Martha Roberta (Barrett) Moore (1923 - 1969)

Born 12 Oct 1923 in Groveton, Trinity, Texas, United States

Ancestors

Wife of William Fowler Moore Sr — married 10 Dec 1945 in Liberty, Liberty, Texas, United States

Died 22 May 1969 at age 45 in Houston, Harris, Texas, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Melaney James [send private message]

Biography

Martha Roberta "Bobs", was born in 1923. She passed away in 1969. Martha Roberta "Bobs" Barrett by Melaney Moore James

She was born in Groveton, Trinity County, Texas, but grew up and went to school in Kountze, Hardin County, Texas. Her nickname was "Bobs". The nickname was given to her by her father as he thought her hair looked like it was cut in a 'bob'. They lived across the street from the Hardin county Courthouse in Kountze. Back then, they only went to school for 11 grades. After graduation she moved to Liberty, Liberty County, Texas and lived with Miriam Partlow, who was an old and dear friend of the family. She worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in both Kountze & Liberty. While living there, she met my father, William Fowler Moore, at a Liberty-Dayton football game when he had come home from WW II and was visiting his family who lived in Dayton, Liberty County, Texas. He asked if he could walk her home and she allowed him to, but the home she led him to wasn't hers!! He was a little suspicious and so hid around the corner and watched as the timid young lady peeked around the corner of the house and started down the street to where she really did live. The next day or so he called her and asked her out and asked if he could pick her up. She said certainly and started walking down the street to the house she had led him to in the first place. About that time he jumped from behind a tree and grinned and said 'surprise'!! They were together from that time on. He left to go back to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas for his discharge and then came right back to Dayton to his grandparents home and immediately called his beautiful "Bobs". Three months later they were married and they were on their way to Austin, Texas where Fowler attended the University of Texas and studied engineering. She worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company and he worked for HEB, a grocery store, and went to school. Their first "home" was the screened back porch of someone's home that was covered in canvas in the winter and open in the summer for the breeze. They had a candle for light and had to stand up one at a time to dress. There were so many servicemen coming back from the war, there was no room anywhere for students to live. They soon moved to a room in a boarding house. They loved to play jokes on one another and one of their favorites was to throw cold water on each other. There was only one bathroom for the whole house and completely at the other end of a long straight hall from their room. One day while Fowler was in the bathroom at the end of the hall Bobs decided to get him back with cold water as he had "gotten her" several times. She opened the door, tossed a pitcher of ice water on him and ran like crazy. He jumped out of the tub, completely in his birthday suit, forgetting how he was "not dressed" and how long the hall was, ran after her, grabbed the door frame of their room, and when he hit the linoleum fell and slid completely across the room and landed under the bed!! The whole house ran into the hall to see what was going on and Mama and Daddy were laughing so hard they couldn't even answer.

While living in Austin, Mama became pregnant with me (Melaney). She and Daddy had gone to the picture show and Mama had eaten about two pounds of chocolate covered peanuts. The next morning she was very sick and called her mother, Eva Maywald-Barrett, "Gram", to tell her what was wrong. "Gram" said, you aren't sick because of the peanuts, you are pregnant! And she was! Of course you can guess that they called Melaney, "Peanut". At least that was her nickname until "Gram" nicknamed her Robin. A little over a year later, she became pregnant again with my brother, William Fowler Moore, Jr., "Bubba". Before she delivered, daddy had to drop out of school with only 9 hours remaining on his degree and they moved to Dayton, Liberty County, Texas where Bubba was born. Soon came my brother Don, and then my sister Charlotte.

In 1955, during the polio epidemic raging in Texas at that time, Mama caught polio. She was taken to the hospital in Houston and remained there for two years. She was at Jefferson Davis Hospital and then was taken to what was called Wolf Home. She was 32 years old, had four small children, ages 8, 6, 4 and 2, and was completely paralyzed. When she came home from the hospital after learning to breathe with her neck muscles as her diaphragm was paralyzed, she had to sleep in an iron lung and on a rocking bed. Finally she was able to use a chest respirator, which looked like a giant turtle shell. This "breathed" for her because when she went to sleep, she "forgot" to breathe. The reason she "forgot" is that she had to do what is called "frog breathing" and use her neck muscles to take in air. She could breathe by herself during the day and sit up in a wheelchair. She had the partial use of her right arm after surgery to create a bicep. Her arm rested in a "sling" that was weighted so that she could feed herself and brush her teeth. The only other muscles that worked from the neck down was one that allowed her to pick up the thumb, index and middle fingers of her left hand, and one that would let her move her left knee in and out when you propped her left leg up. When she caught a cold, it always developed into pneumonia because she only had the use of part of one lung.

