Dominoes and Daring Do

I remember when I was a junior high school kid that from time to time my grandmother would receive a visitor at our old house in Pleasanton, Texas.  It was a sweet elderly lady that grandma Pearl would introduce as my great aunt Florence, Finley.  She was a sweet lady, her hair so white it seemed to have a bluish tint to it. I remember she and granny would sit and play dominoes and drink coffee for hours.  They would laugh and talk about the good old days of long ago and I would sit and listen a little while, but soon excuse myself to pursue a more entertaining past time.  On occasion I would try to play forty-two with these ladies but I was way to slow to keep up with the game.  These gals would throw down their dominoes so quickly that you would hear the plop plop plop of their dominoes and then a long pause, as I would be trying to figure my play.  I gave up soon and just preferred to sit on the sideline and watch the pros do it instead. 

I didn’t realize at the time or nearly appreciate the person that was there visiting in my home. I couldn’t appreciate what a wealth of historical and literary knowledge Mrs. Finley possessed. Granny told me she was an authoress and that she had written several books that talked about our ancestors but as a kid you just don’t value things as much as I now do.  Florence Finley was a W.P.A. writer.  She had been part of the W.P.A. Life Histories Project during the 1930s.  Congress in 1936 authorized writers from all over the country to find and interview the pioneers and early settlers of our country and get them to tell their experiences in their own words. My aunt Florence whose maiden name was Angermiller at the time was commissioned to be one of those writers.  She traveled a good bit of Texas in those days and literally sat on the porches and in the homes of some of the old timers of our state that were still alive in those days. She recorded their stories word for word as they sat and shared their recollections of the early pioneer days of Texas.  Those interviews are preserved in the Library of Congress to this day and are available on the web.  They are so interesting to read. Eventually aunt Florence compiled her works into several books that today are rare Texana collectables.  She is the author of Old Timers and Old Timers of Southwest Texas. She also is the Author of Heart Full of Horses a book that tells stories about the many wranglers and cowboys of early Texas. If it were not for her writing many of the stories from our ancestors would have been lost to posterity.

I post here a sample of her work, which was an interview with my Great Great Grandmother Emma Davenport. The interviews are too lengthy to be placed in a Blog post so I will instead give you the direct link to the W.P.A. Life Histories site that has them. I do not have permission from the Library of Congress to reproduce them.  The two interviews detail the life of Emma herself as she grew up in the Sabinal Canyon the daughter of Chris Kelly one of the old trail drivers who drove a herd to California in the middle of the great Gold rush of 1849. She tells of Indian depredations and horse thieving.  She tells of her trip to San Antonio in the 1870’s, an engagement party as she called it, before her wedding to John.

In the second interview Emma Davenport talks about her mother in law. Mary Davenport.  Florence Finley called her aunt Mary Davenport. Mary was the daughter of Captain John Crane an old boy hood friend of Andrew Jackson and veteran of the Creek Indian war, later a veteran of the Texas war for Independence. Her husband John Davenport was ambushed and scalped by Indians in 1859 just a few miles from Sabinal leaving Mary widowed with two sons.  The youngest of the two sons John Davenport jr. was later to become Emma’s husband. My great grandfather Rollie was one of their 10 children.

I hope you enjoy these interviews. Grab a cup of coffee or Tea and sit and read a history by a woman who lived it and told it in her own words. Click on this link: interviews and it will take you to the home page of American Life Histories home page. Look for the search by keywords link on the left of the page. Click on that and enter the word Davenport. The search results should give you both interviews at the top of the page. Click on their names and the interview manuscript should appear.