Texas – Grandma's Trunk

Week 18 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – Close Up – Nights with MamMaw

I grew up in the town where my ancestors settled in 1875. By the time I was 18, my two older sisters and my maternal grandmother were living on the same block that we grew up on. I can’t count the times someone has asked me, “How does your family live so close together?” That’s an easy one, we’re all to busy to get in each other’s way.

MamMaw moved two houses down when I was in my teens. I remember many late nights talking with her and listening to her tell stories about the family. She had an old trunk that had belonged to her mother and there were all kinds of treasures inside. There was a boxed brush and comb set, her and Grandpa’s marriage license, a child’s depression glass cup and saucer that she got on the church Christmas tree when she was a little girl, old letters, receipts, photographs, etc. I loved looking through the items she kept inside. I remember one time that she couldn’t find the key and even as I told her, begged her actually, not to break the lock, she grabbed a screw driver and broke it open. She was extremely headstrong.

She would sit for hours and tell me about how she and her cousin Ida slipped off to see my Grandpa off at the train station near the end of World War I. Just before he was to board the train, they got word the war was over. She talked about going to taffy-pulls, and getting out of sight of home and taking her shoes off to walk to school.

One of my favorite stories was about her dropping a “dead” wasp down the back of a girls high-top boot at school one day. The girl was sitting so that her boot tops were away from her leg and when she straightened up, the wasp stung her and the fight was on.

MamMaw loved to watch Saturday Night Wrestling and many weekends I would walk down to her house and we’d drink Coca-Cola out of little glass bottles and watch the Von Erichs.

***Norma Louise, Alta, Mary Ruth (my Momma) Grantham in the 30s***

She was contrary to say the least. I asked her sisters once if my Grandpa dying when she was only 27 and leaving her with two small daughters had made her the way she was, perpetually unhappy. They responded with a resounding “NO, she was always that way, no one ever understood what your Grandpa saw in her because he was such a sweet man.” I had to laugh, you can’t argue with the truth.

As cantankerous and contrary as she could be, she could turn right around and be the kindest, most thoughtful person ever. I didn’t like peanuts until a few years ago and every year when she made peanut brittle she would pour some of the candy out with no nuts, just for me. She knew how much I loved peach cobbler with lots of crust and no peaches, just juice, she had a small pan that she would fix me cobbler in, just the way I liked it.

I’m thankful for the time I got to spend with her, for the visits to cemeteries and the hours of talking about the family. I’m grateful that she never kept secrets about the history of our family. She told me that it was important for me to know everything about our family, even the skeletons. She told me “secrets” that she made me swear not to reveal until everyone involved had passed, but she made sure that they were preserved and handed down so that they weren’t lost with time.

I’m thankful for the time I got to spend “Close Up”, just the two of us, talking until the wee hours of the morning, for her always having orange juice in a glass carafe in her refrigerator, for knowing what “faunching at the bit” means, for being fortunate enough to have inherited many of the treasures that were in her trunk, for her fruitcake recipe and “gut gravy” aka giblet gravy, and for the mental picture she painted of “having a runaway” when she decided to spray whiskey up her nose to cure a sinus infection.

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Whispers from the Past…..

Week 16 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – Storms

Storms take many forms, lightning, tornados, rain, snow, tragedy………..

What greater storm could a parent face, than the death of a child?

Pheobe Ophelia Grantham
21 Dec 1887 – 27 May 1892

Pheobe Ophelia Grantham, second child and oldest daughter of Rufus Marion and Mary Ann “Mollie” McReynolds Grantham, born 21 Dec 1887 in Bosque County, Texas.

By 1891 R. M., Mollie, Thomas Jefferson, and little Pheobe had migrated to Coleman County and the Roberson Peak area where baby Ada Elizabeth was born.

In the blink of an eye, their lives were forever altered.

“Our darling one has gone before, To greet us on the golden shore”

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Whispers from the Past…..

Week 14 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – The Maiden Aunt or Bachelor Uncle

Uncle Albert by Lu’s fig bush at Bunger, Texas

Albert Ichabod Driver, Uncle Albert, died in 1951, 11 years before I was born. While I never knew him, I’ve heard about him all my life.

Albert was the oldest son of John and Weltha Driver, born in 1871, he was only two years old when his family left the Nacogdoches, Texas area and headed West. In 1874, the little family settled in Parker County near the town of Weatherford, where Albert’s younger brother, Henry, was born, near Long Creek. In 1875, the family moved again, this time to the little town of Graham, where they would spend the rest of their lives.

As a young man, Albert was engaged to a girl named Etta Cunningham. Albert suffered from asthma and fearing he’d be a burden to her, he eventually broke their engagement. His brother, Henry, went with her for a while but he met Louise Smith while visiting their Mother’s family in the Coleman area and married her.

