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| Ruth O'Bryan |
Ruth O'Bryan was orphaned in 1912, at age 17, and took over housekeeping for her brothers. Raised in Vermilion Parish, LA in the home of her father Oliver Henry O'Bryan, she taught her son how to say in Cajun French, "You bad boy, I'm going to whip you, yes!", a phrase she often heard her neighbor say while she was growing up. She never studied past the 7th grade. Photos taken in the 1910's show that she was a leader in fun and frivolity among her girlfriends, dressing up and posing for snapshots. Even in her school photos, the pretty, dreamy-eyed girl appears the center of attention. Tall and slim as a young woman, she stood five foot nine. She learned to play the piano from her mother Ruth Abigail Nourse. Les King remembers that Ruth loved to sing Irish songs such as "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling." Besides being an excellent cook, Ruth grew all sorts of flowers. Some of her bulbs still grow in Les King's garden in Houston Heights. Ruth was living in Freeport by 1917, where some of her brothers worked for the Freeport Sulphur Company with a bachelor named McGinnis, who was in his early 30's. He had noticed her and was asking the O'Bryan brothers for an introduction. Since they were planning a party, probably at the beach, she retorted, "Oh, why don't you invite that old, fat McGinnis and ease his pain?" They did, and Ruth and Rex McGinnis were married on December 21, 1917. Her aunt Jennie Putnam wrote to congratulate her, "If you put God first in your lives, you will find that all will go well." Les King remembers that Rex always kissed Ruth when he came home from work, and occasionally one would see him touch her, not a common thing in those days. At first, probably because of work and housing pressures, the new couple couldn't even see each other very often. Rex writes, "Pet, it seems you are a long ways off and when I come to see you, I am so tired and sleepy that I am not jolly at all am I honey bunch? Bye bye dear wifey, your devoted husband Rex." He wrote her poems, including, "Oh destiny! thy mystic name/That thou mayest weld our hearts together./And with friendship as a golden chain/May the link hold fast forever./May each passing day/Forge a link in our friendship's golden chain/And may these lines bring/The 'pleasant moments' of the past to light again." Bad weather almost prevented them from spending their first Thanksgiving together in 1918. Ruth wrote on November 16, "My own dear husband, how I miss you. I have just lots to tell you. Have a secret but won't tell you til you are here. I know you will be glad for you are very fond of it. So come get your share while it lasts or I'll make away with it all. Be sure to come in the morning." Rex didn't make it that week, but ten days later, he wrote, "I want to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my wife, something that has never happened yet to me. How are you feeling?" The house in Freeport became the summer home for many nieces and nephews, including O'Bryans and Lovejoys. Les King remembers waiting for the company shuttle train to bring her Uncle Rex home after work so they could go to the beach and eat a picnic supper. Sometimes the adults would have a seining party. Les describes it: "About ten or so of the men would take a huge seine out into the water and drag it in, usually, filled with all kinds of seafood. The men would clean the fish and the women would fry them over a big campfire." Storms have changed the Gulf beaches now, but in the 1920's the Freeport beach was as "wide and wonderful" as the Surfside beach is now. Once Ruth had a pirate's treasure party for Les at the beach, and one Christmas at Enoch and Addie's house, Les received "a lovely 'lady' doll for which Aunt Ruth had sewn a complete, elegant wardrobe with silk and fur and all." Ruth was christened as a Catholic at St. Mary Magdalene's Church in Abbeville, but was raised Episcopalian after her father's death when she was 10. She said that John Wesley never intended to start a new church. In Freeport Ruth was responsible for the altar flowers and hangings at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Whenever Bishop Quinn was in town for a special service, he always had dinner at the McGinnis house, "probably because Aunt Ruth was such a marvelous cook." Ruth took C. David and Maureen McGinnis with her to church in Freeport, but in Katy, because there was no Episcopal church, the family attended Katy Methodist together. When Ruth visited her brother Francis in Houston, she attended the Episcopal church with his family. In March 1926, Ruth became so sick she didn't eat for 18 days. Her weight dropped to 153 pounds (Rex weighed 171), and it cost $100 a month to care for her. She had recovered by May and wrote to her sister-in-law Kittie, "I had been sick so long I was really getting discouraged, and your visit to us was a blessing to us all. Your faith strengthened mine and I am sure the Lord always hears the prayers of those that have faith. I do praise Him and thank Him." The couple had no children until, about 1929, they went to an orphanage in Houston and picked out a two year girl named Maureen to adopt. Rex thought the baby looked like him. When she was seven, she started piano lessons. Their son Charles David McGinnis was born in 1935, when Ruth was 40 and Rex was approaching 50. Two years later, Rex wrote, "He is the source of lots of pleasure to us." He listed for his mother Addie all the things the little boy could do, including reporting when the onion tops in the garden had fallen over. An older woman helped take care of David for years. Maureen left home at an early age and married young. Since C.D. McGinnis reestablished contact with her in 1976, he visits her every year in New Mexico. After Rex's death in 1960, Ruth lived very briefly with her son in Richardson, then found a house nearby. Sometimes she would babysit her small, energetic grandsons Michael and Mark McGinnis. Michael remembers her serving them macaroni and cheese with applesauce and telling them to "Eat your dinner." She lived in Houston after marrying George Herron, the widower of Rex's sister Delsie. When she moved to Woodland Hills, California about 1970, she stayed with Mrs. Wier. She attended the Episcopal Church right behind Woodland Hills United Methodist Church, where Michael remembers her light, trained singing voice. When four-year-old Marilyn McGinnis Loree would go to spend the night, she slept in Ruth's bed with her, and Ruth always had a present for her. Michael McGinnis rode his bicycle once to see her, enjoyed the visit, and always planned to do it more often when she returned from her visit to Houston. But during the flight back from Houston, she suffered a heart attack. When she arrived at the airport, she was in a wheelchair. There was barely time for her grandchildren to kiss her before she was rushed to a hospital in Van Nuys, CA. She died on July 23, 1970. She is buried beside her second husband George Herron in Lot 145, Garden of Peace, Forest Park Cemetery, Houston. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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