My Great Grandparents- Euclyde Earnest and Mary Douglas

I totally forgot that I had been working on this story back in July and never finished it! My stories so far have been mainly from my Grandfather's tree. Getting the details in order to write about my Grandmother's side has been challenging. There are contradictions to the facts once I traced my ancestors to the 3rd generation back. Having said that I must finish this story! Once again, I have used facts and details about the places they lived from doing internet searches. If you know of any details that I have gotten wrong, please let me know. I will be glad to change it. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Euclyde Madison Earnest  

My Great-Grandfather, Euclyde 'Clyde' Madison Earnest was born in Austin, Texas on September 28, 1880. His father, James was 36 and his mother, Jane was 30. They both migrated to Texas with their families from Arkansas and Tennessee. Once James and Jane were married they farmed in and around the eastern part of Travis County as they raised their 8 children. 

If you zoom in on the above 1880 Census record for Clyde's family it is rather interesting. The column right next to their names is where they could choose from the following choices: White, Black, Mulatto, Chinese or Indian. On over to the right is a section labeled Health. The choices of a person in the household who is sick or disabled are as follows: Blind, Deaf and Dumb, Idiotic, Insane, and the last column clumps these together: Maimed, Crippled, Bedridden, or otherwise disabled. 

Austin was a bustling city back in the 1880's. As the State Capital of Texas there was always something newsworthy going on. One of the big stories that made the headlines was the new Capital Building which was being erected on the very site that it stands today. The building was the talk of the town, the state and the nation because Texas officials had announced a nationwide competition for architects to submit their designs. Elijah E. Myers won the $1700 award for his design. The contractors wanted to use the state's own natural resources to build the Capital. They drew from the limestone that was abundant in the area for the foundation, but they soon saw that it turned an ugly color when it was exposed to the air.  Luckily for the State, the owners of Granite Mountain in Burnet County donated all of the Red Granite that was needed. A total of 188,518 cubic feet of beautiful  granite was moved from Marble Falls to the building site.  

The Earnest family were probably in the crowd that lined Congress Avenue on May 16, 1888 to attend the official dedication of the Capital. There were over 20,000 people who enjoyed the parade and other festivities that the city planned. It was a very happy day for those who called themselves Texans.

 Austinites had forgotten what had occurred in their beloved city several years prior to the big celebration. Beginning in 1884 and ending in 1885 Austin was shadowed by what some said was an evil presence. A man who became known as the Servant Girl Annihilator brought terror into every home in Austin. Seven women (five black and two white) and one black man were murdered. There were six more women and two men who were seriously wounded. This was the first documentation of a serial killer in the world. Jack the Ripper emerged on the streets of London three years later.(1) Many thought that it was Jack the Ripper himself who had viciously slaughtered the young women, as the slaying stopped only to begin in London. Whoever was the Annihilator, the murders stopped almost a year to the day on December 24, 1885 largely due to the citizens forming their own groups of men who would walk the city in order to protect their women.  A stiff curfew was put in effect and Austin also hired more police officers, plus a large reward was offered for information that would lead to an arrest.

A person of interest in the murders 1886 was Nathan Elgin, a young black cook who had a predisposition towards uncontrolled violence. He'd was killed by police after he'd threatened a young woman with a knife for no probable cause. In fact, on July 15, 2014 PBS aired an episode of History Detectives on the killings and by using modern techniques they also came to the conclusion that the murderer had to be Nathan Elgin. You can read more at

http://www.servantgirlmurders.com/the-servant-girl-annihilator/

The Servant Girl Annihilator-Nathan Elgin-A Criminology

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mary Katherine Douglas

My Great-Grandmother, Mary Katherine Douglas was born in Ashwood, Tennessee on September 18, 1881. Her father, James, was 26 and her mother, Rachel, was 23 when Mary was born.  Ashwood was named after Ashwood Plantation, which by the time Mary was born no longer stood as the grand antebellum plantation it once had been at the height of Southern glory. In fact, the whole state of Tennessee had been transformed by the Civil War and the Reconstruction, into a place where not one family was free from the difficulties of life going forward at the end of the Civil War. There was a small glimmer of hope that things might return to a semblance of normalcy, but that ended as the 1880's came to a close. The Democrats took power in the state legislature, and in doing so passed more state laws prohibiting blacks from voting or being treated as the 'free' people that they were supposed to be. Below is Ashwood Manor which burned down before Mary was born, but the planation way of life was still  very evident in Mary's childhood years.

