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Old 11-25-2012, 06:48 PM
Flora Van Orden Flora Van Orden is offline
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Sorry, my mom was not related to the President of S&W; they were just close personal friends and business collaborators after she designed the S&W K-38 combat masterpiece. Her name was Flora Mason Mitchell Van Orden, not Florence, from Jarratt, Virginia and my dad born in Pensacola, was the son of Col. George Van Orden, who was on the board of 3 that chose the site of Quantico for the Marines and established the Marine Corps Institute.

I got the honor of being named the 3rd Flora in the family, after her mother, Flora Fleming Farley Mitchell. She taught over 2,000 FBI agents how to shoot, and helped correct the scores of many other thousands of shooters at the small office in Triangle, which has now been destroyed. I posted at another link that I now often stand on the foundation of the old Evaluators and remember how dedicated they were to saving their 'boys' lives when their M-16 would jam in combat conditions, wanting to supply them with Hoppes gun oil and going over every single weapon that was shipped out of there or sold in there, to make sure it was in perfect working condition. I am very proud of them; yes, I admire them both for their dedication and time spent. I would love for anyone who knew them to write to me, [email protected] and share their memories because they were so busy in the office my brother (a Col. in the MC by the same name) and I didn't get to know them very well.
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