My Mother, Yvonne

My mother, Yvonne, struggled nearly all of her days to find peace and joy and love in her life, as was given by family and friends during her latter years.

Mom was born on August 29, 1928—the second of six children.  Her siblings include her brother, Donald, two years her senior; Juanita, five years younger; and Deborah, nearly 10 years younger.  One other sister named Carol June lived only a month; another of the six was stillborn.  Mom was affectionately known as “Sis” to each of her siblings and all of the rest of the family, too.  Even her own parents called her “Sis.”

The family grew up in Oklahoma, primarily in Guthrie, but often traveled between Oklahoma and the Houston, Texas area, where Mom was born.  Seeing her first light of day on the cusp of the Great Depression, Mom would not be left unscathed by its dark effects, which took a tremendous toll on the family as a whole.

Mom remembers her parents, or the retelling of stories about her parents, as fun-loving people who enjoyed life and one another.  However, with money troubles constantly at the threshold of their lives, her father, Earl Roy Plaskett, a carpenter by trade like his father before him, became a kind of man that even his own mother did not recognize. 

It is a great understatement to say that Earl was less than kind to the family; and concerning money, he remained very tight-fisted with it throughout life, presumably because of the effects of the Great Depression.

The family tells of a rather humorous story when little Deborah had one of the biggest toothaches of her life.  “Sis”—now a young adult herself—had “come through” Guthrie (that's what they called all of her meandering travels) and found Deborah in such a state of great pain and discomfort that she took her little sister to the dentist immediately.  With bravado, Mom asked that the dentist please charge her father’s account for the work done.  Shortly afterward, Sis left town, Earl got the bill, and Deborah heard his wild rantings for weeks.  All of the family thought Mom's financial retaliation to be great fun and laughed together over the story several times in later years.

Her mother—Lois Laura Hollon—was the third sister in the Hollon family to marry Earl Plaskett!  (Why these sisters never talked to one another following their divorces and all is beyond me! Oh, the stories I could continue to tell you!)  Lois was one of nine children herself.  She was very pretty, and, with spit curls hugging her cheeks, could easily be called a flapper in her day.  Following the Great Depression, however, things changed.  By all accounts told of her by family and others who knew her, Lois eventually became a religious fanatic.  Most of her attachments were made within various forms of the Pentecostal religion.  Two of her sisters, Maydell and Helen, influenced her to a great degree in this.

Mom recalls the day that her mother, Lois, came home from some type of revival meeting where it was taught that it was a sin to imitate any of God’s creations.  So, to conform with what she felt was God’s will, Lois ripped up all of the family photos and tore out all of her very own hand-embroidered stitchings of butterflies and flowers and such from blankets and handkerchiefs and doilies, a talent that many of her family appreciated very much up to that point.

Mom once wrote:

I just can’t separate my fears and anger from the woman called Lois . . . my mother.  She should have never painted into the eyes of my soul such vivid pictures of a pit of fire stoked by a devil somewhere in the bowels of the earth that was surely going to consume me for all of eternity.  I just knew that was to be my fate.  It had to be because that is what she told me.

When Mom was but nine years old, baby sister Deborah was born.  Following the birth, Lois became so disabled by back pain that she was laid up in bed for a year.  The condition was known as "milk legs."  During this time, Mom took on all of the responsibility of becoming a mother herself, which wearied her greatly. 

Then, when Mom was around 13, Lois left the family.  Though six year-old Deborah refused to budge from off the top of her mother's closed suitcase, her shrill cries filling the air and begging her mother not to leave, Lois left anyway.  Not only did she leave  the children, she left them in the care of their father.  Difficulties for the family now multiplied, perhaps beyond our ability to comprehend.

Mom's brother, Donald, got on his own early in life.  By age 14, Mom moved out on her own as well.  With the compassionate and protective help of the long-time family doctor, Dr. LeHew, the teen-aged Yvonne was taken out of her father’s home and was given her first real job: washing dishes and setting up trays for patients at the local hospital for $30 a month and room and board.  She also ironed bushels of baskets of starched, long-sleeved nurse’s uniforms for $1 a load.

Mom told me often that it was Dr. LeHew who stated that, had it not been for Grandmother Plaskett, she would have committed so-called “infant suicide” for that love found lacking in the home.  Mom spoke to me often and fondly of Grandma Plaskett, and once wrote, “My happiest times during childhood were the days I spent with my grandparents.”

