Norman Downs "Red" Branch (1915-1971)

    Red Branch was born on March 22, 1915 in Spokane, Washington. He played baseball at the University of Texas and signed with the New York Yankees in 1937. The 6-foot-3, 200-pound right-hander pitched for Norfolk of the Piedmont League his rookie year posting an impressive 14-4 record and earning promotion to Kansas City of the American Association. By 1939, Branch was with Newark of the International League where he worked primarily as a relief pitcher and appeared in 41 games that season. The 25-year-old made 30 appearances for Newark in 1940 and joined the Yankees in 1941. He made his major league debut on May 5, 1941 and appeared in 27 games for a 5-1 record and 2.87 ERA although he didn’t pitch in the World Series against Brooklyn. 

    In 1942, he made just 10 appearances for the Yankees and entered military service with the Coast Guard at the end of the year. Branch was initially stationed at Groton in Connecticut before moving to the Coast Guard Academy at New London where he spent the rest of the war and pitched for the Coast Guard Dolphins. Returning from service at the end of 1945 with an injured arm, Branch pitched briefly for Newark and Beaumont in 1946 before retiring from the game. He returned to his home in Texas and played semi-pro ball for a number of years. He passed away in Navasota on November 21, 1971 at 56. Source 

New Montgomery Cemetery
Montgomery

COORDINATES

30° 23.170, -095° 42.240

Roy Michael Huffington (1917-2008)

    Roy Michael Huffington, United States Ambassador to Austria, was born in Tomball, Texas on October 4, 1917. He graduated from Southern Methodist University where he was a brother of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, and earned both Master of Arts and Ph.D. degrees in geology from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After serving as first ensign, and then lieutenant commander in the United States Navy from 1942-1945, he returned to Texas in 1946 and worked as a field geologist for Humble Oil (now EXXON). In 1956, he set up his own oil and natural gas exploration company known as HUFFCO, which grew to be a major independent international oil company active around the world. In 1966, HUFFCO signed production sharing contract with Pertamina to explore oil in the Kutai Basin of the Mahakam River delta in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Initially the exploration object was oil, but HUFFCO discovered a giant natural gas reserve in 1972 at Badak Field. In 1990, all properties of the company were sold to the Chinese Petroleum Corporation of Taiwan and HUFFCO became VICO. From 1990 to 1993, Huffington served as Ambassador to Austria in the administration of U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush. He joined the Board of the Salzburg Global Seminar, an international policy center based in Salzburg, Austria, with offices in Washington, D.C., while serving as U.S. Ambassador to Austria. In 1994, he was elected chairman of the Salzburg Global Seminar Board, a position which he held until 2007. Huffington also founded the Huffington Foundation charity, and with his wife Phyllis created the Huffington Center on Aging at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Roy and Phyllis Huffington had two children, daughter Terry, and son Michael, who was a Republican U.S. representative from California from 1993-1995. Michael was married to Arianna Huffington, the founder of the Huffington Post, from 1986-1997. Roy Huffington died of natural causes in Venice, Italy on July 11, 2008.

Section J
Glenwood Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.993, -095° 23.009

Michael Short (1797-1859)

    Michael Short was born September 17, 1797 in Georgia. He fought in the War of 1812, and in February 1836 emigrated to Texas from Alabama to enlist in the Texas army. He was with Captain Alfred Henderson Wyly's 2nd Regiment Volunteers Infantry Company at San Jacinto. He died on February 4, 1859 while living in La Grange and buried in the city cemetery.


La Grange Old City Cemetery
La Grange

COORDINATES

29° 54.644, -096° 52.057

Michael Chavenoe (?-1855?)

    As is often the case with early Texas settlers, little is known of Chavenoe's history; nearly every record of him is from military muster rolls. He came to Texas in 1829 and settled in what is now Liberty County. On November 14, 1835, he enlisted for a single month in Captain John C. Reed's Company. He re-enlisted on March 6, 1836 as a private in Captain William M. Logan's Company of Liberty Volunteers and fought at San Jacinto with that unit the following month. He was discharged on June 6, 1836 and returned home to Liberty County. He moved from Liberty at some point and was living in Fort Bend County in 1853. Sometime between 1853 and 1860, while visiting the Tilton family in Old River-Winfree, Chavenoe died and was buried in the Tilton family cemetery.


Tilton Cemetery
Old River-Winfree

COORDINATES

29° 50.990, -094° 48.620

William Carroll Crawford (1804-1895)

    Crawford, the last surviving signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, son of Archibald and Nancy (Carroll) Crawford, was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on September 13, 1804. He was related to Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. The family moved to Georgia, where both parents died about 1821. Crawford was a tailor's apprentice from 1821 or 1822 until 1830, when he became a Methodist minister and was assigned to a circuit in Alabama. In 1834 he married Rhoda Jackson Watkins. Later, because of ill health, he moved to Texas with his wife's family. The caravan arrived in January 1835 and settled near the site of Shelbyville. The Crawfords became the parents of nine children. Crawford and Sydney O. Penington represented Shelby County at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and there signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1859 Crawford moved to Pittsburg, Camp County, where he was postmaster from 1874 to 1881. His wife died on January 18, 1881, and Crawford moved to Hill County, where he lived until 1884, when he moved to Alvarado, Johnson County, to live with a daughter. He died on September 3, 1895, while he was visiting his son in Erath County. He was buried in Cow Creek Cemetery, about five miles north of Dublin. In 1936 his remains were reinterred in the State Cemetery. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.924, -097° 43.650