Baker White Armstrong: "The Happiest Man in Texas"

On August 20, 1887, Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong passed away. Her son Robert had returned to Virginia from Texas earlier in the summer and was at "Edgewood," the family home, those months while Louisa weakened. Her oldest son, Baker White Armstrong, returned to Virginia, also, but we do not know if he returned in time to see his mother alive, though we do have Louisa's family Bible with the inscription indicating that Louisa gave the Bible to him on the day she died. Baker's visit was short, for by September 1st, he had written his father to let him know that he and Robert had arrived safely in Bryan, Texas. But more than a funeral transpired during that visit to Virginia.

The family of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr.,  had been acquainted with the Perry Nugent family at least since Perry moved his family from New Orleans to Salem, Virginia, in about 1878.  Perry Nugent had made his money in New Orleans, where he reared   his children before buying "Longwood" plantation in Salem. The Nugent girls were friends with the Armstrong girls. (The photo top left is of Mary Ophelia Nugent, 1879.) Armstrong letters suggest that the girls had attended school together at some time. In a letter to her brother Baker--dated Sept. 6, 1883--Janie had written:

Mr. & Mrs. Nugent, Mary & Paul were out to see us yesterday for the first time this summer. I had seen Mary only once & then only to speak to her, since Commencement and was glad to see her. Since brother Jimmie's death we have not felt like visiting anybody or going any place & that is why we have not been to see her. None of us girls being dressed in mourning it makes us feel so badly to go any place to see any body, that we just feel like staying home.... Mary Nugent is very anxious to go to Hollins this next session to take music but I believe her mother has not yet decided what she will do. They will remain here all winter and Paul will go to Mr. Dabney's school, at Mr. David Shank's old place....

Mary Nugent was also best friends with Katie Dosh, a cousin of the Armstrongs, a friendship that was to last a lifetime. [Katie Dosh was the daughter of Thomas W. Dosh and Kate Baker Brown.] The Nugent girls are mentioned again and again over the years: in a letter dated July 8, 1885, Edward wrote his son Baker that "Katie Dosh and Miss Mary out to see & help the girls on Monday & will I suppose stay several days yet." And Robert described some of the great parties at Longwood over which Mary and her sisters presided. (The photo above right is of Mary Ophelia Nugent, c. 1883-1884.)

But also mentioned over the years are the beaus that Mary Nugent had, particularly John Chalmers. The impression that all these descriptions give is that the Nugents were very stylish, social, well-educated, and talented. (Mary was known for her singing and playing.)

Some time, however, between the parties and the months away at Augusta Female Seminary (Mary) or Texas (Baker), Mary Ophelia Nugent and Baker White Armstrong fell in love. But the feelings between the two were a secret for a while, for Janie wrote her brother Baker on October 20, 1887, practically begging him to tell the family the details so that they could be open with Mary: "By the by we all are waiting very patiently for the answer to my question & when are you going to write. Mary seems so very bright & happy & knowing as much as we do of course it does us good to see her so. We are much crazy for you to answer our question & for her to know you have done it so she will know we know all & we all can talk together." And after a few details about the family, Janie ended the letter: "Of course  if you do not want to tell us what we want to know we do not want to beg too much but it would certainly make us all happy to hear it all from your lips."

What Janie could not know was that Mary probably carried in her pocket Baker's declaration, a little folded packet marked "B. W. A. Strictly Private," with the date 9/9/87. These words indicate some of Baker's emotional state as he dealt with his mother's death and with the love he revealed to Mary Nugent:

