Mabry Oscar
Danforth and Minnie Gertrude Peacock
Mabry Oscar Danforth was born ten
years after the Civil War ended 13 April 1875 in a small northern Mississippi
town of Coldwater. He was the oldest
child of Theophilus Bassell Danforth and his wife Minerva Ann Holt.
Northern Mississippi was a hot bed of
influenza and tuberculosis due to its proximity to the Mississippi River and
the river traffic upon it. Mabry
Danforth's mother had tuberculosis and was very ill during her pregnancy with
him. His father, Thee Danforth,
concerned about the delicate condition of his wife, had a country doctor named
Oscar Mabry of Desoto County attend at Minerva's hard labor from which she almost
died.
Doctor Mabry helped in the successful delivery of a
healthy baby boy and probably saved the mother's life. Thee Danforth was therefore so grateful to
the doctor that he named his infant son not after himself or his father but
after this country doctor.
Mabry Danforth's baby sister, who
was born the following year, was not as fortunate as he was and she died of
small pox in 1877. It was during this
time that Thee Danforth seeing no real economic advantage in staying in
Mississippi looked into the possibility of moving to Texas where the climate
was much drier and hopefully healthier for his sickly wife.
His half-brother Elihu Luce left
Mississippi in 1877 and settled in Palo Pinto County and his letters of
encouragement helped Thee Danforth make up his mind to leave Mississippi and to
head out west. In 1878 Thee Danforth
began to make provisions for taking his pregnant wife and infant son to Texas
in the company of his brother-in-law family.
Mabry Danforth at the young age of 3
years took a long train ride from Memphis Tennessee to Fort Worth Texas. He
left Mississippi in late December 1878 in the company of his mother, his Aunt
Alice Nicholson, and his Nicholson cousins Willie Thomas, George, and Charley
Alma who was born just a few weeks prior to the Danforths and Nicholsons
leaving Mississippi. His father, Thee
Danforth and uncle, Bob Nicholson rode
the entire distance in the freight cars with the family possessions and some
live stock.
Elihu Luce met his kinfolk at Fort
Worth with some hired wagons and took the whole clan to
Palo Pinto County,
Texas where the Comanche Indians had just been relocated to reservations in the
Indian Territory of Oklahoma a few years prior.
Mabry Danforth's father built the
family a dugout on their 160 acre farm which was worked also by his uncle Bob
Nicholson. But before the dugout was built the family lived
for several months out of a covered wagon in which Mabry Danforth's younger
sister Alice Rose Danforth was born in February of 1879.
Mabry Danforth grew up doing chores
on the family farm near Gordon, Texas.
He learned to milk cows, tend chickens, pull and chop weeds, pick cotton
and all the other jobs that were to be found on a farm. His playmates were his Nicholson cousins who
when they weren't doing chores were playing cowboys and Indians. Mabry Danforth
said he and his cousins use to find
arrow heads in almost every field, mound, and stream in Palo Pinto County which
had once been covered with buffalo and other large game.
Mabry also heard old timers tell horror
stories of the Indian depredations against the early settlers with tales of men
being scalped alive, babies being used for arrow targets, and women being raped
then having their throats slit. Mabry
Danforth remembered a lot of these old stories and would tell his children and
grandchildren some of the most lurid ones to their fascinated delight and
horror.
Mabry Danforth's favorite story
was however about a chance reunion of a brother and sister. In the 1840's the Comanche Indians regularly
liked to kidnap white children to sell to the Spaniards in New Mexico or to
hold for ransom. Many of these children
were never heard of again and presumed killed or raised by the Comanches and
who became more Indian then the Indians.
A story was that one such boy was kidnapped at such an early age in the
1850's that he grew up as a Comanche Warrior and forgot that he was ever white.
One day the Indians began to raid white settlements in Northern Texas in the
late 1860's and this white Indian unwittingly attack his sister's
homestead. As he was about to scalp her,
their eyes met and a recognition of each other became apparent. The warrior fell then into his sister's arms
weeping and he saved her and her family from the other Indian warriors. However he did go back to his Comanche family
and continued to live as an Indian because it was the only life he ever knew..
As the oldest boy Mabry Danforth had
the duty of helping his father on the farm the most and he and his father
talked a lot about family matters out in the fields or working on mending fences.
His father taught him furniture making and carpentry and Mabry Danforth
became a natural carpenter even better then his father. He had a natural gift to be a builder and
this trade served him for most of his married life. But as a young man he worked more as a farm
laborer and cowboy than anything else.
Mabry Danforth was a dark hair blue
eyed boy who grew into a handsome youth.
He looked more like his mother then the
lanky strawberry blond that was his father, Thee Danforth but he did inherited
his father's sweet easy going disposition.
Neither Thee Danforth or his son Mabry Danforth were ambitious in
getting the riches of this world but were content to be men of good character and of modest means.
Mabry Danforth "accepted the gospel" and became a member of the Church of Christ at the age of 16 years in 1891
which made his mother very happy whom he
was to lose when he was only 17 years old.
Minerva Ann Danforth died from complications of a hard child birth and
her declining health from tuberculosis.
Mabry Danforth said the saddest day of his life was when his beloved
mother died and his baby sister Minerva Ann followed a few days later.
The whole family was prostrate with
grief over the death of Minerva Ann Holt, and Thee Danforth never completely
forgave himself, always blaming himself for his wife's early death.
Palo Pinto County was caught in a
cycle of drought beginning in the mid 1880's and farmers and ranchers began to
see their fortunes declined. Thee
Danforth and his son Mabry Danforth found work in the coal mines of Thurber,
Texas but Mabry detested the work and after his mother died left home to make
it on his own. He found work splitting
logs for fences at 50 cents a day which he sent home to help out his father
until his Uncle Elihu Luce wrote the family about wonderful opportunities to be
had in Dickens County where he had moved
to in 1889. Mabry Danforth went to
Dickens County in the early part of 1894 and was hired by the Spurs Ranch as a
ranch hand.
Mabry Danforth worked primarily as a
cowboy for the Spur Ranch from 1894 until 1901. He was able to buy a pony from
the ranch and worked rounding up strays, branding cows, and mending
fences. Mabry Danforth worked all over
the Double Mountain region of the Brazos River with a typical day beginning at
dawn and ending at dusk. The work
consisted of more then just moving cattle from one grazing area to another for
it mostly consisted of mending
fences. Some of the big ranches like the
Spurs had over 100 miles of fences and fixing them was a continuous job. Miles of barbed wire separated the ranch
lands from the farmers who were moving to the hill country under the Cap rock.
Mabry Danforth said that Spring time
was always the hardest time to be a Cowboy because he and the other cowboys had
to round up the calves from their mothers, castrate them, and brand them. Mabry Danforth said he had bruised shins from the kicking calves almost continuously during the round up time. He said this was also the time when the
Cowboys feasted on biscuits, black coffee and mountain oysters, fresh from the
castrated calves. He said they were best
when sliced off and thrown right into the sizzling frying pan.
In the Fall, usually in October, another round up time
gathered up the cows that were going to market. Mabry Danforth said he never
went on the long cattle drives of the Chisholm Trail because those days of
driving cattle to the railroad stockyards in Kansas were long gone. The railroad had stock yards in Texas by the
1890's and Mabry Danforth said the furthest he ever had to drive cattle was
from Dickens County to Fort Worth and that was only for one year.
Mabry Danforth said he enjoyed his
days as a Cowboy even though the work was the hardest work he ever did in his
life. He enjoyed "bunking" out
under the stars of West Texas, hearing the cattle make a low mournful noise,
and swapping tales with his boyhood pals.
The only thing he hated about his job was once in while a lizard called
a "water dog" would crawl over the sleeping cowboys while they were
fast asleep. Mabry said that the water
dogs were as cold as ice and would send chills up and down his spine when they
would wake him in the middle of the night seeking the warmth of his body.
In 1901 while riding the ranges of
the Double Mountain communities, Mabry Danforth met the brown eyed daughter of
Bill and Maggie Peacock. She was working
at her father's mercantile store where
Mabry Danforth stopped to get a soda and crackers. Mabry Danforth was 25 years old and the
object of his affection, Miss Minnie Peacock was 19 years old.
Minnie Gertrude Peacock was born on
16 February 1882 at Cleburne in Johnson County, Texas. Cleburne is about thirty miles south of Fort
Worth, Texas and here her father's family settled in 1864 during the Civil War. Her grandfather, John Ervin Peacock was a Confederate
soldier at the time and her grandmother Martha Peacock came to Texas in a
covered wagon pulled by oxen in the company of her parents John Monroe Anderson
and Malinda Bryant.
John Anderson was a
slave owner but who sold them before coming to Texas being smart enough to
foresee the collapse of the South. John
Anderson wanted to get a new start in Texas so he left Lafayette County,
Arkansas with his wife and a family consisting of all daughters including his
married daughter, Martha Peacock and her son Bill Peacock.
Although their Confederate money was
worthless, John Anderson brought enough gold coins with him to secure a good
farm. After the Civil War ended and after
being paroled by the Federal Army, John Peacock joined his wife and son in Texas.
John Peacock was the son of Alfred
Peacock and his Cherokee wife Lovinia Bradley. Alfred
Peacock was the son of Samuel Peacock. Alfred Peacock was born in Barnwell District,
South Carolina in 1792 but his father
relocated to Washington County, Georgia where Alfred Peacock grew to
manhood. Alfred Peacock joined the U.S.
Army during the War of 1812 and campaigned against the Indians in Florida and
Alabama and fought at the Battle of New Orleans where family tradition claims
that he was a pirate for some sometime with the famous Buccaneer, Jean Lafitte
of New Orleans.
Alfred Peacock married as his second wife Lovinia Bradley a daughter of
a Cherokee Farmer in the Cherokee Cession of Georgia. They had several children including John
Ervin Peacock who was named after Alfred Peacock's commanding officer in the
War of 1812 Captain John Irvin. In the
1830's President Jackson broke his promise to the Indians of the Southern
States and ordered the U.S. Army to deport them to the Indian Territory west of
Arkansas. Lovinia Bradley's family of
Cherokees went to Oklahoma along the infamous Trail of Tears where many died
along the way.
