The Desk Needs a Friend

“Old empty chairs are not empty in reality; memories always sit there!”

― Mehmet Murat ildan 

Houston. We no longer have a problem.

The desk has a chair.

Now, I have had the desk for years (except for a few years my uncle had it in between when I first had it and now).  It was the first piece of furniture my grandfather, Woodrow McQueen, made. When I was a little girl, it sat in the corner of the bedroom of my great-grandmother Annie Lee Whitehead McQueen's house in Tyler County. I was told she would sit and write and read letters there every morning.

When she died, the desk came back to my grandfather of course.  He had no use for it, so he passed it on to my mom. Later, I somehow came into possession of it.

It is old. Woodrow McQueen was born in 1915, so if he built it when not quite twenty years old, it dates to about 1935. And, as long as I have had it, it has never had a chair.

Woodrow McQueen at Texas A & M University

I am not certain why I got a bee in my bonnet to get it a chair recently. I just realized one day, while looking at it, that it was missing something.

A chair.

That, I knew, was going to be hard. The wood has darkened and aged to a brownish black color. And just what sort of chair would actually go with it?

Well, last week I was wandering around Goodwill, and there it was. The perfect chair. It looked old. It had an aged, brownish black color. It had fancy spindles and a little cushioned seat. It was only $8.

So you are right - I snapped it up.

One of these days I might sand the desk and stain it. I think it would be nice to bring it back to its original golden brown color. I will do the same to the chair (and we are going to hope that they match well enough).

Until then, the desk is no longer lonely, and the chair has a new friend.

Except I do now wonder - who exactly sat in this finely-crafted, blue cushioned chair . . .

Throwback Thursday: Letter from Urah Whitehead to Anna Lee McQueen, 1919

Urah Whitehead as a young boy.

Today, for Throwback Thursday, I am sharing a letter from Urah Whitehead to his sister Anna Lee Whitehead McQueen. I previously shared a postcard from Urah to Anna Lee that you can see here.

Today's letter is dated the 4 March 1919 and is only about two weeks before the postcard was sent.

Although Scott McQueen would later go to work for the Gulf Oil Pump Station, at this time he was still living on his father, James Polk McQueen's property, probably in the log cabin, and was farming. Undoubtedly the rain hit them hard that year. As for the "babies," Urah is undoubtedly referring to Russell McQueen, aged 9, and Woodrow McQueen, aged 4. (Daughter Dagma had not yet been born.)

The full transcript of the letter is below.

Flagny, France

March 4, 1919

Mrs. Anna Lee Mcqueen

Chester Texas

dear Sister. I recd your letter to day. Was sure glad to hear from you all again. I was sure glad to know you all were well. Well Sister I know you all did have a good time with all the games and singing at your house. Gee but how I do wish I could have been there to heped you spread some Joy. Tell teh Babies that was sure sweet hello's they sent me. Well Sister you said you all were having so much rain over there that you all couldn't hardly do any thing. it very seldom ever ceases raining over here. I have been over here now very near eight months and we have not had as high as three days right straight a long with out it didn't rain some. Well Sister I don't know I am coming home but I guess it be some times this summer. I am well. i must say good-bye. With much love and many kisses to you all from your Bro in France 

Urah Whiteehad

36.M P. Co.

A. E. F.

A. P. O. 796

Thursday Throwback: 1919 World War I Postcard, Urah Whitehead to Anna Lee Whitehead McQueen

For Thursday Throwback, I am sharing a postcard found in an old trunk of my grandfather Woodrow McQueen. He inherited the trunk from his mother and my great-grandmother Anna Lee Whitehead McQueen. 

This postcard is from her brother Urah Whitehead and is dated March 25, 1919.  At the time, Urah was serving overseas in World War I. He was twenty-five years old at the time, having been born on 11 January 1894 in Caney Creek, Texas to Robert E. Lee Whitehead and Joanna Frances Martin (1). 

The front of the postcard is a picture of Lamalou-les-Bains which is a town in the Occitanie region of southern France. There are hot and cold waters nearby that are said to cure cases of rheumatism, sciatica, locomotor ataxia, and nervous maladies. 

The back of the card read thus:

dear Sister 

I am here in Lamalou-Les-Bains on a 7 day furlough. There are some wonderful sights here this is in South _____ France. I am  your brother - with love Urah Whitehead. 

Urah made it home from the war. He died on 12 October 1979 in Livingston, Polk County, Texas (1). 

It is pretty amazing this has survived now for 97 years. Kind of humbling to say the least. 



SOURCES:

Ancestry.com. Texas, Death Certificates, 1903-1982 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.

The Joy of . . . Soap?

Occasionally I cross post articles from my author blog to my genealogy blog and back. This is one such article. The original can be found here: https://donnahechlerporterbooks.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/the-joy-of-soap/ and was first published on December 8, 2016. 

I really should get out more. I should probably shop more. (But I probably won't.)

I know this to be true since the most exciting thing that happened this past week (except for the cat dangling by one foot from high in the Christmas tree) was finding out that The Vitamin Shoppe not only carries Dr. Brommer's Castile Soap, but that Dr. Brommer himself (is there such a person?) has rose scented liquid soap.

My heart nearly left my chest. I can not tell you how thrilled I was! This was even more exciting than finding the aisle with the soap only to realize that they had more than the overly large size which was the only size HEB carried. So, when I found the rose soap, I was already riding  a high since I was not going to be forced to shell out $10 for a bottle of soap that lasted me months.

Of course, by now I am certain you are thinking, between me and my nutty animals at the house, that I have lost my last marble.

Or, my last bar of soap.

Actually, the answer is simpler and more mundane than that. You see, my paternal grandmother, Eleanora Ressler Hechler, always had the smell of rose soap in her bathroom. Although, I must admit that I was not aware of the scent until several years ago. I was somewhere doing something (maybe a rare shopping trip?) and I smelled soap (or something) that smelled just like her bathroom.

Since then, I have been on a small quest of sorts sniffing soaps and other smelly things for the smell of a rose scent. 'Tis not been easy. For some reason, this is not a scent that is used much these days.

I do love having small reminders of my family around me - my antique hutch that belonged to my great-grandmother Lily Corinne Gray Griswold, my antique traveling trunk that belonged to a Whitehead or McQueen and probably came from Tennessee or Louisiana (or further parts unknown), the dresser that belonged to my great-grandmother Anna Lee Whitehead McQueen, as well as dishes, butter molds, and on and on.

But smells? Well, those are different, and they are very powerful for pulling forth memories and feelings of past events.And yes, for some reason when I smell the scent of rose soap, I am taken back, albeit briefly, to not only my grandmother's bathroom, but to a simpler time when I was a child with few cares and my grandparents were still around.

In the case of rose scented soap, I am reminded for just a minute, no matter how brief, of not only my grandmother's bathroom, but the glass knobs on her doors, the lace curtains that lifted and waved inside the living room as the wind caressed the house, her large rooms with wooden floors that my feet pounded on as I ran through the house. And of course, there was her voice yelling at me not to run, and then as I headed for the door her admonishment to grab a scarf to keep my ears out of the wind.

Yea, I am strange. Who could get that much from the smell of rose scented soap?

Maybe my animals are not the only nutty ones around here.

Maybe it's a good thing I'm a writer, so I can put that over active imagination, er memories, to good use.