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Note: Granbury - Annie Bell James, 87, a homemaker, died Monday, January 17, 2000, at Granbury Care Center after a prolonged illness. Graveside service: 2:00 p.m. Wednesday in Acton Cemetery in Hood County. Daughter of George Oscar Kaylor and Tellie Jane Hutchins, Annie Bell was born September 30th 1912 in Walnut Springs, Texas. She lived in Iredell until the early 1920's. Moving to Hood County she lived the remainder of her life near Acton. She was a member of Acton Baptist Church. Annie Bell was preceded in death in 1975 by her husband Elvus Thomas James, in 1989 by her son Wendal Lee James, in 1994 by her sister Earline Blackburn. Survivors: Son, Charles Lynn James of Acton; daughter, Joan Elain Bupp of Acton; daughter-in-law, Claudean James of North Richland Hills; sister-in-law, Anna Lee Harden of Acton; grandchildren; Scott James of Acton, Rory James of Lake Worth, and Lelaina Jordan of Bedford; great-grandchildren; Aaron James, Ashley James, Amanda James, Janea James, Cameron Jordan, and Chanler Jordan. (source: Obituary for Annie Bell James; January 1999) A Tribute to My Grandmother, Annie Bell James As a very young boy I remember sitting in my Grandmothers lap and saying to her "Mama, you're so beautiful", her reply was "No honey, I'm not beautiful, I'm not even pretty, I'm just an old lady", I replied "No Mama, you are beautiful". And to me she was that and so much more. I didn't see her through the eyes of one judging a contest or merely physical attributes. I looked at her from my heart. The heart of a little boy who saw her as the very manifestation of beauty. This was the person who had raised me since a very young age. This was the person who I loved as no other, she was so beautiful to my little eyes. She was then, and she still is in my mind's eye. Even though time had taken its toll; her skin had wrinkled, her hair had grayed. She still was that person who had cared for me and loved me. And I loved her. And now that she has passed, the dealing with that love is overpowering and overwhelming. A strange mixture of emotions it is. Wanting so much for her to still be here, but knowing that she is better where she is now. Really just longing for her to be as she was, before her battle with time had taken so much from her. Even though she was my Grandmother, I called her Mama, she liked it and that was that. Once a lady from church was visiting and she chastised me for calling her Mama, my Grandmother unleashed a verbal assault that sent the lady scurrying from the house. As a young child you take a certain comfort from being defended against an attacker. You know that the safety net is there to protect you from invaders, even if it was just a small frail woman with sharp tongues. Annie Bell James (Kaylor) was born September 30th 1912 in Walnut Springs, Texas. Her parents were George and Tellie (Hutchins) Kaylor. She had a difficult life to say the least. At age seven she went from being the youngest child to being an only child. Her older sister, Velma passed away in 1919. Her younger sister, Earline was born a couple of years later, now she had the role of older sister. Her father was older and in poor health. The family moved from Iredell, Texas to Hood County near Acton, Texas in the early 1920's. She was only able to attend school until the sixth grade. The family needed all the financial help it could get just surviving. School was a luxury that could not be afforded. Her mother was very sad about the decision on her not continuing to go to school, but it was a decision that had to be made too often in those times. She told me tales of following the flock of turkeys that helped bring income to them. She often commented that there is no animal in the world dumber than a turkey. Other tales consisted of them eating just about anything that they could catch. Hunger definitely takes on a wide variety in its range of menu. She showed me how to make a deadfall that would catch birds or other small animals. In the middle of winter she said the taste of a small portion of meat is a very welcomed treat. She helped care for her father until he passed away in 1929. Another experience at a very young age with death, this was a pattern that never seemed to leave her life. At a very young age Mama told me the truth about there not being a Santa Claus. She told me her experiences in her childhood of not receiving any presents as opposed to her friends receiving gifts. She use to wonder why she was so much worse than the other children, why Santa did not visit their family. Mama said she would have rather had known the truth, that they were just poor not bad. When I was a child we were not poor, we just were not as wealthy as some of the other families. But we always had plenty of presents under the tree at Christmas time. Still, I guess those memories of long ago haunted her. I do not know if she allowed my Dad to believe in Santa or if this was just a decision she made at this stage of her life. She met my grandfather, Elvus James after moving to Acton, he lived on the neighboring