About this time Alfred Peacock applied
for a war bounty land grant and left Georgia to move to the northwestern
section of Louisiana and later into southwestern Arkansas where his now grown
children married and began to raise families.
Alfred Peacock's son John Peacock
moved to Texas after the Civil War to rejoin his wife and eventually Alfred
Peacock and his other children's families all left Arkansas and settled in
Cleburne, Texas also.
The Peacock families prospered in
Johnson County, Texas where Bill Peacock grew to manhood. Bill Peacock was a feisty young man who was
not afraid of anyone and who inherited the infamous Peacock temper. He married a young woman named Maggie Roden
Wilson who was the “half-breed” daughter of Eliza Jane Walker. Jane Walker was the oldest daughter of
Rev. James Green Walker a Methodist missionary to the Indians and a medical doctor.
He had a large family by two wives and the journal of this Rev. J. G. Walker,
M.D. is in the archives of the Gilcrease Museum of Tulsa, OK.
Jane
Walker first married a son of a Methodist minister in Washington County,
Arkansas in 1853 and her first husband is not dead but still living in
Washington County ARK in 1865 after she married John Roden Wilson.
Eliza "Jane" Walker met
and married John Roden Wilson 8 May 1861 in Cooke County and had a little girl
named Susan Caroline Wilson born 9 November 1863 at Gainsville in Cooke
County. John Roden Wilson also had a
sister named Vian Elizabeth Wilson who married a soldier in Captain Whaley's
company named John Bilberry a native of Overton County, Tennessee. John Bilberry had just recently been made a
widower and was left with five children.
He and Vian Wilson were married 11 August 1864.
After the collapse of the Confederate States
along with the Texas State government, the northern frontier settlements of
Texas were left to fend for themselves.
In the summer of 1865 a Comanche Indian raiding party entered the Cooke
County of Texas stole scores of horses and captured among others, the sisters-in-law
Jane Wilson and Vian Elizabeth Bilberry and their children and step-children.
The women and children were tied together and forced to walk about fifty miles
into Oklahoma to the Indian camps along the banks of Washita River. The women's husbands were away at the time
being paroled by the Federal Army at Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Immediate retaliation against the Indians was
delayed by the inability of the ex-Confederate soldiers to bear arms and the
indifference of the Military Reconstructionist government in Houston to the
plight of the north Texas settlers.
Virtually all the counties of Clay, Montigue, Cooke, and Grayson were
deserted from 1865 to 1866 as settlers fled south to Fort Richardson in Jack
County and Fort Worth in Tarrent County for Safety.
John Bilberry's wife, Vian Elizabeth
Bilberry who was pregnant was murdered by the Comanches near the Red River when
she couldn't keep up being tied behind the Indian ponies. Jane Wilson managed to survive the march but
was raped by the Indian Warriors in an encampment near the Washita River in
Indian Territory from which she conceived a child. Jane Walker Wilson and her child by John Roden Wilson and the children of John Bilberry kept as slaves to the Comanche
until rescued.
Jane Wilson daughter of a Methodist
Indian agent knew some of the Indian Cherokee language and through this and
sign language she was able to understand where they were being taken and what
the Indians had in mind for them. The Bilberry children were thus protected by
their Aunt Jane Wilson who told them how to behave and how not to get in the
way of the Indians. Frontier life had
made their children hardy and they were able to endure the hardship and abuse
inflicted on them in Oklahoma. The children were beaten regularly by the squaws
and 16 year old Mattie Bilberry was made a squaw to one of the Comanche braves
until her rescue.
In January 1866 the Comanches
swooped down from Oklahoma and in a surprising raid devastated Northern Texas
again. Gainsville in Cooke County once
again was one of the hardest hit settlements when 100 Comanche Warriors swept
through the community killing nine people and capturing seventeen more women
and children. Texas Rangers and U.S.
Cavalry this time pursued the Indians into Oklahoma and rescued not only the
seventeen settlers from Gainsville but also Jane Wilson, her daughter Susan
Wilson and the younger children of John
Bilberry.
The Wilson an Bilberry
captives returned in early April and John Roden Wilson finding his wife nine
eight months pregnant treated Jane Wilson quite shabbily and would have nothing
more to do with her. He could not accept
the fact that Jane was carrying an Indian's baby. He divorced her in May of
1866 and remarried a woman named Letha Sarah Knight in August that same year
and went on to raise another family of his own.
Jane Wilson gave birth to a baby daughter which she named Margarett
Roden Wilson 30 April 1866 at Gainsville.
John Bilberry was completely
disgusted with his former brother-in-law, John Roden Wilson and threatened to
kill him if he ever saw him again for his treatment of Jane Wilson. His own
daughter Mattie Bilberry was also pregnant and gave birth to a little girl
named Mary Thompson Bilberry on 13 January 1867. Jane Wilson went to live with John Bilberry
as a housekeeper and his admiration for his former sister-in-law Jane grew into
love and they married 14 February 1870 at Gainsville. John Bilberry raised Jane's two daughters
Susan and Maggie as his own. Bill Bilberry and Jane Bilberry also had two
children of their own, Martellia Bilberry and Leonador Bilberry.
John Bilberry left North Texas in
1871 fearing another Indian uprising and moved to Central Texas along the San
Saba River. He operated a small goat
ranch and farm in Williamson and later Lampasas County where several
members of the Bilberry clan of Tennessee came to Texas to join him. Maggie Roden Wilson grew to young womanhood
in Central Texas and here she met Bill Peacock who being mad at his father had
ran away from home. Maggie Wilson was
just a curly hair girl of 14 years with black eyes and black hair when 19 year
old Bill Peacock began courting her.
Maggie wouldn't consider marrying Bill Peacock until she met his folks
and having their approval so since Bill only having one horse, had Maggie ride
behind him all the way to Cleburne.
Bill Peacock's folks forgave him for
running away and accepted Maggie Wilson into the family. Bill Peacock and Maggie Wilson were married
on 3 February 1881 at Cleburne and Bill went to work on his father's farm. Eventually
Bill and Maggie Peacock raised a family of twelve children but it turned out to
be an unhappy marriage for the both of them.
Once Bill Peacock learned that Maggie was half-Indian or in his eyes
a" half-breed", he became very contemptuous of her and treated her
very poorly and would beat her at the least provocation. Her children were devoted to their mother
however, but Bill Peacock was the complete tyrant in his family and did what
ever he wanted.
Shortly after the birth of his first
child in February 1882, Bill Peacock left Johnson County after making enemies
out of some powerful men who where members of the Johnson County Klu Klux Klan.
His bad temper and his reputation as a wife beater had the Klan persuading him
that he was not welcomed in Johnson County.
Minnie Peacock as a young child was taken to live in San Saba County in
central Texas by her father and mother. Bill Peacock's in-laws were Baptist
preachers and farmers who were now homesteading in the Mason County and San
Saba County regions in the midst of the Mason County Wars. The war was between
the wealthy ranch owners and the poor farmers who were fencing off their lands
to keep the cattle from crossing into their fields. The ranchers wanted to keep
the land open range and both sides were bushwhacking each other.
The Bilberrys who were generally
peacefully people decided to leave Texas in 1886 for New Mexico where they
hoped to homestead in Lincoln County near the Sacramento Mountains. Once there,
they found themselves in the middle of another conflict between the Apaches who
were on the warpath and the U.S. Cavalry.
However they were not molested by the Indians but rather were driven out
of New Mexico by hired hands of a man who swindled John Bilberry out of his
livestock and lands. Since there truly
wasn't any law "West of the Pecos", the Bilberrys and Bill Peacock
returned to their homesteads in San Saba County to fight it out there. The hired hands of the wealthy ranchers so
terrorized the farmers of Mason and San Saba Counties that Bill Peacock's
brother-in-law, Esau Bilberry who was a Baptist preacher, preached his sermons
with a pistol resting on the pulpit of his church.
In 1892 John Henderson, John
Bilberry's son-in-law was murdered, shot in the back while he was fetching
water from a creek for his family. The
families of John and Jane Bilberry's children and their relatives decided that
they had enough of the feuds and pulled out of the San Saba River section of
Central Texas. They moved to counties
along the North Fork of the Brazos River in the Double Mountain area
Texas. Bill Peacock however chose to
stay in San Saba saying he was not afraid and would not be driven out. But by 1900 the ranchers had won their range
war and Bill Peacock stubbornly left for west Texas.
Bill Peacock saw the opportunity to
make some real money in the prospering yet underdeveloped communities of west
Texas. He sent for his two younger
brothers, B.B. Peacock and Morgan Peacock to help him operate a mercantile
store and lumber yard in Stonewall County. A post office was ran out of the
store and the community was soon called Peacock after the brothers. When the
railroad was built through Stonewall County it made the Peacock Store a stop on
the line and soon a larger town was beginning to grow as farmers and ranchers
came to Peacock for supplies and to market their goods.
Bill Peacock's father and mother-in-law, John and Jane Bilberry moved to
the small Community of Oriana which was established about two miles further
west along the Double Fork of the Brazos River. They are both buried in the
Oriana Cemetery.
Bill Peacock became a wealthy land
speculator as well as a merchant buying up rights to undeveloped lands in Hale
County, Texas, and Lubbock County, Texas.
Minnie Peacock being his eldest child helped her daddy run the Peacock
store and here Mabry Danforth made himself a regular customer because he fell
in love with the small and petite dark hair girl.
Mabry Danforth married Minnie
Peacock on 21 April 1901 at her father's home at Peacock Texas by a Justice of
Peace. He was 26 years old and she was 19 years of age. The Peacocks were
Southern Baptists and did not approve of Mabry Danforth but knew he was a good
hearted young man. Mabry Danforth said
that when ever his father-in-law would get mad at him and called him a
"Campbellite" Mabry would just chuckle and smile and retort,
"I'd rather be a Campbellite then have no light at all". Minnie Danforth herself accepted the Gospel
during her first year of marriage to Mabry Danforth and after being around
members of his sweet family. She never would joined the Baptist Church after
having witnessed her father beat her mother too many times and then attend
church.
