Sturkie Family 2018B - Person Sheet
Sturkie Family 2018B - Person Sheet
NameSTURKIE, Kathleen Elizabeth 
Birth24 Aug 1920, Hassee, Texas
Death25 Dec 2008, Conroe, Texas
BurialSouth Park Cemetery, Pearland, TX
OccupationHousewife
EducationProctor Elementary School, Proctor, Comanche CO, TX; Gustine HS; Gustine, Comanche CO, TX; 1 year at Howard Payne Univ., Brownwood, Brown CO, TX
ReligionBaptist
FatherSTURKIE, William Dudley (1882-1971)
MotherLUKER, Mattie Lou (1884-1949)
Spouses
Birth29 Apr 1915
Death21 Dec 1997, Houston, Harris CO, TX
BurialSouth Park Cemetery, Pearland, TX
OccupationEngineer/Draftsman for Hughes Tool Company
EducationHS, Correspondence school
ReligionBaptist, many years a deacon in the Garden Villas Baptist Church
FatherPOWELL, John Thomas Sr. (1862-1950)
MotherSHAW, Nina (1872-1951)
Marriage11 Jun 1939, Brownwood, Texas
Obituary/DC notes for Kathleen Elizabeth STURKIE
Kathie Powell
KATHIE POWELL, 88, passed away December 25, 2008. Kathie was a long time member of Garden Villas Baptist Church where she taught Sunday school for many years and had many friends. Born Kathleen Elizabeth Sturkie on August 24, 1920 in Hasse, Comanche County, Texas, she was the daughter of W.D. Sturkie and Mattie Lou Luker Sturkie. Kathie was preceded in death by her husband, John T. Powell of Houston, Texas and grandson Stephen W. Mosley of Clear Lake and by siblings, Opal White, Ira Sturkie, Paul D. Sturkie, Lloyd O. Sturkie and Howard N. Sturkie. She is survived by her children: Mary Lou Ward of Colorado, Celia A. Bonney and husband Jim of Riverside, Texas, Bob Powell and wife Vicki of Knoxville, Tennessee and James E. Powell and wife Elizabeth of Houston. Also she leaves three grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Visitation will be from 2 PM to 4PM, December 28, 2008 at SouthPark Funeral Home in Pearland, TX. Services will be held Monday, December 29, 2008 at 1:00 PM at South Park Funeral Home. Please visit www.southparkfunerals.com to sign the family guest book.
KATHIE POWELL, 88, passed away December 25, 2008. Kathie was a long time member of Garden Villas Baptist Church where she taught Sunday school for many years and had many friends. Born Kathleen Elizabeth Sturkie on August 24, 1920 in Hasse, Comanche County, Texas, she was the daughter of W.D. Sturkie and Mattie Lou Luker Sturkie. Kathie was preceded in death by her husband, John T. Powell of Houston, Texas and grandson Stephen W. Mosley of Clear Lake and by siblings, Opal White, Ira Sturkie, Paul D. Sturkie, Lloyd O. Sturkie and Howard N. Sturkie. She is survived by her children: Mary Lou Ward of Colorado, Celia A. Bonney and husband Jim of Riverside, Texas, Bob Powell and wife Vicki of Knoxville, Tennessee and James E. Powell and wife Elizabeth of Houston. Also she leaves three grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Visitation will be from 2 PM to 4PM, December 28, 2008 at SouthPark Funeral Home in Pearland, TX. Services will be held Monday, December 29, 2008 at 1:00 PM at South Park Funeral Home. Please visit www.southparkfunerals.com to sign the family guest book.
Bio notes for Kathleen Elizabeth STURKIE
I was born August 24, 1920 In Hasee, Texas. Born at home, the last of six children, I’m sure my parents were tired of children .My sister Opal said I had a head of black hair. She was 15 years older and took care of me, washing my diapers, etc.
My friends and I played paper dolls, cutting them from the Sears catalogue. We made play houses in the 2 ditches using old bottles for people. My best friend was Dorothy Purvis and she lived across the big ditch from me. We had lots of fun. My cousin, Edith Luker also lived across the field.
I was pretty quiet, but my Dad said I was hard headed. I played on the school basket ball team and also played softball and gymnastics in school.
