formatting note

Some of you might know I'm very fussy about formatting; I just hate Times New Roman, for instance, and much prefer sans serif fonts. Likewise I abhor left-justified text, it looks messy and unfinished; I full-fustify everything I do. Well, in Blogger, I notice, if you cut'n'paste from an email or from Word, it brings its own formatting and throws off the layout. Oh well. I tried to make them sort of match in the last few posts, but whatever I did only made worse, so rather than spend too much time on what is essentially my own particular tic, as Becci would say, I'll just post away as I get them.

more oil patch stories

I'm glad I did that post because it brought out more oilfield stories; as Guinn notes in one I'll post below, it was our life, all of us, for years and years. Even myself, after Roy Lee died, I worked off and on in the oil patch for a good decade; Teresa and Randy did until recently, and Rodger still does. So our whole family history is tied up in the oil fields (does anyone else avidly watch the show "Black Gold?" I love it!). Anyway, here are a couple of emails from first Randall, who points out an error in the previous post, and Guinn, who adds a great deal more and promises to pull out photos (so watch for those!)

First, Randall:

Hello all. I was just reading the latest addition to the family blog and enjoyed it as much as I did when I wrote part of it. I just have one correction (and I'll let Guinn set us all right on the picture mentioned). If the picture Roy Dale references is the one I remember from visiting Guinn over the years is the one where George Lacy is the driller (the one operating the clutch handle and such). I also have always admired that picture -- in color and so well framed and such. I'm pretty sure it is from the time the Lacys were in Pinedale. George was driller for the daylight crew part of the time, although I seem to remember that the picture was taken at night. Roy Lee (Daddy) was drilling superintendent for El Paso Natural Gas Co. for that area of Wyoming. His main office was in Rock Springs even though all of the drilling activity was up at Pinedale and Big Piney. In those days the drilling continued throughout the year -- whatever the weather conditions. There are quite a few stories about those two or three years when at least seven holes were drilled down to deeper than 12000 feet looking for natural gas in sufficient quantities to warrant production. EPNG ultimately pulled out of the area because the cost of a pipeline to retrieve the gas was prohibitive at the time. Since then there has been a lot of activity in the area and continues today with Pinedale being something of a boom town during the summer months.

Roy Dale's rememberings of going to the rig really brought back memories for me since I had very similar experiences from about the time I was six or seven all the way through college age plus a couple even after I was married off and in the Air Force at our parents home for military leave and such. I accompanied Daddy to the rig often on weekends and much more often during the summer vacation periods. I would be allowed to wander more or less unfettered all day long as Daddy didn't have time to watch me all that closely. I usually had a twenty-two or a four-ten shotgun and some ammunition to shoot pretty much whatever I decided to shoot (as long as I didn't shoot toward the rig, of course). On most of those days I would have our dog Curly with me and I had some wonderful times. Much like Roy Dale, the experience of working as a rough neck in a couple of summers at Pinedale convinced me that the Air Force was a much better option for a life work! Although I must say that I never found the rig and its environs scary as Roy seemed to. It was probably not that I was fearless but rather that I was clueless! Anyway, I think maybe George would say that I tended to scare others more than being scared of the rig and its very many hazards. Now days I'm sure that some of the things I did around the rigs of the time would be completely against OSHA rules and I think that is too bad because current generations of kids don't have the opportunity to do the things that I took as a matter of fact.

I was going to deny that I found oil rigs scary but that's not true, they were and are scary places; just one misstep or one second's lack of attention and poof! You are dead or crippled or hurt. I'll add my story here to say why I left the oil patch for academia and never looked back: I was working on work-over rig south of Vernal, Utah, for Gudac Well Service. One day we had to hydro-test the well, which involved pumping high-pressure water down the hole for some reason. To do this we had to make a connection about 20 feet above the rig floor. I was standing on the floor when the derrick hand, whom I think was one of Gudac's sons, Mike, opened the elevators and a big piece of metal fell out of them and struck me on the back of the neck. I fell to the floor like I was pole-axed and I remember a vision of life in a wheelchair flashing through my brain. The others started to pick me up and I yelled "Don't Touch Me!" and then wiggled first my toes, then my fingers, then my arms and legs; then I stood up, very shaky; I went to the emergency room and found I had a hairline fracture in one of my vertebrae of my neck. The next day I went back to the rig and George Gudac told me I had to climb up into the derrick with a 5-gallon bucket of rig wash and scrub the rig, as we were waiting for something to happen and he couldn't abide idle hands. I picked up the bucket and pains shot through my neck and arms and I put it down and said "I can't do this." Gudac, being as he was, got in my face and screamed at me "Do you want this &!@#$% job or not!?!?" and I looked at him and said "No, I don't want this %#@%$^& job, so take me back to town." That's the last time I ever set foot on an oilfield location.

Now, Guinns:

I've thought for a long time that we should be getting some of the oil field stories. The oil field was our life from the time I was born until George retired. George is the only one left who remembers working with Daddy. Jimmy C would have stories but his memory is gone, or so Jo says, and he probably wouldn't be willing to talk about any of that stuff anyway. He didn't go to the oil field until after the war. Cagle would have stories too but who would go and talk to him? I haven't heard anything about him since Snickles died.

But back to the blog. The picture is from Monahans, I'm pretty sure. When I got it I blew it up and found Daddy and I'm pretty sure the one with the cigarette in decent clothes is Ray Moore, and the one, short and heavy set is Heavy. He worked derricks I think when we were in Monahans. The reason I think he was a derrick hand is that he always rode shotgun in that Mercury that Daddy called Joe Stalin. It's the car that Daddy hit the jack rabbit when he was going wide open coming home from the rig and it was thrown up into the grill. The car had a fine chrome grill and it was war time and no way could it be replaced. So it was driven with this big gap in the grill. Anyhow, I couldn't recognize anyone else. I think the third from the right was George Kelly.

Daddy once said he had the best of crews-the best floor hands and the best motor man and I asked why he didn't have the best derrick hand and he said that he had to run the rig.

George was also terribly vain about what a good derrick hand that he, George, was.

When a rig was down, usually it was the derrick hand who went out as a night watchman. Mother and I and Randall as a baby would often go to location with him when we were in Pyote. Bennie and Aunt Jack went a lot too. We would take supper and Bennie and I could play around the pipe and the ropes hanging, and Randall was right about OSHA. Some of the tales told about what went on at the rig would probably cause apoplexy for an OSHA hand.

It was hard, dirty work. And I don't think I appreciated it until I had to crawl into a car with the same people every morning and listen to the same old whines and I only worked 4 days a week. I cannot imagine never having a day off. And yet they did it. Because if they demanded a day off, there was always someone there needing a job to replace them.

Mom and I both learned to contend with "Greasers" as the clothes they wore were called. There were special tubs at all the laundromats, even the ones with wringer machines, to wash the greasy clothes. The guys brought alkali from the rig to wash them with until some enterprising person discovered that a bottle of Coca Cola worked very well. It was a nasty job that had to be done.

If any of you remember the tales Roy Lee told, start writing them down. I have a lot of pictures.

One story that George likes to tell...Daddy told him to throw his hard hat in the air and he could shoot it. So George did. When the hat hit the ground and was still, he shot it two or three times. We still have the hat. He was like that and can't you just see him laughing and slapping his knee when George fell for that one. George says until he went to work for Daddy, he had never been on a rig floor and the noise was deafening. He couldn't understand anything said to him and most of the time when he did hear he didn't have a clue what he was being sent to fetch. Daddy broke him in but good. And yet he had the utmost respect for Roy Lee and to this day thinks he was the finest man to ever walk on a rig floor.

OK, there they are, and great stories too! When I get some photos I'll post them as well. Thanks to everyone! I wish Rodge, who is a really good writer, had time to record some of his stories; he could fill his own blog. But Rodge and I worked together a little bit when we were younger, I'll try to remember some of those tales later.

The Patch

Or as I've heard it called, the Oil Patch, although it's pronounced more like "oawl" patch. Anyway, back to blogging about family history. I was on a roll there in May but since the first day of June have been either about to go on the road; on the road; coming back from being on the road; or just generally burned out/jet-lagged from being on the road. And I'm going again soon but in September I hold great hopes for more continued writing.

Anyway, here is a story that Randall wrote about some of Roy Lee's oilfield experiences. I should say by way of (another) preamble that oil rigs constitute one of my very earliest memories. I have a very vivid impression of driving through the night with my father, seeing a tower of lights reaching into the sky, climbing metal stairs to a metal box (the doghouse) where there were tired, dirty men sitting, and then following him through the doghouse and onto a rig floor and...I was just overwhelmed. I couldn't have been 5 or so, and I remember the noise, the vibration, the feeling of gathered raw power, and then looking up into the lights disappearing into the inky night. I have no idea where it was or even how old I really was, but I sure remember that impression. Then as I grew older we would often go out on rigs, where Roy Lee's job, as he joked, was to "point his finger." My siblings could tell much more about our lives as oil field trash, as the saying went, but by the time I came along he was pretty much an executive. Not one that was treated all that well, as we several times had to up and move on the company's whim, but still, he wasn't working the rig floors like he had up until then. I know he used to work 364 days a year, only getting Christmas off; and I know from my own brief experiences how hard and dirty and fatiguing and scary oil field work is. He did it pretty much his whole life. Anyway, I would go with him out to rigs in the New Mexico desert (thereby giving me an appreciation for badlands that I have to this day) and since I was the boss's son, they would give me free rein. Throw clods or whatever into the mud pit, no problem. Pick through the core samples for something interesting, go right ahead. Sometimes when I was bored he would give me his gun, a snub-nosed .38 pistol, and a box of shells and say "don't shoot at the rig." Otherwise I was free to blast whatever came across my field of vision. That was always great fun. But going with him, and then later working on and around rigs, affected all of my later life in a number of ways. On the one hand, I remember many phrases--"assholes and elbows," used to describe what should be seen when you are working hard, is still one of my favorite phrases although not in polite company. "Twist off" is another, when you party or drink or generally goof off. "Goat'th'howse," or "Go to the house," is another I use all the time. On the other hand, seeing how hard my father worked, literally to death although the cigarettes and buttermilk and fried salt pork didn't help any, and then working on rigs myself steered me toward the academic life, where you are always working indoors and no one is cursing inarticulately at you and nothing ever falls on your head or snaps off your fingers.