Bill Peacock did not think that the
cowboy life was suited for his new son-in-law, Mabry Danforth, now that he was
a married man so he set him up on a farm near the community of Swenson. Bill Peacock owned the land but allowed Mabry
Danforth to work it the first year with a minimal amount of rent.
Mabry and Minnie Danforth started
off their married life at Swenson about fifteen miles northeast of
Peacock. Their first home was a tent
until Mabry Danforth could build a dugout on the place. Minnie Danforth did not enjoy living on the
farm or living in a dugout and she insisted Mabry build her a wooden two room
framed house. The dugout was later used
by Minnie Danforth's brother Lee Peacock who had just married Lala Matthews. Lee
Peacock and Mabry Danforth helped each other on their places but neither of
them having been former cowboys were much of a farmer.
Minnie Danforth's two children, Anne
Danforth and Edgar Danforth were both born in this two room house with the help
of her mother Maggie Peacock and a doctor from Peacock. Mabry and Minnie's first child, Anne Ruth Danforth
was named for Mabry Danforth's mother and sister. He had wanted to name the child Minerva but
Minnie wouldn't let him because she did not like her own name and was afraid
that Minerva would be shortened to Minnie. So Mabry Danforth's mother's middle
name Anne was chosen instead.
Anne Ruth Danforth was born 31 March
1902 at Swenson in Stonewall County, Texas. Another child, a boy named Edgar
Earl Danforth was born 24 October
1904. Minnie Danforth chose the names
since Mabry Danforth named their daughter and she said she just liked the
names. Edgar Danforth was also born at
Swenson, however when the community dried up and disappeared from the map, Anne
Williams and Edgar Danforth always claimed Aspermont, the county seat as the
place of their birth since being the county seat it was not likely to
disappear. Today Aspermont is the only
town of any size in Stonewall County and even then has only a couple hundred
residents.
Minnie Danforth inherited her
father's ill temper although it was not as severe and she informed Mabry
Danforth that she wasn't going to have a dozen kids like her mother. Minnie Danforth having been the oldest child
and daughter, had enough of changing diapers and crying babies and did not want
any more. Minnie Danforth also knew how difficult it was for her mother when
her father would beat her each time she found out Maggie was pregnant as if it
was all her fault. Minnie Danforth did
not feel that large families were such a good thing and her sour disposition as
she grew older made it seem that she didn't actually like children all that
much anyway.
Mabry Danforth on the other
had loved children and the oldest daughter of Lee and Lala Peacock remembered
that as a little girl she would come to Mabry Danforth's house just to sit on
his lap. Children adored Mabry Danforth
because of his easy going manner. But
Minnie Danforth was not the maternal type and Mabry Danforth with his easy
going and sweet tempered nature was not going to force her to have children she
did not want. Although Mabry and Minnie
Danforth only had two children of their own, they were surrounded by a
multitude of Danforth and Peacock nephews and nieces.
At times, Minnie Danforth could be
rather high strung especially when concerned about the safety of her own
children. Her sister-in-law Lala Peacock remembered how when living on the
Swenson place, little Edgar Danforth, being a normal active boy was always
getting in trouble with his mother.
Minnie Danforth would catch her young son riding on a horse and would
holler from the front porch "Edgar! Get off that horse until you learn to
ride!" and when ever she caught him in the watering pond, she would yell,
"Edgar! Get out of that water until you learn to swim!" Lala Peacock always got a big laugh from all
this and would tell Minnie Danforth to leave Edgar alone or how else would he
ever learn anything?
In 1908 Mabry Danforth's
father-in-law, Bill Peacock was making a small fortune speculating in land in
New Mexico Territory just across the Texas state line. The children and grandchildren of John
Bilberry were moving to New Mexico to file for land claims in Chavez County.
In 1909 Mabry Danforth left
Stonewall County and traveled by covered wagon in company with his father Thee
Danforth, his sister Lucy Danforth, and his sister Ruth Bilberry and her
husband Olin. They all settled in Chavez
County about 30 miles south of Portales and filed for land in the New Mexico
Territory. So many Texans were filing
for land that the high plains of New Mexico became known as "Little
Texas".
Mabry Danforth filed for a quarter
section on land adjoining his father Thee Danforth and his sister Lucy
Danforth's claims. The land already had
a one room shack on it and later that year he bought out another family's claim
adjoining his land. This piece of
property had a dugout on it so Mabry Danforth moved the one room shack to it
and joined the dwellings. His father and sister Lucy must have returned to Dickens County as the 1910 census showed that Thee and Lucy were living with Fred Danforth on a farm there.
The 1910 Census shows that Mabry was living in Precinct 8 near the community of Plains in Chaves County, New Mexico. He is listed as a 35 year old general farmer with a wife and two children. His nearest neighbors were 49 year old George McCullough and 36 year old Henry Addison.
In 1910 Mabry Danforth filed papers
with the county showing that he had 33 acres in corn and maze but only made a
ton of maize and no corn at all that
year. The following year he had 65 acres
under cultivation and made 300 binds of Maize fodder, and 100 bushels of
corn. The farm continued to produce and
made the family a living. In 1912 the
farm produced another 100 bushels of corn and eight tons of maize. However in
1913 a worm infestation attacked his farm and he wasn't able to make a crop at
all that year.
Mabry Danforth left the farm that year and went to work as a carpenter in Peacock, Texas. He returned to Roosevelt County New Mexico in the Spring of 1914 to plant another crop of cotton and maize. He farmed between the town of Lingo and Causey and he then continued to be a successful farmer until he quit his homestead in 1917.
Mabry Danforth left the farm that year and went to work as a carpenter in Peacock, Texas. He returned to Roosevelt County New Mexico in the Spring of 1914 to plant another crop of cotton and maize. He farmed between the town of Lingo and Causey and he then continued to be a successful farmer until he quit his homestead in 1917.
Minnie Danforth's Bilberry kinfolk had settled in Roosevelt County near what became the community of Lingo. They farmed and raised sheep.
New Mexico became a state in 1912
and that section of Chavez County around Clovis and Portales was organized in 1903 as
Roosevelt County to honor President Theodore Roosevelt.
It was shortly after the year of New Mexico's Statehood that Anne Danforth Williams recalled that her great-uncle, Charles Danforth who at the age of 58 years, came out west to see his brother Theophilus Danforth.
Mabry Danforth filed a patent for 320 acres on 30 June 1913 in Roosevelt County. The farm was located in Section 23. Adjoining his farm to the north was Henry Addison. While on the farm, Mabry Danforth's post
office address was Allie, New Mexico but he actually lived closer to the
community of "Nigger Hill" which did not have a post office.
A one-room dug-out schoolhouse was regrettably named
Nigger Hill School. Anne and Edgar Danforth attended this one room
school house built just north of an elevated mound called Nigger Hill after the Black Buffalo Soldiers who died there of thirst while trying
to arrest Chief Quannah Parker. In July 1877, a
group of African-American soldiers and buffalo hunters abandoned their pursuit
of some Comanche who had stolen stock and killed one hunter. Desperate and
dying of thirst in the summer heat, the men began to search for water, some
going 86 hours without a drink. Five would die in this incident, which was
sometimes remembered as the “Staked Plains Horror." In 2005, the name of
the rise was officially changed to Buffalo Soldier Hill.
The Nigger Hill School House was a one room affair with grades first
through eight all taught by Miss Fessie Bird.
Anne Danforth was 7 years old and Edgar Danforth was 5 years old when
they moved to New Mexico and the Nigger Hill School was the only elementary
school they ever attended. Annie
Danforth graduated from the 8th grade in 1915 and Edgar Danforth in 1917.
It was shortly after the year of New Mexico's Statehood that Anne Danforth Williams recalled that her great-uncle, Charles Danforth who at the age of 58 years, came out west to see his brother Theophilus Danforth.
Charles Danforth traveled as far as Clovis, New Mexico by
train and then hired a buggy to take him the rest of the way to Lingo in
Roosevelt County, New Mexico. He stayed but one night with Thee Danforth,
declaring it to be the coldest night he
ever spent in his life and returned to San Diego California the next day. While this was the only time Charles Danforth
ever visited his western relatives he was quite generous to them. He sent money from time to time to help out
both Theophilus Danforth and his sister Alice Nicholson and when his grandniece
Anne Danforth married in 1921, Charles Danforth sent her a wedding present of
$100 with which she bought a bed and other furnishings to set up a household.
The Nigger Hill School House also served as the meeting place for Sunday services for the Church of Christ members from the communities of Nigger Hill, Emzy, Redlands, Willow Mills, and Lingo. The Baptist met there for a short period before establishing a church at Lingo where many of the Bilberrys lived.
Anne Williams said her father was
not much for preaching, being a very quiet man, but he often led the singing,
passed the Lord's Supper, and read passages from the Bible. Anne Williams also said that Mabry Danforth was
often called upon to say the closing prayers in the Summers because he was so
brief and the people were so hot and tired.
Anne Williams accepted the Gospel at the age of 13 in 1915 and was
baptized in a large water holding tank used mostly for livestock. She was
baptized by her mother's cousin, Howard Peacock who was a Church of Christ
evangelist. Edgar Danforth to his
mother's frustration never accepted Baptism in the Church of Christ but later
as a married man joined his wife's Baptist Church. He had started smoking rolled cigarettes when
he was about ten years old with his boyhood chums and the Church of Christ was
firm in its opposition to smoking although Minnie Danforth her self was a
regular tobacco snuff dipper until the day she died.
Mabry and Minnie Danforth continued
to prosper on their New Mexican
homestead although Minnie hated the thunderstorms, the dust, and the isolation
from town. To placate his wife, Mabry
Danforth in December 1916 bought a new Ford automobile, his first car, to make the trips to town and to family
gatherings quicker and easier. Mabry
Danforth paid $360 for the Touring Car and $45.25 in freight charges from
having it shipped to him. Minnie
Danforth enjoyed her car but would not learn to drive it. Both Anne Danforth
and Edgar Danforth would drive the car in company of their father whenever
Minnie was not around. She did not
approve of anyone touching the car but Mabry Danforth.
