As I look back on my life, there are many things I wish I could have done different, but we can’t change our past. I was born to Frances Jane and Charley Grady Pierson on July 11th, 1944 during World War 2. I was born in Pasadena, Texas at a small clinic. I remember my mother telling me they had to cross on the ferry boat in the hottest time of summer.
My dad worked in the ship yard, painting large ships, he didn’t get accepted for service, because he had flat feet. My dad had dark wavy black hair and brown eyes my mother had reddish brown hair and green eyes so when I was born I had flaming red hair and brown eyes. Mom said the nurses carried me around that little clinic showing me off, I had a lot of hair, I weighed eight and a half pounds and was eighteen inches long everyone always said I favored my dad, but I believe I favored my mother except I had brown eyes.
I have a brother three and a half years older then me, his name is David E. Pierson he was born with black hair and hazel eyes his hair changed to blond very early. David was born February 7th 1941. Mother and Dad moved to Tyler, Texas when I was around two years old.
Mother was from a very large family of eleven children, her mother and dad were first cousins, her mother married when she was fourteen years old, her name was Mary Jane Edwards she had black hair, she was Cherokee Indian she was very small and pretty when papa Kirkley chose her to be his wife, he was tall slender and had blonde hair and fair skin, a handsome man of twenty four years old.
My dad’s parents were Mona and Jim Pierson they had seven children, one died during World War 2 his name was Clifford Marvin Pierson his ship was wounded and when they were coming back to get the ship fixed it was torpedoed by the Japanese and he was lost at sea he was nineteen years old. The ship sank and all on the ship died, except six men which had been taken off the ship earlier because they had been wounded before the ship was torpedoed.
My mother had a brother named Lewis that was murdered by some drunks, they had been at a dance and mother’s older sisters was there with Lewis he was home on leave from the War, these two drunk men began cursing and Lewis told them to leave and not be cursing around the ladies. The two men left and came back and stabbed Lewis to death, my mother at this time was only five years old, but she remembered Lewis because he would hold her a lot when she was little she loved him so much and grieved over his death.
My mother also had a sister that was a dwarf she only wore a size three in a shoe when she was grown, that sister died early after being married and having some children. I grew up on Montgomery Gardens street here in Tyler, Texas. My brother gave me a hard time when we were young, but I love him dearly. I had a hard time learning books in school but my brother David passed easily he was very smart, he was in all types of sports he played football in high school and he and his girlfriend at that time was chosen King and Queen of John Tyler High School and they chose the colors that are still the same colors today. David once became the light weight champion of John Tyler High School, he was in track also, I remember him on crutches often because of getting hurt in some kind of sport. David broke up with his girl friend at that time and went to A&M and then went to Oklahoma State University from there he went over seas and traveled all over the world for the Air Force as a Civil Engineer. He later Married Melba Ragan and they have two sons Leif and Derik. He also has a dog name Heidi she is a golden retriever she is a very sweet dog that is loved by all of us.
Above are various pictures of me when young.
Above are pictures of my brother David when young. In order are: Mother and David as a boy, David in high school, David with his wife Melba and their son Leif (in the early 70's).
In order: My dad's parents grandma and grandpa Pierson, Mother and Daddy, my sons Jonathan and Justin when young.
I remember my mother saying she had gave us back to God and dedicated us very young in church. I always felt close to the Lord I have a lot of faith. My mother came over on September 19th, 1986 and told me of things from her life, so I’ll began to write about it now and come back to my story later. The following is what mother told me:
“Mother’s great grandmother’s name was Cisco, the first of mothers ancestors came from Mississippi and came from New Orleans, she had a grandmother who lived there, she was English, her name was Mary Lu Perryman, it was her mother’s mother as far back as she has traced lived in the Carolinas. Papa’s people the Kirkleys was from the Carolinas they changed their name from Kirkland to Kirkley. Papa’s daddy’s name was Bill Kirkley, his daddy’s daddy married a woman name Lorena, they came to Texas in the 1840’s from Alabama by wagon train and homesteaded. My great grandfather Kirkley homesteaded at Swann, Texas on the land close to where Papa is buried at Hopewell Cemetery. The Baptist Church was established in 1858. The cemetery that is there my oldest brother Jessie Kirkley is buried there eighty six years ago he was born in December and died in January he was a blue baby he had a heart problem from birth.
It was a custom to marry your cousin in those days. Her mother and her great grandmother were Scotch her name was Edwards and he was Cherokee Indian, he had gray eyes and a fair complexion. Before he married she came from Louisiana, she had been married before and had two sons, Her first husband’s name was Allen and her sons name was Frank, but I can’t remember the youngest sons name. But she was married to my great , great grandfather. At that time the Spanish American war was taking place, her youngest son had ran away and joined the Army and she had got the word that he had went AWOL and if she didn’t come and swear that he was too young to join and had lied about his age to get into service he would be court-martialed and shot before the firing squad, when she went she had a baby which would be my grandmother, her name was Linnie Edwards.
My Great Grandmother went to New Orleans and took her baby with her and as she traveled she would have to tie her ox cart and her horses in some deep thickets in the woods so her and her baby wouldn’t be killed by some Indians or wolves. She would go and hide so she could nurse her baby and then she would feed her horse. She got to New Orleans and confirmed the fact that her son wasn’t old enough for the army so they let him go. Then she brought him back to Louisiana where her husband worked on the farm and a month later after she had brought him back he was killed in a hunting accident, he was climbing beneath a log fence and he was killed by his own gun. His mother was left with a baby and later she had another child which was a boy.
Her oldest son was later killed in a gin accident his arm was pulled off by the socket and he bled to death. His name was Frank. Later her husband was told by a bear trapper that the land in Texas was good and rich and was free, that they could raise cattle and every kind of domestic animal and supplies and build a log cabin home and get as much land as they wanted so they made it to Boston, Texas the county seat. When her husband died she brought her two children to Tyler that is where her brother lived which was my mothers daddy his name was Harm Edwards he was the baby and she married again her husband’s name was Hilton.
My Grandfather Edwards had married my Grandmother who was Mary Lu Perryman, which was from New Orleans and they had ten children and my mother was the fourth or fifth child in the family she was one of the older ones. My daddy hadn’t never seen her and whenever they came and when he saw her he chose her for his wife, he didn’t ask her to marry him he went to her father and ask him to let her marry him. My mother was fourteen years old and my daddy was twenty four years old when they married. The marriage was arranged by the family. My mother didn’t want to get married, but her daddy’s word was the law. She didn’t go to school they lived too far from the school for her to walk. My father was born in Smith County and his mother was a School teacher, she taught at Hopewell in a one room log cabin school house across from a little road from where the Baptist Church is at, that’s where he is buried. He went all the way through school there and if you had an eighth grade education you could be a school teacher, but he didn’t want to be a teacher.
My great, great grandfather died and he is buried at the same cemetery that my father is buried, but my father’s father and my grandmother are buried at sand flat close to State Park. Most of my kinsmen are buried at Hopewell Cemetery our first through sixth cousins are buried there and our aunts and uncles are all over that cemetery that is the burial ground for both sides of our generation. My dad’s family had six children and he was the oldest, he lived to be eighty, before he died he lived in Tyler. There were eleven children in my family and I Frances was the ninth. My mother and dad has been dead for a good many years and I have three sisters and two brothers living in smith county.
I was born up close to Lindale that’s where all of us kids were born up on the farm. My dad’s mother and dad were Bill and Minnie Kirkley, she was formally Linnie Edwards, they were moving and they had a wagon with mules going down a steep hill with a lot of red rocks and the mules were holding back the wagon to keep the wagon from running over their heels and a single tree broke loose and it scared them so bad that they ran away and the wagon broke loose from the harnesses and hit a rock causing my grandmother in the front seat to be thrown up into the air, she was a large woman, and she come down on a big rock across her back, she lived in very much pain a few days and she died, she was in her fiftys.
My mother’s dad which was my grandmother Kirkley’s brother name Harm Edwards, He was in his fifty’s when he died of a heart attack on west Erwin where the old Burk’s Walker Tippit Funeral Home is they went over to pick him up. When I was four years old, that was when my baby sister was born, she is sixty two years old now, we left East Texas, because of the tragic death of my brother Lewis, he was murdered at that time, he was twenty years old.
My parents decided to move to Western Oklahoma, I don’t remember a lot of it, but it still stands out in my mind, it left deep scars in my memory, the painful feeling we went through. I remember when we got into Oklahoma by train, when we went into the train station depot I saw an Indian Chief with their war bonnets they were beautiful bonnets. Oklahoma had not been a State very long it was Territory, but it had western plains, fields and no hills, it was level and you could see for miles at that time, the towns were small. There was something about those western plains I’ve loved all my life, because we moved on a large farm. We moved on a lot of land, I thought it was great, we could play miles away from home, we called it a break, it’s called arroyos, we could see high hills at a distance. My dad farmed a lot of land farming cotton.
There was schools but four miles away, I had to walk to school, my older brothers made it all right to school, but my legs begin hurting me at night and I’d cry with pain, so it was not long that my mother and dad moved and I was transferred to another school one mile closer. We would walk to school no matter what kind of weather, rain, snow or what, I loved school and I never realized how rugged or hard it was. Then we moved to Goal Oklahoma, I went to school there for awhile, but my dad loved to move from one place to another and I was transferred from one school to another. I had to start to work in the cotton fields when I was six years old, I had to walk a half mile to a mile to carry water to the field workers, we planted cotton, mosses, corn we did it with plows and farm equipment all we did was chopped through the weeds to get to the cotton which would grow very tall. The workers would have to holler so I could find them to give them water. After that year I started working in the cotton fields or corn fields the land was very rich, you could raise just anything, there were a lot of cattle and lots of wheat.
I was nine years old in 1929, when the depression begin until world war two has left scars on people that had to go through it, our parents had to give up everything we had, we had nothing left. That left scars on all the people. I’m glad I didn’t realize at that time what it meant. No one today could ever realize what we went through or our parents. After having so much after world war two and ever having to go back threw that, I don’t think this generation could ever go through that and what we lived through and still have happy children, because for the work we did we got no money, we didn’t expect to get anything for the work we did, because we didn’t. I don’t think this generation could ever understand. By the time I was old enough around twelve or thirteen years old we left Oklahoma to come back to Texas, I hadn’t remembered too much about East Texas, I didn’t like too many trees and too many hills. I went to school here we went to town for awhile, but we moved back onto the farm. The depression was so bad at that time, we were fortunate to have a whole meal. I was still walking to school at that time, but I didn’t get to go to school until the field work picking the cotton, the grass was so different it was harder to pull the cotton. I picked berries for awhile also, I got paid for that in the spring time who ever would use us to pick, that was after we finished, we pulled our cotton.
The depression was so bad, that living on the farm, there were no substances, no welfare, no hand outs, no food stamps, no give a way programs, if we got any clothes to wear we had to get our dad’s fields chopped, hoed and cleaned up and finished up, we called it laid by. Then the smaller farms which had less children would hire me to work for them, I was sixteen years old, I would chop cotton all day for 75 cents a day. I had to work long enough to buy me a pair of shoes and socks and under clothes we didn’t have hose. I didn’t have hose until I was nineteen years old. I had no cosmetics, we never thought having to wear any, we never went to doctors, or beauty shops. I did get a permanent once for a dollar if I had a dollar left and in the fall of the year we would start getting our crops, we would plant corn, peas, nuts, ribbon cane, potatoes or surgeon. We had to chop our fields to remove the bemata grass and weed our cotton, I had to help plow the field with my brother when I was thirteen or fourteen years old I had to help. We had some meeker living, because that’s all we knew. There were times when it got so bad I couldn’t get a new dress. All I had was sneakers, they were popular in those days, you was considered the poorest of poor, we had no tooth brushes or tooth paste, all we had was a small lime from a tree and baking soda, but at that time we had good teeth. I had tonsillitis and all I had was an aspirin for my high fever and terrible spells, we worked in the cotton fields until the snows come early, and I’d have to wait until a month or two to go to school until our fields were finished, I always started school late, but I would always catch up.
I started dating at fifteen years old, but I had no pretty dresses, all I had was flour sacks to make our dresses and underwear and I’d have feed sacks, because it would have flowers in it, the only other clothes I would have would be hand me downs from my brothers, their overalls or blue jeans, then you were considered poor trash, believe you me if it were today I would be a popular model if it were today dressed up in their baggy pants and old saggy looking hair dos, because that’s all we had if you wore such as that it was a disgrace. I wouldn’t be caught dead in them and today I don’t care to wear pants. I’m glad I am a woman I was always thought to be a boy when my hair was cut short and wore overalls it would make me feel inhuman to be thought of as masculine. I wanted to be thought of as feminine all of my sisters did, I didn’t I was tall thin, red hair, green eyes and that wasn’t very popular in those days. They teased me about it unmercifully I was nicked named Beans, I was always the tallest girl in the crowd I had broad shoulders and look like a coat rack, I couldn’t wear the dresses in the bargain basement because they were too short on me. I couldn’t wear the small dresses because they would come way above my knees and we didn’t wear dresses that short. I never saw the short dresses until the 1920’s, my older sisters would wear them and those cloak hats and that bobbed hair, I thought it was slouchy then even when I was a child they would wear a lot of rough and lip stick and it was all right for them, but not for me. When I was growing up a girl just didn’t look good with short dresses and a lot of make-up so I seldom ever wore it.
When I was eighteen my first real job was at city hall as a cashier for twelve dollars a month, twelve dollars a month would go a long ways in those days when things were so cheap, no matter how cheap things were you never had money to buy it to start with. I walked I put the miles on myself as I was growing up, that the people do today to exercise to keep themselves from getting flabby and so fat. I never knew what anything was to walk or run, I was a good runner and I could climb trees and cross foot logs and run all the way to school, about two and a half miles, through the short cut, because I was always the last one to leave the house, my sisters would always take the long way around, I would always beat them there and that was nothing for me, but today walking a mile is strenuous on my body, I never knew what it was to have warm feet in the winter time, we didn’t have heat in the house, you just had to cover up to keep warm, my feet was never warm enough in the winter time. In the summer time you was never cool enough unless you could go to the creek and take a cool bath where there was a cool spring, but our usual bathing was in a number three wash tub that mother wash our clothes out beneath an old oak tree, it still stands there, it’s not too far where we live today, but I don’t care to go back there where I lived as a child to see any of the places.
I was happy as a child, I loved my mother and father and our large family, life was so hard then for me and has always been hard for me through my life nothing has come very easily to me, everything I have got always has come the hard way for me for the rest of my life that I’ve lived. I have gone through the depression and it has left scars on my life and I see how things are going today it makes me feel insecure and a wonderment in my heart for my children and my grandchildren, can this generation bare the things that we went through and see what we went threw.
I will never ever forget the day April 4th, 1924 was the day my brother Lewis was killed, he was nineteen years old, he was buried on his twenty birthday, he was killed one day before his twenty birthday. Lewis had been married about three years to a beautiful blond haired girl, she was a Freeman, that was her maiden name, she was having an affair with the man she went to work for, so her and Lewis were separated and Lewis had moved back home with us. He had always carried me around all over the place, I was spoiled by him, I loved him so, I was only four years old then. My mother Mary Jane Kirkley was four months pregnant with my sister Margie at that time. My mother had long black hair, she was a small person. My older sister Lorene was pretty she had a very good figure, my sister Bonnie was only a year older then. We would have dances at peoples homes and my sister Lorene and Lewis went to the dance at one of our neighbors and they was having a real good time, but these two young teenage boys came upon their horses, they were drunk and the man which owned the home threw them out bodily and told them to never return. The men in those days wore guns, so the boys planned to go back and kill the old man there with their knives. One of the boys name was Earnest Hughes the other one was his cousin Will Rowes they was raised by their grandmother which let them do as they pleased. They went back and saw the party going on and they didn’t expect to see Lewis, so when they saw my sister Lorene they began speaking in bad language and my brother Lewis asked them to leave, they left and returned and Lewis grabbed one of them and the other teenager stabbed Lewis to death, when he did his knife jackknifed and cut the top of the teenagers thumb off, before Lewis died he said , “you’ve killed me,” and he fell over dead on the white sand and his blood flowed from his body.
I’ll never forget till this day my mother’s look and screams when she heard of Lewis being killed. She run into the living room in her white gown, her long black hair hanging down to her hips, she was out of her head, the men held her back and they brought Lewis’s body into the house and placed it on a long board on the table. My dad had just had the rest of his teeth pulled that day, he had twenty two teeth pulled and I can remember him hanging his head down into his hands. I’m not sure who went and got the coffin, but the men bathed Lewis’s body and cleaned it after cutting off his bloody clothes. The teenagers which killed Lewis had gotten on their horses and went back home and went to bed drunk in there bloody clothes. Someone had went for the Sheriff and he went out and arrested the boys. Sheriff Arthur Harvey. Lorene testified against them, she being very afraid they knew she would, she would be perfect to testify because of her being so fearful that maybe things would be better for them. The youngest teenager took all the blame so they only sentenced him three years for Lewis’s death. Later the older teenager had stolen a cow and got seven years for stealing the cow, he got sentenced longer for that then he got for killing my brother Lewis. I’ll never forget his funeral, there was a large red rock there at the burial ground and a fence and they buried Lewis on his twentieth birthday April 5th, 1924. It wasn’t long after that, that my dad took us from there and moved us somewhere else, he couldn’t bare to live there any longer. Earnest Hughes was a distance kinsman of Jim Hughes, my daughter’s first husband.”
This is the story my mother Frances Jane Pierson told me today. I am Mary June Bowers which is writing this story my mother has told me. I never knew that Jim Hughes was kin to the man which killed my mother’s brother Lewis until today. She said she thought that Earnest Hughes died of cancer in his later years. She had never told me who had killed her brother I had been told it was two drunk teenagers I didn’t know my first husband Jim Hughes was kin to them. I just knew how much my mother loved her brother Lewis. My mother Frances Kirkley Pierson has told me a lot about her life it would make a book within itself, she married early and divorced and a few years later she married my dad Charles Grady Pierson, she then had my brother David E. Pierson February 7th, 1941 and in three and a half years later on July 11th 1944 she had me.
