Anne Flavia's first year

Anne was taking her first steps in this picture. She was about 9 months old.  Mother was visiting at the time, and what a good time we had!




Below is obviously her first birthday cake.
I am sure it was homemade; in those days I cooked for our family and would never have brought home a ready-made cake for her...

My best friend from second grade (we still get together)

This is my best friend Quay Williams...her name now is McCall.  The little photo at top is from our elementary school days.  Quay had a  wonderful playhouse in her back yard that we liked to play in.

In 1954 we were both in the All-State Orchestra and we had to have our pictures made for the high school annual.  We also were in some other organization that required head shots.  So after we posed for our formal pictures, we put on white shirts and ties over the formals for the second picture.  The photographer Mr. Profitt made this and gave it to us for a joke.  

In the lower left is Quay just before she went off to college. You can also see her in the wedding pictures I posted earlier; she was maid of honor at my wedding.  She made me a set of linen placemats and napkins that were hemstitched by hand.  What a gift that was, with all the things she was busy doing that summer!!!

The first of Hayne and Patsy's children

Our first child was born August 1, 1958.  She was ten days later than the schedule!!!  We named her Anne Flavia after my mother and Hayne's grandmother on his Waring side.

My mother came to Iowa City just before Anne was born to help out and she stayed until Daddy and Bill and Bob all drove up to Iowa City to pick her up and take her home.  

Then we started making plans to move to Buffalo, New York where Hayne's first teaching posotion would be, at the University of Buffalo.  For the move his parents came up and we rented a trailer to pull behind their car with our things in it. I don't think we had a car even then; I think we bought one in Buffalo later on.

Easter 1942 Mother, Daddy, Bill and Me

I found more photos from when Bill was a baby.  He was born when I was 4 and he looks to be about 6 or 8 months old.  So I was 4 or 5 years old.   It looks like we had a great old car with a running board.  I wish somebody would comment and tell me what model of car that was. 

my early school days

I started school in 1945 at West Ward School in Comanche.  After two days in first grade I was moved to second grade since I already knew how to read. So my teacher was Mrs. Dean.  The following year in third grade I had the principal, Mr. Brown for arithmetic.  We learned the multiplication tables that year.  My third grade teacher was Berta Goodson.

I LOVED SCHOOL!!!

My uncle Edward took this picture of me in the back yard of his home at the Atwood Hatchery in Comanche.  I hope you can click on it and see it large because I had a really happy smile that day.

Our first apartment, August, 1957

106 South Gilbert St. in Iowa City is the address of our first apartment.  Hayne and I were brought to Iowa City by his parents and he refused to carry me over the threshold.  There is a circle drawn in ink on our front door.  It was a tiny place.  The bed would only go one way in the bedroom.  I remember making a bedspread and curtains out of printed blue and white checked fabric. I made it by hand because we didn't have a sewing machine.

below is a picture of my good-looking husband at Easter of 1958.

The Marriage Certificate from St. Matthew's

In 1890 when Annie Barthel was courting by mail with John Barry, my great grandfathr, Anne was keeping books for the Dernette and Ohlmann Steam Laundry and Carpet Beating Works. Annie's best friend was the Dernette's daughter.

 These old illustrations show  the interior of a laundry from that day.

Uncle Bub

This is my grandmother Ruth Barry's brother Erwin.  He spent his entire  career in the Merchant Marine service.  He was younger than Ruth but older than Mable and Alvina.  He lived in Clarksville after he retired.

No one in the family never called him anything but Uncle Bub. .

The Reese clan in Dallas

Hayne's family lived at 6665 Lakewood Blvd. in Dallas.  Their house was built in the 1920's I believe.  It was two-story, with a fireplace in the living room and a butler's pantry between the kitchen and the dining room.  There was a sun porch where Marian Reese put the tree at Christmas. Sometimes she made a playground for all the grandchildren by taking the sofa cushions off the sofa and putting them on the floor so they could climb in and out of the sofa all day.

Here is a short slide show of photos Hayne made in the mid 1950's.  The children in the slide show are children of Hayne's sister, Marian Lou, and her husband, Percy Leucke.

Windy Hill at Christmas

After John D. and Frances Waring's plane crash in 1955, Frances continued to live alone at the farm for many years.  This is the Christmas photo she mailed to friends and family in 1958.

Honeymoon in Mexico

The going-away was hilarious.  Blocks had been put under the car and so when we tried to drive away it just would not move.

We drove to San Antonio where my dad had made reservations for us for the first night of our trip.  We had borrowed his Country Sedan station wagon and bought Mexican insurance through Joe Waring, who had also made arrangements for a state-approved guide during our stay in Monterrey.  His name was Rudy.  He had worked many times for the Warings and their friends from Comanche.

After all the wedding hubbub I was exhausted so of course I got turista right away.  Our hotel was the Ancira, which Pancho Villa had made famous by riding his horse into the bar once upon a time.  It was a beautiful old hotel with a lovely restaurant which I only enjoyed the first meal we had there.