My mind has been in such a state of anxiety--then sorrow, that I was unprepared for any extensive exhibition of emotional love, but, down in the deepest recesses of my heart was a love for you that sprang up those 4 years ago and had grown as the years went by, notwithstanding reports of attentions paid you by an other party  and report after report of your coming marriage-- I was uncertain of the truth of these reports until I got a denial from your own lips and then I was overwhelmed with joy at the thought that there was still a chance to make you mine or a chance to try at least--Not knowing whether you cared one straw for me, I was rather rash in communicating myself, but twas the last time I knew [I] would see you for a year or so, so perhaps in my pleading I may be excused for seeming rashly importunate. --Well, I am such a nature that I do not like suspense--I remember reading a long time ago in one of Irving's works a definition of love which was as follows; "Love is the misery of one, the felicity of two, and the enmity & strife of three." Well, as long as I did not ascertain whether you loved me or not, I am, so far as I know in the loneliness of misery an unfortunate "state of misery"--Now to come to the point--I want to know whether  if you love or if not now, do you think there are elements in my "make up" of character that could ever win your love? If you can answer the first in the affirmative, you have made me the happiest man in Texas by thus satisfying the most earnest yearnings of my heart--If negative I can but accept the situation with the consolation afforded by the fact that you dealt honestly with me; for I do not believe in this one sided business in love, and if you cannot give me your heart--your whole heart--do not want you to entrust me with a part--In other words I do not want to be the only one to do the loving--A heart for a heart is my motto to be observed in love affairs--and I would never want a woman to marry me if she could not give me her heart's best affections--Not that I imagine for an instant that you would do that way, for I regard you as the truest girl I ever saw and all I want is one word and I shall forever trust you.

While somewhere in these family letters there may be a written reply from Mary, I haven't found it yet. However, the fact that Thomas Alexander Greene and his sister Linda Katharine Greene Bolano are alive on this green earth, in 2010, is evidence enough that Mary Ophelia Nugent gave Baker White Armstrong  that one word to make him "the happiest man in Texas."

"Think Texas is the Place for Me"

At the end of 1884, Baker White Armstrong was in Texas, having left the employment of George Seals, Druggist, in Baltimore, Maryland for employment in Bryan, Texas, in the drugstore owned by George W. Norrell. There are hints in the letters from family that there were contacts in Bryan before Baker moved there. A letter from his sister Nettie suggests those connections: "I suppose you make a pet of Mrs. Cavitt's little girl. I saw her when she was in Salem and she was certainly an attractive child then. I am very glad you have met Miss Finley, Janie & Fannie seemed to like her very much. Is Clara Cavitt at home now? If you see her give her my love." I found online one early connection between the Armstrongs in Virginia and the Cavitts in Texas: Clara Cavitt had attended Hollins Institute, which all the Armstrong girls except Katie attended. (One of the Cavitt brothers attended Roanoke College, as had the Armstrong boys.) Robert Armstrong was to marry Clara's sister Cora Cavitt, but in 1884-1885, that marriage was in the future, Robert was still in Virginia, and Baker was making himself at home in Bryan, Texas, where he roomed with Gus Finley.

The photograph at top, left, is of Baker Armstrong (seated) and Gus Finley (standing), taken in 1886. Evidently, not long after moving to Bryan, Baker enlisted in a local rifle company. Baker's father Edward mentions the rifle company in a letter dated July 8, 1885: "Your delightful letter to us all, giving us description of your Military trip to Lampasas, was duly received and now that you are safely returned to Bryan, we are all glad you had the recreation and that you enjoyed it so much."

What rifle company was this? The letters do not reveal any specifics, but a quick search on the Internet offers clues. Various rifle companies or military batteries formed in cities or regions of Texas, and were rather loosely associated with one another and known more famously later as the Texas Rangers (See Texas Archival Resources Online.) In May 1885,  there was a State encampment in Lampasas where these military units met and competed (Google search: Year Book for Texas by C. W. Raines, 1903, p. 119). This was surely the "military trip"--or one similar--to which Edward M. Armstrong refers. These military units were called out to administer frontier law and order, breaking railroad strikes and quelling riots, and, previously, fighting Apaches.  There were several such military units associated with Bryan, Texas, including, during the years 1880-1886, the Bryan Rifles.

Mother Louisa was less sanguine about Baker's association with the rifle company. On July 1, 1885, a week earlier than her husband's writing, she had written Baker about her anxiety:

Received your postal from Lampassas and am anxiously awaiting a letter telling me of your trip and your safe arrival in Bryan. I felt quite anxious about you last week--thought much of you and prayed for you. Snakes--tarantulas, sickness & evils of different kinds presented themselves to my mind--but I do hope that you escaped all & by this time are safely at your place again. By the by, if there is the least danger of your being ordered off or have to engage in any fight of any kind, get out of that company. I have had enough of war in my day. I saw by the papers that companies from San Antonio had been ordered off to fight 'the Apaches.' Now be sure to keep out of such things.

