Submitted by: Masters, Le Roy
| MRS. GRANNY MASTERS, WIDOW OF CIVIL WAR VET, DIES AT 97 Rotan, July 23 (RNS) Mrs. William (Granny) Masters of the Hobbs community, who would have been 98 on August 28, died at 10:00 a.m. Friday at the home of a daughter, Mrs. Frank Aaron. Mrs. Aaron lives eight miles southwest of Rotan. Mrs. Masters had been bedridden for a number of years. She was born Mary Louise Olney in New Madrid, Mo. On August 28, 1856. She was reared near St. Joseph's Bayou, which empties into the Mississippi River. In 1872 she moved to Texas with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Olney, settling on the old Charlie Goodnight ranch in Palo Pinto County. Later they moved near Albany. In 1876, she was married to a Civil War veteran, William Masters, then a construction foreman for the Texas Central Railway. The couple moved to Comanche to farm in 1909. Later they moved to Fisher County, farming in various communities before settling in the Hobbs area. As a widow of a Civil War veteran, Granny's pension grew from $8 after her husband's death in 1927 to $100 she was receiving monthly at the time of her death. Four years ago, she was one of six surviving widows of Confederate soldiers. Funeral services will be at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Rotan Church of Christ. James F Pleasants, minister of the Roby Church of Christ, is to officiate. Burial is to be in Hobbs Cemetery under directions of the Weatherbee Funeral Home of Rotan. Grandsons will be the pallbearers. Mrs. Masters had been a member of the Church of Christ for 55 years. Her survivors are two daughters, Mrs. Hattie Aaron and Mrs. Bessie Williams, both of the Hobbs community: four sons, Lon and Ed of Rotan, Charlie of Weatherford and Tom of Abilene; 21 grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild. Note: Died July 23, 1954 |