In the Spring of 1917 an epidemic of
smallpox swept through Roosevelt County killing scores of children and aged
citizens. Mabry Danforth had taken the
family to a farm sale and someone at the sale had it. The entire family contracted the disease and
while Mabry, Minnie, and Edgar Danforth recovered quite easily from the
contagion, 15 year old Anne Danforth developed serious complications. Anne
Danforth came down with pneumonia and
caught typhoid fever on top of everything else. There were no doctors close to
the community of Allie and Minnie Danforth became hysterical over the failing
health of her daughter. She insisted
that Mabry Danforth moved the family to Portales where there were good doctors
until Anne could recover. The family stayed with the parents of Anne and Edgar
Danforth's school teacher, Miss Fessie Bird until Mabry Could locate more
permanent living quarters. The family
moved into the bunk house of Sam Neville's livery stable where Anne was treated
by Doctor Williams for several weeks.
While in Portales, Minnie badgered
Mabry about not returning to the farm. Both Minnie and her daughter Anne hated
living the isolated country life and yearned to live in a town once more. Minnie Danforth wanted the advantages that
only living in a town could provide for her family. Also Minnie Danforth was terrified of the
thunderstorms that blew across the plains and just hated the extremely hard
life of a pioneer homesteader.
Minnie
Danforth wore her husband down during the weeks of Anne's recuperation. Mabry Danforth agreed to quit the farm mainly over the argument
that there weren't any doctors out in the country and he did not want to risk
losing any of his children to accidents or diseases. He had lost a mother and baby sister because
there were no adequate medical facilities in the country.
While visiting with the owner of the
livery, as luck would have it, Sam Neville was tiring of living in Portales and
wanted to move back to the country.
Mabry Danforth and Sam Neville just decided to swap the homestead for
the livery even steven. Mabry Danforth and
Edgar returned to the farm to get the family's possessions and Sam Neville took
his family out to the homestead. Sam
Neville's son Ivan Neville grew up to marry Mabry Danforth's niece Velma
Danforth.
Both Anne and Edgar Danforth were
excited to be off the farm. Anne hated the hard life of the constant farm
chores and Edgar did not waste time getting acquainted with the Portales gals
and soon had several little girlfriends.
Mabry Danforth had swapped his
homestead for five acres of land, a corral, stables, a feed store, a single
men's bunk house and a family boarding house in Portales. Mabry Danforth did all the repairs, fed the
livestock, while Minnie cooked for the boarders and did the housekeeping. Both
Anne and Edgar Danforth worked hard with the chores but not as hard as on the
farm so this new arrangement suited them fine.
Minnie Danforth however was not content.
The business wasn't making any money because the times were changing and
more and more people were using
automobiles and traveling less and less in buggies and carriages. Besides
Minnie Danforth was soon tiring of the cowboys who after a night of drinking
bunked at the men's bunk house. Minnie
Danforth was "death" on drinking alcohol after seeing what it had
done to her Peacock family. She did not
tolerate whiskey drinking cowboys very well and the men soon began to bunk
elsewhere rather then get a tongue lashing from her.
In the Fall of 1917 Edgar Danforth
and Anne Danforth both went back to school in Portales. Anne Danforth did not have the opportunity to
attend anything beyond the 8th grade at Nigger Hill but in Portales there was a
high school so she resumed her schooling on the same 9th grade level as her
brother. However they were only to
attend one term of high school at Portales before the school was shut down in
February 1918 for the rest of the year because of an outbreak of Spanish
Influenza.
The epidemic was global and
killed millions of people in 1918 before it ran its course. This time it was 16 year old Edgar Danforth
who was the hardest hit in the family by the flu. Anne Williams said her brother certainly
would have died if they had still been living out in the country. Edgar Danforth made a slow recovery which
took several months and the ordeal seemed to have weaken his constitution for
the rest of his life.
Mabry had to register for the draft on 12 September 1918 during World War I. He gave his name as Mabry Oscar Danforth and his residence as Portales, Roosevelt, New Mexico. His age was 43 and born 13 April 1875. He gave as his occupation owner of a "feed and wagon yard" and his nearest relative was Minnie Gertrude Danforth. His description was that he was of medium height, stout in build with grey eyes and dark hair.
By 1919 Mabry Danforth at the age of
44 years had enough of the livery business himself and of New Mexico. He sold his business in the Fall of 1919 and
moved his family to a rented house in the community of Wildorado about twenty
miles west of Amarillo, Texas. Mabry
Danforth and his family traveled around Oldham and Deaf Smith Counties where
they worked harvesting the wheat crop there until the end of the harvest
season. With the money they made, Mabry
Danforth moved to the town of Spur in Dickens County in January of 1920 to stay with his brother who had a blacksmith shop there. This
was the country he worked in as a cowboy in his younger days.
Mabry Danforth's brother Fred
Danforth had moved to Spur, Texas. The 1920 Census of Spur Texas show that on 19 February Mabry and his family was living with his brother Fred's family. The census showed that Fred was the 3rd household enumerated in the town and that Mabry was renting from him. Fred was listed as a blacksmith and Mabry was a Carpenter.
Mabry bought a house lot
in Spur and built then a four room house which had two bedrooms. In the fall of 1920 however Mabry Danforth took his
family back to Wildorado to pick cotton and had the family of his boyhood
friend, Pete Turner move into the house.
Pete Turner was also Fred Danforth's brother-in-law.
Spur, Texas was a prospering
community in the 1920's and more and more farmers were moving into town causing
a need for housing. In the Spring of 1921, Mabry Danforth returned to Spur and
found steady employment as a carpenter.
He was so skilled at the trade that he soon found that he was never out
of work. Edgar Danforth worked along
side his father and was learning the carpentry trade also.
Minnie Danforth found employment in
the newly built Spur Inn which was the largest hotel in western Texas at the
time. Minnie Danforth worked as a
housekeeper, cleaning rooms and making beds for 25 cents a room and she brought
her 19 year old daughter Anne along to help her. Miss Martin was the manager in charge of
housekeeping and of the waitresses in the Spur Inn Cafe and she noticed what a
good worker Anne Danforth was along side her mother and she offered Anne a job
as a waitress. Anne lacked the
confidence to accept the position and
told Miss Martin that she wouldn't care too because she would never be able to
handle the big serving trays the waitresses had to carry to the tables. Miss Martin told her, "Sure you
can," and hired her as a waitress at the Spur Inn Cafe. Soon she was balancing trays as well as
anyone else never having dropped a dish.
Anne Williams immediately after
hiring on as a waitress had a crush on a 19 year old bus boy named Ray Poole
but he never seemed too interested in her except as a friend. However Ray Poole who lived at Afton in Dickens
County had a friend also working at the Spur Inn Cafe as a cook by the name of
Boots Williams.
Boots Williams was born Louis Milton
Williams on 22 October 1902 in Avinger, Cass County, Texas to Edgar Lewis
Williams and Rosa Lee Perser who had moved to Afton, Texas in 1914. In 1921 however, Boots Williams was a 19 year
old boy living with his married sister Onie Colberg at Spur. He had just been
hired on at the Spur Inn as a cook having been fired at the Buick Garage
because he was not very good at fixing cars.
Louis Williams was a natural cook having learned how to cook from his
mother.
Boots Williams liked Anne Danforth
right away and asked to take her to some Saturday night dances around the
county. When Minnie Danforth met Anne's boyfriend she took an instant dislike to him when after she
found out that he was a member of the Baptist Church and that he drank beer on
occasion. However Anne said that she and
Louis seemed to get along, so when he
proposed to her in September 1921 she accepted. On 26 September 1921 Louis
Williams and Anne Danforth were married in an open top convertible model A Ford
by a Justice of the Clerk of the Dickens County Court who stood on the steps of
the county court house to perform the marriage.
After the wedding. Louis and Anne
Williams moved in with Mabry and Minnie Danforth and took one of the bedrooms for their
living quarters. 17 year old Edgar Danforth slept on a sofa or even out in the
yard on warm nights.
Mabry and Minnie Danforth's first
grandchild was a baby boy born 2 June 1922.
Anne delivered the baby at her father's home only attended to by her
mother and aunt Mae Danforth. The baby
was named Oscar Louis Williams after Anne's father and husband but the baby was
born with yellow jaundice and died ten days later never getting better. The family was heartbroken and the baby was
buried in the Spur Cemetery.
Mabry Danforth continued to work as
a carpenter in Spur and his son-in-law as a cook until August 1922 when his
father-in-law Bill Peacock bought a grocery and cafe in Plainview. Bill Peacock wanted Mabry Danforth and Louis
Williams to come and work for him running the grocery and cafe. Bill Peacock was not a generous man even
towards his own relatives and Mabry Danforth and Louis Williams quit after a
year there in Plainview.
About this time Minnie Danforth's
mother, Maggie Peacock died on 11 April 1923 just 19 days short of her 57th
birthday. Some in the family say that
Bill Peacock in a fit of temper beat her so badly that she died from the affects
of it but it was all hushed up. She was
buried in the Petersburg Cemetery in Hale County where she had her home.
Bill Peacock supposedly was so contrite that he had a large monument placed over his wife's grave but others said he did it just for show. Mabry Danforth never had anything to do afterwards with his father-in-law who later remarried a woman whom old timers of Peacock, Texas are sure poisoned him. Bill Peacock died at Peacock Texas in 1929 and was buried in the Petersburg Cemetery with a very plain marker which says just J.W. Peacock 1862-1929.
Bill Peacock supposedly was so contrite that he had a large monument placed over his wife's grave but others said he did it just for show. Mabry Danforth never had anything to do afterwards with his father-in-law who later remarried a woman whom old timers of Peacock, Texas are sure poisoned him. Bill Peacock died at Peacock Texas in 1929 and was buried in the Petersburg Cemetery with a very plain marker which says just J.W. Peacock 1862-1929.
Mabry Danforth while working in Hale
County heard that the old Springlake Ranch was selling off some of its land
about thirty miles west of Plainview. In
the April of 1923 he bought a half section in the northern portion of Lamb
County near the Springlake Ranch headquarters about where the community of
Earth was to be created.