In order: Grandma Jane Kirkley with Shirley Kirkley and my mother Francis as children, Mother by a well, Mother (left) and her siblings in order (Margie, Shirley, Bonnie, Larene, Charlie, and Ella Mae), Grandma and Grandpa Kirkley (Mother's parents).
I had a good childhood although David picked at me a lot while we were growing up. He’d always have his friends over from High School and all the way through college David always had a crowd around him, even now he still does. David always thought of me as his little sister, no matter how much I grew up and turned into a woman, he always thought of me as his little sis.
When I was around four or five years old, I was almost killed, by a car speeding down my street, as I was crossing the street I froze seeing a car coming at me with great speed, I put my hands over my mouth as I screamed facing the speeding car and my Mother heard my scream, come running out just in time to see the car flying trough three neighbors’ yards and missing me all together.
When I was young I was walking to the mail box to get the mail and a very large lightning bolt came down and hit in front of me as wide as I was and larger than I was and very bright, it blinded me for a few seconds and scared me very much, I’m not sure if I even got the mail, it seemed I turned around and ran back to the house quickly, ever since then I have always known things before they would happened, I have always believed it’s a gift from God. I would see dreams or visions that would come to pass either days or weeks or even years later, I began writing my dreams and visions down, some were burned up by my ex husband Ron. But I recalled most of them except the date I had the dream or vision.
My mother had a cat long ago that got bit by a snake, the cat’s neck swelled up really bad and the cat looked like it would die, she scratched the swollen neck to the muscle you could see her blood vain and she looked awful. After the cat died, my mother prayed in Jesus name for the cat to live and as she prayed, mother touched the cat’s neck and it awoke. When my brother seen the cat and saw how bad she looked, he went to get his rifle to kill the cat, mother said “you can’t kill the cat, I prayed for her to live!” My brother put the rifle away and waited to see if the cat would live. Time passed and when my brother came back home the cat was well and pretty again, she did live and to this day my brother tells her story to all who will except the story, it’s a testimony of what God can do, and will do for any one who believes in Him and prays in Jesus name.
When I was fourteen years old I met a boy named Glen he and I would go swimming together and just go out on a date. I really liked Glen and he did me also, we would hug and kiss each other we even rode the same school bus together, because he lived up the street not too for from me, one day he wanted me to meet his folks, so he drove his dad’s car and come down the back alley, because he didn’t have a drivers permit, he picked me up and drove me back through the back alley and we seen some black men on the side of the alley working on their tire, Glen begin slowing down and was going to stop and something told me, “no it’s dangerous,” so I put my foot over on Glen’s and said, “let’s get out of here, something’s wrong,” I pressed my foot down on his and we flew down the alley in the car and the black men jumped into their car and followed us to Glen’s house, we drove into the drive way and they kept going down the road. We got out of the car and went into Glen’s house, as soon as I got into the house I felt something evil really bad, I told Glen to “get me out of here something’s wrong,” I didn’t meet his parents, I felt evil all around me in that house. Glen took me back home and then he left to go back home. The very next day I went to school and didn’t see Glen at school, I heard later that Glen’s daddy had shot his mother five times killing her and tried to kill the two boys and they hid from their dad and their dad shot himself in the bottom of his heart, but he lived through surgery and went to prison for what he had done. I never seen Glen again for many years and I found out that Glen’s aunt had taken the boys to raise and moved somewhere else. Later Glen came to my house after we were grown to see me and he had been in the Viet Nam War and he was shell shocked he jumped at any noise even a car back firing. He looked good when he came to see me, but I knew his nerves was really bad and I didn’t see Glen again. I don’t know what ever happened to him, if he married or not, I would love to hear from him some day.
When mother was young she had a nervous breakdown and was sent to Galveston, Texas to a clinic for the mentally ill to be treated with shock treatments, during one shock treatment when she was out, she spoke in tongues, she spoke in Czechoslovakian language and told the lady, “I will bring you out of this place and send you home, Believe in me, saith the Lord.” No one can speak after a shock treatment and being still out normally, and my mother doesn’t know another language, the doctors and nurses couldn’t understand how this could happen and was very puzzled at it and when my mother came to, they asked her what she said and how she did it and of course mother didn’t know what they were talking about and they told her, and there was a person there that spoke Czechoslovakian and told her what she said, mother said that was the Lord speaking to her through mother and that He would get her out of that place and send that lady home and she would be all right, and within a couple of weeks that lady was fine and got to go home and so did my mother, but the doctors and nurses couldn’t ever understand what happened in that room that day, because they don’t understand that the Holy Ghost spoke through my mother to that lady, it wasn’t my actual mother herself for she couldn’t of done that on her own, being out from a shock treatment and my mother doesn’t speak another language, but only through the Holy Ghost can we do this, although we don’t understand the Heavenly Language ourselves, but only through interpretation through Christ our Lord.
I met Don through my cousin Dorothy Brown, she at that time was dating Ronny Murry, she had told Ronny all about me. He wanted to introduce his cousin Don to me, so one day when I hadn’t fixed myself up at all, what does she do, but to bring them over to meet me, I was fifteen years old at this time and Don was eighteen years old and a senior in high school, I was in the tenth grade, we were going to the old John Tyler High School at that time. When Don first seen me, he thought I was beautiful. I was so shocked that Dorothy just showed up without warning me, so I could at least fix myself up. They wanted me to go with them so we could get acquainted, so I fixed up a bit and then we all went out together in Ronny’s car, Don and I sat in the back seat while Ronny and Dorothy were up front, we drove around and talked to each other and we began dating after that, we doubled dated some and Don took me to his mother’s house to meet both his mother and dad and his little sister, they had a real nice house and a pretty patio out back, we would go out there to be alone so we could talk. After a few dates Don asked me to be his steady girlfriend, I said yes I would and he gave me his senior ring to wear, I put tape around the ring so I could wear it on my finger. We had both fallen in love with each other, but because Don had a heart murmur when he was very young his mother was very protective of him and didn’t want him to get too serious of me and I could tell she didn’t really want me around him very much.
One time on a date with Don, we were double dating with Dorothy and Ronny and we got caught in a hail storm and had to drive under a filling station canopy to get out of the hail, which was about the size of a quarter and it was coming down really heavy for a few minutes, after it was over we would go to the Derik a place where we could order food and a little waitress would bring us our food or drinks to the car and leave the tray on our window with our food on the tray until we were ready to leave, then she would pick up the tray and the guys would always leave a tip for the waitress on the tray.
Don and I would go to each other’s church, he was a Methodist and I was Pentecostal, but that didn’t matter to us we were in love, we would go to the movies, some were drive in theaters where we could smooch and hug each other and watch the movie while we were in the car, those were the best dates anyone could have, so we could really get to hold and kiss each other in private without mothers looking or watching every move we made, but I stayed a virgin, we would only hug and kiss each other, I was raised to be a virgin until I married. Don asked me to go to the formal dance when he graduated high school, so Mother bought me a beautiful strapless yellow formal and had my picture made in the formal when I was sixteen, she had a 18x20 picture printed and hung on her living room wall, it made a beautiful picture of me with my make up on so pretty, the yellow formal went so well with my red hair, mother had cut my hair short and kept it curled really pretty, my hair was curly anyway. Don bought me a real pretty arm corsage to wear to the dance, I also wore pretty high heels. Don was tall like my brother David, but my brother was taller than Don, mother had taken a picture of them together that I still have in an album. After the graduation dance, Don and I broke up just before school was out for the year, I gave him back his senior ring, we were both just too young to be so serious.
After many years had passed (in 1989 or 1990), I heard on the radio that Don’s mother and sister had been killed in an automobile accident, they ran their Volkswagen car under an eighteen wheeler killing them both, it cut his mother's head off and his sister was expecting her first baby, which also died - it would have been born in about 2 months from that time. My cousin Dorothy Murray told me after she found out about it herself. I went to the sister’s funeral, I was divorced at that time and forty-five years old still not too bad looking or very large, I weighed around one hundred and forty-five pounds, and when I was at the funeral home a very large man with no teeth came out grab me up and swirled me around and not too far from him was his very large wife larger than he was, when he put me down he said, “you don’t remember me, I’m Don,” boy was I shocked, and I bet his wife was too, she came up and he introduced us and told me he had just had his teeth pulled before his mother and sister were killed in the car wreck. Don told me he and his wife had four daughters and I told him I had four sons, he said that they live out of town, I can’t remember what city, but it was good to see him and meet his wife.
When I began the eleventh grade, I went to the Sadie Hawkins Dance, this is when I met Jim Hughes it was at the old John Tyler High School, my cousin Shirley Ray Kirkley was there and he was going to take me home after the dance. Everyone had dressed up in old clothes that was western type, but I dressed up real pretty in a blue pants suite, I was sweet sixteen then and very pretty I had a good figure I was 36-24-36. I danced some with different ones, I danced some with a short guy name Truit He could dance real good I enjoyed dancing with him then I saw this good looking tall guy with an old straw hat turned down toward his face, he had on overalls and long johns and big shoes, he kind of remind me of little Abner in the funny paper, but he had blond hair, little Abner had black hair.
When I was at the Sadie Hawkins dance, the agriculture teacher came over and ask me to dance with him, boy was he ever a good dancer, we jitter bug danced and everyone circled around us watching us dance. When the dance was over they clapped at us, we were really good dancers together. (Later in life I went to a dance with my brother and his date and my date was my brother’s friend James Butcher and when they played a jitter bug, the same Agriculture teacher came over and asked me to dance and everyone circled around us just like they did at the High School Dance and they clapped to us after the dance was through, it sure felt good to dance with someone that knew how to jitter bug like I could, we were really good dancers together, I’ll never forget that teacher he was something else I believe his name was Mr. Hawkins.)
Anyway I wanted to meet this real tall guy. I went to my cousin and asked him, “Shirley, will you introduce me to that real tall guy?” Shirley my cousin said, “he just ask me a few minutes ago to meet you.” I ask Shirley, “do you know him?” Shirley said, “That’s Jim Hughes, were in Agriculture together,” Shirley Ray and I walked over to where Jim Hughes was and Shirley introduced us and Jim and I danced together a lot, Truit also danced with me some more. Shirley Ray was going to stay and help Jim clean up after the dance, so we stayed and Shirley Ray was going to take us all home, I had hoped to get to sit with Jim in the cab of the truck, but Truit got up front instead, so Shirley Ray took Truit home first, then Jim got up front and we talked a lot, I ask Jim to go to Church with me on Sunday and he said he would, so Jim spent the night with Shirley Ray and I was expecting them both to go to Church the next day. I was in my Sunday School class and I had ask them to meet me there. I told the class that Jim Hughes would be there soon, he was my boy friend, they ask me where he was and I said, “I guess he’s still in the bed with Shirley!” everyone laughed and I said. ”Shirley is a boy he’s my cousin, Jim spent the night with, so he could come to Church.” They all got quiet a little later Jim came and joined us in the Sunday School Class.
Jim and I dated some, we had our ups and downs we seen each other at school in the halls and held hands. Shirley Ray quit School and joined the Air Force, he was failing in school anyway, he had already failed the tenth grade twice, Jim had failed the tenth grade also, I was in the eleventh grade. Jim would walk all the way over to my house, when he couldn’t get his mom’s car, she had an old station wagon with broken windows and no heater. A lot of our dates was awful cold in that old station wagon we always had to cover up with old blankets to keep warm on our dates. My mother knew Jim’s mother Kay Hughes when Jim and I were very young Kay and my mother worked together in a restaurant the “Black Stone Hotel” they waitresses together I didn’t know I had met Jim when he was eleven year’s old I barely remembered that real cute blond haired boy.
My brother David was going to A&M College at this time, Jim and I once broke up and I dated another guy and Jim got mad and dated my best girl friend, he got mad enough and quit school and joined the Air Force like Shirley Ray did, I still dated off and on different ones, but Jim begin to write me, we were so much in love, then he wrote me telling me he had bought me a ring and when he was on leave I’d better be ready to go where he said and do what he said, to go where ever he said and do what he said. He was asking me to marry him, so mother planned our wedding and made my wedding dress mom got everything ready, when he came home on leave we married in the First Assembly Of God Church Rev. B.L. Green married us on July 6th, 1961 the very Church I grew up in. Jim’s mother Kay told me that on the night Jim met me when he came home he said, “mom I’ve met the girl I’m going to marry, she’s got red hair, black eyes and a coke bottle figure.” He was in love with me, as I was with him, that first night we met at the dance. When Jim came home from the Air Force training he stood tall and thin and so handsome in his uniform. Dad helped us get a 1955 Ford blue and white in color it was our first car we would drive to Michigan in the car. We married, our wedding was beautiful my dress was so pretty, mother had my picture taken in my wedding dress she had made me, we were so much in love. One of Kay’s boy friends let us stay in his lake home for our honeymoon, we got lots of gifts from family and friends and money for the trip, we packed up the car full, we had stayed a few nights with mother and we stayed a night with Kay, I was so shy I wouldn’t let Jim kiss me in front of his mother, it would make me blush. The night we stayed with Kay, Jim took ill he didn’t know at that time he was having appendicitis attacks. We had packed so many things at the reception after our wedding we had very little room left for us, we put all we had into the car, trunk and back seat were all full.
We left to drive all the way to Michigan, he would drive and then I would drive taking turns to sleep only stopping to eat or go to the rest rooms it took three and a half days to get there, Jim had mapped out the way, that’s where he was stationed at in the Air Force for one year Sue Saint Marie, Michigan. We were well on our way. During one night I was driving, Jim was asleep, and there in front of me was an eighteen wheeler and I began passing it and I saw I was passing not just one large truck, but three and I became afraid and I woke Jim up, I was seeing lights ahead of me, we were going to have a head on collision, if I couldn’t get around those trucks and fast, so Jim put his large foot on top of mine pressing my foot to the floor and we flew around all three trucks just in time, because we were meeting another eighteen wheeler coming toward us. I was never so glad to get around so many trucks in my life, it was such a close call.
When we got into Michigan, the base was twenty six miles more, so we drove into the base and found out we couldn’t stay there we would have to find a park to stay in until we could find us a place to room or rent, we spent our first night in a park, now I was seventeen years old, I had a birthday on the way to Michigan. I pulled out some plates and we ate there in the park some can goods. That night a cop came and ask why we were parked there, we told him and he let us stay. It took three days for us to get a place to rent a three room apartment with a bath room, they’re not to far from the docks in Michigan where the ships loaded and unloaded. Jim would drive to the base everyday he was in SAC (Strategic Air Command), so at times he’d have to stay on the base. I begin school at least I tried to, I really couldn’t understand what they said, they would speak so fast, I really never understood my neighbor’s name until three months later, they all would talk so fast. I quit school, because I couldn’t understand them. Jim met a man in the service name Jan and he was married to a fifteen year old girl. I tried to get them to go to church with us we were going to the salvation army church there, but she wouldn’t go. I found out she had epilepsy, she died one week from then she had an attack and fell down the stairs and died, I felt when I asked her to go to church, it was her last call and it was.
Jim told me he would have to go to school for awhile, so I would need to go back home to Tyler for awhile until he was back, so I took a bus then I had to walk two blocks I was in Co. Ill I had to switch buses, the luggage was so heavy. A young soldier saw me and carried them the rest of the way to the other bus station. Mother met me at the bus station in Tyler, Texas I was going to stay with her for a short time until Jim could come home on the bus, then we’d go back together on the train. I begin to get sick and mother told me I needed to go to a doctor and he’d tell me I was pregnant, I went and sure enough I was two months pregnant he gave me some morning sickness pills. When Jim came home, I told him the news, he was so excited about it. Jim left the car with Jan and Jan would meet us as close as he could, the train would only go part of the way. Mother and Daddy paid my way and Kay paid Jim’s way on the train. It was winter in Michigan mother bought me a warm coat and we went to the train station, I got sick, I was sick almost all the way. The men would have to shovel some snow off the tracks so the train could go a little way’s, then they would have to shovel some more snow off the tracks. When we got to the train station where Jan would meet us he wasn’t there, so Jim called him it would take till morning that Jan would come so we had to stay the night in the train station. It was cold, Jan came that morning and picked us up. I remember it got fifty below zero once there, Jim would wear his heavy Parkas coat and we took pictures of him and Jan once getting the car out of the snow. Once we went off the road and almost hit a large mail box we were going to the base to a doctor appointment so he could check me there at the base. There were so many pregnant women waiting, we all set in line against the walls waiting our turn. I would always check out just fine, but I stayed sick a lot and slept a lot.
I made all my maternity clothes I had mothers black sewing machine and I also made a lot of baby clothes. We got a baby bed, a play pen and all the things ready for our baby, we were so excited, but Jim begin to leave me a lot to be with his friend Jan and I got worried and jealous. Jan had remarried and his wife was named Joann and she was pregnant when they married and she had her baby first, before I had mine. I worried a lot about Jim not being at home enough and He wanted me to go back to Tyler to have the baby, but all I wanted was to be with Jim. Jim had a temper and he would get into trouble at the base with the men at times he’d get into fights, but with me he was loving and tender. When the snow melted I began to take long walks, I’d go to the docks and watch the ships come into them, I set on a bench there and then walk back, we lived only two blocks from the docks. Once we went into Canada for a short visit by ferry boat.
