52 Ancestors #7 Maria del Patrocinio Quinteros Mendez de Aguirre

Maria Quinteros de Aguirre, circa 1940

I was only five years old when my pater-
nal great aunt Mary passed away in 1975, but I do remember her a little, although what I remember most about her was the funeral. It was a Catholic service held at the old Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church (which was later remod-
eled) in Temple so there was a lot of kneeling, but I grew up hearing stories about my father's paternal side of the family so I feel that even though, I was very young when she died & there are very few memories, I do know her a little.

Her baptismal certificate in the Parish of Santa Elena de la Cruz records that she was born in El Fuerte, Rio Grande, Zacatecas, Mexico to Rafael Quinteros Torres & Domitila "Tila" Mendez Anguiano. Whereas the births of their two older sons were registered with the State of Zacatecas (in accordance with the 1867 Mexican law stating that all vital statistics must be registered with the state in addition to the local parish church registries), I have never yet found an entry for her. Maybe they went to a different parish like La Salada or Rancho Grande to register it & I have yet to find it or perhaps the Mexican Revolution interfered with them fulfilling this requirement. Mexico was only two years into the Revolution & the family may not have wanted to call attention to them-
selves since Rafael was serving as a horse wrangler with Emiliano Zapata. (Their next child, a son who would later become my paternal grandfather, would be born in Belton, Bell Co., Texas).

Baptismal record of Maria del Patrocinio Quinteros Mendez, daughter of Rafael Quinteros Torres & Domitila "Tila" Mendez Anguiano

On 1 December 1920, when she was seven, her father Rafael moved her & her family to Texas. They were originally supposed to go to California where it is believed they had family, but they set out it the wrong direction when they left Eagle Pass, Texas. The Eagle Pass Manifest records them passing through Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico & lists their entire family. There is also a passport that states that their intentions were to travel to California. My grandfather said that they took a train to reach the border & had to do so covertly because the Revolution was just ending & the Federales were looking for former Zapatistas (followers of Emiliano Zapata). Rafael had a friend who was a train engineer who helped hide Rafael & his sons in the coal car. He put Domitila & her daughter Maria up front in the engine with him & when the Federales stopped them to inspect the train, they questioned the engineer about the identity of the woman & little girl in the cab of the engine. He explained that they were his wife & daughter & he was taking them on the train with him as a treat. The Federales bought this claim & let the train pass unhindered.

1920 Eagle Pass, Texas Border Crossing Manifest listing Rafael Quinteros & his family

Photo from their 1920 passport, left to right: Maria Quinteros de Aguirre, Domitila Mendez de Quinteros, Francisco Quinteros, Rafael Quinteros & Jose de Jesus "Jesse" Quintero

This photo of Tia Maria Quinteros de Aguirre, age 7 or 8, was taken with her mother Domitila Mendez de Quinteros after they emigrated to Texas from Mexico.

My grandfather said that they lived in Coleman, Coleman Co., Texas briefly before they moved to Belton, Bell Co., Texas where he was born in 1922. At some point, they moved to Temple which is also in Bell County. The boys grew up & began working on the Santa Fe railroad. I'm sure Maria helped her mother keep house while she was growing up. It's how she came to be the great cook she was known to be. Whenever you came to visit, the first words out of her mouth were always "Te quieres comer?" (Do you want to eat?). You were expected to eat where ever you visited because to refuse would be seen as rude.  Aunt Mary had a sense of humor. Once, my father told her that something tasted like newspapers & she asked him how much newsprint he had been eating lately. Dad spent alot of time with his Aguirre cousins when he was young & his mother was working. She also had a way of getting you to do things. On a visit to a cemetery once as a child, he came back with some loose bits of granite from the headstones there. Aunt Mary told him he had better take them back or the people whose graves he had taken the rocks from would come to visit him. She sure had Dad's number!

Funeral of Rafael Quinteros Torres in Temple, Texas-April 1941, left to right: Mauricia Martinez de Quinteros,
oldest son Francisco Quinteros, next oldest son Jesse Quintero, youngest son Ralph Quinteros &
daughter Maria Quinteros de Aguirre

On 17 August 1940, Maria's mother Tila died of a stroke. Her father Rafael followed her in death eight months later. Her older brothers were already married with families of their own & her brother Ralph & her were the only ones still unmarried. Ralph would marry Beulah Mae Houston Russell on 22 November 1944 while Maria would marry an old drinking buddy & friend of her father's, Eugenio Aguirre, who worked at the Santa Fe Hospital in Temple. 

Eugenio & Maria were married on 9 May 1942 at Iglesia Santisimo Sacramento in Cameron, Milam Co., Texas. They had six children together: Francisco, Mariano, Paulina Martin, Domingo & Natalie. They also adopted Mary Frances Quinteros, daughter of Maria's oldest brother Francisco when his second wife died due to complications of pregnancy & childbirth, to raise as their own. They may never have been what would be consid-

ered well off, but they had a good life & raised their children to be successful & productive people. They had been married for 19 years when Eugenio died of a myocardial infarction on 11 Oct 1961. Maria lived to be 62 years old before she also died of a heart attack on 28 Mar 1975 in Temple. She was laid to rest beside her husband Eugenio at Hillcrest Cemetery. She was survived by ten grandchildren, her brothers & numerous nieces & nephews. Aunt Mary may be gone, but her legend lives on.