farm. She never told me how they met or any stories of them courting or anything. They were married in 1935 and settled on the family farm. My father, Charles was born a year later. Two years later my Uncle, Wendal was born. Then five years later my Aunt, Joan was born. By 1948 my Grandfather was totally blind. He always told me the blindness came from when he was younger watching the blacksmith's fire. They told him not to look at the fire and he would anyway. My Grandfather and Mama told me stories of how good his eyesight was when he was a younger man. He said that he could spot things in the sky and on the horizon sooner than other folks. Unfortunately by the time I knew him he could only see the difference between day and night. This blindness placed the burden of taking care of the family on my grandmother and father. At the age of twelve Dad was the "man" of the family. Dad said that by his freshman year he was as tall as he ever was, six foot three. But I am sure that even with his physical stature he could not have been ready for the responsibility threw upon him. That was more than should be placed on the shoulders on any young man. In the late 1950's my Grandfather's Mother, Eliza (Day) James became ill. My Grandmother cared for her until she too passed away. The pattern continued of my Grandmother caring for someone else. Eliza must have been a real character. My Father and Grandmother always spoke highly of her. I wish that I had the opportunity to have met her before her passing. Dad told me sayings and word games she would say and play. Mama said that I had traits from Eliza. She would get an old book and write in the margins as a journal, or paste newspaper articles on the pages and make it into a scrap book. If she could not afford a notebook or scrapbook then she just improvised and made one. She also kept a lot of family history and information. Mama and my Father had a different kind of mother/son relationship. Since he had to assume so many of the roles of being a man at an early age (my Grandfather's blindness). She depended on him more than would be in a normal environment. This would make his leaving to go form his own family a very difficult event for my Grandmother. So basically he never did leave. The only job that I am aware Mama ever had was as a cook for the Acton School. I know that she cooked there while her kids were in school. As I was growing up she did all sorts of odd jobs; picking peaches (both ours and Mr. Philley's), ironing clothes, house cleaning, cooking, etc. She did what she could to help support her family. I remember when I was young she got a letter from the SSI that she was going to get an increase in her monthly check, they sent out a couple of notices proclaiming this soon to be raise in benefits. When she finally got the check it was for only one dollar a year, less than a dime a month. She laughed about it, saying, "Well, I'd rather they give me a dollar than take a dollar away". She was a hard worker around the house and farm. She would always be cooking, this was a trait that locally she was renowned for. We never had a day that I can remember that there was not a full meal waiting at lunch and supper. There was always a surplus of food available, she wanted to be able to feed someone that unexpectedly came to the house. This is why the house always smelled so good, there was always something cooking. In 1960 my parents were married. About a year later I came along. Their marriage was probably doomed from the beginning because my grandmother did not care much for my Mom. And Dad had a strong bond and attachment for taking care of his parents. Around 1963 they separated and I came to live with my Grandmother. Another burden had fallen upon Mama's life once again. Instead of finally getting to relax in life, she had a young boy to care for, at least this caretaker role didn't end with a death. I grew up in the same house that had been my Grandfathers since his Father had passed away. By that time it was getting very ran down, but it was home. If I remember correctly it was built around 1910 or so. There was a huge front porch were you could always find a spot in the shade. It had a tin roof and I loved the sound of rain on it. I still enjoy going out into one of the barns at the farm and listening to rain on the tin roof. My Dad slept on the "sleeping porch", it was on the southeast side of the house. It had screen windows, in the summer it was really nice. But in the winters he would let the tarps down to keep out some of the cold wind, but it only kept out some of the wind. It really got cold in there. The house only had three propane stoves, one in the living room, one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. So the bedrooms would really get cold. I remember backing up to the stove and getting as warm as I possibly could stand it, then running and jumping into the bed. We had so many quilts on the bed that whatever position you fell asleep in was the position that you woke up in, you could not move. When it really got cold, Mama would place quilts all along the north