What was the world like, in Ashwood, from a small girl's eyes? The soil in Maury County was some of the richest to be found. The Polk family plantations at Ashwood remained at the top of the county for cotton, cattle and dairy products. As the years went on past the Civil War, there were many more small farms that cropped up. These smaller farms provided the means for new settlers to make the county their home. Mary was born 16 years after the Civil War had ended. The farmers of Maury County were establishing their county as a great agricultural power again.

The census of 1880 showed that the Douglas family was still living in Maury County. Her grandfather and her father were listed as a farmers.  In 1893 Mary's father, James Basil Douglas along with her mother Rachel Ann Duke and her 6 siblings, plus her grandfather David left Tennessee to move to Austin, Texas. Mary was 12, her siblings: Albert 14, James 9, Lizzie 7, William 5, Hugh 4, and Alexander 3 when they journeyed from Tennessee to Texas. Her mother was pregnant with her 7th child, George during the journey. They were in great company along the road, as there were so many families who left Tennessee for Texas that the letters GTT could be found on abandoned homesteads and farms in the 1800's. The letters stand for Gone To Texas. Having a full wagon of their belongings, the children and an elderly father on the trip was nothing out of the ordinary, and by 1893 the road to Texas was well established. One of the stops along the well traveled road to Austin was in Longview, Texas, which happened to be the Gregg county seat. (2)(3)

Although there are no documents to show the details of what happened as the family left Longview but were still in Gregg County, we do know that David Douglas died on May 7, 1893 at the age of 80 in Gregg County. [On a recent trip to Longview to visit my Uncle Bob Teague and cousin Richard Lenard we went looking for any documents that may have not been scanned into any database available now. We could not find anything, his name did not show up as buried in any cemetery in Gregg County. The genealogy librarian made a suggestion that maybe he had died along the road and he was buried there. The family then made their way to Austin and then reported his death as being in Gregg County. Uncle Bob remembered that his mother, Susie Novella Earnest (Mary and Euclyde's daughter) used to tell the story that one of the Teague men had died as they traveled to Texas and was buried along the roadside. Yet, since all the Teague's are accounted for in burial records, that story doesn't make sense. It may be more likely that the story was about David Douglas and his being buried along the road in Gregg County.]

They arrived in Austin and settled down to raise their family.  "The city was celebrating the completion of a great granite dam in 1893 at a site just northwest of town. Standing sixty feet high and stretching nearly 1200 feet across the river, it was then one of the largest dams in the world. Boosters of the project had originally envisioned harnessing the (Colorado) river to drive mill machinery directly, but the engineers they called in soon steered them toward the new technology of the day, and the powerhouse erected on the east bank of the river was filled with electrical dynamos that supplied current to Austin’s new network of electric streetcars, as well as to the "moonlight towers" the city acquired in 1895. The shores of the lake that formed behind the dam—named “Lake McDonald” for John McDonald, the mayor who had whipped up support for the project—attracted new residents and developers, while the waters of the lake itself drew those seeking respite from the Texas heat. Austin boomed in the mid-1890s, driven largely by land speculation. Monroe Shipe established “Hyde Park,” a classic “streetcar suburb” north of downtown, and smaller developments sprang up around the city."

One of the biggest land deals was engineered by San Antonio banker and businessman George Brackenridge, who had acquired a large tract of land just downstream from the proposed site of the dam, evidently hoping to sell mill sites once the dam was completed. But the promised cotton mills never materialized. The flow of the Colorado proved to be far more variable than the project’s promoters had claimed, and the dam was never able to produce the kind of steady power needed to drive a bank of mills. At times it barely sufficed to power the lights and streetcars."(4) 

Here is the dam when it was finished in 1893.

Mary's father, James Basil was a carpenter in the same Precinct of Austin that Euclyde Madison Earnest grew up in. This area of Austin was mainly Irish, so it was easy for both Mary and Euclyde to feel at home since they both came from Irish immigrants. Mary, being the oldest daughter held a lot of responsibility for looking after her younger siblings. This was the way of life back in Mary's lifetime. Her mother would go on to give birth to two more children, George born in 1894 and Lot Ethel born in 1896. 

                                                 

  Their Lives Together

Mary and Euclyde married in 1898. She was 17, he 18. I imagine it was a joyous occasion, celebrating two Irish families coming together through the bonds of matrimony. Life was good. They worked hard and Austin continued to grow. One thing that brought growth to Austin was the  decision to create a university of the highest caliber. The University of Texas was born and erected just north of the state capital. Austinites loved to support the university any way they could, and one well known pastime was to watch football in the fall.  In 1898 The Longhorns celebrated their 6th year playing in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association. People in Austin loved to pack their picnic baskets and head over to Clark Field to watch the boys play.

