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.
#52ancestors