But enough about me! Here, then, is Randall's story of Rosie the monkey...

"The picture of Rosie in Daddy's hard hat got me to thinking about a couple of Rosie stories. She was a monkey from somewhere in south east Asia and was brought home from WWII by a friend (or hand) of Daddy's. While we were in Monahans is the only time I remember her being around so I guess she didn't go with the crew of Daddy's rig when it moved away -- first over to Snyder, thence to Brownfield and even more thence to Farmington. Anyway, Rosie would grab our dogs and hold them with her hind feet and pick fleas and I guess other critters out of their fur. I remember Curly just standing there and taking it cause he couldn't get away. My favorite story though concerns Ray Moore who I think is the one who had a Texaco Station there in Monahans. The station was always kept spotlessly clean and it was a service station in every sense of the word. Anyway, it turned out that Daddy discovered that if you spank (or whip) Rosie she immediately took a dump. Quite messily in fact. One day Daddy took Rosie down to the Texaco Station and led Rosie all around the place whipping her the whole time. It was a real mess and one of the funniest things Daddy seemed to have seen! Another thing they would do to bother Ray Moore was to race through the station without stopping and ring the bells so he or his help would rush to the front to serve someone that was no longer there."

Nowadays we would call this animal cruelty, but in those days it was funny. In fact that's how I always think of oilfield humor: if it's not fatal it's funny, and even if it is fatal sometimes it's humorous. Also included with his story was another picture, towit:



I have no idea of whom any of these men are; nor where, nor any of the circumstances. I'm sure somewhere in someone's family vault there are other oil field pictures, although the environment on an oil rig, or a location, more properly, wasn't exactly conducive to taking pictures. But one I know of that Guinn has a large framed print of that I've always loved, it shows Roy Lee on the motor handle, or is it Cagle Jordan? But at any rate it's a great shot of a rig floor in action.

As always, if anyone else has oil field photos or stories, I'll be glad to post them.

Next up, more horsey tales from Jimmy; photos, please?

More horsey stories, or The View From My Side of the Horse

[note: after lots of whining from me about how no one else ever adds to this family history, Jimmy Ruth has taken me up on it! I knew that me putting up horsey stories would get her going, and I'm glad to post her--hopefully!--first of many such tales. - RW]

The View from My Side of the Horse

We have all agreed, I believe, that perception is our reality and so I’m going to submit my perception of the horse tales (or tails, as the case may be). Memories get all jumbled and mixed together over the years. I’ll just give y’all mine and you can believe them or not.

Daddy always was interested in horses. Randall, remember in Portales when we would go driving around after supper (these were the pre-TV years)? There was a place that had Shetlands and horses and we would always go by there. Daddy knew the fine points and I knew I loved looking at them. I was six that summer. There was a donut shop we would sometimes go by and get a treat while we were out. Strange, the things that make an impression. I remember so much about Portales compared to Snyder and I was six in both places.

Anyway, I have digressed. The first horse story I remember Daddy telling was about the old lady’s horse. Daddy and Uncle Rosco rough broke horse for $5 a head and the old lady (I have no idea as to age—Daddy always called her the old lady but in a respectful tone) had a horse she was quite taken with. She hired Daddy and Uncle Rosco to break her (the horse, not the old lady). Uncle Rosco put a loop around the horse’s neck and then short-tied the rope to a tree branch. The horse reared up and over, breaking her neck in the fall. Daddy and Uncle Rosco left the county for awhile. I don’t know if that was the same trip as the one when Uncle Rosco came down with the measles and Daddy had to get him back home. I think that story’s been covered elsewhere. Suffice it to say that Daddy said it was a nightmare ride.