wall of the house to keep the "Northers" out. She had a quilt box full of quilts. Every spring or summer she and a bunch of her friends would spread out the quilt rack and start making quilts. They would make one for each lady. I can remember when they would first start I would be playing behind them on the floor. Before it was over they had spread the new quilt out over the whole room, so I had to be playing under their quilt work. I can not remember what they said, but I know it was a steady stream of conversation the entire time they were all together. And they worked at a very fast pace. Mama would save scraps of cloth all year long for the annual quilting. In the early 60's Dad had a new kitchen and bathroom built onto the west side of the house. In 1972 he had the old part of the house torn down and had a new house built onto the kitchen and bathroom. I like the new house much better, but the old house had such character. My Great-Aunt Cora Head (Day) came to live close by us in the late 1960's after her husband, Uncle Ab passed away. She had developed skin cancer on her face and was receiving chemotherapy for it. It didn't respond well and we knew she did not have long to live. She had an old school bell that she would ring every hour or so. Mama would go and tend to her. Aunt Cora rang the bell a few more times than was necessary each day, I am sure that she enjoyed the house calls and attention. Mama grumbled about it quite often, but diligently continued attending to Aunt Cora. One day instead of the bell ringing, I heard Aunt Cora yelling for Mama, the bell had disappeared. There is no way that that bell could have just disappeared, but it did. Aunt Cora passed away after living beside us for a year or so, in 1970. Aunt Cora and Uncle Ab never did have any children. I always remember the smell that was hers, she dipped a stick in a snuff can. I loved the way that she smelled. Going to visit them was always a treat. They lived in the log cabin that had been theirs for years. It had a different outer covering, but it was the same cabin. It never had any indoor plumbing. They had a well about ten feet from the back door, I can remember going and helping to draw water. They had an outhouse about fifty yards to the east of the house. They did not own a car, Uncle Ab had a 48 Ford Tractor that he drove up to Acton. He had a board seat on the draw bar on the back of the tractor for Aunt Cora to ride on. They were quite a sight to see. Mama raised and treated me as a Son, not a Grandson. My Grandfather was the same way. For unknown reasons at a very young age I started calling him "Revreh", they thought it might have been me trying to say Elvus. But none the less he liked it and wanted me to call him that from then on. I still refer to him by that name. To say that Mama and Revreh were an odd pair would not be an understatement, they were. He was very outgoing and jolly, she was much more stoic. But there was love there, even if it was hardly ever voiced. That was a family trait, not saying the words "I Love You". Until I was in high school I very rarely heard the words. By that time Mama had began saying it more often. It sounded like music to my ears. I always knew that I was loved, but the words being said sure did mean a lot to me. At almost every opportunity Mama would be reading. Every night she would go to bed reading "Readers Digest". She would let me lay in bed next to her and she would read me a story or two then send me off to my bed. Considering that she only went to school until the sixth grade it is amazing how well she was self-taught. She was very knowledgeable on nearly any subject you could speak of. She always told me to read, don't let your mind be idle. I never see a Reader's Digest but what I think of her. My Grandfather was something to behold. He was always of good cheer and smiling. He did not have much of his lower lip because of cancer, so he always had his "spit rag" in hand. Every so often he had to touch his face with it because of the lower lip condition. Every morning he would roll about a dozen "Prince Edward" cigarettes and place them around his ashtray. That ashtray looked like a church offering plate in shape and size. Even though he was blind my Grandfather could manage to get around very well. We would go to the store about once a week. Mama would drop off Revreh at Williams's Dry Goods store on the square in Granbury. The owner was "Pig" Williams, he grew up with Jesse, my Grandfathers younger brother. He and Revreh would talk until Mama was ready to go home. I remember one time I went to town with Mama, we came home to find something looking out of place in the living room. There was a cutout in the ceiling from where the wood stove use to go up through the ceiling. The cover had been removed and placed back upside down, these were about ten feet high ceilings. My Grandfather confessed to the crime, he said that he just wondered what had happened to the hole, so he investigated it. How he got up there and found it is still a mystery to me, but you could see his handprints all over the ceiling