One time not long after we were married Jim came into the apartment shaking like a leaf. He told me he almost got killed, that wasn’t the first time either only two weeks after we were there Jim couldn’t get up one morning, the men had to drive from the base to help him to the hospital on the base they had to dress him he almost died his appendix almost ruptured, he had to have an emergency surgery and stay in the hospital two weeks. My neighbors would carry me to the base to see him. There were several neighbors in this two story apartment house I remember the first time I saw Jim after his surgery I didn’t know him he was so pale. Jim smoked cigarettes then and once he got the ashes into my eye burning it for a few minutes, but I was all right. The night Jim came home shaking like a leaf he showed me his hat which had went threw a large engine on one of the jets he was working on, the pilot didn’t see Jim was there and started the engine up on the jet and it almost sucked Jim through the engine, it sucked his hat through shredding it to pieces he showed it to me. Jim grabbed a pole that he saw and his body was in the air when the engine was on almost sucking him through it and when the pilot seen him he turned the engine off and ask Jim how he wasn’t sucked through and Jim turned to show the pilot the pole and there was no pole, I told Jim it was the grace of God that saved him an angel must of held Jim back from that engine. Another time Jim was driving home late and went to sleep on the way and when he woke up he was in the drive way, he slept there all night. Not knowing how he got there.
We played cards a lot with the neighbors way into the night sometimes. Jim played on a base ball team with the church and some friends also, sometimes I’d go watch him play. Sometimes we’d go get a root beer at the root beer stand, I always enjoyed these times. One time we went over to Jan’s house and they got a little tipsy on beer and Joann’s baby was small, Joann begin telling me how she met Jim and Jan, come to find out she wanted Jim instead of Jan and Jim quited her down. Later I found out that Jim and Jan had met two girls that night they were to be on a hunting trip, Jim had went out with another woman and that’s when our problems began and He had some close calls with death after that. When Jim got saved, before we met, he was called of God to be a preacher and He told me later after we were married. At this time I wasn’t saved yet, but I loved Jesus, I just hadn’t got saved, although I was raised in church.
Jim knew how to work on electricity by putting electrical wires together and causing the rent house washer to work so we wouldn’t have to pay to wash on wash day, we all had a certain day on wash day of the week, we could do our wash in the basement. Once we got caught by the mean land lord’s son which was about our ages and we found our clean clothes which were hung up was in the mud on the ground, that made me so upset, I had to redo all my wash and I was all ready tired. The washer was one which had a ringer we had to run our clothes through one at a time to wring out the clothes, then take them out side and hang them up on the clothes line. Jim helped me at times wash the clothes and hang them up.
I always felt so small against Jim he was so tall, around six feet six inches tall, he was very thin, he wore size fourteen shoe, he looked so nice in his uniform. I was very jealous of other women looking at him, I knew he could take his pick anytime he really wanted to, and at times while I was pregnant I think he did once in a while go out with someone else, but I’d never left him if he had for that reason, I loved him to much. I always wanted to be with him although we were separated twice, because he had to go to a school to be trained on jet engines. I remember once my cousin told me Jim almost died from a long fall he took during their training for six weeks training course they had to go through, when they first joined the Air Force, Jim fell a good many feet and had to be hospitalized because of it.
I believe Jim really loved the Air Force, but I wanted him to get out so bad we could go back home and be close to our parents. I stayed so lonely so much with him at the base for so long, I stayed alone a lot. Once I made some paper Mache soldier dolls, I made a sailor, an Air Force soldier, and a marine, which was very good and I was so proud of them, they stood up to my knees from the floor, I later won ribbons on them at the East Texas Fair in Tyler.
We had very little money and mother would send me material to make my clothes and she would send me face cream for my teenage bumps at certain times of the month I’d break out, but when I became pregnant my skin became smooth. Jim’s skin was bad also, so I’d put the medicine on his face also. About the time I got pregnant my mother had to under go a hysterectomy alone at home, she cared for herself while my dad worked and my brother was away at school.
Jim’s mother Kay had met Odis Hulsey and was getting ready for their wedding which took place not long after I had my baby in Sue Saint Marie Michigan. The night I began labor pains we were playing cards with the neighbors and we stayed up late, my pains were far apart at first about twenty five minutes apart on Friday night, Jim took me to the hospital and they told him it would be awhile before I’d have the baby. It was Saturday when we went to the hospital and Jim went from the hospital, he thought it would be awhile, before I’d have the baby and that morning on Sunday my pains were so bad I would scream with each pain, the nurses told me to quiet down, but I was so afraid Jim wasn’t there with me as he should have been, I had no one, when they wheeled me to delivery I screamed out Jim’s name in the hall and I heard Jim’s voice, he had made it just in time to see me and hear me scream out his name, then I was in delivery I saw the large light above me and I heard the doctor’s voice say to the nurse, “put her out.” I felt the mask cover my face and I was out, but I could feel myself pushing with all my strength and the noise got faint and I was under the anesthesia. I remember awaking, vomiting and sore and Jim was telling me we had a baby boy a beautiful dark haired boy weighing eight pounds and nine and a fourth ounces and he was twenty inches long. A perfect son with all his fingers and toes. Jim went to call my parents and his mother, they were all excited we named our baby David Shane Hughes after my brother David, I had wanted to name him John Daniel, but Jim wanted me to name him David Shane, so that’s what we did. The first time they brought me the baby. I thought he was so pretty, but I was sick and the baby was also sick from the anesthesia we thought, every time I would bottle feed David he’d vomit and he cried a lot with a high pitch cry. I couldn’t hardly stand the crying, so at times I’d refuse to take the baby during the night, but the hospital became so crowded all the older babies had to stay in all night with their mothers so the last night we were there I roomed in with my baby. I didn’t sleep much that night or the following nights to come. The day we were to take David home the nurses showed him all over the nurses station, before we left, we were so proud of him. The trip to our apartment was twenty six miles and a tiring one for me.
The first few days at home David cried almost continuous it seemed and he vomited a lot, I’d have to change his and my clothes a lot of the time. David begin to loose weight instead of gain, we had a doctor appointment at the base to check David and he checked out all right, but we knew something was terribly wrong, we just didn’t know what, back then the doctors didn’t know how to treat babies the way they do now. David was about two weeks old and the doctors put him into the hospital a few days then checked him out again and sent him home. But by the time he was around five weeks old he was still vomiting. My neighbor had, had her baby and a nurse was there showing her how to bathe her baby and I had David Shane dressed to go back to the doctor to be examined and I placed him on her bed so I could make a phone call to the hospital base and the nurse saw that David wasn’t breathing, she said, “ It looks like your baby’s not breathing,” I dropped the phone receiver and the nurse begin loosening David’s clothes and begin a recitation on him. I called for Jim to come get us and carry us to the hospital.
Jim came and we went to the hospital the nurse had showed me how to resuscitate David on the way to the hospital and I tried but I wasn’t very good, I resuscitated David all the way to the base hospital as soon as we arrived the doctors were waiting and when they saw us they grabbed David and begin mouth to mouth recitation on David and took him to the emergency room, we had to sit and wait on the doctor to come and talk to us, it seamed like it took forever. The doctor came and talked to us, he explained that David had pressure on his brain that they drew some fluid off and that he’d have to be kept awhile for observation and that they had put tubes in him now to sustain him, that he didn’t know what was causing the pressure or fluid to collect, then he ask us if we wanted to see him, I was scared to death to see David that way, the doctor said, “he would have to keep him to observe David for awhile.” then we went to see David and it was like the doctor said all these tubes were connected to him, his head and arms was all we could see, he had oxygen hooked up and all these tubes around him.
We went to call mother and Jim talked to her. I was too upset, I couldn’t talk for crying, we went back to the apartment since the doctor said we couldn’t stay there. They called one week later and said they were going to transfer David to Lackland Hospital in San Antonio, Texas by the Red Cross and I would have to go with him by plane, I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to leave Jim again, I was afraid, I packed and called mother to meet me there, that’s where Jim had his six weeks training course when he joined the service, mom said she and daddy would meet me.
When Jim took me to the hospital air force base I felt oddly, I felt I’d never see Jim again, something told me I wouldn’t see Jim for twenty five years after I boarded the airplane and kissed Jim bye. The nurse cared for David on the trip, I cried a lot and about half way there something went wrong with the airplane and it had to land somewhere, we didn’t know where we were. No doctor was on the plane with us, so I had to care for David myself alone for that night. Mother and Daddy didn’t know where we were and was worried sick, they had reached Lackland Air Force Base Hospital and no one seamed to know where we were, no one could find where we landed, so mother and daddy told them to have me call when we got there and they went back to Tyler, Texas and waited for me to call.
I didn’t sleep much, David was so weak and ill, I was afraid he’d die on me and I didn’t know how to care for a sick baby. I was just barely eighteen years old myself. A different airplane took us to Lackland Air Force Base Hospital and an ambulance met us carrying us the rest of the way. The doctors there told me to go ahead and call my parents and go home to Tyler, Texas because all that they would do for now was observe David for a week, before they would know what to do for him. I was so tired, I had very little money for the bus ticket home. David Shane was around five weeks old at this time.
After a nights rest mother begin to talk with me about why I was sent home alone. I didn’t understand then, but she said, “You was sent home to receive the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, so on Tuesday she took me to missionary counsel that the women had at church on that certain day of the week. Mother had explained to me why I had to go, but I didn’t understand any of it, I just went, my heart was so sad and tender at this time. I prayed to God all during the service and at the end of the service, Mother said to a lady there up front, “Hope, I want you to lay your hands on Mary June so that she may get the taste of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost,” I was so afraid, but I went up to the front of the church and I began weeping, and praying as I sat down, they all began to pray and things became quite and I said to God, “if there is such a thing as the Holy Ghost let me have it.” So He did, A strange strong powerful chill came over me and I jumped to my feet and I began speaking in unknown tongues, which was wonderful and quite an experience for anyone. I spoke in unknown tongues for a good while before I came to myself.” It’s wonderful, just wonderful,” I said to the women at the church, but I felt as though my mouth had been numbed by the dentist, but it was the power of God and only God can give it to those who ask to receive the Holy Ghost, with it you’re never alone. When I received the Holy Ghost I seen a vision, I saw the double doors in the chapel fly open, and I saw and felt a mighty rush of wind come through those doors, that’s when I received it and jumped to my feet and began speaking in the heavenly unknown tongues. This was on September 26th, 1962.
Everything went well for the first few days after I received the Holy Ghost, but one week after I was with mother and daddy I got a phone call from the hospital about David Shane they wanted me to come and sign papers for a surgery for him, they wanted to do an exploratory surgery inside his head to see why he was having pressure on the brain, so I planned on going and we left to go back to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, we spent the night there in San Antonio, Texas and went to the base to sign the papers for David’s surgery, I wanted to see him, but they only let us see him from the door, we couldn’t see him very good, I could see David Shane with his head bandaged all up, he’d lift it up some from his little basinet type bed, I couldn’t even see his face at that time.
The doctor explained to us that David Shane would need more surgeries to remove a skin type covering from his brain to remove the pressure off it and he’d need another surgery for a shunt to be placed inside his head to drain off the excess fluid build up and then he would need another surgery to put two plates inside his head. What the doctor didn’t tell us was we’d be left with a vegetable as a child. We left to go back home we couldn’t do anymore there after I signed the papers they needed, they wouldn’t let me see David anymore. I didn’t go to see David for anymore surgeries I knew I couldn’t see him well enough to make the trip. He would have four brain surgeries in all. I didn’t understand those medical terms anyway.
I begin to worry about Jim not writing or coming back home, he was to of got a discharge from the Air Force because of David Shane’s condition, Jim was to of come home, but he never showed up. When David’s surgeries were all over, the hospital called us to come and get him and take him home, they said Jim had been discharged and we would have to pick up David, that they couldn’t do anymore for David, that they had done all they could. We found out that Jim had been released from the Air Force nine days and should of already been home, no one knew where he was.
We planned to go pick David Shane up and then go to A&M and pick up my brother David and then head back to Tyler, Texas what we expected was a healthy baby which was three and a half months old now. The trip was good to the hospital, mother and daddy took me there. We got into the hospital and a doctor which we didn’t know came to talk with us. He explained that the other four doctors which preformed David’s surgeries couldn’t come and tell us what was going on, but he came in their place. I wasn’t ready for what he told me. He took me into a room and set me down and explained David’s condition, before we got to see David, the doctor said that four surgeries had been done, he said two plates were placed in David’s head to help hold his head bones off his brain that would aloud for his brain to grow and a shunt was placed in his head and it didn’t take so they had to put the shunt in on the other side of the head and it took, but all the surgeries that David had had failed, he then said that David wouldn’t live probably no more than a week or two and no more than a few months, he then said that David was paralyzed and blind that I would have to pump his head three times a day so the shunt would work and David was starving to death because he couldn’t keep his food down and that David was like a vegetable that would only live and breath and he was being sent home to die. I fell apart and went and talked to mother and daddy and told them what the doctor had said and they fell apart also, daddy couldn’t stop crying, so mother would need to drive us to A&M to pick my brother David up.
I went into a room where David my son was he had this very tiny body and a large head with eyes that were covered with a white film, the eyes danced all the time you couldn’t see the color of his eyes anymore they rolled around in his eye sockets. He could barely make a noise to cry faintly, he couldn’t move anything but his head a little, he was so very weak he only weighed eleven and a half pounds, he hadn’t grew from birth in length only the head had grew. I was faced with a retarded vegetable as a child and my husband had not came home, I hadn’t finished high school so I could get a job. I was only eighteen years old myself, I had this dying baby to care for to take home to my parents - what was I going to do. We all begin crying uncontrollably, I dressed David and we left out to go after my brother at A&M my Mother drove us, Daddy couldn’t even drive he was so torn up, because what I had told them what the doctor had told me.
My brother wouldn’t expect this when we get to A&M. I sat in the back seat with David my son on a pillow, as Mother drove us out of the hospital we got on our way to get my brother David and the car caught on fire, daddy had to get it put out, it had over heated, what else could happen to us we were in such bad shape and the baby threw up all over himself and me and we smelt sour. We got to A&M and David my brother got into the car, Mother had told him about David Shane, he couldn’t believe his eyes about my baby in such shape, my brother was heart broken over the matter, he then drove us to Tyler, Texas. When we got home I placed David Shane on my bed on the pillow, I changed and bathed and redressed myself and fed David. The doctor didn’t even tell us what to feed my little David Shane, we just had to do our best as what we knew how. I kept the lamp on in my bed room and placed two overstuffed chairs together to make a bed for little David that’s all I had at this time and all my baby clothes I had wouldn’t really work, I couldn’t pull anything over his head, I would have to buy shirts which I could snap on. This was November 8th, 1962.
My mother had called her brother my Uncle Shirley, He came over on November 9th, 1962 to see David my afflicted baby, Uncle Shirley took one look and left, He couldn’t bare to look upon my blind baby, he looked so pitiful, Uncle Shirley took pity and left the house quickly. My cousin came over to see David, her name is Dorothy she brought her kids, two boys and a girl, Mother got them to leave the house, because the noise would cause David’s head to hurt and He would cry faintly. He would also vomit after his feedings. I remember that the doctor also had told me to pump on his soft spot which was very large, three times a day to help remove the pressure from his head to drain into his shunt, so I’d do this three times a day.
Also on this day I went to pick up my dad’s mother at her house, so I took my brother’s old car which had one door that was wired shut, it would not work at all, this old car was black in color, it got me over to her house. I was to bring her home with me for the night. I pulled into grandmother Pierson’s driveway and stopped the car. I opened the door on my side and got out of the car and I knocked on the door of her house, she told me to come in and I told her I’d wait outside for her beside the car, as I waited on her I heard a voice say, “Mary,” I turned around and saw no one was there. I turned back looking at the car and I heard the voice again call my name, “Mary,” I turned and looked for some one and again, no one was there, so I went into grandmother’s house and I ask, “granny did you call me?” She said,“ no I didn’t but if you hear the voice again, ask the Lord what He wants, for it is God speaking to you, not me!” I became scared and felt afraid, but I went back outside and again I heard the voice say, “Mary, don’t be afraid, I will heal David if you will lay your hands on him and pray,” I became scared and doubtful that this was really God or was I just imagining hearing Him.
Grandmother came out and got into the car and she had unwired the broken door and I just knew, we couldn’t ever get the door closed or tied back, but I said to God,” If this is really you speaking to me, prove it by shutting that broken door when granny closes it and keep it shut until we get home.” When granny shut that old broken door, that door shut just like it was new, and it stayed closed until we got back over to mother’s house and when granny opened the door it wouldn’t close ever again, and I knew it was truly God which spoke to me. Granny had not seen David Shane until this day and it was so hard for her to see this poor little afflicted child which was paralyzed, blind and dying.
I believe my brother had caught a ride back to A&M about this time and mother, dad, granny, I and David Shane were the only ones at the house on this day of November 9th, 1962. God dealt and talked with me about praying for David most of the day and I asked God, “I’ll pray for David, but you must get everyone away from the house except, David Shane and I and of course God.” I was beginning to get more scared than ever at this time, it was getting dark and I knew not that God had also spoke to my mother saying, “Frances, I want you and Grady to take his mother and go out to eat.” Mother didn’t understand why God told her that, but she planned to leave and they told me they was going out to eat and that they were taking granny.
After they left I went into the kitchen and sat down to eat my supper and I heard the voice of the Lord again saying, “Mary, go into David’s room and lay your hands upon him and pray for him and I’ll heal David.” I wouldn’t go, I said,” but Lord I don’t know what to do or how to pray!” God said,” I’ll show you and tell you what to do, all you have to do is put your hands upon him and open your mouth, I’ll speak through you.” I wasn’t too sure of this and I still wouldn’t go into the room, “God spoke again this time stronger, He said, “Mary, go into David’s room and pray.” I still wouldn’t go and I felt my chair move and I was knocked out of my chair, I was turned over onto the floor, I heard God speak saying, “Mary, go into David’s room, put thy shoes upon thy feet and pray for David.”