Baker was still associated with the rifle company at the end of 1885, for in another letter, dated December 3, 1885, Louisa reveals her misgivings to her son again:

I hope you enjoyed your hunt Thanksgiving day. That rifle company bothers me. I am afraid something might happen that you would be ordered out. You must not get into any trouble of that kind. Resign first, if it does look cowardly. Your life is too precious. You are no Texan & not bound to protect Texas. I never want you to settle in Texas. Lay up your money and when you have enough, come back to Va & invest. There it too little godliness there.

But the "Left-for-Texas" bug had already bitten both Baker and Robert. Though Baker was to return to Virginia to visit and to get a wife, he was never to live there again. Robert was to go back and forth from Virginia to Texas for a few years before finally settling in Bryan and marrying a Texas girl. In a letter dated August 1, 1885, Robert tells his brother that he has abandoned law and had "already written to Uncle James to that effect." (However, he takes up law again and ends up practicing law in Texas.) "I must get a position somewhere," he tells his brother. "I think all my friends except Mother think Texas the place for me.

Baker W. Armstrong: "You have a desire for roaming"

As brothers Baker and Robert Armstrong grew into young adulthood, they began casting about for lucrative jobs. For years they had evidently worked in the mercantile and druggist business, associated with the grocery store and pharmacy owned by their older half-brothers David Gibson Armstrong and William Dillon Armstrong. Their father's choices after the Civil War did not lead to the money-making enterprise Edward had hoped for, and the boys felt increasingly responsible for the family. Both boys had probably attended Roanoke College, for among the family papers are references to that college. (And if the amount of material here were not so overwhelming, I could put my finger on those references. I'll post more information later. ) But I am taking up the story here after Robert and Baker were finished with school and looking for employment. Various letters from druggist and mercantile businesses suggest that Baker was looking for opportunities elsewhere. The image above (click on it for a better view) is a reproduction of a note sent to William Dillon Armstrong from a wholesale druggist in Baltimore, Maryland. This was most likely a person with whom William Armstrong did some regular business, for he evidently had written Thomsen & Muth a letter of introduction for his younger half-brother, Baker.

Three months later, February 15, 1881, Baker received a letter from his Uncle James Dillon Armstrong (lawyer who served in the Virginia Senate before the Civil War and later became Judge of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit of West Virginia) which indicates that Baker had thought of pursuing medicine:

I am much pleased with your desire to be a physician but I doubt if your plan of becoming a commercial traveller for a Drug House in Baltimore is the best. You will lose time by it, and you have none to lose. Would it not be better to stay awhile longer with the Dr. and study all you can. How much will it cost for you to attend the lectures as long as you and the Dr. think necessary, and how much of that will you have. Let me know. I am anxious you should get to practicing as quick as possible. I wish you were ready to come here now. There is a fine opening.

Baker seems not to have followed his uncle's advice, according to all the clues in the family papers, for some time in 1883, he moved to Baltimore and found work there with George B. Seal, Druggist. That he continued to desire a position where he could make more money is apparent in the letters exchanged with his brother Robert.  What placed Baker on the course he was to take, as a druggist and as a traveling wholesaler? We can't know for sure, but perhaps there is a clue in a letter he received from a friend whose identity may forever remain a mystery, for the letter is signed simply: "your most sincere friend, B. R. A." The letter is dated January 29, 1881, and it's written on paper with this letterhead: Office of J. C. Russell & Co., Wholesale Grocers, Agents for Laflin & Rand Powder Co. and the Celebrated Kelley Plows, Clarksville, Texas.