from his efforts at replacing the patch. Revreh would always tell me stories of his childhood and youth. He loved to tell about running the dogs after coyotes, wolves and foxes. He said that you could listen to them all night long until the sun came up. I think that it was just fun for them to stay up all night with friends. He did not tell many tales of them catching the animals being chased. He did tell of one time that they treed a lion, he said that when they got close to the tree it let out a yell. He would at that time imitate the yell, it would always send chills up my spine. Then the lion leaped from the tree and the dogs went chasing after it. I bet he told me that story dozens of times. One of my favorite activities with Revreh was on Saturday afternoon and night, it was watching wrestling on TV. He would always have a big smile as he listened to local announcer "Dan Coates" narrate the action. He would ask me during lulls from the announcer what was happening, I would always add extra details to the action because of the reaction of delight he would have. He also listened to every Texas Rangers game on the radio from the time they moved to Arlington until he was too ill. Despite his illness and problems Revreh always was in a good mood and cheer. I have few memories of him in any other way. Revreh started getting a lot sicker in late 1974 and passed away in early 1975. Mama took very good care of him until the end. Revreh had a fear of hospitals, I am sure it was from the way that hospitals were in the early part of the century. He did not want to go to a hospital period. The last days of his life were tough, Dad made the decision to call for an ambulance. Revreh would not speak to Dad the last days of his life because of the hospital issue. I know that my Father made the right decision, it is the same decision that I would have made. His passing was one of the saddest memories of my life. Dad worked for the Highway Department and then for the Soil Conservation service. So he traveled all over the State. But every weekend he was home to fix things up around the farm. In the mid-70's he began bailing hay, first for himself and then for others. He would get home from work after six, eat and then go to the fields and work until two in the morning. After sleeping a couple of hours he would go back to Waco for work. He started doing this hay bailing because the local man who bailed had a tendency to cut the hay one day and bail it the next. This made it easier for him, but it left Dad with green hay that might go sour. So Dad bought an old bailer and cutter, then started bailing his own hay. Apparently Dad was not the only person dissatisfied, soon he was doing all the neighbors hay as well. In my high school days I would bring my friends over, Mama always had plenty of food cooked and she loved to see people eating it. All of my friends liked to visit, not just for the eating but for visiting with her as well. She seemed to have a knack for making them feel at home. In the late 70's we kind of grew our hair long. Dad allowed me to grow it however I wanted, as long as I washed it each day. One of my friends had long black hair that had a lot of body to it. Every time that Ricky came over Mama would run her hands through his hair and tell him how she wished her hair had that much body. She had fine straight hair like my children and myself. Mama really enjoyed my friends visiting. Years later she told me how she was at the post office with Joan, she saw a young man walk from inside and then turn and come toward her. It was my friend Jayce, his remembering her really made her day, it had been a few years since he had been over to the house. She told me that she felt bad because she had gotten on to him on day for spitting tobacco into her trash can in the kitchen. I told her not to worry, he should not have been doing that in the house anyway. I made a promise to Mama as a young boy. She had told me the stories of their coming from Iredell to Acton in a wagon. She said that she had never been back to Iredell since her childhood days there. I promised her that I would take her back there when I got older. In the spring of 1987 one day at work I called her and told her to be ready tomorrow morning, we were going to go to Iredell. She asked me why, I told her because a long time ago I promised you that I would take you there and tomorrow is the day. The next day we drove up through Walnut Springs were she was born, she pointed out where the house was that she lived in. We drove to Iredell and the Springcreek area in Bosque County. She told me stories and more stories about her youth. Oh how I wish I would have taken a tape recorder that day. She told the story about a small rural school that she attended, I believe it was in the Springcreek area. Apparently there was some official who would come and officially name the school. As he approached the school all he could see was the building with the windows open and scores of feet hanging out. The teacher had to leave and told the kids to wait, so they took off their shoes and stuck them