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Photo Information by
Noel Parsons |
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Dear Jerry,
I was delighted
this afternoon to run across your Horntown website, which I
found during my browsing through the Hughes County genealogy
pages. It seems we have a connection through that little country
crossroads in east central Oklahoma.
What really
caught my attention was the historic photos--especially
those of the Horntown store when Mr. Horne and Mr. Hawthorne
owned it in the twenties and of the store in the forties. My
grandfather, J. B. "Jim" Atkinson, owned the store all
during the thirties. I believe Granddad sold the store about
1939 or 1940. Do you know who your father bought the store
from, or who bought it from my granddad? Do you have any
knowledge of that chronology?
My dad,
Roy Parsons, had lost his job with the gas company in
Blackwell when the Depression started, so he and Mom and
my sister, who was just a baby, moved to Horntown about
1933. Dad worked for Granddad at the store, and Mom
taught at Moss school from 1935 up through spring 1940.
There were two houses behind the store. My grandfather
and grandmother lived in one with my two aunts, and my
parents and sister lived in the other. My folks moved
into Holdenville in 1941, and I was born there in
December that year.
Grandmother,
Georgie Russell Atkinson, later remarried, to Floyd Shed,
and moved to Holdenville, but she remained a member of the
Horntown Baptist Church the rest of her life. I remember,
when I was a youngster in the late forties and early
fifties (during the time your dad was running the
store!), going out to Horntown with Grandmother for Sunday
evening services and revivals, some of them held under a
brush arbor on the east side of the church building. What
wonderful singings they had then. I wish I had a recording
of those simple country voices singing out the old hymns.
I have photos of
the inside and outside of the store from the early 1930s and
then from the late '30s, after it was remodeled. I also have
individual student photos of the Moss fourth-grade classes of
1936-38 and group photos of the fourth-grade class of 1938
and of the seventh-grade class of 1940, all of whom Mom taught.
I'd be happy to scan them and send them to you as JPGs if you'd
like to include them on your website.
Best wishes,
Noel Parsons
Lubbock
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