remembering Uncle Harold Denny

Uncle Harold Denny  married my dad's sister Alma Atwood in 1926. They lived in a house that was given to them by Uncle Harold's mother when they married.  It was a block from the square in Comanche and Uncle Harold walked to his job as teller at the Comanche National Bank.  He walked home for lunch every day and back again.  He usually owned a Studebaker car which never got much mileage on it. He was a member of the Comanche Lion's club.  They attended St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Comanche every Sunday, where Aunt Alma was in the Altar Guild and Uncle Harold was on the vestry.

Uncle Harold's sister Aunt Coral Denny lived next door to his house.  Aunt Coral and Aunt Alma both had the cleanest, best smelling houses I ever entered.  I don't know how Aunt Alma did it because Uncle Harold smoked cigars. Mother said they cleaned with vinegar and "coal oil" which was another name for kerosene.


Uncle Harold always smoked cigars.  He and Aunt Alma always had copies of "Life" magazine which I would read when I went to their house.  And he had an old radio that had the most wonderful sound, especially the bass speaker.  It was rounded on the top and stood on the floor beside his chair in the living room of their house.

Uncle Harold liked to fish. He had an amazing collection of lures and fishing tackle.  He had a rowboat that he kept at Lake Eanes, which was the source of water for our town.  I remember being in the rowboat once with him when I got stung by a wasp of some kind.  He chewed up some of the tobacco   at the end of his cigar and put the tobacco on my skin to stop the stinging.  And it worked after a few minutes.

Aunt Alma and Uncle Harold believed in home remedies and almost never needed a doctor.  He had a relative named Dr. Gray who was our town physician for a while.  Once Uncle Harold got pneumonia and everybody thought he was going to die.  Dr. Gray put a long needle in his lung and drew out what Aunt Alma said was about 8 ounces or so of fluid from his lung.

She told me the story years after it happened of course. It was before I was born.  She said it scared her and Dr. Gray told her not to watch but of course she did.  Even though they almost never saw a doctor, Aunt Alma and Uncle Harold lived long lives.  And they always lived in that house on the Fort Worth Highway.  Uncle Harold's family had a lot of land. They were well off but they never let anybody know it.