My Dear Friend
I have just received your letter and being at leisure just at present I will give you an example of promptitude. Words can scarcely express the pleasure your letter afforded me. If you will send me yours I will see if I can find you a photo. I perceive from your letter, you have a desire for roaming, a feeling every young man has at our age. If you should chance to ever wander this way, you must be shure (sic) to stop in our little burg. I sometimes wish you were with me, in some of my trips on horseback across the state which is I believe about 500 miles square. I have crossed it east and west on different routes four times. Going on horseback is the only way to learn the true caracter (sic) and disposition of the people and it is said they are peculiar. I have almost quit hunting. While I was travling last summer I bought a one 1/2 and 1/2 blud (sic) and red bone hound that would run horse cow or man or anything else.

Before I left the farm I cought (sic) nineteen coons and about 52 opossums and other varmints. He is the best dog I ever saw, can trail a track 24 hours old.

Jack is well and doing well & sends his kindest greetings. I am the green clerk at present but have not entirely quit the cattle business. Yet I remain as ever
your most sincere friend

The letter writer and Baker were obviously acquainted. Were they related, too? Whatever the relationship between the two, it is tempting to conclude that perhaps this letter planted the seed for Baker's leaving Virginia for Texas, for by the end of 1884, Baker White Armstrong was in Bryan, Texas.

 

Photo of drugstore--may be the one in which Baker worked in Bryan, Texas

 

Click on images for larger view

Armstrong Letters: "If only you were here now..."

Baker White Armstrong, son of Edward McCarty and Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, 1883

Search Google for "Eutaw Place, Baltimore, Maryland," and you will get responses that include information about the Victorian architecture of an historical area of the city. One website about Baltimore describes an area of the city that is "one of the most architecturally distinguished late nineteenth to early twentieth century neighborhoods in Baltimore City." In the future, I may research those streets as they appeared in 1883, when Baker White Armstrong (Sr.) lived there. He was twenty-four to twenty-five years old at the time, working for George B. Seal, Druggist, at the end of 1883, which we know because he received in December of that year a Christmas card from his niece Eliza, and that card was addressed to Baker's place of work. And we know the address of his place of abode because letters from family are addressed to Baker at 453 Eutaw Place, Baltimore, Maryland. Baker had family living there, his cousin William Armstrong (son of William and Susan White Armstrong). In previous years, Baker had worked at his half-brother's store, learning the trade of a druggist, and now, here he is, more or less on his own, working for a druggist in Baltimore, Maryland. And the family at "Edgewood" near Salem, Virginia, miss his presence.  We have the letters to prove it.

Here in the bulging manila folder is a letter with the heading: St. Valentine's Day, Edgewood, Feb. 14, 1883. "My Dear Sons (BW and Robt)," the letter begins, and so we know that Robert, too, is in Baltimore. It is a family letter, with an entry from each family member remaining at Edgewood, beginning with Father, Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr..  Mother writes next, then Sallie (who must be Sarah Elizabeth Armstrong, the youngest child of Edward's first marriage to Hannah Pancake--Sallie is often a nickname for Sarah, and in later letters, "Sallie" includes S. E. A. in her signature), then Fannie, then Janie, then Biddy (which must be a nickname for Nettie, though in later letters Nettie signs her name as "Nettie), then Katie, and finally, in huge, childish, cursive letters, Charlie.

Father says:

We all miss you much, we long for your letters, which we think are few, and far between. We have been pretty much isolated since the small pox scare, and our thoughts travel to you, do write often to us. The winter has broken, & we begin to look forward to the planting, trimming, pruning, and to long for the sight of the beautiful flowers and green fields. I must stop now, & give room to others, as this is to be the family letter.  Your Affectionate Father, EM Armstrong, Sr.

Here we get an initial impression of Father's voice, affectionate and focused on the changing of the seasons as those seasons affect the production of the farm. Then Mother, Louisa Tapscott Armstrong, writes:

My Dear Boys,
Kate received Robt's letter to-day & we were glad to hear from you. Think much of & wish often for you. Baker, as you have no business to attend to, you ought to write twice a week to us. Let us hear about the situation talked about with Canby, Gilpin & Co.. We are still quietly moving along at Edgewood, except the bustling about the cooking, house cleaning &c. If you were here now, we could give you nice bread, good butter & fresh eggs. The weather has been so mild and spring like, that my thoughts are beginning to turn towards my flower bed. None of us have been to town yet. No new cases of small pox in town. The Beemers have come home; but we steer clear of them. Will write again soon. Tell Sister I will write to her very soon. Take care of yourselves in every way. Your devoted Mother.

