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