Tres Robles
The Story of Firman and Helen Gray
By Wally Gray
For some time I have wanted to write the story of my father and mother, Firman Carleton Gray and Helen Esther Bungard Gray. I started on the project in late 1997, after completing the book The Life and Letters of Donald Oliver McNabb, my wife Frances's father.
But as I got started, after gathering a lot of background material, I
inaugarated my
Geocities website. The book on my parents took a back seat. For over a year I have filled
the website with family information. (As of August 10, 1999, there are over 60
biographies, and the site is still growing.) Then my wife Frances suggested I put the book
on my parents on the web.
What a simple solution! I could gradually add chapters, placing a limited number of photos. Then, when it is completed, I could publish it in print form. Meanwhile the book is on the web being gradually read by the family.
Photo is labeled "Ranchito Tres Robles,
May 2, 1943."
On the right is the original cabin. On the left is the 20-foot-square building which
served
as living quarters until the main home was built . Firman is seated on the bench facing
the
camera, and Helen, partially obscured, is serving food to the right.
I selected the title Tres Robles because that was the name my parents gave the property in Topanga Canyon that started the whole Topanga adventure. It was their first property purchased in the canyon, It consisted of an acre with three oaks as the central focus. Thus the Spanish name Tres Robles, or "Three Oaks."
Each weekend we traveled from our home in Santa Monica to our retreat in Topanga Canyon. A small cabin was built under the large oaks. Gradually other buildings were constructed: the larger 20-square-foot building and then the main home itself.
My parents moved to Topanga after I graduated from high school and entered the Navy. But since it was during World War II, they could not build the home they wanted on Tres Robles, so they bought a home a few miles away and named it Hasta Manana, meaning "until tomorrow," indicating the temporary nature of that home.
Each chapter is linked below as are appendixes which provide some of the raw material I used to develop this book. Related pages on this web site are also linked.
And so Tres Robles: The Story of Firman and Helen Gray becomes the center point of this web site, which concerns, in part, the families making up the posterity of Firman and Helen Gray, who form the paternal wing of the Gray-McNabb history.
Chapter One: Firman
Chapter Two: Helen
Appendix:
Taped Interview of Firman C. Gray
Autobiography by Firman C. Gray
Sketch of Firman C. Gray
Sketch on Helen Bungard Gray
Howard Bungard Little Book
Laura Ingalls, aviator
Eddie Guy Article on F.C. Gray
Wiley Post and Harold Gatty, aviators
Tidbits on Lockheed History
Related Web Sites:
Firman Carleton. Gray
Helen Esther Bungard Gray
Wallace Firman. Gray
Frances McNabb Gray
Niels Nelsen Bungard and Bertha Kristine Madsine
Joseph Albert Gray and Ada Mary Publicover
Home Page
The Gray Family of Sambro, Canada
The Value of Genealogical Stories
