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You might be interested to know how I finally located Jack. I lost track of him in 1966 when he ceased writing and my last letter was returned with "no forwarding address available." At first I wasn't concerned, thinking that I would soon hear or at least get a card at Christmas. Not so! Time passed. I asked everyone I could think of but no one had a clue. Vanished! As the years passed, and still there was no word, I began to consider the possibility That he was dead. Surely, I thought, he won't just ignore me year after year; I'm easy to find. More time passed. Now the trail is 30+ years cold. but there is an important difference: Computers! As I got more and more involved with the research and people search that was associated with writing the History of Caving at Sul Ross, I used the computer telephone books to find quite a few of the old gang. But not Jack White. Looking for Joe Smith might have been a little more difficult, but not much. Here, in summary, is how it happened:
1. Sul Ross annual is no help except to provide a middle name (Ray). This occurred only one place in three yearbooks!
2. Ask my oil industry friends if there are any records available from Permian Mud Co. where Jack worked in 1964. Nope. PMC is long gone!
3. Note in my copy of Texas State Rifle Association newsletter that a Joe Compton has done well in a shooting match. No address but the Editor forwards a letter for me and I find Joe and Fran Compton in Midland, Texas. They know nothing and we never get beyond a telephone call.
4. Years pass and I learn from Joe that James Wood is also in Midland.
5. Ask all of Jack's basketball associates from Sul Ross and ask them to ask
their friends. Nothing.
6. I call James and learn from him that he and Jack were classmates and coincidentally, the OHS class of 1959 is having their 40th Reunion and there is a WWW site for the occasion.
7. I go to the site, verify Jack's ID from the photo and note there is an address! I also post a message on the site asking for help from anyone who might browse the site.
8. James Wood and I pursue that address and a couple of others, but all end up cold with no forwarding address. However. I AT LEAST know that he was alive in 1989 since one of his Odessa buddies actually spoke to him at that time.
9. An Odessa buddy of Jack's suggests that his former wife, Anna, knows where Jack is. Where is Anna? No one knows, but James Wood says she and Jack were in the same HS class (as was James), AND he knows that her maiden name was McNaul. When I return to the Reunion site again I look in the yearbook picture section and, sure enough, there is Anna McNaul with an address in Albany, CA.
10. Back to the computer phone books. Sorry, no match for "anything" McNaul in Albany and no Anna McNaul anywhere in California! Drat!
11. Back to the OHS site. A closer look at Anna McNaul's address shows that she is actually listed as Anna Martinez McNaul. That's an odd middle name, I thought. It wasn't in parentheses or anything. Could it be her married name?
12. Back to the computer phone books; looking for Martinez at the listed street address and city. BINGO!
13. Call the Martinez residence. Anna answers. I tell her my name and mention Glenda and Sul Ross College but she doesn't have a clue who I am and asks if I am soliciting funds for something. This I hastily deny and immediately cut to THE BIG QUESTION: I want to find Jack and does she, by chance, know where he is? Unbelievably, Anna provides the telephone number and 2 minutes later I am talking to the ultra-ellusive Jack White!
Now I am trying to figure out a way that I can simultaneously hug him for joy and punch him out for putting me through all that over 30" years! I'm on a roll. The night before I found Harry Miles after 28 years! Color me persistent. Thanks to all of you who helped support this quest!
Your friend,
Carl Kunath |