Again and again, as the years pass, Mother Louisa scolds Baker to write more often. She provides news of home as well as advice. In letters written later that year to Baker, Louisa asks Baker to gather flower seeds for her in a garden near where he lives.

Sister "Sallie," most likely Sarah Elizabeth Armstrong, the youngest child from Edward's first marriage to Hannah Pancake, writes next in the family letter. Sallie's writing has a breezy tone that shows up again in later letters, which are full of details of the household and the community. In this letter of Valentine's Day, 1883, she writes of Charles' taking her on a ride to "the top of the hill in front of the Tobacco House, from which he showed me Salem, and he entertained me far better than any of Salem's beaux (that I know)." Fannie, the oldest child of Edward and Louisa, describes the activities "going on inside the mansion today"--the ironing and butter churning, the short rides, the lessons (Charles "does not do full duty in that respect since his vaccination"), the dish-washing and bread-making.

Janie describes the dressing that she has to put on her injured arm (but no details as to how or why it is injured) and then provides a lively narrative  of her and "Sister's" attempt at plucking a chicken:

Well, I must tell you about Sister's & my experience in picking & dressing a chicken & Turkey. The day after Milly left (one of the servants) Ma wanted chicken so sister & I undertook the picking of it etc & you may imagine what a new thing it was to us but it was nice when it was finished. Week before last we undertook a Turkey & I wish you could have seen it. Pa killed it & in picking it we pulled about half of the skin off  & nearly pulled its legs off & tore it so badly that we had to take a needle and thread & sew it up before basting it but it tasted good too. Mrs. Goodwin was down the day we roasted it & she was very much amused when she saw it & offered to come down & help us in any way she could.

Nettie writes that she has just come from the ironing and is afraid her imagination will be heated. Then she tells this story:

Pa heard the other day that Mr. Lindsay had died of the small pox and we were all expressing our sorrow for Miss Lindsay when lo and behold! a letter came to Mr. Elliot from Mr. Lindsay himself, saying they all "had their health" mighty well--so much for small pox reports!

Katie and Charles, the two youngest, are the last to write. Katie tells Baker that he will be glad that she has been "using [his] Shakespeare" and that she has read Macbeth and will "commence Hamlet tomorrow." She also provides the first hint for us of bigger troubles in the family. In a letter to his father, James Armstrong, a son from Edward's first marriage, had described how he was not regaining his strength, that he could not stand any excitement, and that he might have to give up preaching for a while. If he doesn't get better, Katie tells Baker, James (and Agnes, his wife) will be staying with them during the summer. Later letters to Baker indicate that this is what occurred. "Jimmie" returns to Edgewood with Agnes and continues to worsen, with only a good day or two when he takes a short ride into town with brother William. By the end of that summer, he has died, leaving a pregnant widow. (His son, James, is born in October.)

Finally, the letter ends in the large handwriting of Charles, who is ten years old. (He celebrates his eleventh birthday that year on June 2nd). Charles tells Baker that he has been out riding; that after neglecting to check his traps for three or four days, he found  a dead rabbit in one; that small pox is going around town; and that his "vaccination took splendidly."

This family letter serves as a template for many of the letters that follow in the year 1883--and even beyond: descriptions of "the doings" at home for the benefit of the loved one living in a distant city; the details of illnesses, diseases, and deaths that seem to occur with great regularity; the gossip about local families; the descriptions of seasons and the crops that never seem to produce as much as expected; the nagging for more letters and the worry that the absence of those letters means the loved one may be ill, perhaps seriously; the advice of parents who are very religious and fear that their sons might be tempted by "worldliness."