Another wonderful outing for the young couple was to head on down to the Colorado River and watch the water flow over the dam. The spring of 1900 brought torrential rains to the hill country around Austin, meaning that all the creeks emptied into the Colorado river upriver from the dam. "Having never lived up to expectations, the dam failed spectacularly on 7 April 1900. Enormous storms upriver sent a torrent of water cascading eleven feet over the crest of the dam. After the rains had stopped, Austinites came out that bright Saturday morning to see their local version of Niagara. Then at 11:20 am they heard a loud crack—“like a gunshot,” several said—and watched in horror as a central section of the dam gave way and slid sixty feet downstream. Water blasted into the powerhouse, wrecking it and killing eight people. Lake McDonald vanished, and though the western end of the dam still stood, the eastern half was destroyed. More than a century later, great chunks of it are still to be found scattered in the riverbed, forming part of the present Red Bud Isles."(4) We don't know for sure, but maybe Euclyde and Mary ventured down to see Austin's Niagara Falls!

Later in the year, on September 17, 1900, Mary's father, James Basil, died in Manor, Texas. He is buried in "City Cemetery" now known as Oakwood Cemetery, which is located just off I-35 and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Together Euclyde and Mary had 5 children, Myrtle, Clyde, Agnes, Susie (my Grandmother, or Nanny), and Mary. The couple are pictured below with Myrtle who was born in 1901. 

They were married for 17 years when Mary died, on February 2, 1915. She was only 33 years old and had been living with Tuberculosis for four years. when she couldn't fight off the last spell. I imagine that she was very distraught because she would be leaving behind her small children. It would be up to Euclyde and the family to find a way for the children to prosper without her guidance. Mary Evelyn was only 2, Susie Novella was 8, Agnes (Lissie) was 10, Clyde was 12, and Myrtle was 14. Having lived with TB for the last years of her life, the older children were fully aware of how devastating the disease was.  I like to think that Mary was able to talk to Euclyde about arrangements for the children. 

Euclyde was now a single father for his 5 children. He was a carpenter, working at St. Mary's Academy in Austin, according to his WWI Draft registration in 1918. The children were placed in the Girl's Settlement Home as indicated on the back of one of the photos: 'C. Home  Austin, Tex 1919.'  The Settlement Home served as a Day Nursery for Impoverished Working Families. You can find the history of the home at https://www.settlementhome.org/aboutus/ , and there is even the same photo from 1917 on the website that I have below. 

C Home Austin, Tex 1919 led me to the Girls Settlement Home in Austin

Clyde with two daughters, Mary and my grandmother Susie

This was taken at Deep Eddy Bathing Beach in Austin. Clyde, Mary and Susie

Myrtle, Elizabeth, Mary and Susie with Clyde

Clyde the year before he married Margaret Carroll

In 1922 Euclyde married Margaret Jane Carroll and they had a son, Carl David Earnest in 1923. 

Euclyde died on November 16, 1933. He was 53 years old. His death certificate states that he was divorced.  He lived on Alamo St. in San Antonio. He was found at 923 N. Walnut St, which is not in San Antonio, however there is one in New Braunfels. Maybe he was on the job site as a carpenter when he died. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. There was an inquest and the cause of death was from natural causes.

 I wonder if these two wonderful people ever realized what a tribe they birthed through their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren? There sure are a lot of us spread across the United States now in 2019.

Those of us who are here on the planet because of their love sure do have a lot to be grateful for! 

(1) https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/murders-in-the-night/

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_County,_Texas

(3) Synchronistic moment: My Uncle Bob and Cousin Richard currently live in Longview, the County Seat of Gregg County. They had no idea that any of our relations had come through on their way to Austin.

(4) https://notevenpast.org/rise-and-fall-austin-dam/

Baby on Board 1971

This Child of Mine~ Kenneth Shan Bates

In early Spring of 1971 I knew I was pregnant. 16 years old. Junior in High School. Alone. My boyfriend at the time was Jimmy Hill, a classmate of mine at Lanier Light School.

I met Shan's birth father through a mutual friend. I had just come out of a relationship that was tried at the very least and Jimmy had gone through a really rough breakup with his girlfriend. She was up in the Edna Gladney Home waiting to give birth and give the baby up for adoption. We both had just had our hearts broken and after meeting for a blind date we just fell into each other's arms quite naturally. We went to Hill of the Moon out on Howard Lane every Sunday to listen to bands play up until dark.  

