Some notes to include in your album:
My grandfather George Dexter, whom we called "Papa," was a very large man with very small feet. I remember him as warm but gruff. He smoked cigarettes and was an alcoholic who drank only beer (most of the folks in our family were alcoholics - you have a genetic predisposition. You have been warned.) He was a successful insurance executive, and he loved new technology. He had one of the first color televisions when there were only two or three programs broadcast in color, and everyone warned him that color TV was just a fad. No one would pay that much money to watch Jacky (sic) Gleason and the June Taylor Dancers in color. He looked forward every year to the new automobile models, and the family joke was that he bought a new car whenever the current on ran out of gas. Papa adored his grandchildren, especially when we were young enough to bounce on a knee, and bought us outrageous gifts; I remember a child-sized backyard playhouse with a kitchen, a front porch, and a name plate by the door chime that read "Miss Julie." He worked downtown in an office building that smelled of cigars and old leather office chairs. He died when I was eleven. It was the first funeral I was allowed to attend.
I was named for Julia Reynolds. And with an odd reciprocity, I dubbed her "big Mama" when I couldn't say "grandma." She was one of the most elegant ladies I ever met - thin, tall, beautifully dressed, with hennaed hair. Mother said that up until the month before she died, she was dressed each morning by 7:00am, hatted and gloved and waiting for the stores to open. She bought me clothes that would have been wonderful if I had saved them until I turned forty. She was also quite fragile and prone to "nervous breakdowns," even spending some time in a mental hospital where she received the latest in electro-convulsive shock therapy. Mother used to say how funny she was, and how she missed her after she died. I don't remember her humor, but then I was very young and too impatient to listen. She couldn't cook (of course, she didn't eat either) and for many years had a cook/butler/chauffeur named Grant who looked after her. When I spent the night, Papa and Big Mama would fix me powdered sugar doughnuts and "little pig" link sausages for breakfast. Papa would break up toothpicks and stick them in the sausages to make legs and ears for the "pigs." It was always a struggle to keep Big Mama from heating up the doughnuts and melting the sugar off. It was the only thing she knew how to do with the stove, and she was inordinately proud of it. She kept peppermint lifesavers by the case, Cheetos, and Sourballs. These are still my favorite treats.
George and Julia lived in a huge house on Preston Road - way out in the country at that time - surrounded by horses and dogs. The notorious outlaw Clyde Beaty stopped there one day to borrow the phone when his car broke down. They took vacations every year to California. They adopted two daughters, Grace and Dorothy, whom they sent to private schools and introduced to old Dallas families. Mother greatly preferred the horses and dogs to the families.
As I've gone through the boxes of unlabeled photos and unannotated clippings, it seems so sad that so many of these people are lost to us. We don't even know now who to ask about them. As you accumulate your own pictures and scraps, write down the dates and the names and the memories so your great-grandchildren will have a window on your life.
All my love,
Mom
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