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The 1900 Census shows that our paternal great grandmother, Belle Hunter
McCollough, had married in 1897 to the blacksmith, M. A. Durham in Limestone
Cty, Tx.
She and her two young sons, Harry 8, and Robert 6, had been abandoned by her
husband in Dallas, Texas.
She remarried Mr. M. A. Durham and lived
there with Mr Durham and his 8 year old son, Hubert, and the Durham
grandmother who was 65 that year.
Belle Hunter McCollough died at the age of 32, and is buried at West Hill
Cemetery, in Sherman, Texas.
Mr. M. A. Durham, moved to California after his young wife's death.
Harry Lee and Robert Lewis chose to take their stepfathers last
name of Durham. They returned to Sherman ,Texas, and lived together at ages
14 and 12, and put themselves throuogh Austin College by working at a
drugstore, and later living over the same drug store. They continued their
college studies at Baylor University.
Harry Durham later became the Supt of schools in Bells Texas, then President
of Burleson College in Greenville in 1926, at the age of 34. He later
became the Supt of Schools in Brazos County, a thriving region of Texas at
the time, where Carnegie placed the FIRST public library in the
country. H. L. Durham served on the Board of Regents at Texas A and M
College in Bryan, Texas. Dignitaries from across the state of Texas,
attended his funeral in 1932.
These two orphaned boys who lived in Limestone Cty, were both graduated from
Baylor, and went on to pursue their studies at Harvard University.
Robert Lewis Durham, died aboard ship in WWI. |