Distant relatives - Stories for my grandchildren

 I inherited from my mother a rather substantial genealogical record of our family - five 3" binders full of family record sheets, detailing  thousands of  relatives. Over the years, I have migrated all that information to a computerized database, adding names here and there. The current count is 6,881 people, representing 2,408 families, who lived in 1,331 different places - quite the family tree. It is all the more remarkable that the bulk of the collection was done with pen and paper, prior to the Internet and the advent of Ancestor.com.

My mother's ancestors came from England and Ireland; there are a million Boyds and McClurkins, and just as many Halls and Brambletts. My father's line is descended from Germans and Scots, and perhaps a few Scandinavians; there is not as much research of that branch.

And buried in the records are fascinating stories of life and death - like Thomas Starnes, my father's great-grandfather, who was scheduled to testify in a trial but was found hanged in his barn the night before, or the Bramblett ancestor who was shot over an escaped hog that marauded his neighbors garden.

And there are even some celebrities hidden in the branches. Like Charles Arthur Floyd. If you don't recognize that name, Google "Pretty Boy Floyd" to learn about my 5th cousin, once removed. But the relative that has come to my attention recently is Al Stricklin, a 3rd cousin on my mother's side, once removed. If you are a grandchild, these men are your cousins too, but 3 times removed (and no, I don't understand the seconds and thirds and the removals, but my genealogy program does).

Alton Stricklin was born January 29, 1908 in Grandview, Johnson County, Texas, son of Zebedee Meeks Stricklin and Annie Lee Benton. He died October 15, 1986 in Cleburne, Johnson County Texas, just a few miles away from his birthplace. There is a note in my mother's handwriting attached to the record: it says, "Al Stricklin played piano with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and was a professional musician for more than 50 years." There's a whole lot more to the story. In fact, I found that Al and I had a similar experience while in college. Here's a story from the Texas State Historical Association web site:

The "first commercial group" Stricklin played with was called the Rio Grande Serenaders. It was a standard Dixieland band with trumpet, trombone, clarinet, drums, banjo, and Al playing piano. After he graduated from Grandview High School in 1927, Stricklin spent two years at Weatherford Junior College near Fort Worth. In Weatherford he played with both the Rio Grande Serenaders and another jazz band called the Texans. After two years at the junior college he entered Baylor University, not to study music, but to major in history. [Needing] money to pay expenses at Baylor he began playing in a jazz band called the Unholy Three. When Samuel P. Brooks learned the Unholy Three had played for dancing at the Knights of Columbus Hall, "he suspended the band from the university." Dean W. Sims Allen interceded for them, and "Dr. Brooks let us back in," Stricklin remarked.

In 1930 Al Stricklin was the assistant program director at radio station KFJZ in Fort Worth. A frightened secretary cried out one morning: "Mr. Stricklin, will you please come in here a moment." He rushed into the reception room and saw "three guys standing there, and they were hungry looking, and they needed a shave. One of them had something in a flour sack; the other one had a guitar strapped across his back, hanging over his back like he was carrying a rifle or something." Stricklin was almost as startled as the secretary. "It was Mr. Bob Wills," he said, "with his fiddle in a flour sack." Wills asked Stricklin for an audition. Wills and his band then performed on KFJZ. "They called two days later from the post office and said there was so much mail for the station one man couldn't carry it, better bring a pickup or something." Stricklin had given Wills a break, and when the management of the Aladdin Lamp Company learned of the success of the Wills Fiddle Band on KFJZ, the firm sponsored the band under the name Aladdin Laddies over WBAP, a much more powerful station.* 

Stricklin went on to play piano with Bob Wills from 1935 until 1941 when the band broke up because of the WWII. After Wills died in the early '70's, Stricklin and other band members reunited as "The Bob Wills Original Texas Playboys" named the band of the year by the Country Music Association. Other honors received were Instrumental Group of the Year in 1977 by the Country Music Association and Touring Band of the Year, 1978, by the Academy of Country Music. Stricklin is in the Country Music Hall of Fame. After his death,  he was inducted into the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame in 1990 and in 1999 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, honored as an early influence of the genre.

Interestingly, my sister says that my mother was somewhat embarrassed about her cousin, the piano player in a Western swing band. I wonder what she thought about Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd?

*Charles R. Townsend, "STRICKLIN, ALTON MEEKS," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fstbx),  Published by the Texas State Historical Association.