When I got up off the floor, I looked outside the windows and I saw a bright light and at this time I didn’t realize this was the light of God, for it was night, but yet I could see all around outside of my home the trees and yard I could see clearly. I became afraid and I obeyed the voice of the Lord, the power of God came upon me and He told me then to, “go fourth and pray for David and lay your hands upon his head and upon his body,” so I did, it was wonderful, the most delightful feeling of power came over me as I prayed for David and God spoke through me saying, “David thou art healed,” I looked at David and saw that he was still blind and I said “but Lord he still can’t see!” And God said, “Put your thumbs into his eyes.” So I did and a much greater power of God swept over me and went down into my hands and into David’s eyes and as I prayed God spoke through me saying,” David, open thine eyes and ye shall see” as I removed my hands from him he opened his eyes and they were so blue and clear and so still, for he could see, when he was blind his eyes danced all the time and a white skim covered them, but now David could see and he seem very well.
After I had saw what God had truly done, I shouted and danced all through the house and I saw the bright light of God shine all around about the house. As I worship the Lord, I heard a knock at my door, and I opened it and it was some friends of another faith. I gave my testimony to them and they thought I was crazy. I went into my bedroom where David lay and I gave great thanksgiving unto the Lord, and I heard mother and daddy come in the house and I shouted out to them and tried to explain what had happened, they didn’t understand, but they could see that David was healed and no longer blind and he could move his arm. They went into the living room and saw my friends setting on the sofa like a ghost, they were white as a sheet . Mother talked to them and they left, they thought I was nuts I guess. But I was happy in Jesus, they just couldn’t understand. Neither could my mother and dad, they called the minister from our church to come out and when he came out he knocked on the door and said “there’s nothing for me to do, it’s done, but I can pray with you” so he did and he saw David and prayed with us and he left. I had told mother that if anything ever happened to David Shane for her to call Rev. B.L Green if she couldn’t get in touch with me when I wasn’t there, that from then on David would have to depend on God and only God could keep him safe and healthy.
At the age of seven months David weighed thirty three pounds and he was thirty three inches tall and at three and a half months old he had weighed eleven and a half pounds. Not long after David Shane’s healing I got a letter from Jim asking me for a divorce and I cried and cried, I couldn’t understand, my heart was so troubled and hurt, my husband that I loved so much has deserted me and my little baby. Christmas of 1962 was a very lonely one for me, although I was in nursing school LVN training at the hospital, I met a man I began dating some. I was going through my divorce about this time, it was very hard for me, because I didn’t get over the love I had for Jim Hughes and I figured I never would get over him, I began dating this man name Don, I had met at a skating rink one night. Not long after I began dating, my son David Shane became sick with a ear infection and I took him to a doctor which wasn’t in God’s will, for the doctor gave him a penicillin shot and David’s plate in his head became larger on one side than the other plate did, it took a long time for him to get over that shot, but David began doing much better and had gained a great deal of weight and he could hold himself very well and could set in chairs good and play with his toys. He could move all of his body he was no longer paralyzed, It took months before he could use himself well though.
There came a day that David Shane went into a coma and he had a very high fever, so mother called rev. B.L. Green to come out and pray for David. I wasn’t there at that time. When Rev. B.L. Green came, he anointed and prayed for David there at the house, it wasn’t long before the fever had dropped and David was fine once again. David Shane had grew a lot and become more aware of things, but he never learned to feed himself, crawl, or walk, he did learn to sit alone at age six years, but he has went through so many convulsions until eight months ago and I prayed about them and he hasn’t had as many since then, David has had many healings which brought him back where he would stop breathing and after a quick prayer he would start breathing again and he would be fine after prayer, we had to depend on the Lord, not a doctor for him.
David is eight years old now and he still can’t do much of anything except set up alone and move around over the floor. He loves to watch the T.V. mostly cartoons and the ads that come on. David is undergoing surgery now too release his legs where it will be easier to change his diapers since he got scissors legs where it was really hard to change him, then he will go to Lufkin State School, it’s became too hard for me to care for him anymore, so my brother had helped me to get him into Lufkin State School.
Mary Bowers 1970/1971
Above are pics of me, Jim, and the house we lived in.
In order pics are: Me in my wedding dress when Jim and I married, Jim and Jan getting car out of the snow, and four pics of my paper Mache dolls.
In order: 1. Jim's Mother Kay, 2. Me, Ron, Jonathan, and Justin at Kay and Otis's house (Kay and Otis and their daughter Teresa also in pic), 3. My brother David, 4. Rev. and Sister B. L. Green, Dave and Me, Dave playing football, Dave in military attire.
In order: Daddy and Shane, Mother and Shane, my cousins Shirley Ray and Charlie Wayne as kids, my cousin Shirley Ray.
I had this dream back in the 60's I seen Mother and I were at the mall and all of a sudden I heard and seen this Angel blow on his trumpet to the four corners of the earth and he was saying, “Jesus calls His bride, Jesus calls His bride, Jesus calls His bride, Jesus calls His bride” to the four corners of the earth, then I seen my mother going up and I called out to her, “Mother, Mother wait tell me where you put your books?” Then I seen where this angel took her up into a cloud car , he was sitting lots of people of every color in this cloud car , I seen many people rising up into the sky and this angel was sitting these people in this cloud car getting them ready to take them to a place, I seen where he put the men and the women in different places to get them ready for Jesus’ bride, there were pools I seen them at bathing these people, I seen Mother sitting on the edge of a pool and someone was grooming her long hair getting her ready for the bride to marry Jesus, getting her ready for the wedding. I seen the mall and when I turned I seen a large grocery store, then I seen a building with linen and things in this store. (I seen this long before the mall here in Tyler was ever built, all that was there at that time was just a large field grown up with weeds and grass, I was real young when I seen this dream. I didn’t even know what a mall was at this time and I had to ask my mother what a mall was, and she told me. Years later the mall was built, and several more years later Brookshire’s was built and several years after that, Linen and Things and the Ross store was built beside the mall and this was the time the Lord really took my mother (in 2002). She died not too long after the Ross Store and Linen and Things was built. That was what my dream was about, I even thought the name of the building in the dream, which was Linen and Thing’s. I had seen the clothes and linens folded on their shelfs and I seen the coffee pots and toasters and all the things within the building, long before it was even built here in Tyler, Texas.)
When I met Ron Bowers I was working in the day time and going to school at night, after school sometimes I’d go out on a date. I was very thin and pretty at this time, my son David was three and a half years old and doing very well he could talk and make sentences at times. He could even tell when you were driving he’d know when he was getting close to the house or turning off going to the house. At this time my brother David had finished A&M and was in the air force over in France, he had done well and was going with a woman he met there named Earlene, he liked her pretty good they were having a real good time all over Europe and Spain, David even went to Germany for trips, he had got up in rank and was put over the men there in France, David spent two years in France.
While I dated Ron, when I was still at work, he’d be waiting on me at home, he would be baby sitting with David Shane while mother would leave to go to work or shopping. When I first met Ron he was dating my cousin Virginia at that time I wasn’t dating anyone special in my life, I had gave up on Jim ever coming back, I wanted someone special, Virginia had told me of her boy friend Ron, he had a new red small convertible car, so when she called on this certain day in the evening, I thought I’d dress up real sexy and go over to her house and meet this good looking guy of hers. I put on my prettiest dress which was low in front and show off my perfect figure and I drove over to her house, she lived with her mother and sister, Virginia was a large girl about my age and I weighed around one hundred and fifteen pounds at this time and real pretty. When I walked into that room, Ron no longer saw Virginia, he only saw me. After that we began dating and my cousin and I became distant, she despised me after that night and I don’t really blame her, I took away her boy friend, she told me someday that I might be done the same way. (which came true)
I also was dating a good looking Mexican named Al which liked me a lot, but I didn’t realize it. I quit dating him and got thicker with Ron. He ask me to marry him on our first date. When I took him over to meet my mother and she saw we were getting serious she took Ron aside and told him what the doctor had said about me having a tumor on my uterus and being black half way up and he had told her I needed a hysterectomy, that I couldn’t have any more children, but that God told her He would heal me and give me a perfect son without a mark on him, a promised son. Ron loved me so we planned to get married, David Shane was three and a half at this time and Ron was twenty four, he had never been married, I was twenty one, we planned to get married in Durant, Oklahoma on November 21st, 1965 by a judge there. We honeymooned a few days and then moved in with mother and daddy. Ron only made around sixty five dollars a week working with a surveyor.
Daddy took him and trained him to be a house painter and he was a good one, people would want Ron to paint their homes, he was really a good painter. We saved our money and with daddy’s help we build a house next door to them so mother could help me with David Shane, we had lived with mom and dad around six or seven months, they were glad when we moved into our own home. Ron and daddy painted the house and it was so pretty. It was small with three bedrooms but we were so proud of it, it was real good to move into our first real home. We had an open house and a lot of friends and kinsmen came and brought us gifts, it was very nice, Ron’s mother Rita French enjoyed visiting with us a lot, I brought David Shane into the house and Ron enjoyed helping me with him, Ron really loved David Shane very much and David Shane loved him also. But the day we moved him into the house, David Shane stopped talking, I asked a doctor why he stopped talking and he thought maybe it was an emotional problem.
Around a year or so after Ron and I were married he was working for Brookshires painting, he was the main painter for them and was over the other men painting for them also, Ron had a good insurance on us and he wanted me to go to a plastic surgeon to see if the doctor could help me so I could get to have breathing on the right side of my nose, I couldn’t breath on that side at all, for some reason it was blocked. The doctor took x-rays and found out that side had no opening on the inside through the skull, he told me it would take two surgeries to correct it around a month or six weeks apart, so we planned the operations to have my nose corrected so I could breath through both sides.
I found out my Dad was the same way, anyway I went to the hospital to get the surgery done, I was taken to the operating room that next morning and put to sleep, after a while I come to and could barely open one eye and my nose was packed to keep it from bleeding, I had to breath through my mouth for a good while, before the doctor would remove the packing, my nose and eyes was all swelled up and my face was all colors of brusing, so the nurses and Ron wouldn’t let me see a mirror for a while. I had to stay in the hospital a few days before I could go home, I even had to keep the packing in my nose for awhile before the doctor would remove it. I knew my nose would be swelled even after he removed the packing, he told me it would take around a year before the swelling would go away and when he did remove the packing I felt much better and I could breath out of the right side for the first time and it felt much better. The doctor told me to really be careful and not to get my nose hurt or hit or it could be ruined, because it was too weak right now from the surgery for me to be real protective of it from now on and I have been.
When I had my second nose surgery, I had to be awake through the whole surgery,. The docter, his nurse, and I were in the operating room and that’s when he told me that he couldn’t put me to sleep, because in this surgery, he would break my nose to lower it and there was no surgery as bloody as a nose surgery, that I would have to swallow my own blood all through the surgery. I like to have come off that table when he told me this, I asked him “are you going to make me look like a Chinese person with the bridge of my nose lowered?” He said “Who is doing this, me or you?” I said that I didn’t want it too low, he just said “keep swallowing, the nurse won’t be able to suction all the blood out, because I need her to help me, so swallow”. I did as he asked, but I didn’t want to, I thought I’d choke to death on my own blood pouring down my throat, I like to came undone when he said he couldn’t deaden my own nose just before he broke it. There was so much blood, I thought I’d drown in my own blood. After he packed my nose and bandaged it, I was sitting up coming out of the operating room, I was so nervous and the area around my nose and eyes were every color. My eyes were almost completely swelled shut, except for a tiny slit opening for one eye. It surprised Ron that I was sitting up on the stretcher and when I asked for a mirror again, Ron said that I couldn’t have it, that I didn’t need to see what I looked like at that time, so I said OK and laid down to try to rest.
After I got to go home, I began having the most awful nightmares about my nose, I would dream that it was cut from the nostrils and laying upon the top of my forehead, I would have those crazy dreams for around a year before they finally stopped. I did like the way my nose looked after all the swelling was gone and I could breath much better from both nostrils. But every time I got a sinus infection, it was the right side that would always swell shut mostly and that side would be the one infected. I did have more sinus problems than I ever had in my life after I had that surgery, I guess I was just more sensitive on that side.
Ron and I bought some guinea pigs and he build a large cage for them outside and put heating lights in the cage for winter and flaps to roll down to pretect them from the rain and snow. My most favorite pig was a long haired black and white boy pig - I called him Stinky because he looked like a skunk, he would follow me around the yard which was fenced in and I would let him out to play he had a real good time out side, but I would have to watch him real close so no dog would get him, I never let him out for long and I always watched over him when he was out of his cage running around the yard. The other guinea pigs were red and white, I cared for them a few years and I would either give some away or sale some so that they wouldn’t get too many for the cage, the cage had divided rooms that Ron had made with doors that would open to each room so I could feed and water them.
When I got tired of the guinea pigs I finally sold them or took them to a store that sold the pigs for pets and I finally sold the cage also, but by that time Stinky had already died, they don’t have a long life span, around a year or so is all. but I really had fun watching the guinea pigs while I had them, they would multiply quickly and grew fast, because their life is so short. When I became pregant is when I sold the pigs because I couldn’t care for them well enough.
My brother Dave was still in the service but after two years he got to come home from France, he was the last one to leave, that’s when De Gaul was making the Americans get out of France. My brother and his girl friend broke up and David was disappointed he wanted to marry and have a family very much, but mother told him that God would chose his wife and they would have children after I had my first born son by Ron, which would be my second son and Ron’s first son.
Ron and I had been married about a year when I began to get sick and I would have a great deal of pain in my abdomen, mother and Ron knew what the doctor had said about me needing a hysterectomy years back, but I didn’t know what was wrong I felt as though I were dying of cancer and no one would tell me the truth, mom would say that God would heal me and give me a perfect son. I just didn’t know when or how long it would take before I would be healed. I really had a hard time taking care of David Shane and hurting so much in my back and abdomen and my periods were so painful, there wasn’t many days I felt good, but I never gave up, I would pray daily for that healing God had promised. I had much faith in healing and miracles, because of David’s healing he had.
There came a day when Ron was to have went to work, but this day for some reason he stayed home, I got very ill and began having a high fever and I asked Ron to call our pastor B.L. Green to come and pray for me, it was almost an hour before the pastor got over to our house, by that time I was in great pain and high fever and before Rev. B.L. Green put his hand upon my head anointing me with oil, I felt a wonderful touch of God as like a chill come into my left foot all the way up my left leg into my abdomen and gave it a twist and came out through my right shoulder and I felt healed, in about 30 minutes I was up walking without fever nor pain. In about seven days past that day Ron was to have went to work again, but he stayed home again and we were still in bed and I felt the pain again in my abdomen and I felt the touch of God once again and I told Ron that God was doing something again and Ron wanted to take me to the hospital, I said no that I must wait and I felt a twist in my abdomen again and my uterus turned over and my abdomen swelled as though I were three months pregnant, Ron was afraid for He knew about the large tumor that the doctor had told mother about. I told Ron to go get my hot pad, God told me to place it upon me, I placed it upon my abdomen and I felt the feeling of God leave and I began to drain a drainage from my uterus, the tumor drained out, God had caused it to be healed, but he allowed it to drain and heal slow, He showed the tumor to Ron and the pain was gone. I was very nervous for about five months period, but I was healed.
Mother told me of the tumor after the healing and about God telling her I would have a perfect son, she told me to get check by the doctor and he would tell me I was fine and that nothing was wrong, I went and the doctor said I looked well and that doctor never realized that at one time I had a tumor and my uterus was black half way up. He saw that my uterus was perfectly well and there was no reason I couldn’t have a baby. It would take three and a half years before I got pregnant with Jonathan, I didn’t get pregnant until God was ready for me to.
My brother met a girl in our church named Melba which he had known for a long time, but just never thought of her as the woman he’d marry, but a long time had passed since he had seen her and he fell in love with her, she had always loved him, God had picked her out for David’s wife, she was small and blond like he was blond, but he was tall, they made a beautiful couple and their wedding was on February 14th, she made her own dress and the wedding was beautiful. Ron would work with men which would tease him about giving him a helping hand to help get me pregnant and that would upset Ron a great deal and he would get very bitter about me not getting pregnant.
One night God came to Ron in a vision telling him that, he would give me a son by Ron, and Ron knew it was God which had said that. That help build Ron’s faith for a while. My mother about this time had became very ill and bedridden, she had had a few small strokes and was in a wheel chair, she couldn’t walk, because her leg had become drawn and crippled, she was in the wheel chair around nine months, mother would study the Bible daily and God would teach her many great things and her faith never failed her. Once my mother called me over to pray for her, she had two small blood clots in her chin and I could see them beneath the skin and she could feel them. She also had another lady on the phone praying and as I laid my hands on her face I felt a great pain shoot into my left arm and it left and I told mother she’d be all right and for her to rest. All that week she had no clots in her face, but I had headaches all week long and on the seventh day after her healing I felt much pressure in my sinuses and pallet and I had a bad nose bleed, I wondered if it was from a nose surgery that I had had about two years earlier, so I called the doctor and he said it wasn’t because of the surgery that I had had much earlier, but it was from something else. I felt led to go get a tissue and blow my nose real hard and I felt two things come out from my left nostril and I looked in the tissue and there were two clots the size mothers were and my nose stopped bleeding as soon as they were passed. I took them to show mother and she said, “that’s my clots!” then she felt of her face where they had been and weren’t no more. Those clots would of killed mother if they had of moved, so God allowed them to be passed to me so I could pass them out threw my nostril so they wouldn’t kill mother and it showed us how his power is so great.
It wasn’t long that I became sick at my stomach and mother told me to go see the doctor and he would tell me that I was eight weeks pregnant. I couldn’t believe her, it’s been three and a half years since my healing I thought I’d never get pregnant with a child which would be all right. I went to the doctor and he did tell me I was eight weeks pregnant, I was so excited about it so I went and bought me a maternity top, I was so proud to be pregnant. When Ron had brought his mother home I pranced around in my new top and she said why are you wearing a maternity top and I told them I had went to see Dr. Cameron and he told me I was eight weeks pregnant, Ron couldn’t believe it and neither could his mother until I got large and then they had to accept that I was truly pregnant. Ron’s friends would tell him that I would have another baby like David Shane and it would upset the both of us and almost drive us crazy. Mother kept telling us that God said I would have a normal child, a promised child in perfect condition. It was so hard for me to believe I would have a perfect son. On November 27th, 1969 Jonathan Aaron Bowers was born on Thanksgiving Day and what a great day it was, he weighed six pounds and one ounce and was twenty inches long. He had red hair and blue eyes that turned brown. My brother and his wife Melba were here for Jonathan’s birth and they were so proud of him also.
