Forgotten Family – Part IV: The Letter

The Letter

In November 2000, I received a seven page reply from Juanita, Floyd Thompson’s daughter.  This was the first of many yet to come. Juanita was a few years older than my father and remembered playing with him as a small child.  She remembered the hand painted china that my grandfather brought my grandmother from his trips, the lye soap that her mother made for my father’s older brother, and the deaths of my grandparents.  She wrote of the death of her younger sister in a house fire that destroyed her family’s home and of how my Uncle Buster gave (or traded) the furniture and china that had once belonged to his mother, my grandmother.  Juanita described the furniture including an oak side-by-side that she had in her home. The letter brought tears to my father’s eyes.  A picture of four well dressed young people is that of her parent’s double wedding.  I had Juanita’s baby picture as well as one of her brother.  My favorite picture, one of four young children, was that of Juanita and three of her siblings. 

  

Clarence

Juanita, Clarence, Lucille, and Bowie

August 1912, Baylor County, Texas. The double wedding of Floyd Thompson (a Hairston descendant) and Ora Cox and Terrell Biggs (a Bryan descendant) and Birdie Cox. Floyd was my grandmother's first cousin and Terrell was my grandfather's nephew.

Next, Part V - The Trip

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn