I am the oldest of three children of Daisy Hard Beaver Leverett and Pobert Lee Leverett. I was born in Lubbock, Texas March 11, 1941. We lived in Amarillo while my father was in the Marines during ”TII, then when he was discharged we moved to Manteno, Illinois. I grew up in Manteno, and from my earliest childhood my consuming interest was music. In 1959 I graduated from high school as Valedictorian of my class, and received a scholarship to the University of Illinois School of Music, where I majored in voice and mi nored in piano. After one year I had to drop out and work for a year,…

I was the only child of Kelly and Sadie Beaver, born on February 16, 1924-, at Girard, Texas. I arrived several weeks prematurely, and my granny Beaver told me I was so small that they could have fitted my head into a teacup. I was told that Granny, with her make-do experiences, used her cookstove oven for warmth, to put me in when I first arrived. My mom always kidded me that I had become “half-baked” in Granny’s make shift incubator. Both of my parents were devout members of the Church of Christ, and I was taken to church, every Sunday of my life. My dad was a lover of…

William Kelly, second child of Ed and Minnie Beaver, was born July 2, 1891, in the Millerville Community of Erath County, Texas, His sister, Elizabeth, was a year and eight months old at the time. Kelly was delivered by our great aunt, Ebaline Ramfield, a noted midwife of her time. He learned the meaning of work at a very early age, being the oldest of five brothers who followed closely behind him in ages. Elizabeth married when she was fifteen, leaving our mother with no help in cooking, sewing, washing, and ironing for Papa and the five boys. One son had died in infancy. Our father was a small scale…

I was born the tenth child of Joe Hayden and Nancy Elizabeth (Beaver) Ratliff, in Quitaque, Texas, May 15, 1933, In 1936, Mom and Dad packed up their few belongings, and with Artrue, Nadine, Zelpha, Joe Beaver and me , headed out to join my brother. L.C. (Pece) in Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. Here Dad start ed raising livestock, mostly hogs, and growing tomatoes. We had an old Model A truck that almost fell apart as we chugged down the roads delivering our livestock and goods to town. In 1939, I started to school, which did not thrill me. I would much rather have been out hunting and fishing with…

I, Joe Beaver Ratliff, was born the eighth child of Joe Hayden Ratliff and Nancy Elizabeth (Beaver) Ratliff, in the town of Girard, Texas, July 16, 1923. Before I was one year old we moved to Floydada,’ Texas where my dad rented the Snodgrass farm. I have very little recollection of my life at Floydada, as we moved from there when I was four years old, to Quitaque, Texas. The one thing I do remember about living at Floydada is the birth of my baby sister there. That made the score five girls and four boys for my parents who adored every one of us. We moved to Quitaque by…

I was born January 12, 1916 in Erath County, Texas, the sixth child of Joe and Elizabeth Beaver Ratliff. I was given the name Zelpna Elizabeth. I married Raymond Alvin Atkinson on March 23, 1941, in Belen, New Mexico, We were not blessed with children of our own, and so we adopted a small baby boy, May 17, 1946. He was two days old when we took him, and we gave him the name, Paul Ray Atkinson. Paul graduated from high school, then went to college and graduated. He now works for a lawyer in Amarillo, Texas. Raymond worked for the Santa Fe railroad for forty-one years and retired from…

I was born July 13, 1906, in a small two room house in the back yard of my great-grandparents, Nancy and Joe Beaver, a few miles north of Hico, Texas. The first word I learned to speak was “toddy”, and Grandpa always gave Grandma one in the mornings before she got out of bed. Then she would get up, light her cob pipe filled with Twist tobacco and have a smoke before she ate her breakfast of hot biscuits, ham and gravy. And, by the way, my grandma lived to be 95 years old. They kept me, and petted me, while my mother, Elizabeth Beaver Ratliff, who was just 16…

Nancy Elizabeth Beaver was born Movember 15, 1339, in the Millerville Community of Erath County, Texas. She was the oldest of eleven children, being followed by six brothers and four sisters. The events of her young life consisted of going to school and church and learning, through experience, to cook, keep house, and help take care of little boys. She was allowed to attend parties, candy breakings, school programs, and box suppers with selected groups. At one of these gatherings, she met a young man named Joseph Hayden Ratliff, who became attracted to her, and though he was five years her senior, he could tell at once that, at fifteen,…

Mikiel Edwin (Ed) Beaver was born on Abe Lincoln’s birth day, February 12, 1867, to Maney Jane and Joseph R. Beaver, Jr., in Bates County, Missouri. when he was 7 years old his Parents, along with several other families, migrated by wagon train to Texas. A more detailed history of this trek has been related in Part I – ROOTS. Along with the wagon train was the family of Charles and Elizabeth Pearson and their seven children. Their 4 year old daughter was Samintha (called Minnie), born December 15, 1870, in Bates County. Her three brothers and sisters had all been born in Tennessee. After all the families settled in…

Charles M. Pearson was born April 2, 1833, in Tennessee, He married Elizabeth Longley in 1853. She was born February 3, 1853, in Tennessee. They had 7 children, three boys and four girls. The first six children were born in Tennessee, but the youngest, my mother, was born in Missouri. They were all members of the Methodist Church, and one son. Doc Pearson, became an ordained Methodist minister. Sometime between 1866 and 1870 they migrated to Missouri and settled in Bates County. They were friends and neighbors of the John Wilsons and the Joseph Beavers. Accordingly, they joined the wagon train that migrated to Texas in the fall of 1874.…