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| I scanned this photo at the home of a cousin in Post, Texas, several years ago. This is Wesley Hammett and Sallie Bryan and their children, Jim, Eleanor, and Ada. [1] |
This letter and others belonged to Lizzie Ragan and their location is not known at this time. Lizzie was looking for genealogical information. Sallie Hammett wrote this letter sometime in the Spring of 1915 prior to a second letter dated April 28, 1915.
This is not an exact transcription. I added some punctuation and spacing to make the letter easier to read.
Ringgold La.
Miss Lizzie Regan
Brownwood, GA
Dear Cousin Lizzie
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| Lizzie Ragan [3] |
I certainly was surprised to receive a letter from you Couldn't imagine at first who in the world it was from. I never will forget the time that cousin Joe came out here to see us I was a girl then we sure did enjoy his visit cousin Joe certainly was a jolly good boy I didn't know that he was dead but we all have to go some time dear Mama died December the 18, 1914. All of the old ones are dead but Uncle Terrell and Aunt Alice, Uncle Jimmie's wife. Uncle John has one son and two daughters living cousin Bryan Regan and cousin Dollie Rogers and cousin Alice I can't remember who Alice married the last time Cousin Bryan's address is Ringgold and cousin Dollie's is Arcadia
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| Irene Hammett Hoffpauir, married daughter of Sallie and Wesley[4] |
Uncle Joe has four children living cousin Laura, cousin Redic, Cousin Josie and cousin Alice
Uncle Terrell has cousin Bunch, Dollie, Allie, and Redic
Aunt Dollie has Jeff, Wesley, Jessie, and Johnnie. Aunt Manda has cousin Alice cousin Kate, and Mattie
I have three brothers and three sisters Tilmon, Wesley, and Willie, Ida, Tomie, and Jewell Jewell was a baby when cousin Joe was out here How I do wish I could see you and talk with you and tell you more than I can write Why can't you come to see us if you can't come send us your picture We are having some cold dreary weather for spring don't look like spring at all only the peach trees are in bloom but cold cold we have to have fires all day and ice several mornings. I am afraid the fruit is all killed
Times are awful hard. Every body has to live [unknown word] but may get worse if the war still continues but we ought to be thankful that we are not like those poor people in the wars Oh it is awful to think of
well cousin Lizzie I have about run out of something to write so will bring this to a close for this time with lots of love to each of you remember me and mine when you pray your most loving cousin
Sallie Hammett
write again soon
People mentioned in this letter are named below. Click on the links to see more photos and more information about these family members.
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| Dr. Span Regan and Julius Leurany Speight [6] |
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| Mildred Manning Prothro [7] |
Sallie Manning Bryan Hammett was the daughter of Tilman C. Bryan and Mildred Manning Prothro. She married Wesley Tilman Hammett, her first cousin, and son of Robert E. Hammett and Dorothy "Dollie" Bryan Hammett. Mama was Mildred Manning Prothro Bryan. [8]
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| James Bryan and Alice Mary Wimberly [10] |
Uncle John was John Regan, the son of Elizabeth Regan and her first husband, Joseph Regan, and brother to Span. Lizzie also wrote to John's son, Reddick Bryan Regan, who was married to Sarah Elizabeth “Sallie” Gardner. His first name is seen as Redic or Reddick and his middle name is written as Bryant or Bryan. [11]
Cousin Alice?
Sallie wrote that Uncle John had two daughters living. She named daughters Dollie and Alice. John's daughter, Dorothy "Dollie" Emily Regan, was first married to George Prior and second married D. A. Rogers.[12] In my family tree, John does NOT have a daughter, Alice, and I was fairly sure Sallie was mistaken.[13] A check of the typed transcription of John Regan's family bible did not show an Alice; however, a copy of family information found in The History of Bienville Parish, shows that the youngest child of John and Martha Regan was Martha Alice Regan born in 1858. She married John R. Smith and had a daughter, Pearl, who died in Portland, Oregon in 1958.[14]
Sallie named her four living children Ada, Jim Smylie, Irene, and Eleanor. Sallie and Wesley had two other boys Jefferson Davis (1895–1895) and Wesley Tillman (1896–1896) who died as infants.
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| Joseph B. Bryan [17] |
- Laura Frances Bryan married Thomas Jefferson Martin in Bienville Parish. Click on Laura's name to see much more about her.
- Augustus "Bud" Reddick Bryan married Erie Ontario Nix in Bienville Parish.
