A sentimental painting
May 9, 2011 (Monday)
I’m sitting here looking at a painting of an old house near Lovelady, Texas. It’s the old home place of Wanda’s mother. I went there in 1955, at Christmas, with the rest of the family for the funeral of Wanda’s grandfather. The painting is the work of Wanda’s Aunt Myra, sister of Wanda’s mother, Berta. The layout of the house is a familiar one, with the open hallway stretching the length of the house, dividing it into two separate parts. Such houses once were seen all over Texas. (I lived in one in Houston for a while with my grandparents when I was a little boy, but the hallway had been enclosed, with the front door at one end and a bathroom at the other. It was an old house then, in the early forties, but I drove by it in recent years, and it is still standing. Must be at least a hundred years old now).
Aunt Myra’s painting captures the scene in that community not far from Crockett, in East Texas. Wanda’s grandmother was a McPhail, a family with roots in Scotland. The first McPhails settled in North Carolina in the early 19th Century, and around 1814 moved to Mississippi. Their descendants moved to Nevels Prairie (near Lovelady) in 1876. Wanda’s grandmother, Viola McPhail, was born that year. She married Wanda’s grandfather, John J. Holliday, who was born in 1872. The marriage took place in 1900. They made their home near Lovelady, Texas, and raised seven children, including Wanda’s mother, in the house that is pictured in our painting.
Here’s a photograph of the old place, during the early 1970’s, featuring some of the folks who were raised there, with some of their children and grandchildren. Wanda’s mother is on the left side of the photo, in an orange dress, and Wanda’s father is standing behind her.
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..and here’s a picture of Aunt Myra’s painting:
