CLICK HERE FOR PORTRAITS OF FAMILY

Living in Battle Creek Michigan, William S. Davenport, a descendant of Byron Davenport, the founder of a large estate, had four sons and two daughters. One of his sons did not like farm work and after finishing college decided to take up the teaching profession in Michigan. On Saturdays he helped the local editor-printer publish a weekly newspaper. He became more interested in typesetting then teaching, so he resigned his school work and moved to Grand Rapids to learn the trade in a daily newspaper. After serving his apprenticeship, he received a Union Card in the Typographical Union. He then moved to New Orleans, La., and went to work on the New Orleans States. In a short time he was made foreman of the composing room.

This man was named Edwin Francis Davenport, and he was living in a boarding house owned by a widow, Mrs. Margaret Bolet. He fell in love with one of her daughters, Louise Victoria Bolet, and after a brief courtship were married in St. Louis Cathedral. (Marriage picture to right) After two years of happy married life they had a son, who was named Albert Byron Davenport; Albert after his mother's brother, and Byron after his own brother in Battle Creek Michigan. Two years later a daughter was born and was named Louise Margaret.

He resigned his job on the States and bought an interest in a weekly paper in Bessemer, Alabama, and here his second son was born, and they named him Edwin Francis Davenport, Jr.(See Pictures of Edwin Davenport to left)

The life of an owner of a country newspaper in a small town is good in some ways and not so good in other ways. People pay their subscription to the paper with eggs, butter, milk, produce and other farm products. So they had plenty to eat, and the stores that advertised let them take out in merchandise whatever they owed, so they had nice furniture and clothes. A big coal company ran big ads so they had plenty of fuel. They also had passes to all the shows and circuses that came to town, even passes from the railroads.

After five years in Bessemer he received an offer from The States to take his foremanship back. He left with his family for New Orleans so, as he said, he "could see and feel some money again." After a year, his third son came. He was named Louis Bolet Davenport. Louis was another brother's name, and Bolet was his mother's family name. (See picture of Edwin and Louis to right). When Louis was three years old, our father lost his job on The States and we moved to Pensacola, Florida. We lived there about two years where we went through a hurricane and spent the night in the post office building. We were all safe, but lost some in property damage.

We then followed our father to Charleston, South Carolina. He had a rented house awaiting us. We all liked Charleston, though the kids there called us Yankees. There are many historical things to see. You can see Fort Sumpter from the famous Battery or sea wall, and also many monuments and statues. While we were living there, we had the misfortune of going through an earthquake!

-2-
The earthquake occurred at night about nine thirty. There were three shocks at intervals of about five minutes. We had a window slam down and break and a few pictures that fell. Our two-story house shook and trembled, but it held together. The real damage was outside; water and gas pipes broken, big cracks in the pavement, and many brick buildings tumbled into the streets. There were few killed, but many injured.

Mr. W. Judson, my father’s partner in Bessemer, wrote him a letter asking him to come back and run the plant there, as he was getting old and wanted to retire. Dad decided to take another chance with the project so he left for Alabama, leaving the family to pack and follow him later. I was in the 5th grade in South Carolina, but they put me in the 7th when I entered school in Bessemer. Though the schools I had attended were way ahead in most studies, I had missed two years of arithmetic that the other students had, and this hurt me the balance of my school life.

The next summer, my sister Louise and my mother visited my aunt (Melanie Bolet Gutzeit, pictures to right), Mrs. C. X. Gutzeit, in San Antonio, Texas. My sister contracted Typhoid Fever and was seriously ill. My mother wired for us to come there. My father decided to leave at once. He told Byron and I to pack and crate the furniture and ship it to Texas; that he would get a job over there and we would live in Texas. He took Louis with him, and left the task of packing the household goods to Byron and myself. We did, and how! We had barrels and boxes to put dishes and books in. We started crating the rest of the furniture, Byron took the mirrors off the dressers and buffet and put them in between the mattresses and then crated the mattress. The moving man that took the stuff to the freight depot said he never saw as many crates in all his time. He said, “You’re shipping more lumber than household goods!” In those days they put your stuff in a freight car and held it until they had the car full, so it might be a week (or 3 months!) before your car left on the railroad. The railroad notified you of its arrival.

After visiting in San Antonio, and after Louise had fully recovered, we went to Beaumont where my Father had taken over the foremanship of the Beaumont Enterprise, the morning paper. They rented a large house; 2 stories and 20 rooms. They took in roomers and boarders. Most of the people worked on the paper. One of them was Teff Welborn and his bride Elsie. He was a monotype operator on the Enterprise. Also W. J. Slade, a telegraph operator, met and wooed my sister and later, they were married in that house. Byron fell in love with a French girl, Ethel Leger, and they were wed and lived in Beaumont. I had a job on the paper as galley boy. When my father had a run-in with the editor and resigned, he had an offer from The Times in El Paso, so we were on the move again. Mother played it smart this time: she sold all the furniture and took Lewis and I, and left for the west.

I was an apprentice on the Times composing room. My father didn't stay in El Paso but six months, and left for Temple, Texas. I stayed in El Paso and finished learning my trade. I was given a card before the allotted time was due. I drew a “traveler” and hit the rails with linotype. The operator was named J. Arthur Grant. This is not an easy life. This bumming it on freight trains was slow, dirty, bumpy and disagreeable and it didn't take long for me to get enough of it, so I headed for Beaumont. After Grant was accepted, (but I was turned down), by the Canadian Army, I tried to get into World War I. In the meantime, my father was living in Houston. I was surprised when I heard that my mother had another girl. They named her Coralie. In Beaumont, I roomed with Byron and Ethel, and showed up for work on both newspapers, getting 4 or 5 days a week. One night when I showed up at the Enterprise, the foreman told me I had a situation. During lunch time I ran over to the Journal to take my slug off the board and saw that I was hired straight up. That meant that I had 2 jobs, 6 days a week on both papers! Well, I held them both down for about 4 weeks when an extra sub showed up.

-3-
Ethel and I visited Houston to see the new baby Coralie. Ethel made over the new baby, as she and Byron wanted a child so much. My father told me he had an offer to go to Austin as a makeup and assistant foreman. He said he was going to accept it. He left the next day. In the meantime, Ethel and I were getting too friendly, and I decided not to go back to Beaumont before something serious happened to our platonic friendship.

I went to San Antonio after visiting the folks in Austin. I had a job in a commercial shop and not much experience with this kind of printing. The reason I lasted until after the Telephone Directory went to press was that the owner of the shop, Mr. Kirschell, was a friend of my uncle’s. Then I received a call from my Dad saying there was an opening on The Austin Statesman. I took it up at once, and came to Austin. There was a Mr. Grubb who was the foreman of the composing room, and he had a radical bunch of men working for him. Some of their nicknames would give a clue to what they were like: Dirty-shirt Williams, Hi-Ball DeCrocker and a guy they called “The Whip” Marshbanks and his brother “The Slugger,” were some of his crew. My Dad was the proofreader, and I was the make-up man. Mr. Grubb was a tyrannical sort of guy. He came to work each evening, laid a pistol on his desk and yelled out orders to different men. My father told me that the reason he carried a revolver was because one of the men he had fired recently, had pulled a knife on him and threatened to kill him. The man, Sam Hill, was still in town and was going to be at a chapel meeting the next day. They held the meeting in the back room of the Iron Front Saloon. I voted with the majority to reinstate him, much to the dismay of my dad and Mr. Grubb. They had proven that Mr. Grubb had turned the clock up five minutes, and then fired the man for being five minutes late to work. Hill never came back to his job. He said it was the principle of the thing that he wanted to prove.

Mr. Grubb invited me to his house to supper and I met his daughter, who was a real attractive outdoor girl. Annette and I went horseback riding and canoeing. About this time Byron had moved to Austin, and Ethel and her brother Leo were renting a few doors down the street from us on East First Street. (picture below is Ave E around 1930) Our next-door neighbors were the McGarritys, who had their niece from San Marcos visiting them. Their daughter, Imo Bess, about ten years old, introduced me to her aunt, Lillian Moore. I fell for her on the spot and made a date with her for that night. When I got home, mother told me that Annette had called. I was in a predicament! I had forgotten I had promised Annette to go someplace, so I called Leo and asked him if he wanted a date. He said yes, so we flipped a coin to see which one he would go with, and I got Lillian. Lillian and I hit it off like a pair of lovebirds. We had a date every evening. One night we took a boat ride on Lake Austin and the boat broke down at the head of the lake. We did not get home until 2 o'clock in the morning. Mac never believed our story that the boat had engine trouble, and he told "Citty," as he called Lillian, to pack up and go home. Every week on my day off I would take the train and go to San Marcos to see her. I was sort of a timid guy, and that was a brave thing for me to go to a boarding house full of girls and court her, but I never missed a week. Sometimes I went twice a week.

I received a letter from her telling me about her roommate, a girl named Secondina, and she wanted me to be real nice to her the next time I came up. Well, we decided to go boat riding. I guess I was too attentive to Secondina. When I looked back at Lillian, she was not smiling, so I decided to pull into the dock. I helped Secondina out and reached back to help Lillian, who informed me that she didn't need help. One of the laces from her high shoes caught on the boat, and the next thing she was in the water. I had to jump in, clothes and all, to pull her to shore. Secondina was convulsed with laughter as we made our dripping way back to the house. My suit shrunk so that I never wore it again, and Lillian gave me a pair of trousers from her brother, Tom, about three sizes too big. Then we went back to the Mill Dam to find my coat, which Lillian had been holding. Luckily, some man had retrieved it with a pole. I had my watch and ticket to get home, and we parted that night as true lovers forevermore.