The second night and a good deal of the next day I was suffering, and Hayne called on the hotel doctor, who prescribed a bottle of strange pills from the farmacia plus soda water and crackers.  Pretty soon I had recovered enough to start out again, and we went to the Carta Blanca brewery and also to Horseshoe Falls.  We visited a mine where the mine train in and out was still in use for the tourists.

Here are a couple of shots from the brewery.  Someday I will find the rest of the photos and post them here (I hope.)

My wedding in Comanche, 1957

The wedding was at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Comanche on August 24, 1957.  Bridesmaids were Frances Evelyn Atwood, Quay Williams (maid of honoe) and Kay Vanderpool.

I made my own wedding dress.  It was designed after a Givenchy dress from the Audrey Hepburn-Fred Astaire movie called "Funny Face" which was popular that year.

I also made Mother's hat and at the last minute, the wedding cake.  The Brownwood,Texas baker broke his leg a week before the wedding! So I made the cake and somebody in Comanche decorated it for me.

Hayne and Patsy Reese

Hayne and I met in the summer of 1956. I was still 17 years old. When he was in Comanche we spent a lot of our time together with Joe and Margaret Waring at their home at 501 West Wright St. in Comanche.

We both went off to school in the fall, Hayne to the University of Iowa for his second year of graduate school and I to Texas Women's University. We courted by mail and spent Christmas together that winter. In the spring Hayne gave me a ring and the announcement of our engagement was made in the Comanche Chief newspaper.

Hayne worked most of the summer at a Boy Scout camp in North Texas to save money for our wedding trip.  He taught water skiing at Possum Kingdom Lake.

Windy Hill Farm, Comanche County, Texas

It is about time to introduce the Warings and Reeses into this saga.  Here is a short movie about the Waring farm outside Comanche.  Hayne Reese was visiting them in the summer of 1956 and he came to church with them (they were his aunt Frances, Uncle John D., and their son, Joe.) Joe's young wife, Margaret Tate Waring, is featured in this video as well.


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TR Atwood as Band Director

This is what my father, Thurston Atwood, looked like when he directed the Eastland High School Band.

He was very popular in Eastland.

He was also popular in Comanche, Texas and in Mineral Wells, where the following newspaper article was written:



Dearest Mother,

We are having a wonderful time and this sulphur water is plenty hard to drink.

Love,
Thurston


Boy scouts had a camp in Glen Rose,  where Thurston went as a teenager one summer.

This is the Comanche, Texas High School marching band.  It was either 1955 or 1956 and I am in the color guard, the last person on the front row.

We practiced at 7 a.m. every morning for two weeks before school started.  When we could practice on the football field, we practiced marching 6 steps to 5 yards, which meant everybody stayed in line if they could keep up.

My dad designed the half time shows for the football games.  Nowadays there are computer programs for that.  We learned to play while marching, and had to memorize our parts so we didn't have to have those little clip-on music stands when we marched.

Carolyn Meyers, Quay Williams, Joyce McNutt, Bethel McDaniel, Patsy Atwood.  Color guard carried white wooden fake rifles and learned maneuvers with them.  I don't remember when we carried the flag, at parades I guess. 

postcard from Mama in California 1927



Los Angeles, CA
August 13, 1927

Dear Thurston,

Yes I certainly saw some big waves like these.  The tide was in both times I was down there  (more writing in pencil illegible)

Love

Mother

Papa Barry my great grandfather

Papa Barry married Annie Barry in 1891.  He looked very different in later years.  First picture above shows Donald my grandfather holding Clare Jean, Ruth Barry Ricketts, my grandmother, Papa Barry with Anna Louise (my mother) standing at left front with Elna, her sister, next to her. 

courtship letter from Maggie Atwood to Manning Atwood

Mr. Manning Atwood

Emporia, Texas

Dear Friend:

I received your most welcome missive day before yesterday & rest assured the contents was duly noted.

Mr. Atwood I was surprised at you speaking as you did, as I had never thought of such a thing as you thinking  anything of me only as a friend. But don’t think now that I am mad or anything of the kind, for I am not mad at all.  But if you wish me to say anything on the subject I will beg you to wait a while.  Mr. Atwood, I am not mad with you for mentioning such a subject to me but I would  rather you had waited a while longer. 

I don’t know when I can come up there. But maybe in this month or in the next if not this will try to come this month though.  If I don’t come by the 20^th of this month I won’t come at all until next month as my youngest married sister will be here then & I will have to stay with her.  As she is going to move to the panhandle the first of February & then I don’t know when I will see her again.

Mama wants to make her a visit before she moves and then I will have to stay here OU keep house. I will sure be lonesome then.

Mamie & I have been having a scrap.  She keeps meddling with things about the table U I have to whip her little hands much to keep her away.& when I whip her it hurts me worse than it hurts her.  But I have to do it or else be always after her to keep her out of mischief.

