JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

1717 Edgewood St.,

Jackson Miss.,

Oct. 19, 1938

I know you think I fell in a deep hole, or something, since I have been so long writing you the results of our trip (if any). I wish I had known you were in Waco; we'd have made a special effort to get by there, but even then we didn't have anything new to talk. Had begun to look like a wild goose chase. This is the tale - - -

We went by Arlington to see Cousin Mattie at the Eastern Star home. We stayed at a tourist camp nearby and were with her several times. She went with us to see Ethel Read on Sunday afternoon.
Ethel is about our age and teaches school in Arlington, and lives a few miles out in the country - just --- and her ----. Her Sister Clara had died about a month or so before we were there. Ethel is pretty, and so nice, and has had a hard time. First she and her sister practically supported the family, and then her sister got sick with some terrible ailment (all of a sudden), cancer or something, and Ethel has it all. The parents had died before that, however. Anyway, she would have been willing to give us any data she had, but didn't have a thing, not even a letter, bible, or anything. ---- said she imagined Mrs. Hext would know more about their immediate crowd than anyone. I asked about the trunk, papers, etc. and she said Mary Anderson had the trunk. The next day (Monday) we took Cousin Mattie and went to Fort Worth. After lunch, we went to see Mary. Her name is Belsover or something like that [s/b Buergener}, and she has a sweet new home. She is about our age, and has no children - been sick a lot and not strong now. Her brother, who is a disabled veteran, was there, and her sister, Grace Lindsey (Mrs.), her husband and daughter were there visiting. We were glad to catch them all, and meet them. We had a jolly time, but with so many in the conversation of course it was hard to get anywhere. Mary did bring out the little trunk full of papers, but there were none of special importance, except that if one had the time it would be fairly easy to get a line on some of the other children from their letters. The grandfather of Mary and Grace - Thomas Howard - seemed to be the one to keep things together after they were grown, because the ones in the gold fields wrote to him - letters in the little box - and we read several of them. One out there (I forgot which one) was writing him that Ben had ---- -- --- ----. That Thos. Howard was the executer of ----- ---- --------tiations from here. Mr. Lindsey and Julius were ready to start out for Navarro County to "hunt the money" etc and after we left we realized how silly that was. Thos. Howard lived there but all the doings were in Nacogdoches Co. We saw one paper - an inventory - of Benj. Anderson's and it was cute. At one place he enumerated "she bed, and stid". I would certainly love to have plenty of time to mull over those papers, but they were not terribly old. It was their grand-father, Thos. Howard's box, and these were his letters etc. Of course, being administrator of the estate he had these papers about the inventory etc. A Judge Blake of Nacogdoches was the one to dispose of things, so we thought he was the "Blake" mentioned on your list. Mr. Kemp (will tell of him later) said that there is a Mr. Blake there now who is a court reporter and who frequently helps him on historical matters, and that is the Blake who told him things. Must be a grandson of the Judge. Anyway, we saw that we could learn nothing further from the papers - unless we did have time just to camp out there. Julius did look at the dates and saw that none of them were before the 1850s.

We enjoyed meeting Cousin Mattie. She is very poor and lonely, but the Home was a beautiful place. However, our visit proved disasterous - although she says she's never had as good a time in her life, and she seemed to be --. She had been sick some time before, she told us, and while she seemed frail, and didn't weigh but 80 pounds when we weighed down town, still she didn't seem sick. A day or two after we were there she collapsed, and is now in a nursing (convalescent) home in Fort Worth. What she says sound like T. B. She said there's a good deal of trouble in the lungs and bronchial tubes, and she can only write and read so long each day. She is tickled to death to get out of the home however, as she didn't like the Matron. I thought that would be just her reaction at first and that when she got used to being practically an invalid that that would change her attitude, but she says she is still crazy about the place. She is the only patient in the Lady's home right now, and the Ft. Worth Eastern Star pays her expenses. She couldn't tell us much about the kin that we hadn't already learned. Funny, Ethel Read and Mary Anderson are nice to her, and she is their "Cousin Mattie" etc. but none of them knew how they were related until we figured it out for them. Ethel and her sister --- bought Cousin Mattie's china closet full of dishes - some of the dishes she painted, and some things of her mother's - mainly to help her, I think. She had sold all her paintings too, and the ones I saw were lovely. Mary had a big painted shovel in her living room that Cousin Mattie had painted a snow scene on. Must have supposed to be a snow shovel, but since she had it sitting by her gas grate, I didn't exactly see the connection. Mary had a big brownish painting of a boat that - - - (missing remainder)