-4-
Lillian lived in a boarding house operated by Mr. and Mrs. Tom H. Sevey. It was near The Southwest State Teachers College in San Marcos. Mrs. Sevey, on the day we fell in the river, was in Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, undergoing surgery for gallstones. After her recovery and return home, she told Lillian that her nurse at the hospital knew me. This was a queer turn of fate, for of all the nurses in San Antonio she would have the one that I used to go with when I lived there; a Miss Cunningham. Annie told her that her sister was going to marry a man from Austin named Ed Davenport. The nurse told her that I was once her beau!

I had asked Lillian to marry me but this was the first time that I had known that she had consented. I wanted to set the date for the next month, but after talking it over with Mrs. Sevey, we set the date for two months off; Christmas Day, 1915. I had Byron go with me to get our marriage license, as I was only twenty years old. Byron was my best man and Secondina was maid of honor. Miss Anna Clara Karnes played the wedding music, and Sam Moore turned the music at the piano for her. They had just met that day, and were married the next year.

We had a nice wedding and reception afterwards. My uncle and aunt from San Antonio, Mr. and Mrs. C. X. Gutzeit, and all of my family from Austin came. In fact, we all came over in my uncle’s new automobile, an Aspersion "Jack Rabbit." I think that BIG, shiny car took some of the attention from our wedding. It was late that night when we got back to Austin, and my mother said that she had the front room all fixed up for us, but my kid brother Louis had really fixed us up. He had taken the slats out of the bed and we fell, kerplunk, on the floor! That really embarrassed a couple on their first night. We left the next day for San Antonio to spend our honeymoon. My aunt had a few young couples over the first evening for a party, and the next day she hired a chauffeur and turned over the car to us to go any place we wanted. We had a swell time going to the parks, shows and shopping with a driver to take us wherever we desired.

-5-
The Gutzeits gave a New Years Eve party for us and invited a jolly crowd. We had a big time and lots to drink. But we got up early the next morning and left for Austin to look for an apartment. The first place we lived was on Trinity St., we had two rooms and a bath. It was furnished neat, but was real small. One Saturday night I got off about three o'clock and was walking home. The Statesman was on Seventh and Brazos Streets. I passed a bakery and they were making doughnuts. I bought a dozen and Lillian and I sat on the side of the bed and ate them while they were hot and oh, so good! The next day we had the worst case of indigestion anyone ever experienced. I asked the landlady to call a doctor, but she gave us both a glass of bicarbonate of soda and in a few hours we were all right. We stayed there about 2 months.

The next place we rented was on the 200 block of East Second Street, right off Congress Ave. We had an apartment on the 2nd floor with the entrance on an outside stairs and a long porch running the length of the building. Lillian contacted Typhoid Fever while we there. When she recovered we moved. I saw many men coming in there, and figured this was not the right environment for us.

Our next home was on Brazos Street across from the Capitol building. Mr. and Mrs. Fred Cobb were our new landlords. Mr. Cobb was a barber and the state champion chess player. He had his trophies on display in the living room of his house. We had the nicest apartment and real friendly people to associate with. He would spot me a rook or knight when we played chess. He also had some of the finest chessmen that I had ever seen. I think he let me win once in a while, so that I would play with him. I enjoyed watching him and some of the University Faculty play. We lived here about a year. Then we bought some furniture and rented a house on Spence Street. About 2 months later we moved about 3 blocks away to a nicer house on Taylor Street. The United States had declared war on Germany, and I had to register for the draft. Sam and I had made an agreement that if I was called, he would take care of Lillian, and if he were drafted, I would take care of Anna Clara.

-6-
Going back a bit, when we lived on East Second St. and Lillian had Typhoid Fever, I called Dr. Weller. He came up and examined her, and said it was a case of typhoid and ordered some medicine for her. He told me to give her a dose every two hours. He said the directions would be on the bottle. The medicine arrived, and on the package it said to take one teaspoon every two hours and follow with Castor oil. I gave her one and a half tablespoons, and four and a half tablespoons of Castor Oil. The next morning when the doctor came she was a good deal better, but she was awfully weak. The Doctor said the remedy was worse than the ailment and he was glad he didn't say take it in water, or I would probably gave her the medicine in the bathtub! Anyway she was o.k. by the next day.

