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

This is the first half of the second letter received from Juanita Pearl Thompson Gleghorn. In this part of the letter, she mentions my great-grandparents, Phillip and Lodema Hairston, my grandparents, Redic and Myrtie Bryan, and their sons Whit (my father) and Buster.  She writes about her parents Ora Cox and Floyd Thompson and mentions their first child, her brother, Clarence. 

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

                                                                                                

                                                                                         11/21/00                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Dear Diana:

          Thanks so much for the photo of Mother’s first four children. It’s so sweet blown up.  I have a small copy of that photo. 

 Four Thompson Children
Juanita, Clarence, Lucille, and Bowie

The photo of the Bryan home in Seymour I vaguely remember going there for of Whit’s parent’s funeral. One as I told you was in the east part of town, and the other was in the west part of town, not the one of the picture you sent. The picture of the house you sent was the nicest one. The porch was very interesting to me, most all country homes didn’t have screened porches.

This was the Bryan family home that Juanita referred to as "the nicest one." 

          I hope to find a copy of the book you mentioned of the Hairston family. Let me know where I can get a copy, if I can’t find it here.

          The Hairston, Uncle Phil’s house had a front porch, two front rooms, a room on the back, the kitchen, and dining room together. What was a first interesting fireplace, then we walked into the other front room and there was a fireplace against the same wall. They used the same chimney. I think that it was the only old house like that I’ve ever seen. Uncle Phil was probably like a father to Dad for he loved them like parents.

This appears to be the Hairston house described by Juanita. I know that, at times, the Bryans lived with the Hairstons. The children are Bryan children; Buster, Willa Mae, DeRay, and Marie. I would date this between 1912 and 1914 in the Levelview area of Baylor County. 

          I figured out after you mentioned Redic buying the old Wiggens place that Mother told me the first place they lived was on the Wiggins place about one mile west of Seymour west. The reason I remember it; was hearing her tell they had a telephone there, and someone called her and asked who was speaking. She said, “Ora Cox,” she hadn’t gotten use to her name being Ora Thompson. So you know they helped them by renting the place to my Dad. 

This is the article Juanita was referring to. It was found in the Baylor County Banner, November 22, 1912

          I have realized the folks many years ago really helped one another. Mother did tell me about living in the house with Uncle Phil and Lodema. I’m sure Mother loved them and appreciated her for they raised a lot of Black eyed peas. She was pregnant rather soon after they married, and Clarence, her first born never liked black eyed peas. Dad always liked them, as well as me, but we had good luck with them in our garden in a while. They do best in sandy soil and around Levelview the soil was mostly sandy in our community.

Next - Juanita Thompson Gleghorn November 21, 2000 - Part II

          

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn

Letters From the Past: Juanita Thompson Gleghorn October 18, 2000 - Part II

This is the second part of the letter that Juanita began on October 18^th.

                                                                             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

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn

Letters From the Past: Juanita Thompson Gleghorn October 18, 2000 - Part I

Juanita Gleghorn
April 2005

The following letter was written by Juanita Pearl Thompson Gleghorn as a response to a letter that I sent her regarding our mutual Hairston family history.

Juanita’s father, Floyd Thompson, was my grandmother’s first cousin.  My grandmother, Johnnie Myrtlene “Myrtie” Hairston Bryan, was the daughter of Phillip A. Hairston. Floyd was the son of Phillip’s sister, Martha Elizabeth “Mattie” Hairston Chisum Thompson.

Juanita writes about her father coming to work for Myrtie’s father, “Uncle Phil,” and tells stories about her parents. Others mentioned in the letter were Juanita's family, Myrtie’s husband, Redic, and their children; Whit (my father), DeRay, Marie, Willa Mae, and Hairston (Buster).  I omitted the names of living family members to protect their privacy.

Juanita passed away on August 13, 2011 at the age of 93.

                                               

                                                                                  October 18, 00

Dear Diana:

          It was a great joy to receive the history of our Dad’s family and to know more of your family. Thanks.