In the early 1930s, oil was discovered on the family’s land, a few miles South of Graham. Albert’s mother, Weltha, was a frugal woman, the family had lived through lean times and she believed in patching the patches on her clothes to make them last longer. I’ve often wondered if this was because of an incident where a cow ate her new dress on their journey West….. Albert and his sister-in-law, Louise, would do the laundry and would “hang Weltha’s worn out dress up in the ringer” then they would pull back and forth until the dress was beyond repair. This was force Weltha to start wearing a new dress instead of “saving it.”

Albert never married and spent a good deal of his life farming with and looking after his parents. He cared for them until their deaths. Anytime I’ve heard relatives speak of Uncle Albert, the fondness is apparent in their voice. His appearance was kindly and warm. Many times I have thought about how his life might have been different if he would have had access to the modern miracle of rescue inhalers.

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Whispers from the Past…..

Week 13 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – The Old Homeplace – Texas Republic 1841, The Thomas Jefferson Walling Cabin

Thomas Jefferson Walling (1811-1902) was born in White County, Tennessee to John Walling, Sr and Ann Chisum. In 1832, he married his first wife, Nancy Ann Price, they had nine children. TJ and Nancy migrated through Mississippi and Arkansas before settling in Nacogdoches, Texas near his brothers, John and Jesse, in 1836. It was there that T J took the Oath of Allegiance to the Texas Republic and took part in the Texas Revolution with Captain Peck’s regiment.

In 1841 TJ claimed land near Henderson, Texas in Rusk County and he and Nancy built a one room log cabin measuring 20 by 19 feet, about 10 miles Northeast of Henderson, Texas. The cabin was built from hand-hewn pine timber joined at the corners by square notches and typical of many pioneer farm homes in the area. It is the only such structure known to survive from the era of the Republic of Texas in Rusk County.

When Nancy passed away in 1854, TJ married Eleanor Stone Hardy in 1855. They continued to live in the little cabin until 1859 when they moved to Hill County, Texas to the Walling Bend Community near his brother, Colonel Jesse Walling, who had fought with General Sam Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto.

TJ and Eleanor had four children including my great-grandmother, Nancy Ella who was born at Prairie Valley. The family migrated across Texas, Eleanor died in 1899 at Edna Hill in Erath County and Thomas Jefferson dying in Merkel, Northwest of Abilene, in 1902.

The house and 307 acres surrounding it were sold in 1859 to John Henderson. A contract made by Harrison’s widow in 1867 states that the house is the home built by TJ Walling and the entire contents of the house are listed in an inventory.

In 1982, the little cabin was discovered in the woods near Henderson and thankfully it was rescued. The Rusk County Historical had it dismantled and it was reconstructed at the Depot Museum in Henderson, Texas. Today the cabin stands furnished as it was during the life of Thomas Jefferson Walling and his family. The dedication ceremony and erection of a historical marker were attended by many of the descendants of T J Walling.

T.J. Walling Log Cabin

“In 1841 Thomas Jefferson Walling I811-1902) and his wife Nancy (Price) erected this one-room log cabin. Typical of many pioneer farm homes in this area, it was built of hand-hewn timbers joined at the corners by square notches.

Walling was a veteran of the Cordova Rebellion and Indian Wars, 1838-1839, and lived here with his family until 1859. The Walling log cabin was moved from its original site (10 Mi. N E) to this location in 1982.”

Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 1983

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Whispers from the Past…..

Week 12 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – Misfortune

Definition of misfortune

1 : an unhappy situation

2 : a distressing or unfortunate incident or event

My daddy’s family has been a mystery throughout the 40 plus years I’ve been researching.

Mary Rebecca Smith Black
31 Oct 1849 – 30 Oct 1930

Mary Rebecca Smith, my great-great-grandmother, was born on Halloween, 1849 in Georgia. June 1869, she married John W Black in Grimes County, Texas, three sons and three daughters were born to their union. John passed away in March of 1884 leaving the 35 year old Mary with six small children from four months to 13 years of age.

One would think that the young mother would have remarried, but as census records bear out, that was not the case. In 1900 I found Mary and her two youngest children, Wayne and Fannie, living with her oldest daughter, Mary Alice, her husband, John M Machen, and their family. June of 1911, Mary was committed to the Austin State Lunatic Asylum in Austin, Texas by her son-in-law, W T Higgins.

For 19 years, 5 months, and 13 days, this was her home, this is where she died.

I was able to obtain her commitment papers and her patient file a few years ago. It was heartbreaking to read that the condition for which she was committed could have been easily treated with Vitamin B-12.

I’ve often wondered if she simply became overwhelmed with life after losing her husband.

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Whispers from the Past……