Our Families

Before going on, I want to tell more about our Families...Irvin came from a large family, His Mother gave Birth to 8 children  ...two died young...She married when she was very young, and kind of "grew up" with her Children...Irvin's Father followed the Oilfield drilling operations, so they were often transferred from town to town...this was all in East Texas...times were hard in those days..and families stuck together...Irvin's Mother instilled in her Children a Faith, that she truly lived every day..she helped everyone she knew whatever way she could..and made sure her Children went to Church every Service..Irvin tells that a lot of time, they got tired and wanted to go with their friends , but it was a very strick rule, that they went with her to Church whatever else was going on...she worked very hard keeping everything going in her home, and most of the time, her Mother lived with the family, as her Father had been gone several years, he, like so many others in the time, died what we would now call young.....at that time 30 was considered "old", and sometimes even like middle-age..women , and men worked hard to keep their families fed, clothed, and still teach them right from wrong. ...His Mother had one Brother, ..she was the big sister..and in the last few years of her life, ..she took care of him, in his last years, staying at his house, to care for him...she was a "good woman", taking no nonsense from anyone, and very outspoken...Now, I knew Irvin's 3 brothers that were still at home at the time when we started writing to each other...a lot of the time, on Friday nights, my Mother would ask them over to watch wrestling on the television, as the boys loved that.., as my Father and Mother did..To go back with my family, ..during my preteen years, my family went to the wrestling matches, as they were called then a lot, or I thought at that time, a lot, as I just could not stand to go...but I had no choice, unless I could get a chance to go and stay with Mama, (my Daddy's , Mother for the night, ..usually I had to go, because some of my Cousins were going.., anyway ti get back to where I was headed..., Mother would bake a cake, usually pineapple, as that was my Daddy's favorite, put on a pot of coffee, when Irvin's mother and Brothers could come over to watch the wrestling..Irvin's father never came, I think he took this time to sleep, while the house was quiet...Irvin's twin brothers were difficult to tell apart when they were growing up. ..after , you learned their ways, you knew one from the other..his brother, Virgil , was a couple of years older than the twins, (the youngest of the children), Irvin being 10 years older, and his sisters older than he...i really didn' t know his Sisters that well, til after we married....after Irvin came home from the service, a lot of Friday nights, we would go and visit with his uncle James and his wife and kids(4)..in those days, families visited each other often, ..almost every Sunday, a lot of our family would come in the afternoon, sometimes for lunch, and stay all evening..Mother always made fried chicken(my brother never liked chicken, and refused to eat it all his life)she made all the trimmings..and by the time, the kids got to eat, there were little left...the men usually eat first, then the women and children, when there was a crowd..so needless to say, we always had cold food when we had"company".. I was close to my cousins, as we were all about the same age, a few of them, my brother's age, but the ones my age came , as the others in later years before I married were married..us kids, would run and play in the yard til time to eat..in our younger years,..later as we got older, we would make plans to be gone when we had company on Sundays..when my Brother came home from service, and dated for a while, before he and Frances started dating again..I would go with him a lot on his dates..now that was a good brother, I think back , to let his sister tag along when he took his date to the movies, or circus, etc..and I wonder what his date thought..I remember one , that she and I got to be close friends alto, she was 6 years older, and she gave me a lot of her clothes, that she didn't wear any more...as I think back, they were probably too old for my age, but they were so prettty, and I wore them anyway..nothing daring, and in those days, it seemed us girls couldn't wait to start wearing nylons , and heels...
     My father had 5 brothers, and his mother raised    her Granddaughter from a baby, as her mother died when she was just a few weeks old..this was my double first cousin...my father's brother, married my mother's sister...My mother came from a family of 11...so , I grew up with a lot of cousins...there were many good times during those years, that I look back with very good memories..too many to put down...I jumped around in this section, but wanted to just touch on a few memories, and go on with what happened in the year 1954....