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 . . .

Good Intentions

This is, of course, my first posting to my blog. My primary intention here (although it may not be my only intention) is to begin posting much of the family history that I have collected the past thirty years. It's hard to believe it's been that long since my grandfather, Woodrow McQueen, let me take a file of family history on the McQueens home to look at. (Much of this information came from the early research efforts of Rosemary Hill and Jackie Barclay Barnes who had contacted my grandfather inquiring what he knew and remembered about the McQueen and Barclays of Tyler County, Texas.)  I devoured the information and very quickly, on three sheets of posterboard, detailed from myself back nine generations to Dugal McQueen.


James Polk McQueen Cabin
Birthplace of Woodrow McQueen, b. 1915
Tyler Co., TX
picture taken 1986

Since then I have published two books on my family history which are still in publication through Gregath Publishing Company. The first was Metes & Bounds:  Dugal McQueen and Some Descendants.  The second was Metes & Bounds:  David Crews, Ancestors and Descendants.  I have an unpublished history on the Hechlers (my Dad's side of the family) and I have files and files of scattered pieces of information on my family as well as other families which intertwine my own.  I have traced back both officially and unofficially lines farther back than nine generations on several branches. Much of this information is too scant to be put into a book as I did the McQueens.  However, I want this information to be available to my family as well as others researching those lines.

Family, both past and present is very important. In the olden times, families sat around in the evenings and retold stories about the family. In the intervening years, it was done by books such as I have written. Now, I am using the internet to keep these stories alive.

Feel free to spread the word to other family members as I get going on my blog!