Papa told me to tell you he thanked you very much for your offer but said that those men here was depending on him & he could not give it up yet awhile & after he does give this (job) up then if you should happen to be out of a foreman he would be at your service.

I have not heard from Bro. Oscar King since about a month before I left Pickens & he was sick then.  We can’t imagine what is the matter that he don’t write..I have sent one of Mr. Kings pictures off to have enlarged; it will be here in a day or two. IK guess I am getting awful anxious for it to come.

I have written no less than a half dozen letters in the last 3 days & they was all terrible long ones & I am a little worried & have to write more this evening so I know you will excuse this uninteresting letter I will try to do better next time.

I will close now

Your true friend

Maggie King   Warren, Texas    no date.

Roy Rogers' autograph 1947

I was eight years old.  In those days I almost never missed a Saturday afternoon western movie.  Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with their music and adventures were my favorites.

So I wrote to Roy at the movie studio and asked him for his autograph.  He sent it right away.  I had been given an autograph book the Christmas before.  So I cut the autograph out and pasted it on a page in the book.  Others of my idols, (several school teachers, for example) also signed my book.  I still have it somewhere.

I happened to be in Vacaville, CA at the Roy Rogers museum when Roy passed away.  I picked a bunch of wildflowers and left them at the museum with a note about how much I cared for him and Dale.

Dale personally answered my note with a thank-you which I now have as well.  It is on the  back of a photo from her early days. 

Sputnik's trail

This is a photo of the satellite trail of Sputnik, the Russian spacecraft.  It is a time exposure made in our back yard.  It was printed on the front page of the Fort Worth StarTelegram and the Comanche Chief newspapers.

My father made this photograph and was very proud of it. Here is the letter he sent to me in Iowa City at the time.

Tuesday, October 22, 1957

Dear Patsy and Hayne,

I am enclosing a picture of Sputnik's rocket, which Bill and I took at 5:02 Sunday morning.  This is a time exposure of approximately 4 seconds while the rocket was directly overhead.  I feel very fortunate to obtain this photo.  To give you some idea of the orbit and the directions…the camera was placed on the rock walk halfway between the house and the back fence  North and South is across the long end of the picture.  The weak beginning and the curved tail are false impressions--due to too strong an action in opening and closing the shutter.

The direction of course, was from the northwest to the south east.  The rocket at this time was 39 minutes ahead of Sputnik.

Mother's parents, the RIcketts

This is how my grandparents looked late in their lives.  Grandmother RIcketts lived to be 90.  That is her in the first picture.  Second is Mother with them both, then Donald and Ruth in 1959, and last Grandmother in her own home in Hooks, Texas.

They lived for many years in a tiny house in Hooks because Granddaddy worked for the Red River Arsenal nearby.  By the time these pictures were made, he had retired.

Both were fond of me and treated me with respect.  Their home was small but they always welcomed as many of us as could squeeze into it.

Patsy Atwood at 12 with short hair

Uncle Ed took this picture of me the summer I was 12.  I never liked my hair short that I can remember.  The other photo made that day is from an earlier blog.

My grandparents' courtship

Not in the best of condition, but I do love this picture of Ruth (standing on left) and Donald, looking back over his shoulder at her.  Her smile shows the affection she held for him, I think.

Both women wear the large, unusual hats of the era which was 1912.  Ruth's hat appears to have an entire bird's wing applied to it on her left side. The bow on the friend's hat at right is unbelievable, isn't it?

family reunion, Mother's family that is.

Mother's family gathered in Austin at the home of mother's sister Elna and her husband Bronson Hanks in 1959.  Back row left to right: Raymond Gray, husband of Clara Jean Gray,  Elna Hanks, Bronson Hanks, Bill Atwood, Bob Hanks, Bill Hanks.
Middle row: Grandmother Ruth Ricketts, (holding in front of her Donnie Gray)  Clara Jean Gray, Mother's younger sister, Mother (Ann Atwood)
Granddad William Donald Ricketts,.
Front row:  Dale Gray, Patty Gray, Bob Atwood, and on the right, Ruth Ann Gray, standing, holding my first child, Anne Flavia Reese.

My brothers and cousins on Mother's side

My mother and her sister Elna both had two boys.  Elna named her oldest boy Bob and her younger son Bill.  My mother named her oldest boy Bill and her youngest boy Bob.

Left to right:  Bob Hanks, Bill Atwood, Bill Hanks, Bob Atwood.

This photo was made about 1959 in Austin at Elna's home at a family reunion.

outdoorsmen, early 20th century

I really am not sure where these two photos came from, except they were in the collection of my Aunt Mamie King Hansen.

But before I leave this time period I wanted to include them because I think they are interesting.

The car in both photos appears to be the same.  It may belong to Cecil Bellah, Aunt Mamie's first husband.