Gravesite of Eugenio & Maria Quinteros de Aguirre at Hillcrest Cemetery in Temple, Bell Co., Texas

Sources:

Mexico, Catholic Church Records, Zacatecas, Río Grande, Santa Elena de la Cruz, Bautismos L. 24-31, 1909-1915, record # 185, img #501, pg 24

Texas, Eagle Pass Arrival Manifests and Indexes, 1905-1954," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KXFC-T4T : accessed 22 Feb 2014), Rafael Quinteros, 1920.

Texas, Deaths, 1890-1976," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K3MP-8WC : accessed 22 Feb 2014), Domitila Quinton, 17 Aug 1940; citing certificate number 35766, State Registrar Office, Austin; FHL microfilm 2118555.

Texas, Deaths, 1890-1976," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K399-YKF : accessed 22 Feb 2014), Rafael Quinteros, 14 Apr 1941; citing certificate number 16140, State Registrar Office, Austin; FHL microfilm 2138479.

Texas, Deaths, 1890-1976," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K3HC-8M8 : accessed 22 Feb 2014), Eugenio Aguirre, 11 Oct 1961; citing certificate number 55599, State Registrar Office, Austin; FHL microfilm 2116793.

Texas, Deaths, 1890-1976," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K3ZT-BMJ : accessed 22 Feb 2014), Maria Aguirre, 28 Mar 1975; citing certificate number 23972, State Registrar Office, Austin; FHL microfilm 2243947.

52 Ancestors #6 Beulah Mae Houston Russell Quinteros Russell Hancock Johnson Kaufman

Beulah Mae Houston Kaufman, 1966

Wow, what a mouth-
ful! My paternal grandmother married at least five & poss-
ibly six times in her sixty-seven years on this earth. I wrote a little bit about her & her sister Faye a few weeks ago:
http://lifeinthepastln.blogspot.com/2014/01/52-ancestors-3-ida-faye-houston-ulicnik.html.

Beulah Mae Houston was born on 26 Sept 1918 in Buckholtz, Milam Co., TX, USA to Luther Henderson
"Duke" Houston & Della Green. She was the fifth of nine children & their first daughter. She eloped at the age of 17 with a neighbor boy Lambeath/Lambeth "Lamb" Russell on 25 Jan 1936 in Bell Co., Texas. The story I heard from my great aunt Asalee "Baby" Houston Thompson about this event in my grandmother's life was that no one in the family knew anything about it until later that evening when they saw a big truck full of furniture pass by. When Duke & Della inquired of neighbors what all the commotion was about, they learned their eldest daughter Beulah had gone out & gotten herself hitched without a word to anyone. I'm not sure what kind of relationship Lamb & Beulah had other than somewhat turbulent. I theorize a lot of it may have been due to
her inability to conceive a child based on what I know of her medical history &

Beulah Mae Houston Kaufman
with grandchildren
  Juli & Eddie Quinteros
in Sept 1973

a story my father used to tell about how Lamb had taken him to a bar as an infant complain-
ing to anyone who would listen that Dad should have been his child. How Lamb came to have Dad with him is unknown, but in our present day & time, Lamb would have probably been picked up on kidnapping charges. Lamb & Beulah Mae were together for eight years before their divorce was finalized on or about 25 Oct 1944. Just two weeks later, Beulah would be remarried to another man.

My father is the product of the union between Rafael "Ralph" Quinteros & Beulah Mae Houston. He was their only child & his birth was a very hard one. He was delivered by emergency C-section after hours of intense labor. She was very ill with meningitis afterwards & was told by her doctor not to ever become pregnant again because if she did, she would do just as well to dig her own grave. Beulah had originally intended for Dad's middle name to be Kenneth after her baby brother, but my paternal grandfather named their first son after himself & a close friend named Ray. I don't know where or when they met, but my father used to say his dad told him that "for some reason, she (Beulah) just liked him" (his father also used to claim that "all them Houston girls was crazy"). Since both were from neighboring Milam & Bell Counties & San Angelo is located in West Texas, perhaps they met at some point during my grandfather's time with the Santa Fe railroad. I knew where they were supposed to have been married because it was listed on the back of my father's birth certificate, but I only recently found a copy of their marriage record in the Tom Green Co., Texas marriage records. Coincidentally, they were married in San Angelo on my grandfather's 22nd birthday
(18 Nov 1944). 

Marriage record of Ralph Quinteros & Beulah Mae Houston Russell

Their marriage was not any more peaceful than Lamb's & Beulah Mae's had been & they divorced after only a few years together when my father was between 1-3 years old. I feel that their main problem was that they came from two very different cultures: she was white & of Scotch Irish descent & he was the first of a Mexican immigrant family to be born in "los Estados Unidos". My grandmother made a valiant effort, once even consider-
ing converting to Catholocism & moving to Detroit, MI so that my dad would have a relationship with his father. I don't know where or when they divorced, but they cont-
inued to have a somewhat ongoing relationship until my grandmother obviously decided once & for all that they just couldn't live together. Both would later remarry other people.