Rev. B. L. Green came to the hospital to see Jonathan and he said that Jonathan looked like a red headed Jew and we all laughed. I had got many gifts for him every one wanted to see that he was truly all right. When I brought Jonathan home, my mother was still too ill to hold him, so I laid him beside her upon her bed and she look at him and she thought he was so pretty. At this time my mother was so ill and drawn, she only weighed 86 pounds and was in the bed most of the time, it was very hard on me to care for David Shane, my baby Jonathan, my cripple mother, my husband, brother, and dad and trying to cook for them all and do all the shopping for all of us.
I worried about my mother a lot in the bed alone in her house when I went shopping, I worried about fire and she couldn’t get out if there was one, so I continued to pray that God would completely heal my mother, she was so crippled for months, then one day I had a dream of her being well, fat and walking and I told her she would have to go on a diet to loose some weight. I told her of this dream and she couldn’t hardly believe it, with her only weighing 86 pounds and one leg drawn up so badly she couldn’t stand up. So I prayed for her leg to be healed and I prayed that God would help her gain weight and strength. In about a week’s time she was up on her feet, her leg was straight and she was walking and within a year’s time she weighed 200 pounds and was having to diet.
Here is a dream I had back in 1971: I seen myself in a three story building that had a basement, the building seemed like it was red brick. I saw myself dressed in regular clothes, but I didn’t look like the people in this building. I was poor, they were dressed in very expensive clothes. I seen the people dining and dancing and having a good time in one of the floors in this building. Another part seemed to be a place for workers, I seen paper work there, like office workers. I can’t remember what the other floor had, but I seen a huge silver ball swing outside the building and it hit and destroyed the building. When I saw the ball swing, I screamed out “Lord, get me out of here!” and I left my body and I seen the ball hitting the building causing it to fall and everyone fell with it into the rubble, they were dead. I seen their heads from their eyebrows up were gone, they had no brains. Then I seen myself up in the sky of darkness and I heard the lord speak saying, “It’s not your time, you must go back”. Then I felt myself take a deep breath and I woke up.
I feel this dream was the twin towers that was hit by airplanes. Terrorist caused the twin towers to fall and lots of people died. The silver ball I seen was the nose of the airplane that hit the buildings and killed the people in the building. The third floor (building) was the pentagon, people died there also. The basement I seen was the fourth plane that crashed when the people seen what was going to happen and attacked the terrorist on the plane causing it to crash and kill only the people on the plane and not hurting anyone on the ground. The red brick I seen was their loss of blood and death of the people, each floor I seen was a different building that was hit by the planes. That’s my interpatation of the vision. I also remember being pregnant with Justin and I knew I had to come back and raise my son.
When I was around five months pregnant with my second son by Ron, Justin, I heard an awful explosion two blocks from the house, it was the oxygen plant blowing up, there were 63 oxygen tanks that exploded one or two at a time like bombs going up into the air at night lightening up the night sky and by the grace of God he kept us safe, we were in the bed asleep when this happened and it woke me up and I knew what it was, I awoke Ron and told him, he got dressed and took Jonathan out of his bed and run over to mothers house leaving me behind in the house, I was trying to get some things we needed in case we had to leave the area, then when I went out to cross over to mothers house. I was bare footed and my hands full of things for Jonathan. As I ran over the brick blocks which were hurting my feet, the biggest explosion went off, I felt the heat from it. These oxygen tanks were like bombs exploding up into the night sky and the biggest one looked like the Hiroshima bomb going off in the sky. When Justin was born he had red marks on his face and a red mark on the back of his head that looked like that explosion I seen that night, the marks on his face left, but the one on the back of his head and neck stayed like a birth mark. During this time I had to have some help so we hired a housekeeper which cooked our meals and cared for the two children. I became bedridden because of the baby was trying to come too early.
When Justin was just a few weeks old he begin vomiting everything he ate and he began to loose weight, I was afraid I’d loose Justin to the grips of death, but I kept my faith and had him anointed and prayed for, but when Justin was six weeks old he had to have an emergency stomach surgery to correct pyloric stenosis, a closing up of the stomach value which had to be opened, but before this was done we almost didn’t get the doctor to come up and check on him there at the hospital, it was eighteen hours before the doctor came and Justin hadn’t voided within those eighteen hours and I and mother prayed that the nurse would make the doctor come, so mother prayed that Justin would vomit all over the nurse with his projectile vomiting and she would get that doctor up there to see Justin, after we fed him he did vomit all of his formula all over the nurse and she did get the doctor up there around six p.m. he had to have the emergency surgery to correct his stomach, after that surgery Justin began to gain weight and he got healthy and he did live.
I went to work about this time, Justin was about two months old. I went to work for Mother Frances Hospital as an inhalation therapist, they trained me there and I was good, I worked around nine months and I began having back problems and had to quit the job. Mother had taken care of Jonathan and Justin at this time and she was doing good.
When Jon was in kindergarten, the teacher seen how smart he was and took him over to the college and the college kids there didn’t know what to think of him, they told her that he would be bored in school because he was so smart, Jon knew the multiplication by the time he was in second grade and he had looked and read all of the encyclopedias I had, but he loved math the most and he loved to play with the numbers and plastic letters I had bought for him.
When I was three and a half months with my fourth son, I had his name picked out and I begin to hemorrhage at home, I called my neighbor to come help me, she came and called the ambulance, I had blood all over the rest room where I hemorrhaged, I stripped off my bloody clothes, she covered me with my house coat until the ambulance came, I had lost almost half of my blood by the time they got me to the hospital. I grieved over the lost child and God gave me a dream, I seen an angel in the doorway holding a baby and He couldn’t bring me the baby and I couldn’t go get the baby and that gave me peace, I knew the baby I named Joshua was alive with the Lord, and when I cross over, to Heaven I’ll be with the son I lost, as well as with those that has gone ahead of me.
Ron started to grow distant from me and began to see other women, and I felt lonely. By my fifth pregnancy, he was living out of town most of the time. I had high blood pressure with my fifth pregnancy and I had to go to bed seven weeks, Jeffrey was born on August 22nd, 1977. He was a very strong healthy pretty red haired baby, which was strong willed and very loud also. I had a hard time with him, he cried a lot and was very demanding. Before Jeff was two years old, Ron and my marriage ended and he soon married again. Afterwards, I had to raise my sons alone with my parents’ and brother’s help.
I had to get a job and go to work, I didn’t make very much money and I had to fight in court with Ron for child support. I went to work again for the hospital and I was trained to be a unit secretary at Trinity Mother Frances Hospital. I became closer to my children and closer to my mother and we study the Bible together each time we got together. God teaches us daily the ways of his will we try to stay in God’s will and keep our faith. Mother, I and the children have had many healings and experiences and we have learned the ways of the Lord and it builds our faith daily. My brother David and his wife Melba had two sons, Leif is ten months younger than Justin and is very smart in speech, he also played the piano (later in life he got a Master's degree and studied archeology) and Derik is two months younger than Jeff, he played soccer and he was also real smart in school (currently he likes to run in marathons).
I recorded this dream on May 3rd, 1979, which I call "The River of Blood", I had this dream some time earlier: I saw a great war, people were fighting with swords and riding horses. I saw this war was between great hills and blood flowed between the hills as like a river. I saw a place where barrels were made where weapons were kept, I was there at this place and I had been captured and my suitcases were full and were in the trunk of this car, and men had took me and another captive, but they knew not of the danger there, they were where our weapons were. I got away from them, but I would have to fight. I saw this place I was at would blow up and many killed, even my enemy would die, even my people would die. I only would survive and this other person (a girl) who was there somewhere, but we were separated at this time, the men had taken her and raped her, but I escaped. I saw people’s faces bloody, their bodies torn and bloody, there were people burned laying around about me. I saw where strangers came to me, I was telling them what God told me to preach. He Said, “Tell my people that Armageddon Battle is coming soon, to get ready to leave for the coming of the lord is at hand.” I saw thousands of people coming to me for healing and the word of God.
God showed me the battle coming, I saw people dying, even their own weapons would blow them up, even their own plants would kill them, not just the enemy, but their weapons they made will kill them at their own plants. The blood flowed to the horses bridle bits as the word of God says in the Bible. I saw blood flow like a river of water, I saw wounded people crying for help, but there was so many only God could save them or heal them, there were too many to help. I saw myself preaching and telling the people to get prepared to escape this thing coming, to get ready to leave. I also saw myself healing thousands of people with the word of God for so many couldn’t even be prayed for by the laying on of hands, God’s word alone preached healed the torn bloody bodies of children, infants, men and women that were torn form war. I saw the greatest battle of all times in this vision, God said, “Tell my people of this coming soon, to get prepared and to get ready to leave.”
I had this dream on Aug. 29, 1979: I saw myself with a lot of people going somewhere with their suitcases, as like a vacation but so many people were ill and the Lord spoke saying, “Blow on them, they shall be healed,” and I asked a lady if she was ill, she said, “yes” so I blew on her she fell out in the spirit and raised up healed and smiling. I didn’t even ask the others I just blew on them turning around and around in a circle, and they all fell in the spirit and raised up healed. I saw them taking their suitcases up and going back home. I saw myself at mom’s house and daddy was very ill and someone else away from me was asking me to come, so I saw daddy coughing with a bad cough even unto death, he was dying, I blew on him and he fell in the spirit and was healed, and I saw a minister there, I even blew on him and he was healed and he was surprised. I saw I went to this other person and they were healed, the spirit flowed out from me and all were healed every where I went, I also remembered when I was with these vacation people they couldn’t pay their bill and the Lord said, “I would receive $12,972.24 cents for the bill, it would be paid,” and I believed it would I told them and they also believed what I said for they saw what I did; so they believed.
When Ron and I were together one time he came home and I thought his hair sure was odd looking and I ask what was wrong with his hair, he said, “I was working and raised up under something that almost scalped me,” I looked closer and he had cut his scalp like a horse shoe, but wider and had quite a bit of stiches in his scalp where the doctor had to stitch his scalp up, Ron said, “when I did it, it sure bled a lot and someone had to drive me to the emergency room at the hospital to get stitches.” One time later Ron was drilling something and got the drill cought in his pants almost getting his private parts cut, I told him that was a warning and he better be more careful about what he was doing, and stop running around on me with other women, but Ron didn’t believe me and continued to see other women, that’s when I told him to leave and get a devorce, I was too afraid of catching something from him, so he got the devorce and later he and Mary Attwood got married. I’ll never forget the time he told me that he was painting at their house and Mary had bought a new sofa and Jeff was small and got into the paint, then run and jumped in her lap with the paint on him, I really laughed about that, it was so funny to me. When the boys were little I had to have their tonsils taken out and Ron had to stay with me at the hospital to help hold Jeff, he was almost two at that time and all three boys got their tonsels out at the same time, Dr. Tony did the surgery. Jonathan lost the most weight, he just wouldn’t eat hardly anything, I believe he lost 10 pounds.
After Ron and I divorced he got married to Mary Attwood, she and her husband divorced around the same time we got our divorce. She and her husband had three girls together. After Ron and I divorced, his older brother Harold began to call me, he and his wife was divorced now also. Harold was around his mid forty’s and he wanted me to go out with him, he stayed after me to date him two years before I gave in and went out on a date, we would go out to eat and then go to the parents without partners dances and we became fond of each other and the children really loved Harold, especially Jeff. Jeff wanted Harold to be his daddy. Harold would call and we talked a long time on the phone, some times he would just come over and sit with us and watch the television, Harold soon became sick and wouldn’t go to a doctor to see why he was having congestion, I worried about him, then for awhile he didn’t come over and I continued to work and date other men, but no one was very interesting to me. I hadn’t heard from Harold for awhile.
One day while I was at work, Ron’s other brother’s ex-wife called and told me shocking news, she said that Harold was at work and had a heart attack and dropped dead. I like to have died myself, my heart was so heavy and I was so shocked, I called my kids and my parents and told them, they were all in shock. I was at work and began crying most of that day. Ron didn’t want me going to Harold’s funeral or grave site. My youngest son Jeff wanted a ladder, I ask why, he said that he wanted to climb up to heaven and be with Harold. I didn’t know how to answer him, sometime Jeff would say he wish he was dead and I would ask why and he would say “so I can be with Harold in heaven.” Jeff liked to have not got over Harold’s death. After Harold’s death I didn’t date much, only a few times, I had met a man name Wayne, he was very good looking he had been a jet pilot in the Vietnam war, we dated a few times and then it was over and I met a man name Freeman, the kids liked him a lot, he was a large man that I had met at parents without partners, but that didn’t last either then I just stopped dating after my hysterectomy I couldn’t seem to meet anyone that was interesting enough to me.
Above is Me with Jon and Justin when they were little, Ron with Jeff as a baby, and two pictures of Harold.
I had this dream on October 20, 1980: I was at a place unknown to me, where there was a doctor and lots of people needing his help and I sat in a chair like at the dentist office and this doctor saw something that I had not seen. He saw a tumor within my mouth on my gums and he told me he wouldn’t be able to help me then, he would help the other people first, because I had a tumor that would have to be cut out, when he said that, I saw two of them, one on my mouth inside and a small one else where on my body and I saw the one on my mouth grew to the size of an orange in just a few minutes and the doctor told me I had a long distance phone call from my daddy in the other room. When I got up from the chair, I saw a drawer full of medicine and money with patients names on the small containers each had a separate container for their own medicine, the money was the doctor’s and he trusted me with it all. He knew I wouldn’t take what wasn’t mine, when I went into the other room to get the phone, it was gold in color like the one I used at home and the hospital. I began crying talking to daddy and I told Him I’d have to be healed of the tumors I had, because I saw the awful deformity they began to show on my face, all of a sudden the Lord spoke to me to receive my healing from my tumors in my face and body unto my rectum and bowels for I had a work to do. I felt my body jerk and awoke. God spoke saying to be patient and wait upon Him that He wanted me to pray for the sick and that I was a miracle worker that He had gave me the gifts of knowledge and discernment of faith to heal the sick. He said to pray for your friends and family they will be healed as well as my people.
I was wondering once what Hell was really like, and God showed it to me in a dream, boy was I ever so glad to wake up, I seen the Sea of Fire and heard people screaming, their arms were up above their heads in this sea of fire, they were wanting out. I seen this place look like the inside of a huge mountain with cliffs that had short edges to them, I seen the devil with horns and he was red in color, he held his pitch fork poking at the people in the burning sea of fire. I felt so sorry that they were there I seen his demons, called the fallen angels, in this mountain that was Hell and fire, they stayed close to their evil master, they were up on the edges of this mountain, they had wings where they could fly around this place and guard the people in the burning sea. I was so glad when I awoke and I didn’t have to stay in that awful place called Hell, Fire and Brimstone, I never wondered anymore what Hell was like, and I sure don’t want to ever return there again.
I remember once (Summer of 1983) Ron took the boys to Galveston to the beach and I told him to make sure the boys left their shirts on to go swimming, because they were so fair skinned and I knew that they would burn from the sun if they took their shirts off with them all being red headed, sure enough Ron left them with someone else that day and they all took off their shirts and they all burned badly and had large water blisters that the doctor had to drain and they had fever from that also, I was so mad at Ron from not listening to me, it sure made the boys sick and they had a lot of pain for awhile with those blisters until they healed, boy I guess they learned a hard lesson then after that they always wore their shirts into swimming when it was so hot outside.
When I was 38 years old (1983), I was having a health problem and I needed a hysterectomy. I had two doctors here that told me that they would do my surgery so I chose Dr. Struckard to do it, he came into the hospital room and sat down in a chair to talk to me, he said “Mary you saved your own life by telling me to take out your appendix, your appendix was four inches long with a tumor on it about to burst, your uterus was the size of a three month pregnancy full of cysts and your ovaries both had cysts on them and your going to be all right, none were cancerous”. While I was at the hospital, Cindy was my nurse and she brought me some flowers and she became my best friend, she took my kids and I to different places, we really had fun.
I had a bone spur in each hand for around one and a half years or maybe two, I even had a doctor check them to see if they might could be taken out. Once while I had problems with my right shoulder from a fall, I had taken up on the court house lawn. I had to have two months of therapy, because of the fall. The doctor which checked me, said he would take out the bone spurs when they got worse, they hurt me a lot. I also had kidney stones and I went up to the preacher at church to pray for my kidney stones, I begin praying that God would remove them, I prayed in Jesus name and I felt a warm feeling come into my back and then I went back to my seat. I had forgot about my kidney stones and a few days I began passing urine that began to hurt my bladder, so I took some Azostandard urine meds to deaden the mouth of my bladder, so the pain wouldn’t be so bad. I passed the small particles from my kidneys and then after a few days I seen my bone spurs were gone also from my wrists, then I realized I had been healed completely. I had remembered that I had anointed my wrists with oil and said a prayer for God to remove them. I don’t even know when He removed them. Praise God for his word in anointing, I had the faith and God healed me. Even my shoulders got well after I had said the prayer.
On October 2nd, 1986 Teresa, Kay’s daughter, called me and said that Kay, who is David Shane’s grandmother, had had a stroke and was in the hospital in Palestine, Texas, that’s where they lived, Kay had the stroke on October 1st, 1986 she also had diabetes and she got dehydrated and her blood pressure went up over 380/120 and she felt weak, they took her to the hospital, she was put in ICU that night, it was the next day when Teresa called, I also talked to her dad Odis. I called mother and we planned to go down to Palestine as soon as Kay got into a room where we can see her. I planned on calling Teresa sometime on the 4th. When Oct. 4th came mother and I went to see Kay, Odis and Teresa and her son Timmy and Teresa’s husband Tim. We had a real good visit, we went to see Kay, she was still in the hospital, her right hand was still swelled a great deal but Kay looked good, her blood sugar was high the previous night so the doctor said maybe she could go home in the morning on the 5th.
