I love it when little details come together. They start to knit together that third dimension of my ancestors and other family members.
See, that third dimension is important to me.
Genealogy purists would say that I am not a genealogist. There's much more to my family tree than just who married and begat whom, and what year they did that, in what location, and which piece of paper I have to back that up.
Check.
But dead people don't have to be - and were not in life - two dimensional.
Flat, ya know.
A very neat thing happened this morning.
I slept until I woke up (I love those days), and then I got coffee, a cigarette, fed the cats, and fired up the laptop.
I had the coolest email from my cousin. (I know, I am dating myself by saying something was
cool, but go with it, okay...)
She scanned a bunch of the things her mother had given her related to our family history, in particular, our grandfather,
George W Burris, and sent them to me.
They are *way* cool, and help to flesh out our (respective) third dimension of our grandfather.
Both of us knew Granddaddy when he was still living, and each of us has detailed remembrances of him. And naturally, both of us are pumping our own parents for their remembrances of their father.
And so we are seeing the evidence of the stories that Granddaddy was a licensed school teacher, and a licensed attorney in Pope County.
He was.
He was licensed to teach for 1912-1913.
He got his license to practice law in 1917.
I don't think he ever used either one to make his living.
But still.
I had always heard that, but only that he was licensed to practice law. Not about the teaching.
Our grandfather evidently placed a high degree of emphasis in acquiring knowledge.
Maybe he viewed both of these licenses as opening the door to other possible careers if necessary.
Maybe not. Maybe he just liked learning and wanted to see if he could get the licenses. I know people like that.
Whatever the case, he valued education. According to one of his daughters, the reason he decided to live in Arkadelphia when he returned from Panama was education.
He hoped to marry and raise a family. If they lived in Arkadelphia, his children would have easy access to either of two colleges in the town, Henderson State College, and Ouachita Baptist.
So Granddaddy was also very much a big picture guy...
Part of my delight in receiving the email from my cousin was a two page letter to Granddaddy from Lee, written in 1950, and talking about their time they worked together at the Post Office in Russellville. In 1910.
Lee was writing the letter to help Granddaddy gather information to complete an application for retirement from the United States Postal Service.
Granddaddy was trying to get credit for the time he worked at the Post Office before it became a civil service job. Lee was supplying him with an affidavit, saying he worked with George also in 1910 at the Russellville Post Office.
Page 2 of the letter...
So I am sitting here, at my
grandma's table, thoughtfully sipping coffee, and thinking about Lee.
Who has to be Lee Jones.
Who appears in at least two of my family photographs, one at
the Russellville Post Office, and one family photo of a bunch of Burris men at the G W Burris, Sr home in Russellville about 1915.
Lee's the guy to the far left, wearing the dark suit.
So Lee must have been important to my family. He had a connection with Granddaddy that lasted at least 40 years.
Kinda like part of the family.
Yep.
Just like family.
Robert Lee Jones was Granddaddy's first cousin.
Lee's mother was Margaret Jane Burris, sister of George Washington Burris, Sr. Margaret married Cass Jones on 20 Dec 1874 in Pope County. Robert Lee Jones was born 29 Jan 1889 in Appleton, a little community in Pope County. (He must have preferred his middle name - I've never heard him referred to as anything other than Lee.)
Lee died in Sebastian County on 28 Jul 1957, seven years after he wrote his 1950 letter to Granddaddy. He is buried in Forest Park Cemetery in Fort Smith, AR.
Now I have to try and figure out if he married and had kids. If there are descendants, they may want some photos.
And they may have some, too...
The journey is good.