One of the highlights of Mom's life as a youth was her playing of the French horn in the school band.  She earned first chair, in fact, after enduring much practice in the wooded creek bank area behind Grandma Plaskett’s home.  (How emotionally intriguing it is to me that, as a teenager myself, and even before learning of Mom's skill in and love for her chosen instrument, the French horn had became one of my most favorite musical instruments.)

Due to her difficult circumstances, Mom never graduated from high school.  Instead, she hit the road on her own somewhere around age 15 and began her life as a self-proclaimed vagabond.  The following writing symbolizes very well, I think, the difficulties of Mom’s life on the road and outside the influence of loving ties with family and friends:

I was in Oakland, California on VJ day—the day the Japanese surrendered—and in New York City when the end of the war in Europe was celebrated.  One birthday was celebrated somewhere in Wisconsin.  Another in Santa Fe.  I became hardened.  People believed me when I passed as twenty-one.  Then, after I finally tired of truck drivers and traveling on buses, I learned how to be a waitress in diners all over the country.  Sometimes I would work a week or two, but always restless, I would move on.  I felt lonely and desolate going from place to place.  I reached in vain for some place to plant roots, for someone to love me; but love eluded me, and I would go on.  Liquor became my friend.  Drinking dulled the negative feelings.  Sitting on a bar stool eased the feeling of isolation.

For most of her life, alcohol supposedly became my mother’s most cherished friend, though it betrayed and consumed her again and again and again.  There are not enough words for the pain caused by this bitterest of enemies—in her own life—and in the lives of those who loved her, including me.  Alcohol was a difficult adversary for her to overcome; but, in the last 10 years of her life she did overcome it, though the scars of years past remained in great measure.  In spite of the grave difficulties of her life, and perhaps because of them as well, Mom did find meaning and purpose, and felt enough love and joy to know that God was with her and that he loved her.

During the summer of 1968, at the age of 40, Mom did an amazing thing: she earned her General Education Diploma!  She then entered a junior college in September of that same year and began studying Psychology.  Eventually, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and had original plans to earn her Master’s as well, though that never did come to fruition.

Mom was a social worker for several years and loved all those she cared for very much.  In fact, as a youngster of but nine years of age, I remember sometimes feeling jealous of the people she worked with—usually teens.  However, even at my young age, I also figured out that working with all of these people who were but strangers to me was the one thing that held my mother together and that helped to keep her from drinking, so I just silently observed and never complained.

One of Mom's most cherished jobs was when she worked at a place called Pisano in Miami, Florida, where she was a live-in housemother for 47 troubled teenage boys, all between the ages of 11 and 18.  She stayed there for close to two years when I was about 11 and 12 years old.  They all called her “Mother” and loved her dearly.  She needed that.

Mom walked tall.  She was six feet most of her life.  As a seven year-old, I remember jumping on the concrete wall of the Royal Castle hamburger joint in Key West, Florida, exclaiming, “I’m almost as tall as you!”  She would laugh a little and I’d jump down.  Upon serious reflection and all things considered, I’ve never really been sure if I’ve reached some of the heights she reached in life.

Before I was born, Mom married three times.  After I was born, she married twice.  She remained heartbroken all of her life over the loss of her second marriage with Morton Rosenzweig.

Prior to her first marriage in 1950, Mom did some very wild things that landed her in the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, West Virginia, where a few notable bad-girl celebrities lived, to serve a sentence of one year and one day.

It was here that she knew Billie Holiday, the great black jazz singer, who lived in a segregated cottage on the far Eastside.  It was here that she taunted Tokyo Rose, the WW II propaganda queen, who lived in the same cottage that Mom did.  It was here that she was also befriended by Machine Gun Kelly’s wife, Katherine, who liked Mom and treated her like a kid sister—who gave her lipstick and sweets and food sneaked in from the kitchen, and who taught her little tricks in alteration.

It was also here that she experienced solitary confinement a few times, one of which followed a work assignment when the cottage matron ordered Mom to take steel wool and sandpaper to remove the finish from the front door, which was made of rich mahogany wood.  Mom refused to do so.  Said she:

“That door was so beautiful that I didn’t want it marred, and the matron had failed to tell me that, after I sanded, the finish would be restored to its natural beauty.”

So it is with the beauty of a soul.


Perhaps the beauty of my mother's soul has never been more fully developed than in her love for me, her only child.  I have always felt her unconditional love.  Always.  Even during the last year of her life between 2001 and 2002, when all else seemed so unsteady about me, I knew her love was constant, and this knowledge strengthened me. 

One of my favorite stories told by Mom is that of the day I was born.  She said that Dr. Massey, her obstetrician, stated that there was a moment during childbirth when he almost lost her.  Mom always chose to believe that he was speaking of the moment during delivery when, in her words, she “experienced a most peaceful, serene feeling of walking through a field of brilliant, blue [cornflowers].”  How reluctant she was to leave that field, but after hearing my infant cries, she was soon fully back again in the delivery room.

Mom loved God’s creations, especially flowers and plants.  Her apartment was filled with plants, some of which she attended to for coming on eight years.  She also loved to cook and feed people, being innately generous with her food.  Cooking and entertaining were among the greatest joys of her life—in latter years especially—for there was little else that she felt capable of doing for others.  She never had much to her name—Never!  But, what she had, she shared.  I know God loves her much for this most natural of divine qualities.

Mom tackled crossword puzzles every day until the day of her stroke in April 2002, which helped to retain her high degree of intelligence to the very end.  She appreciated the fine art of playing Scrabble, too, and cheated at it every sly chance she got.  She was generally witty, which naturally attracted people to her throughout her life.  And, how she enjoyed a good belly laugh!  Amazingly, she had no problem retelling the same amusing anecdote several times over, so as to laugh just as hard at the last telling as she had at the first!

She was one of the biggest flirts you ever did see.  In fact, during the last couple of weeks of her life in June 2002, she had to make another trip to the hospital.  Even in her weakened condition, and after six days without food, she kept eying one young fireman about 28 years in age who worked with several others to transfer her from the nursing home to the hospital.  She finally exclaimed to all present: “He’s cute!”  This made everyone laugh and brought a soft blush to the fireman’s face.

Tenderhearted to an amazing degree, Mom cried sweet tears of love and compassion many, many times, as when reading messages of love in cards and letters, either those written to her or by her!  She also cried when she was in a state of worry about sick friends, or even when a touching commercial was on.  She was, in essence, one big blubbering boob.  I think I inherited a little bit of the same from her.

Affectionately known as “Putt-Putt” by her friends at the Martin Luther King Apartments in Tucson, Arizona (for the scooter she rode everywhere she went), Mom became one of the landmark residents there during the last 10 years of her life.  This place was one of the most stable and loving homes my mother ever knew.  Faithful friendships were made and kept there.  And, too, the spillover of love and affection from some of my own beloved friends poured through Mom's life and heart in such a way as to finally help her to find her emotional home.  Constancy of love and affection for Mom finally, mercifully, rested with her in abundance as a senior adult.

I know that our Father in Heaven knows perfectly what it is that my mother faced in life.  True, she made a series of poor choices to contribute to her difficulties over the course of her nearly 74 years, which also served to create a chasm in her own heart between her and God for much of that time.  With empathy, though, I hope that we can all appreciate at least a little of how that kind of thing happens.  I especially hope that we will all strive to ensure that a similar fate does not happen to us.

I remain most confident in the teaching that our Father—our most tender parent—will measure out the greatest amount of grace and mercy possible to give my mother (and each of us), as well as the least amount of justice necessary to address any wrongs committed in the flesh.

My mother, Yvonne, was refined symbolically by steel wool and sandpaper all of her days.  She is as the choicest and richest of mahogany woods.  The natural beauty of her soul is real and deep and eternal.  It will be restored by the touch of the Master’s hand.

Rest in the knowledge of love abounding, dear Mother of mine.  May it—“the Wind Beneath Your Wings”—carry you to eternal fields of brilliant, blue cornflowers—where I should like to embrace you again one day.

Happy Mother's Day.

That Ol' Fam Damily! Winnie Laura Dragoo

Winnie Laura Dragoo is my maternal great-grandmother.  I have tremendous respect for her.  Though she bore significant hardships in life, she seemed to have done so with much strength and love.  I hope that, somehow, I might have acquired some of the same genes which were reflected in her general character.

Winnie and her sibling, Andrew, were born in the home of their austere-looking maternal grandparents, Nathaniel Wheeler Tobey and Winnie Adeline Dennis, in the Oakalla/Copperas Cove area of Burnet County, Texas. 

This was the same home that her mother, Melvina Tobey, was born. The stone house was built in 1885 by Nathaniel, being made of "Austin cut stone" (so emphasized by my great aunt, Elba Hollon Hunter), and still stands today across the road from the Tobey Cemetery.  I personally touched the stones of this house back in 2001 while on a 2-week family history adventure through Texas and Oklahoma.  It was thrilling!

Nathaniel Wheeler Tobey was an owner of slaves in that area, and he used them to clear trees from a significant portion of land that he owned in the nearby Lampasas Valley.  I viewed this piece of land myself and considered the heavy price paid by those slaves.  The land there is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen; how tragic that it should be marred by human servitude.  In prayer, whilst gazing upon that valley, I sought to honor the strength and fortitude of those slaves and hoped that the land might be considered a sacred monument to their many deprivations in life.

