By
Joe Taylor
Uncle Barto was the first child born to Joseph Marion and Emiline Bracewell ill Coffeevlle, Alabama, on Sept. 22, 1861.
His father was enlisted into the Confederate Army at Opelika. Ala., when Barto was eight months old.
Joseph Marion did not rejoin the family permanently until after the end of the war In May 1865 when Barto was four. The family moved to Skipperville, Ala., and worked an 80 acre farm during the Reconstruction period until 1872 when they moved to Grime's County, Texas. This should have been a memorable adventure for Barto who was by then eleven.
Bart and the other children pitched in to make a home in the "new lands." People who knew him recall that he was strong, energetic and intelligent. It was said of him that “as a boy he did the work of a man, and as a man he did the work of two men.”
Barto married Fannie Shanks at Bedias Dec. 19, 1882. This union produced nine children:
Ruby Estella (Dooley), Oct. 13, 1883--Dec. 10, 1967.
Corrie Ola (Tew), April 25, 1885-April 25, 1924
| William Byron, May 14, 1887-June 7, 1945.
Marha Anna (Peavy), Feb. 20, 1890.
Winnie Elvira, May 15, 1893 (died at one year of age).
Pearl, June 19, 1896 (died at age 10).
Winnie Lee (Steed), April 4, 1898.
Jessie Irene (Stone), Aug. 14, 1900.
Asbury Barto, June 16, 1903.
After Aunt Fannie passed away, Barto married Arah Redding in 1910. Their marriage produced seven chil-dren:
Twins: William Travis and Trannie Beatrice (Hearn), Dec. 11, 1911.
Lorene (Young), July 31, 1913.
Joseph Marion III, Jan. 14, 1917.
James Ardell, Sept. 19, 1918.
(Unnamed infant daughter, Sept. 9, 1922)
Robbie Merle, Dec. 9, 1924 (died at one year of age).
| Barto produced children over a 41 year period from his first when he was 22 until he was 63. He had Joseph Marion's first three grandchildren and the last grandchild to be born. At the time of Joseph Marion's passing in 1910 Barto had produced seven grandchildren for him.
Barto worked as a blacksmith and farmer. As a blacksmith he was called on to repair tools and implements and to make new tools and parts when necessary. Always inventive, he held a patent on a plow he built.
His work did not keep him from enjoying hunting and fishing often. He is probably one of the few per-sons ever to have killed a bear in Grimes County.
His son Travis tells of his trip with his father back to the old Bracewell homestead in Alabama in 1935 (at the age of 74!) and locating several of his old schoolmates from the 1860s.
Uncle Barto passed away on Jan. 30, 1936. It was perhaps the recognition of his great character, representative of his parents and brothers and sisters which prompted the surviving Bracewells to start holding their annual reunion in remembrance of him and the other beloved kinsmen in June of that year.
|
By
Travis Bracewell
When Daddy and I went there in 1936, we left Troy or Banks and went to Skipperville, which was a very small place, and found out from the postmaster just where the Bracewell place was.
When we got there Daddy said when we drove up--and it was on a fairly large sand hill: "This is Grand-father's place," and said to the people there that he and his dad
| lived little further down the road. A lady told us that the house had been torn down. Daddy said, "Well, a few years before we left to go to Texas I went with my Daddy and someone else, and they put a hollow log that had been split open and they made a trough and put one end under a waterfall. I guess you would call it that, as this water was pouring out from the hill."
She told him that it was still there, so he wanted to see it.
So we went down and as soon as he saw it, he said it looked Just like
| it did when they placed it there except that it was covered with green moss, and that the water was almost as cold as ice. At the time we went there we only found two of his schoolmates. One was bedridden and the other man lived by himself. It was a sight to see them grab each other. They were so proud to see each other. The man was by himself and just begged Dad to stay a few days. But we couldn't as one of the Tew boys had taken off work to carry us down.
It was so sad when they said goodbye, knowing that it was to be for the last time.
|
