I want to thank Lois for inviting me to write one of the chapters in this book on the Beaver family. One of the things I am most proud of is my Beaver heritage and the influence it has had on me. And I would not, for a moment, want to limit all of that influence just to Clay, my father; although his was, of course, the strongest. Three years ago at Uncle Charlie’s funeral, several of my generation were talking about how long it had been since many of us had seen one another. Janie Craig Meigs mused aloud that she had forgotten that she had so many nice…

My parents were Edwin Clay and Myrtle Reece Stephens Beaver. I was born April 7, 1922, in a two-room shack located in a pasture about 300 yards from Grandpa Mikiel E. Beaver’s house, and about one half mile southwest of Girard, Kent County Texas. I am told that it was a very windy, dusty day. The only other thing that I have been told about that day was that my mother’s sister, Winona, said that she ran all the way home from school, then to our house to see her new little nephew. She was nine years old at the time. All that she saw was a wrinkled, red-faced baby…

I am glad to be able to add my little contribution to the Beaver Book, from an in-law’s vantage point. I was born Novem ber 8, 1909, at a ranch home near Mount Home, Texas. Shortly after I was born, my parents, T.J. and Mary Avant Parks moved to Mount Home to operate a Post Office, rooming house, and overnight stay for the stage coach which had the mid-way stopover from Kerrville to Junction, Texas. Several interesting characters rode this stage coach. I had an older sister, Vida and a younger brother, Hal. Since this was ranching country, neighbors were few and far between. Our little school house served as…

Clay, third side of Ed and Mani Beaver, was born February 3, 1895, in the Millerville community of Erath County, Texas. He was a frail, asthmatic child, never able to take part in boisterous play, but was mama’s helper with the smaller children. His asthma worsened, and after all remedies failed, a change of climate was recommended. He went to West Texas, on the train, in 1911, where he lived for a year with Minnie and Zeal Taylor and family. He showed signs of improvement all along, and was soon able to work in the fields. His remarkable recovery caused our parents to make the difficult decision to sell out…

Nancy Jo, third daughter of Rollie and Donie Beaver, was born July 1, 1929, at Girard, Texas. Rollie wanted a boy so much that the subject of his conversation the whole nine months before her birth was, ”Our boy”. I- babies can sense the moods and longings of their parents, Nancy Jo must have had those sensations in her prenatal existence, for she came into the world a cute, impish “tomboy”. Dolls, paperdolls, and lacy dresses were never her bag. But she could, (and still does,) wear levis and a plaid shirt so stylishly as to be the envy of a Broadway model. Nancy Jo never married, but she has…

Werdna Lee Beaver was born at Girard, Texas January 12, 1923. She was 3 years younger than her sister, Aretta. So, when it was time for her to start to school she was lucky to have a big sister to help her get started and to learn new friends. When she was in the seventh grade her .math teach er was her Uncle Buddy Smith. When she was sixteen she married a handsome local boy, Willie Arch Murphy, August 2, 1939, at Spur, Texas. They had three children: Patsy Sue, Rollie Bill, and Joan Carol. That marriage dissolved when Joan was just a baby, and in 1946 7,’erdna Lee and…

Hettie Aretta Beaver, the first child of Rollie and Donie Beaver, was born April 21, 1915, at the home of her grandma Edwards in the Bonds Chapel Community, near Girard, Texas. She was the first grandchild to wear the Beaver name, and the first one to be born in Kent County. She was, from the start, a very smart and independent child, who was capable of doing things for herself. She was always bright in school, and as she grew, she became adept at helping her mother with all sorts of the housework, cooking, sewing and cleaning. Het, as her friends called her, was a member of the Church of…

Submitted By Werdna Lee Beaver Niemczak On March 7, 1893. in Erath County, in a little community named Millerville, Rollie Elbert Beaver was born. He was the third child, second son of Mikiel Edwin and Samintha Azeline Pearson Beaver. He attended school in a one room schoolhouse. His uncle Dudley Hukel was his teacher. His best friend was his third cousin, Elmer Giesecke. He talked frequently about him through the years, as well as all of the Giesecke family. He remembered one remark that Elmer’s father, August Giesecke, used to make. If he couldn’t find something he was looking for he would say to his wife, “Bob Ann, do you…

I, T. Doyle Leverett, was born January 19,1954, at Manteno, Illinois. I am the third child born to Robert Lee Leverett and Daisy Nard Beaver Leverett. I was the first to have the bad taste to be born outside the state of Texas. I am told that I made up for this lack of breeding by making the phrases, “Panhandle,” “Sam Houston,” “Remember the Alamo,” and such like, a part of my vocabulary. Some of my early memories: Being told by my mother, Daisy, that the statue outside of the Kankakee Court House was that of a damn yankee. I was seventeen before I realized that phrase was two separate…

I was born in Lubbock, Texas on the Sth of March, 1943, the second child of Robert and Daisy Leverett. My sister, Kelly, who was two at the time was born March 11, 1941. At the time of my birth we lived alone with my mother, since Dad, as so many others, was away in World War II. I was two before I ever saw my father, and it took some time of adjusting before I could accept having “that man” around all the time. Thanks to my sister’s preoccupation with Dagwood and Blondie, I was stuck with the name Cooky, and it took me 35 years to shake it.…