The photo above is my mom, Zettie Williams in her apron and blue sweater, on the front row. I love it that Mom usually had her apron on when pictures were taken. Mom made her own aprons of flour sack or she used her egg money to buy material. Mostly she used her egg money to buy baking soda or salt or baking powder. Nancy told me that Dad had said to her that he could not have paid off the farm if “Zettie” had not helped him with the money she got from selling eggs.
I don’t know the lady to Mom’s left, but the tall woman behind Mom in glasses and a dark dress is Pauline Milburn Martin, my Aunt Lola’s daughter. Aunt Lola Durham Milburn was Dad’s older half sister via their mother. Pauline’s younger sister Enza Milburn is the heavy woman in glasses and a light blue dress on the front row. Uncle Wallace Williams back row beside Dad with Uncle Ebolee barely visible on the very back. The dark haired woman next to Dad is his niece Mabel Huston, daughter of Dad’s half sister, my Aunt Elgie Durham.
The two people in the picture above with my dad are Hulbert Durham and Mabel Huston. As I was growing up, I don’t remember seeing them at our reunions at all, but they were fond of their Uncle Marvice. They were the children of Dad’s oldest half sister, Elgie Durham (1874-1934), daughter of Dad’s mother, Quintilda Durham. Hulbert and Mabel had the same mother, but not the same father. Aunt Elgie married George Durham and had six children. One child a little girl died very young. Hulbert Durham (the man in the picture) was Aunt Elgie’s youngest of her and George Durham’s children.
I was told by my sisters and others, that around 1900-01 when Hulbert was still a baby, his father George Durham, moved to Texas, taking all the children except Hulbert with him. They said he put the older children in the wagon and left for Texas while Aunt Elgie was at the spring doing the family washing.
Some years later Aunt Elgie married George Huston and had another child. The child was Mabel Huston Harmon, the dark haired lady in the picture with Hulbert and Dad. One part of the story can be partly confirmed by something Donald told me. He said not so long ago a man from Texas came to Mt Olive, a stranger, and said that he thought he had relatives in the area. He was trying to find Dad’s people. Donald met him and talked with him, and sure enough he was a descendent of Aunt Elgie’s.
In the picture above, Aunt Lola is with her daughters, Pauline and Enza. Aunt Lola was a half sister to Dad, about 15 years older. It seems like Aunt Lola came often to visit when I was growing up. I always thought of Aunt Lola (born in 1882) as the oldest person I knew when I was a kid. Dad, as well as Mom, was very fond of her.. Clarice stayed with Aunt Lola her first year of high school and went to McKinney High School because there was no bus available to Middleburg High School at that time. Aunt Lola was always a very small lady as long as I can remember. I have heard from my older sisters that my grandmother, Quintilda Durham Williams, mother of Dad and Aunt Lola, was also small like Aunt Lola.
Aunt Lola and her husband, Dan Milburn, once lived on Ragged Ridge. They sold to the Warfield family before moving to McKinney. Donald told me a story once about Uncle Dan and his own dad, my grandfather John Frank Williams. One time when Donald and Dad were walking over the fields down near where the pond is now, he saw a place in the hill side that looked like someone had dug out a huge hunk. Although grass had grown over the place, he could still tell that someone had done something there to the side of the hill. When Donald asked, Dad just laughed and say, “Oh, that’s just where Dan and Pa was digging for gold.”