Mabry Danforth, and his son-in-law Louis Williams
worked together on this half section planting a crop of maize and cotton. He also built a two room house on this farm
with Mabry, Minnie and Edgar Danforth living in one half and Louis and Anne
Williams in their sixteen by sixteen foot half.
Anne Williams had her second child that year but she made Louis take her
thirty miles to Plainview to have the baby.
She did not want to take a chance with this baby and made sure the baby
was delivered by a doctor. Raymond
Leonard Williams was born 26 June 1923 at Bill Peacock's home in Plainview and
named after Doctor Raymond Leonard of Plainview.
No crop was made off of Mabry Danforth's place
that year after all the hard work put into it because according to Anne
Williams the" worms and grasshoppers ate it all up." Louis Williams
then decided to try farming on his own the following year and took his wife and
son to Portales, New Mexico in 1924.
While living at Springlake, however, Edgar Danforth was trying to finish his high schooling when he met a young girl named Beulah Mae Kelley. She was the daughter of Jerry Washington Kelley and his wife Indiana Thorn.
The Kelleys had just recently moved to Lamb County from Beckham County, Oklahoma and J.W. Kelley bought a farm and much of the town lots in the community of Earth. He became a prominent figure in the development of the town of Earth and always claimed to be the first settler of Earth when actually the Danforths were there a year earlier.
In an 1964 interview, a daughter-in-law of J.W. Kelley recalled , "On February 26, 1924 we arrived on the plains of Texas and to our new home, the same place we now live. It was then known as the Hewitt Place. The country surely did look level and bare. We moved from Beckham County, Oklahoma, a land of hills, creeks, and trees, and a road every mile. Highway 70 was the only graded road here. You could see nothing but prairie land with white face cows roaming over it. Our house and one other, 'Dad' Reeves house were the only house between Center and Hasell Ranch. There was a road angling from our house to Springlake store where we had to go to get our mail. Since they had open range for cattle, if you had a crop or stock of your own, you had to fence them in. Someone between here and the school, also located at Springlake, had a fence across the road and a gate you had to open.
Our nearest neighbors were J.L. Linnville who lived where Mr. J.W. Kelley now lives. There was a winding road across the prairie to their house also. Soon after we moved, we were happy to have the Lloyd Cupp family from Erick, Oklahoma, move to their new home about a mile west of us. Their house was located where Roy Smith now lives in Earth. The place was later sold to Sam Cearley. It was a little frightening to know we were so far out in the wide open spaces, miles from a doctor and without a telephone. We were expecting our first baby in June. We have enjoyed seeing the plains develop into the wonderful farming area it now is and we are truly grateful for every one of the forty years we have spent here."
While living at Springlake, however, Edgar Danforth was trying to finish his high schooling when he met a young girl named Beulah Mae Kelley. She was the daughter of Jerry Washington Kelley and his wife Indiana Thorn.
The Kelleys had just recently moved to Lamb County from Beckham County, Oklahoma and J.W. Kelley bought a farm and much of the town lots in the community of Earth. He became a prominent figure in the development of the town of Earth and always claimed to be the first settler of Earth when actually the Danforths were there a year earlier.
In an 1964 interview, a daughter-in-law of J.W. Kelley recalled , "On February 26, 1924 we arrived on the plains of Texas and to our new home, the same place we now live. It was then known as the Hewitt Place. The country surely did look level and bare. We moved from Beckham County, Oklahoma, a land of hills, creeks, and trees, and a road every mile. Highway 70 was the only graded road here. You could see nothing but prairie land with white face cows roaming over it. Our house and one other, 'Dad' Reeves house were the only house between Center and Hasell Ranch. There was a road angling from our house to Springlake store where we had to go to get our mail. Since they had open range for cattle, if you had a crop or stock of your own, you had to fence them in. Someone between here and the school, also located at Springlake, had a fence across the road and a gate you had to open.
Our nearest neighbors were J.L. Linnville who lived where Mr. J.W. Kelley now lives. There was a winding road across the prairie to their house also. Soon after we moved, we were happy to have the Lloyd Cupp family from Erick, Oklahoma, move to their new home about a mile west of us. Their house was located where Roy Smith now lives in Earth. The place was later sold to Sam Cearley. It was a little frightening to know we were so far out in the wide open spaces, miles from a doctor and without a telephone. We were expecting our first baby in June. We have enjoyed seeing the plains develop into the wonderful farming area it now is and we are truly grateful for every one of the forty years we have spent here."
Lamb County was a very barren place
with terrible dust storms according to Beulah Danforth's mother, who said in an
interview "there were cows everywhere, because much of the county was open
range and the Hasell cattle roamed anywhere they pleased."
Edgar Danforth and Beulah Mae Kelley's
families were not of the same church and each knew that each others families
would disapprove of their getting married so they ran off to Portales, New
Mexico where Edgar's sister was now living.
They were married in the home of Edgar Danforth's former school teacher,
Miss Fessie Bird on 5 December 1924.
Edgar Danforth who was only 20 years old
and still kid like, Miss Fessie Bird had to make him wash his face and behind
his ears before she would let him get married.
Beulah Mae Kelley lied about her age saying she was 18 years old when
she was only 14 years old.
The Kelleys drove to New Mexico to
stop the wedding but when they got there it was too late. Since the Kelleys were moving back to
Oklahoma, Edgar Danforth and his young bride first stayed with Louis and Anne
Williams until Mabry and Minnie Danforth moved back to Portales also at the
beginning of 1925.
While Mabry Danforth had lived in the
Springlake area from 1923 to 1925, he helped build the first building in the
community of Earth which was a combination grocery store, post office, and
hotel. His daughter-in-law Beulah
Danforth recalls that when her family came to Lamb County in 1924 " there
was no town of Earth not a single building was there."
"Dad Danforth helped build the
first building that was ever built here in Earth. It was the Earth Hotel and
Land Office. Later Dad Danforth laid
that sidewalk on the north side where my dad's store and my brother's drugstore
was. It's a vacant lot now. But anyway Dad Danforth was a carpenter and
use to carpenter down here on that old hotel building. Of course he had some
help but he was the main one. They sawed all that lumber with hand saws that
went in there. He also made the stairs
and railings by himself. Now he didn't carve it by hand. He had a plane, but he
had to make the railings because then you couldn't buy this stuff. He made the
round posts you know, that fastens the railing to the steps. I remember him
getting down on his hands and knees and sanded off those steps. Why you could
just see yourself in them. I imagine
that building measured ten rooms all together with the upstairs. It wasn't too big but it was nice. I helped mother run it when I was little for
a while. Eventually the hotel had gotten pretty shabby with a shabby class of
people living there when it burned down. I think they had a big poker game a
going when it burned. I just don't remember when it burned down. I sure
don't."
On 19 January 1925, a little more
than a month after Edgar Danforth married, his sister Anne Williams gave birth
to another baby boy. She named him Edgar
after her brother and Hugh after the doctor who delivered him. 14 year old Beulah Danforth was a great help
to Anne taking care of little R.L. Williams and helping Anne get back on her
feet. Beulah Danforth just doted over
little Edgar Hugh Williams and treated the baby as if he was her own.
In February of 1925 Beulah Danforth,
just being a young girl, became homesick for her own family and she had Edgar
Danforth move back to Erick, Oklahoma to live with her folks.
While in Erick, Oklahoma Edgar Danforth bought a small cafe and asked Louis Williams to come to Oklahoma to help cook in it which he did. The Danforths and the Williamses lived in Erick Oklahoma for about a year until returning to Earth, Texas in March of 1926. Before leaving Oklahoma, on 19 January 1926, Beulah Danforth age 15 years, baked little Edgar Hugh Williams a birthday cake to celebrate his first birthday. Edgar Hugh was so excited about the cake and the candle that he dove into the cake and started squeezing it to bits while giggling in delight. Anne Williams was all apologetic for her son's behavior but Beulah thought it was the funniest thing she had ever seen.
While in Erick, Oklahoma Edgar Danforth bought a small cafe and asked Louis Williams to come to Oklahoma to help cook in it which he did. The Danforths and the Williamses lived in Erick Oklahoma for about a year until returning to Earth, Texas in March of 1926. Before leaving Oklahoma, on 19 January 1926, Beulah Danforth age 15 years, baked little Edgar Hugh Williams a birthday cake to celebrate his first birthday. Edgar Hugh was so excited about the cake and the candle that he dove into the cake and started squeezing it to bits while giggling in delight. Anne Williams was all apologetic for her son's behavior but Beulah thought it was the funniest thing she had ever seen.
Beulah and Edgar Danforth were to
have their own baby nine months later when a baby girl named Marjorie Fern Danforth
was born on 20 October 1926 at Portales.
In the Spring of 1926 the Danforths
and Williamses returned to their farm which now was including in the community
of Earth but they failed to make a crop when a June storm hailed out their
cotton and maize. They moved back to
Portales in the Fall of 1926 where Marjory Fern was born that October. Anne Williams was six months pregnant at the
time and she delivered a fourth son to Louis Williams on 17 January 1927. Anne Williams named this son Willard Wallace Williams,
again after the doctor who delivered him.
Louis and Anne Williams were living on a farm rented from a Mr. Autry.
Mabry Danforth who was now 52 years old had just a ten acre farm at the community of Rogers, New Mexico. Edgar Danforth and Beulah returned to Earth when Beulah's family had returned there from Oklahoma.
Mabry Danforth who was now 52 years old had just a ten acre farm at the community of Rogers, New Mexico. Edgar Danforth and Beulah returned to Earth when Beulah's family had returned there from Oklahoma.
In 1928 Louis Williams rented
another farm from a Mr. Bryant at Rogers to be closer to his father-in-law and
the town of Portales. Louis Williams and
Mabry Danforth both worked as masons and carpenters during this time helping
lay the bricks for the new Portales High School. In Earth, Texas Beulah Danforth gave birth to
a son whom she named Norman Edwin Danforth.
He was born 19 March 1928.