Odis took us out to eat at a real nice stake house called the Cattlemen’s Club, we had a real good meal. Teresa told me that she thinks she is pregnant, I sure hoped she is, Timmy her son is four years old and she needs to go ahead and have another baby before he’s any older. He is a very sweet child and a pretty one also, he looks like his dad. Teresa’s dog had eight puppies during the night, her and her husband was up all night until 4 a.m. the next morning. They were a little tired and sleepy because of that, otherwise everyone was glad we came to visit. We did have a good time with them. I told Teresa if she wants to find Jim Hughes, to go to the sheriff’s office there in Palestine or here in Tyler and take his social security and Air Force numbers to them, for they can put the numbers in the large computer and find him for them and tell him of his mother’s condition and I believed that he’d come to her from where ever he was, I was hoping to see and visit him again since it was over twenty four years since I’ve seen or heard from him.
I told Kay that I loved her and missed her, and she felt the same with me. I guess we needed to go see them more often. Odis was building onto their home enlarging it into a very nice place, but it had a lot of work to be finished. He planned to build a lake on their property also and buy more land. They had thirteen acres of land already there and some lake lots here in Tyler. He said we could go fishing on his lake lots and take the boat out on them that they had good lunching pads there. I told him to send Teresa and Tim down and we’d go fishing and take the boat out.
Odis told me of his life with his other wife before he married Kay. He had two other children by her, a girl and a son named Jimmy. He said his wife had run off with another man, that they stole everything that Odis had and they left the children with Odis and in three months time they were back and Odis overheard them saying they were going to steal the children from school. Odis owned some guns and rifles and took them with him at that time he was in his 20’s, Odis said he saw his wife and the man she had run off with, they were in the car and he fired a lot of bullets into that car. Thinking they were dead, he went into the sheriff’s office to turn himself into the law, but everyone had ran outside to see what was happening and no one was in the office. But Odis didn’t kill anyone, but he did serve six months in jail because of what he did, his girl was took from him, but his son he got to keep and raise.
Jimmy Hulsey (Odis’ son) was a real fine sweet boy when I met him. He was killed in the Vietnam War shot down in a helicopter over the water. His body was sent to Odis and he was buried over fourteen years before this visit. Jimmy did get married and had a little girl before all this happened, but they were either separated or divorced when he was killed. Odis said he seen his oldest daughter about once a year, but he was not supposed to go near her since he tried to kill her mother and her mother’s lover. He said that he thanked God that he didn’t actually shoot them, she was somewhere now but he didn’t know where, but her lover husband she married was in the pen now serving a life sentence for stealing and rape.
Odis looked good, although he smoked cigarettes which may go against his health, but he ate well, he ate vegetables and salads more than he ate meat. We have always kept in touch with each other over the years. I have always loved Kay just like she’s my own mother, she has always been so kind to me and full of love for me and my sons. She at one time kept Justin for me while I had to have surgery on my back, she took him for a week or two so she felt close to all of us.
Ron and I used to go visit them a lot after we would go visit David Shane my oldest son at Lufkin State School we’d visit Kay and Odis before we would come back home we would take Jon and Justin when they were small, Teresa was a teenager then and very pretty, spoiled a lot by her folks, but she was such a pretty little girl. She loved horses, she had more horse toys than anyone I ever knew. Odis and Kay was always building onto his house then too, they lived in an old house with a high roof. We visited that old place where they lived quite a lot when Jon and Justin were little.
I have always been glad to hear from Kay, Odis and Teresa, I always enjoyed their visits when they come to see us. Teresa told me she was making a notary public and a tax person, she plans to make out peoples income tax returns. She is a real smart girl and an artist also, she showed me her glass mirrors that she paints, they’re very pretty and she sales some of her work.
On Sunday October 19th, 1986 Mom and Dad, I and the boys went to visit Kay, Odis, Teresa, and Tim her husband and their son Timmy. The weather was good, sunny and cool, we had a good trip to Palestine, Texas I gave them gifts that I had got at the State Fair in Dallas, Texas, Kay looks better and they were so glad to see us, Odis couldn’t believe how the boys has grew, it had been a long time since we come to visit them. Odis showed Daddy and the boys around on his land, he had been clearing the land for a picnic area. Kay told me she hadn’t heard from Jim yet I had sent a letter off for the government to get in touch with him through the social security telling them of her cancer in hopes they can find him so he would come see his mother before she dies. She hasn’t seen or heard from him in twenty four years.
January 3, 1987 we had a good Christmas this year, the boy’s dad came over and brought them gifts on Christmas Eve night, he stayed a short time and left and we opened our gifts Christmas morning, my mother and dad brought dinner over and we ate, that evening Cindy came over and gave me a gift, a cookie jar shaped like a black cat, it’s real pretty, we had a good Christmas this year. David my brother called and said that Melba’s mother had cancer and may need surgery. My mother was sick through Christmas this year.
On December 13th,I had wrote a letter to Jim Hughes and I anointed the letter and sent it through social security and prayed over the letter that it gets through to Jim, this was my second letter to him for his mother’s sake. On Friday February 19th, 1987 I got a call around 4:30 p.m. from Teresa, Jim’s sister she let me know Jim had received the letter on February 13th, 1987 and he had called Kay the same night and he was there now at Kay’s home in Palestine, Texas.
On February 19th, 1987 Jim called and I talked to him around twenty minutes I found out a lot about him, he’s married and has two sons and a daughter. They had planned to eat at Kay’s brother’s house R.C. and J. R. so they were too tired from that visit to come and Kay had gotten sick also and they were back in Palestine.
On February 22nd 1987 I had a surprise visit from Jim, Teresa, Tim and Timmy, it was so good to see Jim, he looks different, he’s bald headed, what hair he does have has turned dark and he had a beard and it’s a little gray, but I could still see it was the same Jim I’ve always loved. We had a real long talk about David Shane our son, I gave him my testimony of David’s healing and gave him some pictures of David Shane. Jim said three different people told him in three different states that God had something here in Tyler for him to do. I already knew that my mother and I have known that for years. We took some pictures before they left back to Palestine and I haven’t seen or heard from Jim since then. It had been twenty five years just like that voice had told me in the Air Force Red Cross airplane.
One time the boys and I were going to go swimming at the State Park and on the way there I wasn’t traveling too fast and I saw a little baby walking out in the road ahead of me and I stopped the car. The baby was around 15 months old, there were no adult in sight watching the baby. I would of ran over the child if I had been going too fast, but something just didn’t feel right which is why I slowed down before I seen the child ahead of me in the road on my side. When I stopped the car, I looked to see if another car was coming or not and there wasn’t any cars coming, so I sent Justin to fetch the baby and I pulled off the road and told him to go ask in the houses off to the right of the road if anyone knew who the baby was and sure enough he found where the baby belonged. The people were cooking outside in their back yard and no one was watching the baby, but they were sure grateful that the baby was O.K. We then continued to the State Park so we could go swimming.
Once my dad had a fishing boat and took the boys out fishing and when he got them out in the boat bouncing around in the boat from the waves they heard kittens and looked in the boat up front and there they were, the cat had had her kittens in daddy’s boat during the night. They all were all right and when dad left to come home I believe the mommy cat got her babies and tended to them all. My boys always loved their grand dad as though he was their dad and my dad loved them as they were his. We were a close net family I never remarried again, I worked most of the time and felt that another man wouldn’t treat my boys good so I stayed single.
I can remember when Jonathan and Justin decided to do art work on their bedroom walls and Justin painted a beautiful scenery on one wall above his bed, he also painted a beautiful tiger and I took some pictures of what he did, he had also painted it at his junior high school and his art teacher was so proud of what he had painted. I went to his school and took pictures of the painting with Justin and his teacher. He got an A on his art work and Jon painted a space scene in his bed room showing Jupiter, that really surprised me how well they both painted. So I went and bought them art canvases and art paint and an easel for them to do paintings and they both did beautiful paintings. When Jon was in TJC, he took some of his paintings to school to display his work in the planetarium for a while and left them over the holidays. During the holidays, the planetarium caught fire and Jon’s artwork was destroyed. Jon received $500 for his work that was destroyed at the college, they had fire insurance at the school. Jon was so disappointed about what art work he lost, that he lost interest in painting - he only painted two more paintings afterwards. He soon took up making polyhedra and made many different types of mathematical art. He won some ribbons on some of his paintings at the fair also, I took pictures at the fair of their ribbons and was so proud of what they could do.
Above are two pics of a paper mache hulk I made and won a ribbon on
The above pics show Jon with his various space paintings, Justin and Jon with some of their art work, Jon holding one of his paintings an Justin.
The above pics show Justin's jungle mural he painted in art class.
The above pics show Jon's Jupiter mural - the first with the three boys, the second with Justin in an ROTC suit, the third with Jeff posing with a psi, the fourth with all four of us.
Above is Jonathan with his various polyhedron models.
“A Healing Of Bone Spur’s” by Mary J. Bowers March 4, 1987
I had a bone spur in each hand for around one and a half years or maybe two, I even had a doctor check them to see if they might could be taken out. Once while I had problems with my right shoulder from a fall, I had taken up on the court house lawn. I had to have two months of therapy, because of the fall. The doctor which checked me, said he would take out the bone spurs when they got worse, they hurt me a lot. I also had kidney stones and I went up to the preacher at church to pray for my kidney stones, I begin praying that God would remove them, I prayed in Jesus name and I felt a warm feeling come into my back and then I went back to my seat. I had forgot about my kidney stones and a few days I began passing urine that began to hurt my bladder, so I took some Azostandard urine meds to deaden the mouth of my bladder, so the pain wouldn’t be so bad. I passed the small particles from my kidneys and then after a few days I seen my bone spurs were gone also from my wrists, then I realized I had been healed completely. I had remembered that I had anointed my wrists with oil and said a prayer for God to remove them. I don’t even know when He removed them. Praise God for his word in anointing, I had the faith and God healed me. Even my shoulders got well after I had said the prayer.
Mother had went to her eye doctor and he found that she had cataracts in both her eyes, we both prayed daily for her to get a healing, I placed my thumbs within her eyes after she had ask for prayer for them, she didn’t want to have to face surgery again, I also anointed her with oil and I ask God in Jesus name to remove the cataracts. When Mother went back to her doctor, he asked her “where are your cataracts, there gone”, but he seen the scars they had left, he knew he had seen them her last visit, she said God healed them, the doctor was so surprised and he said only God could have removed them without surgery. He believed and he retired from his business shortly after mom’s healing. Praise God for his power and his healing, through his son Jesus, we ask and we are healed.
The Lord put it upon my mother and I to go and anoint Mrs Breckel she was in a coma and had been for awhile, she was on her death bed. So we went to the place she was at, we took anointing oil and when we anointed her she open her eyes after being in a coma for awhile, she knew us and then she closed her eyes for the last time, it wasn’t but three days later that she died. We did what the Lord had ask of us and her soul was cleansed before He took her home to Him, the family was at peace also as were we. Some times the Lord wants His people to be anointed for their death to cleanse the soul as Jesus had to be anointed for His death also. When the anointing takes place it usually takes around three days before the Lord will free the spirit to leave the old body and the soul is free to go to Jesus. I have had to go to others that are dying and anoint them in Jesus name and most of the people die within three days after I anointed them with olive oil. Otherwise the people may linger in pain for a while or a long time unless the Lord sees fit to take them maybe they had been anointed before during their life time and don’t need it again, but if the Lord puts it upon my heart to go and anoint someone before they die I will go to them and pray and anoint them in Jesus name that they will have peace. She was our neighbor when I was growing up at mom and dad’s house, she and her husband was our friends for years, Mr. Breckel would set on his front porch and watch David and I play outside in our yard, I guess we was his intertainment as long as we stayed out side playing on our swing set or Dave playing with a ball. Mr. Breckel had died long before she did, but we stayed friends and she was in a hospital when Mother and I went to pray and anoint her with the oil.
Around the year 1988 my son’s had placed our fire wood out back in a horse shoe like position around their tree house that Ron had built them when they were young, during the day a neighbor boy had came over and the boys had been burning the trash in our barrow and the neighbor boy Scott threw a stick that he had caught the end on fire and tossed it into our fire wood, and during the night it simmered and caught our fire wood on fire, the flames were leaping up as high as our tall trees, we were asleep and I awoke to the dog barking outside and our cat meowing at my door and I looked outside to see what all the commotion was about to see the fire out back, so I put on my house coat and shoes and awoke the boys. Justin run out side bare footed leaping over the wood with the water hose landing on top of a broken cold drink bottom cutting his foot badly, but he continue fighting the fire and when I found out how bad he was bleeding I made him come into the house and Jon and Jeff stayed fighting the fire, I called the fire department to come out while I took Justin to the emergency room at Mother Frances Hospital where I work to have his foot sewed up. Before we could go back home to check on the fire, Jon and Justin took turns during the night to watch and make sure the fire didn’t restart, when Justin first run out side all he had on was his underwear when he grabbed the water hose and jumped over the wood to hose down the fire that’s when he jumped on top of the broken bottle cutting his foot. Justin has always been like a hero running into battle to save the day. One time (in the late 90’s) Justin was at the lake fishing and he was the only one in the boat that knew how to swim and this little boy fell out of the boat and Justin jumped into the deep water to pull him back on the boat to save the child’s life, he was a hero that day for sure, Justin has always been a good swimmer.
On Dec. 5, 1989 Jonathan was in college at that time and going to Tyler Junior College and my mother was carrying him to school while I was working at the hospital on the morning shift. Mother was driving a really nice Thunderbird car at that time and was on nerve medicine. Jonathan wanted to take the car and drive to school, but she wouldn’t let him. On Dec. 5th she got into the wrong lane after letting Jonathan out at the college, the sun was glaring in her face and she was hit by a car, this spun her about causing another car to hit her. The Thunderbird was totaled, but mother was only hurt on her ankle. She said that the sun was in her eyes and she couldn’t see the road well when she pulled out, but she may have been sleepy also from her nerve medicine, no one was really hurt in the other cars either. Mother had some money in a savings account so daddy went and bought a different car for her to drive for only $3000. They paid cash for it and took Jonathan to school in that car.
Above is what was left of mother's car.
I met Mike through my son Justin, when I was forty five years old, my son Justin worked with Mike and one day he brought him over to the house, I really thought Mike was handsome, he had black hair and a strong body, he wasn’t very tall, but he was taller than me. Mike had gotten his shoulder hurt some how and I ask him into the house, I said “if you would take your shirt off I could massage your shoulder and make it feel better” so he did and he really liked the massage it did feel better, Mike put double doors into buildings that are automatically open when you touch a button on the walls in large buildings and all that lifting was getting to him. One problem Mike had he loved his beer and Justin begin drinking a little too much and I worried about him and Mike when they worked together they would drink, I never seen Mike get drunk, but I worried about my son and him driving, I really never seen Justin get drunk either, maybe a little tipsy. I asked Mike if he would like to go to the hospital Halloween party at Mother Frances Hospital they threw for the employees and he said, “he would love to go,” so we began dating. Mike had been married before but his wife died from her kidneys, she was the first transplant here in Tyler. Mike and his wife never had any children and after his wife died is when we had met and began dating some, Mike had a nice house trailer at lake Palestine and he bought a boat, we had the best times together on the lake riding in the boat and swimming, we would have cookouts also.
Mike had a nephew name Ryan a real nice young man that lived with him and we would all have good times together, I would take pictures of all of us having a good time together. Mike also had a sister up north that he called often and would go to visit her. He once brought a fine sports car that he drove over to the house, the car set two people only and set real low on the ground, it was hard for me to get into and out of but I did really have fun with Mike no matter what we did, but he told me he wanted children of his own and I knew that was one thing I couldn’t give him, I had had a hysterectomy at age thirty eight and my children was grown, so I stopped seeing or calling Mike so he would have a chance to meet someone that could give him children. One day a few years later I met the woman he married, she had had his son that was a twin look a like to Mike, she had already had one son before meeting Mike, they were so very happy together and later I heard he sold his lake house and they moved up north to be closer to his sister she had some kind of affliction and he missed her so much that they moved to where she lived so he could be with his sister more often, I would of married Mike if he only had of asked me to but he knew I couldn’t give him the one thing he wanted most, a son of his own.
I remember when Jeff was around twelve or thirteen one morning I got up early around five o’clock and I was getting dressed to go to work and I noticed that Jeff wasn’t in his bed, so I went to look for him and he was gone, so I looked for my keys and they were gone also, then I looked in the garage and my car was gone, so I really got worried and as I was looking in the garage here comes Jeff with his little friends Lance and his brother Chad, Jeff had took them for a ride early that morning, come to find out this wasn’t the first time Jeff had done that, he knew how to drive a car so he carried his friends often for a ride in my car without my premission and without a drivers license, because he was way to young to have one. My daddy when he was alive would let Jeff drive back from Dallas, Texas he was tall and looked older than his age and knew how to drive well and he was never caught until early that morning by me, after that I hid my keys from Jeff so he couldn’t take his friends for a ride anymore until he got old enough to drive with a license.
On July 15, 1991 the boys and I got our lights turned off because I had only paid half of the light bill believing that I could pay the other half the next pay day without making the arrangements with the light company, so they just turned them off. We had to move in with my mother and daddy at that time and they had only one extra bed room so I took it and the three boys stayed in the living room, Jeff slept on the sofa, Justin and Jon slept in recliners while we lived there. I had left our dog Little Dog at our house, we would go there daily to feed him and check on the house while we stayed with mom and dad, I wasn’t going to be able to pay our light bill until after I got my income tax return - this was because the light company had fined me also and the bill added up to be over a thousand dollars to get the electricity back on. At that time Justin was not working, he had quit school and had been painting some with his dad, but he was out of work then. Jeff was being taken to school by mother at this time as well as Jonathan. We were out of our house nearly nine months before we could pay the bill.