I made application to join the Tank Corp, and was interviewed at the recruiting station. I was a little skinny guy, weighing only 110 pounds, and I think I failed my physical, because the Captain said I made 100 on my test. Anyway they told me I was subject to call, but never heard from them. Mr. Grubb resigned his job on The Statesman and Mr. Rowze made my Dad foreman. I was his assistant and make-up man, Byron was ad foreman, Abe Purcell, proofreader; Hugo Rauber, ad man; Jeff Gilbert, A. C Wright, J. B. TATE Sr. and Walter Bauerfeind were the linotype operators. Zeke Hunt was an apprentice and galley boy. Edmund Travis was the editor, and I will never forget an incident that happened one Saturday night. I had the paper all made up and ready to go to press with the Sunday morning edition, but the editorial page was held up because Travis was still writing the lead editorial. I had been in his office several times asking for the copy. He was drinking heavily. He strolled out to the composing room carrying his typewriter and threw it at the foreman and said, "Here is your editorial," and pied (mixed up the colors) on the page. I straightened up the type, and called Mr. A. C. Baldwina, a former editor and friend of Travis, and he clipped out an editorial for me to use. He thanked me for not calling Mr. Rowze, Travis was also thankful and apologized for his behavior, and we were close friends until he left the paper.

-7-
My dad, E. F. Davenport Sr., lived at 87 ½ East Avenue after moving from E. First St. Before Lillian and I were married, they had a large six-room house on a wide street (now it is The Interregional Highway). At that time there was a park in the center running the full length of each block. A bandstand occupied the park between 1st and Holly Streets. They conducted band concerts, and political rallies were held here before election campaigns. The children of the neighborhood enjoyed playing on the grass. We lived across the street from the folks, first on Spence and later on Taylor Street. The McGarritty's still were renting on East First. Byron and Ethel lived closer to town and had adopted a baby, Alice Louise, and they seemed to be getting along better. Her brother Leo had gone back to Beaumont. That spring Lillian's niece Ida Mae visited with us. Essie’s two boys, Willie and Herbert, came over a good deal, and my brother Lewis was a frequent visitor. (Picture to right is gathering at an Austin Park from Austin History Musuem)

We saved up enough money to make a down payment on our first home, 1302 East Second St, from Paul O'Simm’s real estate firm. He sold the notes and Mr. Haschke bought them. It was a five-room box house, brand new, and it was here that our first son was born. (above picture - 1302 E. 2nd taken in 2003) Lillian had a difficult delivery and Dr. Grandberry had to use forceps to take the baby. We named him Edwin Francis the 3rd. He weighed 7 pounds at birth but in a week weighed only 4 lbs. He could not nurse and Dr. Grandberry tried to force him to nurse. We called in another doctor and he recognized at once that the boy had a cleft palate, and ordered a special nipple from Chicago. Dr. R. V. Murray was our family physician from that time on. He would have operated, but had to build the child up, and a week or two later he was down with Erysipelas. His little head was inflamed and swollen. Dr. Murray said if he could get hold of some cranberries, he might affect a cure. After phoning and searching round town, he was informed that a woman in Manor might have some. He came back that night with the cranberries. He told me to hold the baby as he was afraid he would die in Lillian's arms. After using the berries on his head and wrapping it with gauze, his fever went down and he recovered consciousness, but the operation for the cleft palate had to be postponed.

-8-
We had taken E. F. III to a specialist and other doctors but something always came up to postpone his operation. Nowadays it is not considered much of an operation, but then it was considered a major one, and a bloody and serious surgery, and as his teeth started to come in, the doctors would not operate at all. When he was two years old, Lewis Byron, our second son was born.

One of the worst things we had to put up with E. F. and his impediment was not to let him know that he was different from anyone else. But when we visited San Marcos, Mrs. Sevey would take him around the neighborhood and tell him to open his mouth so curious women could see his cleft palate. This of course made him over-conscious of his ailment.

When he was 10 or 11 years old we took him to a dentist, who made him an upper plate, but he never was able to wear it. After going back to the dentist for many fittings over the span of 18 months, he finally abandoned the idea. It cost over $200.00. Before he got married the second time, he had Dr. Tommy Caldwell make him another plate, but he would not keep it in his mouth long enough to get used to it, and so that project went down the drain.

During the 1st World War, we, like other places, were short of men at the newspaper office. Marsh and Fentress had bought The Statesman and combined it with The American and published both papers in one plant. I was getting all the overtime I wanted. With bigger checks each week, we raised our standard of living. We traded our home for one a great deal nicer on Guadalupe Street near the University. Also our first automobile was a Chevrolet 490. My brother Lewis had joined the navy and spent his furlough with us on North Guadalupe. Brush, the salesman who sold us the house explained that the higher payments we were making would cut the interest down sooner but if the payment got too stiff on us he would write another contract and cut the payments down. After the men came back from the war and I was not getting any overtime I asked for a reduction in payments on the house. Mr. Brush did not recall the statement and as we had nothing in writing, we had to sacrifice the home, but we kept the car.

