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The Family Garden
Notes
John Thomas COOKSEY
John T. Cooksey and Vivian Lee Rogers - Notes by Laurie Jeanne Karnes (step-aunt to Vivian).
Johnny and Vivian married in Corsican, TX, the 29th of March 1024. Hewas 22 years old and she was 14. Vivian's mother died when she was 3 years old. Her Grandmother Rogers raised her in Corsicana. Her Grandmother was quite upset when she found out Vivian was dating a man so much older than she was and wanted to marry him. She kept her locked in her room for a week trying to convince her not to marry. But, as soon as she let her out, she ran off and got married anyway. Johnny wouldn't let her start a family until she was 18 years old. Her gave her time to finish growing up a little bit more. There were 12 children born to this union.
Documents in my possession:
29 Mar 1924 - Marriage License
John T. Cooksey and Vivian Karnes, Navarro Co, TX
Vivian Lee KARNES
John T. Cooksey and Vivian Lee Rogers - Notes by Laurie Jeanne Karnes
Johnny and Vivian married in Corsican, TX, the 29th of March 1024. Hewas 22 years old and she was 14. Vivian's mother died when she was 3years old. Her Grandmother Rogers raised her in Corsicana. HerGrandmother was quite upset when she found out Vivian was dating a manso much older than she was and wanted to marry him. She kept herlocked in her room for a week trying to convince her not to marry.But, as soon as she let her out, she ran off and got married anyway.Johnny wouldn't let her start a family until she was 18 years old.Her gave her time to finish growing up a little bit more. There were12 children born to this union.
Documents in my possession:
July 7, 1909 - Register of Births
Name of Child: Karnes (Vivian Lee)
Place: Corsicana
Father: Foster Karnes
Mother: Mrs. Foster Karnes
Father's Occupation: Painter
29 Mar 1924 - Marriage License
John T. Cooksey and Vivian Karnes, Navarro Co, TX
Orlando Bruce HANSON
He was born the 9th of March, 1881 in a double log house on the farm of his grandparents, John S. and Sarah Jane McDearman. The son of Benjamin Franklin and Mary Angeline McDearman Hanson. He had a brother, John Wesley, who died in infancy.
His mother died when he was 9 months old from red measles. He was raised by his grandparents. His father married again, but the lady only lived about 9 months after the marriage. She died from a spider bite while picking strawberries.
When Orlando was 7 years old, his father married (3rd wife) Charlotte Josephine Rogers. He continued living with his grandparents and visited his Father and Step-Mother. He called her Ma Josie and thought a lot of her.
When he was 15, his Father moved to Corsicana, Texas, but he stayed in Judsonia to help his grandparents farm. He had 13 step-brothers and sisters.
He went to school at McCauley grade school, a rural school a couple of miles from the farm. He also attended Judsonia University in Judsonia, Arkansas.
When he was 22 years old, he met Martha Emmaline Dodd of Bald Knob, and they married the 10th of May, 1903. He would walk from Judsonia to Bald Knob to have a date with her, and then walk back to Judsonia, a distance of about 6 miles. They were married in the home of Martha's parents, James Levi and Emily Jane Dodd.
To this union were born 5 daughters, Edna Lorena, Fannie Odette, Etta Mae, Julia Martha and Emily Rebecca.
He was a carpenter by trade and took pride in his work. He had a very sweet tooth. One of his favorite things to eat was orange slice candy and he put sugar on almost every thing else he ate. He liked his cigars and when he worked outside, he chewed tobacco...when he worked inside, he chewed juicy fruit gum.
He liked to read the newspaper after the dinner meal and retire early. He liked to tease people, especially children. He was proud of his family, A good husband and Father. He died the 17th of February, 1949 in Searcy, Arkansas and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery inSearcy.
Notes from the Hanson Family Book compiled by Laurie Jeanne Karnes Graves. Edna Lorena Hanson Karnes was the source for these notes.
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ARTICLE PRINTED IN THE DAILY CITIZEN NEWSPAPER, SEARCY, ARKANSAS, JULY29, 1936
O. B. Hanson is an experienced contractor. Having been engaged in general carpentering for 30 years, O.B. Hanson is thoroughly familiar with every phase of his contracting work, and those persons who know him know that they can depend with certain confidence upon him for construction work that is always above average. His work has a marked superiority of type.
Some of the notable construction jobs handled by Mr. Hanson are the Herbert Smith residence, Nurses Home, General Hospital, resides of Dr. Moore and the First Methodist Church building in Higginson (betweenSearcy and Kensett).
Mr. Hanson also kept the James McDearman home in good repair which is located in Judsonia.
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He was raised by his McDearman grandparents.
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1900 Harrison Township including Judsonia Town, White County, Arkansas Census, Ennumeration District 150, Sheet # 21:
Found living with his grandfather, John S. McDearman:
Hanson, Orlando B., grandson, b. Mar 1881 in Arkansas, age 18,
Occupation: Farm Labor, Father born in Alabama, Mother born
in Tenn.
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1920 Census, Arkansas, White County, Gray Township, Call # T625-85, Enumeration District: 168, Sheet Number: 25B, Eenumeration Date: 14 Jan 1920
Hanson, Orlando B., head, age 38, married, able to read and write, born in Arkansas, father born in United States, mother in Arkansas, occupation carpenter, industry furniture, works on own account (independently employed)
Martha Mrs., wife, age 36, married, able to read and write, born in Arkansas, father born in Illinois, mother born in Iowa
Edna, daughter, age 15, attends school
May, daughter, age 13, attends school
Odette, daughter, age 8, attends school
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1930 Census, Arkansas, White County, Gray Township, Call number: T262_98, Enumeration District: 63-27, Sheet Number" 5B, Enumeration Date: 28 Apr 1930 Hanson, Orlando B., head, home owned at value of $2000, age 49, age at first marriage: 23, born Arkansas, father born in Alabama, mother born in Alabama, Occupation: Contractor, Industry: Building, not a veteran
Martha, wife, age 46, age at first marriage 20, born in Arkansas, father born in Illinois, mother born in Iowa
May, daughter, age 23
Odette, daughter, age 18
Rebekah, daughter, age 5 7/12
Note: All children born in Arkansas
Martha Emily DODD
She was born in Peach Gap, Arkansas the 21st of November, 1883,daughter of James Levi and Emly Jane Dillion Dodd. She had two sisters, Fannie Valerie and Clara Flora and one brother, John Edwin.
Her father followed the river cutting timber, so Martha lived at different places from Peach Gap to Pocahontas. It is believed thatmost of her school days were in Pocahontas.
When she was twenty years old, her parents were living in Bald Know,Arkansas. It was there she was courted by Orlando Hanson. The story has been told that Orlando was working in Pangburn, about from miles from where he lived in Judsonia. He would walk to Pangburn in the morning, back to Judsonia in the evening, and then walk another four miles in the other direction to Balk Knob to have a date with Martha, and then back to Judsonia where he lived.