And so, the year 1883: Baker White Armstrong is living in Baltimore, Maryland, working for a druggist but continuing to cast about for more lucrative business. Robert is there for a while but then returns home and works in Salem or Roanoke. Charles Magill Armstrong celebrates his 11th birthday with his nephew Glasgow (son of his much older half-brother William Dillon and Margaret Glasgow Armstrong). Edward McCarty Armstrong and Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong celebrate their 27th wedding anniversary (October 23, 1883: "We have had our trials" she writes her son Baker, "but how many mercies."). Rains delay the wheat planting; drought prevents the seed from sprouting quickly. Scarlet fever rages through Salem, and "the people are much scared up about it." The family manages to get new servants: "Pokey Price, in the house, & Adeline Man a cook, milker & general maid of all work." Jimmie (James Armstrong, youngest son of Edward McCarty Armstrong and Hannah Pancake) dies.

Just before Christmas, Edward writes a letter to his son Baker strongly advising him not to drink. He asks Baker to take a pledge:

You ask me to state exactly what pledge I wish you to renew, To abstain from drinking wine or spirits or fermented Liquor for 5 years more. [Letters from  years beyond 1883 reveal that David Gibson Armstrong drank too much, and the family was distressed by his subsequent troubles.]

The family is disappointed that Baker does not come home for Christmas.

Armstrong Grocery, Salem, VA

This past week I've been trying to organize letters that have been stored in plastic bags for years, letters that are not arranged in any order that I can understand, letters from the early-twentieth century in the same bags as letters from the 1880s and 1890s. But in organizing and quickly reading the letters, I discover patterns emerging, relationships coelescing in my mind. In one photograph album I came across a photo of an old store with this inscription beneath it: "Armstrong Grocery, Salem, Va." Edward McCarty Armstrong had a store in Romney, in what is now West Virginia. But Edward sold his property after the Civil War and moved to Salem, Virginia. Did he open another store there? In none of the letters (from the 1880s) I have read so far, does Edward mention a store, just the headaches and heartaches of trying to get his farm to produce. However, it may have been that Edward opened a store in Salem after selling his businesses in Romney and New Castle, West Virginia. His obituary indicates that he purchased the farm some years after moving to Salem: "Moving to Salem, Va, March 1866, he began business with his accustomed energy, and only laid it aside in 1882 in order to cultivate a farm, which he bought near Salem. After farming for five years, he rented his place and came back to Salem to live." Then, today, looking through a file of letters I had arranged by date, I came across a letter from Robert Armstrong to his brother Baker, dated November 30, 1882, and written from Baltimore, where Robert evidently was living. In the letter, Robert mentions "Cousin Will" and "Aunt Susan"--I suspect that "Aunt Susan" would be the wife of William Armstrong, the brother of Edward McCarty Armstrong.

It must be that, by 1882, one or two of the older sons of Edward McCarty Armstrong owned or managed the store in Roanoke or Salem that the father had, perhaps, started when he moved to Salem in 1866. Edward McCarty Armstrong had two families: one by his first wife, Hannah Pancake, and the other by his second wife, Louisa Tapscott White. Baker and Robert are sons of the second marriage. And evidently, Robert and Baker felt that they had not been served well by their older half-brothers, William Dillon Armstrong and David Gibson Armstrong. Robert writes that he's thankful that he has "some relations here who do seem to appreciate me more than any at home except you all at Edgewood." Edgewood was the family home of Edward McCarty Armstrong and his second wife Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, and the name appears as a heading to many of the letters that mother Louisa wrote her sons Robert and Baker in later years.

Later in the letter Robert writes:

Neither of us has been treated properly at home--the Dr., as you well know, acted in any but a [unreadable] manner toward you; and Bro. G. [that would be "G" for "Gibson," for David Gibson Armstrong was called "Gib" or "Gibson" by his family]--well, if he had done the square thing by me, he would have offered me a share in the profits and thus made me a partner in the store. He does enough business to afford it and, besides that, I think I had worked long enough with him to entitle me to something better than I was getting. But, sometimes a "man's foes are they of his own household." Therefore, I think it better for us both to have left since neither of us were appreciated or ever received the slightest encouragement from our brothers, whom we served. But, if you will come here, we will "make it or bust."

