The transcription is below, along with images of the originals.

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February 15, 1962

Capt. John H. Napier, 111,

Maxwell A. F. B. Alabama.

Dear Hack;

I was very happy to get your recent letter. I always thought a lot of you boys. Then too I was so close to both of your Grand-fathers. Your G-father Napier was the first City Attorney for Picayune and I knew him before I came to Picayune. When I lived in Lumberton he did some legal work for the Lumber people I was connected with. Eastman Tate was my neighbor, banker and friend for many years and I have considered his children my best friends.

This Rev. Napier that you speak of, the oldest preacher, and my father worked together in Wayne County and other places in the Methodist Prod. Church. About fifteen years ago I was invited to the dedication of the new Methodist church in Waynesboro. My father helped to organize, build and was the first pastor of that church. I remember, as a boy, hearing my father talk a lot about your G-G-Grand-father Napier and he considered him one of his very best friends. And the others you mention.

After my father died, my sister gave his library to Millsaps College. She also gave the diary my father had of the Civil War in Virginia as he saw it to some State Department. His other records were loaned out and lost and all I have is a few old scrap books handed down to me.

While I was Mayor I fell and broke my hip and leg and have been slowed down. The boys run the business and just sit around and do office work.

Have been working on family history and enjoy it very much but don’t have time I should to make much headway.

I am enclosing herewith a short sketch of my father together with a history of Covington County as he saw it when a boy. Covington County is full of McDonalds and Napiers.

I am also enclosing a Pedigree Chart of the McDonalds, that is our family, for Kenneth McDonald. I am now trying to get the name of the father and mother of Angus and the name of all of the children of Angus. Am beginning to get some help from the Carolinas now and if I live long enough I hope to have more of it.

Tell Kenneth to send me a Pedigree Chart. I need a lot of information.

Sincerely,

Claiborne McDonald, 11

We have in the family a Claiborne 111, and Claiborne IV

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Qtrs 526 D
Maxwell AFB Ala
31 Mar 62

Dear Mr. McDonald,

Many thanks for your kind letter of 15 Feb. I apologize for not answering sooner. However, I have been traveling to visit our AFROTC units at Tuscaloosa & Charleston, S.C., & this has interrupted my correspondence. Week after next I’m going to Los Angeles.

I'm just now sending your material to Mr. Kenneth Mc Donald & requesting him to return the biography & reminiscences of your father which I found most interesting, along with the pedigree charts.

Philip Hawkins (my middle name) & Joseph Olan Napier were my great-great-great uncles, brothers of great-great-grandfather John Creed Napier, but he was an active Methodist layman. His son, my great-grandfather Benjamin Bruton Napier, was married to Martha June Gillaspie, daughter of Rev. Charles Fox Gillaspie, another Methodist preacher. Uncle Phil & Joe (your father’s grandfather, Gillaspie) was also a CSA chaplain (8th Miss. Inf. Regt.), as I see your father was. I've joined several patriotic societies recently. The Society of the War of 1812 where I met K. McD; there's also a Miss. Soc. the Order of Founders & Patriots of America (NY branch), also the Miss. Society of Colonial Wars. I've belonged to S.A.R. & S.C.V. for years. The only reason I've fooled with these societies is to establish the family descent for the record & for any descendants, if Francis & his wife should have children.

I suppose you know the Napiers were Scots originally, too, but the Lowland variety. Dr. Patrick Napier, 10 generations back, came to Va. from Edinburgh in 1655. I notice nearly all the families with whom they’ve married, both English names – Booth, Perrin, Hughes, Gayle, Hawkins, Martin, etc. I think Gillaspie & Tate were probably Ulsterman. I'm afraid I'm rambling on and on.

Thanks again for your letter.
Sincerely,

Jack
John H. Napier, III
Capt. USAF

P.S. Next time you write Ruby Ella, give her my best & tell her that Mrs. Kennedy's trip to Palestine last reminded me of our meeting out there in 1955 at Thule. I don't know if you remember that or not.

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