When I lived with mother, one day Cindy’s grandfather died and she asked me to move in with her until I got my lights back on, I told her that I would move in with her and I would bring Justin with me as long as he could bring a gun, for where she lived wasn’t very safe for us. Jon and Jeff stayed with mother and dad.
Cindy needed to learn how to drive her step grandfather’s truck, it was a stick shift, I told her that Justin could teach her how to drive it, because he knew how to drive a stick shift. She and I took turns cooking our meals and I seen that she was falling in love with Justin and he was falling in love with her, there was an age difference around fifteen years and Justin asked me about it, I told him that it didn’t matter that Cindy was older than him, she was kiddish and loved him. He asked me if I thought Cindy would marry him and I said “Cindy would marry you in a minute”. Justin popped the question that next week and she said “Justin, I’ll marry you in a minute” the very words I said. So Cindy planned her wedding and bought her wedding dress and asked our preacher Rev. B.L. Greene to marry them, they married in the First Assembly of God Church, it was a beautiful wedding and she was a beautiful bride there was lots of people that came from the hospital, Cindy was still working there on 2 East and I still worked there in the nursery.
Cindy and Justin went to Galveston, Texas for their honeymoon and had a very good time. In one month after they married, she became pregnant with Andre. Andre was born April 19, 1993 at Trinity Mother Francis Hospital by C/S because he was transverse and weighed 8 lbs 15 oz. He looked like Justin with the same red hair color, he was a very pretty baby. Just before they married and we got our lights back on, Cindy had moved in with us. After they married, Justin helped work on that old house of hers so she could get it sold. Before Andre’s birth, my parents were getting in bad shape with Alzheimer’s. Cindy and Justin moved out and got an apartment so Mom and Dad could move in with me and we rented out Mom and Dad’s house.
About this time Jeff had moved in with Kissy and her parents and was helping them with their bills, so Jonathan moved into Jeff’s room at my house which was a double garage that Jeff fixed up for himself and didn’t stay long in it before he moved in with Kissy. Jeff and Kissy had quit school. Jeff went to work with his dad and was making good money. He asked Kissy to marry him, so they planned their wedding to be married at her grandmother’s home by some preacher they knew, it was a pretty wedding. We were all there as well as some of Kissy’s kinfolks, she married in her sister’s wedding dress which was real pretty. They married on Valentine’s Day, not long after on July 3, 1995 Leslie was born, she was a real pretty baby - she was the first girl born in our family since my birth 51 years earlier.
Above are wedding pictures of Cindy and Justin, and Jeff and Kissy.
Above are three pictures of Leslie as a baby with her parents.
Above are four pics of Andre when he was a baby, the first and last pic has Justin in them.
Pics are in order: Cindy with Andre and baby Leslie, Andre and Leslie when little, Mother with baby Leslie, Me with Leslie and Katelyn and John Wayne.
On August 5, 1992 I dreamed of two bad hurricanes that took place at different places and times. The worse one hit and not long after another hit. I seen an important oriental man with slanted eyes there watching the hurricane about to hit, when he realized how bad it would be, I seen him get up and asked his men “Why didn’t you tell me it would be so bad?” He left before the worse wave came. We had to ride out the storm, but he flew to safety when the second storm came, although it was worse than the first one. (I believe that the dream was about the tsunami that hit Khao Lak, Thailand and the earthquake that hit Asia on Dec. 28, 2004 that caused many deaths. Hurricane Katrina hit 13 years after my dream, with Rita soon after.)
Dad and I had went to Brookshire’s here in Tyler, Texas and I seen around four black Lemozines parked in front of the grocery store on Loop 323 West of Tyler about five miles from where I live. “I told Dad, lets go and see who is so important to have so many Lemos parked in front of Brookshire’s.” So Dad and I seen these men shaking peoples hands that were going into the store, we went over to see who was here in Tyler and when the Governor took my hand to shake it, he just looked at me smiling and he held my hand longer than he was shaking other people’s hands, I wasn’t sure he would turn it loose, but I didn’t mind too much, because I thought he was so handsome, he finally let go and we went back to the car, Dad said, “do you know who that was?” I said “no, who is he?” Dad said, “That’s governor George W. Bush.” I said to dad, “maybe I shouldn’t ever wash my hand again.” We both looked at each other and laughed. It wasn’t too long that governor George W. Bush became the President of the United States of America. I’ll never forget that day and when I seen First Lady Bush I knew why he looked at me so, it was because my red hair reminded him of her, he must have been lonely for his wife.
Once I had put an add in the Penny Wise news letter to meet someone and he called me wanting to meet, we met at a little hamburger place and began dating, he took me to meet his parents in Lindale, they had a beautiful home and Wendell had a new red truck which was nice, but he smoked and I’m allergic to smoke and he didn’t like cats and I love them. We dated for awhile and he asked me to marry him, so we planned on getting married, but we didn’t really have anything in common, I loved to watch T.V. and he didn’t, I learned from him that only half of his brain worked, because he in the past had had a bad stroke, killing half of his brain, but he didn’t seem to have a problem speaking or talking, you couldn’t tell he had ever had a stroke, he had to learn a lot of things over, he helped his parents keep their yard and he drew a small disability check. Wendell would pick me up and we would go to his parents home in Lindale often, I really liked his parents and his sister, she was an interior decorator, when Wendell, Jonathan, and I would go out to eat he would always embarrass me and Jonathan by saying to the waitress, “This boy needs a woman,” I got fed up with some of the things Wendell would do and say.
My dad, Grady Pierson would tell me, “it will never work out marrying Wendell that we just didn’t have enough in common,” and I already knew that, my son Justin didn’t like Wendell, but Jonathan did like him, I got tired of Wendell telling me, “We needed to have a talk,” and he said it just too many times, I had already planned on marrying him, I had my wedding dress, our wedding announcements, our marriage license, and he had already moved some of his things over to my house, but I just didn’t feel like I really cared enough about Wendell to get married, and on Justin’s birthday we were going over to Justin’s and Cindy’s house, when Wendell said, “we needed to have a talk,” and I lost it I told Wendell, to go get his things out of my house and leave me at Justin’s and Cindy’s house, that I couldn’t marry him, I gave him my key to go get his things and for him to go back home to his parent’s house, I realized I didn’t love him and a marriage to him wouldn’t last long at all, he was upset, called me some trying to make up, but I just couldn’t. Justin told me, “that that was the best birthday present I could give him, to break off with Wendell, and Justin gave me a big hug when I told him that I had broke up with Wendell at that moment in the truck. Jon was relieved too, although he did like Wendell. I threw away our wedding invitations, I had spent a hundred on them, but that was the best wasted one hundred dollars I have ever spent and I felt so relieved that I didn’t go through the marriage.
In March 1996 Cindy miscarried a baby, she hemorrhaged and the doctor did a D&C on her. After she was at home she began bleeding again, the doctor put her into the hospital again and began a cancer type of treatment, he couldn’t do another D&C on her because it could kill her, he thought maybe she had twins, because there was another placenta that tried to go through the uterus wall causing her bleeding, she almost died. Come to find out later, the treatments she had to go through caused her to become sterile, she couldn’t have any more children. Cindy wanted more children, but it was probably in her best interest, because she had a heart problem that later showed up on an EKG that she once had a mild heart attack. Later on she had a second heart attack when she and Justin were at a wrestling match and she couldn’t get back where he was sitting before she had to sit down atop the bleachers from where she had went to the lady’s room at the Oil Palace where they loved to go see the wrestling matches.
My dad had been in a nursing home for a while, he had combative Alzheimer’s disease, mother was living with me and she started getting lonely, so I got my aunt Marjorie to move in with me from a nursing home. Jonathan and I cared for them both, they kept each other company while Jonathan and I were at work, I worked days and Jonathan worked evenings. He had gotten a Masters degree in Math and Science, but he couldn’t get a good job here in Tyler, so he stayed at Big Lots working part time. He helped me care for Mom and Aunt Marjorie, we took different shifts caring for them.
Once we took Leslie to see Daddy in the nursing home, he was really getting bad at this time. He didn’t like the nurses or the aids to bother him, once he came up with a black eye, come to find out - one of the aids had hit him because he would fight her when she was trying to clean him up, so she gave him a black eye and within the same week she gave him another black eye in the other eye. When I found out about this, they fired the aid and turned it over to the police department and she had vanished not to be caught. No one knew where she went. The nursing home got afraid I would file suit and sent daddy to a different nursing home out of town, we would have to travel around an hour to go visit him and check up on him, they kept him so doped up that he couldn’t even wake up when we visited him, so I got him sent back to a different nursing home, he had aspirated a pill and took pneumonia and he was hospitalized here in Tyler and sent back to the nursing home where he was found dead in his chair, during a check, the aid found him with no vital signs and called me at home. Jonathan and I went to get daddy’s sister Aunt Mirtle Dean Olson and took her with us to the nursing home to view daddy before having him sent to the funeral home, mother had bought them a funeral plot and one casket and had been paying on it for years so my brother took over and got everything arranged for daddy’s funeral, it was a nice one, lots of family came, it was at grave site. We took pictures of the family while there, David spoke about daddy and we all left so he could be buried.
It wasn’t long before Kissy was pregnant with Katelyn. Justin, Cindy, and Andre were in North Carolina at this time where Justin was painting on a Marine base. Katelyn was born by C/S on October 22, 1998 at Trinity Mother Francis Hospital. Kissy said that Katelyn had been face up with an umbilical cord around her throat in a tight knot and that’s why she needed a C/S. Katelyn had black hair and brown eyes when she was born, she was a very pretty child. Justin’s family was still at North Carolina where he stayed about a year. I really missed them a lot, but knew it would finally pass and they would be back home again for good this time. Jonathan was wanting to go to North Carolina for a vacation, so Justin and Cindy sent him bus tickets for his birthday. Jonathan went to be with them a couple weeks and took my camera and took pictures as well as video with their video camera. Justin and Jonathan made several silly “commercial” on video such as Texas Bob’s Toad Jerky. Jonathan came back on the bus after two weeks in North Carolina, he really had a good time there.
Once when mother was living with me and her Alzheimer’s was getting worse, she came to me saying she was burning up, she had put Ben Gay on her face and her private part thinking it was lotion, her face was red as a beet and her private was really burning badly, when she washed it up it felt even worse, she was so miserable she didn’t know what to do. I even caught her eating hand lotion, she believe she was eating pudding and she told me it taste so good, she was putting hand full’s into her mouth, so I had to hide everything from her that would harm her, or what I thought might harm her, that’s when I knew I would have to go ahead and find a nursing home for her and I was able to put her in the same one that my aunt Marjorie had went into, at first my aunt didn’t want to have anything to do with mother and I’m not sure why, but she finally came around and wanted to room in with her in the same room, so the nurses aids moved her in with aunt Marjorie and they made good room mates for a good while, I would go get them both on my weekends off and bring them home with me, they really looked forward to those weekends, I really enjoyed them both, they would tell me some of the stories I have written down all that they could remember I’d write down for my book and it has made a very good book to read.
After Jeff had been married and he and Kissy had Leslie she was in her car seat and Jeff was driving and seen a cat with a plastic bag tied over it’s head, so Jeff stopped the car and he and Kissy got out of the car to try to help the cat and he didn’t pull off the road and when he was trying to help the cat another car hit the back of Jeff’s car with Leslie still in her car seat, she was okay, but Jeff couldn’t find what happened to the cat, he never got the plastic bag off that poor cat, but because he didn’t pull off the road he was fined and it totaled his car and because he left Leslie in the car without supervision his fine was higher than a regular ticket, if he had of only pulled the car off the road and Kissy had of stayed in the car with Leslie his ticket wouldn’t of been so high. Jeff had to get him another car to drive. I believe Jeff and Kissy learned a very expensive lesson the hard way.
One day Kissy needed to go to the store for something and it was raining, she had Leslie, a friend, and the friend’s little boy with them and Kissy believed she went to sleep driving and she lost control of the car it flipped over several times, before it stopped. A fence held the car back from flipping into some water and she kicked the back window out so they could crawl out safely, they were only brused up some, but everyone was okay, but the car was totaled. Jeff had to get him another car.
Kissy became pregnant again and had a red haired baby boy named John Wayne Bowers, he was born by C/S November 14, 2000, he is a very strong child that is very handsome, his hair is curly like his daddy’s and mine and he has brown eyes, but he also favors Kissy’s side of the family, the Tabors. Kissy’s dad is Kenneth (Red) and her mom is Debbie, Kissy also has a brother named after his dad, his name is Kenneth Tabor Jr. (Kenny) who has a son. Kissy’s sister is named Johnnie, who has a daughter and is pregnant again, Johnnie’s husband is now in Iraq serving his time during the war where our president hopes to start pulling our men out of there by January.
On January 15, 2001 Aunt Mittie and mother seen a vision, she told me and I wrote it down. Mother and Aunt Mittie were both sleeping in my room together in my bed. Aunt Mittie seen her late husband Hurley standing in the doorway, Mom said he looked at me in mother’s bed asleep and then, he looked at her and aunt Mittie, he never said a word to either of them, but stayed for a long time. Aunt Mittie said he came into the bed room looking at her and she was afraid. Mom was afraid also. My Mother and Aunt Mittie were both awake when this happened, they both seen the man that came into the room. We believe it was mom’s death angel that came to claim her, or to let her know one of them would die soon, and it was my mother. My mother died July 31st, 2002. We had grave side rights and burried her beside daddy at Memorial park, David spoke and Cindy and Jonathan sang "Amazing Grace" at the funeral. Ron was one of the paul bairers. During the funeral, when Jonathan closed his eyes, he seen mother in a vision - she was sitting in a chair and smiled at him, then Jonathan opened his eyes - that let him know she was alright and with Jesus.
In November, 2001 I had a dream that I seen my grandson Andre drown and in about three weeks Cindy had called me telling me that Ron’s wife Mary’s grandson had been riding on something called a Mule and his dad had went inside his house for a few minutes and when he returned he found the boy (which was around six or seven years old) had turn the Mule over and it landed on the boy’s throat and the boy was dead, that was the most devasting news that Mary had ever faced and I’m not sure she will ever get over that child’s death. Cindy also told me that the boy had always told his parents goodnight before he went to bed, but on the night before he died he had said good by. Later after the child’s death, his mom had adopted a child then she got pregnant with twins it was like having triplets when the twins was born.
My mother had a heart attack while in the nursing home and was brought to the hospital, she got a bit better and they sent her back to the nursing home and within the same month she had a second heart attack and Jonathan and I took turns with my brother David sitting with her. The doctor told us that she wouldn’t live through this heart attack, within three days she died and we had a grave side funeral where she was buried beside Daddy at Memorial Park Cemetery here in Tyler, Texas not far from where we live. She died in July 2002, she was 82 years old, my daddy was 78 years old when he died four and a half years earlier, they were married 58 years. I was so glad my mother lived to see all of her great grandchildren born and she did enjoy them all while I kept her with us and then I would go get her and Aunt Marjorie to stay with Jonathan and I on weekends off until they got too sick to come, I did keep my aunt Marjorie with Jonathan and I for a few years after mother’s death, until she wanted to go back to a nursing home here in Tyler, she died on October 28, 2009.
I believe this dream I had on Feb, 15, 2003 is about the rapture: I had a dream or vision that I was at work and I was to go to a meeting outside of the hospital. When I got outside, I saw in the sky, a large whirlwind and it looked like a hurricane coming, gold and white in color, so I didn’t make it to the meeting, I ran into a building instead. I saw someone else was beside me and in this building was two small children, a boy and a girl, I saw where I tried to hold back the door so the wind wouldn’t suck us out, the other person was helping me, but we couldn’t close the door, the wind was too strong. I seen these two large angels come in and some other angels with gold and white wings took me under my arms and took the other person that was beside me and we flew up quickly into the heavens. As I was took up, I seen my old body shed off as my new body appeared. I turned and looked at the two angels with short golden hair, they were very tall with large wings, I thought to myself “You’re taking me out of this world, I won’t have to stay and see what’s going to take place with the war.” I was so happy to leave this place. Then I saw where I received wings and I came back to protect the two children through the night. I reached down under my right wing and pulled off a part of it to cover these two children to protect them through the night, I knew I could replace that part of my wing when the night was over, I could put that part back on my wing. Then I awoke. “A Vision” by kattabared (Mary J. Bowers) August 17th, 2003
One day, my toilet almost killed me. Jon had fixed my toilet from running all the time after it was flushed, he had put a new bulb into the back inside of the tank, but when he did it he turn the water up full force, when I went to flush the toilet it hung and I removed the tank top and my head was right where the bulb was and as soon as I removed the tank top to the right side to place it onto my sink top the bulb blew up hitting the ceilling indenting the ceiling the size of the bulb and the water shot up to the ceilling falling down all over me and flooding the rest room, my bed room floor and the other restroom in the hallway and my kitchen floor. I reached down behind the toilet to turn the water off, but it was too hard to turn off, so I ran soaking wet to Jon’s room on the other side of my house getting him up out of bed to go turn the water off, he did, but the water stood around ankle deep in my house ruining the tiles on the floors where the glue came undone and the tile came loose, we had no insurance on the house to get it fixed and it’s still not fixed (as of 2009), my floors look bad, but we don’t have the money to fix them. If that bulb had of hit my head I wouldn’t be alive today, it would of knocked a hole into my forehead the size of a soft ball and killed me. I thank the lord for watching over me and holding that bulb until I moved to the right side to place the tank top onto my sink, that has been a good while since that happened and Jon learned to only turn the water halfway on to the toilet, so that won’t happen again.
On August 17, 2003 Aunt Mittie said she seen my Mother standing in the kitchen with her glasses on, my aunt walked down the hall of my house and said , “hello Fannie,” then she came to my room and ask me, “is anyone else here”, I said “Jon is all,” then she told me of seeing my mother standing in the kitchen, my mother has been dead over a year now, she died last July 31st, 2002. I had had a dream the night before seeing mother walking beside me, she was young and straight and tall, we were going somewhere together. Then I awoke.
