-
- John Henry LEWIS
Family
- Transcript of letter from Selma Lewis Bishop, daughter
of John Henry Lewis, was written in response to a request for
information from Ernest Langford, who was doing research for a
book.
- This letter and more info about the John Henry Lewis
family is in the Vertical Files of the Herman Brown Free Library.
- Thanks to Donna Gregg, <dgregg@bigfoot.com> for
her work transcribing this item for the Burnet County Page. June
2000
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-
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- Abilene, Texas
- August 18, 1961
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- Dear Ernest:
-
- I thank you for the "gentle reminder" of the need of the
material about the John Henry Lewis family for the Briggs volume
which you are good enough to work on---a very noble work indeed.
I am sorry that I could not get to the letter before I left for
the East to complete some data for a book&emdash;a
bibliography&emdash;which I am preparing&emdash;now for the fourth
year on it and much to do yet. Perhaps you know what is said
commonly about bibliographies: never finished in reality. I
believe it. I worked twenty-two libraries in a month and really
only three weeks, for I spent some of the time visiting my
daughter in Virginia.
-
- Here is our part as I know it:
-
- John Henry LEWIS--born
Feb. 6, 1869, at Houston, Texas--his parents both Alabamans,
though father was born in North Carolina truly, died 1918 of
__[unreadable]___.
- Mary Wilmonette
WIMBERLEY---born July 11, 1872 in Fayette, Alabama, her
family Alabamans also.
-
- Hubert Rennon LEWIS---born
May 24, 1892, at Florence, Texas, died August, 1936 of kidney
trouble and heart involvement; father of one daughter. Married
Maude MCPEETERS of Coke County
in 1915; she now lives in Winters, Texas. Their daughter
Floygene now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, mother of
two sons.
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- Selma Drusilla
LEWIS---born October 29, 1894, at Florence, Texas. In
1920 she married John BISHOP
of Petrolia and Wichita Falls, Texas. She has one daughter,
Eleanor Bishop RAGSDALE of
Purcellville, Virginia, wife of M. M. Ragsdale. She taught
in public schools over thirty years. Since 1957 she has been in
the Department of English, McMurry College, Abilene, Texas.
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- Henry Hazelwood
LEWIS---born August 25, 1897. He attended A&M a
short time before the death of his father. He was in the oil game
for some years, later and at death in the insurance business. He
died in 1954 following a car accident near Abilene. Hazelwood was
married to Sue SIMPSON of
Austin, who succeeded him in death on December 21, 1960.
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- John Henry LEWIS said of himself that he had the first
store in Briggs---perhaps the first grocery store and barbershop,
freighting his goods from Lampasas by wagon team. He had much to
do with the organization of the town, inviting the first doctor
and druggist to Briggs, Doctor Hazelwood and George
Briggs, a New Yorker, for whom John Henry and others
named the town. George Briggs was uncle to the wife of
Dr. Hazelwood, who died in Austin a few years ago. Dr.
Hazelwood was later head physician of the State Asylum at
Austin. The Hazelwoods were parents of two sons,
Leonard and Merton, born in Briggs, later living in
Leander and Austin.
-
- I know you don't want all this, but I do not know what you do
want. Cut it to suit yourself.
-
- One girl I remember in the Briggs School; she lived close to
your family: Lona Harton. Her full name was as I remember
it quite well: Annie Rosie Essie Lona Arita Pearlie Jane
Harton. I remember the name for it is the longest I have
known in my life.
-
- JOHN HENRY LEWIS FAMILY
- Page 2
-
-
- My little pals were especially Alda Langford,
Ellen Dillingham, Mima DeWolfe, and Johnnie Mae
Deere&emdash;yes, and one other: Bessie Page, who later
lived in Lampasas and taught school there. We were usually close
together in the pictures. I look villainous in one picture, and I
recall that there was some change made which thwarted my plan to
be with one of these girls in the picture.
-
- I remember Morris Edgar whose father was the chief
general merchandiser of the town. He was tongue-tied a bit and we
all laughed at him, thinking his use of language was especially
enjoyable. One day Miss Ludie Butler asked Morris why he
was squirming in the seat, and his quick reply was&emdash;feeling
himself quite too crowded by all the students: "There's not room
enough here to tuss a tat."
-
- I recall that I was deathly afraid of Ivy Griffin,
whose chief antic in the afternoon about four o'clock was to hold
a straight pin against the aisle from her desk. Naturally as we
walked by to get our book satchels from the wall, we struck Ivy's
pin. Once I was considerably jabbed and yelled to the top of my
voice, at the consternation of teacher and some of the pupils who
had never encountered Ivy's weapon. I had to stay in for yelling
out.
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- My brothers and I rode a donkey to school at first, then later
a horse and then when Hazelwood began to go, in a buggy. If our
horses escaped from the lot at night, we had to walk in over three
miles, usually with the Poor and the Sid Dillingham
children. We did not arrive at school sometimes until about
9:00 a.m., laden with pails of food and book satchels. I remember
all the teachers very well: Mr. Matthews, Mr. Carl
Meyers, Miss Lola McSween, who lived one winter in our
home. She was a beautiful woman and was the one who inspired me
to wish to be a teacher, though my mother had taught
school&emdash;the elementary students&emdash;in Williamson before
her marriage to my father.
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- I remember revivals in Briggs&emdash;the singing out under the
brush or tarp arbors. People of all faiths came and participated.
My parents were of the Primitive Baptist faith, but attended the
revivals regularly in summers.
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- When I was a little girl&emdash;believe it or not&emdash;just
three years old, I went to the DeWolfe's pasture out one mile from
town to get our cows in the afternoon and took them there in the
mornings. I had to climb up on the gate to unlatch it to let the
cows out. Then I held to old Spike's tail&emdash;it was often so
dark&emdash;to guide me home.
-
- There are many memories which I have of life on the ranch, but
perhaps these are not what should be told in this sort of book: of
people being bitten by rattle snakes; of a star that fell so close
to my feet as I drove turkeys home one night. It glowed after it
hit the ground. Then in curiosity I picked it up and it was still
hot. It was as light as a feather, and was only a piece of
charred-like substance.
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- ***Write me if I can tell you anything else. I really
remember much about the people and events at Briggs in my day.
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- Best Wishes.
-
- Sincerely yours,
- Selma L. Bishop
-
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