Letters From The Past
Letter from Miss Maggie Beard, Ennis, Texas,
to her cousin, Josephine Ashford in Milam County
Copyright © Nancy Timmons Samuels, Fort Worth,
Texas. Used with permission.
Mrs. Samuels has added explanatory notes on
the family
Ennis Ellis County Tex June 14th 1875
Dear Cousin Joe
Though many months has passed since I wrote to any of you, let you were not forgotten for during this long period of silence in fancy I often visited you and would have visited you in person if I could. We have passed through many changes and trials since I last wrote you and I have been sick so much that I could hardly ever collect my thoughts enough to write. My health is better at the present than it has been in 2 years for which I know you will rejoice with me and that the Great Giver of all good who has been so kind to me. I wish I had something new and interesting to write you but I do not get to visit much nor have any visitors and so I do not year much though we have Preaching Picnics Grance meetings Concerts and most anything else you could mention. There was a Sunday School Picnic here the first of May which was a very nice little affair some 4 or 4 [sic] hundred people present but last Saturday there was another Picnic 8 miles from [here] and almost all Ennis went or at least most of the young people. We did not attend. There was 8 or 10 Sunday Schools expected to be present. I have not heard the particulars about it as I have seen no one from there. Uncle Jim Ashford has just returned from out west been out there to look at the country. Went so far aw Burnet Co. I have not seen him but hear he is well pleased and he wants to move as soon as he sells his place here I presume he may move there.
Julia has written her lovers name and showed it to me. It is Mr. Hudgins a horrid name I think. Don't you? But they say he is good and that is better than a pretty name. Sister Fannie said she would stay with some before long. If the people I live with move west this fall I may go with them if I do not I will have to hunt another home. I shall regret exceedingly to part with them for I love them dearly they have been as brother and sister to me I have lived with them nearly one year. O, cousin Jo why dont some of you come to see us. Give much love to aunt Sarah, Nerva and all the others for me. I think of you all so often and wish to see you. Tell Alex I think he might write to me if his girls did not take up so much of his time. Nerve, too, I would love to hear from her pen. Give much love to all of them for me.
Must close for the present. Please write soon to your affectionate Cousin
Maggie Beard
Notes by NTS:
Michael and Mary (Chappell) Ashford lived in Tishimingo County, Miss. in 1850. They had 11 children, several of whom moved to Ellis County. Their youngest child, Robert Payne Ashford, died in Milam County. His wife, Sarah Ann Gurley, is the "Aunt Sarah" mentioned in the letters. "Alex" is a brother to Josephine and Minerva.
Harriet Ashford, daughter of Michael and Mary, married William Beard in 1842 and had several children. In February 1850, William and three of their children, Mary, 3, Adam, age unknown, and William, age 8 months, all died within eleven days of each other. Surviving were Harriet, the mother, Margaret (Maggie of the letter), and Adrian, a son, age seven. Also dying in February 1850 was a cousin, Mary Conner. The Julia E. Miller to whom Maggie wrote, was Maggie's sister.
Julia E. Miller married John Goodman/Goodwin in Ellis County in 1876 and in 1880 her mother, Harriet Miller, and Maggie Beard lived with them, enumerated as mother-in-law and sister=in-law, in the Ennis area. "Cousin Jim" Ashford must have been James Ashford, a widower with three children in 1870 Ellis County census. By 1880, he was gone from the county, only his son, William (age 16) remaining. "Cousin Charles" may have been Charles Stewart Ashford who married Virginia Kendall; they did move west. "Cousin Millia Chapman" may have been Melissa, wife of William Chapman, shown in the Ellis County censuses of 1870 and 1880.
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