The Tobey family is from England, having sailed to the Sandwich Isles in the early 1600s.  (They have some kind of ties to the Mayflower that I still have to sort out).  The Dennis family descends from Ireland.  Winnie Laura's father, Andrew Crawford Dragoo, is of French descent.  Eventually, the Dragoo family ties to the religiously persecuted French Huguenots and King Louis XIV's Royal Navy, which one of my ancestors reportedly deserted by jumping ship.

Unfortunately, little is known of Winnie's life as a child or youth. While still a teenager, she taught school in the Oakalla, Burnet County, Texas area before marrying Edward Jesse Hollon in 1896 just before her 18th birthday. 

Winnie's wedding dress was lovingly made by her mother, Melvina.  The photo of Winnie here shows her in that very dress.  White lace was probably not considered very practical for life in the Texas plains in the late 1800s.

From Oakalla in Burnet County, the family traveled east to Cameron in Milam County so that the wedding might be legally licensed at the nearest courthouse.  Afterward, Edward and Winnie enjoyed a three-month honeymoon in a covered wagon -- hunting, fishing, and camping along the Brazos River.  They then settled into farming to make their living together.

Winnie and Edward were married for 21 years before melanoma cancer of the face took Edward's life.  During that time, they deeply loved and adored one another and had nine children together, including Redell (a.k.a. Reid) who was born 21 days after the death of his father in 1917.  (Click here to read my story about Edward and the great care Winnie offered him prior to his death.)

Being left alone to struggle with the raising of six of the nine children led to difficult times. In that fateful year of 1917, Inez (age 19) was wed, less than two months before her father's death.  J.D. (17), or "Bud" as he was called, either took care of himself or helped with the family's income.  Bonnie (15) had already been living on her own for about a year and was later married for the first time at age 16.  That left Winnie with MayDell (13), Lois (10), Helen (8), Tooter (6), Elba (2), and her infant son, Redell. By all appearances, she was very much loved by each of her children.

Following Edward's death, Winnie sold the two-story family dwelling in Velasco, Texas. Over the next few years, she moved her family within Texas from Velasco to Sweeney and later to Alvin. She then moved again to Wichita Falls and back again to Alvin, where she apparently bought another home.  Possibly between these latter two moves, Winnie Laura married Jack R. Lane in Wichita Falls in July 1922 (five years after the death of her beloved Edward).  Due to Jack's stingy and intimidating nature, the marriage was short-lived.  

The 1930 Census reveals that Winnie, at age 51, owned her own home (worth about $2000) and was the manager of a poultry farm! She was still raising the youngest two of her nine children at the time -- Elba (15) and Redell (12).  Winnie also maintained her profession as a nurse for 40 years. 

In 1942, Winnie moved to Corpus Christi, Texas. One known address is 2918 Koepke Street, which I attempted to visit back in 2001.  Unfortunately, the house no longer stands.
 

 Winnie and mother, Melvina.

They seem to have been quite tickled about something in this photo.

 Winnie in later years, standing in the cellar of the old Tobey homestead
where she, her brother, Andrew, and her mother, Melvina, were all born.

Winnie wrote the following creed in 1957, which had apparently guided her for many years:

My motto.

I don't worry about yesterday.
It's gone.
I don't worry about today.
I don't have time.
I don't worry about tomorrow.
That's gambling.
I can't live yesterday over and I can't live tomorrow today,
but I can be careful what I think and say.

Laura Hollon

Winnie was more commonly referred to as Laura throughout much of her life. In fact, her gravestone reads Laura Winnie Lane. However, her probate birth record lists her name as Winnie Laura Dragoo, as attested by her own mother, Melvina Tobey Amos.

Winnie is buried next to her namesake, daughter Lois Laura (my grandmother), in Grand Prairie, Texas. Lois preceded her mother in death by 7-1/2 years. Thus, it was by total coincidence that the last available burial plot in the open section of the cemetery was located next to Lois, which the family gratefully assumed for their beloved mother in 1964 when she died at the age of 86.

My only possessions of Winnie.  Two shoes, one porcelain and one pewter,
which Winnie had among her collection of little shoes, handed down to her youngest daughter, Elba (my great aunt), and then from Elba to me.
Winnie's five-year diary in also in my possession, given to me by Aunt Juanita, one of Mom's sisters (click to enlarge image).  The diary actually covered 1940 - 1942.  It was given to Winnie by her great-grandsons, Hollon and Randle.