- Joseph "Josie" Sarah Catherine Bryan married Joseph W. Cook in Bienville Parish.
- Alice Martha Bryan married John Lawson Wimberly, Jr. in Bienville Parish. [16]
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| Terrell Bryan and his wife, Harriet Albritton [18] |
Uncle Terrell was Terrell Bryan, my great-grandfather, who left Louisiana and was in Texas by 1877. Terrell was a son of Reddick Bryan and Elizabeth S. Bryan, brother to Sallie's father, Tillman, and brother to Wesley's mother, Dorothy. He was half-brother to Lizzie's father, Span. At the time of this letter, Terrell was living in Stephenville, Texas and his four living children were:
- Terrell Little "Bunch" Bryan married James D. Biggs in Erath County, Texas.
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| John R. Hammett and his wife, Alice Amanda Bryan, with three of their ten children.[20] |
- Dorothy Elizabeth Harriet Bryan married Thomas Wylie in Erath County,
Texas.
- Redic was Redic Eli Bryan and my grandfather. Redic married Myrtie Hairston in Erath County, Texas.
- Allie was Alice Amanda Bryan. Allie married her cousin John Regan Hammett in Natodotishes. John was the brother of Sallie's husband, Wesley Tilman Hammett. [19]
Aunt Dollie was Dorothy (also seen as Dorothea) Elizabeth Bryan and the daughter of Reddick Bryan and Elizabeth Regan. She was married to Robert E. Hammett and lived in nearby Natchitoches, Louisiana. Their children living in 1915 were Jefferson Davis Hammett, Wesley Tilman Hammett (husband of Sallie), John Regan Hammett (married to Alice Amanda Bryan and seen in the photo above), and Jessie Fulton Hammett who married Henry Charles Murphy. [21]
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| Rev. Henry Charles Murphy and Jessie Fulton Hammett along with their children and Jessie's mother, Dorothy Bryan Hammett. [22] |
Aunt Manda was Catharine Amanda Bryan the daughter of Reddick Bryan and Elizabeth Regan. She married James C. Watts in Bienville Parish in 1849. At the time of this letter, her living children were Alice Elizabeth Watts who married Green Huckaby, Sarah Catherine "Kate" Watts who married Elastus T. Stewart, and Martha "Mattie" Cauldwell Watts who married Jeffrey D. Tolbert. [23]
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| Tillman Capers Bryan, father of Sallie [25] |
Sallie named her brothers and sisters, all children of Tillman C. Bryan and Mildred Manning Prothro Bryan:
- Tillman Capers Bryan married Mary Elizabeth McDowell.
- John Wesley Bryan married F. Elizabeth Sheffield.
- William "Willie" R. Bryan married Margie Pate.
- Ida A. Bryan married John Henry Sheffield.
- Tommie Ella Bryan married Robert Robertson Nix.
- Jewell Antoinette Bryan married James Harding Hudnall. [24]
I hope you enjoyed this letter and learned more about family. Next week, I will post the second letter from Sallie to Lizzie.
If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page where you will see each post and other genealogical finds.
.
Diana
© 2021 Sources
1. Wesley T. Hammett family, photograph, ca.1898; scanned image, from the privately held photo collection of J. McAlister, TX, 2001.
2. Letter from Sallie Hammett, (Bienville Parish, Louisiana) to Lizzie Ragan (Bronwood, GA), ca. 1915; digital copy held in 2021 by D. Quinn (Virginia Beach, VA). Current location of the original letter is unknown.
3. Lizzie Ragan, photograph, n.d.; scanned image, from the privately held photo collection of E. Ragan Pruitt, GA, 2003.
4. Irene Hammett Hoffpauir photograph, n.d.; digital images, from the privately held photo collection of Marguerite Cook Clark (1913-1989), Waynesville, North Carolina, 2021. Photos were accessed and scanned at the home of Marguerite Cook Clark's daughter in Alpine, Texas on April 28, 2014, September 14, 2014, and November 9 to 11, 2016.
5. Letter from E. Ragan Pruitt, (Georgia) to Cousin Diana (Diana B. Quinn), 14 April 2003; This letter containing Regan/Ragan family information is held by D. Quinn (Virginia Beach, VA) in 2021.
6. Julius Leurany Speight and Dr. Spann Regan, photograph, n.d.; scanned image, from the privately held photo collection of E. Ragan Pruitt, GA, 2003.
7. Mildred Manning Prothro Bryan, photograph, not dated, scanned image, from the privately-held collection of Julia Brittain, Texas, 1999.
