Deason Hunt's Blog – July 2009 Archive (9)

Sometimes after fiddling with new technology, I am reminded of a story about my grandmother Hunt (Anne “Annie” Elizabeth Fears “Mamaw” Hunt). I have a new cell phone which not only lets me make and receive phone calls but send and receive text messages (a la my computer but a bit slower). And, if my way bigger than the buttons fingers happen to accidentally strike a certain key, I am logged on and can surf the web. (I think. I haven’t done anything yet but panic and turn off the phone.) Mamaw… Continue

Lots of things make me uncomfortable. These include driving on freeways with cars and big, big trucks tailgating then whizzing by me and/or blocking me in and going over tall bridges like the one over the harbor at Corpus Christi or the high rise freeways of Dallas and Houston. I don’t ride roller coasters or tilta-a-whirls. As a child I remember feeling nauseous playing in the playground merry-go-round (whatever those round push with you foot and then jump on things were called).

In later… Continue

It was a great surprise when I discovered just how far back teaching goes in my family especially through my Moody ancestors.

My mother (Ozie Mae Moody Hunt aka Koko) was proud that all three of her children went to college, graduated, and became teachers. Her goal, spoken to us time after time, was that we would go to college “one way or another.” I don’t know if she wished all to be teachers, but she always spoke highly of her cousins who were teachers. After both of my children also… Continue

I never rode a school bus to school. I know as this is written, most children (and even parents) might wonder why. The rule was school buses only ran outside of the city limits. The rest of us got to school the best way we could. No excuses were accepted for lack of ride, rain, etc. My own children (Michael and Emily) also never rode a school bus to school. Where we lived in Lake Jackson, Texas was within two miles of their schools: A. P. Beutel Elementary, Lake Jackson Intermediate School, and… Continue

I’m not a hunter. I’ve never fired anything more serious than a BB-gun at any living creature (and I never hit anything alive). One of my prized possessions, however, is a 19th Century black powder rifle.

I came into possession of this firearm sometime after my Dad, also Deason Hunt, died back in the early 1980’s. Mother saw that I got it because it is a Hunt family relic. It belonged to my great grandfather, William “Billy” Marshall Hunt and has been in the family from the time he… Continue

May 15, 2009

My Heroes



I don’t guess it would surprise many people that among the top ten heroes of my life several were teachers.



Like everyone, I suppose, the nature of my heroes changed as I got older. In the 1940’s there was Roy Rogers. That hero worship would later turn to admiration as I followed his life while I was an adult. The “King of the Cowboys” first fascinated us in the movie theater and then on early television. Since I was a child during the last… Continue

Following a recent local genealogical society meeting, I was thinking about what is lost forever when a person dies. I feel fine, but I wanted to get down some things of which I am likely the last keeper. Otherwise, when I go, they go.



The first was a memory of my Dad and namesake, Deason Hunt. As we walked among the tombstones of Hunt Cemetery in eastern Rusk County, Texas, he was telling some of his memories. At the stone of his Aunt Lou Vicey Hunt Ables (1846-1922), Dad recalled… Continue

No ancestor left behind! That’s it after 32 years of researching.



I started my trek in genealogy in the late 1970s (my earliest correspondence files dated 1977) after receiving one of those “fill-in-your-family-tree” books for Christmas. I was like most starters just facing an empty 5-generation chart with little more data than my generation and that of my parents. Filling the blanks was the goal that motivated me at first with who and when. Over the years, my goals changed as I got… Continue

Since all of my family lines come through southern states — North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi — one of the most valuable background resources I have found for understanding the lives of my 19th Century ancestors is The Dixie Frontier – A Social History of the Southern Frontier from the First Transmontane Beginnings to the Civil War, by Everett Dick, research professor of American History, Union College, Lincoln, Nebraska. (Published by Alfred A.… Continue