They were married at her parents home the 9th of May, 1903. After the marriage, the lived in Judsonia, West Point and Searcy. There were five daughters born to this union: Edna Lorena, Etta Mae, FannieOdette, Julia Martha and Emily Rebecca.
There was a story told about her scorching Navy Beans when she was cooking for her new husband. To keep from hurting her feelings, he told her he liked them like that, so for the rest of her life, whenever she cooked navy beans, she would scorch them on purpose to please her husband!
Source of anecdotes: Edna Lorena Hanson, their daughter
Etta Mae HANSON
She was born the 15th of November, 1906 in West Point, Arkansas. The second child of Orlando B. and Martha Hanson. When she was two years old, her parents moved to Searcy, Arkansas where she grew up. As of this writing, she is 80 years old and still residing in Searcy. She started to school in 1912 and graduated from Searcy Elementary May 19, 1922. She graduated from Searcy High in 1926. Her class mottowas: CLIMB THROUGH THE ROCKS, BE RUGGED. Her School Yell was:
Helta Skelta Pell Mell
If you don't like the seniors
You can go to
Helta Skelta Pell Mell.
Sixth period in high school was study hall and from her letting me read her high school memory book, that is when she got into mischief. She at candy in class and got caught. She threw notes across the room and got caught. Her big sister, Edna, went home and told their mother, but I didn't hear of any drastic punishment. Edna gave her her high school memory book, and it is filled with mementoes from graduation presents to her notes from her school chums. She was a good student all thought school, an A & B student. She worked for a war plant during World War II in Jacksonville, Arkansas. Being a very thrifty person, she saved quite a bit of money during those years and bought the house she and her parents lived in for many years at 600 Woodruff. She saved her money in two huge piggybanks that sat on the floor of their living room. After the war was over and they closed down so may war plants, she worked for about ten years at the Rendezvous Restaurant in Searcy when she retired due to ill health. Mae was a loving devoted daughter to both her parents, caring for both of them during their last illnesses.
*Source: Notes from my mother, Laurie Jeanne Karnes Graves, neice of Rebecca. Family Lore - I asked my Grandmother (Edna Lorena Hanson Karnes) if my great-Aunt Mae had ever had a boyfriend. She told me that there was only one time she had a "beau" ask her out, and when he came to the door, she decided she was too scared and locked herself into the bathroom and wouldn't come out until her family sent the young man away. Word got around town, and Mae was never asked out again.
Julia Martha HANSON
She was born January 20, 1920 in Searcy, Arkansas, the fourth child ofOrlando B. and Martha Hanson. Known her short life and there after as Little Julia. A few days before she became ill, her Mother was holding her up on the dresser so she could look at herself in the mirror. She leaned over and left hand prints on the mirror. For several months after her death, her Mother would not let anyone wipe the hand prints off. She only lived two years, but she has been talked about with tenderness by her Mother and her sisters. Never to be forgotten by those who knew and loved her. Her sister, Edna Lorena Hanson (my grandmother) kept her picture hanging in her guest bedroom all her life and always spoke of her with a great tenderness. OBITUARY FROM the Judsonia DAILY CITIZEN newspaper: Little Julia Martha Hanson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. O.B. Hanson, died at their home this (Tuesday) morning at 8 o'clock after a critical illness of one week. Little Julia Martha was born on January19, 1920, and was therefore two years and less than one month old. She appeared some better yesterday, but had been unconscious since Sunday. The family physicians held out little hope of recovery from the first hemorrhage perpura developed rapidly and resisted all treatment. Interment will take place at Oak Gove cemetery at 10:00 am Wednesday. Rev. O. A. Greenleaf will conduct the funeral services.The Citizen extends sincere condolence to the bereaved parents and other relatives.
William Foster KARNES JR
Notes written by Laurie Jeanne Graves about her brother (1987):
Born in Corsicana, TX, 14 Mar 1930. First child of Foster and Edna Karnes. He had two sisters, Laurie Jeanne and Betty Emmaline. Billymoved to Dallas with his parents when he was six years old. billiecould read the headlines of the newspaper when he was five. He wasdouble promoted when he was in Junior High School and he graduated atage 16 from Crozier Tech High School in Dallas. He was a member ofthe Texas State Guard and Texas Air National Guard. He held the rankof Colonel in the Confederate Air Force. During the Korean War, hisNational Guard Squadron was activated and he spent about two years inthe active Air Force. He was stationed at Scott Field, Illinois andChanute Field, Illinois.
His mother gave him the nickname of scooter boy when he was a babybecause he never crawled, he just scooted across the floor. One timewhen he was a teenager, him and three of his buddies decided to goswimming in Turtle Creek. They picked a place to lie down and dry offthat was covered in poison ivy. Needless to say, they were all veryuncomfortable for several days afterward.
While he was stationed at Scott Field, he met Joy Odessa Stevenson.They were married the 17th of October, 1952. They had three children:Steven Allen, Michael Wayne and Pamela Jo. They divorced in 1972,and in 1976, Bill married Martha Diane Dodd. He has a step daughter,Jane Allyson.
William Foster KARNES JR
Notes written by Laurie Jeanne Graves about her brother (1987):
Born in Corsicana, TX, 14 Mar 1930. First child of Foster and Edna Karnes. He had two sisters, Laurie Jeanne and Betty Emmaline. Billymoved to Dallas with his parents when he was six years old. billiecould read the headlines of the newspaper when he was five. He wasdouble promoted when he was in Junior High School and he graduated atage 16 from Crozier Tech High School in Dallas. He was a member ofthe Texas State Guard and Texas Air National Guard. He held the rankof Colonel in the Confederate Air Force. During the Korean War, hisNational Guard Squadron was activated and he spent about two years inthe active Air Force. He was stationed at Scott Field, Illinois andChanute Field, Illinois.
His mother gave him the nickname of scooter boy when he was a babybecause he never crawled, he just scooted across the floor. One timewhen he was a teenager, him and three of his buddies decided to goswimming in Turtle Creek. They picked a place to lie down and dry offthat was covered in poison ivy. Needless to say, they were all veryuncomfortable for several days afterward.
While he was stationed at Scott Field, he met Joy Odessa Stevenson.They were married the 17th of October, 1952. They had three children:Steven Allen, Michael Wayne and Pamela Jo. They divorced in 1972,and in 1976, Bill married Martha Diane Dodd. He has a step daughter,Jane Allyson.