          Your Grandmother (Myrtie) was Dad’s cousin and he and our family knew they loved one another.  We visited them once in a while and thought I was more than 2 yrs. older than Whit; by your records I was only two years older than him.  We never knew where Buster went, but DeRay let us know where they were moving and when my son first married they moved to Borger, Texas. About 27 years ago we went to Borger to see my son, ______’s second child, so ____ had gone to see Marie, DeRay, and Willie Mae, and he took me to see them. Willa Mae ran out to meet us and it was a joy to see them. Marie and DeRay seem to be distant, but they might have been feeling bad. They had aged so much, and they told me Willa Mae had a stroke some time before; she was walking with a limp.  I didn’t remember them telling me where Whit was; I had always wondered where he was. Tell me more about him and if you were his only child. 

       

          When I was visiting the girls at Borger they told me that Dad, Floyd, use to stay with them a lot when he was a little boy in Erath. That’s the reason he loved your mother and uncle Phil so much.

I must tell you why Uncle Phil as Dad called him, moved to Baylor County, Seymour, Texas.  Uncle had bought or rented a farm two and a quarter miles east of my Grand Father’s place in the Levelview Community.  The school house set in a north east corner of his farm. 

Uncle Phil must have needed a young man to help him on the farm and sent word for Dad to help him. It was very interesting for Dad to tell we kids about his trip to Seymour, Texas by horse back. He must have lost his way for he got up in to Oklahoma, and had to bed down in an old abandon dug-outs and once spent the night with a family. He told us he was 16 yrs. old at the time, but by your records, he must have been older.  Any way the house Uncle Phil lived in was still standing when we were living close to our Grand Father Cox. My sister Lucille, and I spent the night with a school chum in the same house that Uncle Phil lived in. My mother had a photo of the house like the one you sent and that was our Dad, Floyd, in the photo. Our oldest brother, Clarence favored Dad, especially, the way he held his head. 

After Dad was living in the Levelview Community a while he rode his horse by the school house at noon, to get acquainted with some young people. At this school they had taught high school grades as well as lower grades. The kids gathered around anxious to learn who the stranger was so he dismounted his horse and talked to the young people.  My mother was maybe 12 years old and as he looked around he patted the little girl on the head and said this is a pretty little girl.  The little girl was my mother, Ora Ellen Cox.  She loved to tell us that story, and many more such as that one, about Dad saying in front of a group of friends, he had a little Indian in him, so we knew he was of Indian decent, but he would never tell us where the Indian fit in.

Our grandmother was a very kind sweet quiet woman, all her Thompson boys favored her, and she had features of an Indian.  My son, _____, sure shows his Indian ways as well as looks, especially thru the eyes.

I will send you a photo of Grandma Mattie when I get them back from my youngest brother ___.  I let him have some photos for his wife was copying my family story on her computer. ___ and ____are on vacation in Florida, so it will be a while getting the photos copied for you. They live at Bridgeport, Tex.

A double wedding. Terrell Bryan Hammett,
Bertie Cox, Floyd Thompson, Ora Cox

The photo of Mother & Dad’s wedding day was nice, and Bertie, was my mother’s oldest sister. They were married at Seymour, Texas.  Dad and Terrell had a two seater horse drawn buggies so as they rode to the Church of Christ in Seymour to be married some of their friends met them at the crossroads in their buggies and followed them about five miles to the church. Mother said the preacher stood between the buggies to perform the ceremony.

I’m sorry to be so long answering your letter, but I‘ve had a cold and company.  This is the deer season so some of the men in our family come to go deer hunting this time of year. We have lived on this farm over 50 years. We live about 6 miles east of Duncan, Okla. My husband no longer farms. Only leases the pasture land out.

Please excuse the paper and pencil for at 82 yrs. of age I make lots of mistakes when writing so have to erase a lot.  

My husband Donald Victor and I have been married for 63 yrs. on Dec. 29 of 2000.  We have raised four children, two boys and two girls, they turned out to be fine people, and we have many grandchildren as well as Great grands. I will send you family records later as well as let you know more about the visits at Myrtlene’s Home in Seymour, Tex.

Let me know more about your Dad.

                   With Love & Respect

                   Juanita Pearl Thompson Gleghorn

P.S. Isn’t Myrtlene a beautiful name. Daddy loved Myrtie.

This was not the end of the letter. Juanita wrote more prior to mailing it. 

Part II will be my next post. 

