Introduction

[Lars Eighner]

Introducing myself

I was born Laurence Vail Eighner, 25 Nov 1948, in Spahn Hospital, Corpus
Christi, Nueces County, Texas. Early in my publishing career I was often
confused with a poet named Larry Eigner, so I used for my professional name
Lars Eighner, Lars being a nickname by which I was known to co-workers and
most friends I had made after settling in Austin, Texas.

I am the grandson of Alice Sweet Ewing. Alice Sweet Ewing was the daughter
of Henry Wallis Ewing and Alice Elizabeth Sweet. My grandmother married
John Arthur Vail and bore only one child Alice Elizabeth Vail, my mother.
My mother married Lawrence Clifton Eighner (note difference in spelling of
given name) and bore him two children: me and John Wallis Eighner born 15
Oct. 1951, in Houston, Harris County, Texas. My mother's first marriage
was a thing of the past a few weeks before my brother was born, but I do not
know how long it took the legalities to catch up with the fact. In 1967 my
mother married Robert Dean Harlow, a research chemist at the National
Laboratories, and removed to the vicinity of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Mr.
Harlow suffered from congenital cerebral palsy. They adopted two girls who
were natural sisters, Mary and Margaret, and later adopted the daughter of
one of the girls, Chrissie. Eventually they moved again to Tulsa. My
mother was teacher of the deaf most of her working life and achieved several
advance degrees in special education.

I am a confirmed bachelor and live in Austin, Texas, with my companion of
more than twenty years Clifton Bert Hexamer. My brother followed my mother
and her family first to Tennessee then to Tulsa. He married (I believe
transcriptions of the Tennessee marriage license spell his middle name
'Willis') and has a son and daughter, John Edward Eighner and Jane who has
married and may have children. (Although Wallis is a common name in our
Ewing heritage, I think Mrs. Simpson had something to do with my mother's
thinking of it.)

I have seen a genealogy of my grandmother's aunt Ruth Stevenson Ewing, which
seems to be incorrect in some details pertaining to my grandmother's father.
So far as I know Henry Wallis Ewing was not born in Tarrant Co. Texas (It
is possible he expired there --- there is a headstone for a Henry Ewing
there, but it clearly bears the Magen David). I believe he was born in
Bloomington, Illinois, the same year (1867) his father Henry Anderson Ewing
was admitted to the bar there. Henry Anderson was a busy man after he was
discharged from the service: I cannot see the possibility of a family
expedition to Texas. I am also suspicious of the birthplace given for
another of Henry Anderson's sons, Richard Avery although it may be
impossible to disprove as the given place (Edcough, Texas) is an extinct
town, commemorated today only by a hyphenation in the name of a school
district.

(Edinburg, Texas in the same county - Hidalgo - is and was at that time -
well supplied with Ewings, so this may be a look-up error.)

Henry Anderson did move his family to Kansas about 1888 where he continued
an illustrious political career. His son, my great-grandfather, Henry
Wallis was a dentist, but apparently never practice or gave it up soon. My
grandmother had some of his dental instruments which she showed to me, but
of course I did not notice if there were any signs of wear. At any rate,
he married Alice Elizabeth Sweet. Contemporary accounts from Kansas
say Alice Elizabeth Sweet was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

My grandmother, Alice Sweet Ewing, told me that her grandfather had been in
the carriage business and had been approached by Mr. Ford to build the
bodies for his cars, but had refused because he thought automobiles would be
a passing fad. Well, of course, this story reeks of legend. So I was not
surprised to find no such thing among the Ewings. However, it appears that
Alice Elizabeth Sweet was the daughter of B(enjamin) F(ranklin) Sweet, who
with his brother had a going concern B.F. and H.L Sweet Company in Fond du
Lac which produced wagons and sleighs, and B.F. had at least one patent
related to a braking system for wagons. B.F. apparently was very
prosperous, was mayor of Fond du Lac twice, and active in the Masons. This
seems to fit the bill for my grandmother's story. I still do not believe
the part about Henry Ford, but it is true that the company was prosperous
even for a while after B.F's death (1903) but the factory was in ruins a
generation later, perhaps owing to cheap motor cars. So the point of the
story seems to be accurate in the main.

Henry Wallis Ewing is described in contemporary accounts from Kansas as a
dentist who farmed instead in the vicinity of Iola, Kansas. He appears to
have been active in the Presbyterian Church and wrote a small account of its
history in early Kansas (most of which he could not have witnessed himself).
In 1903 he was listed as an annual member of the Kansas Academy of Science,
being listed as associated with the Iola Gas Company. The Iola Gas Company
had failed to bring in the large field that everyone suspected was in the
Iola area, but apparently it survived to participate when another company
managed to strike the main deposit.

Now my grandmother often referred to herself as "only a gas man's daughter."
This was a reference, I think, to a type of risque joke that was long before
my time. At any rate, I believe, Henry Wallis entered the gas business,
which would explain several subsequent moves.

My grandmother (who was born 06 Jan 1906) claimed to have been school chums
with Mary Martin. If Ms. Martin's publicized birth date is accurate (01 Dec
1913), the friendship seems very unlikely. Nonetheless, my grandmother
claimed to have exchanged cards and letters with Ms. Martin for many years,
and suspected that the family of the TV show Dallas was named Ewing through
Ms. Martin's doing (Ms. Martin was offered, but declined, the role of the
mother of the character that was played by her son). However Ms. Martin
seems to have had a sister nearer my grandmother's age. Perhaps it was the
sister who was my grandmother's chum (but also, Ms. Mary Martin seems to
have completed high school, gone to college, got married, and born a son at
remarkably young ages if her given birth date is accepted).

