Nancy Flewellen Howard – Welcome, all y'all.

An Excerpt from Ryland Howard’s 42 page account of his trip to Normandy in 2019

The following was written by Alfred Ryland Howard’s son Ryland Howard in 2019.

This is an excerpt from my 42 page account of my trip last year. As if you had not heard enough.
I certainly enjoyed enough with my time with M. V.
By then the afternoon was well along, my car was low on fuel, and I was planning to drive by Blosville, a small town not far away on the main road from Carentan through Ste Mere Eglise. In reviewing my father’s service records, I had discovered where he was first interred (or last interred in Normandy). It was a US cemetery for temporary burial of the soldiers who died in Normandy. There were three of them. Two were near Ste Mere Eglise, and this one was near Blosville. In Blosville, I asked where the cemetery might have been. I was given good directions. Close to the turn outside of town, I gassed up and asked the nice young lady attendant where I would find the location of the cemetery. I was almost there – la prochaine gauche, prenez la route, et c’est tres proche a gauche (very close). I did and there was the monument, flanked by the French flag and the US flag. In the field that lay beyond the monument, 6,000 men had been buried, awaiting final disposition of their remains after the war ended. Now there was just a beautiful, large Norman field, with cows in the distance and the house and barns of a typical farmstead. There was no one there, just peace. It was so peaceful. It was so appropriate. It was sacred ground, but had returned to its bucolic origins.

Well, it was possible that he was originally buried nearer the battle site, along with all the others who died near Mont Castre, but this was the definite last resting place in France. Some time later, between 1948 and 1950, my father’s remains were repatriated, at the wishes of his mother and father, to the family plot in the venerable Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, north of Buffalo Bayou. When I would stay in Houston with my grandparents over Easter, my grandmother Howard would take me over, we would purchase an Easter Lily, and place the flowers at my father’s, grave, the resting place of their eldest son.

Gene Helm Ince, Nancy Clark Ince Darden and Elizabeth “Bessie” Clark Helm

Thanks for the photos from our cousin Gary Helm Darden Ph.D.

Gene Helm Ince - Engagement Photo 1933 — Gene Helm Ince – Engagement Photo 1933

Nancy Clark Ince Darden at UT in the late 1950s

Elizabeth "Bessie" Clark Helm as an infant ca. 1884-85 — Elizabeth “Bessie” Clark Helm as an infant ca. 1884-85

Eugenia Howard Hunt’s memory of Alpine, Texas – January, 1945

All y’all.

I have a cache of Jeana’s journals. This account is from a steno book she wrote in San Francisco and Marin California in the early 1960’s. Sperry

It was in the middle of a dry, freezing winter we first came to Alpine. It was in Jan. of 1945. Robin and Grainger had been ill in Houston. Lalu was healthy excess baggage and Annie, our beloved housekeeper, came with us. Mother came along because we had been relegated to a wild, high, uncivilized spot. The fact that it was on route route of the South[ern] Pacific Railroad, highway 90 to California and had a state teacher’s college, had no bearing on the matter. Mother had never heard of Alpine. Mother [Nancy Flewellen Howard] had never seen Alpine. Those facts took it out of the civilized world. So along she came. Gasoline rationing for war times made five hundred and fifty miles too many for our gar ration books. We traveled by train. My father [Dr. Alfred Philo Howard] was chief surgeon of the Missouri Pacific. That lent further primitive attributes to this foreign spot. As the six of us alighted in the onslaught of a dust-laden Alpinian winter night. I though mother was going to turn “The Sunset Limited” around on the tracks and return us all to Houston. The wind lashed at us with an icy ferocity – and skin, mouth and eyes dried out on that moment.

Not a living creature was in sight. Our heavy grips, a round dozen of them, were sitting between the tracks. I can’t remember a lighted spot. I’m sure there was. Here came a car, a lovely Spanish-speaking couple alighted, and helped us to the hotel, just out of gracious kindness. But their Spanish accent terrified Mother who thinks anyone who doesn’t speak southern Texas is a suspect who is intent on immediate murder. Any foreign language spoken in her presence is a silly pretense. She feels they are shutting her out from something she definitely know. She feels the same way about scientific discussions. She will not put up with it. She makes fun of anyone who is interested in something she is not. She feels she is absolutely normal and that on one else should be otherwise.

She is adorable once you understand these facts.

[To read more of Jeana’s excellent letter click on the Read More link below:]
Continue reading “Eugenia Howard Hunt’s memory of Alpine, Texas – January, 1945”

The Howard House at 3608 Audubon in Houston

This is a picture of cousin Ryland Howard in front of our grandparents’ house in 2016. It was taken by his lovely daughter Isabel who graciously sent it to me. This is my reply to her.

Isabel,
I’ve been past it myself. It’s a law firm now. There was an air conditioned porch on the south side (to the left). Dr. Howard, Dal or Daddy Philo as people called him, sat there every day as an old man. He listened to the [baseball] game and played pitch with me using enormous cards. Diabetes hurt his vision. He ate figs and spoke very little. The house was originally a block to the south on West Alabama. My dad and I weathered out Hurricane Carla at his house with Nannie Mine and him. I was about 13. Chunks of the palm trees from the median blew down the street. My mom said many of her older relatives passed away in the house. As a girl she and her friends pulled old clothes out of trunks in the attic and put on plays with them. Our grandmother was very wise and good with money. Her mother died when she was little. She live with her mom’s sister who married a man who adopted her and left her and her sister Bessie land. Nannie Mine’s was “the farm” in Chambers County.

Much love,
Sperry

[See other post about Dr. Howard and baseball. Also, the name Hunt on the awning is strictly divine comedy.]