Sam Houston GRAVES
Documents in my possession:
A photostat copy of the house he was born in and the following story he wrote:
THE OLD HOME PLACE
This is the house that Sam Houston Graves was born in on 5 Sep 1929. Pryor Garrett and his wife, known as Little Granny, settled Plano, TX. They built the first log house ever built there. They homsteaded and farmed several hundred acres of land. At one time they had built five houses in Plano. After the death of Pryor, Little Granny was left owing debts and taxes to the amount that she lost all of the property with the exception of this house. One of their daughters, Eliza Jane Garrett, married a man named Eli Wines. They had three daughters named Laura Bell, Ida nd Sallie Ann Wines. Sallie Ann was the Grandmother of Sam H. Graves. This house was probably buit around the 1850's. You can still see the lot the house was on, but thge house burned down about 1982. If houses could tell stories, this house could tell a lot of history of Plano, TX. The people standing in front are Laura Bell Wines, Margaret, Little Granny and Pryor richard Garrett. It was taken before 1905.
Notes from Linda Carol Walker Graves - family lore from my father and other descendants is that the Garrets owned most of the land that today comprises downtown Plano. Plano was growing rapidly during the time that Pryor took ill and passed away. Dad always referred to the doctors who treated Pryor during his final illness as crooks - they took huge plots of land in return for their services - valued at far more than services rendered, but Little Granny had no choice but to give it to them to get treatment for her dying husband. He said one doctor refused to make a house call unless she signed over 100 acres of land - valued at far more than a house call in those days. Haven't found records to substantiate this, but it's an old story I heard from many relatives in my Dad's generation.
Other documents - too numerous to include here. He was my father and among the many, many documents are: birth, marriage and death certificates; military service documents (he was in both the Army and the Air Force), training certificates; military promotions & awards, letters, checkbooks, bills, deeds of land, car deeds, various contracts signed over the years, , Texas State Guard documents, a copy of the front page of the Plano Star Courier from 5 Sep 1929 - the day he was born, etc.
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MY FATHER
He was born 5 September 1929, on the eve of the great depression. His early childhood was marked by the times - poverty stricken and miserable for the most part. He remembered never having enough food to eat and one time the poorest of souls in the neighborhood killed a goat and brought his family meat. They had not eaten for 2 days when the neighbors took pity on them. The soles on his shoes fell off and his mother mended them with a sewing needle and thick copper wire. He recalled these two events as the most embarrassing of his life. Too add to the family problems, his father was an abject alcoholic, spending most of what little money he earned on booze and long frequent absences from the home. Eventually, he just quit coming around much at all. His mother endured many hardships during this time, and one doesn't know quite what set her mind off, but she too eventually began to disappear. She would drop the kids off at relatives to spend the night and might not return for several weeks, sometimes months. At age 11, Daddy actually endured that nightmare of coming home from school and finding their meager belongings packed and gone - story is that his mother had run off with a trucker and was gone for several months. The forlorn boy walked to a cousin's house and politely asked if he could spend the night.
What could one expect from a young boy raised in these terrible circumstances? I have read a lot of books in my life and have found that deprivation in childhood seems to lead either to criminal lives, or lives hampered by inability to adequately live in society as productive members -- however in some rare cases, it creates a will so strong to rise above these deprivations, to make something better of oneself and create a life full of the things missed as a child and results in outstanding accomplishments and greatness. I count my father as one of those rare men.
Daddy did have a few good things going for him. He had a lot of relatives who willingly took him in and showed him affection and spent time with him. He always had fond memories of them and kept in touch throughout his life with most of them. He had his own spirit and sense of joy of life no matter what it brought. He had a mischievous nature and a life-long love of practical jokes. Most of all, he loved people.
Then, something happened that changed Daddy's life forever. In junior high school he became friends with a schoolmate named Billy Karnes. The two of them got together with 2 other boys named Leslie Clark and Ronnie Owens. The four of them were inseparable throughout school and though life eventually took them all in different directions, Daddy remained in contact with them the rest of his life. In particular, his buddy Billy Karnes. You see, one day Billy took Daddy home and introduced him to his little sister, Laurie Jeanne. And there began the most amazing love I have ever witnessed. Daddy was about 14 when he met Laurie Jeanne (my Mom). Daddy decided that he belonged to Laurie Jeanne and vice versa. He never dated another girl. Why is that so amazing? You would have to understand that these 2 people were very passionate and strong willed. They loved each other dearly, but could fight like dogs and cats. They divorced each other 3 times and remarried 4 times. One time they were divorced for almost 10 years. During this time, Mom married someone else for a short time. I tried to convince Daddy that he needed to go on with his life and find someone else. I'll never forget his immediate response to me. She's my wife, she'll figure out where she belongs and she'll be back, and I'll be right here waiting. Don't want anyone else. Daddy and Mom were married over 20 years the first time they got divorced. Three of their four children were grown and married by that time. Daddy moved in with my sister in Texas and Mom moved to Oregon to live with my family and me. During that time, Daddy came to visit me. We were trying to make sleeping arrangements and suggested him and Mom sleep in my kid's room, where they were twin beds. He would have nothing of it. They weren't married and weren't sleeping in the same room, separate beds or not. It wasn't proper. A few years later, my family and my Mom, moved back to Texas. First thing you know, along comes Daddy, courting her. Can't think of any other word to describe it. They "dated" for a few months. Mom was a little leery for a time. After all, they had experienced many problems. Dad had moved to East Texas and had a dinning room filled with little wooden plaques with sayings and quotes on them. One of them was a sign advertising for a position: WIFE WANTED Light Cleaning, Heavy Love…etc. On one visit to his place, Mom left him a letter of application for the position. Started off with: Dear Sir, I noticed the job vacancy on your wall and would like to apply for the position. She quoted her 20+ years of experience as a wife. She left it where he would find it after she was gone. She lived about 3 hours away from Sam. About an hour after she got home, Daddy showed up on her doorstep and proposed (again!). Three of their kids celebrated their fourth wedding with them, with a cake decorated with "Happy Fourth!." We jokingly told them that we would NOT be celebrating 4 different anniversaries and all agreed that we would stick with the original marriage date - April 1, 1948 and thereafter they celebrated their anniversary on April 1.
As with most couples, Dad gained not only a wife, but also a whole other family. From stories he and Mom told he was very close to my Grandparents (William Foster Karnes Sr and Edna Lorena Hanson). Of course, Granddaddy would sometimes get aggravated with Daddy. Granddaddy and Grandmother came to visit shortly after Mom and Dad were married. Mom was picking up the trash to take out and Granddaddy used his "aggravated" name for Daddy and said "Wham, Sam Damuel, don't ever let me see you letting my girl take the trash out, that's not woman's work". Thus, from another generation, Daddy took on all the "dirty" work as described by my Grandfather that he did not consider "women's work". My mother was not allowed to do the following things (besides take out the trash): any yard work other than pointing out where she might like flowers planted, cleaning the refrigerator, cleaning the oven, putting gas in the cars, taking cars to mechanics, stripping the wax from the floors (in those days, you waxed the floors regularly and about every six months had to strip the old wax off and start fresh - it was an all day messy grimy task) and anything else that was considered "dirty work".