In 1929 Mabry and Minnie Danforth
left Portales and moved back to Earth, Texas to be near their son and
daughter-in-law while Louis Williams moved his family to Muleshoe where Louis
Williams ran another cafe. Mabry Danforth
54 years old, found work for himself and his wife Minnie at the Springlake
Ranch which was also known as the Mashed O Ranch because of the shape of its
brand. Mr. Halsell was the wealthy rancher who owned the ranch and who had sold
off much of it to farmers in the 1920's.
Mabry and Minnie Danforth were chuck wagon cooks for the ranch hands.
Minnie Danforth was a very good cook
according to her daughter Anne Williams although her daughter-in-law Beulah
didn't think so. Minnie Danforth learned
to cook for a large bunch being the eldest daughter of twelve children and she
had cooked when Mabry Danforth had the livery business ten years earlier. Anne Williams said that her mother was the
best cook she ever knew and that she made the best pies she ever ate.
Mabry and Minnie Danforth cooked
plenty of biscuits, milk gravy, sausages and coffee for breakfast for the
cowhands since Minnie Danforth told her daughter that they loved that more
than about anything else they could fix. Minnie's own specialty was a wild plum
cobbler that was thick, crusty and fruity which she said she could never make
enough of to suit the cowboys. Mabry
cooked Texas style chili with pinto beans and corn bread but his job mainly was
to help with the food preparation and take it out to the camps in a chuck wagon
when the cowboys couldn't make it back to the ranch. Mabry Danforth and Minnie only worked at this
for about a year because the work was getting too hard for Minnie who had a
hard time dealing with the heat of the South Texas Plains and cooking all day.
In October 1929 the New York Stock
Market crashed ending a decade of prosperity.
The Great Depression of the 1930's was in the making. On Christmas Eve
1929 Anne Williams went into labor and gave birth to a premature baby
girl. She was so tiny she could have
fitted in a shoe box. Anne Williams
named the baby Minnie Lee Williams after her mother and her Uncle Lee
Peacock. Later that night the Muleshoe
Hotel where Anne Williams and her baby were staying caught fire and they were
carried out of the burning building in a folded mattress.
In March of 1930, Mabry Danforth's
father died at the age of 81 years old at his sister's Ruth Bilberry's home in Emzy, New
Mexico and less then two weeks later Beulah Danforth went into labor and had a
still born baby boy on 2 April 1930. Edgar and Beulah Danforth never named the
baby but just called him Baby Boy Danforth. He never took a breath of air. The 1930 Census for the family was taken April 2 the day the baby was born and died in Muleshoe.
Mabry and Minnie Danforth are not located in the 1930 Census however their daughter Anne Williams was living in Earth, Texas and son Edgar Danforth was in Muleshoe, Texas driving a truck for an oil company.
Mabry and Minnie Danforth are not located in the 1930 Census however their daughter Anne Williams was living in Earth, Texas and son Edgar Danforth was in Muleshoe, Texas driving a truck for an oil company.
Louis and Anne Williams brought
their four children back to Earth, Texas in 1930 where Louis opened a cafe
simply called "Louis'". Edgar
and Beulah Danforth helped with this enterprise with Beulah making pies for the
cafe. Times were hard and the place did
not make a go of it so Louis Williams returned to Portales to work in
construction when his second daughter, Bonnie Ruth Williams was born Halloween
of 1931. Having made a little bit of
money Louis and Anne Williams returned to Earth and opened another restaurant
which was more successful. Their
youngest child, Milton Bradford Williams was born on 5 November 1934 although
his birth certificate mistakenly made an
error on the date.
1931 to 1935 was a happy time
however for the Danforth and Williams cousins who were doted on by their loving
grandfather Mabry Danforth who was renting a farm outside of Earth. Mabry Danforth still worked in carpentry and
masonry and did handy man jobs building outhouses as well during these years.
In 1935 the Depression was making
life very difficult even in the small rural communities such as Earth. Farms were being foreclosed upon and people
lived on just the food they could raise themselves. Money was extremely scarce
but Mabry Danforth had received a $600 inheritance from his Uncle Charles
Danforth who had died in January 1934 in Arkansas which was a windfall during
these harsh times. Mabry Danforth was
very liberal with it helping out his children and their families. But in 1935
times were tight and Mabry Danforth and his son Edgar Danforth went to Hobbs,
New Mexico to work as cooks for the road workers who was building the Hobbs New
Mexico Highways as part of a government project to put people back to
work. Mabry Danforth was 60 years old
when he went to work for the highway construction outfit at Hobbs and Minnie
Danforth did most of the cooking while Mabry Danforth ran water trucks out to
the laborers as a water boy.
Mabry Danforth and Edgar Danforth
came back to Earth in 1936 after the highway was finished where Mabry worked a
small farm and Edgar Danforth went to work for his father-in-law at his grocery
store. Louis and Anne Williams were still able to make a living keeping their
little cafe going through out the rest of the depression.
The 1940 Census of New Mexico show that Mabry and Minnie were living at 515 Arizona Street in Portales. The census was taken on April 12 and Mabry gave his age as 64 and Minnie as 58 years old. They stated that the highest grade Mabry finished was 8th grade and Minnie 7th grade. They lived alone and Mabry was out of work but looking. They said that they lived in Earth, Lamb County, Texas back in 1935.
The 1940 Census of New Mexico show that Mabry and Minnie were living at 515 Arizona Street in Portales. The census was taken on April 12 and Mabry gave his age as 64 and Minnie as 58 years old. They stated that the highest grade Mabry finished was 8th grade and Minnie 7th grade. They lived alone and Mabry was out of work but looking. They said that they lived in Earth, Lamb County, Texas back in 1935.
In 1940 Mabry
Danforth was back in Portales probably to be closer to his brother and
sisters who were still living there.
Mabry Danforth's oldest grandson, R.L. Williams age 17 years later moved with
them to help as Mabry Danforth was reaching the age of
retirement. Minnie Danforth favored this
grandchild above all the others, for R.L. being her first grandson was also
some what like her in temperament and disposition. Edgar and Beulah Danforth remained at Earth
working for J.W. Kelley but Louis and Anne however sold their cafe in Earth and
moved to the small community of Spade in
the southern section of Lamb County where Louis rented a farm.
On 7 December 1941, the United
States was attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and America entered World
War II. Four of Mabry Danforth's
grandson would eventually wear the uniforms of United States Army and Navy.
R.L. Williams joined the army and was stationed at Diamond Head, Hawaii for the
duration of the war to guard the Hawaiian Islands from further attack. Edgar Hugh Williams joined the U.S. Navy and fought in the Pacific Operation of
the war. Wallace Williams joined the army and was sent to Italy to guard and
transport Italian Prisoners of War.
Norman Danforth joined the U.S. Navy at the very tail end of the war and
served most of his duty after the war had ended. Another grandson, Milton Williams, would
serve his country in the army in the 1950's
after Mabry Danforth's death.
In 1942 Edgar Danforth was in a
serious car accident in which he was wounded by a splinter of shattered glass
going into his eye. He had blurry vision
and use to get dizzy from this accident and this combined with being knocked
down during a fight which caused him to development epilepsy caused a general
decline in his over all health for the next thirty years. The fight that caused Edgar Danforth
to become an elliptic was over a hired man's anger
at being called a draft dodger when he asked Edgar Danforth to help him with a
deferment. He accosted Edgar Danforth at
the Earth Post Office and before Edgar could take his coat off to defend
himself, Walt Williams hit him knocking Edgar to the ground where Edgar hit his
head.
The first time the affliction
manifested itself was in the latter part of 1942 when Edgar Danforth was
visiting his good friends and neighbors John and Stella Damron. While Edgar
Danforth was standing with his hand propped up against the doorway, he suddenly
fainted dead away. He was immediately
taken to the doctors who could not tell him what was wrong with him. The doctor
said he may have been something he ate and for years Edgar thought he got the
seizures from having eaten tainted banana cookie pudding.
As his health steadily declined,
their friend Howard Damron who had just recently moved to Southern California
wrote them that they should come to California where they had good doctors and
plenty of work. Edgar and Beulah
Danforth thought that moving to California because of its better climate and
the amount of doctors there would be a wise move.
Minnie Danforth upon learning of her sons decision to move to California informed her husband that they were moving too. Anne Williams pleaded with her husband to give up his hamburger stand in Littlefield and move with her family but he emphatically did not want to leave Texas.
Minnie Danforth upon learning of her sons decision to move to California informed her husband that they were moving too. Anne Williams pleaded with her husband to give up his hamburger stand in Littlefield and move with her family but he emphatically did not want to leave Texas.
In 1943 at the age of 39 years,
Edgar Danforth left Earth, Texas and moved his family to Los Angeles County,
California along with 68 year old Mabry Danforth and his 60 year old wife
Minnie. Upon arriving in California, the
Danforths rented a house in the town of Hines which today is part of Paramount
between Downey and Bellflower. Edgar
Danforth was able to get hired on immediately in the shipyards at Long Beach
and Mabry Danforth now retired collected his social security and raised
chickens and rabbits behind the house.
Minnie Danforth and Beulah Danforth wrote Louis and Anne Williams weekly
to plead with them to move to California where the weather was wonderful and
work was plentiful because of the war.
Louis Williams would not budge from Texas.
In April 1944 Anne Williams went to
California on a visit with her children and stayed until the end of June. She stayed with Edgar and Beulah Danforth who
had by now moved to a house in Downey.
Mabry Danforth's grandson Edgar Hugh Williams was stationed in San Diego
when ever his ship was in dry dock, he would hitch-hike up the Pacific Coast
Highway to visit his grandparents and aunt and uncle as often as he could.
When Anne Williams returned to Texas
she was determined to move her family to California and warned Louis that she
was going regardless whether he chose to go.
Louis Williams was running his own hamburger stand in Littlefield, Texas
but was only making about $50 a week.
Even his son Edgar Hugh tried to convince his father to move to
California where there were good paying jobs.
But Louis Williams did not want to leave Texas. Finally after Anne Williams gave him an
ultimatum that she was going to leave him, if he did not move, did Louis
Williams reluctantly agree to go. In
spite however, Louis Williams sold off all the families household goods,
including a 1912 Singer sewing machine that Minnie Danforth had given her
daughter and a tall upright phonograph player, to a second hand man for
$100. He reasoned that if he had to
move he wasn't going to haul everything they owned with them.