Our home in 1930 was what you might call poor. We drew water from a dug well. We milked cows, had a garden, fruit tress. My Dad farmed, raising corn, peanuts, maize for the cattle. We had no air conditioning not even a fan. We put our bed outside under a tree in the summer. In the winter, we slept under wool quilts so heavy you couldn’t turn over. My family lived off the land, selling corn, peanuts, butter and eggs. I never felt we were poor because we had plenty to eat, eggs, bacon, peas, bean and other things we raised in the garden. My mother canned corn, peas, beans, fruits. Dad killed hogs and made sausage, ham and bacon.
I finished High School in the spring of 1938. I was disappointed that I didn’t get the scholarship to Tarleton College. There were two of us with highest grades: Juanita Wyche and I. She had 1/2 point average over me, but the thing was, she only took 3 subjects and I took 5. I got the second scholarship which was to Howard Payne College in Brownwood, Texas, which was about 30 miles from where we lived in Gustine. My brother who was in Rochelle knew a family who had a girl going to Howard Payne, He arranged for us to meet and we found an apartment on Austin Avenue with Dorothy and Joe Morgan. Nelda Jackson and I got a job at a boarding house near the school. We would wait tables at lunch for our food. This didn’t last long as we couldn’t make our classes on time. Then Dad and Nelda’s mother brought us food and we ate from Mrs. Morgan’s kitchen. We ate a lot of peanut butter, mayonnaise and bread. With that diet, I weighed the most I have ever weighed.
Next door was a Humble Service Station. J. T. Powell worked there. Nelda and I would go over and buy cokes and talk to him. His car wash was right next to our window. JT would squirt water in our window to get our attention.
On the last of January of 1939, JT asked me for a date. I was very happy. On the 31st day of Jan we went to a cafe on the square, had sandwiches and cokes. Went to a show the “Cowboy and the Lady.” I liked him very much and I knew he liked me. He was still living at home and he told his sister later that he just had to have me for his wife.
It was about two weeks before we dated again. I was dating boys from school. Then we started dating regularly once a week. He asked me to marry him and he said he would ask my Dad for my hand in marriage. He did and we set the date of June 11, 1939 less than six months after we met. We were married by Brother Bradford on a Sunday evening at 5 o’clock in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. Lavern and Buddy came, Worth and Evelyn Myrick. My mother and daddy were not there. I had a blue lace dress and a white hat and shoes. We took Floyd Powell’s boat and went out to Brownwood Lake and spent that night and the next day which was our honeymoon. JT worked on the boat about half of the night.
He took me home to his mother’s house and he went to work the next day. They lived about five miles out of (Brownwood) town. I spent my first week of marriage tearing the old wall paper paper out of the kitchen. JT and I re-papered and painted it. I got a job at Penny’s and worked the rest of that year. In 1940 we came to Houston and JT went to work in a machine shop, then in a car parts store and then he went to work at Hughes Tool Co. We lived in a garage apartment on Sherman Street. I went to work at Penny’s down town, riding a bus. Our first child, Mary Lou was born while we lived there. Then in 1944 we moved to 207 Brace which is now 7155 Brace where I have lived ever since.
A handwritten letter by Kathleen Powell
to Daughter Mary Lou Powell
Family Story notes for Kathleen Elizabeth STURKIE
Kathleen Powell
The story of a lifetime
Growing Up
My mother, Mattie Lou Luker Sturkie, did the house work and milked 2 TO 3 cows in the morning and at night churning butter and keeping milk in a cooling pan as we didn’t have an icebox. She did the washing on a rub board with no running water and hung the clothes on the fence. She made quilts with frames hanging from the ceiling. Mother was a good cook especially considering what she had to work with. Our breakfasts usually consisted of bacon, eggs, biscuits and syrup. We had bacon if Dad had killed a hog. Lunch was always the big meal of the day. Our family didn’t have meat every day—chicken usually only on Sunday. During the week we ate whatever was in the garden—English peas, string beans, corn, potatoes mostly vegetables and always corn bread for lunch.
Mama cooked for 8 people—breakfast, lunch and dinner, she would also feed the thresher crew of 8 to 10 men or whatever Baptist preacher Dad would bring home.