Daddy loved to cook and loved to experiment with cooking. Since he was in the Air Force for 20 years and traveled all over the world, we were fortunately exposed to a variety of wonderful foods and ethnic dishes. They pretty much traded off cooking, each probably sharing about half the chore of cooking meals regularly for a family of six. When I was 14, Mom went back to work full-time. Dad instituted one of my favorite policies to get the family to help out with the household chores. Before the weekend, he would ask us what we wanted for breakfast on Saturday morning. Each person could choose whatever he or she wanted. He would get up early on Saturday and wake us all with a big breakfast that typically consisted of large variety of things as requested. After breakfast, there was "cleaning time". The carpets got vacuumed, floors moped and waxed, bathrooms cleaned, furniture polished, top to bottom chores were divided out. We finished before noon and then all were left to their own plans for the remainder of the weekend. My sister Debbie and I were teenagers during this time and had lots of things to do on the weekends - but had to have an exceptional event to miss Saturday morning cleaning time. Even on those rare occasions, some alternate arrangements had to be made for our share of the work. Mom worked as a telephone operator and was sometimes at work during these sessions - but they still happened.
His life was also shaped by the poverty of his youth. His table was never empty and anyone who walked in the door was invited to dinner. During his military career, he frequently brought home young soldiers for dinner - believing that they were away from home for the first time, lonely, and needed a good home-cooked meal and some family time. He was a kind and generous man.
He did charitable work, but never talked about it. He believed it was bragging if you talked about it and didn't mean anything if you only did it to show yourself to be a good person. It was between him and his God what he did. Only after his death, in finalizing his estate did I discover he had for years donated money to orphanages.
In 1946, in high school, he joined the Reserve Officers Training of the Texas National Guard. In 1947, he left high school and joined the Army. After basic training, he was sent to Ft. Monmouth in NJ. In 1948, my mother left Dallas on a bus and went to NJ and married what she called "her handsome devil". She got pregnant, and he got orders to go to Japan. He was discharged from the Army in October of 1951. He decided that he had made a mistake in not finishing high school, so made arrangements with the school to attend some day and evening classes to graduate, and he did on the 30th of May 1952. He worked at the Sunshine Biscuit Company, but decided he wasn't making enough money to support a family, so he joined the service again; only this time it was the Air Force. His dream was to be a pilot, but that was dashed when they discovered he had a hearing problem. He had many "careers" in the Air Force. He worked in the fields of (among others) electronics, radio relay, computer hardware and writing technical manuals for computer repair. He loved learning new things and was constantly attending new training courses, often resulting in "career" changes. He retired in 1970 with 22 years of military service. He worked for Texas Instruments for a few years and then was put on full disability from his military service due to arthritis.
He was a voracious reader - I never knew him not to have a book, or a few books he was concurrently reading. He'd have a living room book and a bedroom book and of course, a bathroom book. He was a very interesting man. He was also mischievous. He loved practical jokes and pulled them on everyone. He had beautiful brown eyes that literally twinkled when about plotting.
I could write a volume about him, but for space in this database will end shortly. A few years after I was married and had children, Dan Fogelberg came out with a song "The Leader of the Band". It brought tears to my eyes and resonated so many feelings I had about my father. I lived in Oregon at the time, he in Texas. He and my sister ran out and bought a tape. She said he got teary-eyed and choked up when he heard it. He was like that. He rarely got angry, but you would see his jaws start clenching when he did. But, he could get teary eyed over emotional things. Extracts from this song explain a lot of my feelings about how he was:
He earned his love thru' discipline
A thund'ring velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls
Took me years to understand.
I thank you for the music (music of my childhood memories)
And your stories of the road
(he lived in Japan, Hawaii, France, Thailand and various states)
I thank you for the freedom
When it came my time to go
I thank you for the kindness
And the times when you got tough
And papa I don't think I said (we called him Daddy)
"I love you" near enough
The leader of the band
Is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs thru' my instrument
And his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy
To the leader of the band
I am the living legacy
To the leader of the band
He died in 1993 and there isn't a day I don't think of him.
Linda Graves Walker 2002
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TIMES HERALD, FALL 1970
Sam Graves Finds Some Answers by Jim Atkinson, Staff Writer
Sam Graves is damned if he is and damned if he isn't. With 20 years of electronics work in the air Force under his belt and yet no college degree, the balding, 42-year-old former sergeant is trapped in the vice-like grip of a brand new un-employment problem - over qualification for many jobs and under-education for most others.
Since his voluntary retirement from the Air Force last year, Graves has listened to countless employers tell him he "knows too much" for most blue collar electronics jobs, yet he doesn't have the necessary credentials - namely a sheepskin - to hold an executive post.
"It's a hellluva mess," he says. "An unbelievable vicious circle. I'm flat out of answers to it, too." It was this down-and-out state of mind that led Graves this week to the Veteran's Career Fair, a voluntary assemblage of some 170 public and private employers, educational institutions and veteran's benefits groups, whose avowed purpose is to fill in the missing answers for confused veterans like Sam Graves.
After an hour or so of perusing the voluminous job opening lists and chatting with several of the 500 or employment counselors and personnel officials scattered throughout the Automobile Building at Fair Park Thursday, Graves says he has a "new lease on life."
At least I'm learning all kinds of new alternatives to the rut I was getting stuck in," he says. "I really have a feeling I'll find something out of this thing - and soon."
Notes from his daughter Linda - Sam was receiving retirement pay, so he wasn't destitute during his several months post-retirement job search - just not quite ready to leave the workforce at only age 42.
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Here is the saga of my parent's marriages. The epitomized the old saying "can't live with each other, can't live without each other".
They married each other 4 times over their life span, 3 divorces from each other. On the occasion of their last marriage in 1986, my sister and I gave them a cake that said "Happy Fourth". This marriage "took" and they lived together the remainder of their lives. We did insist that they were only allowed to celebrate one anniversary though - the first one!
1. 1 April 1948, Fort Ord, New Jersey. 2. Sam H. Graves & Laurie J. Karnes m. 14 Nov 1975
Texas marriage indexes: 1966-2000
3. Sam H. Graves & Laurie J. Karnes m. 20 April 1979,
Potter, Texas, Texas marriage indexes: 1966-2000
4. Sam H. Graves & Laurie J. Karnes m. 12 Oct 1986, Cass County,
Texas.
Note: They obtained the license in Cass County, where Daddy
lived. They were actually married at the home of their daughter
Debra K. Graves Masini in Cedar Hill, Dallas County, Texas.
Texas marriage indexes: 1966-2000.
Laurie Jeanne KARNES
NOTES ON Documentation - I have boxes of documentation including birth, marriage and death certificates, awards, promotions, work records, checkbooks and so on.