-9-
After we gave up our home on N. Guadalupe Street we rented a house off the Manor Ready Lafayette Street, back of the Catholic Cemetery. Also, the Brush Realty Co. had given us a lot on Avenue F in Hyde Park. Lillian wanted to trade it in on a house somewhere else, as she didn't like the location. We took the lot in for $1,100 equity, and could not get that much in a down payment. After living on Lafayette St. about 6 months, we moved to Hyde Park on Avenue E, a block from our property out there.

We had purchased another Chevrolet 490. Chevy #1 had come to an unusual end. Coming home from Waco by myself, I was held up by a construction crew building a culvert. They were piling up gravel and rock on each side of the approach. They motioned to me to come on. There was a string of cars behind me and I was the first one to test the new roadway, but when I got on the top, the sand and rocks started sliding, and the Chevy ended up at the side of the road, at the bottom. A big rock was on the seat beside me, I was lucky I was not injured. The workmen tied a chain to the car and hauled it up sideways. We examined the car all over and the foreman said they would pay for any damage, but the engine started and the car drove perfectly, so I continued the journey home. Just as I was pulling into the driveway at home, the frame broke in two. Instead of junking the car, I dragged it in the back yard and sold parts off it. I made more this way then I could have gotten at the junkyard!

Chevy #2 was a later model. We made many trips in it to San Marcos and San Antonio, and many a fishing trips. Lots of times at night we would hear the fire engine sirens, we would wrap E. F. and Lewis in blankets and take out for the fire, or if it was an ambulance we would go to the accident. Uncle Sam had a "Baby Grand" Chevrolet, that would be compared to the Impala today. I had a friend, Walter Bauerfeind, who worked with me on the paper who had a Dodge Brothers Dodge, and he was a good country boy mechanic. He saved me many repair bills on my car and I would help him work on his. There was also Frank Boyd who owned an Overland. He was a member of our gasoline alley, too. Byron had a Model-T Ford, uncle Tom in San Marcos had a Krit, and uncle Charlie owned an air-cooled Reo.

-10-
My father (picture to left) and mother had moved from East Avenue to a house they were buying in Hyde Park on Avenue D. Byron also was buying a home in the north part of town on 32nd Street. They had an adopted daughter, Alice Louise. Coralie, E.F., and Lewis were playmates living only 2 blocks apart. Dad had suffered a partial stroke and had retired as foreman of The Statesman. He was getting his I.T.U. pension. He went into the rubber stamp business for a while, and Lewis and I helped him at night. He made arrangements with a small printing firm to use their plant and type for his business. He eventually sold out to the proprietor of the print shop.

I decided to build on my lot in Hyde Park. Kuntz-Stannberg Lumber Co. financed the deal and got us a contractor, Ernest Parker. My idea was to build a cheap house and try to sell it or trade for another home, but Lillian came out with me and decided she liked the place and had some suggestions for its construction, so when the place was finished, we moved in. It was beside a creek or branch with a big tree stump in the middle, and when it rained, the brush and trash washed down to the stump and it would flood our back yard. Lewis, back from the Navy, said he had a plan to remove it. So on New Year’s Eve at 12:00 when the celebration was in full blast, he pulled a switch that set off a pipe filled with dynamite planted under the stump. It rained pieces of wood all around the neighborhood, but the stump was gone and we never had any more flooding.

Lewis had a job as an apprentice with Andrawatha Electric Company, and he put base plugs all through our house as a Christmas present. He later got a job bending pipe at Emery Mine near Burnett. My dad went back to the trade, and had a position as proofreader on the Oklahoman in Oklahoma City. He wrote to Mother, telling her to rent the house and move out there. Lewis had bought a 490 Chevy and he, Mama & Coralie, drove to Oklahoma. In those days, that was a three-day trip! They had an accident at Italy, Texas on their way, so Lewis sent Mama and Coralie on the bus and he drove the wrecked car the rest of the way, arriving almost a week later.

-11-
On a previous trip to Oklahoma City from Austin, Lewis and I had two Chevrolets, same model and year, we also had a junked Chevy that we used parts from. We carried extra springs, a transmission and four spare tires.

We left Austin Saturday evening, June 20, 1925 and spent the night at Grand View, Texas. We arrived at Fort Worth Sunday night. We spent the night at Bowie crossing the Red River. Monday morning we went to Comanche Ok., and spent the rest of the day fixing flats and working on our cars. The party consisted of Mrs. and Mrs. Ed Davenport, my parents Mr. and Mrs. E.F. Davenport Sr., my brother Lewis B., my sons, E. F. 3rd and Lewis Byron Davenport, and my sister Coralie.

