YMCA - 1908
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31 August 1927: YMCA’s first building in Houston was at the northwest corner of Fannin and McKinney, opened to the public 2 June 1908. The building housed dormitories and a bowling alley in the basement. It was in continuous use until a new building was constructed at 1600 Louisiana in 1941. The original building was turned over to the USO for soldiers in the war, and after the war was over, it was demolished in 1947.
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11 May 2006: After the architectural hiatus of World War II, the first building to be constructed post-war in Houston was City National Bank Building (1001 McKinney Building), a 22 story building finished 1949. The architect was Alfred Charles Finn, a Jesse Jones favorite, who also designed the Link-Lee House (now administration building at St. Thomas University), the Foster Building (The Chronicle Building, 1914), the Rice Hotel third tower (1926), the Democratic National Convention Building (1928), and the iconic Gulf Building (1929).
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Postmarked: 31 August 1927; Houston, Texas
Stamp: 2c Carmine George Washington #554 To: Mr Lonesome Huff 1210 Denver St. Wichita Falls, Texas Message: Dear Lonesome Will you please tell your mother and sister that I have some thing for them? Wm Huff Jr. The author of the postcard was William Tipton Huff, Jr, and he was writing to “Lonesome” Huff, e.g. William Edgar Huff, his first cousin. They both were grandsons of Mary Elizabeth Johnson and Baptist Minister Rev. William Huff, from Bedford County, TN. The postmark reveals he mailed the postcard from Waco, somewhat on the way from Houston to Wichita Falls, perhaps to alert them that he was coming north and would bring his items with him. The card features Houston’s YMCA, so he may have stayed in one of their dormitory rooms while on a business trip there, returning home to Norman, OK via Waco.
Lonesome was about 13 years older than his cousin, with an important job as Vice President and treasurer at the First National Bank in Wichita Falls at which his father Robert Eugene Huff was president. When Lonesome registered for the draft in 1917, he indicated that he was tall in stature with a medium build, brown hair and brown eyes, totally deaf in one ear. He married Pearl McDermett in Jackson County, OK on 12 June 1913, and when the postcard was received they had children William Edgar Jr. (age 11) and Mary Elizabeth (9). Pearl was a strong woman, the daughter of Mary “Mollie” Minton and Sam McDermett, a cattle raiser in Hico, Hamilton County, TX. Sam had died prematurely at the age of 37 in 1904, and his widow and family moved to Altus, Jackson County, OK where Pearl became head of household at 18 years of age in 1910 by working as a clerk in the local light and power company. Her mother and brothers Lee (14) and Gage Carmein (7), and sister Willie (16) became her dependents. The sender of the postcard, William Tipton Huff, Lonesome’s first cousin, proudly bore the Tipton name from his great great grandfather Abraham Tipton (1794-1868), onetime Tennessee State Senator. Abraham was the grandson of John Tipton, Virginia patriot in the Revolutionary War, who attended the 1776 Virginia Constitutional Convention, and served in the Shenandoah County Militia. He moved west and became a Tennessee pioneer, early opponent of the premature and ill-fated State of State of Franklin movement of John Sevier. The far-western counties of North Carolina petitioned to have Franklin declared a new state west of the Appalachian Mountains. Active in the effort was Presbyterian Rev. Sam Houston, uncle of the man who would later be so important in the history of Texas. Franklin, ostensibly named for Ben Franklin (who was not supportive of the effort), was dissolved without ever being recognized as a state, and later efforts led to the creation of a larger state, Tennessee, which became a state in 1796, with its first governor, John Sevier. |
Receiving the items mentioned in the postcard from Wm. would be Lonesome’s mother, Elizabeth Amanda Burroughs Huff. Elizabeth was just shy of her 61st birthday but within 13 months she would be dead. While traveling in France with her husband and son near Bordeaux on June 15, 1928, their car struck a taxicab. Their son, Robert E. Huff, Jr., who was driving, was unhurt, but Judge R. E. Huff, Sr. suffered a broken shoulder blade. His wife’s injuries were more serious. She was rushed to a nearby hospital where she died on June 19, 1928 of lung congestion, contusion of the thorax and a rib fracture. Her embalmed body was brought home on the S.S. Paris, leaving Havre on July 4, 1928. Just 5 years later Robert E. Huff, Jr. died in a Kerrville sanitarium of tuberculosis.
The other recipient of items mentioned by the author of the postcard was Lonesome’s sister. There were two women who might be called his sister, Lillian Johnson or Della Stone, neither of whom seems to have actually been a sibling. Miss Johnson appears on the Robert Huff family census of 1900 as the only daughter; probably she was a cousin from Robert’s mother’s line, Martha Elizabeth Johnson, wife of Reverend William E. Huff. In 1927 she was a teacher at Zundelowitz Junior High School in Wichita Falls, 32 years old at that time. She had an MA degree from the University of Texas, and for many years taught at Wichita Falls High School as a member of the English faculty as late as 1954. Della Stone appears on the Robert Huff family census of 1910 as an adopted daughter (Lillian Johnson does not appear). The story of how she came to live with the Huff family is an interesting one. In 1900 at 6 years of age she was the oldest daughter of James Stone and Florence Malinda Ruble. In 1900 he was the jail keeper in Independence County, AR with a family of 4 children: Della (6); William P. (5); Minnie. M. (2) and John A. (6 months), joined in 1902 by son Ruble. Very soon thereafter, James is no longer with the family and is presumed dead. By 1904 Florence has married again and started a new family in Oklahoma City. She and her second husband, Lloyd Mills, started a new family and the Stone children were dispersed into various other families. Since Robert Huff was a general practice attorney, he may have found out about the Stone children's plight and was moved to help. He brought Della Stone to Wichita Falls to live with him, Ruble Stone was sent to the Baptist Orphanage in Oklahoma City, and Minnie Mae was adopted by a family in Claiborne Parrish in Louisiana, but died at age 15 shortly after delivering a son, Arnold Stone, who himself was adopted by yet another family. Ruble Stone joined the navy and later worked as a painter in Quincy, Adams County, IL where he died in 1925. Lonesome’s wife Pearl died in 1961 and Lonesome himself in 1968; they are buried in Riverside Park Cemetery in Wichita Falls, TX near his parents, Elizabeth Burroughs Huff (1866-1928) and Robert Eugene Huff (1857-1939), and many other family members. William Tipton Huff died in 1983 and is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Muskogee, OK. His widow, Mabel Inez Kelley Huff, died in 2 and was laid to rest beside her husband. Delia Stone Huff died in 1976 in Midland, TX; her husband John Adam Gould died in 1953 in Dallas, TX. |