Mom wrote the following notes in her genealogy book about herself:
Born in Searcy, Arkansas July 18, 1931. Second child of Foster and Edna Karnes. One sister, Betty and one brother, Billy. Foster and Edna had goneto Searcy from Corsicana so Foster could work for Edna's Father forawhile. The family moved back to Corsicana when I was six months old.We lived there until I was five and then we moved to Dallas, where Iwent to school and grew up. I went to school at James B Fannin, AlexW. Spence and Crozier Tech.
I dated Sam Graves in high school and married him on 1 Apr 1948. Sam had gone into the Army and we were married at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey where he was stationed. He stayed in the Army for two years. After being discharged, he worked for Sunshine Biscuit Company and Ford Motor Company. After a big lay-off at Ford, we decided to go back into the service. Sam chose the Air Force this time, so the next twenty years was spent moving every two or three years. We lived in different parts of Texas, Nebraska, Hawaii, France and Mississippi.
I remember a happy childhood with loving parents and lots of friends. My favorite things to do as a child was roller skating, ride my bicycle and play jacks. Trips back to Searcy in the summer time to visit grandparents were the highlight of the year. Also trips to Corsicana to visit Aunts and Uncles and to play in the parks there. The fun times in the winter especially, Daddy would get his guitar and sit on the side of the bed and play and sing songs to us he had learned as a child and young man. My Granddad in Searcy grew peanuts and would send a tow sack full of peanuts in the fall of every year just before Christmas. The peanuts, daddy's singing and taking Sunday afternoon walks with my parents were some of the highlights of my growing up years.
One little anecdote - when we would visit my Aunt Winnie in Corsicana, she would let us go outside and play, but she always told us where we could and couldn't play and would say "you better mind me too cause my left eye will be watching you". Needless to say, being kids, we minded her because we were scared of her left eye seeing us if we did something she said not to do. Playing jacks on Aunt Blanche's front porch in Thorpe Addition is another pleasant memory for me. My growing up years are full of good memories.
THE DAY I WAS BORN by Laurie Jeanne Karnes Graves
as told to me by my mother, Edna Lorena Hanson Karnes
Grandma Hanson had canned all day. Mama started having pains around noon on the 17th of July. She had supper around 8 o'clock and Grandma asked Mama if she would like to go for a ride. Mama said no, and when everybody got back from the ride, the doctor was there. (Dr. Rogers). Mother's bed faced west. It was a very hot day. The next door neighbors had a lot of animals and Mama remembers a lot of flies being on the front screen. Grand-dad Hanson had worked all day doing his carpentry work and came home and worked in the family garden until supper time. I was born a little after 1:00 am on the 13th of July.
One of the neighbors had loaned Mama a fan. Daddy put it up on the wall to keep Billy from getting hurt on the fan. Every time Mama would go to sleep, Grandma turned the fan off to save on electricity and Mama would wake up. All of this took place in Searcy, Arkansas at the home of O.B. and Martha Hanson. The house was white and had a fenced front yard. There were two ceder trees on each side of the gate by the street. The house was about two blocks down the street from Harding College. It is no longer there. (Written in 1987)
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MY MOTHER
She was born Jul 18, 1931. It was a time of economic depression. Her father was a house painter and carpenter and work was scarce. Her mother worked to help the family survive. They lived in rented houses. She was grown and married before her parents bought a house. One house they lived in for a long time was actually the downstairs part of a house. The owners, 2 older men, lived in the upstairs. Downstairs, there were 2 bedrooms and a kitchen. All family activities took place in the kitchen. There was also a big porch they sat on in the evening to cool off. It was in Dallas, TX before air conditioning and hot in the summertime. She loved that house and spoke fondly of it and memories of that time all her life. She also developed 2 habits - her favorite 2 places to be were in the kitchen and sitting outside in the evening time. She talked about her friends and the games they played; about her Daddy singing to them and playing his guitar (see notes on William Foster Karnes for more info on the songs); about their family walks (they didn't own a car); about their Sunday dinners; and mostly about how she felt loved and happy. As she described it, she had "pleasant memories of my childhood". She made friends that she kept in touch with all her life. She left home when she was 16 to get on a bus and travel to New Jersey to marry my Daddy. He'd been a family friend, a best buddy to her brother, and he parents knew him well. She always said she was a little surprised that no one objected when she announced that she was going to quit school, hop on a bus and marry Sam. Hearing about it as I grew up, I wasn't - she was always a very determined lady and I guess they just figured if she'd made up her mind, there was no arguing with her. My Dad called her something else - feisty. Shortly after they married, they visited with a guy that Dad worked with. His wife smoked. Dad smoked at the time, but my Mom didn't. When they got home, he told her he thought that was awful, he wouldn't have a wife that smoked. The next day she bought a pack of cigarettes and started smoking. She told him she wasn't going to be married to a man who told her what she could and couldn't do. It's not a good example (to start smoking) but it tells you a lot about her attitude. She was very outgoing and made friends wherever she went. They were both like that. It is a true statement that if they stopped to get gas and went in the store, they'd know the life history and all the problems and joys of the sales clerk before they left the store. They both talked to everyone they met, and more than just a hello. It made them both well attuned for military life and constant moving. They never had a problem making new friends, or keeping up with the old ones. My mother corresponded for years with all their old friends from various locations. She was a self-appointed welcome wagon to new people moving in. She had a standard routine - she'd bake a cake, make a pitcher of tea, and show up within a couple of hours at their house with the cake, tea, paper towels, paper plates & cups and a roll of toilet paper. She figured they'd be ready for a break from moving by the time she showed up. The toilet paper always got a laugh and a hearty thank you! Then, she'd tell them what time supper was. It might be simple fare - beans, rice and cornbread but welcome to many families who hadn't found their dishes yet amid all the boxes. Many lasting friendships started this way. My Dad also brought home an unending string of young single guys. He thought they'd be lonesome, mostly being away from home for the first time, and needed a home-cooked meal and some family time. Mom went right along with this. They grew up in a different time. Their doors were never locked and anybody who showed up for dinner was welcome. She was a true-blood southern cook. Soft fried potatoes, hot water cornbread, beans & rice, fried catfish, fried okra, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and the best fried chicken. To this day, I've not had fried chicken as good as my mother made. She put large amounts of oatmeal in her meatloaf. I didn't know that was done to "stretch" the meat. I still don't like meatloaf without a lot of oatmeal. My Dad cooked as much as Mom did. He was the adventurous cook though, always trying some exotic recipe. He'd been stationed in Japan, Hawaii, and France, so we ate a vast array of different foods. He loved all food. He always insisted we eat everything. It drove my mother nuts, so she went on a campaign to find something he didn't like. It took her a few years, but she finally found it. Creamed salmon on rice. He hated it. She'd come in at night and sit on our beds and tell us stories about what it was like when she was growing up, sing the songs her Daddy sang to her when she was little, and read to us. When I came home from school, she was always there with a snack and eager to hear about my day. She loved her children very much and would do anything to make them happy. When I was 8, I had what they called German measles. At that time, they thought it would damage your eyes and so you had to stay in a dark room. They opened the closet door and Daddy hung heavy military blankets over the door and put a light in there. Mom bought a bunch of coloring books and sat in that closet and described the pictures to me and asked me what colors to use to color them. A neighbor took care of my little sisters for 4 days so Mom could color and read to me.
