My father Robert J. Williams was born in Keyport, New Jersey April 23rd, 1919. His father

Jewell Williams was a traveling Electrician/Salesman/Inventor; this gave my father a nomadic

boyhood until eventually settling in Little Rock, Arkansas.

 
  He attended Central High School in Little Rock when as a Senior he was inspired to go to Annapolis

by his English Teacher Mrs. Huckaby.  Mrs. Huckaby let my father take home and read the latest

edition of National Geographic that she had in her classroom knowing that he had early goals of

becoming a Navel Officer.  This 1936 edition had a lengthy story about the Navel Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.  This National Geographic would also be the first using four color.

 
  Mrs. Huckaby would later become well known for her desegregation involvement at Central High

in Little Rock.  She was later portrayed in a movie by actress "Joanne Woodward" regarding the

desegregation movement of 1950s and 60s.

  Joining the Navy in 1937 at the age of 17, he would eventually be accepted into the Navel Academy.

He graduated from the academy in 1942. a year early, due to the war.

 
  Forty five years after borrowing the National Geographic from his English teacher.  My father

and my mother strolled into a used magazine/book store in Long Beach, California.  After looking

through the old National Geographic magazines, my father stumbled across the same 1936 edition

with the story on Annapolis.

 

  After purchasing the magazine and returning home, my father sat down to look and read through

it like he did almost a half a century earlier.  When he glanced at the top of the front cover and written
and printed in pencil was the name "Mrs. Huckaby"  “Huckaby”.

Little Rock, Arkansas to Long Beach, California ~ Estimated Distance: 1682.30 miles