Heraldry in the News!

Late last week I ran across an article about some heraldry with a more or less local flavor.

I say "more or less" local, as Texas is a large state, and Dallas, where I live, and San Antonio, where the article is about, are 274 miles (441 km) apart, or as we generally think about it here, a four-and-a-quarter hour drive.

Still, even that many miles away is still well inside the boundaries of the State of Texas, and so more or less "local".

Anyway, there was an article published on March 16, 2022 in the San Antonio Express-News noting the fact that the city of San Antonio, and the county in which it is located, Bexar (pronounced "bare", like "bear") County, each have a Spanish coat of arms.

No, really!

The arms were designed in 1971 by Thomas A. Wilson, a member of the Texas Hispanic American History Foundation, who then had them officially catalogued and filed in the heraldic archives of Spain. Wilson and Fernando Muñoz Altea of Madrid, the Spanish Chronicler King of Arms, presented them in San Antonio on December 18, 1971.

(I've known about the existence, though not all of the history, of the Bexar County arms for some time now; I even use it as an example of "local" coats of arms in some of my presentations about heraldry to genealogy groups and lineage societies here in Texas. And I've seen the San Antonio coat of arms before, but had no idea of its origins or history.)

Anyway, there's a lot more in the article including a bit of the history of the area, the history and elements of these two coats of arms, their uses today both here and overseas, and the fact that the official copy of San Antonio's coat of arms has been missing for 50 years.

To see all that, and more, you can read the article by Timothy Fanning of the San Antonio Express-News at https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/san-antonio-bexar-county-coat-of-arms-spain-17004390.php?fbclid=IwAR3vc41jvEPhhRh1gT56z8-P3AbYMUya9wmgZgMMiwk8BQuc19D9aK7oDLY

Enjoy!

A High School Class Creates a Coat of Arms

Well, if you're going to get a classroom full of high school students to enjoy studying Shakespeare, this is certainly one way to go about it!

Teacher Megan Schott of St. Joseph High School got the students in her AP Literature and Composition course to take inspiration from their study of Shakespeare and his works to create a Renaissance doorway, which incidentally also won the Texas Renaissance Festival's Door Decorating Contest.

The coat of arms, one of the main elements of the doorway, was created after the students researched Shakespeare's own heraldry, represented here by the tilting spear on the cross. The book represents literature, and the blue and white are the school's colors.

Above the shield, acting like a crest, is what I would blazon as A dragon statant affronty breathing flames of fire proper. (The flames are three-dimensional, popping "off the door in a really ferocious way they were proud of," said Ms. Schott.

An October 20, 2018 article with more details about the background and creation of this door, and another Door Decorating Contest winner in the Elementary School category, can be found on-line on the website of the Victoria Advocate at https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/education/classroom-doors-transport-viewers-to-renaissance-era/article_70844e64-d318-11e8-a941-db186aa30068.html

Another Serendipitous Semi-Heraldic Sighting

So there I was, just sittin' at the airport between the cities of Midland and Odessa, Texas, waiting for my flight home after a long day of presentations to the Permian Basin Genealogy Society there.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, then you know that I often have said that, "You can find heraldry everywhere!" And it proved to be true once again.

There on the wall was a poster for one of the local oil industry businesses there (west Texas has a plethora of oil industry businesses, owing to the huge oilfield it sits atop), Patriot Premium Threading Services.

But, of course, what really caught my eye (and yours, too, already, I suspect) is the company's logo, a shield based on the coat of arms of the United States of America (though I don't know that the designer knew that's where the design comes from):

Unsurprisingly, there are some differences between this logo and the arms of the U.S. The latter are blazoned Paly of thirteen argent and gules a chief azure. Here the paly is of the correct number (13), but the tinctures are reversed, being here gules and argent, and they've added an eagle's head (presumably from the bald eagle supporter of the arms of the U.S., but I have also noticed a passing similarity to the logo of the New England Patriots football team. See the image below) and the word "Patriot" to the chief, while adding the rest of the name of the company below the chief.