When I first married and moved to Oregon, leaving my parents in Texas, we kept in regular touch. The odd thing was she always knew when I was sick. She'd call and the first thing she would say is, I had a feeling that you weren't well. She was always right. It got to where if I work up with a sore throat or some minor aliment, I'd think; well Mom will be calling today. She always did. She was feisty! She loved people, she was strong, spontaneous, loved to be silly, but mostly, she loved her children.
When I was 15, she went back to work. I didn't know it was her beginning to plan for the events of the next few years, but I found out. She hadn't graduated from high school. She missed her senior year. She wanted mine to be the best ever and she wanted to have extra money to make sure it was. All that year she kept telling me - you are making lifelong memories, make them good. It WAS a good year. But, the thing that made it the best is that she started taking GED classes and eventually earned her high school diploma. Later in life she went to college, hoping to get a degree, but her final illness prevented her from attaining that goal.
She was always there for me. Years later, I was raising a family of 3, working full time and going to college at night. Mom lived about 3 hours away. Of course she always had a key to my house. Some days I would come home from work and there Mom would be. She wouldn't call, she'd just show up. But, my laundry was caught up, my house was straightened, dinner was on the stove and my microwave was clean. It was such a treat. It became a family joke - with kids coming home and making afternoon snacks, the microwave was a disaster. Keeping up with everything else during those years, it was the last priority on my list. Mom was the only one that cleaned it!!! A couple of months after she passed, my middle son opened the microwave one day and said very calmly, we need Grandma. All 3 of my kids and I can't clean a microwave without talking about Grandma. She adored her grandkids. Even though they lived 3 hours away, they were in and out all the time. They'd sometimes stay a few days, sometimes weeks. During the summer and holidays, they took the kids home with them for weeks. As far as she was concerned, they were just as much her kids as ours. For example, she'd refer to my daughter as "our Mary". She liked doing crafts and it was a thing we did together from the time I was little. We went through ceramics, wood burning, dollhouses and oil painting among other things. Oil painting was a later thing. A favorite thing to do was find a picture we both liked and spend the day painting it. It was so interesting in how different they turned out - especially the colors. Mom always picked bright vibrant colors, mine were more muted. We spent hours in craft and hobby shops. During the dollhouse phase, Dad got involved too. He would peruse the dollhouse furniture, then go home and make it. They built a huge dollhouse and they both made all the furniture and everything else to go in it. It even has miniature picture frames on the living room walls with OUR pictures in them. Then, they discovered genealogy. This was the days before the Internet. They traveled all over the place and spent untold hours in libraries. They got so excited when they found something. I was fortunate to go on a few trips with them. I was just as fascinated with it as they were, but still in school, still raising a family, didn't have as much time as I would have liked to spend doing it with them. One Christmas, my sister, brother-in-law and I spent hours making large books for them to keep their data in. It turned out to be more of a project then we expected. We wood burned plaques with the family names, stained and varnished them, screwed them into binders and covered them with padded cloth. It took weeks to get them right, along with many burns from hot glue guns. They were 4 inch binders, so they would hold lots of documents. We put them in a big box, and teased them before xmas telling them that we had used some 200 long hot glue sticks on their presents. She loved that, trying to figure on what on earth we could have made. When she opened the box, she burst into tears. All she could say, over and over was "you made books for all my people". They loved them. It took them less than 2 months to completely fill them. They are wonderful - not just lineages, but pictures and personal stories and little tidbits - cards my great-grandfather got in elementary school for good behavior (in 1886!), my grandmother's graduation announcement, my grandfather's business card from 1923, my grandparents War Ration Books from WWII along with documentation, census records, birth/marriage/death certificates, Civil and Revolutionary War Records and so on. They are treasures. She was my mother; she was always there for me, always involved in my life and what I was doing. She was also my best friend. I wasn't ready to let go of her. But, she had been ill for a long time. She was so very sick her last Christmas. She told me her biggest concern was that she make it past the holidays. She died January 3, 1993. It was a dark and foggy year. We lost our father in August of the same year. It was a full 18 months before I could look at those genealogy books. I then poured over the books, cried when I saw where they had copied a book and their hand was holding it on the edge and got copied too. I looked at all the hard work they had done. I read it over and over. I treasure the legacy she left me, in all her work, in all her life. Of being loved unconditionally. It took me until 1998 to find a way to honor them in the best way that I could. Continue their work. In their books, they put a note on the first page of each of them - There can be only one book like this, so please pass it down to someone who cares about it. I care, and all my work is to give another generation the value of the legacy of their family. Now and then though, I figure she knows all the answers now and sort of say, hey, help me out a little here with these stumbling blocks!
I love you Mom.
More notes about my Mother:
She had several quotes/poems that she loved and repeated all her life. As long as I remember, she always carried a little notebook in her purse, and when it wore out and she had to get a new one, she wouldn't use it until her favorite things were copied into the new book: I hate the guys who criticize
And minimize
The other guys
Whose enterprise
Has made them rise
Above the guys
Who criticize.
I know you believe you understand what you think I said
But I'm not sure you realize
That what you heard is not what I meant.
Anything is possible.
What people forget is,
There's a degree of probability
To every possible -
Because of that degree -
A chrysanthemum will never be a rose.
RECEPIE FOR HAPPINESS CAKE
1 cup good thoughts
1 cup kind deeds
1 cup consideration for others
2 cups sacrifice
3 cups forgiveness
2 cups well-beaten faults
Mix thoroughly; add tears of joy, sorrow and sympathy. Flavor with love and kindly service. Fold in 4 cups of prayer and faith. After pouring all this into your daily life, bake well with the heat of human kindness. Serve with a smile anytime and it will satisfy the hunger of starved souls. Good, better, best.
Never let it rest.
Till your good is
Your better.
And your better
Is your best.
SAY HELLO
I took the time to say "Hello"
To someone that I didn't know.
To someone who was walking by,
A look of sadness in their eye.
And when they smiled back, gratefully,
And said a warm "Hello" to me
I realized my little "gift"
Had given us both a lift.
You never know just when you'll meet
Throughout the day, on any street
People just like you and me
With loneliness and problems too.
Yet life is always better when
We take the time to be a friend
To someone we don't even know
And all it takes is one "Hello".