We moved to Midland in October of 1957 and we got Nugget early the next year. He belonged to Uncle Sally and had been raised on the place Aunt Gladys’s family owned. Nugget was a registered Palomino (Sally’s Golden Nugget) and just a horse otherwise. He wasn’t a quarter horse or anything in particular but he was beautiful and I adored him on first sight. Uncle Sally showed up with him and my first saddle. I have no idea who paid for him. I didn’t care. Uncle Sally was really into Palominos and had shown Nugget at halter at the Fort Worth stock show. And I have the ribbon he won to prove it here somewhere. I guess Daddy & Uncle Sally decided that Nugget was perfect for me to learn on and he was. He was 16½ hands high which meant that I had to stand on something to saddle him and I had no hope at all of ever getting on him bareback without some help from somewhere. He was easily the best natured horse around, although he managed to throw me more than once, kick me on occasion, and bite when he was in a snit. My first saddle was, literally, a piece of Texas history. It had belonged to an old cowboy whom Uncle Sally knew who was one of the very first to realize how important a second cinch could be. And I had one of the first saddles with that second cinch. It was really old—black leather, and one stirrup fender had been mended by lacing a leather strip across it to hold it together. Unfortunately for me, the mend was right above where my boots ended and rubbed blisters on my leg the first few times I used the saddle. I have no idea what happened to that saddle.

Nugget, and later on, Bullet and Lonesome, lived out toward the Lamesa highway at a stables owned by Toby Hillyard, who was one on Andrew Mellon’s grandsons and had lots and lots of money to play with. It was a huge white building, surrounded by what seemed like miles of white fence. There was a central opening that went completely through the building and there were wide, high doors (like barn doors) at each end. The stalls were on both sides and there was plenty of room down the middle to drive the truck that had the hay and feed. Each stall opened to an outside pen. I really don’t remember the location of the tack room but I think it was in the middle. There was a caretaker who lived (in something not nearly as nice as the horses’ quarters) behind the place. The property had a fenced riding ring and a place to practice for trail class competition. Daddy and I went out there nearly every night after he got off work. I was literally in hog heaven. I even took riding lessons for quite awhile although all I ever want to do, other than come to a sliding stop and spin the horse around (never mastered it) was to ride as well as Daddy and Uncle Sally and Uncle Nick. I did get good enough to be qualified to teach advance Western and beginning English. I even took polo lessons from one of Toby’s employees who was a multiple goal player (the higher the number, the better the player; I would have been about a negative 5).

We hadn’t had Nugget all that long before I got my good saddle. It was a bench-made Leddy Brothers saddle, made just for me and it was beautiful. Uncle Sally gave me a black and white braided nylon bridle/reins that was gorgeous and perfectly worthless in controlling a horse. I had a one-eared bridle that I used as long as we had the horses.

It amazed me to read Jug’s view of Bullet. I have so many memories of Jug racing that little horse all over the place while grinning like the proverbial ‘possum ape ( and I still have no idea what a possum ape is). I don’t remember Bullet as Satan Incarnate; he was a Shetland and they are pigheaded and opinionated. I certainly don’t remember him as being any meaner than any other horse around there. He never bit, kicked, or stepped on me and I was around him a lot. He did have one quirk—he did not like to have anyone on him whose legs went below his belly. I only tried to ride him once and as soon as I discovered what upset him, I never tried again. I could, and did on more than one occasion, load little ones on him and, when I walked off, he would follow me around like an overgrown dog. He did run away with Beverly Smith but that was because she popped him with the reins and then thought yelling WHOA repeatedly would stop him. Actually, he did stop, on his own schedule, and she flew over his head and landed on her butt in a sticker patch (there were enough sticker patches around there for all of us to land in one at least once). I remember when we went to get Bullet over in Odessa at T-Bone Moore’s place. T-Bone had several Shetlands, but his love was miniature horses, an entirely different thing. He had a black stud and a white one and they were both perfectly formed little horses. I can remember him telling Daddy that they were teacup horses, meaning their muzzles would (should) fit into a tea cup ( and that sounds redundant, I know). I thought Jug named him Bullet, which seemed strange to me since he had a white patch in the shape of an arrowhead on one flank. I’m probably wrong. I don't remember the black saddle Jug mentioned. The saddle Jug got for Christmas I do remember. It was displayed Christmas morning on the ottoman and was a gorgeous thing. It was from the King Ranch saddlery; in case you didn't know that, you could read it in lots of places--the name was stamped all over the saddle. When Jug graduated to a taller horse (Nugget), Bullet went to live with Aunt Gladys in Stamford and stayed in a stall in her backyard. He died of a kink in his intestines which Daddy said was caused by being fed too many pecans. There were a lot of huge pecan trees in the backyard and I guess Aunt Glad would sit on the step, shell them, and feed them to Bullet. I have only good memories of him. What a difference in memories…..

And the Bullet digression mostly ends here.

More on the Webbs and Uncle Sallie

Just got an email from Jimmy regarding more about the Webb side of the family, so I'll post it here to go with the ones from David Webb.

"Uncle Sally had one son by his first wife--Tommy Aaron Webb. He's buried in a military cemetery in the Dallas area. Patrick tracked down the grave. Tommy had 2, or perhaps 3, daughters. I don't remember.

