My father was William Edinondson Brothers. He, also, was born in LaVerne, Tennessee, but is buried in Riverside Cemetery here. His first wife was Eliza Jane Hardin, of Crockett County, Tennessee. She is buried in Riverside Cemetery here.

My maiden name was Margaret Eliza Brothers. I was born December 10, 1880, and I married Opie Read Dunn, of Fort Texas, on August 25, 1905. Mr. Dunn was born in Burnet County, Texas,

My brother, George Jackson Brothers, was born December 6, 1882. He married Lou May. He died January 19, 1941, and is buried in Riverside Cemetery. His son, George Jackson Brothers, Jr., lives at Corpus Christi, Texas. He was reared in Wichita Falls and graduated from the local High School. He attended the State University, and served to the end of World War II in the United States Coast Guard. In 1889 my father won a lovely bride, Miss Eleanor Bell, of Dyer County, Tenn. She died in 1926 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery.

My oldest half-brother was William Edmondson Brothers. He married Willie Irene Stafford. He died in 1946 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery here. He had been in the oil business and was a member of the Railroad Commission, working under E.O.Thompson.

Mary Katherine Brothers is living here. She taught in the local schools, then accepted the position of receptionist for the Wichita Falls Clinic-Hospital, and has recently retired after more than twenty five years of service.

Lois Bell Brothers also lives here. She is bookkeeper for Arnmann & Jordan, an accounting firm.

Charles Hayes Brothers married Edna Wilkerson. He is buried in Denton, Texas. He had two daughters, Mary Katherine and Eleanor. Mary Katherine married William Chandler and lives in Grand Junction, Colorado. They have two children. Eleanor married Aubrey Frank Smyth and lives in Olton, Texas, near Plainview. She has four children.

Maud Edmiston Brothers was born in Wichita Falls and lives in Burkburnett, Texas. She married Jasper N. Hicks and they have one son, James N. Hicks.

David Alexander Brothers married Margaret Baird of Iowa Park, Texas, and they live in Archer City. They have one daughter, Margaret Alice, who is twelve years old.

We had two children. Our son, William Brothers Dunn, was born in 1919, in Greenville, Texas. He served in World War II and spent some time in foreign service. He is now in Chicago University working on his PhD Degree in Political Science. He is unmarried.

Our daughter, Lavinia Jane Dunn, was born in 1920 in Greenville, Texas. She married Brooks Buderus, and they live in Chicago, Illinois. They have three children.

I came to Wichita Falls in 1881. My father had been here awhile before Mother and I cameo He had lived at Stephenville, Texas, and he taught school there about two years. He came to Texas when he was discharged from the Confederate Army. Then he decided to go to Colorado on account of his health, and he had a chance to go with a bunch of cowboys driving cattle to Colorado to feed. He stayed there a while, then went back to Tennessee and taught school there, and that’s when he met my Mother. At that time, teachers received "salary and keep". He stayed part of the time at my Mother’s home, and different other homes, including that of my stepmother.

While he was teaching school in Tennessee, he and my Grandfather and Uncle Gash (J. G. Hardin), S. P. Hawkins, and some of my Mother’s people came to Johnson County, Texas, near Cleburne, but they were not satisfied there, so they came up this way, along Red River, and stopped somewhere near Charlie, in the vicinity of McFarland Springs, to camp. A cowboy came by on horse back, I think it was Columbus Waller. He visited with them for a while and they told him they hadn’t found what they wanted and thought they would return to Cleburne. Ho told them if they would go up the river a way, they would find a nice place, "and, if you don’t like that, then you can go back". They went up to where Burkburnett is now, and that is where Hardin, Hawkins and my father took up some land. They each got 1000 acres for about $10 an acre.

My father went back to Tennessee and got my mother and me, when I was a month old. He had a little house out on the land, they had dug down in the earth part way and then walled it up a little bit and put the roof over it. They all had that kind of houses out there then.

My father was present when they organized this County and he was the first County Clerk. He wrote the minutes of that organization meeting which was held in Archer City, the first minutes of Wichita County. The first County records are in his handwriting.

After he was elected County Clerk, he moved to town and had a little three-room house down by the Court Rouse on Seventh Street. Later, he built a four-room cottage where Maskat Temple is now, and that is where my Mother died. There was an epidemic of typhoid here and Mother was a victim. That was in 1883, and she is buried in Riverside Cemetery here.

I went first to the old Tenth Street School. Then, when my Mother died, Father took the two children back to Tennessee to my Grandmother Hardin. Four years later, he brought us back here, and my Grandmother came with us for a visit with relatives. George went to Burkburnett to stay with an Uncle. I boarded with Mrs. Woodhouse, to go to school. My teacher was Miss Ennie Phillips. Then I went to Miss Lula Barwise, and then to Mrs. Hattie H. Moore, and graduated in 1897. I went away to school then, to Sam Houston Normal Institute at Huntsville.