Finally, here's a late 18th Century depiction of the arms of the U.S. for comparison:

Still, I suppose, if you're going to have the word "patriot" in your company's name, you might as well go ahead and use elements from the arms of the nation, too. How else would anyone know that you're a patriot, if you didn't, right?

Still, it was fun to see something heraldic in an unexpected place, and it helped make the wait for my plane pass a little faster.

I Had A Great Time

I had a great time Thursday night (March 16) talking about doing genealogical research in New England to the Williamson County (Texas) Genealogy Society!

There were even some transplanted New Englanders there. One of them asked me a couple of questions before the meeting, trying to sound out whether or not I knew what I was going to be talking about. You'll be happy to know that I passed!

And I talked with a couple of sisters afterwards whose relative, it turns out, had performed the marriage of my great-great-grandparents. It really is a small world!

Oh, yeah, this is a blog about heraldry. Well, in honor of St. Patrick's Day the next day, that night I wore the tie that I purchased in Dublin, Ireland, which is strewn with the arms of the four provinces of Ireland (Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught).

I generally do not wear green on St. Patrick's Day. As a descendant of the Connors and Callahans of County Cork (and AncestryDNA confirms I am 16% Irish), I feel justified in believing that I should be exempt from "the wearin' o' the green." And to quote from one of my favorite philosophers, the inimitable Mr. Dooley (a creation of Chicago journalist Finley Peter Dunne around the turn of the last century):

"Patrick's Day?" said Mr. Dooley. "Patrick's Day? It seems to me I've heard th' name befure. Oh, ye mane th' day th' low Irish that hasn't anny votes cillybrates th' birth iv their naytional saint, who was a Fr-frinchman."

(And yes, I know that Patrick was not a Frenchman. So I'll not be havin' a whole passel o' commentary about his thrue birthplace an' all that, or I'll be takin' me big shillelagh stick to yer, understand?)

So, anyway, I had a great time with the many members of the Williamson County Genealogy Society, and look forward to the opportunity to visit them again.

This One Is A Long, Long Way From Home

In keeping with my last post (with the note that heraldry can be found everywhere), I was driving recently here in Dallas, Texas, and found myself behind a car with this in the back window:

(I apologize for the fuzziness; I had a limited amount of time to get my cellphone out and snap this picture.)

The decal in the lower left (with the legend "My Daughter Is A United States Marine") is modestly heraldic, and the U.S. Army star might also be considered so, but what had attracted my eye and caused me to grapple my cellphone out of my pocket is, of course, the top one labeled "WIEN" above and "Österreich" below (what in English would be "Vienna, Austria").

Here are a couple of modern depictions of the arms of Vienna for comparison:

But in fact the decal is much closer to this rendition of the arms of Vienna from an old Wills's Cigarettes cards series, "Arms of Foreign Cities":

It's just not at all the sort of thing one would expect to find while driving around the streets of Dallas, Texas, on a fall afternoon. As I said, this one is a long, long way from home.

Heraldry Is Where You Find It

Once again, it seems, that you can find heraldry all about you, even in the relative heraldic desert that is the United States.

I have to thank my wife Jo for this one. (It's wonderful to have someone who supports my hobby in this way!) She was sharing a ride with a friend as they ran a few errands on their way to the monthly meeting of the Dallas Fiber Artists Guild, and as they were driving out of a parking garage, Jo asked her friend to "Stop!" She then hopped out of the car, took a photograph of the decal on a parked car that she then emailed to me, and which I can now share with you:

It is the arms-like logo of Founders Classical Academy in Lewisville, Texas. (There are a number of Founders Classical Academies across Texas, but this particular quasi-armorial device I only found affiliated with the one in Lewisville, a few miles north of Dallas.)

