Roy Wallen, Our Dad, Whose Genes and Character are Responsible

By way of background consider the following examples  some noble and pure, some not so noble and not so pure, but warriors and adventurers one and all.

Ralph & Joyce Wallen arrived on the Ship Anne in July 1623 and were recorded in the Plymouth Colony. On April 4, 1650 their son Thomas was arrested for "Helping two women run away from their husbands."

Elisha Wallen, Sr. born in 1708 was the father of Joseph Wallen and Elisha Wallen, Jr.

Elisha Wallen Jr. (Born 1732) was a Revolutionary War soldier. After the war, he went west to East Tennessee, explored and hunted through Cumberland Gap in Kentucky and became known as the "Long Hunter".

In 1787, Elishas brother, Joseph B. Wallen who was born in 1734 received a land grant for 640 acres and built a log home near what is now Kyle's Ford in Hancock County, Tennessee.

In 1781 in Montgomery County, Virginia Lieutenant William Wallen was Court Marshaled and fined 20 shillings. The record does not disclose the nature of the offense.

Elisha Wallen (Born 1780 in Virginia) built a gunpowder mill on Wallen’s Creek in Lee County Virginia where I was born. Wallen’s Creek lies between Wallen’s Ridge and Powell Mountain about 50 miles from Kyle's Ford, Tennessee where my father was born.

Elias Wallen came from Donegal, Ireland in 1790 and helped organize Nova Caesarea Harmony Lodge Number 2, F&AM in Cincinnati Ohio on December 27, 1794.

On December 14, 1837 John Wallen was divorced from Elizabeth in Hancock County, Tennessee and ordered to pay $80 a year alimony.

Gabriel Wallen went over the Oregon Trail in 1846 and helped build a wagon trail around the southern slope of Mt. Hood.

Hugh Wallen died in Andersonville prison in 1864. There were many Wallen’s on both sides in the War Between the States. My maternal great grandfather Rutherford recovered from wounds received at Chancellorsville while fighting for the Confederacy. A Rutherford from Kentucky had previously ridden with Davie Crockett into the Alamo.

Colonel Jesse Wallen was in the battle of San Jacinto where Santa Ana was defeated.

Elisha Wallen (born 1821 in Tennessee) was a member of the Santa Fe’ expedition in 1841.  Two hundred seventy soldiers of the Republic of Texas were captured and marched 2,000 miles to Mexico City and later released by Santa Ana.

Lieutenant Vance Wallen served with the Texas Cavalry in the Mexican War in 1846 and the Confederate army during the War Between the States.

Then there was the Cavalry troop that rode into southern Arizona in 1866 and established a camp which they named Camp Wallen after the Commandant of Northern Arizona, a Colonel HD Wallen.  Camp Wallen later became Fort Huachuca.

There are about 55,000 Wallens in the US now.  The above is just a sample.  One day - maybe!

My personal favorite was my great grandmother Mary Ann Wallen who died in 1931 at age 89. She was 19, when her husband Evan Wallen, lost a leg fighting for the Yankee Army.  She rode a mule from Hancock County, Tennessee to Northern Kentucky and hauled him home on a travois. I vaguely remember this great lady when we had a head on confrontation in '28 or '29 and she spanked my hand for whittling toward myself.

Me, I was born just in time to vividly remember the great depression and the many weary travelers knocking at my mother’s door for a bit of food which they always received.

This put me at just the right age for WW II where I carried a rifle and toured Europe on foot.  Between my return and my entrance into college in '46, I joined the Masonic Order (Pound Lodge 59 AF&AM where I was raised on September 21st 1946) in my hometown -- Pound, Virginia—in the Cumberland Mountains near Cumberland Gap.  With the aid of the GI Bill, I received a Chemical Engineering Degree from Virginia Tech in 1950. My wife Dorla, and young son Mike, attended my graduation. 

My first employment was with Hercules Powder Company at Radford Arsenal.  I was also a Lieutenant and Mortar Platoon Leader in the Army Reserves and missed active duty in Korea because I had patents in the solid rocket field and was heavily involved in a quality control program  shipping 15 million pounds of propellant each month.

After the Korean war, I went with Thiokol Chemical Corporation. They had a new exciting solid fuel technology and promised to be a leader in the field. Twelve years later I had been involved with large solid fuel rocket engines, built several plants for Thiokol and was a plant manager.  While there I became a Shriner and still enjoy helping generate the $2 million a day we give to the burned and crippled kids. 

Then I went to Houston as a project manager for Engineering and Construction in the Oil Patch. During this phase of my career, I was project manager for portions of a petrochemical complex in Basra, Iraq, a 400 megawatt power plant in Saudi Arabia, several chemical plants around the Gulf Coast and synthetic fuel developments in New Mexico and Colorado.

I spent a winter on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia developing an off-shore fabricating facility.  The temperature was frequently 15 below zero with 70 mile winds, blowing snow and in my opinion not user friendly. While there, the locals made me a honorary member of the Canadian Legion which made life a little better. The predominantly Scots people are a real pleasure to work with.  Their zest for living enveloped me in every aspect of their daily lives.

This was followed by a process equipment manufacturing facility on Vancouver Island, British Columbia in support of the Alaskan North Slope. While there I discovered the Cowboy Canadians, equally great people, and the one place in North America that just might be as nice as Arizona for a place to live.

After that I managed a steel plant in Houston and eventually retired in Chandler, Arizona.  Over 3 million people in the valley of the sun were a bit too much and, in 1999, I made a final move to Strawberry, Arizona (population 1,500)

I am a licensed pilot with over 2,000 hours of flight time, a part time photographer and enjoy anything having to do with the great outdoors--be it hunting, fishing, camping, boating or just plain exploring. I am an avid reader with several thousand books in my collection and have read them all.  

I haven't touched much on my Masonic career because, although it has had a major impact on my life and is very important to me, it is not the central line in this history.  Suffice it to say, I have attended many lodges in many places.  I could never participate as much as I wished because of my travels.  However, when I came to Northern Arizona I became a dual member of Payson Lodge No. 70 and tried to "pay back" a little bit by serving as Secretary for a few years.. 

My daddy told me—"don’t take any crap from the company commander and don’t spit against the wind"--and I never have. It’s been a wild boisterous adventure to here and I have enjoyed most of it.

However, my bones are beginning to creak a bit on a cold morning and I spect Im about used up. I live by myself with a dog (Lt. Col. Thomas T. Tobias - Toby) and a cat (Major General Sterling Price - El Gato) and am fortunate enough to have two  grandsons to teach to hunt and fish. 

Actually, I’m writing my second cook book, I have a commercial web site for unique consumer products (www.fancyfoxx.com) and will enjoy this personal site where I can talk about taxes, gun control, politics in general, or the party in power.  On a slow news day I may spin a few yarns.