This is the second part of the letter that Juanita
began on October 18th.
Oct.
20, 00
 |
| Hairston Albritton"Buster" Bryan |
Well,
Diana the mail carrier didn’t have stamps so I’ll surely get this in the mail
today.
It
was about in 1927 that DeRay and Marie and Willa Mae moved to Borger I think.
The beginning of the depression. There
was an oil boom on in Borger and DeRay probably got a better teaching job. In
1929 our youngest sister was burned, and died in three weeks. It was a very sad
time for us, so we were renting the farm at that time. Our landlord built a new
house on the south side of her place and let us move there, the first new house
we ever lived in. Buster would drive out once in a while to get some lye soap
to wash his beautiful, black curly hair in. He said it kept the dandruff
down. He was a handsome young man, and one
of Terrell Hammett’s favors him. Terrell and Aunt Birtie had two girls close to
our ages and two boys. Only two of them left now the youngest girl which is
near my age and the youngest son.
As
well as I remember, your grandmother and Redic had passed on. So Buster knew we
were in a new house and he and Dad made some kind of trade I guess for Buster
brought out some furniture to us, for we didn’t have anything pretty for our
new house. He brought a white wooden bed and dresser, with carved baskets of
flowers on the front of the dresser and the head and the foot of the bedstead,
a solid oak library table, a little black ebony sewing rocker, and a solid oak
secretary with three drawers below the fold out writing desk and shelves on the
left with four shelves, and with a rounded glass door, not flat glass. Mother
and Dad moved so much to different farms, that some of the trim was lost. It is
still pretty and I have it, and promised it to my sister. After Mother and Dad died they were living at
Bowie, Tex. Close to my oldest sister, Lucille and she shipped all the hand
painted china Buster had brought with the furniture to Borger to the girls, I
loved seeing it in our dining room wall in a black rack. I got to see it once
again when I visited the girls in Borger. There was a round solid oak dining
table and some chairs. He had the rifle that your Grandfather took his life
with, and our oldest Grandson has it. It always made me feel bad to see it.
 |
| The side-by-side that once belonged to Myrtie in Juanita's home. Wouldn't my grandmother be amazed to know that it is stilling lovingly cared for and that her granddaughter located it more than 70 years after she passed away. |
After Buster left we never did see him or hear from him again. Maybe after he
left my Dad and oldest brother farmed a piece of land east of Seymour one year
that I remember, it was quite a few miles to go to farm for we lived west of
Seymour. I was about 12 yrs. of age at that time and don’t know if Buster sold
that piece of ground or not. The location was several miles up the highway
north east of Seymour, and probably had been cut into by the highway for it was
an odd shape. Probably the new highway cut the block of land into. I never did
know anything about the land other than that. I do remember the different
houses your Grandparents lived in in Seymour. As a small child I enjoyed going
to their house and remember playing with Whit.
I admired the pretty hand painted china that Redic brought back from his
trips away from home. It must have inspired me for after I quit teaching art to
ladies and kids in the summer, I took some china painting lessons and joined a
china club. I still have a kiln but have not painted china in a while.
I’ll
send you some photos as soon as I can, for the camera I had went back to the
store. It wasn’t what I wanted.
I
must close and thanks again for sending records.
Juanita
Next - More letters from Juanita
Diana
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