PART 3. HUNTSVILLE, HOME, PARDON, AND BEYOND Jesse spent the next two years in the infamous Walker Unit at Huntsville, Texas’ State Prison. This historic prison had been in operation since 1849. It had…a reputation. The following is Jesse’s official prison record, his “service record.” BY SEPTEMBER, 1939, AFTER 18 MONTHS, JESSE WAS HOME FOR HIS GOOD BEHAVIOR James family members never spoke of Jesse Gs’ time at the Walker Unit that I ever heard or that Mom or Dad ever shared. I knew from the general history of the Walker Unit, that it was, to be kind, a tough place. The only comments I ever heard about grandpa’s time there was from my mom, June Pike James, Jesse G’s Daughter-in-law. She told me that […]
PART 2: late 1920s to 1942 THE GREAT DEPRESSION TAKES ITS TOLL Horse racing and chicken fighting didn’t pay all the bills in those years of the Great Depression, with a wife and three children, a “player” like Jess…did I tell you he had purchased a yellow sports car of some sort…at least that what one of his sisters-in-law told me. So you can start using your imagination on THAT one. During those Depression years, no one was safe from losing everything-crops, home. My dad said the government men had come to their farm in 1933 to dig a big long trench then killed every third cow they had and buried them in the big pasture out back. Dad said he cried and cried, since […]
Great veterans in Paris created the American Legion. Great veterans in Somerset and Texas continue that original mission.
There was growing amount of serious talk among both officers and enlisted that something needed doin'. Help in a variety of ways was due those individuals who served and survived this war. Even families, both of those buried in France and of those returning home, needed support. All needed help...now. But, what? And, by whom?
In the new century, 1900, Patrick Kenney’s coal (actually Lignite or “Brown Coal”) was still being hauled by mules and wagon from the Kenney mine at Bexar/La Colorada to Lytle. Here the International and Great Northern Rail Road (I&GN, pronounced by many — even when I was a kid — as the “Eye-n Gin”…say it real fast) picked up the wagon loads of coal for delivery to and sale in San Antonio where homes and businesses were heated or powered. (Kenney coal powered the Alamo Iron Works into the 1930s when a new, cleaner power source became available.) But I’m getting way to far ahead…, back in 1908, folks of the old, greater Von Ormy area (that included modern Somerset) or the original Old […]