Later I taught one year at the Weeth School near Iowa Park, and I taught school here five years. Then I married and went to Fort Worth to live. My husband died in 1931 in Birmingham, Alabama, and I came back here with my two children to make my home. My husband is buried here.

I joined the Presbyterian Church on Indiana Avenue when I was about twelve years old. Mr. George T. Knott and Mr. J. C. Hunt alternated as Superintendent of the Sunday School, and Mr. C. O. Zimmerman was Superintendent at one time. Mr. Zimmerman was an organist and director in Rome, N. Y. before he came to Wichita Falls.

Special days such as Christmas, Children’s Day and Easter were observed with attractive programs that we worked on for two or three weeks. We would rehearse every day and Miss Lula Barwise usually trained us. We enjoyed the rehearsals, for children had fewer activities then and these programs were a treat. Our programs nearly always started with a processional. Many of the cantatas we presented had a special song for that purpose. We always had a Christmas tree, with candy, fruit and nuts, and a present of some kind from the Sunday School. One year we had a Christmas Cantata at Souter’s Opera House, conducted by Mr. Zimmerman. Nearly everybody in the Presbyterian Church was in it. At that time, there was no Catholic Church or Jewish Synagogues here, and some of the Protestant denominations had no Church building, so we had people oft various faiths and denominations in our Church.

When I grew up, I used to play the organ in the Church occasionally before the days of the pipeorgan and, also, at times I sang in the choir. We usually had about ten singers. During my College years, I would help with the Primary Class in Sunday School during the summers.

I remember hearing my Father tell about the Second Anniversary of the town. Governor Hubbard was to make a speech, and when his train came in, no one was there to meet him. My Father happened to be there’ and saw him, so he called a cab (a horse-drawn vehicle) and took him to the picnic grounds and located the Committee who were acting as hosts to the visitor.

My Uncle, Mr. J. G. Hardin, lived on the present site of Burkburnett and had the Post Office and a store. The name of the Post Office was Gilbert. The cowboys called the settlement Nestorville. Mail came to Wichita Falls by train and was taken to the Gilbert Post Office once a week. My Father lived here in Wichita Falls and he would take me over there to the Trading Post. There they had lots of Indian blankets and furs which they had taken in trade for groceries. They called the Indians "John", and they would greet each other, "Hi, John!" Father drove over there in a buggy and I always liked to go with him because my Uncle would give me candy, and the Indians would dance, and people stand around and clap their hands. Every one of papa’s children play-danced when they were babies, and one day they had me dance when the Indians were there. They seemed to enjoy it and one of them, with a fine pony, came up to papa and said: "How much catchem white papoose?" My Father said: "How much you pay?" The Indian said: "A big fine horse!" He then displayed a broad smile and papa said, contrary to common belief, the Indians did have a sense of humor. They came over from Oklahoma in hacks, like buckboards, and once I saw Quanah Parker. They wore large black hats, and had their hair braided in two braids and hanging down in front of their shoulders.

When my father brought his second wife out here, we lived at the corner of Tenth and Austin Streets, where the Wichita Cleaning and Dye Works is now, in a large stone house built by John Forman. It was made of native stone, one large room above the other, with a one-story frame annex of three rooms at the rear. The annex had sliding doors on the outside that my father called "steamboat doors", as he said that was the kind of doors they had on the boats. There was a stairway inside and outside going to the upstairs room.

One season my cousin, Liza Hawkins, stayed with us and studied music with Mrs. Lovelace. One night Cousin Liza and I were in my upstairs bedroom and Mrs. Fienhold, a nurse, was in her room in the annex, and my father and stepmother were in the downstairs stone room. Mrs. Fienhold heard the sliding doors open in the night. The next morning papa couldn’t find his pants. Then he came to the head of the stairs to call me and found the front door open and his pants laying on the floor in the doorway, but everything was gone out of his pockets. He had a silver ring, and a case with samples of wood and soil, with a description of each, that somebody had brought him from the Holy Land, and they were gone; together with his money and a few notes that he kept in his wallet. The next day he was standing in front of the Panhandle National Bank, at Seventh and Indiana, talking to a man about being robbed, and the man pointed to the window ledge and said: "What is that?" My father looked and it was his wallet. There was no money, but the ring and papers were there where he would be sure to find them.

The McFarland Springs referred to in this narrative were located between Charlie and Iowa Park, Texas, and were a favorite picnicking and camping place in the early days. They are in a grove of trees, and the water is pure and cold and free from any mineral that might make it disagreeable to the taste. The springs are still there.

I have one recollection of George Soule’s stage coach that Stands out clearly even now. I had gone to a Community Sunday School picnic on Holiday Creek, south of town, in Curry’s pasture, when he lived there on the place once occupied by the Howard Evans Dairy. For some reason, the girls rode in the stage coach; there had been some rain and the road was still muddy. On the way, the coach skidded and turned over. I was thrown against a post with two larger girls on top of me. No one was injured seriously, and we came home the rest of the way on the hay wagon where the boys were riding.