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn

Forgotten Family - Part VII: The Unnamed

This is the last of seven blog entries about the pictures sent to me by my cousin Jackie and my search to identify those in the pictures. I continue to search for the identities of the many forgotten family members in these pictures. Family names could be ALBRITTON, BIGGS, BRYAN, CHISUM, CRISWELL, EVANS, GILBERT, GRESHAM, HAIRSTON, HAMMETT, KEITH, LATTA, NOAH, PYLE, SELMAN, THOMPSON, AND WYLIE. Below are some of the  photographs that remain unnamed. 

This photograph was taken after 1902 in Dublin, Texas. I have always 
suspected that it could be the daughters of Harve Keith and Laura 
Louise Bryan; however, I have since learned that my grandparents 
lived in Dublin. Could this be DeRay and Marie Bryan?
Updated - August 31, 2019
These girls are the daughters of Harve Keith and Laura Louise Bryan.
For more information about the photo, visit this link. 
Friday's Photo: Eddye Kathryn Keith, Another Photo Mystery Solved

Is this a Bryan baby? 

Who is this young man? 

These certainly could be pictures of my father. However, he and his brother looked very much alike as children. 

I like looking at the clothing in this picture. I would like to know more about the time and the women. Are these all family? Is one of the older women my grandmother? The girl second from the right might be DeRay Bryan.

Visit my web pages, Unknown Family Pictures to see many more unidentified photographs. 

Diana


© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn

Forgotten Family – Part VI: The Painting

One of the highlights of my trip was a day in Oklahoma with Juanita and her family.  Juanita had become a special friend. She wrote often, sending stories about growing up in Texas and of her farm in Oklahoma.  A very talented artist, she wrote about her paintings, teaching art classes, and of taking art classes while working in San Diego during WWII. On my day in Oklahoma, I met Juanita’s younger siblings, her children, and some of her grandchildren. I took pictures of the side-by-side that once belonged to my grandmother and left with an oil painting of my grandmother; a gift from Juanita. This beautiful portrait of Myrtie Hairston Bryan hangs in my home and serves as a constant reminder of my once forgotten family. 

This a portrait of my grandmother in her wedding dress. I have two photographs 
of her wearing this dress. Scraps of the dress fabric, as well as the trim, 
were found in the family bible. A description of Myrtie's coloring was found on the 
back of an old photograph. Juanita used the photographs and fabric scraps to help 
with the portrait. The curtains in the background were similar to those in 
Juanita's home. She stated that she added the table and flowers for balance. 

Next - Forgotten Family - Part VII: The Unnamed

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn

Forgotten Family – Part V: The Trip

My father passed away in August of 2001 at age 80. The following month, I traveled to Texas with Sharon, who I met as a result of posting the photographs. This would be the first of many shared genealogy research trips. We attended a family reunion, visited several new-found cousins, and visited the hometowns of our grandparents and great - grandparents. Visits to cemeteries, courthouses, libraries, and local museums were also a part of the trip.  More photographs were identified and while I shared my pictures, new pictures of family were shared with me.  New connections, stories, and found documents have put faces with my otherwise forgotten family

 Updated Information 8/31/2019
My second-cousin-once-removed, Nadine Thompson Waugh of 
Stephenville, Texas, had some very interesting photos. 
In 2001 this photo was thought to be Mattie Hairston Chism 
Thompson and her daughter, Stella Chism. However, 
more information has revealed other possibilities. 
Visit the following link to learn more about the photo. 
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #34 Martha Elizabeth "Mattie" Hairston 
Chisum Thompson - A Timeline and Surprising Information 
about a Well Circulated Photograph

Hairston Albritton "Buster" Bryan.
This picture of my father's brother, who died in 1940, was found in the 1923 Seymour High School Jackrabbit while visiting Seymour, Texas. This yearbook was found in the Seymour Public Library.  The information found indicated that he was tall, played football, and was a member of the glee club. 

Floyd Thompson and Phillip and Lodema "Dink" Hairston were identified on this old picture from Cousin Jackie. The children were not identified, but assumed to be DeRay and Marie Bryan. 

This copy of the same picture, seen while visiting Juanita's home, shows a boy on a bike, 
my father's brother, Buster. 

Next - Forgotten Family – Part VI: The Painting

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn

Forgotten Family – Part IV: 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. 

