Family History - Pt 3

 

                      This is not my family....

 

Letter to my children and grandchildren.....To understand my own life, and yours, you have to start with my parents and their parents. 

   

Papaw and Grammy got married in 1958. My dad did a brief stint in the Navy (the ROTC scholarship) and was stationed for a while in Japan and Norfolk, Va. By the time I was born in 1960, my parents lived in a mid-century modern house in Richardson, near Texas Instruments, where my dad worked. At some point he was transferred to St Petersburg, Fl for a year or two when I was a baby, bc they used to tell a funny (to them) story about my Granny Ruby getting all panicky at the thought of me leaving, certain that an alligator would come up out of the bayou, into the house and eat me. I think she demanded on going along, and living with them, so she could take care of me. (As a child, I thought nothing of this anecdote, but as an adult, it makes me wonder......) During this time we had a dog, a fawn boxer named Ilsa.

I don't think there are any pix of me as a baby in Fl, so it must not have been for too long. At some point my parents came back to Richardson and the same 60's style ranch house. All my baby and childhood pix to age 5 are from that first house in Richardson. I remember little from that time .....I do remember the day Kennedy died, from a child's perspective: I was playing on the floor (still remember the linoleum pattern), my mom was ironing, the tv was on, Grammy was crying, ironing and crying. Everyone on tv was dressed in black, very somber. That may actually be the broadcast of JFK's funeral, not his assassination.

My sister K was born in 1964, when I was 3. My parents sent me to stay with my granny Ruby for a couple of weeks during and after the birth. It was during this time that I grew really close to Ruby. I remember walking from her house to the square (her town, SS, was kind of like the mythical town in To Kill A Mockingbird) along old sidewalks rutted with tree roots from giant trees. We passed all these really old 2 story Victorian style white wood houses with ancient people sitting on the porch in rocking chairs, stopping to chat w them as we went by. Once in "town", we shopped at old stores with fly-specked windows, wood floors, and high ceilings. Had lunch at a pharmacy lunch counter - the kind of place that served grilled cheese sandwiches and malts. Granny Ruby let me sleep on a fold-out wood army cot that she said was from WWI; it had a thin little mattress that was actually comfortable. I remember taking long cool baths in her beautiful turquoise tiled bathroom.

As soon as my sister K could walk and talk, we did not get along. She figured out by the time she was 2 how to manipulate my mom.....she'd pitch fits and scream and cry and kick and refuse to eat unless mom fixed her favorite foods (the same 3 meals over and over, my whole life); she figured out she could slap herself really hard, run show my mom the welt/handprint, tell my mom I hit her, and I'd get punished. I'd be sitting in time out after having been spanked, and K would show up, just out of view, and stick her tongue out at me and laugh. If I tried to tell mom all this, she'd just sigh and say, "Well, ......." And do nothing. When it came time for me to go to school, mom decided to put K in pre-school, but she didn't want to go. Off to school I'd go (walking- no one got rides back in the day once they were 6 years old) and my mom would drive K to pre-school, a few blocks away. I'd come home from school at the end of the day, and K would have a new toy. Every. Single. Day. When I asked mom about this, she'd tell me that K pitched a fit, crying and carrying on, refusing to go to preschool until she (my mom) bought her a toy (and some ice-cream) to bribe her to go. K confirmed all this - she'd run show me the toy and tell me every day, when I came in the door, all about it. Laughing. It was great sport for her. When I'd tell my mom this, she sigh and say, "Well...."

By the time I started first grade, we moved to a new, bigger house, in a ritzier neighborhood, a few blocks away. Built in 1966, it had wood panelling, brick floors, built-ins (a built-in is like any piece of furniture that is built in as part of the house - book cases, hutches, desks, shelves, drawers, cabinets, etc.)It took the builders longer than expected to build it, and bc my parents sold the old house before the new one was finished, we lived for a few months in a crappy run-down apartment somewhere. We had a dog at the time, a wire-haired fox terrier named Corky, that my parents asked granny Ruby to take care of (no dogs allowed in the apt) . As soon as we dropped the dog off at granny's house, it ran after our car as we were leaving, and got hit by another car and died. It was very traumatic - and why, to this day, I don't like leaving dogs behind.

