Wyatt Underwood's
Homestead

Family

Historically

My father's father was a preacher also. In fact, I think he came from a line of preachers, but that was one of the things children weren't to be told. In any case, he went to college and seminary, then preached in Baptist churches in little (tiny?) towns in Texas. He made sure his sons knew that was not enough. (My father's brother became an engineer, a real engineer, with a license and a business.)

My father's mother was a Buie from the Buies who escaped Scotland about the time that the man who would become George III in England trounced Bonnie Prince Charlie, and ended any hopes of a Stuart return to the throne. Many of those Buies came to this country, and (as I understand it) became small farmers, small merchants, small entrepreneurs. If any of them escaped into the well-to-do, the rich, or the wealthy, I don't know about those. I barely know this much, that she was nice and so far from uppity that I worried about her, even as a child.

My mother's father was an Oxford in Louisiana. He probably had ancestors, but no one told me about them, so as far as I know, he showed up and watched the first airplane land in Louisiana - not Orville and Wilbur's plane, but the first airplane that landed in Louisiana. He went to college and became a teacher, a principal, a superintendent (I think), and a traveling salesman of school supplies to parishes in Louisiana. He was as nearly a gentleman as I knew, and insisted I act as if I were, even though neither of us had any land nor any likelihood of ever having land. He was also the kindest and most loving man I knew as a child.

My mother's mother was a secret, and I don't know why.

As you can see, we were a close family and shared a lot.