  

Juanita, Clarence, Lucille, and Bowie

Clarence

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 - Forgotten Family – Part V: The Trip

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn

Forgotten Family - Part III: The Hairston Family

I continued to search for my grandmother’s Hairston family with hopes of identifying additional pictures. Extended family names were Thompson, Chisum, and Noah. Bob, a Noah descendant, and my only connection to other Hairston descendants sent me a matching copy of the above picture complete with names.  

The tattered picture above was sent by my cousin Jackie. Bob had an identical picture and was able to name each person. 

I had not been successful in locating any other descendants of the Hairston family. Thompsons were too numerous and I didn’t have enough information about the Chisum family to begin a search. My grandmother’s cousin, Stella Chisum, married a William Gresham so Gresham, a less common name than Thompson, became my focus.  During one late-night search I located more than twenty researchers at Rootsweb.com looking for Gresham families in Texas.  E-mail queries to all resulted in a reply from Carol who published a Gresham newsletter.  She suggested that I contact Bobby in Stephenville, Texas for more information about my father’s Gresham cousins.  Bobby called me the next day. He stated that he was not a Gresham, but that his mother’s uncle married into “my” Gresham family. He also put me in touch with one of his neighbors, a descendant of the elusive Thompson family.  I wrote a letter to Nadine, the Thompson descendant, and she responded quickly.  Her father was Edd Thompson, another of my grandmother’s first cousins. She identified her father’s brother, Floyd Thompson, in one of my pictures and she gave me an address for Juanita, one of Floyd’s daughters.  

Next - Forgotten Family – Part IV: The Letter

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn

Forgotten Family – Part II: The Bryan Family

Many of the photographs once belonged to my grandparents. Dad knew almost nothing about his mother’s family and had no known cousins on that side of his family.  His father’s Bryan family would be a little easier to locate. He had been contacted by Bryan family researchers in the 1970s and saved old invitations to family reunions containing addresses.  This was 1999 and Facebook was not an option so, I posted the pictures on an on-line photo album and sent the link via the US Postal Service to as many Bryan family relatives as possible. Printed copies of the photographs were sent to the many that did not yet use computers. My efforts were rewarded. I identified many of the photographs and two of my successes are pictured below.

This picture of Monte Hammett, my father’s first cousin was identified by his granddaughter, Sharon.  Sharon, my second cousin once removed, received the link to my on-line album from another distant cousin. Sharon contacted me and we became fast friends. We travel together regularly to research our family.

I was surprised to identify a baby picture. This is my father’s sister Monte DeRay Bryan, born 1904, in Stephenville, Texas. The picture was identified soon after I received the photographs. In my search, I found a distant cousin with an identical photo, labeled DeRay Bryan. The same picture was found two years later in a 1920 high school yearbook when visiting Seymour, Texas. It was in the yearbook next to DeRay’s senior picture.  

AND, just last month, a distant Hairston cousin passed a copy of this picture on to me. It was labeled Myrtie Bryan’s baby? Buster. Although the picture was incorrectly labeled, it shows how well connected our families remained when communication was far more difficult than today.

Next -  Forgotten Family - Part III: The Hairston Family

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn

Forgotten Family - Part I: The Photographs

I began this story almost 10 years ago while flying home from my first genealogy research trip. This trip, with Sharon, my second-cousin-once- removed, began in Texas on September 5th and was to end on September 11, 2001. I was in the Dallas/ Fort Worth airport when the planes went down.  All U.S. airports were closed and Sharon and I remained in the Dallas area until September 14.  I was nervous about flying home to Virginia and as a distraction, while in the air, wrote about the events leading up to my trip and of the journey that we made during those 10 days in September. 

Cousin Jackie sent me over 100 photographs; most not labeled.  There were baby pictures, a wedding picture, pictures of school children, my aunts, and my favorite, a studio portrait of four young children (right). My father identified a few of the unlabeled photographs as his sisters but suggested the unthinkable - throw the remaining pictures away.

I had no close ties to Dad’s family. His parents died when he was young and he was raised by his older sisters in faraway Borger, Texas. When I received the photos, the only living descendants of my grandparents were Dad, his children, Cousin Jackie, and her two children. However, with much persistence, I was able to identify more than half of the unlabeled pictures; acquiring additional photographs and learned much, much, more in the process. 

Next -  Forgotten Family – Part II: The Bryan Family

Diana

© 2011, copyright Diana Quinn