It took us 5 hours to travel 20 miles through the loose sand in the Red River bottoms. The only paved roads were in the cities and towns. Some of the gravel roads were passable good, but we found many that were real bad. The cars became overheated and we had little water, so we would stop and let them cool off. We hit the worst part that night. The open flywheels would pump the sand all over the engine and through the floorboards. I was fixing my gearshift, when we heard the cry of a coyote or panther. Lewis yelled for me to hurry up and get moving, as it sounded spooky out there at night.

We spent Monday night at Chickasha, Okla. What we thought was a camping grounds turned out to be a cemetery in the morning! We mistook the white tombstone for tents. I know we would not have slept that night if we had known where we were. We arrived in Oklahoma City about 4:00 in the afternoon on Tuesday.

We spent the night in the Winn Hotel, and after working on our cars, the next day started on return trip. We left Oklahoma City Wednesday night and made Shawnee, where we camped out for the night. We left early the next morning and stopped to rest and eat at Sulphur. We made Woodsville Oklahoma that evening after being stopped by a sheriff who mistook us for bootleggers! We stopped at a hotel while he searched our cars. Then we crossed the Red River. Our next stop was Sherman, Texas. Dallas, and Temple, Texas were overnight stops. We got home Sunday night.

-12-
Byron and Ethel had moved back to Beaumont, but were not getting along very amicably, and finally got a divorce. Byron took Alice Louise with him in his Model T Ford and came to Austin. Coralie and Alice Louise were the same size and played together, but Byron wanted to take Alice Louise to her grandparents in Waco; how he found out their identity I never knew. While in Waco he met Myrtle Evans and after a short courtship they were married.

Myrtle's family consisted of her mother, father and brother Ernest. Mr. and Mrs. Evans were an odd couple. Mrs. Evans always had a job and Mr. Evans was always looking for a situation. Byron moved to Cleburne and Mrs. Evans followed them there, where she went to work in the Cleburne Department Store. Myrtle never had much love for Alice Louise; she dressed her in black dresses so she would not have much washing. When Myrtle became pregnant with her first child, she got Byron to take Alice Louise to the Waco Orphanage. The grandparents refused to assume custody of the child, as they had disowned their daughter, Alice Louise's mother. Myrtle and Byron had 2 children, Albert and Dorothy.

Byron and Mrs. Evans didn't get along so well. She was bossy and overbearing. Byron tried to get away from her and moved to Sherman, but it was not very long until his mother-in-law showed up there and got a job and moved in on them again. Byron quit his job and moved to Bonham, Texas. Byron said Mrs. Evans had the best job in Sherman that she had ever held, and he did not think that she would come to Bonham, but a month later she was there. Her side of the story differed from Byron's. She claimed that they were irresponsible and unable to take care of themselves, and that she had sacrificed herself to take care of them and manage their household. They all moved to Tucson. Arizona. Byron build a house for Mrs. Evans and one for Mr. Evans in his backyard, as they were not on speaking terms. So, he solved his problem somewhat with three houses on the same lot.

-13-
My brother Lewis worked for Andrawatha Electric Co. My father was the proofreader on the Oklahoma, in Oklahoma City. Lewis and I planned a camping vacation on Bluff Springs. We found a good site and put up 2 tents and an open fireplace. We had several trout lines out. The party consisted of Mother, Lewis, Coralie, Lillian, E. F. and little Lew. I had only one week of vacation, and Lewis worked every day and came out in the evening. When the week was up we stayed on. We left the womenfolk and kids out there and went to work each morning. We enjoyed the outdoors and the kids had a great time. We camped out until they had to go to school.

I had one harrowing experience that I will never forget. Coralie and Frank were out swimming when they got out in deep water and started shouting for help. I had my bathing suit on and rushed over to help them. They were on the side of a steep bank. I got a hold of E. F. and pushed him to the bank and went back for Coralie and got her to the bank, but E. F. trying to climb up the bluff, slid back into the water, and I had to go back for him. When I had him safely on shore, Coralie had slipped back into the creek. This went on until I was totally exhausted. I held them both on the side of the bluff until I could get enough strength back to help them up the hill, which was very slippery. I had to dig in the clay to get a hold.

Another experience was on a Saturday. It rained all day and we were planning to pack up and leave the next day. I worked on Saturday night and Lewis had rigged up a can on a float so he could tell how high the creek was rising. We had camped on a knoll of high ground, but if the creek rose very much higher, we would be on an island! I came in about 3:00 and the water was just getting ready to go over the road. I woke them up, and yelled for them to start packing, but my mother said she had to have her coffee before she could do anything. She went ahead and brewed her coffee, while we were excitedly packing up our gear. She was always calm in times of disaster, and we made it out of there by the skin of our teeth. But we had spent an enjoyable summer and we all felt better.

