Houston Veal’s career
Posted on December 26, 2007
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From Lee Veal, Houston’s son:
He worked in the early mid to late fifties in or near Coffeyville, Kansas. I forget for what company, but it was like a defense contractor. He also worked in Abilene, Tx for a while, too. That was after he’d been laid-off from General Dynamics in Ft. Worth in the early 60s. He worked as an electrician for Brown and Root. (The B&R company is now part of the infamous Halliburton/KBR (KBR’s full name used to be Kellogg Brown and Root), which trying to cover up the reported rape of a Houston, Texas woman who was employed by KBR in Iraq.) In Abilene he worked on the construction as defense missile silos. There were a dozen or so silos around Abilene. Each had an intercontinental ballistic missile in it. They were aimed, I was told, at various ‘targets’ in the Soviet Union.
Also, HLLV worked for Thiokol Chemical Company in Brigham City, Utah. He was an electrician there, too. He often worked as an electrician for these defense contractors, which was a good trick consider that he was red/green color blind. That is he could not tell the difference between those two colors. They looked the same to him. In towns where the traffic light were inverted with green on top and red on the bottom, he was known to run the light because he could not tell red from green. In a profession where you have dozens of wires which are color-coded (many with red and green hues) and must be connected correctly in order for something to work, well, like I said it was good trick.
Houston Lee Louis Veal
Posted on December 25, 2007
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Birth: 2 MAR 1918 in Bridgeport, Dallas Co, TX
Death: 3 JUN 2002 in Fort Worth, Tarrant Co, TX
Houston was married twice and had five children (3 boys and 2 girls).
Newspaper Obituary:
Houston Lee Louis Veal, 84, died Monday, June 3, 2002 in Fort Worth. Memorial service: 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Greenwood Chapel.He was buried on June 06, 2002 in Greenwood Cemetery, Fort Worth, TX.
Houston was born March 2, 1918 in Bridgeport. He was valedictorian of the senior class of Bridgeport High School, class of 1938, as well as class president. He was a three-year letterman in football. At the age of 13, to help his family out during the Great Depression, he worked in the two old coal mines in Bridgeport on Saturdays and Sundays. It was believed that he had been the last surviving coal miner who worked in the coal mines that used mules underground. He spent all of his life in the Wise and Tarrant county areas except for two years in Corpus Christi. Houston was the City Class “A” Singles Bowling Champion of the Fort Worth City Tournament in 1945. His team, “The Veal Cutlets,” was national champion of 23 aircraft teams that entered. He was employed at General Dynamics for 38 years as a tool planner, and was vice chairman of the F.I.T.U. Union when he retired in 1980. He was baptized into The Assembly of God Church in Bridgeport. He was well known for his wit and great sense of humor and will be missed by all who knew and loved him.
Source: Ft. Worth Star Telegram, 5 June 2002