My parents must have had an influx of serious cash at this time....I don't know if papaw got a raise, an inheritance - I suspect granny Ruby gave them a significant amount of cash to buy the 2nd house and decorate it, too. As soon as we moved in, Grammy hired a decorator and bought a lot of expensive, upscale furniture for the living room . She selected an expensive oriental rug, chairs, a sofa, tables and lamps, art. I remember grammy got into a big argument with the builder over the brick flooring- wasn't the right kind of brick. In spite of all this money spent on certain aspects, grammy also had some weird clashing ideas and priorities- the house itself was supposed to be New Orleans style (they sent off to New Orleans for a lot of expensive hand-made wrought iron railing to put along a wide front porch, and a gate in the back) and the decorator selected furniture for the living room in a "French" style......then Grammy went and bought a dining room set that was English and didn't match. I tell you all this to make several points : In spite of the buying spree for parts of the house that showed - the front parlor - Grammy never bought den/family room furniture, bedroom sets, or any other furniture for any other room in the entire house. My entire life growing up, we lived in that house and never had a sofa to sit on and relax together in the den and watch tv. She would never let us use the living room - and she never entertained, bc she was so reclusive - and when she moved out of that house 20 years later, the living room furniture was pristine, only dusty bc she never cleaned . Even the lamps still had their cellophane wrappers on them. Growing up, I slept on grammy's childhood bed and my sister Kris slept on a mattress + box springs on the floor, as did my parents. The kitchen table, a desk and other odds and ends were taken from granny Ruby's house.....our home was largely empty and often echo-ed - bc there were no rugs, only brick and wood floors. At the time, this was the only "normal" I knew; it wasn't till I got older and  went over to play with other kids that I saw normal families living in normal homes full of normal furniture that they were allowed to sit on.

 

The greatest fight I ever had with grammy was went I went off to college - I took one of my paychecks and bought some towels, sheets, and stuff for the dorm. Grammy was furious with me - all my life, we had been sharing 2 towels for 4 people that had belonged to my dad when he was in the military. These towels were small, worn thin (you could see through them) and scratchy. If you didn't get your shower first, you got a wet soggy towel. I don't know why grammy was so angry at me for spending my own money on a necessity .....did she think I was being uppity? Trying to live better than she did? What did she expect? Did she expect me to take the worn out family towels, and leave her with nothing ? Or was she going to buy new towels at that point ? The irony is, when she died, and we were cleaning out her house, we found boxes full of beautiful soft fluffy towels, still in tissue paper with dept store tags on them - never used. They were wedding gifts. Grammy was saving them for "some day." To this day, I have a "thing" about towels - they have to be clean and untorn. Call me crazy.

Family History - Pt 2

Letter to my children and grandchildren.....To understand my own life, and yours, you have to start with my parents and their parents......continued

I do know from the stories that Grammy told me that her childhood was sheltered and financially comfortable. She had toys, clothes, a stay-at-home mom, and her dad was financially well-off - Grammy Martha got anything she ever wanted. She often shared anecdotes about a personal family dress-maker and various other "help" (euphemism for Af-Am workers) cooks, maids, yard-workers, etc. Grammy's childhood home was a spacious, Southern style expanded wood bungalow, set up on high brick pillars off the ground and lined with deep porches, on a multi acre lot full of large oak trees. A former stable, converted into a garage, housed a maroon automobile. Behind the yard with its oak trees and well, was an orchard of pecan trees and vegetable garden, and behind that, was a pasture for cows and horses - in the middle of town. Inside, the house had high ceilings, punkas in every room, wood floors, and beautiful wallpaper and furniture made by Grandpa L.L. in his factory. Exotic objects d'art filled the house, as Ruby's brother was in the merchant marines, sailed all over the world, and brought her back little gifts - a porcelain censor from China, a moroccan lamp, a Navajo Bracelet, a French vase, fabric, and cosmetic box, a Japanese statue of a goose. The main bathroom had turquoise colored tile, toilet, tub, and sink, and 12 ft ceilings. I used to lie in that tub as a child and feel like a princess. Grammy's house was the first in SS to have a second bathroom, which was very bare-bones and oddly situated in a closeted porch area - it wasn't until I saw the movie "The Help" that I figured this out, bc no one ever talked about it. (Segregated bathroom for "the help." Suggests racism, yes, but you also have to look at it through the lens of the era. Ironically, by the time I came along, in the 1960's, everyone used this bathroom all the time bc it was off the kitchen and more convenient.)

