YWCA

1926: Frank Schlueter (1874-1972) was a Houston photographer active from about 1907 until he retired in 1964 at 90 years of age. He began his long career using glass plates and wooden cameras, and ended with state-of-the-art cameras and portable lighting equipment. He is buried at Forest Park Cemetery. (See: The Schleuter Collection at the Houston Public Library.)

22 September 2017: The entire block is now taken up by the Houston Center Garage built in 1975.

​The identity of “precious dumpling” cannot be established with the usual certainty found in genealogical identifications. From the message one gets the sense that “Master B. J. Neal” must be quite young, not as young as a toddler, but perhaps six or eight years old. “Mother” has traveled to Florida in the days before her arrival in Houston, and the sense is that “Joe Neal” is the father, evidently not on the trip himself. 

There are records of births in Indiana statewide, but there is no “B. J. Neal” in that record. A search of fathers named “Joe Neal” in Monroe County, the county in which Bloomington is located, reveals a “Joseph F. Neal” who appears in some other records as “Fowler Neal” a father of several of the children listed in the birth records from the county. Census records corroborate the identity of “Joseph F. Neal” and “Fowler” or “Fawler Neal.” The only child that would have been about six or eight in 1926 is James Monroe Neal, born 23 June 1918, who would have been nearly eight years old when the postcard was mailed. 

It is not clear how “James Monroe” Neal might come to be called “B. J.” (“Baby James” is pure speculation without evidence) but there seems to be no other candidate for the recipient of the postcard. If that is the case, “Mother” is Mattie Jackson, wife of Joseph Fowler Neal, and mother of: Daniel O. (1902), Hazel M. (1904), Mary A. (1906), Josie L. (1904), Walter H. (1911), Ethel Viola (1915), James Monroe (1918), Elma I. and Thelma I. (1922). The Neal family lived in a rural portion of Monroe County in 1920 where Joe worked as a farmer. The family moved to Bloomington some time before 1930, where Mattie seemed to be the head of household with no occupation listed. Joseph Monroe Neal married Juanita Dean on 30 June 1938 and by 1940 they had moved to Owen County where James worked on a road project and parented their young daughter Yvonne. James Monroe served in WWII from 15 January 1944 until 16 October 1945, but what branch is not indicated on the record. 

Mattie Jackson, daughter of Dow Jackson and Mary Ann Langley, continued to live in Bloomington until her death from arteriosclerosis and “cerebral accidents” on 6 March 1971. Joseph Fowler Neal had died August 17, 1945. They are buried in Bethel Cemetery in Bloomington, Monroe County, IN. James Monroe died 10 January 1980 in Oakland, Almeda County, CA. but his burial has not been located.