Beulah Mae moved back to Texas from Detroit, MI in the fall of 1952. Ralph remarried in June 1953 to Pauline Silva & had two more sons (Arthur & Larry) & a daughter (Lydia). Beulah is supposed to have married Robert Russell, brother of her first husband Lamb, at some point briefly, but I have never found record of it. She did marry B. Hancock at her mother Della Green Houston Schostag's place in Glidden, Colorado Co., Texas on 19 Sept 1954, but had the marriage annulled only a week later. Dad remembers this event in his mother's life & recalls that Mr Hancock had been one way when they were "dating", but changed once they were married, expecting her to behave a certain way & wait on him hand & foot (although she usually preferred younger men, he was considerably older than she was). It was a case of "been there & done that" & she was not going to put up with that kind of mentality again. Beulah moved around alot during this time period, but was a hard worker. Over the years, she waited tables, cleaned, made beds, ran a bar (The Silver Dollar in Temple which she later renamed The Retreat) & worked in an ice cream factory. She was thrifty & saved up enough money to be able to buy a brand new home of her own in 1962 in Academy, Texas when her son was almost sixteen (she had owned two homes prior to this, but neither one was new). 

Beulah married Charles Garland Johnson at Immanuel Lutheran Church on 18 Apr 1957 in Temple, Bell Co., Texas. He was stationed at the Ft Hood Army Base in Killeen & was often gone much of the time. They were married for seven years before they divorced in about 1964. A year later, she was married by proxy a final time to Fred Ralph Kaufman, son of Delward & Winifred Fabin/Fagan Kaufman, on 15 Jul 1965 in Temple, Bell Co., Texas. Fred was stationed at the time as part of a peace keeping unit in Korea. He returned home for good the following year after 17 years of service in the US Army (most of Grandma's spouses were military men). Fred worked for a foam company in Temple for many years while Beulah kept house. He retired about 1981. They then sold their home on Creasey Drive in Temple to the Charles Harrell family who lived across the street & bought a small farm in Soper, just outside of Hugo, Choctaw Co., OK. 

Charles & Beulah Houston Johnson

Fred & Beulah Houston Kaufman

Grandma & I were very close when I was growing up. We spent every major school holiday at Grandma & Grandpa's, plus my younger brother & I each got one month of our own out of the summer school break to spend with them. Grandma was a great cook & housekeeper & there was very little in the way of food that she did not do well (her worst dishes were liver, salmon croquets & meatloaf). Eating at her table, especially during holidays, was like eating at a log rolling because the table would be so full that there was barely room on the table for your plate, glass, napkin & silverware. Always, when we left, she sent a stuffed-to-the-gills igloo cooler of leftovers that would feed our family for a week (usually, she even slipped Dad some gas money too). She was the kind of housekeeper who would stay up all night just making sure everything was done up & put away properly. When I stayed with her, it was one of my chores to do the dusting, set the table for meals & help make sure the house was "presentable" for company as she called it.

Sadly, my grandmother was a heavy smoker (you never saw her without one until the last two years of her life). Twice a year, she would travel to McAlester, OK for her spring & fall check ups at the Veteran's Hospital there. It was quite a long trip & I can remember being wakened at the crack of dawn on days when I was staying with them & she had a doctor's appointment. Afterwards, we would stop at the Commissary & buy food to take home & cases & cases of cartons of cigarettes since she could get them the cheapest there. Her doing such a thing has been one of the memories that has always stuck out with me the most since I came from parents who were non-smokers. She was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in the fall of 1985 when I was sixteen & as I sat with her during the final months of her life, one of the things she told me was that if she had her life to live over, she never would have accepted that first cigarette from a friend who had encouraged her to try one (she had tried to quit & failed many times before). Fortunately, although I experimented with them when I was young & rebellious, I never picked up the habit & I am glad for it. Beulah Mae Houston Russell Quinteros Russell Hancock Johnson
Kaufman passed away at home in Soper, OK during the early morning hours of 15 Jan 1986. She was laid to rest at Mt Olivet Cemetery in Hugo, Choctaw Co., OK. In later years, her sister Asalee, brother-in-law Clyde Thompson & her husband Fred would join her there. Grandma has been gone 28 years now, but I miss her still.

Sources:

Bell Co., Texas Marriages: Lamb Russell & Bula Mae Houston, Vol 31, pg 224

Divorce Proceedings found in Abilene Reporter in the 6 Sept 1944 & 25 Oct 1944 (pg 15) editions of the newspaper.

San Angelo, Tom Green Co., Marriages: Mr Ralph Quinteros & Miss Beulah Mae Russell, cert #231. Source: familysearch.org.

Milam Co., Texas Marriages: B. Hancock & Beulah Mae Houston, cert #10518, v 25, p 44

Bell Co., Texas Marriages: Charles G Johnson & Beulah M Houston, Vol 42, pg 529

Bell Co., Texas Marriages: Fred Ralph Kaufman & Beulah M Johnson

52 Ancestors #5 Richard Dennington

A couple of weeks ago, I found the last will & testament of the furthest back known ancestor on my mother's Dennington line. Up til now, I had only "heard" about it on Ancestry.com & had never actually seen it. Then came the day when FamilySearch announced a list of new & updated records to their site. Among the new records was a database of images covering wills for SC. I went to Ancestry & looked up the pertinent information about Richard Dennington's will & then went back to the FamilySearch site to look through their images of Charleston Co., SC Wills.

