Moses Feeds
April 22, 2024 - “Straight up the hill beyond the gate to Timpson's Woodlawn Cemetery, there stands a small lone marker off to the left. The inscription reads 'Fannie Russell, December 2, 1833 – March 8, 1921, Asleep in Jesus.' She was my great-great-grandmother,” began Tad Bailey's talk to the April monthly meeting of the Timpson Area Genealogical and Heritage Society last Wednesday. “She was born Fannie Simpson in Mississippi and later married John Moses, by whom she had a number of children, including my great-grandfather, Joseph Aaron Moses. John Moses died in 1870 and in 1872 Fannie married Russell Gibson, twenty-five years her senior, in Nacogdoches. He died in the 1880s and about 1910 she came to live in Timpson.”
“Joseph Aaron Moses was born in Nacogdoches County in 1866. His father died when he was four and his mother re-married when he was six. Nothing is known of his relationship to his step-father but by the mid-1880s he was teaching school in the Timpson area. One of his students was a pretty teenager named Ida Franks, whom he married in 1894 when she was 18 and he was 28,” continued Bailey. “The Moses built a large single-story frame house on two lots on the corner of South Second Street (now Bear Drive) and Grand in Timpson in 1901. Joe had opened a feed store on Austin Street and later served as Timpson ISD Tax Collector. A life-long Mason, he was Worshipful Master of the Timpson Lodge from 1906 until 1909, in 1912, and again in 1924. Joe died in 1947 and Ida lived in their house until her death in 1960. The property remains in the family to this day.”
“The Moses' first child, Grace, was born in 1895” Bailey said. “She attended Timpson schools and later married William Tartt in Timpson. They moved to Houston where Will worked for the telephone company until his retirement. They had three children; James, who worked for Halliburton, Judith Ann who married a soldier from Minnesota but made a Texan out of him, and Raymond who was killed in the Korean War. Will died in 1969 and Grace in 1981.”
“Aaron Burnett Moses was born to Joe and Ida in Timpson in 1898. He was a good student and won a state championship in Declamation. He was the second boy to become an Eagle Scout in Texas. After graduation in 1917, he married Ruby Harrison of Gibbsland, Louisiana. They had three children; Elisabeth, my mother, born in 1920, Reginia in 1922, and Aaron Burnett Jr. (“Sonny”) in 1930. He became a Baptist minister, serving churches throughout East Texas with Ruby at his side playing the piano. He was fascinated by machines and became a skilled woodworker and significantly less skilled welder, building much of the furniture in the Moses home, as well as lawn furniture, barbecue grills, lawnmowers, and edgers. He severed the middle finger on his right hand with a band saw. An amateur inventor, he held two patents,” Bailey revealed. “Hardly a typical Baptist preacher, he smoked Picayune cigarettes, read True and Argosy magazines, and drank Cokes instead of coffee. He died of a heart attach while the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Chandler in 1956. Ruby returned to Timpson, where she taught piano lessons for years, dying in 1982.”
“The Moses' third child, Golda, born in 1902, cut a fairly wide swath through Timpson society in her youth. Attractive and vivacious, she loved high fashion, art, and parties. She married Leonard Bryan of Timpson and they had a son, Leonard Edward Bryan in 1925. That marriage failed aand she later married Lloyd Andrews in Dallas and he adopted Leonard. Golda continued to paint and sculpt, frequently visiting artist colonies in Taos and San Miguel. She developed a reputation as a skilled portrait artist in Dallas. Leonard E. B. Andrews was a pilot during the Korean War, later becoming successful in publishing, and finally settling in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. His neighbor in Pennsylvania was the famed artist Andrew Wyeth, son of N. C. Wyeth and father of Jamie Wyeth. After a friendship developed between Wyeth and Andrews, Wyeth revealed the existence of a series of more than 250 painting and drawings he had done of another neighbor, Helga Testorf. Andrews realized the importance of the Helga pictures and was eventually able to convince Wyeth to sell the entire lot to him in 1986 for around $6,000,000,” Bailey shared. “Andrews then publicized the collection, creating a 'coffee table' book of them and arranging a series of exhibitions of the works in major cities, including The National Gallery of Art. The existence of the collection made world-wide news and was featured on the cover of Time and Newsweek simultaneously, He eventually sold the collection to a Japanese company for several times more than he paid for them. Andrews was widely criticized in the art world for his handling of the Helga collection and it's sale. He died in 2006.”
Edith and Dewey McClung at home in Timpson
“The youngest of the Moses children was Edith, born in 1908. She attended Timpson schools and graduated in 1926, marrying Dewey McClung, a cotton buyer in 1928. They later made their home in Timpson where he became the distributor for Gulf Oil Products, an enterprise they operated together until retirement in the late 1960s,” Bailey said. “Like her older sister Golda, Edith was an artist and occasionally went with Golda to Taos and San Miguel. Edith and Dewey McClung never had children but they were much beloved of their nieces and nephews and their children. A visit to their house was a childhood treat and included luxuries such as air conditioning, a refrigerator stocked with Coca-Cola, and exotic dishes like chop suey and lasagna. They lived in a beautiful Victorian house where Timpson Donuts now stands, but when Highway 59 was re-routed down the street in front of their home they sold it and moved to the original Moses property across town. The old house was removed and a modern ranch style home built in its place. Dewey died peacefully in his favorite chair there in 1977 with Edith surviving him until 1996, The property has now been in the Moses family for 123 years and it is where I now live,” Bailey concluded.
From left: Joe Moses, Leonard Bryan, Will Tartt, and Dewey McClung in front of Moses home circa 1921.
The Timpson Area Genealogical Society meets at 2PM on the third Wednesday of each month in the meeting room of the Timpson Public Library on the corner of Austin and Bremond Streets in downtown Timpson. The TAGHS library is located within the Timpson Public Library and is open and staffed from 9AM until 5PM weekdays. Telephone 936-254-2966 and ask for the Genealogical Library.