I also found an embroidered version of the logo on-line:

The design is an odd mix of heraldic and pseudo-heraldic: the underlying elements are a plain gold shield with mantling (vert turned or) without a helmet, torse, or crest. Overlying that plain shield is a variation of the arms of the United States - adding seven stars to the chief - with an American bald eagle supporter (also like the arms of the U.S.) but instead of bearing in its talons an olive branch (dexter) and a sheaf of thirteen arrows (sinister), this eagle bears three arrows in its dexter talon and a key in its sinister. Below the gold shield is a scroll with the motto Scientia Virtus et Libertas (which they say is, in English, "Knowledge, Virtue, Liberty," but which my Latin to English translator [well, translators; I tried more than one with the same results] turns into "Knowledge is power and freedom").

I'm thinking that someone unintentionally missed the target in this design, but they clearly did not have more than a passing knowledge of heraldry. It is an error to have mantling without a helm or torse, and placing one shield (with supporter) partially over another shield demonstrates a misunderstanding of how heraldry is supposed to work. Placing the arrows (often seen as a symbol of war or at least preparedness to go to war) in the dexter talon implies that war is more important than knowledge (symbolized by the key). In the same manner, the eagle in the arms of the United States places the olive branch, a symbol of peace, in the dexter talon, giving it more importance than the ability to go to war.

So, all in all, not a very good design, but still, proof once again that you can find heraldry, or heraldry-like designs, anywhere you go!

Is There Such a Thing As "Skyscape Heraldry"?

Over this past weekend the regional airport nearby hosted this year's "Wings Over Dallas" airshow. Because it was close, and because I've long had a love of World War II aircraft, and since the folks putting it on - the Commemorative Air Force* - were advertising a whole bunch of these flying antiques, including a B-29, a B-17, a P-51, a C-47, two B-25s, 2 A-26s, an F4U Corsair, a P-40, a P-39, and a P-63, among others, as well as a chance to hear from 101-year-old Dick Cole, the sole remaining Doolittle Raider, well of course, we simply had to go.

Naturally, there was a whole lot of stuff for sale, which for the most part I valiantly resisted. But there was one item that I concluded I just had to bring home with me, because it had a shield on it. So the following baseball cap is not a part of "heraldic caps" collection.

This close-up shows the shield a little better.

And here's a nicely detailed graphic of the CAF's logo that I pulled off the internet.

As you can see, it technically isn't "landscape" heraldry, as there is not a bit of land in sight. Hence my question in the title: "Is there such a thing as 'skyscape heraldry'?"

Based on this shield, I think the answer is going to have to be "yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as skyscape heraldry."

The shield in the on-line logo (but not on the hat) appears to be hatched as well as partially colored. If pressed, I would blazon it as Azure a P-38 Lightning, an F4U Corsair, and a P-40 Warhawk, a gore sinister representing clouds [could we call it a "gore sinister of clouds"? Normally, "nebuly" represents clouds, but this isn't nebuly, it's just clouds) all argent, and on a chief azure the letters CAF also argent.

Yes, I know that this makes the chief "color on color" (indeed, it is "azure on azure," thus really reducing the identifiability of the charge). Still, if we were to just go by the cap, the planes and outline of the clouds are "silver on argent," which is no better. In the end, I think we're just going to have to go with "faux heraldry" and leave it at that.

Nonetheless, it's a new cap with a shield on it, and I'm keeping it in my collection of heraldic caps, and am even planning on wearing it periodically!


* Founded in the mid-1950s, the organization used to be the "Confederate Air Force," but they decided that the name (which began as a tongue in cheek joke) was confusing in that it didn't accurately reflect the purpose of the organization, and it was hindering their fundraising efforts. On January 1, 2002, they officially changed the first word to the more appropriate "Commemorative."

More Local "Heraldry"

Driving home from our annual Memorial Day ceremony (honoring those who have died during military service to the nation) over at Oak Wood Cemetery in Fort Worth, Texas, we ran across the following piece of "heraldry":

Clearly, the logo is based (very loosely) on the national arms (Paly of thirteen argent and gules a chief azure), and yeah, okay, I can kind of see the symbolism with the ladder and the arrow pointing upwards, but it still seems to me that if you have to add your name to the shield, then it's not doing a very good job of identifying you -- which is, after all, the primary use of heraldry: identification!