Well, we departed from Fort Worth not much wiser that when we arrived but certain of one thing - that the Anderson's we had met did not know even as much about their folks as we did. Seemed Mrs. Hext should know more, since Thos. Howard lived with her when he died (was her father) and when he was old, some reporter published an interview with him. That didn't amount to much but after it came out in the paper scores of people wrote him telling him of their relationship to the family, or adding to the tales etc. and Mrs. Hext destroyed the letters. The girls said she was just sick about it when she realized how much the letters might have meant to anyone (such as us) looking up the ins-and-outs of the family in later years. Do you know her? You sent me her address etc. long ago but I have had so many irons in the fire that I have never gotten to write her. I want to --- --- ---- of Benj. Anderson himself, and it seems she would have heard her father tell the tales since he lived to be old.

Do you know the Mrs. Matthews in Nacogdoches that Mrs. Peevey lived with? In that newspaper write-up you sent me, it said Mrs. P. was preparing two books. That was in 1929, and I believe --- --- --- me she had only been dead about three years, so that would have given her several more years on the books. I would certainly like to see them.

Well, to go on. We didn't find out any more family ---- till Houston. We did see the big picture in the Alamo ---- of the surrender of Santa Anna, under which it gives the names of the men in it. One funny looking "bird" in a round hat is "W. Anderson". When I saw Mr. Kemp (who is not old at all and works in the -------- So. Bldg.) he said that he did not think this was one of our crowd. Said he was named Washington Anderson and was from Georgia. I said our crowd had come from Al., to Texas (although they came there from Ga. and it would have been possible for Washington (if his ---- ---- to have gone direct to Texas and probably because of him the others went.) Anyway, Mr. Kemp said about 200 men were waiting in the ---- for orders and he thought that our Anderson was there. I'm going to "--- him" for the one in the picture as soon as I can find out if he was old enough (being one of the second wife's children) to have gone direct to Texas from Ga. and probably induced the others to come. Mr. Kemp has written a book the "Hero's of San Jacinto", so I'll have some very authentic information to make him change his mind. He's a very liesurely person, and the man in the office with him was --- --- ---- ---- ---- ---- --- ---- --- --- --- - -----. Must be high up in the Co. to be loafing like that. --- --- --- stopped in Austin to see what the library looked like ant the Dept. of Archives and Hist. was in the basement, passed the furnace etc. all stuck down in there with a lot of clerks sitting all over the place. Made you state your business before they let you in since it was so crowded. We didn’t have anything special we wanted to look up. I have heard since that it was the University library that is so grand; I was thinking the State one was certainly over-rated. Mr. Kemp didn't know any more than we did. Our man is only one of 10,000 pioneer families he is tracing, so we can't expect him to go into it like it was the only one, but I shall write him again to tell him a tale Mrs. Richardson told me, and maybe he can tell me some more.

At Beaumont, we saw Mrs. Richardson. She is lovely. I imagine your mother knows her as they lived in Waco. She is Maude Gerald Richardson - but then you told me about her in the first place. Anyway we had a good time with her. She is so full of life and interested in things. Only her daughter, Maud, who is an architect, was with her, and we had lunch with them. Her grandfather Tom Melton married Martha (Patsy) Bryant, the child of Elizabeth Anderson - Benj's oldest daughter. She says that Tom bought a hotel at Old Washington (where he lived and is buried) and that when the Declaration of Independence was read at the old Capital there, that someone got up on top of the hotel and rang the big old dinner bell, and that they had the bell. Said about two years ago some ladies called on them and got it to put in a Museum, but she didn't know which one. The dept. at Austin being so messed up they keep the relics farmed out at the University and other places and she said she was going to find out right away which one it was in. I don't see how Thos. could have owned the hotel at the time they rang the bell, because he was having land deals here every few weeks, and didn't sell out until 1865. He lived in N. O. [New Orleans?] in the mean time too, and we figured he may have bought the hotel sometime during those intervening years, and the old dinner bell "went with it", with "tale attached". I don't think Mr. Kemp knew that tale because he had gotten most of his data on the Meltons from me, --- --- ---- ---- ---- -- ------ ----- --- so I shall have to tell him and see what he says about it. When Benj. Anderson went to Texas in 1830 we figured that Tom might have gone along and bought the hotel and come back, but Old Washing-ton is about 145 miles? farther on from Nacogdoches, and he would hardly go that much farther than the others and intend to go back and forth from here. Mrs. Richardson's mother Omega was living in her father's house when several of her children were born. Florence, the actress one, was born back here or N. O. and probably others. Florence, being the oldest, knows more of the family than anyone else, but she had been very ill and could not write Mrs. R. about it. I --- --- --- --- --- --- -- Mrs. Richardson had her mother's Bible but no dates of Tom's death. We stopped at Old Washington to look for his and Patsy's graves, which she says are there, but the grass is waist high and the stones so scattered, over several acres, that we had to give up. Mr. Kemp said they had the cemetery cleared off several years old (for Centennial) and marked the "soldiers of Texas" graves. Also fenced it in barbed wire through which we crawled. I'd like to go there in the winter when most of the grass is dead. We did not find Tom's grave, however.