My mother was very neat. She had us sweep the yard until it was clean. We had no grass, it was clay or sand. There was no trash laying around. When she had time she sewed and did quilting. She was, as her mother had taught her, a good seamstress.
She was a Methodist as were all of the Luker family. Although Dad was a staunch Baptist mother attended church at the Proctor Methodist Church. Occasionally, I went with her and sometimes with Dad.
I never heard my mother yell at her kids.. She was quiet, kind and gentle and very calm. I thought she let my Dad run over her. He treated her as if she wasn’t capable at times. When her mother died and her brother Ben ( at 42) died she was very sad. She took their deaths hard. From her I learned patience, love and trustworthiness.
When we moved to Gustine, the house had only one bedroom with two double beds. Dad slept in one and Mother and I slept on the other. I never thought anything about why they weren’t sleeping together. Dad was so big, I guess my mother preferred to sleep with me.
My mother died of congestive heat failure Oct 4, 1949 as did my Uncle Ben. Mother was 64 at her death and Uncle Ben was only 42. She is buried in Baggett Creek Cemetery next to my father. I was holding her when she died.
Dad was born five miles south east of Proctor, Texas on the old James Clemons farm. He grew up around the Graham’s Chapel Community where he attended school through the seventh grade. Purportedly he and my mother passed notes during class. My dad was strict and firm in his beliefs. His way was the right and only way. This was probably necessary to keep four boys in line. Dad worked in a grocery store and for Meadow Brothers in Waco, Texas for a short time. He learned the grocery trade from his father for whom he worked as a young man. Dad was a farmer and belonged to the Masonic Lodge.
Being adamantly opposed to alcohol, my brothers had to conceal their moonshining and other activities that were forbidden. Since I was the youngest, I escaped much of the directed work.. Although once, my father was in the cotton fields and had a problem. Demanding that I run to the house to get a bucket of water, I announced that I would walk to the house. For my insolence , I got a paddling. Still, being the youngest, I was considered Dad’s pet and all the boys teased me about it.
Written by Kathleen Sturkie Powell
2003
The story of a lifetime
Growing Up
My mother, Mattie Lou Luker Sturkie, did the house work and milked 2 TO 3 cows in the morning and at night churning butter and keeping milk in a cooling pan as we didn’t have an icebox. She did the washing on a rub board with no running water and hung the clothes on the fence. She made quilts with frames hanging from the ceiling. Mother was a good cook especially considering what she had to work with. Our breakfasts usually consisted of bacon, eggs, biscuits and syrup. We had bacon if Dad had killed a hog. Lunch was always the big meal of the day. Our family didn’t have meat every day—chicken usually only on Sunday. During the week we ate whatever was in the garden—English peas, string beans, corn, potatoes mostly vegetables and always corn bread for lunch.
Mama cooked for 8 people—breakfast, lunch and dinner, she would also feed the thresher crew of 8 to 10 men or whatever Baptist preacher Dad would bring home.
My mother was very neat. She had us sweep the yard until it was clean. We had no grass, it was clay or sand. There was no trash laying around. When she had time she sewed and did quilting. She was, as her mother had taught her, a good seamstress.
She was a Methodist as were all of the Luker family. Although Dad was a staunch Baptist mother attended church at the Proctor Methodist Church. Occasionally, I went with her and sometimes with Dad.
I never heard my mother yell at her kids.. She was quiet, kind and gentle and very calm. I thought she let my Dad run over her. He treated her as if she wasn’t capable at times. When her mother died and her brother Ben ( at 42) died she was very sad. She took their deaths hard. From her I learned patience, love and trustworthiness.
When we moved to Gustine, the house had only one bedroom with two double beds. Dad slept in one and Mother and I slept on the other. I never thought anything about why they weren’t sleeping together. Dad was so big, I guess my mother preferred to sleep with me.
My mother died of congestive heat failure Oct 4, 1949 as did my Uncle Ben. Mother was 64 at her death and Uncle Ben was only 42. She is buried in Baggett Creek Cemetery next to my father. I was holding her when she died.