On July 31, 2004 I had this dream I seen I had three beautiful dresses, which were moo moos, colorful like Hawaii moo moos, at first I thought there were two dresses. I had put them into a box to be mailed to my aunt Bonnie’s in California and to be mailed to my cousin’s wife, Ava in California. (Ava was A.L. Hyatt’s wife). I seen that I covered the box partially with cloth, then I took a brown bag and covered it and addressed it to my aunt Bonnie, then I realized Ava is dead and I only needed to send one dress to aunt Bonnie. I reopened the box, pulled out two dresses and left the other for aunt Bonnie. I refixed it for mailing. I gave one dress to Aunt Mittie, I knew it would fit her. I didn’t believe the other dress would fit me. I was too large for it, but I kept it out of the box anyway. I awoke. Aunt Mittie had told me the three dresses would be three funerals. David called me that day and said that Darrel’s daughter, Marisa had taken an overdose and died in a motel, she was Jeffrey’s age 27 years old.
One day (July 15, 2006) I found my kitten, Daisy Mae by her cat pot almost dead, when I awoke. I picked her up, she could barely meow, and her eyes wouldn’t blink, she had a blank stare. I wrapped her in a cup towel and anointed and prayed for her in Jesus name, and then I laid her on another towel in my rest room, unsure if she would live through the day. Jon and I went about our business and out to eat, when we returned, I was afraid Daisy would be dead, but when I checked on her she was up walking around feeling better, she still wouldn’t eat good for me so I syringe fed her a small amount of kitty milk and wrapped her up again and put her in my rest room, hoping she’ll snap completely back to normal. I just kept praying for her and trusting God to heal her completely, I awaited upon the Lord. Next day Daisy Mae was doing fine, eating, growing and playing great.
The day I first found Daisy it had been raining heavy and I looked out on the back porch to see the rain and there she was laying all alone, very tiny, half drowned and I picked her up and carried her inside the house, put her in a cup towel and dried her off and got her warm. She was so pretty white mostly and a little black was on her face, I didn’t see any more cats any where, so Jon and I got her some kitten milk and a bottle and we bottle feed her until she was around two months old, then I started feeding her a little cat food, but she would reach for her bottle of milk not really wanting the food, it was hard to wean her off the bottle, she was like a real baby reaching for her bottle of milk. When I would try to feed her, she was so hungry she would fight to grab the bottle from me and hold and suck the nipple like a real baby would, I really enjoyed her so much, she grew fast and when she was old enough I got her spayed and got her the shots she needed, she got along alright with my other cats and now she is the largest cat I have and so beautiful. Daisy always likes to lay inside the heafty bag box with it still half full of bag’s and I took a picture of her she over filled the box hanging partly out of it, but that’s the way she would sleep some times.
My other cat is Rose which was Aunt Marjorie cat when she lived with us and when she went to the nursing home we cared for Rose. Rose is also black and white and she and Daisy get along real good together. I also had Sheba then she was so pretty she had been born here, her mother was named Church, a solid gray cat and her daddy was a stripped long hair gray cat named Butch, Sheba looked like her daddy she was so sweet and loved me so much Aunt Marjorie would tell me how she would act when it was time for me to leave work from the Hospital, Sheba would get up on the love seat and look between the curtains watching for me to come home all you could see of her was a little of her back and tail between the curtains, she would stay there until I drove up then she would meet me at the door. Sheba lived to be fifteen and a half, Jon burried her in our back yard, we both loved her so much and we miss her a lot.
Above are three pics of Daisy Mae, one of Sheba, and one of Rose.
David and Melba moved back to Tyler when he retired from the Service as a Colonel, they bought a beautiful home here and their sons come home some on the weekends and the holidays and we all get together at times at Cindy’s and Justin’s house for cook outs and we have a good time, even my ex husband Ron and his wife Mary come to some of the gatherings we all have a real good time visiting together with all of our sons and grandchildren.
As Jeff got older, his talent began showing up in things he could build with his hands, he did lots of beautiful work on his trailer house that would be worth a lot of money if it is ever sold, he has put a lot of hours on the work he has done. Before Jeff fixed up his house, he was having a lot of trouble with his kids in school. The school was always calling him because of something one of them had done. Jeff’s older girl stayed in fights and the middle girl was stealing, John Wayne is dyslectic like his dad, Jeff, Andre is also. Katelyn is having trouble learning and remembering and John Wayne was having problems reading and learning because of his dyslexia. One of Jeff’s neighbors was always turning him in because of one thing or another and CPS got involved and they called Cindy then me at work one day and I had to go meet them about the kids. Jonathan picked me up at work so we could go meet them at Jeff’s house, Cindy was there already when Jon and I got there. CPS took the kids from Jeff and Kissy and placed them into Cindy’s and my care for five month. Cindy took Katelyn, and I took the other two. It was a hard five months for all of us, the kids were mad because they had been taken from their parents and were taking it out on us causing us a lot of trouble, we had put them in therapy and we had to go ourselves to talk to the therapist after they talked to the kids two or three times a week. Jon had to give up a few work days a week in order to watch them while I was at work and it hurt our finances and I got behind on our bills.
Jeff was giving me some money for the kid’s food and that helped us some, but I still stayed behind on our bills because Jon was kept from going to work to help me with the kids, when I worked he stayed with the kids and when he worked I stayed with them. We would have to carry them to the doctor’s office, John Wayne stayed sick much of the time I had him and Leslie caused me some problems because she wanted to go home and couldn’t, but Jon would take them to see their parents often, they just couldn’t stay home until CPS said they could, but Jeff had to fix up his house before that took place, so he fixed it up really nice, he had to fix up his yard also, so he did and everything looked real good.
On Christmas 2007, the school and the nurses at the hospital fixed up the most gifts I have ever seen, wrapped them up real nice and the kids had one of the best Christmas’s they had ever had, then the school brought us a wonderful turkey dinner for Jon, I, and the kids with one of the biggest turkeys I have ever seen. John Wayne and Leslie had a very good Christmas that year, and Cindy and Justin had a good Christmas for Katelyn. I had also asked for help to put clothes on the children from the hospital I work at and the nurses gave us more clothes than the kids could wear, John Wayne had enough clothes for around three years different sizes and Katelyn had lots of beautiful clothes given to her as well as Leslie. Toys were also given to John Wayne, one of the nurses named Deanne gave him a train set that he played with the most, he had so much fun with all his clothes and toys. My boss Lemesa Bell gave Cindy some of the most beautiful girl clothes for Katelyn I have ever seen also and they would last her around two or three years because of the sizes being different. Katelyn was so happy she had to look at all of them when we got them to Cindy’s house, Katelyn took them all out one by one and looked at each piece of clothing she got and they would all fit her very well. In February, the CPS finally approved to let the kids go back home, we had a real good time being with the kids, but we were all glad when they got to go back home to their parents, but we also missed them being with us and all the attention we got from the teachers and nurses, every one was so good to us, we appreciated all the help we got and all the love that was given to us from everyone, I thank all of you for the help we got and most of all for the love you gave us.
Above are pics of some of Jeff's woodwork, first two pics are of a church, the other two are of his guncase.
Cindy had called me at work telling me that Ron was having problems with his ear hurting and went to a doctor and found out he had an inner ear tumor and was going to go to Dallas to the Vet Hospital, Ron had served in the Air Force four years as a medic, I don’t believe he ever had to go over seas, but he would have surgery in Dallas, Tx to remove the tumor, he was having a hearing problem also in that ear and he was also having some vision problems also. Ron had the surgery it wasn’t cancer, but it left him with out hearing in that ear and some paralysis in his face and eye lid he couldn’t close the lid so they put a small weight in the eye lid to help it close, and that caused him to have a droop in the lid until the doctor refixed the weight in the lid, now it looks better, but it did leave Ron deaf in that ear and he still has to wear glasses for his vision problem, he also had under gone a stint surgery for his heart, he had developed a blockage and his surgery went well and he still works some and he and Mary visits Justin and Cindy sometimes and they will go out to eat together at times also, sometimes Jon and Jeff’s family will meet them out at a place to eat also.
On September 13th,2008 Cindy told me that my cousin Shirley Ray told her how aunt Mittie is doing, she said that they believed she was missing the cats so someone bought her a stuff toy kitten that meowed, aunt Mittie thought the kitten was real and sent someone after some cat food for her kitty. Aunt Mittie spread the cat food all over her room and everything in the room so the kitty would eat. I really got a laugh out of that. When aunt Bonnie call me that night from Calf. I told her what Cindy told me and she got a big laugh out of it. Aunt Bonnie had called me, because she was worried about the hurricane Ike that hit Texas last night, it also hit us here as a tropical storm, with high winds and lots of rain which caused a lot of flooding around Texas. I watched it on the weather channel until the lights went out, I was on the phone with Cindy, when the lights went off, due to the high winds and hard rains, the hurricane caused destruction all over Texas and around the coast. The Hurricane is hitting up north the next day and caused more destruction and more lights to go off.
On July 30th, 2009 I received a letter telling me I would need to get guardianship of my son David Shane Hughes or get someone that would be his guardian to be able to sign papers for anything concerning him like surgery if he needed it or any kind of papers that would be legal that I would need to get an attorney to draw them up and I would need to pay the attorney. I called the social worker at Lufkin State School and she told me that David probably had enough money in his bank account to pay the attorney to draw up the papers, but I would need to get the attorney and call his phone number in to them so the papers could be on record, so I called my brother to help me get the attorney, because I don’t know one that would do it. He said he would call me back in a day or two with a name that could represent my son David Shane. A new law had came into place is why this needed to be done for the state schools, in case of any type of problem that may come up about David Shane that I would need to sign papers on him that would be legal and in the long run it could cost me a good bit of money, but David does get money put into his bank account from his money that they get for his care from the government check each month, the extra goes into his account to help pay for his needs, like a new wheel chair or a new T.V. I now wait for my brother to call me the name of the attorney so I can get the guardianship on David and call it to the Social Worker there at Lufkin State School. I may even get a living will done on myself and David in the future and a will in case anything happens to me so I can leave the house to Justin and Jon and the furniture in the house so they will have a place to live after I’m gone.
On August 21, 2009 we found out that Uncle Alvin (Aunt Bonnie's husband) passed away. They are pictured below.
On October 10, 2009 Jon and I went to Lufkin to see David Shane he looks good and healthy. The nurse taking care of him that day whose name is June Marie got him to giggle and he was having a lot of fun with us, she said he hasn’t had any sizures at all in around three years now, his hair was cut real short his skin looked real clear, but I did notice a small knot on his jaw around the size of a nickle that felt like a little cyst that she will have it brought to the doctor’s attention on Monday or Tuesday. We had a real good trip, it did mist some through the day and on the way back we stopped at a Mexican restaurant to eat then we came home, I took a few pictures of David, but they didn’t turn out very good, because he was sleepy, but we enjoyed being with him in a real nice room with a very large T.V. and a few other children like David was in there watching T.V., one was playing with a tambourine and another had a toy drum kit that played music and he would change the music to his liking.
I had to work the next day at the hospital, I worked extra they needed me there, I am in my thirtieth year in a row now and I’ll get my thirty year pin on the nineteenth this year at the hospital, there will be a large award dinner for the employees and Jon and I will go together, maybe he can take my picture of me accepting my pen and I can put the picture in my story for you to see I hope so.
My cousin Dorothy Warren who was Dorothy Murry, but remarried has been writing me letters and has sent pictures of her and her children and grand children and I’ll have Jon enter their picture in my story also she lives in Ohio with her daughter April helping her out with her child that is Autistic, she also sent a picture of how much snow they have gotten.
All we have gotten in the last three weeks here is quite a lot of rain and a cold front has came in and it’s really cold today most likely in the 50’s. I hope this letter will bring you all up to date now on my story and you have enjoyed the reading of it, I’ll write, more as I get more information, but as of now the information I have written is the best I know and if anything isn’t correct I’ll change it later as I find out, but to the best as I have heard most of it is true maybe some names could be wrong that aunt Marjorie and Mother told me. But if they are I will get that fixed as I find out. God bless you and yours.
I had my retirement party on May 14th, 2010 and retired the 20th. I’ve been relaxing, scrap booking, and watching DVDs. I hope to do some crocheting again, I always had stayed busy and I will continue doing so. My granddaughter Leslie has been staying in my extra bedroom off and on, I got her a new window air conditioner so she will be comfortable. She’ll be fifteen soon, she has made a beautiful young woman and I enjoy her so much, she helps keep the house clean also as my arthritis has got so bad in my hands its hard for me to do much house work now that I’m older. Here's wishing my readers the best in life and keep the faith.
My brother Dave told us that Derik will be marrying Elizabeth on May 22, 2010. He had already bought them a home not too far from where he was in Plano, I believe he told me they met in church and have been dating for a good while. Cindy and Justin will be taking Jon and I to the wedding, they know that area better then we do. Andre and Leslie will be going with us, I’m not sure if Jeff or Kissy will be going. I will have Jon put their wedding picture into my story as soon as I get one.
Jon and I didn’t make it to Derik’s wedding, because I was sick with a sinus infection and was coughing too much and was afraid of messing up the wedding by my coughing, so we didn’t go, but Dave has sent beautiful pictures of the wedding, I’ll have Jon enter them into my story so all can enjoy the pictures of Derik and Elizabeth Pierson. Cindy, Justin and Andre didn’t get to go also, because Justin’s hand was swelled up and his knee was giving him problems also, he has been off work ill now for some time, I sure hope he gets well soon and gets back to work.
Above are pics of Derik and Elizabeth's wedding May 22.
Above are pics of my retirement party - in order are: my retirement cake, Elizabeth Hammons with her son Alexander and me with a picture, Shirley Marsh and me, Maria Mendez and me, Sue and Debbie, Cindy with Mrs. Square, Lemesa Bell and me, Christina and Amanda, Casey, Sister Rose and me.
Above are pics we took of David in Oct. 09.
In order: 1. Ron at 8 years. 2. Me and Ron. 3. Me, Ron, Jonathan and Justin, and Ron's mother. 4. Grandma French (Ron's mother) with the boys. 5. Ron and all his descendants left to right (Jonathan, Ron holding Katelyn, Leslie, Jeff holding John Wayne, Andre, Justin). 6. Mary (Ron's present wife) and Ron with Leslie (left) and Katelyn.
In order: 1. Daddy holding Jonathan and Justin, 2. Daddy with Jonathan, Justin, and baby Jeff, 3. Jonathan (mid left), Justin (back), and Jeff (mid right) with David's boys Leif (left) and Derik (right), 4. our family in 1994 from left to right (Cindy and Justin, Derik behind them, Jonathan, Mother, Dave and Melba, Leif, Daddy, Me, and Jeff - inset Andre)
In order: 1. Jeff, Me, and Jim. 2. Jonathan, Justin, Jim, Teresa, and her husband Tim
Above are Leif and Derik both holding Heidi.
Above are in order: Jon and Andre at fair, my crocheted afgan, three pictures of my crocheted dolls (Jon made Woody Woodpecker, Jeff in picture), Uncle Shirley with Mother and Aunt Laurene, Aunt Mittie with Mother and I.
Mary J Bowers, 2008-2009
Nov. 1, 2012 By Mary J. Bowers
I had been reading “My Story” tonight about my first born son David Shane that had to have four brain surgeries, two plates was placed inside his head and a shunt to drain off the fluid from his brain which left him paralyzed and blind. The Lord had spoke to me after He had filled me with salvation and the Holy Ghost to pray for David Shane and that He would heal him, that was on November 8th, 1962 and on Nov 9th, 1962 the Lord spoke to me to go and lay my hands upon David’s head and body and He would heal Him and I obeyed the voice of the Lord and when I prayed for David the Lord spoke, “David thou art healed.” and I look at his eyes and said, “but Lord he is still blind” and the Lord said “put your thumbs into his eyes” and the Lord said “David open thine eyes and ye shall see.” When I removed my hands David open his eyes and they were as clear and blue as the sky and he reached up and touched my face, he was healed, he could see, and he could move his whole body.
Tonight November 1st, 2012 the Lord spoke to me saying “you and Jon take your olive oil and go to Lufkin and pray for David I will release his bondage and he will walk and talk and he will be smart.” I began crying and thanking the Lord and Jon came in from Justin’s house and he had brought me some food to eat and I was crying and Jon couldn’t understand why I was crying and I told him “it is time that the Lord spoke to me for him and I to go to Lufkin and take the olive oil and anoint David Shane and what the Lord told me and Jon was so happy he didn’t know what to say. I ask when he was off and he said Saturday November 3 and I told him that is when we will go to Lufkin. It is now fifty years since November 9th 1962, when the Lord healed David Shane.
Dec. 2, 2012 By Mary J. Bowers “David Shane’s Anointing”
The Lord spoke to me around the 2nd of Nov. He said, “Take Jon and you to Lufkin and your anointing Olive Oil and anoint David, I am going to release his bondage and raise him up he will walk and talk and be smart.”
I told Jon what the Lord had told me, so we went to Lufkin on Nov. 10th, 2012 and I anointed David with the Olive Oil and spoke the words that the Lord had said to me, we took pictures and filmed him a short time in his wheel chair, he was sleepy from his meds, he still looked the same, his left eye was still goutched some, he didn’t have on his glasses, he was still crippled, his legs small and without muscles, his scars on his head from four brain surgeries his shunt and two plates inside his head, he didn’t speak any to us he just watched us a little then he went to sleep. We were inside his room I was setting on his bed and I seen a picture on his dresser of him and another picture of Jon, Justin, Jeff and Ron in a frame on his table beside me I am thinking of sending a picture of me and his brothers and the grand children all together Cindy has gave me one.
Justin called me a couple days ago and told me a vision he had, he said “I seen Shane just like he looks now, he was setting in his wheel chair and he took his right foot placed it on the floor and I seen muscles develop in his legs and they grew some he became taller then I seen him place his hands on his wheel chair and he raised himself up out of his wheel chair and he began walking, talking and he was smart.”