Chapman
Clarence Thompson 1900-1925
My grandmother, Dudley Casteel Thompson Stahr, 1902-1986, was married twice, first in 1922 to Clarence Thompson, 1900-1925, and then in 1930 to my grandfather, Roland Stahr, 1901-1969. I knew vaguely that my grandmother had been “married before her marriage” but did not know much about Clarence Thompson until the past few days. My father and…
Read MoreGeorge Edwin Rogers 1872 to 1959
My family is donating its family papers to Chapman University. These are not just papers of my mother, my father and myself. They are papers of my grandparents: Burgess Dempster, Nell McBroom Dempster, Roland Stahr, and Dudley Casteel Stahr. And they are in some cases papers of my great-grandparents, including my namesake Walter Casteel and…
Read MoreAugustus Long
I am getting ready to teach, next semester at Chapman, a course on the Civil War, and thinking about how I first got fascinated by that war. It goes back, I think, to Augustus Long. It was about 1991 or 1992, when I started looking into my genealogy, that I learned that my great-great grandfather,…
Read MoreRevolution and Constitution
In a few days, on September 2, I will start teaching my first course at the college level. The course will cover American history from 1760 through 1815, a busy period. Indeed, as I prepare my first lecture, on Benjamin Franklin, I realize that one could teach an entire semester-long course just on that one…
Read MoreChapman Goals
Next school year, 2014-15, I will be teaching history at Chapman University in Orange County, California. I hasten to add, for those eager for the Edwin Stanton book, that I will only be teaching one class each term, that I should have time for my research and writing. In the fall I will be teaching…
Read More