My Wise Old Grandmother - Russel Ray, 1955-1960

I was born on March 11, 1955, in Kingsville,
Texas, to John Ancel Kirk, Jr., (see Figure 1) and
Dawna Melaine Brinley Kirk (see Figure 2).

1955-1960
At the time of my birth, my parents were living
with my mom’s parents at 802 West Alice Avenue
in Kingsville. My dad’s parents lived just down the
street at 420 West Alice Avenue. I was almost a
midnight baby, arriving at 11:58 p.m. At the time
I had two older brothers, Larry Scott, born in
July 1951, and Ronald Jay (see Figure 3), born in
January 1953. Larry died at the age of one. In
September 1957, another brother was born but
died minutes after birth—we call him Baby Boy
Kirk. My sister, Kimberly Kay (see Figure 4),
was born in November 1960.

Dad was in the Air Force at the time, and I was
born at the Kingsville Naval Air Station, as were
my younger brother and sister. Larry had been
born in Gary, Indiana, and Ronald had been born
at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

After I was born, we moved to a new subdivision
in Kingsville, just west of Texas A&I University
(now Texas A&M University at Kingsville) and
lived on Santa Cecilia Drive. I remember very little
about living there except that there was a row of
small windows high up on the wall in the living
room, just below the ceiling, and birds would
regularly fly into them and knock themselves out.

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