Grammy told me stories of wanting (and getting) extravagant things (for that time and place ) and of her parents having to go to Dallas or other nearby towns to get them : a piano, orthodontia, prom dresses, fancy portraits, vacations to Mexico and France, expensive gold and gemstone jewelry; as well as stories of her house being the ones all the popular little girls in SS went to, to play with her, bc her mother Ruby would let them take off their Shirley Temple ensembles (starchy frilly dresses, patent leather shoes) , put on overalls and play in the dirt. I always wondered about these stories, bc I knew Grammy to be so introverted and shy, and to never socialize much as an adult except w immediate family, and wondered if Ruby invited these kids over so Martha would have someone to play with ? The picture this all suggests to me was of a spoiled young girl , an only child, who got everything she ever wanted. I know her father was generous with gifts to her and her friends, and until she died Martha would talk sadly how her father gave all her friends silver tea sets for wedding presents, but he died before she got married, and she never go to have one.

Martha went off to college at Baylor - an expensive private school. I think she majored in English. The norm in the 50's was for women to marry young - hence the story of all Grammys friends getting married before she did and getting the tea set gifts - and all I know is Grammy never ever in her life talked about boyfriends, dating anyone, anyone who she ever loved or who broke her heart, or men at all. I asked her specifically about her high school years - what was her life like, what were her activities, concerns, fears, likes, friends, hobbies, etc. The only stories she ever shared involved the rationing of food, sugar, gasoline and chocolate during WWII - all the kids in SS who went to some orthodontist in the next town had to carpool, so they got their appointments on the same day, combined ration tickets for gas in order to drive there - used Martha's parents' car. I think the rationing of foods in those years affected those kids deeply - Grammy and RF, if you notice, ate/eat sweets candy ice cream and baked goods constantly. It's like they can never get enough. When I asked Martha about what she and her friends did all the time, she told me a vague story about all her girlfriends in choir hanging out at some nearby creek, swimming and singing. That's it - that's all I ever got about her youth.

After Baylor, Grammy didn't get married , unlike all her friends, so she went to UT Austin to get a M.Ed and planned to be a teacher. I think she was worried about being "an old maid", how she was going to support herself if she never found a husband. While there, she met Papaw  "through some friends " and eventually they got married. No silver tea set - her father died around this time - maybe right before she and my dad got involved. 

Family history - Pt 1

Letter to my children and grandchildren.....To understand my own life, and yours, you have to start with my parents and their parents.

Papaw was born in a small Kansas farm town where German was as commonly spoken as English, in 1932. From everything he ever told me about his childhood, his parents were fairly poor. His father, Grandpa Sigmund "Siggi" was a mechanic or machinist - he repaired farm equipment, tractors and stuff. His mother was Bertha ("Berta") or Granny Bert, as we called her. All her life she spoke with a heavy German accent. At some point Siggi and Berta divorced, and Papaw and his older sister "Nell" (Eleanor) went to live with their mother Bertha in Greenville, Tx. I don't know how old my dad was when this happened, but I think he was very young. I have a photo of Papaw , about 6, standing in overalls with no shoes. He is tall and skinny. Bertha ran a boarding house in Greenville for a while - I don't know when she ended up in Temple, Tx - but by the time I can remember, she lived there in a tiny wooden house with only 4 rooms, all in a row - front to back: living, dining, kitchen, bedroom. No hall- you had to pass from one room to get to the next. Nell lived nearby with her husband Benny (Benjamin) and their child, my cousin Brenda. (You guys went to her wedding in 1997 but probably don't remember it.) Siggi remarried at some pt, a woman named Tillie (Matilda) - I met them when I was 3 ( there are pictures) but I don't remember any of it. They lived the rest of their lives in Kansas and I only saw them once. Papaw went to UT on a basketball or ROTC scholarship (I've heard various versions over the years) and majored in civil engineering.

Grammy, aka Martha , had a very different childhood. She was born in Sulphur Springs, Tx in 1933 to Ruby  age 37 and "L.L" Lawrence Lee (when someone from the South has "Lee" as part of their name, you know their political and cultural affiliations right away!) age 53. Some story there, which I've never been able to get from anyone - why were these 2 so old when they married and had a kid? Why only 1 kid? Why did Ruby marry a much older man, who had been a bachelor all his life?