She loved Sweet Potato Pie and would sing this little melody:
Pie, Pie, "tater Pie"
P I E E I P Pie
P fer
Pie fer
Gimme a piece of pie for
I just love that
"tater pie".
These are a few silly songs she sang in her childhood (and in ours!)
DOUGH-NUT SONG
Ran around the corner
Ran around the block
Ran right into a bakery shop.
Picked up a dough-nut fresh from the grease
And handed the lady a five cent piece.
She looked at the money
She looked at me.
She said this money's
No good to me.
There's a hole in the middle
And it goes right through
Says I, there's a hole
In the dough-nut too. HOW TO SPELL CHICKEN
C am the way it begin
H am the next letter in
I that is the third and
C is the season in the bird
K that's the filling in
E and the next letter
N That are the way you spell chicken.
THE LITTLE CHICKEN
I had a little chicken
And it wouldn't lay an egg.
So I poured hot water
Up and down it's leg.
The little chicken hollered
And the little chicken begged.
Then the little chicken
Laid a hard-boiled egg.
Linda Carol Graves Walker, 2002
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The life of a military wife
Mom wrote the following places she had lived and times she had worked in 1966:
Mar 1965 Mar 1966 - Rt. R, Box 638-B17, Biloxi, Mississippi 39532, employed at Keesler AFB.
Jan 1965-Mar 1965 - unemployed
Dec 1962-Mar 1965 - 4037 Luke Stree, Lincoln, Nebraska 68501
Mar 1960-Nov 1962 - 13 Rue Armand, Berke Place, France
Oct 1959-Mar 1960 - 2651 Montreal, Dallas, Texas
Dec 1958-Sep 1959 - 201 Swetman Lane, Biloxi, Mississippi
Aug 1957-Dec 1958 - 209 Jupiter, San Antonio, Texas
Nov 1956-Aug 1957 - 203 Lyon Drive, Ft. Worth, Texas
Feb 1954-Sep 1956 - 420 N. Juneau, Aiea, Hawaii
Oct 1951 - Feb 1954 - 139 Lyon Drive, Ft. Worth, Texas
Apr 1957-Nov 1965 - unemployed
Mar 1957 - Apr 1957 - Sommers Drug
May 1949-Mar 19157 - unemployed
Sep 1948 - Apr 1949 - S. W. Bell
Apr 1948-Sep 1948 - Martin Rubber
Oct 1947-Mar 1948 - Melrose Hotel
Previously unemployed
Betty Emmaline KARNES
Documents in my possession:
Birth Certificate (Living - details Omitted)
Lorenzo James GRAVES
SSI - died 12 Aug 1993, ssn 451-05-6593
location: Red Springs, Baylor, Texas and Seymour, Baylor, Texas
Documents in my possession:
Birth Certificate, info from birth certificate:
Name on birth certificate: Loranzie James Graves
Number in order of birth: 1
Date of birth: 8 Jun 1898
Father: Rufus Everett Graves
Father's residence at time of birth: McKinney, TX
Father's age at this birth: 37
Father's occupation: Farmer
Father's birthplace: Texas
Industry or business in which engaged: On farm
Mother's full maiden name: Rowena Melissa Allen
Age at this birth: 28
Mother's birthplace: Tenn
Mother's occupation: housewife
Number of children now born to this mother and now living: one
Time of birth: 4:00 am.
NOTE: This birth certificate was filed based on an affidavit made by William H. Allen in Collin Co, TX on the 14th day of Jan 1943. NOTE: I don't know why the name on the birth certificate is Loranzie. My father, Sam Houston Graves, son of Lorenzo said his name was definitely Lorenzo James Graves.
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Marriage certificate
4 Oct 1923, Mr. L. J. Graves and Ada Aline Stewart
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1930 Census, Plano Town, Collin County, Texas, Enumeration District: 43-25, Sheet Number: 5B, Enumeration Date: 5 April 1930. Graves, Loranza, head, home rented for $5 a month, age 30, age at first marriage: 24, born in Texas, both parents born in Tennessee, Occupation: Stationary Engineer, Industry: Cotton Gin, unemployed, not a veteran.
Ada A., wife, age 24, age at first marriage: 17, born in Texas, both parents born in Texas.
Ida M., daughter, age 4, born in Texas, both parents born in Texas.
Sam H., son, age 7 months, born in Texas, both parents born in Texas.
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We all like to write wonderful memories about all of our ancestors, but sadly, sometimes we can't. I've debated some time on whether to write anything at all. But, if we are going to try and track down the truth, then we must say what it is when we find it, whether pleasant or not. Mr. Graves was unfortunately inflicted with the disease of alchololism at an early age, even perhaps before he married. We know that it started prior to 1925. He frequently left his family for long periods of time, and finally forever when my father was yet a very young boy. They did manage to stay in touch infrequently. As the years went by, the disease ravaged Mr. Graves, leaving him in a poor state of mind and health. He came to live with our family when I was 3 years old for a brief time. My father had hopes of establishing a relationship with him, but it was not to be. One day, it was clear to my father that if was not safe to allow his father to be around his young family, my baby sister and I, and he took him to the mental institute in Terrel, Texas and admitted him. This was around 1953. They never spoke again. My mother would call every few years and see if Mr. Graves was still there, and for some years, he was. I'm not sure when she quit calling and I'm not sure what happened to him. In doing some research, I ran across him in the social security death index. He lived to be 95 years old, and died only 4 days after my father, in 1993. They could have had so many years together. I am saddened that his life took the turn it did, and we never had the pleasure of knowing our Grandfather.
Linda Graves Walker, 2002
Ada Aline STEWARD
Memories of Ada Auline (Susie) Steward Graves Dunaway
From an oral interview by her son, Sam Houston Graves
(Originally transcribed from tape by Ann Daberko on 11 Nov 1980).
(Notes from me for clarification are included in parenthesis - Linda Graves Walker). These are memories from her childhood. Sam: You said you and Aunt Mary (Mary Elizabeth Steward, her sister) knew Bonnie and Clyde?
Susie: They didn't come to our house, but they came to a friend's house in Plano. I went to town and bought cigarettes for Bonnie. Sam: You didn't go tell the law Bonnie and Clyde were down there?
Susie: Wasn't my business to tell and I wasn't ready to be killed.
Sam: They were desperate characters, huh?
Susie: Yes they were. If I had went and told, I wouldn't be here now. They were so dirty, they would just soon kill a guy as not. When I went to buy the cigarettes, I didn't know who I was buying them for. My friend asked if I would bring her back some cigarettes and I told her I would. When I came back, I found out who I bought them for.
Sam: How come no one would ever turn them in?
Susie: Sam, would you turn someone in if you knew it meant your life?
Sam: I don't know, I haven't been in that situation.
