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| Rex Oral McGinnis |
Rex Oral McGinnis moved from West Virginia to Texas with his parents when he was five years old. His aunt Melcena remembered him as a remarkable child. He began earning money for his parents when he was 13. As a young man, from 1903-1906, he trapped for furs. He almost froze to death in a freak Texas blizzard, only finding his way home on horseback by following a fence. He signed business postcards, "Yours for just assortment and full value" and printed up envelopes "R.O. McGinnis & Company, Dealers in Raw Furs and Skins." He signed letters to his parents, "Your devoted son." In a poem for his mother Addie Lawson, he wrote, "...Let the goddess of science supply every need/And deprive me of a mother's love/T'would be a dreary world indeed." He attended high school in Alvin for a year or less. He graduated from the Galveston campus of Draughon's Practical Business College on Sept. 26, 1904 earning more than 90% in each subject except spelling (88%). He got a 98 in deportment. He studied business arithmetic and penmanship but not typing or shorthand, though he became an accurate typist. When he grew up, Rex moved from Katy to Houston to better support his family. With R.E. Lovejoy, he established the Rex Electric Company "Armatures a Specialty," but the endeavor apparently didn't last long. For much of his career Rex was a power plant engineer, running steam turbines to generate electricity. A July, 1906 letter found him at Fulshear. In 1907 he lived at 1908 Decatur St. in Houston, where his sister Kittie wrote, "Why on earth don't you write?" (something she asked him several times in his youth). In October 1908 he was at 304 Bayou St. in Houston. In 1911, he lived at several Houston addresses, but by December 1911 he was providing power for the Brazos Hotel, where he also lived. As late as February, 1916, he was still in Houston, at 1413 Franklin Ave. Not many months later, Rex was at the Freeport Sulphur Company, working as a engineer at Bryan Mound south of Freeport and then at Hoskins Mound north of Freeport. He married Ruth O'Bryan in 1917. The next year he suffered a serious knee injury which kept him off the job and gave him time to write little nonsense rhymes for his wife ("With a merry laugh and song, she tats all day long.") Ruth had to start the car for him, getting out in the mud to crank it. If the mud was deep, she had to turn the crank through the mud. He never completely recovered from his accident. Even in 1930, he wrote,"My bum leg improves slowly," noting that his knee had stayed in place for a year. In 1931, he commented, "Just lately my left shoe commenced to wear out for the first time since my trouble." Rex and Ruth lived for more than 20 years in Freeport, TX on the Gulf Coast. When the house was built, they had been assured that a road would soon be laid between the house and the levee. And eventually the road was built -- twenty years after they had moved away! So, looking out their front door you would be facing the levee, with the Brazos River just on the other side of it, if you wanted to swim there. The railroad tracks would be about a block to your left, with downtown Freeport several blocks to your right and Bryan Beach on the Gulf of Mexico behind you some miles away. Since there was no street in front of the house, Rex and Ruth drove up to their house through the alley behind it. The house was probably located around First Street, perhaps on part of the large property now occupied by Marine Industrial Supply. Rex and Ruth took several long vacations. In 1934 they traveled 3,300 miles out west, seeing Clayton NM, Taos, Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Pecos, San Antonio, Cinnamon Creek and the Rio Grande Valley. They also went to the World's Fair in Chicago. In 1951 they visited West Virginia again, where with cousin Herbert McGinnis they saw David Allen McGinnis' old home and grave and attended a McGinnis Clan Gathering. They also visited their son (and grandson) in Albuquerque, NM in 1959. Rex stayed at the sulphur company for more than 20 years. His letters frequently report the news from work, especially the layoffs during the Depression. He told his mother in 1931, "Glad to hear that you have lots of good things to eat coming up, also chickens and eggs. If I am out of work, can help you eat some of it." For unknown reasons, in 1939 he had a nervous breakdown, spent some time in an Arkansas rest home, and got a medical retirement and pension from the sulphur company. After that, he began looking for a new place to live. During the summer of 1939, he moved his family to Concan, near the Frio River. Wildlife was abundant, Maureen and C. David fed the squirrels and goats, and the landlord left them six hens. Rex wrote, "Charles David says he has so many pets he does not know what to do with all of them." The house had no running water, refrigeration or electricity. The well was 100 yards from the house. The washing machine ran on gasoline. Rex's health suffered from trying to live off the fresh fruit and vegetables that peddlers brought them about three times a week. One offered him 50 lbs of fresh bermuda onions for 35 cents. They also shopped at the city market when in San Antonio. David slept in a screened-in porch. He was fascinated by Mr. Whitney, a traveling cowboy, who began visiting the family on horseback while they lived in Concan. The next school year, 1939-1940, was spent in Boerne, not far from today's post office. The McGinnis family had Judy the goat "for her care," which meant abundant goat milk for allergic, sickly Charles David. "The boy is very fond of her," Rex