I suppose that I have to give them something positive for the effort, but I really wish that if an organization didn't want to use heraldry, they wouldn't put it on a shield shape. I have nothing against a good logo, and I especially have nothing against good heraldry, but this emblem is neither.

Sigh.

I Found a "Two-Fer"

Well, that's what they call 'em down here in Texas.  A "two-fer" is when you find "two things for the price of one."  Even when, in this case, the "price" was "free."

Driving home from work the other day, I ended up behind a Cadillac (the upper of the two coats of arms in the picture below, a simplified version of the arms of Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, who helped found the city of Detroit, Michigan) which had a specialty license plate which bore the arms of the sorority Delta Sigma Theta.

And here's a clearer version of the sorority's arms (taking a photograph with a phone camera through the front windshield while stopped a traffic light is not the most ideal of conditions):

Anyway, I thought it was kind of cool.  I'd never seen the Delta Sigma Theta insignia before, and in conjunction with the Cadillac logo/arms, I just couldn't resist trying to get a shot and sharing it with you.

It was a two-fer.

Another Heraldic Find

Once again, I don't even have to go looking for it to run across heraldry, even here in what you might think at first blush is an heraldic desert.  Or, more specifically, Fort Worth, Texas.

I was attending and participating in a commemorative ceremony for a former Civil War soldier over in Fort Worth the other day, and as I pulled up behind a pickup truck parked on the street in front of Pioneers Rest Cemetery where he is buried, I saw this in the back window:

I'm not certain what it represents; I think it may be related to a specific Boy Scout troop, or perhaps a recreationist organization. (The owner of the truck is involved with both.)

Still, it just goes to show that sometimes, you just can't help practically tripping over heraldry (of one sort or another) wherever you go, no matter whether you're looking for it or not!

Found Heraldry on My Birthday

You know how I keep saying that "you can find heraldry everywhere"?  Well, we proved it once again when we went out on my most recent birthday.  (No, I'm not going to tell you which birthday it was, nor am I going to tell you the date.  Let's just say it was this fall, and it's more years than I care to think back over.  At least I'm not like some in my family, who annually celebrate the nth anniversary of their 29th birthday.  So let it go, okay?

Anyway, to get back to the topic at hand:

We had gone to the Dallas Chocolate Festival (oh, yeah, it was totally worth it!), and having gone through and visited with and sampled the wares of all of the chocolatiers and gaining several pounds just from the smell of chocolate filling the room, we had a little time afterwards to wander about the neighborhood and see what we could see.

And, since you can "find heraldry everywhere," we, oh yeah, found some heraldry.

This is the arm-like logo of the Addison, Texas Police Department.  (Though it was styled the "Dallas Chocolate Festival," it was actually held in Addison, a suburb on the north side of Dallas.)  I find it interesting because they include as a part of their logo the seal, and de facto coat of arms, of the State of Texas (a white star on a blue field within a wreath of live oak and laurel proper).

Down the street and around the next corner is a British-style pub, which uses for its sign the crest from the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom.

Neither one may be the best use of heraldry, but, by golly, they are certainly attempts at using heraldry in the way that heraldry was designed to be used: identification.

And we found it just by having a little time and walking down the street to see what we could see.

Heraldry Seen on Memorial Day

Well, it was almost heraldry.

Memorial Day here in the United States is a holiday held on the last Monday in May dedicated to the memory of those who have died while serving in this country's armed forces.  It began as Decoration Day just a few years after the end of the American Civil War, and at that time memorialized those who had died in that bloody conflict.

