Who is she?

Who was her daddy??

Who was his daddy???

and so on….

Robert Topping was born in Scotland. He was a surplus truck farmer. He married Esther Rowan and moved to Ireland.

In 1847 they left Ireland due to the religious strife and arrived in the United States.

It took them three months by boat and were given up for lost.

Robert had one known son, John William Topping. John married Margaret Addy in 1855 and moved to Fairfield, Iowa. He built this house in Birmingham, Iowa that stills stands today. He was a farmer. They had nine children.

One of John and Margaret’s nine children was Homer Topping. Homer married Kate Fry and had one son, Van Topping.

Van worked as a farmer and had various jobs throughout his life. Nellie was an artist and worked at a photography studio in South Bend, Indiana.

Van NellieChildhood picture of Van

Van Topping married Nellie Grant and had three sons: Maurice, Gerald and Ronald.

They all lived in South Bend, Indiana and worked at manufacturing plants.

Gerald, Ronald, Maurice

Ronald joined the Army Air Corps and was stationed in England. After the war, he worked at the Studebaker plant in South Bend, Indiana. In the 50’s, he moved to Florida with his family and over the years worked for ECI, EMR, Magnavox, Storage Tech and McDonnell Douglas as a manager acquiring parts for military projects and the space programs.

Karen and Diane

Ronald married Betty Rector and they had two daughters, Karen and Diane.

Diane went to the University of South Florida, received her B.A. in Speech-English Education and is now teaching English 2 at Boca Ciega High School. She has been at BCHS since 1980. She is teaching your child.

The process it took to create your child’s teacher has taken over two hundred and fifty years.

Don’t expect your child to become a famous author or literary scholar in one year….

But I do look forward to the challenge…