Here is my ancestral line of women following maternal ties back to my 3rd great-grandmother.  They are as follows, left-to-right: Winnie Adeline DENNIS, Melvina TOBEY Dragoo Amos, Winnie Laura DRAGOO Hollon Lane, Lois Laura HOLLON Plaskett, Yvonne Derelys PLASKETT Hancock Sylvester (nevermind the rest of her names), and me -- Jacqueline Joyce HANCOCK.

That Ol' Fam Damily! JD Hollon

JD Hollon was born 30 March 1900 in Rogers, Bell, Texas.  The first-born son of Edward Jesse Hollon, JD was apparently named after his grandfather, James Deborah Holland--symbolically, at least.  Fortunately, the feminine name Deborah never stuck with JD.  In fact, the simplicity of those apparent initials were his full legal name! 

JD is what appeared on census records.  JD is the name he used to enlist for the draft during WW I.  JD is what everyone called him, unless they used his nickname "Bud."  (Everyone, that is, except his wife, Lillian, who must not have liked the idea of using initials for a name.  She decided his name should be Jack, and she was the only one who ever called him that.)

During WW I in 1918

JD was my great uncle, meaning that he was the brother of my grandmother Lois.  And while I've never met him, I feel particularly drawn to him for a variety of reasons.

First, I have just always had an impression that he was a good kid, which led to him becoming a good man.  Just the fact that JD went around life being called "Bud" says alot to me.  If he were a stinker, he couldn't possibly have earned the respect of the masses in being afforded the privilege of being called "Bud." 

Secondly, my heart tells me that he was very much like his father, Edward Jesse Hollon: industrious and hard-working; loving, kind, and affectionate as a husband; a helpful companion; playful and strong as a father and provider; and not given to endless self-pity or ridicule of self or others.

Third, during interviews with my great Aunt Elba (JD's youngest sister), I could just see her sparkle at the mention of his name and the recollection of memories involving him.  She was about 15 or 16 when he died, so it's not like she was too young to recall anything.  Elba just simply adored JD, and by the way she told things, you could almost feel the excitement still lingering in the air from when JD was around all those years ago.  People just really thought he was something else.

And, finally, I've simply had a spiritual tugging at me to pay attention to JD.  It's never been anything grandiose.  Never any whistles or papers flying.  Never any dreams.  Just some warm feelings continuing to fill me through the years, along with gentle, persistent reminders of the few images I've been given of the family JD left behind while in his prime.

It was the 10th of March 1931 in Houston, Texas.  JD was nearly 31 years old.

A brief newspaper clip tells the story:

". . . J. D. Holland, truck driver of Alvin, who was fatally injured Tuesday morning when his truck was hit by a Missouri Pacific passenger train on St. Emmanuel, near Texas. Holland died Tuesday afternoon in St. Joseph's infirmary. Holland was caught in the wreckage of his truck when it was hit by Missouri Pacific train No. 9, fast train from New Orleans. The train was backing into the station at a slow rate of speed."

The Houston Chronicle, Vol. 30, No. 149, pg. 1, Col. 5, and pg. 16, Col. 7. Wed., March 11, 1931. Repository: Houston Public Library, 500 McKinney, Houston, Texas 77002.

That's all that was said.  More details were given to the disposition of the train than to JD.  Within hours, the glorious boy who turned into a such a promising man was gone, and the remaining wreckage was emotionally incalculable.

A few years before he died, JD married Lillian Brooks and had two little boys.  The first one was named Jack and the other was named Billy.  Both grew to live full, long lives.  Jack was 86 when he finally passed away in 2007; Billy was 79 when he died in 2001.  No doubt, they longed for their father and what could have been but wasn't--some days more than others--during all those many years of living.  Lillian, too, must have ached for her husband, lost after far too few years together.

I would have loved to have known this man and his sweet family!

That Ol' Fam Damily! Edward Jesse Hollon

Edward Jesse Hollon was my maternal great-grandfather.  Facts about the early beginnings of his life are quite varied.  The date seems to be clear enough: 6 Feb 1876.  However, some sources state he was born in Alabama; others say Texas.  Some say his father was born in Georgia; others say North Carolina.  At least one report states that Edward was christened Baptist and that his father, James Deborah Holland (note spelling variation) was a plantation owner who brought his family to Texas when Edward was about six months old. While evidence of the nationality of James Deborah Holland has not yet been found, the last name strongly suggests his heritage. It is also said that Edward's mother, Martha Kinsel, was Pennsylvania Dutch.