wrote. Rex and his family grew onions and other vegetables in their garden. Rex told his mother that he was seeing a chiropractor and missed his radio. Maureen attended school. Then, in 1940, Charles Stockdick, the husband of Rex's sister Kittie, offered to sell Rex 160 acres of land under favorable terms, and he agreed. When the McGinnis family arrived, the property was bald prairie, and Rex planted every tree that now grows there. The farmers to whom Rex leased the land switched from peanuts to rice soon after Rex bought the land, and in recent decades, most Katy farmers have gone from rice to soybeans. C.D. McGinnis remembers the farmers shocking the rice in the field, just as in the olden days. Rex contracted with the lumber company for the wood, and did all the plumbing and electrical himself. When the pretty white house on Franz Road was finished, it was considered so nice that Katy Methodist Church asked to have a church social there. One reason was that it had indoor plumbing, which was unusual at the time. C. David McGinnis was raised in this house, and later named it Seven Oaks, after the large trees along the front of the lot which Rex planted from acorns when they moved there. Behind the house, two miles from Katy, Rex kept a garden, chickens, goats and some cows (which he milked). When a goat would get her head caught in the fence, he would whack her with a board (but never his son). C.D. McGinnis remembers looking at the dinner table and thinking, "Everything here came from our land." During World War II Rex was the town plumber in Katy and he also had some rent houses, including the old Katy Hotel which was turned into apartments (about four of them). He was truly ambidextrous. When he tired of painting with one hand, he would switch to the other. He was always a frugal man, repairing his same car until it stopped running. Shortly before he sold the old home place south of Katy, he reclaimed part of the kitchen, some bois d'arc fenceposts and other wood. He used this lumber on a small second house at Seven Oaks. At one point he gave his father all his savings and he once advanced his niece Les some college funds. But sometimes, like his father E.M. McGinnis, he seemed obsessed with running out of money. However, Rex did not skimp on what he ate -- "good food and lots of it." He always expected a lemon meringue pie for his birthday. Les remembers Ruth's exquisite crab gumbo, but you had to remove the shells yourself. He had an unusual sense of humor -- Example: "Are you through eating? Then I'll get a hammer and knock out your teeth." Or if David had trouble cutting his meat, Rex might advise, "Put your foot on it and growl." He had a fairly high speaking voice, but when he sang hymns in church, he would quietly rumble along tunelessly as many men do. While his wife enjoyed classical music, he liked "hillbilly" music. He spoke so loudly on the phone that his son jokes that he didn't really need a phone to be heard in the next county. At five eight-and-a-half, he stood half an inch shorter than his wife. He enjoyed fishing and owned some good lures. As a young man, Rex wrote religious verses and often attended special revival meetings, in the tradition of his godly West Virginia ancestors and relatives. He did not allow smoking, drinking or gambling in his house, and reluctantly allowed his son to attend dances (but not to play Dixieland sousaphone for them). In 1943 his Aunt Mord (Lawson) wrote, "I judge that you are a Christian." His sister Kittie invited him to a 1908 meeting led by Charles Parham, one of the earliest American Pentecostal preachers. Eventually Kittie became part of that movement, while he did not. In 1926 she and her husband Charles Stockdick even spent some time as itinerant preachers. The Apostolic Faith Church in Katy, which follows in Parham's tradition, began in a Stockdick warehouse. C.D. McGinnis visited the church at least once as a boy, but his parents disapproved of it. As his sister Kittie slowly became more mentally unstable and careless with her money, Rex and Ruth found thousands of dollars in uncashed checks lying around her house. Rex petitioned to have her placed under his own legal guardianship. He was afraid that the personal doctors and Apostolic preachers who always hovered around her were trying to take advantage of a wealthy, senile woman. Even so, some some influential members in his own Katy Methodist Church suspected him of being more interested in preserving his own inheritance. Because of such accusations from his own church, Rex asked for his letter of church membership back in the late 1950's. Les King took over responsibility for her aunt later. In 1960, Rex was diagnosed with acute leukemia and given only a few months to live. His son David was already moving back to Texas. There were no tearful farewells from the dying father, but then, Rex never had communicated his feelings readily. C.D. McGinnis only remembers his father saying, with a catch in his voice, "Well, tell the boy I love him," meaning grandson Michael McGinnis. There were no expressions of regret from the son, for Dave knew he had loved and honored his father. On July 30, 1960, Delsie's husband George Herron called Dave to tell him that Rex had died. Though Rex was no longer a member of Katy Methodist Church, his body was returned there for his funeral. All three of Rex's grandchildren, and his nine great-grandchildren, live in the San Antonio, Texas area. Rex retired from the Freeport Sulphur Company in 1939, and moved to Katy, TX, where he was a plumber and landlord. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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