-14-
This chapter is about our venture in the boarding house business.

There was a big, 2-1/2 story house for rent on 19th and Guadalupe. Mr. and Mrs. Tom Sevey had run a boarding house in San Marcos for many years and Lillian had helped them, so she was qualified to handle this sort of thing. Except we were going to rent to boys, and at San Marcos, the normal school was mostly girls. Anyway, we rented our home on Harper Lane and took over the boarding house. We started off with a bang. We had 22 paying students and two that were working for their board, waiting on the tables and helping around the building. These boys were all freshman, and the first month seven of them flunked and went home. We were just about breaking even with 13 paying customers. Our boys all had nicknames; they were called by the state they came from. We had a Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, New York, Idaho and two from Texas. It was one big boisterous party after another, with excitement and noise all hours of the day and night. They made Lillian and I part of their fun and folic, and we enjoyed it. They ganged up on one of the boys who they did not think bathed enough and forcibly put him into the bathtub with all his clothing on. They once took two boys’ bed out through a dormer window and set it up on the roof, with sheets and blankets all made up. They had to get a rope to let it down two stories and carry it back through the house. The second month, five more failed their courses and went home. With just eight boys and one not paying, we were bankrupt, losing money each week. We found a smaller house on Nueces St, but we were so far in debt by now that we ran the house for the rest of the semester, and sold our furniture. This was where we took a beating. The second-hand furniture people gave us 50 cents for a mattress that we paid $15 for, and $1.50 or $2.00 for beds and tables that cost us ten times that amount. I owed Wuckash Grocery Co. $300.00, and it took me three years to pay it back. So, our venture did not turn out so well. (The house pictured was taken in 2003 of the only house remaining in the block ~ 1800 Guadalupe)

-15-
There was one other incident that had happened when we were in the boarding house I would like to relate. In the spring we took all the stoves out of the rooms and stored them under the house. They were commonly called trash burners. Any way the kids stuffed some paper into them and lit them. The smoke came up between the walls and poured out the sides of the roof. Someone had called the fire department, and all of Austin's firefighting equipment responded. I was extinguishing the paper in the stoves when one of the firemen came in the basement and told me, "If you don't whip those boys, I will!" I did, because I didn't want him to beat them.

After the boarding house fiasco, we were sorely in debt, and Lillian, always a good sport, decided to help by taking a camp house at Deep Eddy. We had two rooms and a bath. The boys slept on cots in the kitchen, but in all of their life, they had the best time out there, more than in any place we had lived. They could go in the swimming pool anytime they wanted, and had plenty of places along the river to play.

Out at Deep Eddy, they did not get into much trouble. One of their favorite pastimes was playing politics. We took them to all the local political rallies, and they would imitate the candidates they had heard orating for County and State offices. Frank would be Judge Archer and Lewis his opponent; I think it was Jack Roberts at the time. Sometimes they would have wrestling matches. E.F. would be the radio announcer, the referee and one of the wrestlers, all at the same time. After spending the summer there we finally got our house back on Harper Lane. It had been rented for over 18 months. We had a lot of painting and repairing to do. All of the neighborhood welcomed us back home. The Spillars had sold the house next door to the Schaffers who were our neighbors for many years. The Buck Boys were E. F's friends, Bill Woodman was Lew's pal, also the Caldwell boys, Tommy, Malcolm and Jesse. Buck's mother was married to Joe Bailey at that time, and lived across the street. His grandmother Mrs. Brennan lived up on the hill in back of us.

(Picture to right was taken in 1929 of Louise and Edwin Francis Davenport Sr., E.F.III, and Lewis Byron Davenport in front of Davenport's Confectionery & Drug Store located at 1109 Rio Grande St. Austin, Texas)

-16-
Zeke Hunt came to work one morning with his jaw swollen and remarked that he had a toothache. The next day my jaw was swollen too, but I didn't have a toothache. I had the mumps, and I gave them to E. F. and Lewis, and then Lillian came down with them. She was pregnant and had a miscarriage. She gave birth to a six-month boy who lived only one day. Dr. Murray was overseas and he had old Dr. Bailey, who made no attempt to save him. If Dr. Murray were there he would have put him in an incubator.