As a young adult, Edward may have been a sharecropper. After marrying in the fall of 1896 at age 20, it is believed Edward and his nearly 18 year-old bride, Winnie Laura Dragoo (known just as Laura to most), resided for a few years in Temple, Bell, Texas.

Their Wedding Day

16 September 1896 - Cameron, Texas

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, rice was a dependable cash crop in Louisiana and Texas. Sometime in the early 1900s, Edward left his former living of picking cotton (possibly with Laura) and earned the position of Superintendent of the Kinchelo Irrigation Company in Wharton County, Texas. There, the Colorado River splits the towns of Wharton and Glen Flora, both of which are among birthplaces listed for a number of the children. Edward and his young family traveled from Texas to Louisiana sometime between March 1900 and June 1902, but only stayed for a short period before returning to Texas again.

Edward was Superintendent of the Kinchelo Irrigation Company
in Wharton County, Texas around the early 1900s.
There, the Colorado River splits the towns of Wharton and Glen Flora.

Winnie Laura Dragoo Hollon and Edward Jesse Hollon,
still very much in love.
They look to be in their mid- to late-30s.

While in Louisiana, the third child born to Edward and Laura was Bonnie Melvina (named after Laura's mother, Melvina). All eight of the other nine children were born in Texas. As Elba Hollon Hunter humorously recalls, in social circles, Bonnie often proudly revealed her uniqueness in being born in Crowley, Louisiana. (Apparently, Crowley, Louisiana was a booming area during this period. In fact, Dragoo and Tobey family lines are tied to Crowley along with the Hollon line.)

All Nine Hollon Children

Olma Inez (1898–1992)

J.D., or "Bud" (1900–1931)

Bonnie Melvina (1902–1985)

MayDell Jesse (1904–1990)

Lois Laura (1907–1957) -
MY GRANDMOTHER

Helen Lucille (1909–2003)

Edward A.C., or "Tooter" (1911–1995)

Elba Genevieve (1915 – )

Redell Pierce (1917–1993)

In addition to the areas lived in as noted by the children's birthplaces, Helen Hollon Andrews states that the family lived and schooled in Velasco, Texas while her father worked as Superintendent of the Freeport sulfur mines. (Edward's son, J.D., also worked at the mines during this period.) Considered part of the middle class at the time, the family rented a two-story, eleven-room home and is said to have purchased one of the first line of Ford cars built.

Referencing the period before Edward Jesse Hollon's death, daughter Helen states that her father was one day pumping water from the well near the family's house when the handle flew up and hit him in the lip.  Elba thought that the accident with the pump handle actually happened in one of the Kinchelo fields.  Whichever the true story, the lip did not heal, which prompted Edward to pursue medical advice and attention from a nearby doctor. He was sent to Marlin, Texas to seek relief for the injury through hot mineral bath treatments at the Majestic Bath House Sanatorium and Hot Well Pavilion. Unfortunately, the treatments were taken to no avail.

While at the Sanatorium, Edward wrote the following to Laura in a letter:

Marlin, Texas

January 3, 1917

Well my dear darling wife will drop you a few lines this morning to let you know how I am. I thought I would have got a letter from you this morning but did not get one this morning so will write you a few words and am sorry to say I am worse dear. I have to get operated on this evening. I think it is the only thing I can do. I am getting worse all the time. I can't sleep no more and am suffering death darling. I hate to write this to you but you said to tell you the truth but don't you be uneasy. I think it will be alright. When you go to bed tonight kneel down on your loving knees and ask the good Lord to help us darling. If you can pay day you had better send me a little more money for my money is getting low. Don't discourage the children. Try and show them the bright side all the time for I think I will be alright. Now darling I can't write much this morning. I feel so bad. I will try and write more next time. Maybe I will feel better then darling. Write to me often if I don't write. You don't know how proud I am to get your letter from home darling. You would not hardly know me I am so poor. I don't think I would weigh 140 pounds. I hate to look in the glass. Well I had better not tell you anything else for I know you have got enough to bother you now. Well I will have to close with a sad heart. Write soon and a long letter to your poor afflicted boy. Kiss them darling children for me and goodbye until we meet again and may God be with you all is my prayer.

E. J. H.

 
Edward also sought medical attention from the reputed Scott and White hospital in Temple, Texas. There, he learned that the freak accident with the pump was the unfortunate beginning of melanoma cancer of the face. Within the next ten months or so, cancer spread from his lip and ate much of his face, including his eyes, cheeks, and nose. Only his jawbone remained substantive. 