"The Ballards are our 1st cousins. Aunt Zella was Daddy's sister and one of the relatives he truly seemed to care about. She had a slew (sp.) of kids. Jug, you might remember going to Sis's place in Chama after we moved back to Farmington [I do; it was a great place, right by the Chama River. -RW]. Her husband was called Fido and I have no idea what his name was. There was Sis and Buster and Mack (whom I adored) and Don and Pat (Lura's only niece) and Peggy and Helen Rhea (sp) and Wayne (killed in training accident during WWII) and I think I've missed someone. I knew Sis, Mack, Don, and Pat. I met Helen Rhea and Peggy once, at Uncle Sally's funeral, and I remember that only because one of them was wearing a really neat short outfit that changed to a dressy outfit w/the addition of a matching wraparound skirt. I also remember that they didn't appear to care less about any of the family who were there and there were a lot there."

-Jimmy

Since she was talking about Uncle Sallie, here's a photo she recently sent of him in his Navy uniform from World War I. As noted in previous posts, he enlisted in the Army in the spring of 1917, but then fell ill (mononucleosis was mentioned although we don't know for sure) and was discharged, so the promptly enlisted in the Navy. No idea if he went overseas, though. Note the photographer: Tate Studios. I checked the standard work on historic photographers but there wasn't an entry; of course this photo was taken in 1917 or 1918, so I'll keep checking on that.

Wesley R. Webb from David Webb

Just recently I was thrilled to get an email from David Webb, a descendant of Wesley R. Webb, who was my grandfather's (James Christoper Webb) brother. That makes us, I have since learned, 2nd cousins once removed. As I always say, we have so many cousins that we lost track years ago, so it was really great to hear from one of them. David sent along a few stories and some great photos, which I'll post here, and promised to add some more later on. I put his emails together--with his permission--and present them here with his photos. Thanks David! We'll look forward to hearing and seeing more from your branch of the Webb family.

-Roy

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James Webb Jr., born 1813; father of Wesley R. and James Christopher Webb

Hello my name is David Webb and I’m descended from Wesley [R.] Webb. His wife was Emlie (correct spelling not Emalie or Emily). I saw your website and thought it was great. I have a picture of Wesley Webb, I also have a marriage license that has all of their children’s births on it (I inherited it). I would love to share all of this. I have more stories about the Brocks and Webbs in Perrin (my grandfather was born in Perrin).

My great grandfather was William Luther Webb and [he] was the brother of J.C. Webb.

William Luther Webb

Uncle Luth was my great grandpa. He was a character. All of my line have always enjoyed life and were very loving, giving people. [Great-Grandpa] Luth was always a happy person, played jokes, he used to give out silver dollars to my dad (in Spur Texas) and his friends when they were around 8-9-and 10. [Luth would] go up to ladies and grab their hats off of their heads!! They said he would just laugh!! ,[He] laughed real loud and generally loved life. I am so thrilled about any email or sharing of info from a relative even if we've never met, we are even related to president L.B. Johnson!! and Shakespeare!! I’ll work on scanning photos and I’ll send as soon as I can. Thanks for the blog.

Just a note about Wesley R. Webb. He weighed over 300 lbs and was 6 feet 7 inches tall!! Big man!!, and his hands were enormous, you can see that in the old tin type I have. I will also send a scanned photo tin type of his parents James(jr) and Elizabeth Webb. Most of my close relatives I’m sad to say have all passed away, my father was buried beside Wesley at the Lone Star cemetery (west of Pooleville, Texas). Wesley and Emlie (she was Irish) were'nt buried together because of a flood, that is why she is buried in Perrin Texas. The Webbs have been traced back to the 13th century (1200s); we even fought in the Crusades, the American revolution, and countless other wars.

Another gift that you may use if you wish. This was in a trunk that came to Texas from Alabama on a covered wagon it is dated 1868. Wesley and Emlie stopped in Quitman Texas and she was expecting and gave birth to Wesley Luther Webb my great-grandpa. They stopped in Quitman because of relatives and the Indian attacks had just ceased on the frontier (present day Jacksborough). They were on their way a few years before 1878 but the Indian attacks were so bad that they decided to go back to Arkansas and wait it out. Wesley’s brother John and Milton were already in Pooleville. Big Tree, Satank, and Satanta were maurauding (Commanche and Kiowa) on the frontier,r which at that time extended through John Webb’s homestead. Wesley homesteaded beside John near Pooleville Texas.

[Wesley Rosele Webb and Emlie Delilah Webb Marriage Certificate, July 29, 1868. He was born in Alabama in 1850, she in 1847 in Ireland. ]

-David Webb

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More on the Carrolls - UPDATED!!

UPDATED 3/26/09; just got a long email from Jimmy updating and correcting some of the things I posted below, so this is new information. I'll make the corrections to names and photos that she suggests in her email:

Aunt Jesse was a beautiful woman. She played the piano by ear, and played it well. The last time I saw her was the summer before she died in September (just a few days before Jug was born--or was it the next year and a few days before Jug's 1st birthday?). Another anyway, I remember that she played "Jezebel" on the piano w/flourishes and that she had a bathtub that was long enough for me lie down in. I took a picture of her, Aunt Jack, and a pregnant Mother and it's a good picture. I have no idea where it is.