Richard Dennington is believed to have been born in either England or Lesson Parish, County Down, Ireland sometime about 1740. He met & married Margaret (maiden name unknown) in about 1760 (I have seen them listed on marriage indexes but have yet to see an actual hard copy document so I don't know the specific date of when or where they tied the knot). They had five sons (John, James, Richard, our ancestor William & Samuel) & two daughters (Margaret & Anne).

Richard is believed to have died between 1776 & 1800 & he (or his executors) filed his will in Charleston Co., SC on 27 Oct 1776. Until I read his will, I had no idea what he had done for a living to support his family. The opening lines gave his name, said he was "of Bristol (I am assuming England)" & his profession was that of a "cordwainer". I had no idea what that was so I googled it & found that it was a fancy word for a shoe maker. Something else I found interesting was that cordwainers were considered to be a rather skilled trade & different from cobblers in the way they made shoes because cobblers made their footwear from old leather & hardware while cordwainers made shoes from brand new everything. The fact that he was a shoe maker by profession intrigued me because I knew that his great grandson William (who was my mother's paternal grandfather) had served on the Confederate side in the Civil War as a shoe maker. Apparently William saw such horrors during the war that afterwards, he changed his profession & became of preacher in Ellis Co., TX where he moved to & lived the rest of his life after leaving Georgia behind in the mid 1880's. I used to wonder how he made such a jump from shoe maker to preacher & now I know that his original profession was something that must have been handed down to him from his father John Louis Dennington, who was Richard's grandson.

His will makes mention of his wife (who appears not to be living in SC, but appears to be back home in Lesson Parish, County Down, Ireland) & each of his seven children. He states that his executors, upon his death, are to notify her of his passing & he leaves each of them 750 pounds, 12 shillings & 9 pence (the approximate equivalent of roughly $48,000.00 USD in the year 2000). At the time of his death, the British Colonies were in the midst of the American Revolution so pounds (& not dollars) would have been the "currency of the realm" then (By 2014, this amount of money would still be quite a bequest; atleast to me). Richard further stipulates that if one of his children or his wife should die before the will is fully proved & executed, their portion should be divided between his remaining survivors. Richard's will also states that if there are minor children, then their portion of the bequest should be held in trust for their benefit until they reach the age of majority (age 21) & if any of them should die before they reach age 21, their portion would be divided among his surviving wife & children.

Richard leaves in his will his horse, saddle & bridle to Daniel Carter, providing Daniel is willing to pay the estate 28 pounds. If Daniel is not willing, then he instructs that the horse is to be auctioned off to the highest bidder & the monies gained to be divided equally among his wife & children. The will makes no mention of any land to be distributed so I don't know if Richard ever owned any (750 pounds may not have been alot in those days & how wealthy can a shoe maker be anyway?), but it does appear that he did have a few gentlemen who owed him money because his will stipulates the amounts & people in question with the instructions that his executors are to see to it that the money they owed him is repaid upon his death.

I don't know how educated Richard was because he only makes his mark at the bottom instead of signing his name. I don't know if Richard served in the Revolutionary War & if that led ultimately to his death, but his descendants would go on to serve their country in the War of 1812 & the Civil War & have families of their own in time. They moved from SC, to GA, AL, TN & finally TX.

Will of Richard Dennington

Next week, I will share another record I just discovered after years of searching about someone who was very dear to my heart.

Sources:
Richard Dennington's will found on familysearch.org under South Carolina Probate Records, Bound Volumes, 1671-1977, Charleston Wills, 1774-1779, Vol. 017, pages 509 & 510, Img #111 & 112/424

52 Ancestors #4 Ned Edgar Green

 This week's 52 Ancestors post is about an uncle that led me on a merry chase when it came to tracking him down. Ned Edgar Green was my great grandmother Della Green Houston Schostag's older brother. The two were children of Henry Edward Green & Caroline Valentine "Tiney" Bourland Green. Ned was born in Hillsborough, Hill Co., Texas on Valentine's Day 1891 (as evidenced by his death certificate, WW1 registration & military marker request cards). He died on 30 July 1954 in Temple, Bell Co., TX & was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Cameron, Milam Co., TX.

Death Certificate of Ned Edgar Green

Burial Card of Ned Edgar Green signed by his widow Ionie Merchant Stone Green
when she ordered his military headstone

WW1 Registration Card of Ned Edgar Green

I never really knew a whole lot about my great grandmother's siblings, but I do remember Dad saying that the only thing he remembered about Uncle Ned, who died when he was a child, was that his Aunt Iona Green Farley kept an American Flag on her wall that she received when Uncle Ned was buried (why his widow or one of his children didn't get the flag at his funeral is another question).

Ned married Vera Mamie Sheppard, daughter of Levi C. "Bud" Sheppard & Cynthia C. "Callie" Nugent Sheppard on 4 Oct 1912 in Bosque Co., TX. They had four children together: Douglas Nelson Green, Raymond Morel Green, Loyd Claude Green & Venita May Green. In 1900 & 1910, Ned is shown living with his parents & siblings. In 1900, the family lived in the Chickasaw Nation in what was then known as Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma). In 1910, the family had moved back to Texas & were living in Milam County. In 1920, Ned & Vera were living in Meridian, Bosque County, Texas with their four children.

