"I am a good mind to knock you in the head with this mop handle"

(Mama Atwood had her grown children living with her from time to time when they were struggling to make a living after the Depression.  One day she tangled with her oldest son Edward who was already married to Laura Fischer.)

****You know for over a week he had been eating on me.  And I didn’t like that and was mad because he grumbeled at what I had to eat Sunday.  So he was fixing to take Bud to Sipe Springs and I got through in the kitchen and went into the room where he was & he was sitting on the side of the (bed) with his feet in Laura’s lap & she pollishing his shoes.  I said Well I’ll be durned & Sat down like I was exasperated to death.  And told him I had never pollished my shoes where Frank Thurston Harrold or Jack Rambo was and here he was having his wife pollish his now I am compairing you to Jack Rambo.  He didn’t say a thing.

Laura is doing Ruth's work including Washing & Ironing with mine thrown in for their board.  And the folering day after I told hiim the above I was down on my knees mopping the dust up under the radio and it was playing.  He was just getting up and told me twice to tell Laura to come there.  She was out in Ruth’s kitchen busy.  

I reached up and turned down the radio so I could hear him.  And said what he said never mind rough like and called her and told her to give him his pants.  and when he did I let out on him.  I said I am a good mind to knock you in the head with this mop handle.  The idea of a lazy man calling his wife away from her work to get anything within four steps of him.  and that he wasn’t reared to have anyone get his things for him.  He just looked up at me and said he didn’t know where they was.  

But I told him  he had an Idea where they was.  See he had just told me his old weak mother to get up off her knees and go tell her.  I said nothing about that though.  But if Frank or Thurston had heard him they would have told him to wait on himself.  Well anyway, he helped Laura that day dried dishes etc. and got out and worked in the yard and watered flowers etc . and has worked some every day since even to trying to saw down one of those big mesquite trees with a hand saw.

Edward quits going to school 1924

(Edward was the eldest child of Manning and Mama Atwood.  He was Mamie's half-brother.  He was a very successful businessman and lived in Comanche most of his life.  His business was the Atwood Hatchery.

Mama wrote her very often about her life with the rest of her brood.)

I can’t for the life of me see why I can’t make or get Son to go back to school.  He got mad because I wouldn’t let him go right that evening & get him a pair of trousers & I can’t get him to go back at all.  I have offered to get him pants and even told him to go & let Gille measure him for a suit & he won’t do it.   

I met one of his teachers yesterday & she said he was passing in every thing & is just simply brilliant in science or chemistry, one or the other I forgot which.  It absolutely is worrying me to death nearly.  Dad seems indifferent about it.  But if I was big & strong enough I wouldn’t worry one bit I would whip him & make him go or put him out to hustle his own grub one or the other.   Well I must close

Lots of love      Mother

a few days later:

I received your letter and check today and am now returning check as I Positively cant get or make him go to school . I dont know what is the matter with him he just gets right bull headed when I speak about it.  so I have about give up if he wants to dig ditches and the like all his life, I can’t help it. he is old enough he ought to realize the value of an education and he is too large for me to whip & make go.

The Three Atwood Brothers

Thurston and his brother Frank "Watt" Atwood made a trip in the 1980's to Everett, Washington near Seattle.  They went to visit their older brother Edward, who had moved there around 1976.  I believe they enjoyed their time together; it was the last time all 3 brothers were together in their lives.

The Atwood clan 1928 Thurston standing right

Edward

Frank "Watt"

Thurston never stopped clowning around with his brothers.  His favorite nickname for Watt was "the swamp rat."

Edward Atwood, TR's oldest brother

Here are two photos that show my dad Thurston with his eldest brother Edward.  I am pretty sure they were made in Comanche at Lake Proctor park.

Margaret Reese is in the first picture with her plate in her hand.  Often in the early 1970's TR and Ann Atwood would take all 3 kids camping.  Lake Proctor was one of their favorite places to fish and camp.

TR and Ann had a camper or a trailer for a long time and really enjoyed their camping trips.

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

A gathering of the Atwoods and their extended family iin 1928

On Mothers Day in 1928 the whole Atwood clan gathered at Mama and Papa's house in Comanche, Texas.  Atwood men at top are l. to r. Thurston in his Boy Scout uniform, Manning "Papa" Atwood, Edward Atwood and Watt Atwood, whom my father Thurston referred to as "the swamp rat."

Below is the photo of the whole group.  First Papa and Mama in the back row, then Frank "Watt" next to Ruth "Zamp" in the center.  The woman holding the baby boy is Alma Atwood Denny with her son Cleve B. Denny.  Thurston is the last one in this line.

In front left to right is Harold Denny, Alma's husband, Hipp Arthur with his first son John Manning and beside them is Ernestine Atwood Arthur.  Edward the eldest son is on the right seated.

Manning and Maggie's children

Manning and Maggie Atwood's first child was named Mable. As far as I know we don't have any pictures of her. When she was two years old Maggie took her to visit Maggie's famiy. While she was there they both became ill; Maggie lived but Mable did not.

Aunt Ernestine told me that Maggie never went to visit to her family again. 

In 1902 Manning and Maggie moved to Comanche, Texas where they lived out the rest of their lives in the same home, at 415 East Grand Avenue. .

Here is a photo of their first 4 children, plus Mamie who is standing at the back. The seated child on the right is Sammie, who lived to age 12. The little infant is Edward, their first boy, whose nickname was "Sonnyman."  Standing at left is Alma Janice Atwood.  At right is Ernestine. Ernestine told me that Maggie made every stitch of the clothing all 5 children wore in this photo. After this picture was made Maggie and Manning had three more children, Watt, Ruth, and Thurston, who was my father.