Laura cared for him constantly.  As Edward loved his children and wished to visit with them, Laura carefully worked to make him presentable by placing cotton in the cavities of his face.

Finally, at the age of 41, Edward died.  The date was 2 November 1917.  Twenty-one days later, Laura gave birth to their last son, Redell Pierce Hollon. 

Laura and her two youngest children, Elba and Tooter, traveled by train to attend Edward's funeral. Inez tried to make it in time, but weather and/or a washed-out bridge prevented her attendance. (Inez, age 19, was still newly wed to Pierce Barrow at the time of her father's death.)  It appears that not all of the children were able to make the trip, most likely because of the difficulty and expense of travel in those days.

Edward is buried in South Elm Cemetery near Buckholts, Texas, just west of C.R. 116 on 166A. The gravestones of James Deborah Holland and Edward Jesse Hollon stand tall at the front of the cemetery like sentinels. Edward's white gravestone is a "Woodsman of the World" marker and looks like a tree.

Postscript:  Back in 2001, I made a family history trek through Texas and Oklahoma that lasted about two weeks.  On a particular Friday, I spent an enormous amount of time researching the area where the Tobey homestead and cemetery are located.  As a result, I lost some much needed time to travel some 1.5 hours to the Cameron, Texas Courthouse to obtain copies of several old records and to identify the locations of grave markers that I needed, including the one pictured here belonging to EJ Hollon.  As this was a government-run business, if I didn't get these needed items by 5:00 pm, I would have to stay the entire weekend until opening time on Monday, or go without the desired records.

I arrived at the courthouse counter at 4:45pm.

After stating what I was looking for, and after not-so-patiently, but earnestly acknowledging that "Yes, I realize that you are closing at 5:00.  That is why I am in need of your assistance."--I was led to the records room.  I was told that most of the records I was looking for had burned in a massive courthouse fire.  I was deflated.  Some records remained, however, and so I was pointed to the journals for these.  Of particular interest, I scoured for any journal entry that showed evidence of the marriage of Edward Jesse Hollon and Winnie Laura Dragoo. 

It is not an easy process to find these old records.  The lady who had led me to the room kept asking me questions from the room next to mine, all the while as I was trying to concentrate on the task at hand.  "What was the groom's name?" and "What date did you say?" and "Did you say Dragoo was the bride's name?"  and  "Did you say you were a great-great granddaughter?" 

I thought, Criminy!  I only have 15 minutes, lady!  And I still need to get the cemetery locations!

And then I hear, "Ahhhhh . . . here it is!"  And she comes towards me.  I continue to look desperately for that blasted illegible journal entry, but she interrupts anyway.  She starts telling me that back in those early days, when couples were married, they either didn't have the luxury of time on their side to be able to wait for legal documents to be completed, or they simply didn't want to wait.  So, they would start their life adventure together, seldom returning to the county seats again for their marriage certificates due to the expense and harsh conditions of travel by wagon and horses.  Besides, in those times, other people took your word for it that you were married.  No one asked for legal proof.

"So," she said, handing me a piece of paper, "here is the original marriage certificate belonging to Laura and Edward.  They never returned to pick it up.  And, as you are a direct descendant, you are allowed to have it."

I was speechless and floored.  My eyes filled to the brims with tears.  I did not hug her, but I should have.  I was just too overcome with the enormity of the emotion of it all to even begin to know how to take it all in.  But every time--and I mean EVERY time--that I recall the fullness of the scene, my eyes fill with tears again, and my throat swells like it is doing now, and my heart expands beyond its previous bounds, finding room yet again for the gratitude that I felt then and now for the mercy and love of the Lord for each of us.

Truly, this work--this moving and redeeming Spirit of Elijah, has an indescribable way of turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, and that of the children to the fathers--even when we have never met!  I've felt it.  I know it happens.  It is real.  It is unconquerable, because all that would try to conquer it has already been overcome by the Savior of us all, even Jesus Christ.  It's just really quite amazing to consider when you take a few serious moments to reflect and remember.

That Ol' Fam Damily! Andrew Crawford Dragoo: Will He Ever Get a Headstone?

I've been trying to sort through the TOBY / TOBEY portion of my family line.  To my surprise, I learned that I have some sort of ties to Francis Cooke, Mayflower voyager.  More on that later if I find out anything WOWZA-like.  Researching this highly confusing, tedious, and prolific Toby line (26 children by one father, for example) is an exhausting process.  It is also one that necessarily must touch upon the the DRAGOO line as well.  In the process, I decided to write up one direct ancestor's life history as best I could. See what you think.

Perhaps some of you are not at all interested in family history stories.  If that is the case, skip this one.  Pearls and all that, ya know.  