On the Wednesday, the day before
Thanksgiving, 28 November 1944, Louis and Anne Williams along with their
children, Minnie, Bonnie, and Milton and their son Wallace Williams and his new
bride Mattie Lee Jaringin left Texas in a 1936 Ford automobile. The Williamses
arrived in California on Saturday 1 December 1944 and stayed with Edgar and Beulah
Danforth. By the following Wednesday 5
December 1944, Louis Williams was working in the shipyards of Long Beach along
with his brother-in-law Edgar Danforth making $150 a week.
The Williamses and Danforths all
lived together for a while until about February 1945, when Louis Williams
bought some property on Dinwiddee Street in Downey. The lot was about an acre
with a house on it and some small shacks.
The house came completely furnished down to the sheets on the bed and
the dishes in the kitchen.
A little later in 1945 Edgar and Beulah
Danforth moved to a town about five miles north of Downey called Pico Rivera
between the Long Beach River and the San Gabriel River. They bought a two acre orange orchard there
where they sold oranges as well as continued working in the Long Beach
shipyards until the end of the war in August.
When the war ended both Louis Williams and
Edgar Danforth were laid off and Mabry and Minnie Danforth moved from their
children's homes and settled in the community of Hemit in Riverside
County. The higher elevation was better
for his heath which at the age of 70 years was declining. Mabry Danforth rented a little apartment at
an automobile touring camp and did odd jobs to supplement his Social Security
payments while Minnie Danforth went to work at a cannery cutting apricots. After R.L. Williams was mustered out of the
army in late 1945 at the age of 23 years
he went to Hemit and lived with Mabry and Minnie Danforth and looked
after them.
Mabry and Minnie Danforth's first
great grandchild was born 12 September 1945.
She was Frances Anne Williams born to Wallace and Mattie Lee Williams in
Amherst, Lamb County, Texas. Mabry
Danforth only lived long enough to see one of his great grandchildren born,
however Minnie knew all of her great-grandchildren, although she was not
especially fond of them. Little children
made her nervous and edgy.
After the war ended, the American
economy went into a slump and the prosperity of the early 1940's faded. Edgar
and Beulah Danforth never could seem to make a go of their various financial
ventures and when Louis Williams was laid off from the ship yards it took him
fourteen months to find steady employment again. During these difficult times, Anne Williams
went back to work as a line worker in a fiber and metal plant and Louis was
able to bring in some money cooking in the Los Amigos Rest Home.
The Saturday night before Father's
day on 14 June 1946, Mabry Danforth suffered a stroke from a blood clot
striking his heart. He was laid up in bed in his apartment while Minnie
Danforth had the hardest time getting a doctor to come to see Mabry because it
was a Sunday. Finally getting a hold of
her children, Edgar Danforth and Anne Williams rushed to Hemit and admitted
their father to the emergency room. The
family stayed by his side all through Sunday and Monday but on Tuesday 17 June
1946 he died of heart failure there in the hospital room in Hemit. Anne Williams
was heart broken as were the rest of the grieving family. She had bought Mabry
Danforth a new Stetson hat for Father's Day but he never got to wear it.
Mabry Danforth's funeral was held in
the Downey Church of Christ with most of his surviving brothers and sisters and
their children attending. The only
grandchild who was not able to be present was Norman Danforth who was still in
the U.S. Navy and could not get leave in time.
He was buried in the Downey City Cemetery.
After the death of her husband of 45
years, Minnie Danforth not wishing to live with her children, bought a small
trailer and moved to the rural community of Yucaipa where there was a Church of
Christ and people she use to know in Texas.
Edgar and Beulah Danforth bought a filling station on 7th Street in Los
Angeles about this time and Louis Williams found work in a metal shop factory
which he worked in for the rest of his working life. Edgar and Beulah Danforth however lost their
filling station when the economy turned bad after the war and they weren't able
to make a go of it.
In 1947 Edgar and Beulah Danforth
moved to Verdera Street in Downey while Anne and Louis Williams were still
living on Dinwiddee, raising chickens and a garden to supplement their income.
During that year both of Edgar and Beulah Danforth's children were
married. Norman Danforth met a girl
named Betty Morrisette in California and Marjory Fern Danforth was still
involved with her childhood sweet heart, Bill Damron. Both Norman and Marjory Fern Danforth had set
out to have a double wedding on the 10th of December but Bill Damron and
Marjory Fern Danforth jumped the gun and were married on 22 November 1947. Norman and Betty waited until 10 December
1947 but they went to Yuma, Arizona to
marry since Betty Morisette was underage.
Beulah Danforth was not pleased with
her son's choice of a bride because Betty had been raised a Catholic and born
in Minnesota and this caused friction between mother and daughter-in-law for
many years. However Norman Danforth's
Aunt Anne Williams gave the pair a wedding reception at her house on Dinwiddee
Street which because of the Holiday Season was festively decorated with a huge
Christmas Tree and other decorations.
In 1948 being unsuccessful at their
many business deals and with the economy in a slump, Edgar and Beulah Danforth
left California and returned to Earth, Texas in the company of their daughter
Marjory Fern and Bill Damron. Later in
1949 Norman and Betty Danforth also returned to Texas to farm on land in Lamb
County near the community of Olton.
Edgar and Beulah Danforth continued to live at Earth, Texas for most of
the decade of the 1950's except for a couple of years in Albuquerque, New
Mexico.
Minnie Danforth continued to live in
her little trailer in Yucaipa for the rest of the 1950's. Her grandson Wallace Williams moved to
Yucaipa and her daughter Anne Williams lived in Yucaipa for a couple of years
in the early part of that decade also.
About 1957 while visiting her
brother's family in Citrus Heights, California, Minnie Danforth became
acquainted with the widowed father-in-law of J.R. Peacock, Minnie's
nephew. Ed Gordon and Minnie Danforth
both seemed to hit it off and they decided to marry and live off their combined
social securities. J.R. Peacock and his
wife Mary drove Minnie and Ed to Reno, Nevada where they were married with J.R.
and Mary Peacock acting as witnesses.
Minnie Danforth had not discussed
her plans to remarry with either her son or daughter and when they found out
they were furious with J.R. and Mary Peacock and bitter towards Ed Gordon. Anne Williams was extremely hurt by the
seemly off handed way her mother remarried without discussing it with her or
her brother. Anne Williams actually
worked herself up to an unreasonable anger and resentment of her cousin J.R.
Peacock always believing that Mary was responsible for the marriage and was
fostering off Ed Gordon onto Minnie to take care of. Ed Gordon was a Baptist who had been married
three times before prior to his marriage to Minnie Danforth and this made Anne
Williams very unhappy.
Anne Williams' Church of Christ
upbringing had a lot to do with her refusal to accept her mother's second
marriage and while she was cordial to Ed Gordon, she never considered him a
step-father or a member of the family.
Minnie and Edd Gordon's marriage was
thus a rocky one from the very start and Edgar Danforth and Anne Williams' cool
reception to it never helped at all.
However it was Minnie Gordon's own temper which made it a stormy union. Ed Gordon did not have Mabry Danforth's sweet
passive disposition and he would holler right back at her when ever she lost
her Peacock temper which was becoming more frequent as she became older.
In 1960 Edgar and Beulah Danforth
returned to California and moved to San Diego to help Bill and Marjory Fern
Damron manage a Mattress Store Outlet.
The business was owned by Bill Damron's older brother Howard
Damron. On Christmas Day 1960, Minnie
Gordon boarded a bus in Yucaipa to go visit her son in San Diego. Ed Gordon being mad at her at the time
refused to go with her. Minnie Gordon
had a nice visit with her son and his family and spent the entire holiday
season with them. But after the first of
the year she started missing her home and wanted to go back to her trailer and
see Ed Gordon. Beulah Danforth said that
if she would just wait a couple of days, she and Edgar would drive her back
home to Yucaipa. But Minnie Gordon had
her mind made up to go then and would not have any of it so they boarded her on
a bus and she rode it on home to Yucaipa.
The Yucaipa Greyhound bus stop was
at an intersection that divided the towns of Calimesa and Yucaipa right down
the middle of the county line between Riverside and San Bernardino
Counties. Minnie Gordon was nearly 78
years old and was walking with a cane. She should of had assistance getting off
the bus and crossing the street but she didn't and she crossed in front of the
bus. When she stepped out into the street she was struck and instantly killed
by a speeding car. The driver had been
drinking and he hit Minnie Gordon so hard that the impact threw her about
twenty feet. As incredulous as it sounds
the fact that she was struck by a car in one county but landed in another
county hindered the investigation of the accident and the awarding of insurance
claims for years until jurisdiction could be established.
An ambulance rushed Minnie Gordon to
the hospital at Redlands but the doctors said she probably died on impact and
never knew what hit her. During the
funeral arrangements Ed Gordon was treated rather shabbily by Minnie's grieving
children. He was left out of all the
funeral arrangements and Louis Williams made him sign Power of Attorney for
Minnie over to him to insure that Ed Gordon received little if nothing from
Minnie's estate or life insurance. Anne
Williams was also adamant that a gravemarker not be placed over her mother's
grave because she refused to have the name Gordon on the marker. Minnie Gordon was buried besides Mabry
Danforth on his right and he does have a marker.
Mabry Danforth was remembered as a
sweet nature, easy going, gentle man who had a kind word for most
everyone. His wife Minnie however seemed
to have inherited her temper from the Peacocks whose uncontrolled tempers got
them in one scrape after another.
But
even with her temper she was dearly loved by her daughter Anne Williams and her
grandchildren loved her in spite of her quirks.
She had a very strong constitution and if she had not been killed in an
accident she may have lived to a ripe old age like her brothers and sisters.
