more from 1945-53

these are all photos I took with my Brownie Hawk-

eye camera.  It was a Christmas gift from my parents

in 1945.

Mother with little Bob and Bill taken by me

Bill with Daddy Christmas 1945

Aunt Ruth's little girl Susan

Aunt Ruth Lundy, Daddy's closest sister

                                       

More about Bill

 Bill and I had the usual big sister-little brother squabbles.  We had a lot of fun and adventures together, too.

The picture on the left was made in the yard of a house we had in Eastland when Daddy was band director there.  It was very near the lake and had a concrete bathtub.


Bill's third grade school picture is below that.  And next to it another copy of the picture of Bill on Mama Atwood's front steps with her dog, Rico.

 

In the right hand photo here Bill is sitting on the fender
of our dad's 1951 Chevy.  It was white and had lots of chrome.
When I started driving I crashed that same fender onto the
rock gates at Comanche cemetery.

Bill Atwood my brother

My brother Bill (William Thurston) Atwood was born when I was four years and four days old. The first thing I remember about him was visiting in the hospital where he was born in Gorman, Texas and seeing his little feet with black ink on them where his footprints had been put on his birth certificate.

here's Bill at 2

Here"s a snapshot of my brother Bill Atwood taken by my Uncle Ed.  It was made in the little house that Uncle Ed and Aunt Laura had next door to their hatchery in Comanche.  I think Bill was 4 years old.

The four of us

About 1944 we had a family portrait made of the 4 of us:  Thurston (my dad) me, Anna Louise (Mother) and little Bill.  Daddy's family called him "Bill" most of his life; I am not sure why.  But when my brother William Thurston came along everybody called him "little Bill."

I am sure Mother made the dress I am wearing here. It was made of some kind of sheer floral print and I think it was my Easter dress that year.  She made most of my clothes; after her workday and her housekeeping, she would stay up nights sewing clothes for us.  

The Horsey Swing 1943

This picture with Bill on the horse swing is from 1943. It was Easter and he was about 7 months old. I am on the left and Mother on the right.  I was four and a half years old.

That swing was really something.  It was really my swing, given to me by Uncle "Watt" Frank Atwood, Daddy's middle brother who lived in Tyler.  He had made one for my cousin Frances Evelyn (his little girl) and decided to give me one just like it.

 The horse swing was made of wood lumber which had been sanded and painted.  It had four ropes with foot pedals as well as hand bars as you can see, so it could be pumped with hands and feet together to go quite high.

I don't remember this dog.  But I do remember at one time we had two dogs named "Butchface" and "Cookie"  and they would eat out of each others' bowls. 

Snow in Comanche January 1943

On January 2, 1947 Aunt Laura wrote in her letter to Aunt Mamie:

"we are having the most beautiful snow.  It started New Years Eve and the forecast for tonight is more snow.  We (Ed and Laura) are carrying water to the chickens three times a day for three days so far."

We lived nearby Ed and Laura's place that year. Snow was and is so rare in Texas.  It was huge fun.  Here are a couple of pictures from that day. In January 1947 Bill was 4 and a half and I was 8 and a half.  Our birthdays are 4 days apart.

Uncle Ed and Aunt Laura

My father's oldest brother was named Edward Beverly Atwood.  Everybody just called him Ed. He married Laura Fischer, a lady of German extraction who was from the hill country of Texas.

Uncle Ed and Aunt Laura when they married around 1934

They spent their lives building and running a chicken business called the "Atwood Hatchery."

It was located on Highway 16 north of Comanche, Texas.

When I became a teenager I had a job in their hatchery taking chicks out of the incubators.

When I stayed over at their house I thought it was funny that Uncle Ed blew his nose so loud.  

Aunt Laura and I joked that he could "wake up the chickens."

A Christmas card from the hatchery about 1947

My mother's working life

Above is my mother's high school yearbook picture.  She graduated in 1931 at the age of 16.

Right away she went to work as a stenographer in the office of her father and his brother in Sherman, Texas.

Ann was a fast typist and even faster at shorthand (taking dictation the old-fashioned way.)  She sometimes wrote her notes to herself in shorthand.  Mother never had to ask for a job in her life.  