My grandmother Ruby, whom I was very close to as a child and spent a lot of time with, once told me she had been married before, to a man last name Miller, who had died. She would never talk about it - many of that generation wouldn't - but given that she was born sometime in the 1890's ( no one knows for sure - she frequently fibbed about her age, shaving years off ) , this first husband could have died in WWI, from the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919..... Who knows. I do know that Ruby had a hard childhood - her mother died when she was little, and her father remarried, had a bunch more kids, and the step-mother treated Ruby and her little brother Bob , also from the first mother, badly. Not only Ruby told me this, but several other old relatives, cousins and stuff, told me this as well. Lots of tales of Christmases with no gifts, doing all the chores, tending all the little step-children siblings,  not enough food or clothes, that sort of thing. Various versions of her life have her born and raised on a farm somewhere along the Texas-Louisiana border. (I've heard diff things from diff sources.) At one pt when about 6 years old, Ruby had some kind of tumor on her jaw, and her family put her on a train to New Orleans, all by herself, with an envelope containing money that had written instructions on it to take this child to the hospital, remove the tumor, and return her when she was healed. Can you imagine? Why New Orleans? At the time, it was one of the oldest, largest cities in America, certainly in the south, with major hospitals. I don't know if the tumor was cancerous or not, but Ruby had dentures most of her life as well as a slightly mis-shaped jaw, and I'm thinking the tumor was the cause. The surgery went well, and Ruby made it back home - after several weeks away, all by herself.

I know a lot about Ruby bc I spent time with her as a child, and Grammy spoke frequently of Ruby, too. Ruby was probably the relative who showed me the most love and attention in my life. As a young woman, she came to Dallas and went to secretarial college, and at one pt worked as a nanny for several wealthy Dallas area Jewish families. To me, this suggests a brave young woman seeking adventure, someone not afraid to go off away from home and try new things, support herself, meet people . It was in these nanny jobs that she developed a taste for the finer things in life - clothing especially, and of shopping at Neiman-Marcus. I gather she was given a lot of hand-me-down designer clothing from her employers. In spite of her slight facial deformity (not that noticeable) Ruby was pretty as a young woman, slim, with thick curly auburn hair and deep bright blue eyes. I have a photo of her as a young woman- beautiful dark curly hair, cut in a 1920's bob, and a flapper dress. The photo is in black and white, and you would never know from it that Ruby had the most beautiful deep blue eyes.

I don't know as much about L.L. , because he died before I was born. (He would have been 80 years old in 1960 when I was born.... He died in the 1950's, from cancer of the mouth-throat-larynx, bc he chewed tobacco all his life. ) Grammy idolized him and often spoke about what a sharp dresser he was. He came from a large family - was the youngest of about a dozen kids - which means he had a dad, uncles, and much older brothers who served in the Civil War. Imagine that - bc my family lived so long and had kids so late in life, the number of generations going back is fewer, and historical events are more immediate. My grandfather had brothers who served in the Civil War.....that would be like your grandpa and his brothers, for you. L.L also had a mother who was half Cherokee; her parents lived on the Rez in Oklahoma. It is L.L.'s family, the Crabtrees, that goes all the ways back to the American Revolution (making you SAR and me DAR) , the period in Texas history before Texas joined the USA ( making me DRT and you SRT), the colonial period in America (we are also Colonial Dames) and into England during the Middle Ages - we are also Magna Carta society. Here's what I do know - in every war that came along (bc it is through these records that we trace ancestry), through the generations, the Crabtree men were always : 1)Methodist or Episcopal, 2) middle class craftsmen - carpenters, leather workers, builders, businessmen, etc and small farmers , 3) Masons (which is why I am also OES), and 4)served in each and every war in a non-violent non-combat capacity - as scouts, chaplains, messengers, guides, etc. I just find that interesting ......

I don't know anything else about L.L.'s life. As I said, he was 53 when Grammy was born, never previously married. Relatives say he was a confirmed old bachelor - what does that mean, really? Does it mean he was gay, had asperger's, was shy, a nerd, what? I do know he owned a very prosperous furniture- making business that manufactured church fixtures (baptismal fonts, communion rails, etc) and furniture (pews, altars, etc.) Even during the Great Depression, he was well off financially. He and my grandmother lived in a pleasant spacious roomy 1920s style bungalow in Sulphur Springs, filled with luxuries for the time : Grammy always bragged how they were among the first in town to have electricity, a telephone, a radio, a car, a clothes washing machine, two bathrooms. Grammy had a bedroom with hand-painted wall paper brought in from France, a piano, orthodontia, trips to Dallas to shop at Neiman Marcus - all while growing up.

Texas weather - Enough Said

Highest Temperatures

Large US cities where the temperature most often climbs to 100 °F (37.8 °C) or higher.

City	Days a Year Above 99 °F
Phoenix, Arizona	107
Las Vegas, Nevada	70
Riverside, California	24
Dallas, Texas	17
Austin, Texas	16
Sacramento, California	11
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma	11
San Antonio, Texas	8
Salt Lake City, Utah	5
Houston, Texas	4
Kansas City, Missouri	3