We were, of course, hippies and as such we did smoke the Maryjane, cannabis, weed or grass...whatever you want to call it. But we didn't do anything harder than that. I remember one afternoon we went out 2222 to Bullick Hollow Road, then left onto 2769. We drove a long way until we saw the bonfire where the 'party' was. We had a great time, everyone was sharing joints and just enjoying the evening. There were some kids there who were not considered to be 'hippies', they were the popular kids at school. One guy shared his joints freely and soon we were all feeling the effects. He announced that his pot was the best because it was laced with Opium. Most of us hippies were not cool with that because he didn't tell us until after we'd all smoked it. I ended up dancing all by myself in the field as the full moon shone down. Jimmy found me and we lay down looking up at the moon until most of the effects were gone. 

Jimmy was taking Auto Mechanics at Lanier and he had bought himself an old hearse that he had renovated the back into a really nice upholstered vehicle. The hearse itself was black and he carried that theme into the space where the caskets had lain. There was a mattress that covered the entire space with  black lights and some posters on the top. I loved it! We all did. He had really outdone himself.

I really felt bad for Jimmy because his father was really hard on him. Nothing that he did was good enough for his dad. we had that in common too, for my mother was the same way with me. I knew that Jimmy didn't love me, I didn't love him either, but we were there for one another. I remember that his sister was pregnant at the time. She was a grade below us. Their mom was so sweet and just loved them both with unconditional love.

During Spring break I realized that I was probably pregnant and in my counting days from my last period I truly thought that the baby was my former boyfriends. I told Jimmy and he was so supportive all the while I was scrambling for what I was going to do. I decided that I needed to tell my former boyfriend, Mike, about it so I ran away with another friend, Susan Turner, to tell him that I was pregnant.

He was having some guys over because one of his buddies had gotten out of Juvie, and they were drinking. When I got there, he was very happy to see me, he accepted that I was pregnant, and even picked out the baby's name.  Unfortunately, and yet fortunately for me as time has proven, in the morning when I woke up, he came in and said that he was not the father of the baby, that he couldn't be, and if I pressed the matter he would have all his friends testify that they had all had sex with me. So, as crushed as I was, I held my head high, and Susan and I caught rides out to my parents lake house to figure out what to do. She was tired of the way she was being treated by her father and step mother, so she was going to try to find her mother.

Susan had a friend who was living in the back apartment behind Ramshorn Coop down by the University of Texas. She came and got us and let us stay with her. We took the bus from UT all the way out to Lanier and then we usually found a ride back after school was over. While there I did make an appointment with my family doctor, which Jimmy took me to. Back then you didn't know right away. It was the days when they would 'kill the rabbit' in order to find out if one was pregnant. My rabbit bit the dust. I will never forget that phone call. Jimmy had brought me home from school and we were sitting on the living room floor as I spoke to the nurse. She said that I was pregnant and of course I was crying like a baby and Jimmy just held me I his arms and told me that somehow everything would work out. All I knew was that my mother was going to kill me. 

My mother was irate when I called her and my Dad. I knew I couldn't go home so, my dad brought my things to me, and helped me move in. It wasn't but a few days later that I began to get so sick from the fumes of the bus  as we went to school. I downed lots of crackers on those bus rides, but I managed to make it to school. I was determined to graduated with my class. At the end of May, when school got out, I moved back home. My life for the next months was a living hell. Susan's father sent her to her mother's and I never knew her name or how to contact her.

My mother wanted me to get an abortion. I wouldn't do it. She tried on various occasions to throw chairs, dishes, anything that was within her reach, right at my baby bump thinking that if she hit me hard enough I would miscarry. My very best friend, Mary, gave me a lot of support during those really hard days. I could not have made it without her support. I couldn't see Jimmy anymore and I thought it best because I was pregnant with someone else's baby.

One week-end in June, the last one I believe, a friend of mine, Gina Keen, came up to Austin with her parents for a visit. We went out with me driving my Dad's 1971 Chevy truck, and we went to the drive in on Burnet Road. That's when I first saw Ken, and his friend Robert. When Gina and I left the drive-in to cruise down to UT, they followed us, and we pulled over on White Horse Drive, just off Burnet Road, and we talked for a long time. He wanted my number, I gave it to him.

Ken called just the next week, and wanted to go out. I told him I was pregnant, and he said he didn't care. So we began dating. The summer was fun, going out to his parents home on the lake. He took me on motorcycle rides, until I got too big! I never really thought that it would be serious, yet he told me that he loved me, and I didn't really know what to say back. I had lost a lot of trust in guys.

I started school in the Fall of 1971 at the Special Pregnant school. We preggies were not allowed to go to our high schools, and you would be amazed at who showed up there while I was there. So half a day of school, then lots of studying, and growing bigger with each passing day.