The Fort Worth, Texas camp of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, of which I am a member, holds an annual Memorial Day ceremony at the Grand Army of the Republic* monument in Oakwood Cemetery in Fort Worth.  It is a relatively brief but moving ceremony, including a three-howitzer salute by a related unit, and draws a number of visitors and onlookers.

On an only marginally related note, I enjoy participating in it because it gives me the opportunity to visit the cemetery and to see some of the old, and new, headstones, etc.  This time, as we were driving in, my wife spotted an above-ground mausoleum which what looked like a coat of arms over the entrance.  So we made sure to go by it on our way out so we could get a photograph of the arms.

As you can see, as heraldry it is an "almost."  That is to say, it's almost heraldry, but falls a bit short.  A bit of a disappointment, admittedly; one could wish that the Moore family would use a real coat of arms there.  But still, it's nice to find even "almost" heraldry on a late spring morning in Texas.


*  The GAR was made up of those who fought for the Union in that war, whether soldier, sailor, or marine.  As the GAR's numbers dwindled as those men aged and died off (in much the same way as our World War II veterans are doing now), the SUVCW, made up of their children, grand-children, and so on, became the successor organization to the GAR, and carries on its legacy, including keeping alive the memory of their lost comrades in arms.

I Thought I Recognized That Shield!

Working at a law firm as I do, occasionally I'll see some correspondence or an envelope from another law firm which uses an heraldic-like device as a logo.  Recently, a letter came over my desk with the following:

It's okay as a design, I suppose, though it's not really heraldry.  And the motto on the scroll is, I suppose, a decent one for a law firm: "Truth overcomes all things."  Though Fairbairn's Crests gives the Latin for this motto, borne by the de Courcy, Eaton, Goodchild, and Laffan families, as Vincit omnia veritas, slightly different from the version here.  But vicit is "conquers" (also according to Fairbairn), so that part may be okay, too.  (But what do I know?  Putting on my best Dr. McCoy voice: "Dammit, Jim, I'm a herald, not a Latinist!")

Anyway, what really struck me about this logo was that the design of the shield and motto scroll looked familiar to me somehow.  So I pondered on it a little, and thought that I remembered where I'd seen it before.  I then dug through some of my photographs and depictions of heraldry from over the years and, sure enough, found what I had remembered.

This design is used frequently in the heraldic unit insignia of the United States Air Force.  Witness the following sampling of examples:

I don't know if the founder of the Loya Law Firm was ever in the Air Force, or whether the resemblance of his logo is a deliberate modeling of the design of much USAF heraldry, but I think you can see here why it just seemed "familiar" to me, somehow.  It's really a fairly distinctive shield and scroll shape combination.

Once Again ...

... I have found it to be true: "You can find heraldry everywhere!"

In this specific instance, I had taken my lunch time and left the office where I work to walk to a nearby shopping center to see if I could find a couple of Christmas gifts for some family members.  And on my way, I passed a new hamburger joint that had recently opened.  (The Hopdoddy Burger Bar if you must know.  I haven't tried their burgers yet, but I may have to before long.)  And on some large panels covering part of the building, interspersed with the name of the Burger Bar and with its logo were this arms-like logo:

By way of some explanation, though the location of this shopping center is a little north of downtown Dallas, it is not "in" Dallas, but in one of two "island" cities (so-called because they are completely surrounded by the City of Dallas) often referred to as the "Park Cities," Highland Park and University Park.

As a logo it is, I suppose, reasonably distinctive.  As heraldry, it has some problems.  I would blazon the "coat of arms" here as Quarterly, 1, Argent three bars Sable, 2 and 3, Argent plain, and 4, Argent three pallets Sable.  (The red banner with the words "Park Cities" is, in my opinion, external to the shield and thus not really a part of the arms.  Though I could, and I know of others who might, argue otherwise.)

In any case, I found this another example of being able to find heraldry, or heraldry-like depictions, everywhere, even while walking down the sidewalk on my way to someplace that had nothing to do with heraldry.  And how cool is that?

