Grandfather - Maternal Side
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| William R. Hutsen (date unknown) |
William Ralphus Hutsen was the first born of John William and Rosetta Turner Hutsen(piller)'s thirteen children in Bloomfield, Stoddard County, Missouri on April 2, 1895. The family lived on a farm in Missouri until the spring of 1901 when they moved by wagons to Red River County, Texas. The journey took two months. William would grow up moving often as his father worked in Como, Greenville, Albany, Mt. Pleasant, Bogota, and Maple Springs. The family settled down near Bogota on a farm where the children could attend school. This is where William would finish the 8th grade.
In the Summer of 1914, there was a drought so William and his father went to Oklahoma to pick cotton until the fall. By the Spring of 1915, the crops had come in but William went to work in Iowa until some time in 1917. I am unsure what occupation he undertook while away. Upon returning home, he was drafted into the army. He spent his time serving by way of working in a Spanish Flu hospital because he was immune.
William married a local girl Cora Van Wey on July 25, 1918. He always said that he married an older woman as she was born in 1894. Together they had the following children:
- Turner Van "T.V." Wey Hutsen (1920-1950); never married
- Earl Fred "Freddie" Hutsen (1922-2001); married 1st Esther Bertha Nickli; married 2nd Rose Edith Walker
- Juanita"Nita" Mae Hutsen (1925-1997); married 1st Neal Hebert, married 2nd Tommy Hasty, Sr.
- Claudia "Allene" Hutsen (1927-1992) married 1st Stanley Gillespie; 2nd Milton Benny Perkins; 3rd Mr. Hufford, 4th Mr. Decou
- Eola "Floralene" Hutsen (1929- ); married Everett Cornelius
- Luther Glen " L.G." Hutsen (1932-1976); married 1st Gertrude Ella Jean Barnes; 2nd Estuko
The 1920 U.S. Census shows William renting a farm near Garvinsville, Texas where their oldest son was born. By 1922, the family had moved to Arkansas where William worked in the oil fields moving from El Dorado, to Norflit, to Luann, and Smackover. While living in Arkansas his oldest son, T.V., fell off of a porch and suffered a brain injury eventually going into the State Hospital. By 1935, William, his wife and six children were living back in Red River County, Texas. In May, 1937 his beloved Cora had become ill with Dropsy and died on June 1, 1937 and was subsequently buried in Longview, Texas.
I need to put this in here and this seems like a good place. I don't know exactly where or when this happened, but William lost his right eye while chopping wood. It could have happened in Arkansas and that might have been the reason that the family returned to Texas, I simply don't know the rest of the circumstances surrounding it. All that I can say for certain was that he referred to himself as a one-eyed widower.
Between 1937 and 1938 William and his children had moved to Houston, Texas. He bought a bicycle and peddled ice cream. His mother had come to Houston to help with the children when she took ill and passed away. Later his sister, Flora came to help out.
William bought a house on McDaniel Street where the occupants could not move out immediately so he was going to pitch a tent for his family to live in. He was trying to tie the tent rope off when it broke. This happened three times so he sat down to smoke a cigarette before trying for a forth time. His youngest daughter came up and said she would be cussing up a storm if that had happened to her. William looked at her with a solemn face and said, "Now would that have tied that rope?"
William opened a store with one of his cousins. It did not last and he sold his portion and thought he was cheated for some reason.
William worked at Trinity Portland Cement as a mill operator from which he retired. After retirement, he bought property in Splendora, Texas and built a nice two bedroom house. There he raised strawberries, chickens, and a nanny goat. But William had been lonely all of those years since his wife died. He met and married Mallisses Bell whom my mother called "Granny Good Witch". I was happy to spend a week with him and had the best time gathering eggs and trying to milk the goat. I never got a drop of milk out of that goat!
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| Mallisses and William |
William and Mallisses sold the property in Splendora and purchased property in Cold Springs, Texas that had an old house. There was no bathroom in the house although it had a pump in the kitchen and a well outside. There was also an outhouse. Every time we visited, you had to check for ticks on the ride home.
All of his children and grandchildren called him Poppa. He was a very quiet man but had a very dry sense of humor. If you drove by a cemetery, he would state: "There's not a living soul in that place." Poppa was very kind and thoughtful, a gentle man who worked hard for his family.
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| Papaw and Poppa |
William did not drink and said if you went to church that you should attend one that had "Christ" in it's name, therefore was a member of the Church of Christ. If William had a cold, he would drink a hot toddy as his cure. One night we received a phone call that William was really ill and needed to be taken to the Veteran's Hospital in Houston. My mother raced up to Cold Springs and loaded the couple in the car snickering the whole way home. When asked by my brother what was so funny, she wrote on a piece of paper that "Poppa is drunk" to which my brother was shocked at the accusation. She brought him home and the next morning took him to the hospital after he had sobered up. It turned out that William had pneumonia and was hospitalized for several days. I was young so I can't say for sure what year this was.
While visiting his oldest son, Fred, in Tulsa William became sick going into the hospital. The diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. William wanted a cigarette after surgery and my mother told him the nurses wouldn't let him have one to which he stated, "Go ahead and ask, Hard Hard, you'll see!" To her amazement they said yes that he could. He lasted for only a few more days and died on February 4, 1969 and was laid to rest in Brookside Cemetery next to his oldest son.