I remember the first time that Shan moved within me. It was the most awesome thing in the whole world, to feel life growing inside of me. I talked to him every day, sang songs to him, played music that Ken had recorded which was all classical music. I got my hands on anything at the library that I could to read about having a baby. There were no instructions or classes for us 'wayward girls'. No visit to the hospital, except when my Dad went with me to get pre-registered.

 

Mary and I spent a lot of time walking the mall. She held a baby shower for me, which my mother would not come to. She was so angry at all the gifts I got, saying I didn't deserve anything.

The due date was in December, and I just kept getting bigger and bigger with leg cramps so bad that walking up the stairs to Ken's apartment was no fun. I got stuck on the stairs once, and when Ken and Mary finally got me into the apartment, we called my doctor, and he told me to lay down and not try the stairs again that night. My mother was just thrilled that I was spending the night with Ken.

I began to have a lot of small contractions, no one called the Braxton Hicks back then. I went in for my weekly checkup the second week in December and was dilated to '2' and the doctor said I could have the baby any time. 

The morning of December 11, 1971 dawned. I had some lower back pain, but that was all. Then I went in to go to the bathroom around 10:00 a.m. and my water broke. I called Mary, called Ken, called my doctor. He said to go to the hospital. Mary picked me up, and she never has let me forget that I left a 'water stain' on her front seat. Ken met us at the hospital. I was two weeks early.

I got settled into a room, they were remodeling St. David's OB/GYN floor, so I was given a regular room. I never did begin contractions, so they put an IV in and gave me Pitocin. I went from no labor, to intense labor in a matter of minutes. Ouch. 

It was really funny, looking back on that day. Mary and Ken were with me, and they heard the nurse explain about labor, and how important it was to relax. So, when I would have a contraction Ken would draw circles on the back of my hand to distract me. That was my focal point. He did a really good job too.

My parents arrived with their best friends, so they had their support system in place. My mother would come to the bedside, and she would take my hand and tell me to squeeze as hard as I could if I needed to. Now, Mom had never given birth (I was adopted), so she was really trying to do the best she could with what limited knowledge she had. I just kept focusing on Ken's circles.

For being 16 and giving birth, I think I did really well. I could hear other women yelling, and I knew I didn't want any sound like that coming from me. I followed the nurses instructions and took long breaths, and just concentrated on the circles. My doctor came in and saw a little tear roll down my cheek, and he said, "Charlotte, are you in a lot of pain?" I said, "I guess so." Then he told me that I could ask for something to ease the pain. I don't remember what they gave me, but it did relax me a little.

Not long after, I was ready to push Shan into the world. I had gone through all the labor, and my birth plan was to have a saddle block, as they did not have any epidurals back then. So, onto the delivery table I went, sitting on the side, leaning forward for the saddle block to be placed in my spine. It was done in no time, and then I laid back on the delivery table. But I could not push. I tried and tried, but I could not feel my muscles tighten, and I could not bear down. One nurse pushed on my belly, and the doctor used forceps to get Shan out into the world.  Later I would learn that I had already gone through the most painful part, and that it would have been easier on me and on Shan for me to have not had the saddle block.

Anyway, Kenneth Shan Bates was born......and it was love at first sight.

Going home 12-15-1971

'Aunt Mary'

My Dad, Grandpa

The Three people who gave me so much support and love throughout my pregnancy and birth.

Ken

        

Happy Mom, Happy Shan

The rest of the story: Ken and I were married in 1973 and he adopted Shan right afterward. As the years went on and after Shan had his own daughter and son he wanted to find his birth father. I gave him the information I had, as I had found Mike's  aunt on Facebook. He contacted her and she told Mike and he insisted that he wasn't the birth father. A paternity test proved that he was right...he wasn't Shan's birthfather. I was stunned. For over 40 years I had thought that Mike was the birth father. The only other boy I had been with was Jimmy so I contacted his sister as I had kept in contact with her. Paternity test proved that he was Shan's birth father. They have a relationship now, as well as Shan has met his Aunt, his half brother and his Grandmother.

As for me, I think how different my life would have been if I had of known in 1971 that Jimmy was the father of my baby. I would not have felt so all alone. It makes me wonder how often we, as humans, make choices that we honestly don't know what the outcome could be if we chose differently. Yet, we do make the choices that we have to live with...and somehow we end up exactly where Creator wants us to end up.

I honestly would not change anything, no matter how broken the road was...it led me to the love of my life...Marty. We will celebrate our 20th anniversary on April 1. I am grateful for my experience of becoming a Mom and  my heart still smiles when I think back to the moment I held Shan in my arms.