Toby McGriff

 

Friday, December 16, 2016

Rest in Peace, Toby McGriff. May the Angels Lead You to Paradise

Toby and Stephanie McGriff

Robert A. "Toby" McGriff, 68, of Moline, passed away Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, at Genesis Medical Center, Silvis.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at St. Pius X Church, Rock Island. Visitation will be 4 to 7 p.m. Monday at Rafferty Funeral Home, 2111 1st St. A, Moline, with a Christian wake service at 3:30 p.m. Entombment will be at St. Mary's Cemetery, East Moline. A memorial fund has been established.

Toby was born July 27, 1948, in Watervliet, Mich., the son of Robert L. and Ann Lee McGriff. He married Stephanie K. Ybarra on Oct. 25, 1969, in Silvis.

Toby worked as the band director at Grand Ridge Elementary School, Grand Ridge, Ill., and a vice president at the former Ringle Express, Coal Valley. He retired as an admissions and career adviser at Partners in Job Training with Rock Island County.

Toby was a member of the Moline Jaycees, where he served as past president and a state vice president, as well as earning recognition as a United States Jaycee Senator. He was a member of the Bettendorf Park Band, was a former lector at St. Mary's Church, Moline, and a canter and choir member at Sacred Heart Church, Moline. He read for APRIS at WVIK Radio, was an avid Chicago Bears and NASCAR fan and loved his dog, Max.

Survivors include his wife, Stephanie; daughter, Heather Hamilton, Waterloo, Iowa; sister, Beth Ann (Tim) Leaf, Lutz, Fla.; 17 nieces and nephews; and 11 great-nieces and -nephews. He was preceded in death by son-in-law, Mike Hamilton; and sisters, Janet Hoag and Joette McGriff.

Condolences may be left at RaffertyFunerals.com.

When we were planning for the MHS 66 50th Reunion, seeing Toby was #1. My wife and I knew he had been in and out of the hospital and living at Rosewood Care. He told us our dog Sassy would be welcome at Rosewood, so that made it especially fun to take her for the visit. 

My wife and I had a long visit with Toby. We went back to 7th grade band at John Deere, as I recall, and MHS Band for another three years. He met my wife Chris when I took her to a concert at Blackhawk Community College. So Toby was a family friend, for 50 years.

Band friendships were a natural. We had an enormous room where people congregated after school. That bandroom was on the way out to the parking lot, so Toby often gave me a ride home, even when I forgot about driving my father's car to school. When I remembered, halfway home, Toby frowned and turned  around his little Corvair. He was great about it, but questioned me closely after that, when I needed a ride. "Are you sure you didn't drive today?"

Doubtless all of us have pleasant memories of Toby, always cheerful, enduring incredible suffering with his health problems, infections, and surgeries. Apart from relating some facts, nothing in his conversation suggested that his life was something other than ordinary. He loved to talk about his family and dog. It was difficult to leave.

 Toby is sitting in front of the tubas.

Liz Copeland and Her Christmas Cat - Clancy.Mary Copeland,

 

Liz Copeland's Christmas Cat - Clancy

Clancy is simply the most photogenic cat around. He clearly loves to wear costumes and to post for his staff.

Liz Copeland, MHS68, is an exceptional photographer. Her mother was a favorite teacher at Garfield Elementary School.

Forget Bix Beiderbecke - The Electronic Computer Was Invented in the Quad-Cities - At a Rock Island Roadhouse.

 Forget Bix Beiderbecke - The Electronic Computer Was Invented in the Quad-Cities - At a Rock Island Roadhouse.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The Atanasoff-Berry Computer, known as the ABC, was invented in 1937 and ignored by Iowa State, Ames.
Few people realize John Vincent Atanasoff invented the electronic computer, because his plans were copied by another scientist and marketed eventually as the Eniac.

John V. Atanasoff was a remarkable scientist who did valuable work for the US during WWII.

As an applied physics professor at Ames, Iowa, he was looking for ways of doing math calculations, the most laborious part of his work. He kept thinking about it and trying various methods for years. Meanwhile, others were working on a calculating device.

One December day in 1937 he took off in his car and drove to relax and think about the solution. He crossed the Mississippi:

"I had reached the Mississippi River and was crossing into Illinois at a place where there are three cities...one of which is Rock Island. I drove into Illinois and turned off the highway into a little road, and went into a roadhouse, which had bright lights...I sat down and ordered a drink...As the delivery of the drink was made, I realized that I was no longer so nervous and my thoughts turned again to computing machines." Jane Smiley, The Man Who Invented the Computer, The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer, p. 2.