Then came a big gap in Ned's history. In the next census in 1930, Ned is no longer living with the family. The boys have been shipped off to the State Orphan's Home near Corsicana in Navarro County, Texas. The youngest child, Venita, was still living at home with her mother Vera who is shown as widowed, only they now lived in San Antonio. I knew she could not have been widowed because Ned was married to Onie Lee Merchant Stone in Milam County, Texas on 8 Mar 1950 & died in July 1954. So where was Ned?

I searched the 1930 census, but could never seem to come up with someone I thought could be my uncle Ned. I thought that perhaps he could have left the state for awhile & came back later like my Uncle Dave Turnipseed had. What finally knocked down the brick wall for me was finding his obituary on newspapers.com. In it, it not only noted the names of his brothers & sisters, but ALL of his children among the list of survivors. I had known about his four children with Vera, but who were these additional three children I knew absolutely nothing about before now? From there, I went to the Texas State Birth records & searched for the three additional children I had known nothing about & found their mother listed as Mary E. Johns. So back to the census records I went & found that Ned had remarried after his divorce from Vera (who also remarried) & moved to Dickens, Dickens Co., Texas. He was there for the 1930 census, but by the time of the 1940 census, he & his family had moved to Knox County, Texas.

Together, he & Mary had a son, Elmer Dahle Green, & two daughters, Nelda & Ethel. He had no children by his third wife Onie (who was a widow with children by her first husband). Ned farmed the land to provide for his family & he served in WW1 from September to December 1918 at Camp Bowie, Texas. I still wonder why he chose to leave his first two families. Was it perhaps in part due to the Great Depression? But finding this obituary for Ned gave me a little better insight into than I had before. It pays to keep digging because you never know what you might find.

Ned Green's obituary in The Cameron Herald

Sources:

Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Year: 1900; Census Place: Township 2, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory; Roll: 1849; Enumeration District: 0165; FHL microfilm: 1241849.
Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Year: 1910; Census Place: Justice Precinct 1, Milam, Texas; Roll: T624_1577; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 0054; FHL microfilm: 1375590.
Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Year: 1920; Census Place: Meridian, Bosque, Texas; Roll: T625_1781; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 33; Image: 123.
Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Year: 1930; Census Place: San Antonio, Bexar, Texas; Roll: 2297; Page: 22A; Enumeration District: 0130; Image: 860.0; FHL microfilm: 2342031.
Ancestry.com. Year: 1930; Census Place: Precinct 2, Dickens, Texas; Roll: 2323; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 0003; Image: 458.0; FHL microfilm: 2342057.
Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Year: 1940; Census Place:  , Knox, Texas; Roll: T627_4088; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 138-7A.
Marriage to Vera M. Sheppard. "Texas, Marriages, 1837-1973," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F6BQ-42V : accessed 31 Jan 2014), N. Green and Vera Shepherd, 06 Oct 1912.
Marriage to Mrs. Onie Stone. Milam Co., TX Marriage records, vol. 24, pg #315.
Ned Green Obituary found on pg 1 of The Cameron Herald, 5 Aug 1954 edition.

52 Ancestors #3 Ida Faye Houston Ulicnik Kotrla Schutz

This week's post honors someone without whom (besides my parents obviously) I would not exist. This someone was my paternal great aunt Faye who was my paternal grandmother's younger sister. She & my cousin Betty (her daughter) are responsible for introducing my father to my mother & getting the ball rolling on a love affair that has lasted for forty-eight years in February.

Faye was born in Buckholts, Milam Co., Texas on 4 May 1927 to Luther Henderson & Della Green Houston, the third of four daughters & the eighth of nine children. She grew up on the family farm & grew up to be (atleast from my perspective) a forward thinking woman. She married James Bennett Ulicnik on 8 July 1943 in Milam County, Texas & had one daughter, Frances, before divorcing him in January 1948.

Daughters of Luther Henderson Houston & Della Green Houston Schostag in 1944-1945. Left to right are Ida Faye Houston Ulicnik, Asalee Ola "Baby" Houston Ulicnik & my paternal grandmother, Beulah Mae Houston Russell. 

One tale I heard from my Aunt Baby when I was younger was that my grandmother & my Aunt Faye had married each other's beaus for fun (meaning my Aunt Faye married my grandmother's first husband Lambert Russell after they divorced & my grandmother married Lambert's brother Robert who was going around with Aunt Faye at the time). I had never really put a whole lot of credence in Aunt Baby's tale until one day I ran across a marriage record in Rockwall County, Texas between Faye & Lambert. Sure enough, just like Aunt Baby said, I found they were married there on 30 Apr 1947 (I am assuming that the marriage was either annulled or they divorced sometime in 1948).

My father, Ralph Ray Quinteros, with his cousins Betty Kotrla Prentice & "Bubba" Kotrla in Cameron, Milam County, Texas in October 1962. Dad & Betty were very close growing up.

Aunt Faye was married next to Lester Eugene Kotrla on 11 Sept 1948. They had two more children; a daughter Betty & a son Lester who was nicknamed "Bubba". They eventually divorced & she married Collie Lawrence Schutz about 1964.

Ida Faye Houston Ulicnik Kotrla Schutz with husband Collie.