THE
GIRL I LEFT BEHIND
A
song that Grandpa Mabry Danforth loved to sing
My parents they wept tenderly they had
no child but me and I became a rover
which grieved their poor hearts so And
I became a rover which grieved
Their poor heart so I left my aged Parents
for then to see no more
There was a wealthy merchant Who lived
in a town close by
He had a baby daughter on whom I cast
my eye
She was tall so handsome So pretty and
so fair
There's not a girl in this wide world
With her I could compare
I asked her if she would be willing
for I'd return again. She said that she
would be true to me till death proved
her unkind
We kissed, shook hands and parted and
I left my girl behind
Well love if I was to marry you I
Wouldn't be much to blame but
the girl I left behind me would scorn
my name with shame so I'll
go back to my good old home before
them I'll resign and
there I'll take the last farewell of
the girl I left behind
I quit my work one evening Walked down
to the public square
The stage was just arriving And I met
the driver there
He handed me a letter which Gave me to
understand that
The girl I left behind me had married
another man
I left good old Texas Denver City I
was bound
I arrived in Denver City And viewed
that town all around
Found money and work was plenty And
the girls to be was kind
But the only object of my mind Was the
girl I left behind
Mabry Oscar
Danforth
born
13 April 1875 Coldwater, Tate, Mississippi
died
17 June 1946 age 71 years Hemit, Riverside, California
married
21 April 1901 Peacock, Stonewall, Texas
Consort-Minnie
Gertrude Peacock
daughter
of John William "Bill" Peacock and Maggie Roden Wilson
born
16 February 1882 Cleburne, Johnson, Texas
died
6 January 1961 age 78 years Yucaipa, San Bernardino, California
Children-
1.
Anne Ruth Williams
born
31 March 1902 Swenson, Stonewall, Texas
died
10 January 1979 age 76 years Redlands, San Bernardino, California
consort-
Louis Milton Williams son of Edgar Lewis Williams and Rosa Lee Perser
married
27 September 1921 Dickens, Dickens, Texas
1. Oscar Louis Williams
born 2 June 1922 Spur, Dickens,
Texas
died 12 June 1922 Spur, Dickens,
Texas
2. Raymond Leonard Williams
born 28 June 1923 Plainview, Hale,
Texas
consort- Justine "Jerrie"
Bernhardt 15 March 1957 South Gate, Ca
consort- Eleanor Fritzy 5 April 1980
Yucaipa, San Bernardino, Ca
3. Edgar Hugh Williams
born 19 June 1925 Portales,
Roosevelt, New Mexico
consort-Wilma June Johnson 20 March
1946 Olton, Lamb, Texas
1. Charline Williams
born 9 June 1947 Los
Angeles, Los Angles, California
consort- Dennis Lee Wachs 31 July 1970 Westminster, Orange, California
1. James
Edgar Clark (Wachs) son of Clark
born 1
December 1968 Artesia, Los Angeles, California
daughter-
Abagail
Clark born February 1999
2. Denise
Elizabeth Wachs
born 22
October 1971 Bellflower, Los Angeles, CA
consort-Aaron
Ferguson
married 31 March 1989
Baltimore, Maryland
divorced
1997
1. Nathan Aaron Ferguson born 2
October 1994 Flagstaff, Az
3. Michael
Louis Wachs
born 14
January 1975 Pomona, Los Angeles, California
2. Donna Fay Williams
born 25 June 1949
Amherst, Lamb, Texas
consort- Terry John Pierce
married 4 February 1968 Las Vegas, NV
Divorced 1970
consort- Kenneth Louis Jones
married 13 February 1975 Santa Ana,
Orange, Ca
1. Kenneth
Thomas Paine Jones
born 27
August 1976 Anaheim, Orange, California
married 10
June 2000 Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada
Jehil Chillax Leguizamon Lopez
daughter of Miguel J/ Lopez and Sonia Villeda Lopez
1.
Deedee Jones born December 2004
2. Kevin
Louis Oakes Jones
born 1
November 1979 Anaheim, Orange, California
3. Edgar Hugh
"Ben" Williams Jr.
born 10 April 1951
Amherst, Lamb, Texas
consort-Wilma Frances
Fuchs
married 7 January 1977
Salt Lake City, UT Div. 1988
consort- Michael Ray
Romero 1 Jan 1994
4. Willard Wallace Williams
born 17 January 1927 Portales,
Roosevelt, New Mexico
consort- Mattie Lee Jarnigin
married 21 October 1944 Muleshoe,
Bailey, Texas
1. Frances Anne Williams
born 12 September 1945
Amherst, Lamb, Texas
consort-Claude
Edward "Ed" Griess
married 23 July 1965 Las
Vegas, Clark, Nevada
1. Aleesa
Anne Griess
born 18
February 1966 Orange, Orange, California
2. Steven
Edward Griess
born 21
December 1967 Redondo Beach, L. A. CA
2. Marilyn Kay Williams
born 8 May 1948 Los
Angeles, Los Angeles, California
consort-Danny Lee
Stevens
married April 1965
Yucaipa, San Bernardino, California
1. Dena Lee
Stevens
born 19
August 1969 Redondo Beach, Los Angeles, CA
2. Danny Lee
Stevens Jr.
born 3 May
1972 Lubbock, Lubbock, Texas
3. Candice
Lynn Stevens
born 16
August 1977 Lubbock, Lubbock, Texas
3. Gary Wallace Williams
born 17 August 1952
Yucaipa, Los Angeles, California
consort- Lynn Crane
married 20 July 1972 Lubbock, Texas. Divorced 1975
1. Gary Lynn
Williams
born 31 July
1973 Lubbock, Lubbock, Texas
4. Terrie Lynn Williams
born 22 May 1953
Lynnwood. Los Angeles, California
consort- Steven Lamb
divorced
5. Minnie Lee Williams
born 24 December 1929 Muleshoe,
Bailey, Texas
died age 69 years 7 June 1999
Riverside, Riverside, California
6. Bonnie Ruth Williams
born 31 October 1931 Portales,
Roosevelt, New Mexico
died age 65 years 31 August 1997 Loma Linda, Riverside,
California
consort-Billy Wayne Fagen
married 17 July 1953 Yuma, Arizona
1. Larry Paul Fagen (not
son of Bill Fagen)
born 21 January 1953
Lynnwood, Los Angeles, California
died age 46 years 6 July
1999 Guam
consort- Pamela Bullington
married October 1973 Las Vegas, Nevada
divorced 1976
consort-Betty
1. Aaron
Paul Fagen
born 2
January 1974 Artesia, Los Angeles, California
7. Milton Bradford Williams
born 5 November 1934 Earth, Lamb,
Texas
died 25 October 1995 age 60 years
Sedona, Arizona
consort- Marie Joanne Buehlman
married 1 December 1956 Norwalk, Los
Angeles, California
1. Stephanie Irene
Williams
born 29 November 1957
Lynnwood, Los Angeles, California
consort-Chuck Asburn
married September 1975 Las Vegas,
Nevada divorced 1977
consort-John Haag
divorced 1985
1. Steven Hagg
born 1983
California
2. David
Gregory Williams Havens
born 19 May
1995 Fullerton, Orange, California
2. Gregory Lynn Williams
born 2 February 1962
Lynnwood, Los Angeles, California
died age 24 years 25
October 1986 Santa Ana, Orange, CA
2.
Edgar Earl Danforth
born
24 October 1904 Swenson, Stonewall, Texas
died
9 August 1973 age 68 years Littlefield,
Lamb, Texas
consort-Beulah
Mae Kelly daughter of Jerry Washington
"J.W." Kelley and Margaret Indiana Thorn
married
5 December 1924 Portales, Roosevelt, New Mexico
1. Marjory Fern Danforth
born 20 October 1926 Earth, Lamb,
Texas
died 19 August 1987 age 60 years
Lubbock, Lubbock, Texas
consort-Billy Earl Damron
married 22 November 1947 Downey. Los
Angeles, California
1. Pamela Jo Damron
born 21 February 1951
Olton, Lamb, Texas
consort-James Francis
Petra
married 29 Dec 1970
Brownfield, Terry, TX divorced 1977
consort- Harold
"Keith" Pendergrass
married 4 August 1978
Loving, New Mexico
(Twin daughters of James Petra legally
adopted by Keith Pendergrass)
1. Koleta
Pendergrass b 3 Jul 1972 Hemit, Riverside, CA
2. Krista
Pendergrass b 3 July 1972 Hemit, Riverside, CA
consort-
Wilson Chance Bridwell
married 10 Apr 1992
Brownfield, TX div 1993
1.
Caleb Jordan Bridwell b 17 Mar 1993 Austin, TX 2.
Norman Edwin Danforth
born 19 March 1928
Earth, Lamb, Texas
consort- Betty Mary
Morisette
married 10 December 1947 Yuma, Arizona
separated 1997
1. Beverly Marie
Danforth
born 2 May 1949 Monta
Bello, Los Angeles, California
consort- Paul Millard
Watrous Jr.
married 20 April 1968
Whittier, Ca divorced 1978
consort- Michael Harold
Gollatz
married 1 June 1980
Anaheim, Orange, California
1. Regina
Lynn Watrous daughter of Frank Arrieta
born 26 June
1969 Los Angeles, LA, California
consort-
Reuben Estrada
2. Paul
Millard Watrous III
born- 30
October 1971 Norwalk, Los Angeles, California
consort-
Mona
1.
Bobby Watrous born 1995
2. Barbara Lynn Danforth
born 1 September 1950
Olton, Lamb, Texas
consort- David Clarence
Nadsady
married 22 October 1983
Sun Valley, LA, California
1. Alana
Marie Nadsady b 7 Aug 1984 Pasadena, LA, CA
2. Jenna
Lynn Nadsady b 23 Oct 1986 Semi Valley, Ca
3. Alan Lee Danforth
born 13 September 1951
Olton. Lamb, Texas
married Sheryl Burnham
Barille
married 15 November 1969
divorced 1981
1. Alan Lee
Danforth Jr.
born 1 March
1972 Fontana, Los Angeles, California
consort-
Brandi
1.
Amber Danforth born 1994
2. Stacie
Marlene Danforth
born 21
April 1973 Fontana, Los Angeles, California
consort-Steven
Bernich
married March 1995
1.
Brandon Paul Bernich born June 1995
3. Baby Boy Danforth
born 2 April 1930 Muleshoe, Bailey, Texas
died 2 April 1930 Muleshoe, Bailey,
Texas
