Monday, February 13, 2006

Lizzie Belle (Isabell) Herndon Tucker

This is for you Maddie, Ella and Sam:

Your great great-grandmother Lizzie Belle Herndon Tucker was born on this day February 13, 1889 in Bosque County, Texas. She preferred the name Isabell which her friends used. Some of her children called her "Ip." I called her Granny Tucker. She was one of 14 children (7 girls and 7 boys). The siblings were: Joe, William (whom they called Charlie), Fred, Arch, Alma, Viola (Ola), Lena, Bud, Lawrence (called Jip), Arthur (called Toff), Daisy (who died at the age of 6), LuNettie (called Bobby) and Willie.(Interestingly, Charlie married a distant relative of your Poppy's, Mary Rowell. And Viola married her twin brother Reuben Rowell. Sam and I did not know that until after we married.) I later taught with Charlie's granddaughter at Austin Elementary in Abilene. In Lizzie's early lineage was
William H. Herndon, who practiced law with Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Ill. before he became president; William Herndon wrote one of the first biographies of A. Lincoln, and it is still used by scholars. Another notable was Ellen Lewis Herndon, the wife of Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president of the United States. In 1897 Lizzie moved with her parents William Samuel and Mary Ellis Lantrip Herndon to the Pleasant Hill Community of Jones County, Texas. Her father had heard that prime farm land was cheap there. Will first put his family in a digout in a bluff on his land while he began farming and building a house for them all. He eventually owned more than 2,000 acres there. In addition, he built a tabernacle on one corner of his land which he called Herndon Chapel. It was later replaced by a white church building. Neighbors who were members of the Church of Christ attended for years.

Lizzie was the oldest girl and thus became her ailing mother's primary helper. She would cook breakfast for the crowd, clean up the dishes and the house, and then go to the fields and pick cotton for the rest of the day. Her older brother Joe (5 years older) was an ogre who pushed her to work and pick more cotton than "the boys." After that, she would go into the house, cook supper, clean up, and then retire (or collapse) in her bed. She grew weary of all of that. In 1911, she and her younger sister Alma stepped out of the living room window (those were the days when the windows went from ceiling to floor) and eloped with their boyfriends. Two of Lizzie's brothers had helped the girls hide their trunks in a secluded area on the farm. Lizzie's husband-to-be picked her up in a horse and buggy belonging to Earl Scott whom Alma married.

Lizzie's husband was a newcomer to town and was definitely not appreciated by Lizzie's parents. Will promptly disinherited the girls and her brothers who helped them. I think the brothers who helped were Charlie and Bud. Turns out that the parents' opinion of Claude Edward Tucker was right. He was somewhat of a neer-do-well (more on that later).

In a story reminiscent of the prodigal son, Lizzie was reunited with her parents in this fashion: She and Alma had been banned by Will and Mary from returning home after the marriages. After about 2 years had passed, one morning Lizzie and Claude pulled up to the road leading to the big white house. Claude stayed in the buggy(I am sure he felt unwelcome still) while Lizzie began walking down the road home. Her father Will was sitting on the front porch and ran to her crying, welcoming her back home. He gave her a small cash inheritance and all was well. Will did not include any of his daughters in his will--just the boys when he died in 1918 at the age of 56. Mary lived until 1925 when she died of cancer. Her funeral was held on the porch of the Herndon home in Pleasant Hill.

Claude took it on himself to use the inheritance Lizzie was given to buy some land nearby which he eventually lost because he was a dismally poor farmer. They began to move around where he could find odd jobs. My mother, Pauline (your great-grandmother) graduated from high school in Rochester, Texas, where her dad owned a service station. Claude, who suffered from depression, never made enough money to support his wife and four children ( Who were: Hazel Pauline, Chloe Lynette, Otis Lee and Clarence Edward). He deserted the family and was eventually hospitalized after trying to commit suicide. They were never reunited, although Lizzie was heard to say that she never stopped loving him. He preceded her in death in 1957 and is buried with his family in Zephyr, Texas.

Lizzie and her children moved closer to home in Anson, Texas, where the children went to school. She rented out rooms in her house to boarders to make money during the Depression and all the children worked to help out. After the war in 1946, the family moved to Abilene, Texas. After all her children were married, Lizzie enjoyed living by herself in a duplex on Cedar Street where she raised roses and daisies. She had some company--Jimbo, a yellow canary who had a sweet song. She loved watching Days of Our Lives and General Hospital every day. Lizzie baby-sat your father occasionally and would bake sugar cookies which she called tea cakes for him. She hosted many family dinners replete with love and food in the small duplex. She lived near the Northside Church of Christ and walked to church through the alley for years. She was a life-long member of the Church of Christ as were her mother and father.

She died in October, 1982, at the age of 85 at Hendrick Hospital in Abilene. Cause of her death was congestive heart failure. She had been exceptionally healthy most of her life. She was the 10th of her siblings to die. She loved your Poppy (Sam Thomas), and he wrote a poem about her which he read at her funeral. Lizzie is buried in Elmwood Memorial Cemetery in Abilene, Texas.

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