Next stop was Nacogdoches. We had lunch at Beaumont and ---- to get to Shreveport for the night. Now we wish we had spent it at Nacogdoches, but at the time, one does not know what is best. We got to Nacogdoches at 4:30 and the court house closes at 5:00. --- kept telling Julius they closed at 5:00 - which he knew - and I had to stay out in the car to keep the boys peaceable while he looked.
He found the estate papers alright. and it seems that even the ones in the gold fields got their part, by sending power of attorney to Thos. Howard so he could collect for them. If Benj. Anderson was a millionaire he must have had it in land etc. and divided that out, be-cause the ones that collected only got $124.50, and the five who did not collect (our Susan was among them) were apportioned $122.66 each. Those who did not collect were the older ones, evidently still back in Ala. Susan was dead before her father, also Elizabeth Bryant, but this was set up for their heirs. I had laughed and told Julius I'd bet if he found any estate that was due us it would amount to about $1.98 each. He figured if it was 6% interest divided among all our crowd, it would be $1.66 each. In the mean-time he had heard from the Comptroller in Austin. He got the deposit number from the estate paper and wrote them about it. Has been told now ---ring from them. Now they say that the Legislature passed a law soon after this that no interest would be paid, so our legacy to be divided among several hundred (or it seems that) people would be $122.66, and they say you must bring suit to get that. Consequently, we have no legacy, which is just our luck. To find one, and find we are entitled to it, and then have it not be big enough to even pay for the notary fees. Well, at least the estate paper proved, better than anything else we could have found, just who were Benj's children. See, if you wanted to join the DAR this proves that M. B. Anderson was Benj's son, and then your mother's statement is all the additional proof you'd need.

I wish you'd ask your mother about the revolutionary connection. Mrs. Richardson says that her mother, Omega Melton Gerald, was a member of the DAR in Waco. Seems they had a big fuss, and it was about to involve the husbands, and some of them were Judge Gerald's best friends, so he asked his wife to quietly get out of the Chapter - which she did. Mrs. R is a member of the UDC and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and I don't think she would have gotten the organizations confused, but I cannot find Mrs. Gerald's name in the early memberships in the lineage books up at the Capital, nor anyone joining on Benj. Anderson's services back about that time. If you could help about that, it would be fine, because if Mrs. Gerald was a member that establishes his services. If you could find out the name of the Regent or Registrar of the DAR Chapter there and let me have it. I do not mind writing them, because it would be in their old records if it was the DAR to which Mrs. R. referred. We have found one Benj. Anderson in a Va. Book at the capital who was a Lieut. and if that is ours then his service is there, but if we can find any of the
kin who belong on his services it puts the record there in Washington for all time. That is one reason I want to get all my lines fixed up so that no matter if you die or your things burn up or what, the record is safe. Mr. Kemp gave (or rather had sent) Julius some blanks to be filled out for membership in the Sons of the Republic of Texas, and we'd like him to belong, but our information is so inadequate. He could get in on account of Mrs. Richardson and Cousin Mattie belonging, but where it says tell all about your ancestor etc. we know very little to tell. When the record is a permanent one we'd rather have it contain everything we can find out to put down.

I am enclosing what the estate order said. Since the records at Nacogdoches go back so far we could doubtless find many interesting things there when we ever get time to back there. I shall be glad to send you anything further we get, and will appreciate it if you can investigate the items mentioned above. If you can tell me if Mrs. Matthews (Mrs. Peevey's daughter) is still living (was 10 years ago), and if you know anything about those two books Mrs. Peevey was going to write. Also, what about Benj. Anderson's Revolutionary connection - and if your mother knows that Mrs. Gerald was a member of the DAR there in Waco. Also if you can give me the name of some Waco DAR to whom I could write to see what their records show. These things will be of mutual help to us, or I wouldn't be asking you to do so much.

I trust by now that you and the boys have gotten good jobs and that all the family is well and happy. I appreciate the good "start" you gave us on the Andersons and trust that I shall have more to send you before long.