Shakin' the Family Tree

I can only imagine it was great-grandma Maxie's idea to take photos of the Williams' family home in Russellville, and turn them into postcards.

So, in 1910, son Paul used one to write Mama from Little Rock:





Am leaving for H S (Hot Springs) in about an hour. Got here about 11.30. Stayed at Torrey House. Paul.


This is a Sepia Saturday post.

George Washington Burris, Sr., feeding the turkeys...I'm just going to guess that this may have been taken in the early to mid 1920s. If that's the case, then they had turkeys in town (Russellville), which would not be out of the question.

George Washington Burris, Sr. died in 1929.




This is a Sepia Saurday post.

Twenty years ago (or maybe a tad more), before I started tracking my ancestors in any serious way, I got a phone call from my second cousin.

He was one of my Balding cousins, the only son of one of my grandmother's brothers.

His father died in 1980, and his mom couldn't live by herself any more. Larry was packing up her house to move her to Tulsa where he lived and could keep an eye on her.

The call was to let me know he had finished the packing and there were some leftovers in the house - bits of furniture and memorabilia, and he wondered if my sisters and I might want some of it.

I said sure, and we made a date for the next afternoon. I called my sisters to let them know.

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I can't even remember now if my sisters accompanied me.

But I will never forget what I saw when I pulled into my aunt's driveway.

This portrait, leaning against the garbage cans on the curb.


Fred Chapin, 1858-1938

I grabbed it up as I went in the carport door. I gave it to Larry when I went in.

He looked at me. I told him I found it out by the trash. That's Grampa Chapin.

What he said just floored me.

Dee, that frame isn't worth anything. That's why it's out with the trash.

I may not know much about the monetary value of old portrait frames, but there's one thing I did know.

At that time, that portrait was 100 years old.

So...no Larry, we're not putting Grampa out with the trash.

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Grampa Fred Chapin's portrait has hung in whatever humble abode I have occupied ever since then.

I had a very interesting text conversation with my nephew today.

It's his 24th birthday and I texted him to wish him a happy one. We kidded back and forth about where his envelope full of cash was, and I told him I'd remember him in my will.

What he said just floored me.

When I die, he wants this portrait of his great-grandmother, Doris Geneva Balding, Fred Chapin's granddaughter.


Doris Geneva Balding Williams, 1907-1998

I think Grampa may have a new home...



This is a Sepia Saturday post.

I love this photo.

It's my dad with his grand Uncle Jeff and grand Aunt Margaret.




William Jefferson "Jeff" Burris, my dad, Margaret Jane Burris Moore

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I figure that photo was taken when Dad was about 4, so it was probably very shortly before Uncle Jeff died in January 1941.

Margaret lived until 1944.

George and Louise Burris must have made a trip from Arkadelphia back to Russellville with my aunts and my dad.

Like my grandparents, we had generational Burris photos in our scrapbooks for many years, too. Photos of me and my sisters at our grand Aunt Emma's house when our family camped not far from the original James Littleton and Adeline Burris homestead in Pope County.

A lot of those photos were lost in a 100 year flood in December 1982, when a freak tornado ripped through Arkansas and dumped a deluge of water across my ancestral homeplace.

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We camped on the homestead over 100 years after James and Adeline must have camped on the homestead while they were building their home.

As a kid, I couldn't appreciate that full circle of family history. I enjoyed fishing off the spillway for perch that Dad used to bait his yo-yos and trotlines, and I loved digging for worms beside Aunt Emma's chicken coop. Dad took me through fields that our ancestors had cleared long ago for planting and I was enthralled by the low stacked stone walls they built as they removed the rocks and loosened the soil for planting.

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A new cousin found me this week. We aren't sure yet exactly how close our kinship is, but as we compare notes and sources from our family trees, she is prompting memories.

Thank you, Shirley. I need to remember, and pass it on.

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The journey is good.

This is a Sepia Saturday post.

This is a photo of my step-grandparents, Paul Pettit, and Audria Maxine Brannon, probably around the time of their marriage in 1937.

I saw it when I was up visiting the folks last weekend, and they let me scan a copy with my little Flip-Pal.



Paul died in 1964, and Audria, in 2007. Both are buried in St. Joe Cemetery, just down the road from the Burris homeplace, in Pope County, AR.

This is a Sepia Saturday post.

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More unnamed and undated photos from the Williams family photo album.









This is a Sepia Saturday post.

Jo Desha and Maxie Leah Williams family, Christmas Day 1900
photo by McLeod, the Wild West photographer

Every time I see this one, I just dissolve into gales of laughter.

Can't you just imagine the dinner table discussion a couple of weeks before the holiday?

"Honey, what shall we do this year for Christmas? After all, it's the first Christmas of the new century."

Oh, I don't know. . .hey, why don't we get that McLeod guy to take a picture? We could dress up and go sit outside on some rocks."

"Marvelous idea, darling! And we could put Paul and Cedric on a couple of asses. They've been acting like asses for a few days now. It would serve them right. . ."

The back of the photo has an extensive ad for "McLeod, the Wild West Photographer. . . the man who made Happy Hollow famous the world over."

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This is a Sepia Saturday post.