Susie: Why, they turned against they own kinfolk and killed them for turning them in, would you try it? When we lived in Dallas, a friend of ours had a grocery store. Bonnie went in there before her and Clyde got together. She went in there with a big old loose black skirt…she had big pockets. She went through the store and got a bunch of high priced anchovies and hams and dropped them into her pockets and had a bag between her legs. They saw what she was doing, so when she walked outside, the police got her. She had over a hundred dollars of goods. After she and Clyde got together, they came back and shot up the store. Also threw a Molotov cocktail in, but the fire department got there before the store burned down.
Sam: Who else did you know that was famous back then? Susie: Well, I knew Frank James. Frank James used to be the floorwalker at the Titches-Geottingers store in Dallas.
Susie: I saw a …black man hung when I was 3 years old. Sam: What did they hang him for?
Susie: Raping a white woman. On the courthouse lawn in Dallas. They had a scaffold built out there, brought him out with his hands tied together and put a black sack over his head, put the rope around his neck, plunk and hat was it. It was about 1909. That granddaddy of mine, Richard Pryor, took me to see him hung. If had of died, I might have been an outlaw too, because whatever I wanted, I got as long as granddad Garrett lived.
Sam: Where did Poppie (Richard Pryor Garrett) work? Susie: All of the oil mills. One time when Poppie was working at the oil miss, this black man was as scary as he could be, and he would get out and run around all day, at night he would get up there and lay down to sleep. He would load the belts so heavy they bogged the belts upstairs and while every one worked to unbog the works, he slept. One night, Poppie slipped around and got him an old pair of pants, and a shirt, and some old shoes, and tied the old shoes to the legs of the pants and stuffed the legs with cottonseeds. The he got to telling this black man about a tramp that slipped in here and the cotton seed have way on him and smothered him to death. So, he told him to be careful shoveling this seed in case you find him. Wasn't long before the black man was a hollering: Mr. Frank, Mr. Frank, and tore out across the country, he done found that dead man!
Sam: Who was it that loaded the wood?
Susie: Grandpa Garrett. Well, you see some of those blacks would steal wood after Grandpa got it cut for winter. So, he loaded some sticks of wood with gunpowder, and when the blacks loaded up the wood, it blew up their stoves and house and everything.
Sam: Aunt Mary said you and Deek nearly blew her up?
Susie: Well, we found up in the top of the old toilet there was 2 gallons of old black powder. We would go to the branch where we had a playhouse. We would take the powder and put it in a hole, put in a fuse and pack dirt on top and blast away. We had a playhouse and sometime took potatoes and bacon and cook. Mother and Ruth Wilson would get in our house and tear it up, and we put a booby trap down there. The way she {Aunt Mary) got blew up, she didn't know how to use the powder. Mary discovered we were there and she wanted to do everything and we wouldn't let her. It made her mad, so she slipped back in the pasture, her and Ruth. Sam, you didn't tell about she was the biggest tattle tail in the country. She would, every time we wouldn't let her tag along, she would go tell on us. What we done and what we didn't do. Anyway, they got a milk can or some kind of can and filled it with the powder and put the fuse in there. It blew the can up and black soot all over her and Ruth. Then she ran to the house and told on all of us. That was the end of our blasting. Dad picked up all our fuses and drills and everything.
One time we lived in a house on the corner with a porch almost all the way around it and Mama was out and I was with her and Mary went to the house and we missed her. Mama and I called her and she wouldn't come, and she told me to go to the house and see what Mary was doing. When I got to the house, Mama had a big heirloom bedspread on the bed, and Mary went in there and got the box of pictures, she cut around every picture and she scalloped that bedspread and cut her hair. So, I went and told Mama. And Mama came back and got her a corn stalk. She ruined the bedspread, curtains, and cut into all the pictures and ruined them all. {Every time I read this, I wish I knew what happened to that box of pictures!!!}.
Come Christmas, Poppie always bought a lot of fire works, roman candles and things. Mama had gone over to the old barn to milk. Mary and I went to playing. We had a coal stove. And the stove had a big cherry red spot on it from the coal heat. So, we got our roman candles, playing like we were going to set them on fire. I had mine up there and Mary pushed me and mine hit that red spot on the stove, and then things started shooting and them balls going all over in the air. I didn't know whether they were going to set the house on fire or not, so I put them in a bucket of slag coal. Blew coals all over the rug, curtains, beds and everything. That made smoke, and I finally got them thrown out the back door. Mama saw the smoke and came running to the house to save me and Mary out of the house. When she got there, Mary told her what I'd done. She didn't tell she pushed me. Told Mama I stuck my roman candles on the red spot of the stove and caught them on fire. It took Mama a week or more to get all that coal out of the rug. She didn't have a vacuum cleaner. She had that rug on the floor and it was burned. They saved the scraps and took them to a man to weave a room size rug. You can imagine how it looked with all that fine coal in there. They spanked me, and when the shot the rest of the roman candles, they sent me to bed and wouldn't let me see them shoot them.
When Mary was about 3 or 4, we lived over at Lewisville. We had a long ways from the house, I guess about 2 blocks or more. And some kids lived down the road, Forrest and Tucker Anderson. Tuck was about the same age as Mary, and me and Forrest were the same age. So, me and Forrest were down there playing. We'd take a young sapling tree, both of us would pull it down over and hold it down and we had a tow sack, then we'd turn it loose, and let it straighten up with us. We'd ride our bucking horses. So, Mary and Tuck wanted to ride. We had one that was limber, you could get on it and bounce up and down, but she didn't want to do that. And we told her she was too little to ride the big ones. She was determined she was gonna do it. We fixed the tree over and let her get on it. When we turned it loose, it threw her about 40 feet. It threw her back to a tree and knocked the breath out of her and knocked her cold. When Mama found us, we were pouring cold water out of a pond on her trying to bring her to. We thought she was dead. And, then we couldn't ride no more trees.
Ida Madgeline GRAVES
£
James GRAVES
He died as an infant. Around 1988-90, my father (Sam Houston Graves) and I visited the cemetery where his baby brother was buried. Dad didn't have a camera with him that day. A few months later, we returned, camera in hand, but the tombstone had been broken to bits by vandals.
Source: Personal experience of Linda Carol Graves Walker Birth Certificate: (copy in files)
Name: James Elliot Graves
Birth: 28 Sep 1927
Father: L. J. Graves
Father's residence: Plano, Texas
Father's birthplace: McKinney, Texas
Father's Occupation: Fireman, Gin
Mother's full maiden name: Ada Stewart
Mother's residence: Plano, TX
Number of children born to this mother including this birth: 2 Notes: My father always referred to him as his little brother, even though he was born after him. He also always said his name was James Everett, his sister called him Everett James, the birth certificate has his name as James Elliott. I do not remember what was on the headstone when we looked at it. I have heard, among family members, that he was stillborn. I have not found a death certificate for him yet.
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