Letters From the Past: Juanita Thompson Gleghorn November 21, 2000 - Part II

     This is Part II of the second letter received from Juanita Pearl Thompson Gleghorn. She writes about her parents Ora Cox and Floyd Thompson and writes about her siblings. She also mentions Donald, her husband, and Mattie Elizabeth Hairston Chisum Thompson, the mother of Floyd Thompson.

I omitted information about living family members and copied the remaining parts of the letter as written.

Ora and Floyd Thompson
Floyd's brothers were tall. How tall was he? 

     You asked about brothers and sisters. Clarence was the most wonderful brother a sister could have had. He has a walk like Dad, rather fast, and never complained about working on the farm and helping Lucille and I finish High School. I graduated in 1936 during the depression. We couldn’t have graduated unless he stayed at home and worked for $1.00 a day. When he couldn’t have gotten on the W.P.A. he joined the (3 C) {Civilian Conservation Corps}a program the Government had to help young men and Families.  The Bank for closed on Dad’s farming equipment in 1933 since he didn’t make enough to pay the Bank for what he had borrowed.  Most all Farmers would borrow money at the first of the year to feed their Families and buy seed to plant. The depression was still on and we had to work for another farmer, that had a vacant house.  Lucille and I were big enough to help hoe cotton in the cotton fields and make $1.00 a day. With Dad, Clarence, and we girls were thankful to have work. It’s very different today for the children don’t know how to work at that age.

Clarence

          Clarence stayed in our family to help and never went with girls until he was drafted into the Army in the last days of WW#2. He drove a gasoline truck to the front lines, when the army was pushing to cross the Ryan River. He returned home safely and we were so happy for a very good faithful son and brother. When he was training in Colorado Springs, Colorado he met his wife and married soon after he returned from overseas.

          After his marriage he and Jean lived in Colorado Springs, and he built them a new house. Clarence died in 1962 with cancer of the kidney, and is buried in a burial hill east of the Mt. Pikes Peak. I was so happy he had a good wife and had much happiness. He became a building contractor and was well off before he died in 1962. 

          Bowie was the adventurous brother, married young, but became a boss over a shipping yard in Houston, Tex. They were selling wheat to Russia, and shipping it from Houston, Tex. He said once one of the ships turned on its side with the weight shifted and they had a terrible time to straighten it up right, by unloading part of the wheat.  Bowie became a Christian at a late age, and died in 1972. Clarence, Lucille, and I were babtized into Christ in 1930. All of our family were members of the Church of Christ.

          In one of the clippings from the Baylor County Paper, that Brother Balch was a very young man when Myrtie died, and in 1937 Dec. 29, Donald and I went to his home in the west part of town for him to perform Donald and I’s marriage. He married my second class school teacher after his first wife died.

          Lucille was a very sweet sister, and I learned many things from her. She was a very intergetic person, and after graduation from High School started working for a lady in Seymour then soon started working in the J. C. Penny store, and was such a fast honest employee that she soon became the assistant manager. She worked many years, until a country boy she knew returned from the Air Force after making 31 missions over Italy.

          After the war was over they finally settled in Bowie, Tex. She and husband had a farm west of Seymour, and he spent most of the time on the farm. Lucille was so energetic that she ran the motel by her self and some hired help.  She was very fast at everything she did and was very successful at the motel and with her sewing. She won many dress reviews in the Thursday Club and her Home demonstration club.  In 1930 or 31 she won so many 1^st places on her sewing entries as well as her canning, that she was first in the county and won a trip to Dallas. She was probably 14 years old. {omitted information about living family}She was mother’s special child.

Uelma, Lucille, and Juanita

          In 1918, April 29, 1918 Juanita was born, a very different daughter, had freckles and was slower motioned, talented to create, especially with my painting. When I was a child I loved to copy the funny-paper characters, and especially loved faces. I hope when you come you will be able to come to Oklahoma to see us, and see some of my portraits.

          When we lived in San Diego, Calif. I worked awhile in the Roer air craft plant and then had an opertunity to take art lessons and won 1^st places at our 1^st art show. When we moved back to the Gleghorn farm, I began to teach oil painting and taught adult classes, as private, and am now helping some little Indian girls. I taught for about 25 or 30 years.  I made many friends; women mostly. Now they are passing on so rapidly seems like, but we have had a joyfull time together creating beauty. One artist we saw on TV said art or painting is a “vacation from reality.” I sometime think I must have inherited my slowness from Dad’s side of the family, the Indians. Most of the Oklahoma Indians are very creative, also.

          Diana, I wonder if Jess Chisum might be might be some of our relatives, for he was Cherokee Indian, but spelled his name Jess Chisholm.  He is famous because he was a cattle trail boss on the first cattle trail starting close to Fort Texas (Fort Worth, Tex) to the firs rail head in Kansas. The trail runs between our home and Duncan. The first store was east of Duncan, and there is a grave yard close to Cow Creek in a valley west of us. We have to cross the cow creek bridge before we reach town.  In 1999 the town had a celebration about the Chisholm Trail. They have erected a big statue of horses and Wagons near the Chisholm museum. I hope you can visit with us so you can see it.

{The next several paragraphs of the letter are about Juanita’s two youngest siblings. As both are living, those paragraphs will be omitted.}

Phillip Hairston and his sister, Permelia Hairston Noah "Aunt Melia" 

          Thanks so much for the photos.  I only recognized Buster, Whit, and my family children. The photo no. 40 makes me think that might be Permelia, Aunt Melia, Mellie as we called her. Mattie Elizabeth’s sister. I’ve really enjoyed all of the wonderful information you sent.

Love, Juanita

Next - The Uprising 

Diana

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