8. Julia Brittain, "Ahnentafel Chart for Reddick Bryan," 1793 - 1991; supplied by J. Brittain, Cypress, Texas, 1999.
9. Vera Meeks Wimberly, Wimberly Family History, Ancestors, Relatives, and Descendants of William Wimberly, Pioneer from Georgia to Louisiana 1837 (Houston Texas: D. Anderson, 1979), 335-359.
10. James Bryan and Alice Mary Wimberly photographs, n.d.; digital images, from the privately held photo collection of Marguerite Cook Clark (1913-1989), Waynesville, North Carolina, 2021. Photos were accessed and scanned at the home of Marguerite Cook Clark's daughter in Alpine, Texas on April 28, 2014, September 14, 2014, and November 9 to 11, 2016.
11. "Letter to Lizzie Ragan from Bryant Regan - Oh, how I wish that he could have answered her questions!," blog entry, 28 July 2016, Moments in Time: A Genealogy Blog, blog (https://momentsintimeagenealogyblog.blogspot.com/2016/07/letter-to-lizzie-ragan-from-bryant.html : accessed 9 September 2021).
12. Billie Jean Poland, The History of Bienville Parish (Bossier City, Louisiana: Everett Companies, 1990), 645-648.
13. Diana Quinn, "Ahnentafel Chart for Joseph Regan and Elizabeth Regan," 1793-1991; supplied by D. Quinn, Virginia Beach, VA, 2004.
14. "Copy of the Bible of John Regan," typed manuscript with no known compiler, privately held by M. Harrison, NC. photocopy held by D. Quinn, Virginia Beach, VA, 2021. Also, Billie Jean Poland, The History of Bienville Parish (Bossier City, Louisiana: Everett Companies, 1990), 645-648.
15. presleysl, "Watts Presley Family Tree," public tree, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/13008766/person/26437010979/facts : accessed 9 October 2021).
16. Vera Meeks Wimberly, Wimberly Family History, Ancestors, Relatives, and Descendants of William Wimberly, Pioneer from Georgia to Louisiana 1837 (Houston Texas: D. Anderson, 1979), 305-334.
17. Joseph B. Bryan photograph, n.d.; digital images, from the privately held photo collection of Marguerite Cook Clark (1913-1989), Waynesville, North Carolina, 2021. Photos were accessed and scanned at the home of Marguerite Cook Clark's daughter in Alpine, Texas on April 28, 2014, September 14, 2014, and November 9 to 11, 2016.
18. Terrell Bryan and Harriet Albritton photographs, 1899; digital images, from the privately held photo collection of Marguerite Cook Clark (1913-1989), Waynesville, North Carolina, 2021. Photos were accessed and scanned at the home of Marguerite Cook Clark's daughter in Alpine, Texas on April 28, 2014, September 14, 2014, and November 9 to 11, 2016.
19. Terrell Bryan Family Bible Records, 1836 - 1927, The Illustrated Polyglot Household Bible (Philadelphia: G. Zeigler, McCurdy, & Co., 1870), "Family Record," privately held by Diana Bryan Quinn, Virginia Beach, VA, 2021. Also, Diana Quinn, "Ahnentafel Chart for Reddick Bryan and Elizabeth Regan," 1793 - 1991; created by D. Quinn, Virginia Beach, VA, 2004.
20. John R. Hammett family, photograph, n.d.; scanned image, from the privately held photo collection of R. Warner, TX, 2001.
21.“Mrs. Murphy Dies; Funeral Services Held Near Campti [obituary],” Weekly Town Talk (Alexandria, Louisiana), 27 April 1946, p. 8; database and images, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/87269227/obituary-for-jessie-fulton-murphy/ : accessed 16 October 2021).
22. Jessie Fulton Hammett family, photograph, ca.1898; scanned image, from the privately held photo collection of J. McAlister, TX, 2001.
23. "Researching Bryan, Hairston, Criswell, Davis, Glynn, Giddens, Murray, Driscoll, Staubach, and Quinn," Catharine Amanda Bryan A Timeline
(http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~bryanquinn/genealogy/Bryan-Watts-Thomas-CatherineAmanda.htm : accessed 2 October 2021).
24. Julia Brittain, "Ahnentafel Chart for Reddick Bryan," 1793 - 1991; supplied by J. Brittain, Cypress, Texas, 1999.
25. Tillman C. Bryan, photograph/tintype, ca.1860; scanned image, from the privately held photo collection of H. Forstmann, CT, 2020.
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