It was about this time that Aunt Faye & Uncle Collie ran a boarding house with rooms to rent at 700 Glendale Drive & Junius in Dallas, Texas. My dad had just been discharged from his two year hitch in the USAF & returned to his home town of Temple, Texas looking for work. He had been trained as a key punch operator in the military, but was unable to find work in that field because the majority of key punch operators then were female, so Dad came on up to Dallas looking for work there where he already had family. He finally found work on the packing & meat processing line at Circle J Meats. After staying with his aunt for a couple of weeks, he was able to get his own apartment at 5101 Tremont Street in East Dallas. He would regularly stop by his Aunt Faye's house after work to visit from then on.

Corner of 700 Glendale & Junius in Dallas, Texas where my Aunt Faye & her husband Collie let out rooms for rent. My mother rented a room on the second floor that could be accessed by an outside staircase.

During the summer of 1965, my mother, Sue Turnipseed, who was out on her own & working for the first time in her life, rented a room from none other than my Aunt Faye. She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School as part of the Class of 1964 & found a job.  Dad had often seen her at a distance walking down Glendale from the bus stop, but paid her no mind. On one particularly fateful day in September 1965, he stopped by his Aunt Faye's after work as he so often did. His cousin Betty, then fourteen, was in her room listening to records & passing the time with my mother whom Dad had not officially been introduced to yet. Betty & her younger brother Bubba asked Dad to take them to the Dairy Queen for a treat. Dad said he would wait in the car while they got ready & left the room. In a minute, Betty came out & said the words Dad has said he will always remember of my parents' first meeting: "Can 'Turnipseed' (meaning my mother) go too?"

My parents at my maternal grandparents' 
home in Avinger, Texas  just after their

engagement during Thanksgiving 1965.

My parents while on their honeymoon at
Horse Tail Falls in Monterrey, Mexico in
February 1966.

Dad said he didn't mind one way or the other whether she rode along with them or not & finally, Betty, Bubba & "Turnipseed" were ready to go. He remembers that when they got to the Dairy Queen, his cousins had their own money to purchase whatever they wanted, but "Turnipseed" seemed to have no money of her own.
Even though he did not know Mom, he thought she might feel left out & offered to buy her something which she refused (Mom said that since the invitation to go to the Dairy Queen did not come from Dad, she felt it would not be proper to accept his offer to buy her a treat). This small incident changed both their lives forever. At the time, they were both somewhat lonely people & their ages of 19 & 20 limited what they could do & where they could go. Mom & Dad began hanging out together. Up until then, Dad had made regular visits to see his mother in Temple, Texas where she lived, but once they started dating, all visits to his mother abruptly stopped as they spent more & more time together. This precipitated a call from my grandmother to her sister Faye who said "He's met the girl upstairs". At the end of October 1965, Dad asked "Turnipseed" to marry him. The rest they say is history. 

Aunt Faye lost her husband Collie to a heart attack in February 1972. They were no longer running the boarding house & her children were grown & out on their own by then. She was forward thinking for the times in that she did not consider living with someone prior to marriage or instead or marrying them wrong. She had a few relationships after Collie's death, but never officially remarried.  I remember her as a good cook & very straight forward & forthright person. She developed complications of diabetes & died on 19 December 1982 in Dallas, Texas & was buried at Grove Hill Cemetery.

52 Ancestors #2 Newton LeGrande & Edward Scott Turnipseed

This week I am focusing on a family mystery that will probably never be solved. It involves two brothers on my mother's paternal line, Newton LeGrande Turnipseed & his older brother Edward Scott Turnipseed.

Edward Scott "E. S. or Scott" Turnipseed, circa 1900, Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas

 Both were sons of Dr Felix Benjamin Turnipseed & Sarah M. Whitfield. They fell in the middle & had two older brothers (Daniel & Benjamin), an older sister (Margaret), a younger brother (Bookter) & a younger sister (Nettie). Newton was named for his maternal uncle, Newton LeGrande Whitfield, who was an AL State Representative. Their mother died sometime between 1870 & 1876. Their father was a doctor who served in the Civil War. After their mother's death, he moved the family to MS where he remarried Aurelia Gregory & had one more daughter before dying during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 in Grenada County, MS. In 1880, we find the two older brothers have married & started families of their own & the children of Felix Benjamin Turnipseed & Sarah M. Whitfield have scattered. Felix & Sarah's two daughters have died by the time of the 1880 Census. Newton & Edward are still unmarried & living in other households in Tallahatchie Co., MS; Edward with a cousin, R. B. Fedric, & Newton with the James & Nancy Quinn family. Bookter, the youngest brother is also missing & was never heard from or seen again in the historical record.

In early 1886, Newton & his brother Edward left MS & joined up with a wagon train that was coming through & headed west from Georgia. Newton met a young woman named Susan Elvira Dennington who was traveling with her family to Texas. The Turnipseeds & the Denningtons stopped in Ellis County, Texas where Newton married Susan on 28 Mar 1886. Edward Scott Turnipseed also found love in Ellis County, Texas. He married Ellen Emily Sims, daughter of Wilson Timlick Sims & Kate Thompson Smithers, on 10 March 1889.

Marriage license of Newton LeGrande Turnipseed & Susan Elvira Dennington

They farmed & started families each in their turn. Edward & Ellen had three sons: Benjamin Whitfield Turnipseed, Edward Wilson Turnipseed & Dixon Gillespie Turnipseed. Then in 1898, Edward's wife Ellen died while in Colorado. It is not known what she was doing in Colorado & she was buried there in Columbia Cemetery in Boulder, Boulder County, Colorado. Almost two years later, Edward remarried Mrs. Sarah A. Byars in Henderson Co., Texas on 13 March 1898. Both then inexplicably disappear from the historical record. The children of Edward & Ellen were then raised by their maternal grandparents.