During this stop in Rock Island he thought of four basic concepts to make a computer work. He wrote down his ideas on a napkin, went back to Ames, and asked for funding for this project. He received $200 for parts and $450 to pay his assistant, an exceptionally able Clifford Berry.

The computer worked, so when John Mauchley found out about it, he visited Ames, stayed at the Atanasoff home, took copious notes, asked all about the machine, and stole the idea. Sperry Rand owned the patent rights, because Ames did not pursue the patent case as it should have. Also, Atanasoff seemed especially naive about Mauchley's early intentions. One reason was - everyone but Mauchley ignored him.

The apparent murder of Berry, never solved, made Atanaoff much more involved in the difficult case of overturning the patents owned by Sperry Rand. In 1973, the judge in the federal case gave the credit to Atanasoff and took away Sperry Rand's claims.

Others made significant contributions to the invention of the computer. One method was used to help crack Enigma during WWII, in England. Konrad Zuse, a German scientist, did astonishing work, but he was ignored by the Nazi military.

The first computers were destroyed. The original ABC was taken apart because it was using up valuable space at Ames. The future head of computer science at Ames took it apart. The ABC was later rebuilt for a small fortune!

The English computer was destroyed to hide the evidence about how they read the German Enigma messages in WWII.

Konrad Zuse had his early computers bombed by the Allies in WWII.

Atanasoff will never get a Nobel Prize, because he did not submit a paper for publication, a requirement of the committee. He died in 1995.

John Vincent Atanasoff
Let's quote the Iowa State University Associate Professor of Physics John Hauptman opinion about Atanasoff:
"I came here from Berkeley," Hauptman said. "You know Berkeley must have 20 Nobel prizes and they are proud of them; poets, physicists, chemists... When I found out Atanasoff's story and read his paper... It occurred to me that if Atanasoff had been at Berkeley in 1939 (with the Atanasoff-Berry Computer) he would have gotten a Nobel prize right away. Berkeley would not have waited a minute before going after a Nobel Prize and becoming known as the birthplace of the electronic digital computer. Here at Iowa State, it was just dropped."

Echoes from Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois. 2010

Echoes from Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Heritage Documentaries, Inc.

www.heritagedocumentaries.org

Press Release: November 22, 2010

Announcing a book signing and sale:

Echoes From Riverside Cemetery: Moline, Illinois

***********

Monday Evening, December 6, 2010

5:00 - 7:00 p.m.

Lagomarcino’s Confectionery

1422 5^th Avenue, Moline, Illinois

***********

Authors Kathleen Seusy, Diann Moore, Curtis C. Roseman, and Regena Schantz will be present to sign books, which sell for $20 each.

Echoes from Riverside is an innovative community history, telling carefully-documented stories of the lives of 109 people buried at Moline’s Riverside Cemetery. Included are people from diverse classes, ages, occupations, and backgrounds who were featured at twelve annual Echoes from Riverside cemetery walk events. Their stories open a dramatic window on the history of Moline.

The book also includes a history of the cemetery itself. The lower 1851 section is one of the earliest in the area and the upper 1872 expansion was designed by William Le Baron Jenney, widely known as the “father of the skyscraper.” Jenny’s design transformed the cemetery into picturesque burial grounds draped over the Mississippi River bluffs, offering visitors spectacular vistas of the river and its valley. The 270-page book includes hundreds of high-quality photos and other images that enhance the stories of the people featured. The book’s publication was made possible by a generous grant from the Moline Foundation.

For Further Information, Contact:              

Curtis or Elizabeth Roseman    309 764 6122  or  croseman@usc.edu

The Power of the Donut Shop

 

The Power of the Donut Shop

Homer Jackson was the shadow manager of WQUA AM radio.

Don Nelson said to me on Facebook:

"Your dad was known as WQUA's shadow program director.......all he had to do was make a comment to Verne Flambo and 24 hours later.....it was policy."

From Now On - Copies from the Earliest PostsKarl Huntoon, 2010

 

Karl Huntoon

Jan McKenzie - For those of you who know Karl Huntoon, please take a minute to think of him today, and maybe say a prayer for him and his family. Today is his birthday. He went into hospice care about a week ago. The chemo and radiation didn't seem to help. This picture is from a 2007 project called My Favorite Book. ...It's Karl with "A Prayer for Owen Meany".

Congratulations - Howard Lindstrom and Becky McFarlin - 56th Wedding Anniversary!

 

Congratulations - Howard Lindstrom and Becky McFarlin -
56th Wedding Anniversary!

 

Howard Lindstrom and Becky McFarlin were married December 30, 1967

Congratulations on their 56th wedding anniversary!