My Ruston, Louisiana Relatives & Relations Vol. 1

Once upon a time when my wife, Ruth Brown, was age 5, her parents had divorced, Ruth lived with her mother, Joyce Nelson Brown, and older brother Ira Cleve, in North Carolina at a remote school that had no phone. One day her mother received a letter in the mail. Joyce opened the letter, grabbed a breath and called her two children to her side. She read the letter to both,

“Dear Joyce,

It is with sorrow I must inform you that your ex-husband, I B Brown, Sr has passed away in a Shreveport hospital….”

That letter hid an event that would come to light after 30 years bearing angry and hateful fruit in a simple phone call.

I B Brown Sr had been married before and had a son and a daughter. The daughter, heard her father cry out, beg for his other two children be brought so he could kiss them goodbye.

Polly Brown, the daughter, sought and received the phone number in Ruston, where she believed the family to be. On calling the number she found that it was Ruth’s grandmother, Mrs. T S Nelson who answered the phone. She begged Mrs. Nelson to have the children brought to Shreveport to see their father before it was too late.

Mrs. Nelson obscured facts, it’s unclear exactly what Mrs. Nelson did say, but she NEVER revealed they were in North Carolina, or there was no way to contact them or to get them to Shreveport.

Polly, it seems begged and cried, even got her uncles involved in the calls, begging Mrs. Nelson to reconsider. To please allow the kids to come see their dad… this happening over the span of several calls that day. Still, Mrs. Nelson concealed the truth and refused every plea. The father died the next morning Feb. 27, 1956, leaving a bitter feeling on the Brown side of the family.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, his ex-wife and children knew nothing of these events.

Fast forward 5 months, 6 July 1956. Little Ira Cleve and Ruth were home to visit the grandparents in Ruston. Mr. Nelson had a small chicken coop in their front yard. Ira Cleve, evidently, spent time playing in the coop, he suddenly collapsed. Taken to the small hospital in Ruston for treatment, it was discovered he had developed Polio. A dreaded disease, Ruston was a small town with limited medical facilities. An Iron Lung was ordered from Shreveport. It was a huge machine, very complicated, requiring knowledgeable medical staff to get it there, installed and operating. 

The following morning, 7 July, little Aaron Ruth was taken to the hospital to visit her brother. While there, news of the arrival of the machine in the emergency room area was received. The joy was short-lived, however, because as they turned to give little Ira Cleve the news, they discovered he had died at age 8, leaving a grieving mother and his 5-year old sister in despair.

Ruth and her mother returned to North Carolina where Joyce was a teacher. Over the years, the tragedy of the events in 1956 softened. There was always that hurt whenever Ruth thought of this time. She carried on with her life and hoped for a better future. She graduated HS in the Carolinas, then returned to Ruston to attend college at Louisiana Tech. She stayed with her grandmother, then Joyce was able to save a small amount of money and with the help of a bank loan a brand-new brick home was constructed. Happy times seemed to have finally arrived. Rather than having to live off the kindness of others for even a roof over their heads, this wonderful new home would be the launching place for joy and a future.

Ruth stayed at the home alone, walked the two miles from the home daily to and from her classes. She had no car, or friend who lived close by able to take her and pick her up. She did have friends in school. One day, one of those friends asked her a question which shook her world apart.

“How’s your brother doing?”

Ruth, never having been told that she might have family other than her mother and Ira Cleve, gave the only answer she could. “I’m sorry, my little brother died when he was 8 years old.”

To her complete astonishment the friend replied: “NO, not That brother! Your OTHER brother…. And your Sister, how is she?”

Think for a moment – if you had been Ruth at that moment, wouldn’t you believe that your friend had gone BONKERS!!        

Instead, she said, “You must be mistaken, I don’t have any other brothers or sisters.”

“YES, you do! Both used to live with us. My dad was the pastor of the church and took them in for a time.”

Ruth, after a brief interval, tried to discover as much as she could from her friend, then rushed home to be brought up to date on this astonishing revelation.

Ruth’s mother, still in the Carolina’s teaching, wasn’t there to help. Mrs. Nelson, when confronted with this news was, to say the least, LESS than truthful. She told Ruth that, yes, she seemed to recall that her dad had been married before and yes, there may have been some children from that marriage.

“Who are they? What are their names? How can I get in touch with them?” Ruth peppered her with questions.

“Well, ---, uh, I don’t remember. I don’t know! I have no idea.”

In those days a Long-Distance call cost a good amount of money. Eventually, Ruth did speak with her mother and received more or less the same answers.

You might be asking yourself, ‘All of this is rather sad and interesting, but What the Heck has that got to do with this or any other book this guy is writing?”

I’m getting to that….

Ruth and I married on 5 Feb 1970 in a small ceremony at Ruth’s mother’s home in Ruston. Nine short months later… our first daughter, Talley Joy, was born. Two years later her sister, Kimberly Jo arrived. The years began to go by (I know, just like your patience with my answers to your questions).

The kids started school and began to progress though the grades. One day Talley came home with a homework assignment to fill out a simple family tree chart. I knew ZERO about my own history, I did know my parents’ names, I knew my mother’s father’s name as he had lived across the road from us in Ruston. The others? Never met them, my dad’s mom had died in 1914 as I later learned, his dad in 1953, mom’s mother had also died in the early 1950’s. It was now the late 1970’s. Ruth brought out an old newspaper clipping to help. It was front page news from the Ruston Daily leader.

On this feature article, both Ruth’s aunt and mother were pictured with the headline, “local women are found to be descendants of George Washington.”

Yeah, THAT George Washington!

GEEZ! I was amazed. Can that be true? My kids – descendants of the First President?  Tell me more!

Thus, began my 45-year quest to find not only Ruth’s family, but my own as well. Since that day I have met hundreds of cousins, spoken with many more over the phone and laughed and cried as we shared information and learned about our family tree.

I hope this book will be the beginning of your quest, that my books will make the journey much easier than my own.

P.S. NO, my children are not related or descended from President George Washington, but they do have Many other famous ancestors.