Afterwards, Lillian went to Dr. Weller, who had returned from the war for a minor operation. He told her that she would not be able to have any more children. But ten years later she conceived again. Dr. Murray had returned from overseas, and was our family physician. Lillian had got along nicely until about the 7th or 8th month. She started having trouble with her kidneys. Dr. Murray diagnosed it as Bright's Disease, and called me down to his office. He explained her condition to me, and said it may come to pass that he would have to take the baby if it did not clear up soon. He said he knew that I was once a Catholic, and their views were to save the child at the expense of the mother. I told him that was not my conviction, and if he had to take the baby to save my wife, to do it whenever he felt it was necessary.

But her tests started improving, and on December 7th, 1929 Lillian gave birth to a 6 1/2 pound boy, Sam Moore Davenport. Dr. Murray was so pleased at the outcome of the case that he kicked over one of the brick pillars in front of the house while he was talking to me on the front porch. He said the Bright's Disease would clear up permanently, and the baby was not affected in the least by it. Sam was born in the bedroom of 103 Harper Lane, and we had the same Negro woman midwife that brought our other children in the world. Women did not go to the hospital in those days, and I realize now how much better are these modern days.

E. F. was 12 years old and Lewis was 10 years old when Sammy was born. I was 34 and Lillian, 33.

-17-
Going back, we were living on East 2nd Street when Frank was 2 years old and Lewis was 4 months, when this incident happened: Our next door neighbors were a young married couple expecting their first baby. Lillian and Mary were good friends and she was over at the house, or Lillian was at hers, most of the time. Then on the day she was about to be delivered, her husband left for Manor to get her Mother. He had already called the doctor. It was pouring down rain and the wind was very high. Lillian was with Mary, and I was home taking care of our babies. E. F. was asleep and Lew was taking his bottle. Lillian came running in with a raincoat on, and said Mary was in terrible pain, and would I call the doctor again. Then she ran back over there. The telephone was dead; the wires were probably blown down, and the storm was getting worse. I wondered why Joe and his mother-in-law were not here. He had plenty of time to go to Manor and back. Lillian came back and said Mary was giving birth to the baby with the buttocks coming first, and she would never be able to give birth that way. She wanted me to see if I could turn the infant around. Both of our kids were asleep, so I went over and Lillian made me wash my hands in scalding water. She told me to push it back and see if I could turn it. My hands kept slipping off, and in between her pains I got it to move and by a steady pressure on the top of the baby, it turned and the head started to emerge. Poor little Mary was screaming at top of her lungs, but Lillian held her head and told her it would be over soon. Lillian took the baby and greased it with Vaseline, then took the afterbirth and cut the navel cord, and tied it. I took the afterbirth out the back. Then I fixed Mary a hot toddy, which seemed to revive her. Lillian brought the little boy over so his mother could see him. She told me to go home and check on the children. It was still raining but not so hard.

Then Joe and Mary's Mother drove up. I went back and Lillian said Mary told them what we had done. Her mother said we should have waited until the doctor had arrived. Joe said his car got stuck on a mud road and he had to walk in the rain to get help to pull him out. Joe drove over to the Johnson Store but his telephone was dead, too. Some man in the store said he was going to town and he would get in touch with the doctor. After about an hour the Dr. came. He praised our efforts and said Mary and the baby would not be alive if we had not taken over when we did. He examined the baby and said he was a perfectly normal, and he left a prescription for Mary. Mary's mother treated us very coolly, but Mary and Joe were very grateful and thanked us profusely, saying they were going to name the baby after us.

-18-

THE FLOOD OF 1936

The water was up to the steps of our back porch on Harper Lane, and all the neighborhood was evacuating their homes. We carried most of our furniture up to the Woodman's place on the hill in the next block. Bill Woodman's father carried our Frigidaire on his back; no small feat for a man of his age. Lillian, Sammy and I went across the river to my mother's place on West Sixth Street and spent the night. It rained all night. Early the next morning we went to the swollen riverbanks and watched the torrents come down the river.

The Sunday paper had a long story on the flood and said the Davenport's house had slipped off the bluff in South Austin. Lillian was real upset and was worried about Frank and Lewis. All telephone lines to South Austin were down and the Congress Avenue bridge was under water, but the I.G.N. railroad bridge was higher than the crest of the flood. Frank and Lewis walked over the bridge and came out to the house and told us that our house was still standing above the water, but it had flooded the basement, and that Buck and Bill rowed a boat and tied it to our back steps.

It was several days before we could drive over the only passenger bridge we had in Austin. The old Montopolis Bridge was declared unsafe for travel and had to be repaired before they could open it for traffic. The flood did over a million dollars of damage in Austin and Travis County. There were many homes washed down the river and lots of places were flooded. Of course, when they completed the Mansfield Dam, this flood control device saved the city and county many dollars in future floods.

We had to haul all of our furniture back to the house and had a great deal of work to do. One bedroom set was ruined by water as the plywood came undone from the dampness. We lost some of our things.