Anomalous discoveries in city directories
Published 8:50 am Wednesday, November 18, 2015
By Dickie Dixon
For Posterity’s Eyes On November 25th Kathy Weeks Williams of Lufkin will celebrate her birthday. She is the sister of Morris Weeks, owner of Morris Weeks Welding of Nederland, and the sister of Margaret Weeks.
On November 21st Don Hinson Dixon, Jr., nicknamed Bubba, of Cuero will celebrate his birthday. The next day, the 22nd, his sister, Dee Anna Dixon Ayers of Austin, will celebrate her birthday. They were born one year and one day apart. Bubba works for Duke Energy in Cuero; Dee Ann has worked for the University of Texas at Austin for over twenty years. They are the children of my oldest brother, a veterinarian in Cuero, and Margaret Snapp Dixon, a native of Cuero.
My son-in-law Richard Sutton celebrated his birthday this last Sunday, November 15th. He is married to my daughter, Sasha Dixon Sutton and is the son of Patsy (Mann) Sutton and the late Billy Sutton, both originally from Colmesneil.
Send your birthday notices to me, and I’ll print as many as I can.
Queries Received From Gina Beddo Small: “The Beddo(e) family arrived in East Texas in 1845, while Texas was still a Republic. According to “A History of the Beddoe Family” (by A. F. Beddoe, c. circa 1929) Earl Percy Beddoe with his wife Martha Hembree Beddoe, came “with a large colony in stearing [sic] boats, down the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers to the Red River, they proceeded to Shreveport in steam boats.” They ended up in Sabinetown on the Sabine River, with the Shad Morris colony. His father, Philip Tolbert Beddoe, is interredin the Sabinetown Cemetery. E. P. Beddoe, as a county surveyor, laid out the city of Hemphill in 1859. He had several brothers and sisters; I’m descended from his eldest brother, Joseph Warren Beddoe. I’d like to hear from anyone in the Beddo(e) family of Eastern Texas/Western Louisiana. Thanks, Gina Beddo Small ginabsmall@gmail.com [Her family, she told me, is from Wales]
Genealogists Here’s Your Chance! Because the Kurth Memorial Library in Lufkin is trying some new pilot hours from January 1 to March 31 of next year, on January 2nd the new hours will be implemented. The Library features a great genealogy room called the Ora McMullen Genealogy Room, and it is worth the trip to come use it! A genealogist can use Ancestry.com for free and use HeritageQuest free also. The new hours are: M and W 9-6; T and Th 9-8; Fri and Sat 9-5:30.
For more information call (936) 630-0560, or google Kurth Memorial Library to look at their website.
Setting the Record Straight On page 220 of Land of the Little Angel edited by historian Bob Bowman mistakenly stated: “She alleged damages of $,500 and won the suit. To satisfy judgment, Cordova’s half interest in the Stone Fort in Nacogdoches was transferred to Mrs. Fenley, who in turn deeded it to her mother, Mrs. Harriet Roberts.” Mrs. Fenley’s relationship was sister-in-law not daughter to Mrs. Roberts. Please see Carolyn Ericson’s monumental work Nacogdoches Gateway to Texas Volume 1 Revised which includes the entry “Fenley, Rebecca Danzey” and then states “daughter of William and Pamela Danzey,” page 121.
On page 28 of the book Tales from the Big Thicket edited by Francis E. Abernethy, Archer Fullingim wrote a chapter entitled “Folklore in the Big Thicket” in which he stated the following about the Kaiser Burnout: “This story was the subject of a WPA play by Larry Fisher in 1930s, but despite extensive research no documented history of the episode is now available.” However, in Victoria E. Bynum’s work The Long Shadow of the Civil War Southern Dissent and Its Legacies states: “Historians have verified the actions of Captain Charles W. Bullock, and environmental experts agree that someone burned between two and three thousand acres of the Big Thicket, but a Captain James Kaiser in Texas military records is not to be found. Historians have, however, located a Captain H. W. Kyser (the only officer in Texas with that surname) who belonged to Co. G of the 12th Texas Cavalry. This Kyser, records show, was a member of a battalion commanded to hunt jayhawkers and deserters in Hardin County, and thus it appears that the folk legend of Kaiser’s Burnout is based on solid historical evidence.” (page 35)
Save the date! The Angelina County Genealogical Society will hold its Christmas party on December 21, 2015 at 5 PM at Lufkin Barbecue in Lufkin, at which time the new officers will be installed. Also, at 3 P.M. on the same day, December 21st, ACGS president will speak on “The Prairies of Angelina County” at Genealogy Downtown in the City Council Chambers at Lufkin City Hall on 300 West Shepherd Avenue in downtown Lufkin.
Last Thursday the Newton County Historical Commission approved a genealogy conference to be held on February 12, 2016 from 8 AM to 5 PM in Newton free of charge to the public.
A summer job at Pineywoods Baptist Encampment Recently at a book sale at Kurth Memorial Library I met Nell Horton, the former Nell Bradley and daughter of Judge Benjamin Franklin and Mary (Hopper) Bradley of Crockett, of a family of five boys and four girls. She told me in the course of our conversation that she served as the life guard at Pineywoods Baptist Encamp-ment in Woodlake during the summer of 1949. She said they used the term “bathing” instead of “swimming” and that boys and girls had to “bathe” separately.
Anomalous discoveries in city directories (3) and (4) (3)While using the Lufkin city directories in the Ora McMullen Room of Kurth Memorial Library one day to trace my family’s location in the city, I noticed that during the time we lived in Houston (from the fall of 1952 to after school was out in 1955), my father and mother were listed with address of the property they had lived in before we moved and they still owned, i.e., they rented it out to someone. The listing read like this: “Dixon Hershell H (Kathleen) 3 slsmn Merrison Furn Co h 608 Finley.” So, the bottom line is: my father and mother were listed in a city directory of Lufkin when they didn’t even live there but probably because they owned the property. It listed the company he was working for in Houston, i.e., Merrison Furniture Co (actually Morrison Furniture Co.) This was in the C. B. Page Lufkin Texas City Directory 1953-1954.
(4)The next year (1955-1956) in the same company’s Lufkin city directory he was not listed in the city directory, the address 608 Finley had been extinguished, and L. L. Allen was living in the house he had moved from 608 Finley to 621 Montrose. The reason: he had sold the property where 608 Finley was to Lee Traylor, Sally Sue’s father, for him to put a Phillips 66 service station there, which Lee Hurst ran. Today that property is occupied by the Sherwin-Williams store. By the way, 608 Finley faced north, not south, because when they bought the house Timberland Drive was not there. The 608 Finley house was across from Harley and Virginia Baker’s house and Captain R. Y. and Mary Rhodes’s house. At that time, Moody dead-ended in to Finley just back of where the Baskin-Robbins store that Marsha Barton’s mother ran.
Toward a history of Sulphur Springs Baptist Church Beginning on November 1st, I started writing a history of Sulphur Springs Baptist Church on FM 1270 outside of Zavalla. If you any photos, stories, or information concerning this church, please contact me.
Information about Orange County, Texas Cemeteries A good source for information about Orange County, Texas cemeteries is Orange County, Texas Cemeteries Part 1 printed in 1980 and compiled by N. W. “Rusty” Alexander. This was published posthumously and was Alexan-der’s work in collaboration with Mary Withers. It is complete with a Surname Index for all the cemeteries included.
Send your queries to dickie.dixon@hotmail.com or by mail to 807 Fuller Springs Drive LufkinTexas 75901