Dad was born five miles south east of Proctor, Texas on the old James Clemons farm. He grew up around the Graham’s Chapel Community where he attended school through the seventh grade. Purportedly he and my mother passed notes during class. My dad was strict and firm in his beliefs. His way was the right and only way. This was probably necessary to keep four boys in line. Dad worked in a grocery store and for Meadow Brothers in Waco, Texas for a short time. He learned the grocery trade from his father for whom he worked as a young man. Dad was a farmer and belonged to the Masonic Lodge.
Being adamantly opposed to alcohol, my brothers had to conceal their moonshining and other activities that were forbidden. Since I was the youngest, I escaped much of the directed work.. Although once, my father was in the cotton fields and had a problem. Demanding that I run to the house to get a bucket of water, I announced that I would walk to the house. For my insolence , I got a paddling. Still, being the youngest, I was considered Dad’s pet and all the boys teased me about it.
Written by Kathleen Sturkie Powell
2003
FindAGrave notes for Kathleen Elizabeth STURKIE
Find A Grave Memorial# 44622772
Bio notes for John Thomas (Spouse 1)
JT (John Thomas) Powell
1915-1997
JT Powell was born in Blanket, Texas, April 29, 1915 and was the last child of John Thomas Powell and Nina Shaw Powell. Nina was 42 when he was born and was undoubtedly tired of raising kids. He was number eight. Daughter Esther had been in charge of sibling Burl and was not excited about the new addition to the family knowing that she would be his nanny. When Nina found out she was pregnant with J. T., she didn’t tell Esther for a long time. She knew that Esther would not be happy because Esther had just gotten through taking care of Burl. When she finally told Esther, Esther was really angry and she sulked until the baby was born. When Baby JT was born everyone came to see him except Esther. She wouldn’t look at him, didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Finally, John Thomas, Sr. made her come in the house to see the new baby. She said as soon as she saw him, she fell in love. From that time on, JT, as he was called, was her favorite.
Story was related by Jerry Andrews at Esther’s memorial service in Brownwood, Texas, 2005.
The Powell family moved around often, trading land and moving up. JT first remembers that they lived between Blanket and Zephyr close to Bethel Church. That is where he was born. They next moved closer to Blanket where they remained for about six years. He went to school at Antioch where the teacher came by the Powell house and transported JT to school.The family moved to Blanket again and rented a house until 1928. During that time JT senior worked in a store. Young JT went to school in Blanket until the family moved between Newberg and Priddy where JT Sr. bought half a section of land. He had part in cultivation and part for grazing. JT went to school at Newberg, Texas until the family moved to May, Tex about 1930 through 1936. By this time JT’s father was getting rather old and JT did all of the chores and farming tasks. He finished high school in 1933 at May HS which at that time only went through the eleventh grade. In 1936 the family moved to the outskirts of Brownwood in a house on Austin Avenue.
After WWI when the Powell family lived on the Beard place, Brooks and Onnie Lee Powell, JT’s oldest brothers came home from the war impressing the young JT with their 45 pistols, gas masks and parts of their uniforms that they wore rolled up to the knee.
Life on the farm in central Texas during the twenties and thirties was very difficult.The Powell family always had plenty to eat since almost everything was grown or raised at home: vegetables, milk, butter, eggs. Necessities like sugar, flour, etc. that were not raised were bartered for with items that were raised.Neighbors would sometimes kill a yearly calf and go around the countryside in a wagon selling parts. It was great, according to JT, when they could afford to buy steak.
JT read and did homework by a kerosene lamp. At Newburg, he read hours on end by a lamp where he slept in the attic. His dad gave him a new 22 rifle at age ten. He stated that he was the proudest kid ever and spent hours hunting squirrels and rabbits along a creek where they lived supplying lots of meat for the family. During his younger days, JT had very little responsibility. He had to feed the chickens and hogs but had much freedom due probably to the fact that he was the tail end of the family and his parents were tired of raising kids. His father, John Thomas, Sr., was a quiet, easy going man with a great sense of humor. Nina, his mother, was a good loving person but very stern. She was the disciplinarian of the family.When she spoke, she intended for you to do what she said. She was never mean but she didn’t put up with any foolishness. If you were assigned a task she expected you to do carry it out. Once JT spent the night with friends without telling his parents. Knowing that he would get a whoopin’ the next day, he went home through the cotton patch where he stuffed the seat of his pants with cotton.