The "Dr." in the letter may have been Dr. Perry, whose signature appears in one of the images below and who probably worked as a druggist for the grocery store. I suspect that Baker was learning his trade from the good doc. At the end of the letter, Robert adds a postscript, with a request that Baker evidently did not honor because this letter still exists!

Destroy this letter, please, when you have read it for I don't wish anyone else to see what I have written in ref. to W. D.  & D. G. A. [William Dillon and David Gibson Armstrong]. They are kind in other respects, but as regards the matter mentioned, they did not do the square thing. R.

Also among the family items is a pharmacy or grocery notebook filled with printed advertisements and blank, lined pages for notes. The pages have headings such as: Yankee Notions, White Goods, Dress Goods, Groceries, Paper Hangings, etc. On some of these pages are written pharmacy recipes for ointments and cures. The final page has a calendar for the year 1873. Tucked in the pages are newspaper clippings of humorous stories and pages from a pharmacy tablet from Geo. W. Norrell, Pharmacist, Bryan, TX. Baker White Armstrong, who eventually went to Texas and worked for a while as a druggist for Geo. W. Norrell, clearly owned this notebook. On the outside is stamped "David G. Armstrong & Co., Salem, VA." And so the puzzle is nearly completed. Baker's and Robert's older half-brother David Gibson Armstrong owned a grocery store in Salem, Virginia. Both Baker and Robert worked for their brother. Below are images from the old pharmacy notebook. Note, 22 November 2009: Later letters reveal that William Dillon Armstrong owned a Drug Store in Salem, and David Gibson Armstrong owned a store, as well. It could be that the brothers were in business together, but by 1885 or 1886, Baker Armstrong and his brother Robert were exchanging letters about the possibility of Baker's buying out William's Drugstore. In the end, Baker did not do this, and William began business in another town. Brother Gibson also sold his storeroom.

 

 

Helen ("Hydie") Frances Armstrong and Her Family

So far, I have introduced two children of Baker White Armstrong, Sr., who left his home in Salem, Virginia, for Texas: those children are Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (named after her mother) and Baker White Armstrong, Jr..  Of the four children of Baker White Armstrong, Sr., and Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong, only one had offspring: my husband's grandmother, Katharine Nugent Armstrong. I will introduce this grandmother in the next post. This entry is dedicated to the third child of Baker and Mary: Helen Frances Armstrong, also known as "Hydie."

The family left hundreds of letters, and of those I have read, I have learned that Hydie was epileptic. The family evidently spent a lot of time, effort, and money seeking a cure, or at least comfort, for their daughter. At times Hydie had a personal teacher and a personal nurse, for family letters mention these people. Other letters describe a household filled with sadness during one of Hydie's episodes or sudden onset of illness. As I go through the letters, I will discover more about Hydie and will include some of that information on this blog. Another thing I do know is that Hydie loved creating geometric ink drawings and that she collected postcards. She left behind boxes and boxes of these collected postcards.

The second photo is of Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong and her daughter Helen ("Hydie"). The writing on the back of the photograph (dated Oct. 1909) suggests the family sadness over Hydie's health: "Sorry Mother is not more of a comfort to her. She looks neither comfortable nor happy." Click on the photos for larger images.

The next photograph is of Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong and her three daughters. The mother is at the far left; next to her is Katharine (my husband's grandmother), Mary ("Mimi"), and Helen ("Hydie").

The photo below is of all the Armstrong children. Although there is no date on the photo, I estimate that it was taken around 1910 or 1911. From left to right: Katharine  ("Tash") Nugent Armstrong, Baker White Armstrong, Jr. (the baby), Helen ("Hydie") Frances Armstrong, and Mary ("Mimi") Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Jr). The photograph was likely taken at the family home in Houston, Texas.

I'll end this post with another photograph of Helen and with her obituary. She was the first of the Armstrong children to die.; she was sixty-three years old at her passing.

Helen Frances Armstrong: October 2, 1898 to February 15, 1962

Marriage and Deaths--Armstrong-Nugent

Beside me on my desk are two or three piles of newspaper clippings, old letters, an Applicant's Working Sheet for the National Society of Children of the American Revolution, and pamphlets. There is no order to these materials which were contained in two or three large manila envelopes. In one envelope were obituaries from newspaper clippings with dates spanning from the 1880s to 1986.

