Earl Deward Bray (1876-1939)

Grandad Bray died in a mining accident when I was about a year old so, naturally, I never knew him. He was hit by a rock while riding a bucket down a mine shaft in Galena, Kansas. The only one to say much about him was Uncle Dayton Evans (Jeanine's Dad) who said, "He was as fine a looking man as I've ever seen, with jet black hair and steel blue eyes". There's reason to believe he dyed his hair black from it's original red. He had a nickname "Inky Bray" due to his hair. I've also seen his middle name spelled, 'Duard'.

I know very little about the Bray line. I knew his sister Aunt Anna (Bray) Hallam who lived in Crestline. Her granddaughter Janet (Fowler) Wixon was one year ahead of me in school. I used to double date with her and her husband before they married. We were fairly close for distant cousins. Cousin Pat tells me Grandad Bray's Father was an Irish Catholic immigrant. Grandad Bray's Mother was Jennie (Jane) Hutsell (1851-1889) who's sister, Sallie wrote the following:

This was the only picture I'd found of Grandad Bray (probably taken around 1915) until Judy located the one below from circa 1892 of him at around 16 with a younger brother and his sister Aunt Anna Bray Hallam (Cousin Janet's Grandmother).

Letter From Art Bray to his brother Guy concerning their Father's death

Treece, Kansas
16th' November, 1939

My Dear Brother,

I should have written to you sooner than this, but you wanted me to tell you all about everything, so I thought that I had better wait until everything had happened.

Guy, you wanted to know all the particulars about Dad's death, well, he was superintendant of the Peru mining Co., and they were starting a new shaft, that is, a shaft that they had just gotten from another Co. Dad had put a derrick over the shaft and they did not have a tram track built to wheel out the waste rock. You know how Dad was, he thought that anything as small as that could wait until the Co. was making something out of the mine before he spent any money for something that they could do without. He had told the screen-ape to throw the boulders out the door until they got started good and then he would have a tram built Dad only went in the ground once a day. He was sitting out at the dog-house talking and decided to go down and look things over. It was a little after one. He stopped the can and got in. As he started down, the screen-ape threw a big boulder out the door and it rolled down the wrong side of the pile and into the shaft. Dad was about fifteen feet from the top of the shaft when it struck him. He sort of slumped down in the can and the hoisterman pulled him back to the top and called the ambulance and he was taken to the new Picher Hospital. Mother was visiting Pearl and me and we were sitting at the dinner table when the ambulance driver that brought Dad in, came after me. I went to the hospital and Ol was already there. I went in and saw Dad as they had him on the operating table. Guy, I will never forget it. My poor old Dad, so big and strong, laying there, with his head crushed and unconcious. Also one of those large powerful old arms that was always so careful never to hurt any one else, was broken. Guy he never knew that he was struck. I asked the Doctor if there was any chance for him and he said that there was not, as part of his skull was imbedded in his brain. He said it was just Dad's strong heart and lungs that was keeping him here and an ordinary man would have been killed instantly. He was right as Dad never regained conciousness and passed away at nine minutes after nine that night. Mother and all of us were there and Aunt Anna who had been called from Kansas City, got in the door just as he died.

We had called you and of course when we found that you could not be located, that was all we could do. However, Guy, we all realize that you could not come and we also know that you were deeply hurt because of it, but such is life. You know we just can't stay at home and wait for those things, can we? We also wired Dwight and he came in before noon Sunday. We were all so glad to see him and his family.

Ol and I had the services at the Christian Church in Crestline, and we kept the body at my house until time for the funeral. It was a very large funeral and surely the flowers were gorgeous. So many of them. The pall bearers were, Little Fred Chestnutt, Zeke Sparks, BIll Lewis (Dad's boss), Harley Jennings, Earnest Hudson and Dad's Powder man. All Dad's closest friends down here, You know all Dad's old friends up home are gone already. We put him in a bronze vault beside Pat and left room for Mother, which was her wish. So Guy I thank that about tells all the details. Of course there are lots more to tell that I could think of if you were here.

One reason that I waited so long to write to you was that I wanted you to know about the settlement that Ol and I got for Mother. I kept thinking that we would hear from them every day, and we did just yesterday.

Under the Kansas compensation law, we could not declare Mother wholly dependant upon Dad as they had been seperated too long, but we did the best we could without going to court, as Mother said she would never get on a witness stand and tell about her and Dad's seperation, and I don't think that it would do her health any good, so we settled for two thousand and five hundred dollars, and the Co. paid two fifty on the funeral bill. Mother got a lump sum of eight hundred and fifty dollars, which I put in the post office at Columbus for her, and she will get seventy two dollars a month until the rest is paid. I really think that is pretty good without a law-suit. Tell me what you think.

Mother wrote to you I think yesterday. I suppose that she has told you all about things, but what do you think about her buying Grandmother's Place in Crestline. Ol and I think it is the thing for her to do, if she can buy it right. You know Guy, after all, we won't have Mother many more years and if she can be happy there, isn't that what we want for her last years to be as happy as she can, and mother is so tired of moving around, she wants to be back in Crestline with her girls. And she says it would be nice for her to have her Mother's place. Walter was holding the place for fourteen hundred, but we have a sort of promise of the place for a thousand, and as Mother owns a fourth of that, she can get the place for seven hundred and fifty, and it looks as if that would be a good chance for Mother to get her part of that property, and it is a very nice place with lots of ground for her flowers and she has a good barn and chicken pen and hen house, and on eighteen dollars a week she can save a few pennies out of that, and of course later on, she will have her part of the farm. Write and tell me what you think. Of course some of the kids don't think that is the thing to do, but after all, Mother has had so little in her life that she deserves something, and as I told the rest of the gang, if her money and house just lasts as long as she does, I will be satisfied.

Guy, about Grandfather's farm, you know as soon as Dad had died I went to look about that also, which I think was proper. This is what I found. The farm was deeded to Oliver Bray and his wife which at the time was Dad's own mother. When his Mother died, him and Aunt Anna inherited half of the farm, to come into possession at the age of twenty one years. Even Grandad could not will that away. We don't know about what kind of will was left by our stepgrandmother, only we do know this. She could not will that farm to Aunt Anna, as one fourth of it has been Dad's for several years and at Dad's father's death the two Children automatically inherit the other half. Even if this were not so, and she could will it to Aunt Anna, which we have been led to believe, the will would have to be probated in this county where the farm is within a year after death, or the will is voided. So as Dad owned half of the farm, which is seventy acres, and there are ten of us children, which includes Haroleen, who inherites her Dad's part, we have seven acres of land each or the equivalent in money.

It is not much, but as Dwight says, why should any one else get it. I want mine, don't you? Also write and tell me what you think that I should do, as whatever it is, we will have to do it within a year.

Well Guy, please answer soon and lets get all this cleared up. Pearl sends her love and Mothers asking me to tell you that she would like to see you and Ted. Also accept my love.

Lovingly, (Signed Art)

P. S.: I'll put Dad's watch and his old pipe in a box and send it to you soon.