Well, the point of that is, I do not suppose my grandmother made the story
of whole cloth, so I think the Henry Wallis family spent some time in
western Tarrant County or Parker County where there was gas exploration
being undertaken some time after 1903 and before the war. In 1912, my
grandmother's only younger sibling Adlai Merriman Ewing was born in Texas.

Eventually the family moved to Houston and my grandmother has pointed out a
house in the Heights that they lived in, but I was child in a strange
neighborhood when she showed it to me, so I have no chance of locating the
spot again. She recalls hearing the soldiers marching through the streets
in WWI. Her explanation of this was that they were marching to make
transportation connections. I have come to believe however that what she
heard was movements associated with the 1917 riots. She believed she was of
strong Abolitionist heritage, and so it may be that the nature of the event
(a nasty racial incident) was concealed from her or she concealed it from me
when she told the story.

My grandmother's brothers and sisters were:

Henry Wallis Ewing, Jr., born in Kansas in 1894. To tell you the truth, I
confuse Hank with Adlai, both of whom I seldom saw. I believe one of them
was an architect in Houston. The other lived in Waco and Dallas at various
times and I do not know his business.

Abbie Jane Ewing, born 1897 in Kansas, died in Houston, 1971. Jane married
E(dward) R(owland) Barrow about 1921. Mr. Barrow became extremely
prosperous. Jane had a great interest in genealogy, but unfortunately it
took the turn that one often sees in those who wish social status to
accompany newly acquired wealth. At any rate: DAR, Magna Carta Dames, you
name it, she proved herself up and joined it, served as an officer in many
of them and so forth. She and her husband were exceeding generous with the
First Presbyterian Church in Houston. She had a son, Edward Ewing Barrow.
He was shot down over Korea, missing in action, and then presumed dead.
Jane had a daughter Sarah Elizabeth Barrow. She married a man named Lewis
and had a son Edward. Later she married William Lee Kemper, Jr. and the
son Edward took the name Kemper. I believe there is at least one more son,
but of which father I do not know.

Lucius Winchester Ewing and Lawrence Bodurtha Ewing were born twins in
Kansas in 1901, but Lawrence survived only about a year. Luke was by far my
favorite uncle (as I called him, you may recall my mother was an only
child). He worked in accounting for the Loomis country. He often repeated
a popular joke about the surviving twin never knowing which one of them had
drowned (but Lawrence had not drowned). He survived Abbie Jane long enough
to receive a small legacy from her and used it to take a sea cruise, which
he had wanted to do for a long time. He had heart problems for many years
and expired at breakfast on the cruise ship while at sea. He had a daughter
Jane that I can remember.

Then there was my grandmother and her only younger sibling Adlai Merriman
whom I have mentioned. As I say I confuse Henry and Adlai. One of them had
two daughters older than myself. I was often told I was the eldest male of
my generation. But it just occurs to me I do not know of any surviving male
bearing the (sur)name of Ewing.

My grandmother wrote under the name Alice Ewing Vail. Her book is The Big
Thicket, a long narrative poem, which is really a horror story about slavery
doing evil things to men. I believe I have mentioned that she believed she
had strong abolitionist roots. She seemed to think one --- or some --- of
her ancestors had ridden with John Brown. But of course, she had no
antecedents in Kansas in either the male or female lines. Her grandfather
Henry Anderson saw service during the war, but I cannot turn up any raiders.
Perhaps she thought herself related to Gen. Thomas and misplaced some
stories about his attempts to thwart the rebel Quantrill. '52 and '56
were difficult years for her. She considered herself a Taft Republican and
thought Eisenhower was a usurper. She always made much of being double
cousins with the Adlai Ewing Stevensons (which is true), so the temptation
to vote Democratic must have been very strong.

She was very active in the Poetry Society of Texas. Both she and her
husband were students of New England poet Robert P. Tristam Coffin at the
Corpus Christi Fine Arts Colony over a period of many years. (Her husband's
book John Vail Ballads was either issued or reissued by subscription before
his death in 1989. --- They had divorced in the mid-50s.) She worked
sometimes as a bookkeeper, but returned time and again to clerk at the
Charles Cobbler bookstore in the Rice University Village in Houston. She
moved to be near her daughter in Tulsa and died in 1991.

I believe Henry Wallis (Sr.) died about Dec. 1948. I was told he survived
long enough to be given the news of my birth. I do not know where he died.

At one time my grandmother had a cabinet for Edison cylinders which was said
to have belonged to him. It was a handsome thing of bird's-eye maple. She
also had a few Chinese artifacts which she said had come to her from her
Aunt Ruth, a missionary in China. I was taken once to meet the Scotts. But
they were a relatively young family, so they must have been descended of my
grandmother's Aunt Mary who married Charles Scott.

Let's see, legends I heard: did not hear the Eagle Wing one, did hear much
about somehow being descended of The Bruce --- I believe this orginated with
a flatterer of Abbie Jane. Heard the "family crest" had a spider's web on
it, saw a subscription book at Aunt Jane's depicting a Ewing tartan (ha, ha,
ha). Evidently The Bruce was not enough for my brother, who had decided it
is both The Bruce and Wallace.

Hm...perhaps it was not the wisest thing to tell you everything I know as an
introduction, but there it is.

--
Lars Eighner
http://www.larseighner.com/index.html
8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266

[LarsEighner]

On Monday, August 10, 2009 at 5:15:24 AM UTC-5, Lars Eighner wrote:

I am a confirmed bachelor and live in Austin, Texas, with my companion of
more than twenty years Clifton Bert Hexamer.

Laurence Vail Eighner and Clifton Bert Hexamer married July 5, 2015, in Travis Co., Texas.