And Even More Found Heraldry

The coat of arms or logo presented here was seen on the back of an SUV while making my daily commute to work on the freeways of urban Dallas, Texas.

The picture is not as clear as I would like, but that's what you get for trying to take a photograph in moving traffic with a cell phone.  Still, it was sufficiently clear that I could later look up the Club Deportivo Guadalajara on-line, and find these much clearer, and color, versions.

The coat of arms at the top is, of course, the arms of the City of Guadalajara, Mexico, granted to it by the Emperor Charles V in 1539.  A rendition of these arms can be found on the website Heraldry of the World at http://www.ngw.nl/int/mex/g/guadalaj.htm

Proof once again that "you can find heraldry everywhere," even if you look no further than the front windscreen of your car.

More Found Heraldry

Further to our day out together, my wife and I drove over to the west side of Fort Worth to visit the Texas Civil War Museum.  (That would be the American Civil War of 1861-1865.  They've got some really neat stuff there, including a uniform worn by General J.E.B. Stuart, General Robert E. Lee's cavalry commander, as well as the frock coat worn by General U.S. Grant when accepting Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. But I digress.)

Next door to the TCWM, we saw the following:

Why is it that so many, especially Christian, schools want to use a coat of arms – either real or, more often, made up – for their logo?  Does it have something to do with the “shield of faith” (Eph. 6:16) where Paul is talking about putting on “the full armor of God” and specifically references “the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish the fiery darts of the evil one”?  (Though how a shield would extinguish flaming arrows is something that I am uncertain about.)  Or is there some other rationale for it?

I don’t have an answer to that question, but I do know that many Christian schools and academies use a coat of arms or shield-shape for their logo.

In any case, it's an interesting heraldic logo (yes, it has its faults: the border and chief are color on color; the stars on the border and across the chief are too small for good identification; the word "Crown" - with a crown inside the O - ought to be unnecessary, for example), and proof once again of something I say so often:  "You can find heraldry everywhere!"  Even, or maybe even especially, when you're not really looking for it.

Finding Heraldry

I keep on saying it, and it keeps on being true:  You can find heraldry everywhere!

I this specific instance, my wife and I were taking a day to ourselves and just spending some time with each other away from the house and all the work that needs doing there.  As part of that day, we went over to a large antique mall that we visit occasionally, because (1) it's the kind of thing we like to do, and (2) there's so much cool stuff to see.  The downside of doing this, though, is that we sometimes spend money there and bring some of that cool stuff home, where we have to find a place for it.

And, wouldn't you know it, some of the cool stuff we saw, and bought, and brought home, had heraldry on it.

I have a modest collection of Wedgwood armorial plates, ashtrays, and pin trays.  Most of them are what Wedgwood calls Jasperware, which has a rough-feeling textured finish to it.  One of the themed collections I have that I'm particularly proud of is what I think of as the "London" collection.  I have four plates with the achievement of arms of London on them: one plate in "Wedgwood blue," one terra cotta (with the arms done in black), one black, and one olive green.  I also have a blue one with the arms of London and a scroll commemorating the term of "Sir Edward Howard, BT" as "Lord Mayor 1971-2".  And to round the set out, a Lloyds of London plate done in Lloyds of London green with the firm's arms on it.

 Now, to add to that collection, I found - and purchased - a pin or sweets tray with the achievement of arms of London on it.

A nice addition to the collection, don't you think?

Then Jo Ann found an armorial brooch that caught her eye, with the arms of Sinclair (well, sort of.  They lack the black engrailed cross overall that normally appears there.

And comparing the arms on the brooch to the Sinclair arms in the Sinclair Earls of Caithness in the Dublin Armorial and Lord Crawford's Armorial, the second and third quarters, which on the brooch are painted in gold, should be white.

Still and all, though, it was a nice couple of heraldic finds to be found on a pleasant fall Saturday, and I'm glad that we ran across them.

Austin, Texas

Taking a little time out from the international news of heraldry, I thought I'd introduce to you the coat of arms of the capitol city of Texas, Austin.