You have Aunt Dell's and Aunt Rubye's pictures reversed. [corrected -RW]

Aunt Rubye had Ben J, Margueritte, Joel Jack, George Earl, and Billy Wayne. The shrine was in the house outside of (I think) Ballinger. I stayed there one time when Audrey was there. The shrine frightened me for whatever reason. It just seemed wrong, even to a 9 year old. Aunt Rubye also had a tremendous amount of "stuff" she gotten off with when Grandma Carroll died. All of that burned as well. Most of what she had of Grandma's had been bought by Uncle Jimmy, including several things he got in Europe during WWII. The aftermath of the funeral was awful, w/people grabbing things and fighting over them. Mother cried and Daddy put us in the car and we went home. I saw Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Jo last summer. He's still lucid most of the time, by the way, and he's still ticked off about what happened after Grandma's funeral and after Grandpa's. And I got to be at both places---not the best of memories.

Aunt Dell & Uncle Rosco lived out in the country until the early to mid sixties when they moved into the metropolis of Newcastle (about 300 people). By the time I remember the old place (and it seemed really old), there were 3 rooms--a front room/bedroom, a kitchen, and a small add-on as a room for LaVelle. There was electricity and, I think, water, although everyone drank from a bucket using the same ladle. Mother always stopped in town and got cokes for me and Jug. There was an outdoor toilet, complete w/a hornet's nest that made it unusable, so you had to just use the great outdoors. I truly didn't like going there. The house in town had 5 or 6 rooms. I was only there twice but I do remember the linoleum floors. I have several stories about Uncle Rosco but I'll hit those another day.

I don't believe that the woman in the picture with Uncle Nick is Aunt Jack. [photo removed -RW]I think it's Florence, his second wife. He married her after her husband died, mainly because they were old friends and both lonely. Nick is buried by Jack and Florence is buried by her 1st husband. Grandpa lived in Seminole with Jack & Nick for the last few years of his life, with occasional stays w/ us in Midland. He moved to a small (2 rooms, I think) house about a block over and behind Aunt Jack's a year or so before he died. Aunt Jack had 3 sons. One died at birth (Mother said the doctor broke his neck using forceps), Raymond Lewis died as a child, and Benny Jack was murdered by his second, soon to be ex, wife in 1969. His 1st wife's name was Fayrene and the only surviving child they had was Benny Bob. Jug, you would have played w/him when we went to the ranch outside Seminole. Uncle Nick managed that one before they moved to Crosbyton. The policeman with the dog is Tommy Deerman, Aunt Lillian's son. [photo moved -RW] The dog was named Streak and he was a wonderful dog. The little boy is David, Tommy's step-son. Aunt Lillian's daughter is named Barbara Fern and, if she's still alive, she lives in Willcox. I've never met her and I have no desire to do so. I did talk to her daughter one time. She informed me that I couldn't be her cousin since her mother had only one and her name was Guinn. I think the gun incident happened the summer between Randall's sophomore and junior years in college. I do know that it caused some major upsets.

-Jimmy

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Here's a post I wrote back in July, but I tried to add an html link and it totally goofed it up; that's what I get for trying to be fancy! Since I just put up the one on the Carroll side of the family, I'm going to try to resurrect it here. Some of the things mentioned here might have been talked about and/or cleared up in posts back in July, so check older ones for more:

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Before I get distracted with other things, I wanted to finish off what I started a while back and keep getting distracted from, more on the Carrolls.

Jim "Pop" and Florence "Maggie" Carroll,
my maternal grandparents, probably in the 1920s

Not to belabor yet another point, but I got to thinking and I could not name one cousin on Roy Lee's side. I know Uncle Sallie had a son named Tommy, I think, or at least that was what he was called. And the Ballards are somehow related. Pat? Sis? Margarite? At least I think they are all on the Webb side. But that's about it, although in the Webb file I found a stack of pages about Aunt Lillian Webb's kids. Somehow we just never spent much time with them, or I should say I never did, like we did with the Carrolls and specifically the Jordans, of whom more later.

So now I'm going to put up some photos and blog a bit about them; this is more to get this all straight in my own mind than anything else. I'll start with the ones I know the least about, Ruth's brothers Shorty, Claude, and Edgar. As noted before, I never met any of them or don't remember if I did. I really do remember hearing somewhere that Edgar died in an industrial accident; I oh-so-vaguely remember Uncle Shorty, mostly in some unsavory fashion. I don't think I ever met Claude, although everything I heard about him was likewise unsavory.

So now the other one whom I never met, and have already written about a bit, Aunt Jessie; that's her on the left. She had a son, Carl Eyler, seen in the photo on the right, striking a martial pose; I seem to remember that the other photo of him has him in an overseas cap giving a salute. Did he serve in the military? He's with Guinn; she's in the center, holding Jimmy Ruth, with Randall on the far right striking the "gangsta" pose with the hoodie. Guinn has said that she keeps in touch with Carl; perhaps he would like to add something about his mother to this blog? Other than that I unfortunately know very little about her.