Andrew Crawford Dragoo about 1906

He worked then on a ranch near San Angelo, Texas

I have a soft place in my heart for this nomadic ancestor of mine -- Andrew Crawford Dragoo. He is my great-great grandfather on my mother's side. In fact, he reminds me in a lot of ways of the lifestyle my mom and I led when I was younger, and I bet she would have really liked imagining things about him if we had sat down together to rifle through the few details discovered about him.

In sorting through these details, I have developed a better idea about who he was and have written them down so that SOMEONE will remember, even if that someone is only me. There isn't much to share, but what is here paints enough of a portrait for one to figure out some of the kind of life he lived, some of the sorrows he felt, some of the weight he carried, some of the troubles he imposed upon others, and maybe even some of what he might still be granted through the grace and love of another.

Andrew Crawford Dragoo was born in 1850 in Texas and appears to have never left Texas. When young, Andrew worked on ranches to support his sisters (or half-sisters), who were "boarded out."  Andrew was also the foreman of the Ford ranch at some time in San Angelo, Texas. He worked there for G. Rawley White. Dixie Stogner (of the Dennis line) also states that family stories discussed through the years declare Andrew was a gunfighter, known to many as "Doc."

Andrew married at age 27; his bride was 15. Trouble in the marriage arose quickly. Melvina "Viney" (Toby) Dragoo and Andrew Crawford Dragoo separated before their second child was born. The story passed down from Melvina to other family members is that while living at Oakalla, Burnet, Texas, and while their first child, Winnie Laura, was still a toddler, Melvina was pregnant. (Melvina would have been about 17 at the time, and Andrew Crawford would have been around 29.)

One night, Andrew had several of his men friends over to the house visiting, playing cards and gambling. After they left, Melvina told him that she didn't want them there at the house again if they were going to gamble; if they did gamble, she would leave him. Apparently, all this gambling had happened quite a few times before; in fact, Andrew seemed to have had a reputation for gambling that no one wanted to publicly acknowledge.

Well, a few evenings later, Andrew invited some friends back to the house and the gambling was repeated. True to her word, Melvina picked Winnie Laura up, went out of the house, and walked a short distance to the nearby Toby homestead. She stayed there with her parents, at least until her son, Andrew Nathaniel, was born.  It was in this Toby homestead that Melvina, Winnie Laura, and Andrew Nathaniel were each born.  This historic dwelling, built in 1875 by Melvina's father, Nathaniel Wheeler Toby, was still standing and being used as a home at this writing (in 2009).

When their daughter, Winnie Laura, was four years old (about 1882), Andrew and Melvina divorced.  Soon afterwards, Melvina married James Amos, a good man, and over time, bore another 10 children.  But, Andrew declared that he "never loved but one woman, and that was 'Viney'" and refused to remarry following his divorce.

He shifted around from relative to relative in West Texas.  The pattern was about the same wherever he went.  He stayed the longest with one nephew, Bill (son of William Dragoo) in the area of Santa Ana and Robert Lee in West Texas.  Then, after coming up for a "short visit" with his half-sister, Eliza Jane, Andrew ended up staying for two years.  He reported that he had no where else to go. At the time, Eliza was living with her daughter Viola and her family.  Later on, Andrew moved on to live for a while with Perry, the son of another half-sister, Minerva.

In 1937, Andrew Crawford Dragoo became so old and ill that his son, Andrew Nathaniel Dragoo, was asked to come and pick him up to take him back to Sinton, Texas. Nathaniel Osborn Dragoo (Andrew Nathaniel's oldest son) was chosen to go along for the trip. Andrew Nathaniel's wife, Sallie, was asked to be caretaker, which responsibility she assumed for the next two years before Andrew Crawford Dragoo's death in 1939 at the age of 88.

The informant for Andrew's death certificate was his son. Of interest, the certificate states that Andrew was a retired barber and that the principle cause of death was senility.  Andrew is buried in the Sinton Cemetery, Block 6, Lot 204, in Sinton, Texas.

He never received a headstone.  In its place, he was given a metal marker, which even misspelled his name as "Mr. Oragoo," rather than listing with some semblance of Andrew Crawford Dragoo.  One day, I hope to fix this wrong.

Divorce didn't keep everyone apart forever. 

Here is a family portrait in later years.

Winnie Laura Dragoo Hollon (my great grandmother),

Melvina Toby Dragoo Amos (my gg-grandmother),

Andrew Crawford Dragoo (my gg-grandfather),

and Andrew Nathaniel Dragoo (my great grand uncle).