Named for the "Father of Texas" (so named because of his early efforts in the colonization of the area) Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836), the City of Austin is not only home to the State's government (the above example of Austin's coat of arms was photographed on the capitol building grounds; note the silhouette of the capitol building behind the crest above the shield), but also - in keeping with its self-description as a "City of Learning" - the University of Texas.

It is to commemorate the "City of Learning" that a lamp of knowledge appears on the chief of its arms.

The coat of arms was designed in 1915 by Ray F. Coyle of San Francisco. The winning entrant in a city-sponsored contest for a city flag, the crest incorporates the crest attributed to Stephen F. Austin, A cross-crosslet fitchy or between a pair of wings argent.

Heraldry in Tyler, Texas

We interrupt our on-going series of heraldry in the city of Maastricht, The Netherlands, to share some heraldry we found in Tyler, out in east Texas.

I was there to give a presentation to the East Texas Genealogical Society ("An Introduction to Heraldry for Genealogists,", if you must know), and we arrived early enough to see a bit of the town and have lunch before going to the library for the presentation.  As we were driving around, we passed by this building ...

... which boasts two coats of arms on its facade.

Here they are in close up.

The two arms - Bergfeld and Brookshire - look suspiciously to me like they've come from one of the many bucket shop heralds available on the internet and at Gaelic and Scottish festivals just about everywhere.  You know, the folks who will gladly print you out a copy of "your family coat of arms" or worse, "your family crest," for US$20 or so (no matter that the arms they sell you may belong to another family entirely which only bears the same, or a similar, surname to yours).

Still, I tried doing a little research on these two coats, and was unable to come up with anything from any reputable source.  Neither shield appears in Burke's General Armory or in Rietstap's Armorial Général.  I tried a few other general American sources like Bolton's American Armory, Crozier's General Armory and Matthews' American Armory and Blue Book, but didn't run across either coat of arms in any book that I checked.

So I went on-line to see what I could find.  No real luck on this Bergfeld coat, though several firms offered different coats of arms for the name, a couple of them with horseshoes on them.

But several bucket shops all had this coat of arms for Brookshire: Argent, a chevron between three crosses moline gules.  Papworth's An Ordinary of British Armorials, however, cites this shield as belonging to "Bruckshaw or Bruckshow," as well as to Cheselden, Cheseldon or Cheseldyne, Chiseldine, and Chiselden.

Well, I guess that "Bruckshaw" sounds a bit like "Brookshire."  And that seems to be good enough for most bucket shops.

Heraldry in the Air

I don't know why I hadn't seen these before.  I mean, Southwest Airlines is based here in Dallas, Texas.  And they've always had a bit of "flair" in how they run their business and how they decorate their aircraft.  And I'd seen a couple of these uniquely painted planes before: the one (well, apparently, there's actually three of them) painted to look like Shamu, the orca, or killer whale; and the one painted as the Texas flag.  But the other day, I ran across some photos of some other Southwest planes, of a more heraldic nature.

While the airline seems to be sticking with the motif of state flags (of some of the states which they service), the flags of some states here in the United States can be heraldic.  For example,

the State of Maryland, whose flag is the arms of the Calverts, Lords Baltimore, who founded the then colony.  (The state seal also features the Calvert arms, which consist of the quartered arms of Calvert, Paly or and sable, a bend counterchange, and Crossland, Quarterly argent and gules, a cross bottony counterchanged.)

Another plane has the flag of the State of New Mexico, with a red stylized sun symbol, also looking (and acting) heraldic.

They also have Arizona, Florida, California, Nevada, and Illinois in addition to the others already noted above.  Information about Florida and the rest of their "Specialty Fleet" can be found on-line at: http://www.southwest.com/html/cs/landing/floridaOne.html

So if you find yourself near an airport serviced by Southwest Airlines, you might keep an eye out for one of these aircraft.  You could be rewarded by seeing some flying heraldry!