Meanwhile, Newton & Susan are still farming & living in Ellis County, Texas with their five children; Vera, David, Pat, Sallie & Edna. They would have one more daughter (Ruth) in 1903 before their family was torn in two. By 1903, Newton & Susan have moved from Ellis County, Texas to Rhonesboro, Texas which is in Upshur County. They bought land there & continued farming. The marriage, however, was not a very harmonious one. Family stories tell that Newton had tried to harm Susan on more than one occasion. It was thought that he once poisoned the bucket of well water that sat on their front porch, intending that his wife should drink from it. Instead, his sons did when they came in from the hot fields that day & became very ill from it.

On the 1900 census, Newton is shown as a day laborer, meaning he probably hired out in addition to farming his own land. In 1904, he was tried in Upshur County Court & sentenced to five years in prison for the rape & incest of one of his own daughters. In those days, such behavior was rarely reported, let alone by one's own wife, but Susan possessed a very strong will & she did right by her children, most of whom were close to being grown & out on their own by then. She still had the youngest daughter still at home to raise, while the other two daughters were close to or already ready for marriage. Her two boys were both out working. Two years into Newton's sentence, he escaped from a work camp in Bowie County, Texas. He was never seen or heard from again. What may have happened to him afterwards is one of our greatest family mysteries. No one in the family has ever known the truth of what happened other than one day Susan received a letter from the prison about Newton's escape. It was said by her younger son Pat, who was my maternal grandfather, that he came home to find her crying over this letter. All she would tell him was that it was from the prison & concerned his father. He took it to mean that the old man (as he referred to him) had died, but I think what had Susan so distraught was that she knew he had escaped & she was worried that he would be coming after her for having him prosecuted & put in prison. Her worst fears never to came to pass however.

Huntsville, TX Prison registry showing the work camps Newton LeGrande Turnipseed was
in & noting his escape from custody.

In 1914, Susan was remarried to her widowed brother-in-law Isaac David Stewart in Henderson Co., Texas. Her daughter Ruth continued to live with them before she left to marry Jack Harte. Their marriage was an abusive one. They divorced & she returned home to live with her mother. She later remarried Jesse Clyde Jones & spent the majority of the rest of her life with him in Ellis County. Susan lost her second husband to a heart attack while fishing in mid November 1931. She lived alone after that. Her favorite activies in her old age were gardening & crochet. Her favorite color was yellow. She was a opinionated hard shell Baptist who could be a hard taskmaster according to one niece. I think she was the way she was because of the time she was born in (just after the Civil War) & the hard life she lived.

Our family probably will never know what happened to Newton. I theorize that, with such a unique surname as Turnipseed, he knew it was better & easier to disappear if he changed it to something else & moved to somewhere where few if anyone knew him. He also knew he would not be welcome at home & that if he went back, Susan would be sure to alert the authorities; thus, sending him back to finish serving his prison term. At one point, Susan sent her sons out to look for him, but as far as she knew, neither ever found him. It was rumored that David may have found him living in ID where his older two brothers moved to finish raising their families. He would never tell anyone in the family for certain which was a great source of contention between him & his brother Pat.

You never know what you will find when you start looking into your family tree. Whatever my great grandfather may have been, I wish I knew the rest of his story, even if it is only for the sake of closure.

"Alabama, Marriages, 1816-1957," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F315-LQB : accessed 17 Jan 2014), Felix B. Turnipseed and Sarah M. Whitfield, 04 May 1852.

"United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M4PQ-C2G : accessed 17 Jan 2014), E S. Turnipseed, Beat 3, Tallahatchie, Mississippi, United States; citing sheet 103B, family 0, NARA microfilm publication T9-0665

"United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M4PQ-QDG : accessed 17 Jan 2014), B. W. & N. L. Turnipseed, Beat 3, Tallahatchie, Mississippi, United States; citing sheet 107A, family 0, NARA microfilm publication T9-0665

"Texas, Marriages, 1837-1973," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/V2ML-V21 : accessed 17 Jan 2014), Newton L. Turnipseed and Susan E. Dennington, 28 Mar 1886.

"Texas, Marriages, 1837-1973," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FX3G-H8M : accessed 17 Jan 2014), E. S. Turnipseed and Ella E. Sims, 10 Mar 1889.

52 Ancestors #1 Tomasa Gauna de Quinteros

My first 52 Ancestors post of the year is not exactly about one specific someone who is a deceased direct ancestor of mine. To tell you about my great aunt Tomasa, I have to introduce you first to my Tio Pancho, who was my paternal grandfather's eldest brother.

Francisco "Frank or Pancho" Quinteros

Tio Pancho was born in 1907 in El Fuerte, Zacatecas, Mexico. The community of El Fuerte was once part of a hacienda of the same name that was located in the town of Rio Grande in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. He was the oldest surviving son of Jose Rafael Apolinario Quinteros Torres & Domitila "Tila" Mendez Anguiano. Rafael & Tila had seven children together, but only the three youngest children lived to make the journey to Texas after the Mexican Revolution. My paternal grandfather Rafael was the youngest child, born after they emigrated to the United States.