OK, moving on. The next one in terms of how little I know about them would have to be Ruby, the eldest of the Carroll girls. I think I only have the one photo of her, in the group shot of all the sisters, and this is cropped out of that. Given what little we know about their early upbringing and given that it's universally agreed that it was a very unpleasant one, of poverty and even abuse (as we'd define it today), no wonder she isn't smiling. I know that she was married to a man named Ben Flynn, who, as noted below (and I apologize for repeating myself) was a wounded veteran of WW I, who had lost part of a lung or a whole lung because he had been gassed in the trenches. They had several children, of which I know the names of three: Ben Albert Flynn, a son, Joel Jack, another son, about whom I've written earlier, and Billy Dean Flynn, the youngest. He served in the Korean War, but then was killed in a car wreck in Runnels County, Texas, in 1953, right after he got back. Ruby, understandably devastated by this tragedy, created a shrine to him in her house in Breckenridge, but everything was lost when the house burned down some years later. I guess there were more but I have no clue what their names were. They lived, at least when I knew them and I think fairly consistently, in Breckenridge, Texas. I can sort of picture the town and the house; the town had red brick streets, and the house had a screened porch. Other than that I don't remember much, save for the fine watermelon memories that I wrote about earlier in a post of the same name and that I think of every time I eat a watermelon. I also wrote about Ben's funeral which I think we established was in 1966.

Next up would be Aunt Dell (I'm going to skip using their real names, as I never knew them by any other than these). She married a man named Roscoe Jordan; I think they lived in Breckenridge or Newcastle, or nearby as well. It was with her children and grandchildren that I've had the most family contact outside my own, but that's a subject for later on. Again, we probably went to visit them but I don't remember much about it. They lived outside of town; it seems that the house was dark at night? No electricity? That can't be right. There was a chicken in the yard we were all afraid of, and it seems they had no indoor plumbing although that could be a myth of my own making. I sort of remember Roscoe as a friend of my father's, a rough, gruff, cowboy that I always admired but was afraid of at the same time; I can picture him and remember his voice. I do like the name, Roscoe; if I had a boy I would want to name him that! I heard a great story about him and Roy Lee at the last reunion: that in the 1920s, I guess before Roy started working in the oil fields, they were rough-breaking horses in north Texas, and Roscoe got sick with a severe case of the measles, of which there was an epidemic going on. So Roy had to get him home, to Olney I guess, but he was too sick to ride very far so they would go a little way and then rest, and when they came to a house they would ask for food or a place to stay, and the people would take food out to the front, away from the house, and then go back inside; such was the fear of the epidemic.

Next would be Aunt Jack, whom I remember quite well. When we moved to Midland, which would probably be about 1958?, she lived in nearby Seminole, Texas, and we would often go visit. She was always very nice to me and very doting. I loved Aunt Jack and Uncle Nick, pictured on the left; they were some of my favorite relatives. Uncle Nick sometimes seemed strict but Aunt Jack was always good for a treat or a joke or a laugh. (although Nick had a great sense of humor; I remember that he had false teeth that he would stick out at us kids and make a clacking sound, to our horror and the general delight) We visited them many times and it was always a great time, the adults staying up drinking coffee and laughing at stories; many times I remember going to sleep to the smell of cigarettes and the sound of clicking dominoes. Recently my own family picked up a domino set and the sound of them brought back a flood of memories.

Her and her husband, Nick Hudson, lived in a small house. I wrote earlier that Pop Carroll lived in Seminole, at least part of the time when we were visiting, but I can't remember if he lived in the same house or had his own. I remember driving there many times, it wasn't very far, and going to a stockyard there, where they had goats? But the main memory is of a comic book store where we got to go for the trip home. Jimmy and I would divide the back seat, although without the hostility of other siblings you hear about, and we would each get to buy comic books. Hers were usually, I think, Archie, while mine were invariably Turok, Son of Stone, and Sgt. Rock. I guess an occasional Richie Rich crept in there too. I remember setting off fireworks there, at Aunt Jack's house, including one time in the house where we set a tablecloth on fire.

Jack and Nick had at least one son--there might be more--but this one I remember, Benny Jack. He was a policeman somewhere, I have a couple of photos of him in a uniform. I don't remember much about him, just his face and his association, and unfortunately, his sad fate. He was married to someone whose name I forget--Fay? something with an F?-- and they had a son, Benny Bob, with whom I hung out--more on that in a minute--but they were divorced. Later, if I remember this story right, she called him up to arrange a reconciliation, asking him to meet her somewhere, but when he showed up she had a gun and shot him dead.