Shooting rabbits and squirrels was great fun for him. The family did not have a radio until 1936--had a telephone. Also they had old edition phonograph. At Comanche there was indoor plumbing. An above ground cistern caught rain water which was sometimes the only water available. The toilet was still outdoors. Baths took place in a #2 wash tub with water heated over the wood stove in the kitchen and poured into the tub. In the summer showers were taken under the water tower of wind mill. The family's first electricity was in Comanche but they didn’t have it again until they moved to Brownwood.
BOOTLEGGING
Boys with little supervision could find lots to do in the country. At age 18 or 19, soon after he finished high school, JT and his friends decided to make beer. This was during Prohibition. “I don’t remember where we got the recipe but we bought a ten gallon crock and took it down to the creek which was spring fed.One spring the weather was unusually cool and our brew wasn’t fermenting. A friend’s dad kept beer fermenting in the cellar so we proceeded to try to move the uncooperative batch. My friend Winifred and I put wire around the crock and put a limb through the crock to carry it and started up through the field on a Sunday morning. Dad was out checking the corn crop and we were pretty sure he would make us pour it off. He said, “I knew you boys have been up to bootlegging!” and just walked off. So, we carried our brew up to Dosie Bryan’s house and his dad put a candle under it and worked the beer off.”
“We also made beer at a different place between our house and Dosie Bryan’s in a briar patch off the side of the road. We put the crock in the briar patch where no one would find it. When we went to check on it, it was gone. Recent rain made tracking easy. Because the crock was so heavy we knew there had to be two thieves. We caught up with the culprit hiding behind a tree. The old man, a known boozer, was afraid that I might shoot him. Reclaiming our brew we, carried it back to our briar patch distillery.”
OTHER TALES
“During the Model T days when I was 18 or 19 years old, we had a stripped down Model T which had the bed taken off of it and just the chassis remained. I knew how to wire things so my friend and I hooked up electricity to the bottom of benches in church where several old ladies would be sitting. Nails held the wire which ran to the Model T and a live spark plug. We set outside and watched through the window so we could see when to turn the switch on the Model T on. Everyone on that bench rose up at the same time when we turned the switch especially several shocked old ladies. I was usually the leader of the pack with great ideas to keep from getting bored.”
“Winifred, Dosie and I decided it would be a lot of fun to dig a ditch across the road and watch the cars hit and bounce around. When our trench was finished the first one to hit it was Altus Weathersby, my best friend. He had an old Essex. When he hit the bump going fast all the doors flew open. We had made sure the ditch wasn’t dug at an angle but the impact caused a real jolt. Altus didn’t know that we had dug the ditch until two or three later. He had the law out the next day and we laid low.”
“When we lived at Blanket Earl Dean ran a filling station. I had a BB Gun and was shooting at an insulator on a telephone pole. I was inside the filling station and leaning up against the door. Just as I pulled the trigger Earl went to wait on a car. The bb hit him on the lip. He never had it removed.”
Burl and JT were very competitive and often fighting when they were young. One Sunday morning, JT and Worth Myrick were taking a shower under the water tower at Mamie’s pump house. Burl came by with a wad of gravel and started pelting them with small rocks until they started chasing him. When they did, Burl led them by the road where two women were returning from church. The buck naked boys were humiliated.
HOUSTON
Needing employment, JT took a job at a service station in Brownwood. A pretty young brunette lived on the second floor of the boarding house next to the station. Her name was Kathie Sturkie. She was working as a waitress to help with her college expenses. JT wooed her by spraying a hose in her second story window. She did not finish the semester and the couple married June 11, 1939. In Brownwood, they lived with JT’s parents and when they moved out, Nina Powell was very unhappy with them.
When J. T.’s job at the Brownwood, Texas service station played out because the service station was sold, Kathie and Jay T. moved to Houston in order for him to secure a good job. Both Opal (Kathie’s sister) and A. D. White and Lloyd Sturkie had preceded them in their move to the large city from central Texas. JT went to work for an auto parts store but was fired because he didn’t know anything about auto parts.The couple lived at first with Opal and “Red” in their house on Park Lane. Red was working as a metallurgical engineer at Hughes Tool Company nearby. After about six weeks, they found an apartment on Sherman street where they lived until they bought their first house in the Garden Villas Subdivision in Houston in 1944. Eventually he landed a job with Hughes Tool Company in the early 40’s. When WW II began, he was sent to work at Dickson Gun Plant, a move which spared him active duty in the war.