She was always in demand for her office skills.  She worked for Doctor Stout's clinic in Sherman where I was born. She was stenographer at the county welfare office in Comanche where my aunt was a caseworker during the 1950's.  She ran the office of Jake Varnell, attorney-at-law in Mineral Wells, Texas when my father went to work teaching school there.  And eventually she was secretary to the city manager in Mineral Wells.

My mother's aunts, Alvina and Mabel Barry

Alvina was a sister of my grandmother Ruth Barry.  She married "Van" Vanderpool about 1930.  

This is Papa John Barry with Alvina and her boys Johnny and Bobby in front.  She is holding her youngest, Kay Vanderpool.  On Papa Barry's left is Mabel Barry, the youngest sister of Ruth and Alvina, with her daughter Anne Clare.

607 Broadway in Clarksville

Clockwise from top left: Elna Ricketts, Grandpa John Barry, Anna Louise (my mother) and Clare Jean Ricketts in front of the family home at 607 Broadway in Clarksville. 

In  1990: Me, my granddaughter Margaret, and Mother (Anna Louise Ricketts) sitting on the steps of the house at 607 Broadway.  This house burned to the ground about 3 years after this photo was made.

Patsy Ann Atwood (me)

  This is how I looked at age 2 or 3.  I was my daddy's little darling as you can see.  Butter would not melt in my mouth.

In 1942 my baby brother Bill arrived on Sept. 13.  I was delighted to see him. The picture below was taken in our back yard.

I had a baby doll with a composition head and hands.  The body was cloth and it had a __ma-ma" cry inside it until I took it out one day.
The doll's name was "Dolly Dimples" and I still have it today.

Monkey Island

  My parents souvenir photos from "Monkey Island" wherever that is.  These were a huge source of amusement for me and my brother Bill every time we got out the family photo album.  We couldn't believe our parents could have been that silly!!!!

My first year

I was Thurston and Ann's first baby, born September 9, 1938.  Mother never had a formal portrait made of herself with me, but there are a handful of snapshots from that time.

For the first years of their marriage Thurston and Ann lived in south Texas, where he was sent by Texas Power & Light Company to sell appliances. Some of the  towns we lived in were Flatonia, Refugio, and Aransas Pass.  Mother was happier then than at any time in her life, she told me.  

The little dog in the lower picture was named Frito.  That's right....because she loved the little corn  chips that were already being sold, in some parts of Texas, in 1938.

Donald and Ruth about 1954

 Ruth and Donald had three daughters:  Anna Louise, the eldest who was my mother,  Elna, and then Clare Jean.  In this picture Donald have two of their grandchildren between them.  They are both children of Clare Jean.  The taller girl is Ruth Ann ("Cookie") and the little girl is Patty.  

I think this picture was probably made in the 1950's.

Devil's Den outing 1927

Around 1927 or so, Donald and Ruth Ricketts took their girls on a vacation.

They went to a park in Arkansas called "Devil's

Den."  With them were a large group of friends, also Donald's brother Sam and his wife Ruby, and their two girls, Ona Mae and Marian.

In the photo of the large group, my mother Anna Louise is seated in the far left corner of the picture.



In the second picture at left, where Anna Louise is in the center, the couple on the left is Sam and Ruby Ricketts, and the couple seated on the rock are Ruth and Donald Ricketts.





Seated on the rock below are some friends and cousins.  On the far right is Anna Louise, in front of her is her sister Elna.

Among the bathing beauties in the picture below, Anna Louise is second from left.

on a country road....

Country road on what looks like Sunday afternoon in Red River County.  Left to right:
Elna, child of Ruth and Donald Ricketts, Alvina Barry, sister of my grandmother Ruth, and Mabel Barry, second sister of Ruth.  On right is Anna Louise Ricketts, my mother.

My grandparents Ruth and Donald Ricketts

My grandmother Ruth fell in love with Donald Ricketts, a shy but steady country boy.  He never supported her in the manner she was accustomed, but she stuck with him through thick and thin.

They married in 1913 at the first Presbyterian Church in Clarksville.  That church building is still standing, and the largest stained glass window is from the Barry family.  On their wedding day it began to rain, so Ruth threw a sheet over her head and dress, and walked across the street to the church.

My grandfather William Donald Ricketts

My grandmother Ruth Barthel Barry

             

the three Ricketts brothers

Donald and Ruth during courtship

Ruth and Donald on the left

Donald sweeps the sidewalk in front of the Barry home

the wedding invitation

Wedding Gifts on wedding day