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.
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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.
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| 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 1st 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.
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| 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 1st places at our 1st 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.}
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| 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