My Dad
written by Mary Powell Ward
(based partly on an interview with Grandson Stephen W. Mosley)
2016
1915-1997
JT Powell was born in Blanket, Texas, April 29, 1915 and was the last child of John Thomas Powell and Nina Shaw Powell. Nina was 42 when he was born and was undoubtedly tired of raising kids. He was number eight. Daughter Esther had been in charge of sibling Burl and was not excited about the new addition to the family knowing that she would be his nanny. When Nina found out she was pregnant with J. T., she didn’t tell Esther for a long time. She knew that Esther would not be happy because Esther had just gotten through taking care of Burl. When she finally told Esther, Esther was really angry and she sulked until the baby was born. When Baby JT was born everyone came to see him except Esther. She wouldn’t look at him, didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Finally, John Thomas, Sr. made her come in the house to see the new baby. She said as soon as she saw him, she fell in love. From that time on, JT, as he was called, was her favorite.
Story was related by Jerry Andrews at Esther’s memorial service in Brownwood, Texas, 2005.
The Powell family moved around often, trading land and moving up. JT first remembers that they lived between Blanket and Zephyr close to Bethel Church. That is where he was born. They next moved closer to Blanket where they remained for about six years. He went to school at Antioch where the teacher came by the Powell house and transported JT to school.The family moved to Blanket again and rented a house until 1928. During that time JT senior worked in a store. Young JT went to school in Blanket until the family moved between Newberg and Priddy where JT Sr. bought half a section of land. He had part in cultivation and part for grazing. JT went to school at Newberg, Texas until the family moved to May, Tex about 1930 through 1936. By this time JT’s father was getting rather old and JT did all of the chores and farming tasks. He finished high school in 1933 at May HS which at that time only went through the eleventh grade. In 1936 the family moved to the outskirts of Brownwood in a house on Austin Avenue.
After WWI when the Powell family lived on the Beard place, Brooks and Onnie Lee Powell, JT’s oldest brothers came home from the war impressing the young JT with their 45 pistols, gas masks and parts of their uniforms that they wore rolled up to the knee.
Life on the farm in central Texas during the twenties and thirties was very difficult.The Powell family always had plenty to eat since almost everything was grown or raised at home: vegetables, milk, butter, eggs. Necessities like sugar, flour, etc. that were not raised were bartered for with items that were raised.Neighbors would sometimes kill a yearly calf and go around the countryside in a wagon selling parts. It was great, according to JT, when they could afford to buy steak.
JT read and did homework by a kerosene lamp. At Newburg, he read hours on end by a lamp where he slept in the attic. His dad gave him a new 22 rifle at age ten. He stated that he was the proudest kid ever and spent hours hunting squirrels and rabbits along a creek where they lived supplying lots of meat for the family. During his younger days, JT had very little responsibility. He had to feed the chickens and hogs but had much freedom due probably to the fact that he was the tail end of the family and his parents were tired of raising kids. His father, John Thomas, Sr., was a quiet, easy going man with a great sense of humor. Nina, his mother, was a good loving person but very stern. She was the disciplinarian of the family.When she spoke, she intended for you to do what she said. She was never mean but she didn’t put up with any foolishness. If you were assigned a task she expected you to do carry it out. Once JT spent the night with friends without telling his parents. Knowing that he would get a whoopin’ the next day, he went home through the cotton patch where he stuffed the seat of his pants with cotton.
Shooting rabbits and squirrels was great fun for him. The family did not have a radio until 1936--had a telephone. Also they had old edition phonograph. At Comanche there was indoor plumbing. An above ground cistern caught rain water which was sometimes the only water available. The toilet was still outdoors. Baths took place in a #2 wash tub with water heated over the wood stove in the kitchen and poured into the tub. In the summer showers were taken under the water tower of wind mill. The family's first electricity was in Comanche but they didn’t have it again until they moved to Brownwood.