From this pile I've found the marriage announcement of Baker White Armstrong, my husband's great-grandfather who moved from Salem, Virginia, to Texas in the 1880s, as well as Baker Armstrong's obituary.  With these first two entries in my Left for Texas blog, I illustrate the fleetingness of the life of man. Between that marriage announcement and the obituary lie the details of one life long forgotten except in the fragments that we own. Here, perhaps, over the next months as I catalog these fragments, the life of Baker White Armstrong may flesh out once again--metaphorically speaking--in cyber space. With that life are fragments of other lives that will also be revealed "through a glass darkly."

According to that Applicant's Worksheet, Baker White Armstrong was born December 10, 1858, in Keyser, West Virginia. After leaving his family home in Virginia for Texas, he married a young woman whom he had known in Virginia: Mary Ophelia Nugent, born January 3, 1864, in Prairie Lea, Texas. Mary's being born in Texas was an accident of history, as her family had been misplaced there by the Civil War--more on that in a future post.

Baker and Mary (or "Boggy" as her children called her years later) married on July 14, 1892. Baker died first, in Houston, Texas, on February 20, 1937; Mary died in Houston, Texas, on April 10, 1943. Later posts may be confusing, as Baker and Mary named their  second child (and daughter) after Mary; that daughter never married, and thus she, also, was until her death, Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong. We knew her as "Mimi," my husband's great-aunt who taught first grade in Houston for many years. But that's for another post.

Left for Texas: The Beginnings

Anything labelled as "the beginning" is done so arbitrarily. Can any beginning be definitively assigned? Especially when that beginning relates to the history of a family. Here we have a family: four people, a father, a mother, two children--son and daughter. Where does the family begin? With the parents? grandparents? great-grandparents? great-great-grandparents? And what about the ancillary branches: the sisters and brothers of the father and the mother, the offspring of those sisters and brothers, the in-laws? And so the tree branches.

A little over twenty years ago, someone died in my husband's family, and then someone else, and then someone else, and before we knew it, we had inherited boxes and boxes of family letters, cards, magazine and newspaper clippings, pamphlets, family Bibles, photographs, photograph albums. My husband and his sister divided the furniture and objects that had immediate value and use; we ended up with boxes, files, diaries, and photographs going back to the early 1800s. For years we hauled around this stuff, weighed down by history and someone else's lack of organization. When a great-aunt who had taught first-grade in Houston, Texas, for thirty years died, she left behind hundreds of greeting cards her students had given her over the years, even valentines with candy still inside. Each of us has more than enough detritus from our own lives; imagine inheriting the detritus of the lives of people who kept everything.

A couple of years ago, I began some attempt at organizating all this stuff by creating seven photograph albums, one for each of my and my husband's children and my husband's sister's children. I included photographs from one line of the family, going back to the late 1800s, a few newspaper clippings, a sampling of greeting cards, and other bits of interest. Yet boxes remain. Who has the time to go through every box, pick through every letter (each with its own eccentric handwriting), sort through every newspaper clipping or magazine cutting and put it all in order? So here, I'll attempt an order of a different kind. I'll pull something from the boxes and post it here. The order will be in the index. Everything else will be haphazard, a surprise, a treasure hunt.

And so we begin with a family Bible, one owned by a Mrs. L. T. (could be "J") Armstrong, living in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1878. This is my husband's great-great grandmother. Somewhere in the boxes are obituaries of various members of this family from the 1800s. At some point, those obituaries will appear on this blog--as I come across them again. Here, however, we have the family Bible of a mother who worried about two sons who decided to go to Texas: Baker (my husband's great-grandfather) and Robert. On the inside pages of the family Bible, the mother records these departures. Later she was to write the sons. We have some of the letters sent to Baker. Those, also, shall appear on this blog as I re-discover them.

"Baker left for Texas, Oct. 8th 1884," the mother writes. And so the son leaves Virginia behind and begins a new life in Texas.