52 Ancestors #20 and #21 - Albert and Pauline Hill Sowders: My Jailbird Parents

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Amy Crow has posted a challenge on her blog "No Story Too Small".

I missed a week of posting. This week I'm bending the rule a little and posting two on one page. My Parents are Albert Herring Sowders and Pauline Hill (aka. Polly).

We were browsing through photos one day when I found a photo of Mama and Daddy in jail. Inquisitive me had to know the entire story from start to finish. (I knew the "who" but wanted to know - where, when, how, and why!)

 

       

 He said:

 I knew your mother most of my life. I actually "hung out" with her older sister first but we didn't "court". We were just friends and enjoyed "hanging out"  together. She married her "beau" while I was in the military.

 Your mother was very young when I enlisted in World War II. I enlisted in 1941 and was discharged in 1945. The closest the military could get me to home was Dallas,Texas. I contacted your mother's sister in Dallas and she agreed to pick me up at the Dallas bus station and take me home to Kosse,Texas.

                                               

 She said:

Your daddy was twenty-five when he went into the military. I was only fourteen and still in school. Men were the last thing on my mind at the time.

The day he contacted my sister to meet him at the bus station, my sister asked if I would like to go with her. I said "sure" as I had nothing else on my agenda for the day.

I had just turned eighteen and he was twenty-nine.


     

He said:

I was in for the "shock of my life" when they showed up at the bus station. "That little girl from down the street had grown into a very beautiful woman".

Her sister drove. I sat in the front seat. Your mother sat in the back. I kept turning around to look at her.

"I couldn't take my eyes off her."


   

      She said:

      "Your daddy was so handsome." Every time he turned around I would smile. I wondered why my      
       sister had not "snatched him up when she had the chance".

      We took him home but it was not long until he showed up on my doorstep.
      We saw each other daily.

      Our "whirl-wind romance that lasted a whole three weeks".


   

They said:

We married at the Groesbeck Courthouse in Limestone County, Texas on July 27,1945.

We spent the night at the Cynthia Ann Parker Motel which was located a few miles north of Mexia, Texas.

The next day we drove into Dallas and attended the State Fair. We rode rides, ate cotton candy, and watched the stock show.

We stopped by a photo booth and had our photo taken.

You could say we became officially "locked" into matrimony at the photo booth.




Albert Herring Sowders is the fifth child of Virgil Elmer and Martha Elizabeth Harper Johnston Sowders. He was born January 13, 1917 in Kosse, Limestone, Texas. He pursued many interests in life including farming, military, ordained minister, truck driver, carpenter, mechanic, and supervisor. He was a great husband and father who devoted his life to his family.

Pauline Hill is the daughter of Albert Josiah and Minnie Lee Williams. She was born May 16, 1927 in Rosebud, Falls, Texas. Her interests in life included playing the guitar and piano, church secretary, seamstress, waitress, and assembly work. She was a wonderful wife and mother. She always put us first in her life.

My parents were married thirty-two years.

1916-1991

1927-1976

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