BOOTLEGGING
Boys with little supervision could find lots to do in the country. At age 18 or 19, soon after he finished high school, JT and his friends decided to make beer. This was during Prohibition. “I don’t remember where we got the recipe but we bought a ten gallon crock and took it down to the creek which was spring fed.One spring the weather was unusually cool and our brew wasn’t fermenting. A friend’s dad kept beer fermenting in the cellar so we proceeded to try to move the uncooperative batch. My friend Winifred and I put wire around the crock and put a limb through the crock to carry it and started up through the field on a Sunday morning. Dad was out checking the corn crop and we were pretty sure he would make us pour it off. He said, “I knew you boys have been up to bootlegging!” and just walked off. So, we carried our brew up to Dosie Bryan’s house and his dad put a candle under it and worked the beer off.”
“We also made beer at a different place between our house and Dosie Bryan’s in a briar patch off the side of the road. We put the crock in the briar patch where no one would find it. When we went to check on it, it was gone. Recent rain made tracking easy. Because the crock was so heavy we knew there had to be two thieves. We caught up with the culprit hiding behind a tree. The old man, a known boozer, was afraid that I might shoot him. Reclaiming our brew we, carried it back to our briar patch distillery.”
OTHER TALES
“During the Model T days when I was 18 or 19 years old, we had a stripped down Model T which had the bed taken off of it and just the chassis remained. I knew how to wire things so my friend and I hooked up electricity to the bottom of benches in church where several old ladies would be sitting. Nails held the wire which ran to the Model T and a live spark plug. We set outside and watched through the window so we could see when to turn the switch on the Model T on. Everyone on that bench rose up at the same time when we turned the switch especially several shocked old ladies. I was usually the leader of the pack with great ideas to keep from getting bored.”
“Winifred, Dosie and I decided it would be a lot of fun to dig a ditch across the road and watch the cars hit and bounce around. When our trench was finished the first one to hit it was Altus Weathersby, my best friend. He had an old Essex. When he hit the bump going fast all the doors flew open. We had made sure the ditch wasn’t dug at an angle but the impact caused a real jolt. Altus didn’t know that we had dug the ditch until two or three later. He had the law out the next day and we laid low.”
“When we lived at Blanket Earl Dean ran a filling station. I had a BB Gun and was shooting at an insulator on a telephone pole. I was inside the filling station and leaning up against the door. Just as I pulled the trigger Earl went to wait on a car. The bb hit him on the lip. He never had it removed.”
Burl and JT were very competitive and often fighting when they were young. One Sunday morning, JT and Worth Myrick were taking a shower under the water tower at Mamie’s pump house. Burl came by with a wad of gravel and started pelting them with small rocks until they started chasing him. When they did, Burl led them by the road where two women were returning from church. The buck naked boys were humiliated.
HOUSTON
Needing employment, JT took a job at a service station in Brownwood. A pretty young brunette lived on the second floor of the boarding house next to the station. Her name was Kathie Sturkie. She was working as a waitress to help with her college expenses. JT wooed her by spraying a hose in her second story window. She did not finish the semester and the couple married June 11, 1939. In Brownwood, they lived with JT’s parents and when they moved out, Nina Powell was very unhappy with them.
When J. T.’s job at the Brownwood, Texas service station played out because the service station was sold, Kathie and Jay T. moved to Houston in order for him to secure a good job. Both Opal (Kathie’s sister) and A. D. White and Lloyd Sturkie had preceded them in their move to the large city from central Texas. JT went to work for an auto parts store but was fired because he didn’t know anything about auto parts.The couple lived at first with Opal and “Red” in their house on Park Lane. Red was working as a metallurgical engineer at Hughes Tool Company nearby. After about six weeks, they found an apartment on Sherman street where they lived until they bought their first house in the Garden Villas Subdivision in Houston in 1944. Eventually he landed a job with Hughes Tool Company in the early 40’s. When WW II began, he was sent to work at Dickson Gun Plant, a move which spared him active duty in the war.
My Dad
written by Mary Powell Ward
(based partly on an interview with Grandson Stephen W. Mosley)
2016
Notes for John Thomas (Spouse 1)
John Thomas was slim, always maintaining his weight, about 5’9” tall with dark brown hair. He and brother Burl were the youngest and shortest of the seven Powell brothers.
FindAGrave notes for John Thomas (Spouse 1)
Find A Grave Memorial# 44622755