All three of the Quinteros sons worked for the Santa Fe Railroad in Temple, Texas at some point in their lives. My great uncles Pancho & Jesse retired from the railroad, while my grandfather moved to Detroit, MI to work in the maintenance departnent at the GM Plant there. Tio Pancho farmed some & raised a big family in addition to his work on the railroad. I did not have the opportunity to know him well while he was still alive, but on the few occasions I saw him at various family functions, he seemed bigger than life to a little girl.

Tio Pancho married Mauricia Martinez when he was 22. Together they had 9 children before she died in 1952. He remarried again a few years later, but that wife also died. Tio's last wife was Tomasa Gauna. They married late in life & had no children together, but she helped raise the grandkids who came along. She never spoke English, but then she never needed to. Although she was of Mexican descent, her family had been in Central Texas since the mid 1880's. Again, like with many of my father's family, I haven't had the opportunity to get to know her as well as I would have liked & there are many in my extended family who have known her a good bit better than I have.

Tio Pancho with his children, nieces & nephews out on the farm near Temple, Texas
Left to right: Anne Quinteros, Pauline Aguirre, Bennie Quinteros, Mariano Aguirre, Tio Pancho, Joe Quinteros, Skippy the dog, Francisco Aguirre & Mary Pauline Quinteros

Tomasa was born in 1919 in Madison County, Texas to Fernando Flores Gauna & Demetria Granado Guzman. She was the oldest of at least thirteen children (records suggest there were a few siblings who died young). Her younger siblings were Vicente, Fernando, Eulogia, Irene, Ignacia, Herlinda, Aurelio, Jesusa, Juan, Marcelino, Guadalupe & Morris. Her family farmed & moved around a lot, bouncing from Wilson, Madison & Milam Counties to Robertson & Williamson Counties, before finally settling in Lubbock. She married Tio Pancho in the early 1960's but it is not known where they married or when or how they met (at least not to me). She helped Tio on the farm & she was very proactive in their family life together. When one of Tio's daughter-in-laws passed away at a young age, they took up the slack with the three children she left behind. She was a great cook & homemaker who subscribed to old school values, but she passed on to one of their grandsons this pearl of wisdom: "Mijo, if you know how to cook, then you don't need a woman."

Francisco Quinteros & Tomasa Gauna on their wedding day. Tomasa's father Fernando Flores Gauna is also shown here to her right.

I first became acquainted (that I can recall any way) with Tia Tomasa while on a family trip in 2000 to a Quinteros Family Reunion in Temple after I was an adult. Tio had passed away in 1984 & she lived alone.
I had called ahead & arranged a visit with her. She invited us into her home which was a little like stepping in to a family shrine. Covering the walls of her home were generations of family portraits. I have to admit we were awestruck & I'm sure she thought it more than a little strange that someone would come in & start taking pictures, but she took it in stride. We had a nice visit. Since she didn't speak english & my family didn't speak spanish, I translated back & forth. She said she remembered us children (I have one younger brother) when we were little & that she had last seen us at a Quinteros family reunion that took place about 1981 or 2 when my grandfather moved back to Texas after his retirement from the GM Plant in Detroit. At that time, I was all of about 12 years old; too young & uninterested in family history to remember her very well then. I told her I had an interest in our family history & asked her about her family. I learned then that her parents had been born in Texas. It was later that I learned that her father Fernando was born in San Antonio & her grandfather Rosario Gauna had once lived in the historic San Antonio Mission District I had once visited with my parents. Tomasa's mother Demetria was born out near Austin, but her lineage has been very much harder to trace. Tomasa's grandparents on both sides & further back ancestors would have been born in Mexico.

Tia Tomasa working on the farm

In my years of family history research, I've learned that Mexican ancestry in the States can be some of the hardest to trace mainly because census & record takers often didn't always comprehend the correct spelling of the surnames being given to them. It doesn't necessarily get any easier once you cross the border either. While Hispanic ancestry can be alot simpler since the culture uses double surnames to include both of a person's parents' names in that person's name, you have to pretty much know the time period & place your ancestor came from in order to find them in the Spanish birth, marriage, death & civil records that may be available to you. Often you will find that there are no indexes to the old spanish register records & you will be forced to go page by page of sometimes almost indecipherable handwriting of some long dead priest or government official (who many times couldn't spell very well either). There are no databases already compiled of searchable data for the most part like there are for US records. Such research is often a test of extreme patience with a few eureka moments thrown in when you are fortunate enough to find them (which is pretty much the case regardless of which side of the border you are on, hispanic ancestry or not).

Any way, back to Tomasa; she is a very soft spoken, gentle lady. She no longer lives alone as she has gotten too old & although I haven't had the opportunity to have known her well, I am glad that I had the chance to know her the little I have. She will turn ninety-five in March & while she is slower than she maybe used to be, I think she is still a vital member of our family. For a daughter of poor Mexican farmers, she has probably seen more of life than she or anyone else ever thought she would. What I have observed of her is that she is a quiet, yet fiesty lady. I wish that my circumstances allowed me to know this remarkable lady better.

Tia Tomasa Gauna de Quinteros with grandsons Ralph Quinteros & Tony Quinteros.

Tia Tomasa sight seeing in San Diego with her grandson Tony Quinteros. The USS Midway
is in the background behind them,

Tomasa gets a kiss on the check from her great great grandson Sean.