson to Hardeman County. In the fall of 1835 he and his brothers Thomas Jones and Blackstone Hardeman and his sister Julia Ann Bacon, together with their families, numbering about twenty-five people in all, moved to Texas. Bailey and several other members of the family quickly joined the independence movement. Bailey's first involvement was to help secure an eighteen-pound cannon at Dimmitt's Landing near the mouth of the Lavaca River and haul it to San Antonio, an action that encouraged Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos to surrender his forces, on December 10, 1835. On November 28, while Hardeman was on the artillery assignment, the General Council of the provisional government appointed him to serve on a commission to organize the militia of Matagorda Municipality. After this, Hardeman's activities shifted from the military to the political arena. He was elected a representative from Matagorda to the convention at work on the Texas Declaration of Independence. He arrived at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 1, 1836, and was selected to serve on the five-member drafting committee of the declaration.

    After the convention approved the document, Bailey, along with two other members of the committee, was appointed to a twenty-one-member committee to draw up a constitution for the Republic of Texas. The resulting Constitution was approved in mid-March. Hardeman performed several other services for the convention, including membership on the militia and tariff-payment committees. Although he requested to be excused in order to rejoin the military forces, he was persuaded to assume other political duties. The delegates elected him secretary of the treasury. Concurrently with this position, he held the office of secretary of state when Samuel P. Carson left for the United States on April 2-3, 1836. After the fall of the Alamo, Hardeman fled eastward with other cabinet members as the ad interim government moved from Washington to Harrisburg, and from Harrisburg to Galveston Island, in advance of approaching Mexican troops. The group reached Galveston in safety around the time of the battle of San Jacinto; after the Texas victory, Hardeman left the island to deliver supplies to the soldiers of the republic. As acting secretary of state he negotiated and signed two treaties, an open document honorably ending the war and providing for removal of Mexican soldiers from Texas, and a secret agreement in which Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna promised diplomatic recognition of the new republic. Hardeman was then appointed to go to Mexico City in order to help secure ratification of the open treaty. His service to the republic was cut short by his death from congestive fever, probably on September 25, 1836, at his Matagorda County home on Caney Creek. He was buried there, but in 1936 his remains were moved to the State Cemetery in Austin. Bailey was survived by his wife and four children. A daughter had died at the age of eight in Hardeman County, Tennessee. Hardeman County, Texas, was named for Bailey and Thomas Jones Hardeman. Source

Monument Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES30° 15.918, -097° 43.637

William P. Massey (?-?)

    William Massey [Massie] came to Texas in 1835 from parts unknown and enlisted in the Texas army on April 4, 1836. Assigned a soldier in Captain Amasa Turner's Company, he was with them at the Battle of San Jacinto. After the battle, Massey was stationed on Galveston Island as part of Captain John Smith's Company and discharged on October 25, 1837. He received his first land grant for his military service in March 1838 for a third of a league in Harrisburg, now Harris, County, and his second certificate in October 1838 for 1,280 acres of land in Montgomery County. Massey sold off his headright in Montgomery County and settled in Houston. He was initially buried in the city's Episcopal Cemetery, but when the cemetery was scheduled to be razed for neglect in the 1950s, he was reinterred in Glenwood.

Section G1
Glenwood Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.832, -095° 22.896

Joseph Leslie "Joe" Sample (1939-2014)

    Joe Sample was born on Feb. 1, 1939, in Houston, the fourth of five siblings, and began playing piano when he was 5. In the mid-1950s, he saw Ray Charles playing an electric piano on television and bought one for himself in 1963. While at Texas Southern University, Sample, trombonist Wayne Henderson, bassist Henry Wilson and flutist Hubert Laws to the hard bop group, which named itself the Modern Jazz Sextet. Adding tenor saxophonist Wilton Felder and drummer Nesbert Hooper, the band worked in the Houston area for several years but did not have much success until most of the group moved to Los Angeles and changed their name to the Jazz Crusaders, a reference to the drummer Art Blakey’s seminal hard-bop ensemble, the Jazz Messengers. Their first album, Freedom Sound, released on the Pacific Jazz label in 1961, sold well, and they recorded prolifically for the rest of the decade, with all four members contributing compositions, while performing to enthusiastic audiences and critical praise. 

    In the 70s, as the audience for jazz declined, the band underwent yet another name change, this one signifying a change in musical direction. Augmenting their sound with electric guitar and electric bass, with Sample playing mostly electric keyboards, the Jazz Crusaders became the Crusaders. Their first album under that name, Crusaders 1, featuring four compositions by Sample, was released on the Blue Thumb label in 1972. The group had numerous hit albums and one Top 40 single, Street Life, which reached No. 36 on the Billboard pop chart in 1979. Sample wrote the music and Will Jennings wrote the lyrics, which were sung by Randy Crawford. 

    By the late 1980s Mr. Sample was focusing on his solo career, which had begun with the 1969 trio album Fancy Dance and included mellow pop-jazz records like Carmel (1979). He also maintained a busy career as a studio musician. Among the albums on which his keyboard work can be heard are Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark and The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Tina Turner’s Private Dancer, Steely Dan’s Aja and Gaucho, and several recordings by B. B. King. His music has been sampled on numerous hip-hop records, most notably Tupac Shakur’s Dear Mama. His later albums included the unaccompanied Soul Shadows (2004) and his last album, Children of the Sun, released in 2014 posthumously. In his last years, he worked with a reunited version of the Crusaders and led an ensemble called the Creole Joe Band, whose music was steeped in zydeco. At his death he had been collaborating with Jonathan Brooke and Marc Mantell on a musical, Quadroon, which had a reading in July at the Ensemble Theater in Houston. Source

Paradise North Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 53.330, -095° 27.681