She was the most cheerful, happy, and pleasant person to be around that you could ever imagine. To sit and talk to her, you would never know she had polio and was confined to a wheelchair, it just seemed to disappear. She always felt sorry for the underdog (like she wasn't!), and felt she was very lucky to be alive and have her children and her friends. She never met a stranger and had a personality that was out of this world. She was funny, kept others laughing, and was a delight to be around. She attended every football or baseball game we ever had, every band concert that I was in, and every parade that came to town. Since Dayton was so small, we just pushed her in her wheelchair everywhere something was going on. Daddy was a volunteer fireman and one year she even "danced" in her chair at the Firemen's Convention held every year in Dayton. She never drank, but that was the year she decided to have a couple of "high balls" (whiskey and coke) and got what I would call a little "tooted"! She was the leader of the parade of firemen and their wives from the convention when they strolled down the middle of Highway 90 in Dayton to the Rainbow Cafe for breakfast! When they came home, I woke up to put her to bed and she kept telling me she was in the living room and I had to put her in the bedroom. I kept telling her she was in the bedroom, but the countered with (a tipsy) "Nope! The living room is purple and the bedroom is pink and this is PURPLE!" It was hysterical! I laughed till I cried. Of course she was in the bedroom and after many giggles by the family at her tipsy state, she finally went to sleep. Needless to say, that was her last "high ball"!

In 1966 Daddy moved the family to Bryan, Texas where he had opened the Pictorial Press newspaper. Not too many years later, in 1969, Mama got cancer and died. She had been having problems and had been to the hospital in Houston in the fall of 1968, came home, and had to sleep in an iron lung from that time on. We never knew she had cancer, just that she had not been well for months. Shortly after Mother's Day in 1969, she passed away at the Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research in Houston, Texas. That day the world lost a beautiful person and I lost the best mother in the world.

RESEARCH NOTES: Daisetta News Daisetta, Texas, Feb. 15 - The 9th of this month was the date of a happy reunion of the Rogers family when Mr. & Mrs. H.O. Rogers celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. All of the brothers and sisters, many of whom had not been together for a number of years, were present for the merry occasion. The home was beautifully decorated with pink carnations, roses, and snapdragons. The bride and groom of 25 years ago were seated before the group, and Mrs. R.L. Johnson, the baby sister of the family presented them with many gifts and wished them many more happy years together. Mrs. Wansley, elder of the bride, presented them with a beautiful bouquet of snapdragons for 'good luck'. After much merry-making, dinner was served to the gathering. Those present for the occasion were Mrs. H.M. Wansley of Mansfield, La., Mr. & Mrs. S.M. Maywald and children of San Antonio, Mr. & Mrs. L.C. Tiller of Beaumont, Mr. & Mrs. Will Maywald and Eliza Smith of Saratoga, Mr. & Mrs. Preston Barrett & children of Kountze, Mr. Robert Maywald, Beaumont, Mrs. R.L. Johnson and son of Kerrville, Mr. & Mrs. F.G. Maywald and children of Goose Creek, Mrs. H.H. Rogers of Daisetta, Misses Helen & Bessie Maywald and Joyce Calhoon of Liberty and the Rogers children of this place. Those remaining for a few days were Mrs. H.M. Wansley and Mr. & Mrs. S.M. Maywald and children. Source Information: "Daisetta News", undated clipping, ca. 1927, from unidentified newspaper; Maywald Family Papers, privately held by Melaney Moore James, Bryan, Texas, 2011-2023. Inherited in 2011 by Mrs. Dodson (James) from her grandmother, Eva (Maywald) Barrett, wife of William Preston Barrett of Kountze, Texas.

Sources

• BIRTH & NAME: Texas. Texas Department of Health, Certificate of Birth, State of Texas, (Division of Vital Statistics), birth certificate 217675, file no. 4127, (1947), Melaney Moore, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin. Certificate on file.
• MARRIAGE: Texas. Liberty County Marriage Certificates, (County Clerk's Office, Liberty, Liberty County, Texas), unnumbered certificate for William Fowler Moore & Martha Roberta Barrett (1945).
• DEATH: Texas. Department of Health, death certificates. Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin, Texas, TEXAS DEATHS 1890-1986, (www.familysearch.org), entry for Martha Barrett Moore (nee Barrett), Film number: 2137443, Digital GS number: 4030479, Image number: 408, certificate no. 34072, Harris County, 22 May 1969.
• DEATH: Social Security Administration, "U.S. Social Security Death Index", Database Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), entry for Martha Moore (nee Barrett), 1969, SS no. 463-20-0899
• BURIAL: Findagrave.com, Virtual Cemetery, digital images http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=MOOR&GSfn=M&GSpartial=1&GSbyrel=all&GSst=46&GScntry=4&GSsr=801&GRid=31281304&), accessed 2 March 2014, photograph, gravestone of Martha Roberta "Bobs" Barrett Moore (nee Barrett) (1923-1969), Hardin Chapel Cemetery, Hardin, Liberty Co., TX
• CENSUS: 1930 U.S. Federal Census (Population), Precinct 1, Kountze, Hardin County, Texas, Dwelling 36, Family 36, Lines 3-7, William P. Barrett household, ED 1, SD 19, sheet 2B (written 2251), enumerated 11 April 1930, National Archives microfilm publication, T626, roll 2340, digital image 932.0. Ancestry.com, (www.ancestry.com)
• CENSUS: 1940 U.S. Federal Census (Population Schedule), Precinct 1, Kountze, Hardin County, Texas, Dwelling 10, Line 29-32, W P Barrett household, ED 100-1, SD 2, sheet 1A (stamped 1), Enumerated 2 April 1940, NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 4051, digital image. Ancestry.com, (www.ancestry.com) [NOTE: They lived across the street from the old court house in Kountze at what is now 920 Redwood St. The Kirby-Hill house was at the end of their street]