out the windows as they lay down. The official got such a kick out of the sight that he officially named the school "Footout". We spent several hours driving around the area and looking in the cemetery's for markers. We were able to find quite a few markers, but she was not able to find her Grandfather's marker, John Joel Hutchins. This really bothered her, she went to the location that she knew it was located in the cemetery, but we could not find it. When fall came we made another trip to Iredell. Once again she really did have a great time. She said that she remembered the promise that I had made to her, but never did expect me to keep it. She said that it had meant so much to her for me to care enough to make the promise to her. My acting out on the promise was beyond her beliefs. In my opinion she deserved that and so much more. Looking back I wish I had taken the time to do much more for her than I did. Every weekend as a child we had the anticipated visit by my Uncle Wendal and Claudean. My two cousins, Rory and Lelaina would be a welcomed visit. Living in the country was difficult for an "only" child. There were no neighbor kids within miles, it could be quite lonely. My Uncle was quite a treat and relief. He was definitely the life of the group. He had more of my Grandfather's traits. Dad was more like Mama. But both were extremely good and honest men, they just got there in different ways. Wendal would carry on and on, he told stories, laughed, cussed and did just about whatever was funny for the moment. I know it made Mama and Refrah's day when they visited us. It seemed that after every meal Mama and Wendal had their traditional argument over dish washing. On normal family meals Mama always did the dishes, she insisted. On the weekend's meals Wendal would always get up and start washing dishes, Mama would start in on him not to do her job. He would just keep on washing telling her that she needed to take a break and relax. My cousins and I would just sit there and laugh at the whole sight. One of the worst days of my life happened a few years later concerning Wendal. On the day that he passed away my Dad was out of town on business. When Claudean called and told me the news it fell on me to go and tell Mama. I remember she was sitting in her chair in the living room. I kneeled on my knees beside her, she could tell something was wrong and asked me what was wrong as she softly touched my head. I told her softly as I could that Wendal had died from a heart attack, that he had not suffered. She cried and cried, her first words were "None of them were suppose to die before me", she just repeated it over and over. Later that day I finally got in touch with Dad, breaking the news to him was no easier. Wendal passed away in the manner he lived, he was a supervisor for a construction company. He had chest pains on Friday and told Claudean that he would go see the Doctor if it recurred. On Monday he was in the job trailer with the janitor who was sweeping. Wendal told him to sit down and he would sweep out the trailer. During this exercise he had his fatal heart attack. That was Wendal, he thought of others first. Mama's health began to deteriorate more rapidly after Wendal's death. I believe that it was more than just her old age. I believe that she just had to deal with too much death in one life. It wore her down until she just could not take it anymore. In 1994 her health had slipped so that her daily visits at home from the nurse were not enough. She became very sick and had to be hospitalized. She never again returned to her home. She was placed in a nursing home where she spent the rest of her life. My Dad religiously visited her each day. I wish I could say that I did as well, but I did not. After being hospitalized she developed Alzheimer's disease. She had very few days that she knew names. So often she did not even respond to us being there to visit her. I visited her less and less often, it seemed to kill a part of me seeing her in this condition. I realize now how selfish this was of me, but it really did hurt seeing her in that condition. It was more than I could take. A few months before she passed away she was hospitalized again. During this time the Doctor thought that she would not live but a few days. Mama surprised them by responding very well to the treatment and became very aware of everyone around her for a few days. My children were able to visit with her and see her wit and charm. She would respond to them and say or do little things that made them (and me) laugh and smile. I felt like it was a gift from God, they received the opportunity to see their Great-Grandmother being the person that I always remembered. She returned back to the nursing home and her condition changed for the worse. She passed away a few months later. Time had finally taken its toll and the Lord called her home. Now she can finally rest, he is taking care of her, she did a very good job for all those years of taking care of people for him. Scott James May 2000 (source: Scott James)
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