I remember the call at our house when we learned this, and the sorrow that the tragedy caused. So anyway, after we moved back to Farmington in 1962, we would still travel back to Texas and usually it was to see Jack and Nick, with whom my parents were close. By this time Nick had gotten a job as a foreman on a ranch outside Crosbyton, Texas, which was east of Lubbock. The ranch was owned by some rich guy and Nick took care of it, and helped out when the owner showed up with buddies. I'm not sure it was a ranch so much as a vacation home, kind of; I don't remember any real ranching going on although there could well have been. It was in a pretty wild area; I remember you would drive outside of Lubbock, then down some dirt road through flat cotton fields, then all of sudden the world would drop out from underneath the car and there was a big badlands canyon that you would drop down into to reach the buildings.

A couple of times when we were there Benny Bob was there; he was about my age and we hit it off. One very distinct memory was when we took off for the wilds once, while the adults were playing dominoes and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. We each took a .22 and set off through the mesquite jungles. We went down to the river, a creek really, and were making our way along it, shooting at lizards and cans and anything else, crossing barbed wire fences as needed. Finally, in a very dense mesquite thicket, we heard a sound of crashing and snuffling, and into a clearing came a great big black and white pig. I mean a big pig; he probably outweighed us both combined. This wasn't a javelina, the little wild pigs, this was a feral domestic pig, and did I say he was big? At first we thought ha ha, here piggy, but as soon as he saw us he put his head down and charged at us, making really terrifying pig sounds and looking like he had every intention of doing us harm. We turned and ran, through the mesquites, getting cut and scratched and ripping our clothes, with the pig in hot pursuit; we could hear other pigs coming close too. Finally we came to a big, sturdy barbed wire fence, and threw ourselves over it, getting more scratched and torn; the pigs--for there were about a half dozen by now--came right up to the fence and snorted at us. We still had our rifles and I remember we both raised them and fired at the big pig; the others took off when the heard the gunshots. It was point-blank range and he never even flinched; his skin twitched like a fly was landing on it, and he turned around and walked back into the bushes.

The only one of my mother's brothers that I remember very well was Uncle Jimmy. He was the youngest of her family, born in 1921, and thus was of a perfect age for World War II. I never heard any details but I gather he was in a tank and saw a great deal of action in Italy in the 5th Army. We would also visit him and his wife, whose name also escapes me, and their two kids, Randy and Linda, who were about my age; one older and one younger. They lived in Monahans, Texas, and at last word he still lives there. Guinn, Randall, and Jimmy all have very distinct memories of Monahans, but the only thing I remember about Monahans was the Million Barrel Tank, a huge concrete oil tank. Apparently though every time they tried to fill it up, all the oil leaked out. At any rate I remember going over there and exploring around it. [This is where I had the link to some story about the Million Barrel tank that crashed the previous post; it's easy to find more about it if you're interested on a Google search.]

Finally, there is Aunt Lil. Lil and her husband, Red Moore, lived in Farmington, New Mexico around the time I was growing up there, from about 1962 to 1970, when we left after Roy Lee died. She died and is buried there as well. Lil was always a lot of fun; sometimes we would go to her house out by the San Juan River near Farmington for dinner. I remember she grew her own chiles and made a hot sauce that would sear your mouth. Roy Lee, the strong silent type, could never admit that he couldn't eat it so he would just shovel it onto his tacos or whatever we were having and eat it like it was good, but the sweat would pour off his bald head. At one time she ran a little cafe on the Bloomfield Highway, near Farmington, which we would often stop at on the way somewhere; usually when I would go out with my dad to an oil field. There was a sign over the bathroom door that was the first double entendre that I ever understood; it was for Coca-Cola and the text read: "The Pause That Refreshes." One summer, Rodger was there, and we got a job with Lil and Red cleaning up the big events center at the fairgrounds. This particular time I remember was after some big convention, and the place was totally trashed; we filled up barrel after barrel with empty whiskey and booze bottles, and Lil kept the ones that still had something in them. Lil's husband at the time was named Red Moore; I don't know what his real name was, but we knew him as Red. He had the most husky voice; we called it a "whiskey voice" but it was more likely caused by smoking. She had had an earlier marriage to a man named Deerman, and a couple of kids; I think they were Tommy and Fay? Something like that. But we often visited Lil, wherever she lived and she seemed to move around a lot; sometimes it was a little place in Bloomfield, about 15 miles from Farmington; then the little trailer out by the fairgrounds along the San Juan River.

Aunt Lillian's son Tommy Deerman and his dog Streak

An incident that occurred when we were visiting Lil one time has entered the realm of legend. For some reason Randall was there; he might have been back from the Air Force or something and Mom was showing him off. So we go out to Lil's trailer, where she lived by the river. Randall had gone into a back room and there was a gun hanging on the wall, in a holster; it was loaded. He had unloaded it, looked at it, reloaded it, and put it back on the wall. I went back there later and there was the gun; it looked really cool, like a six shooter in a Western, so I took it out of the holster, pointed it at the wall, and pulled the trigger. POW! It made a huge noise and went all the way through the trailer, stopping in the toilet. Quite the scene.

So that's all of them, from my memories. I have other memories of them but that's enough for now.