(last edited 2019-12-21)



     This One's Yours Evelyn 
     ----------------------- 

     My father was Wilburn Glenwood Vincent but everyone called him "Hap", 
     short for "Happy."  And he was happy.  He always had a funny story to 
     tell.  But sometimes the stories weren't so funny, kind of sad actually. 
     One was about why he and his older sister Evelyn was so close. 

     Their dad Oakley was gone a lot.  He worked for the railroad off and on 
     and would be gone a week at a time.  His 5 oldest siblings were Aaron 
     Vincent (b.1907), Celia (b.1909), Oakley (b.1911), Evelyn (b.1913), and 
     Andrew who we all knew as "Sam" (b.1915). 

     The next child was a baby boy named "Houston", named after our grand- 
     mother's sister -- Sam Houston Seay.  Our grandmother also had sisters 
     named Lewis and Johnnie.  Needless to say, their father must have wanted
     boys. 

     So dad's next oldest brother was "Houston", a very sickly little guy who 
     was always malnourished.  He was probably born with some unidentifiable 
     malady but his siblings grew up assuming that their mother wasn't able to 
     produce breast milk.  Who knows.  Houston died not many years after he was 
     born. 

     However, while our grandmother was still dealing with sickly little Houston, 
     little Sam wandered off near the railroad track and was hit by a train.  No, 
     it didn't kill him but nearly did.  It took a chunk out of his skull and our 
     Uncle Sam had a big dent and a scar on his forehead for the rest of his life. 
     They would normally have put a metal plate in an older person but he was 
     still a growing boy and the doctor said the plate would have to wait. 

     He never got that plate.  While 4-year-old Sam was healing, our grandmother 
     was still trying to nurse 2-year-old Houston back to health when she gave birth 
     to twin boys: William and Wilburn.  They had a "mammy", a black lady named 
     "Aunt Febby" but she was busy helping our grandmother with with the two invalid 
     little boys.  No doubt our grandmother gave baby William "Doot" to 10-year-old 
     Celia who was barely big enough to help but who would help with his twin, baby 
     "Hap." 

     Our grandmother had no choice.  She handed Hap to 5-1/2 year old Evelyn and 
     said, "Here.  This one's yours.  You raise it!" 

     Aunt Evelyn told me she bottle-fed my father, changed his diapers, and did every- 
     thing for him until he was old enough to manage on his own.  For this, they 
     remained close for the rest of their lives.  Hap and Doot lived with Evelyn and 
     her husband John Farris from the time they got employment in Birmingham. 

     After dad married mom in October 1940, they all continued living together until 
     Doot married in March 1941 and my parents found another place to live. 

     When dad bought 2 acres in Hueytown, he and John Farris cleared enough land so 
     they they both could live as neighbors on dad's property.  My dad and his sister 
     Evelyn continued to live next door to each other until Evelyn and John bought a 
     store in Tuscaloosa County, AL that became "Effoom's Antiques" in the late 1950s. 

     Evelyn's brother, Sam, had a deep scar that also figures into this story.  About 
     a month before he died, Uncle Andrew Gay "Sam" Vincent told me the whole story 
     behind the scar in his forehead.  Until then I never realized that he and baby 
     Houston were both bedridden at the same time.  That's when I was able to put all 
     these stories together and I realized they were all one and the same. 

     It also explains why Aunt Evelyn never thought my mom was good enough to marry 
     my father and why she always called him "My Hap."  My dad always looked out for 
     my Aunt Evelyn after dad was grown.  She had raised him as a baby so he felt 
     compelled to protect her after John Farris died.  That's why he persuaded me to 
     move next door to my Aunt Evelyn where my kids were raised. 

     I got out of the Air Force in August 1970 and got a good job with South Central 
     Bell immediately.  Uncle John died of lung cancer in 1971.  My wife and I were 
     still looking for a permanent place to live.  My father-in-law had bought a house 
     trailer and was renting it to us for about $50 a month. 

     I had not planned to move so far from town but dad loaned me the money to purchase 
     the property next door to Effoom's Antiques.  It was my dad's way of caring for 
     his sister.  We moved the house trailer there not long after Uncle John died and 
     we contracted to build a Jim Walter house on the same property.  The home in 
     Tuscaloosa County was 16 miles from where we preferred to live but within a few 
     short years it had become permanent for us. 

     And it all happened because a little girl, not yet 6 years old, was given a baby 
     to raise almost 30 years before I was born! 

     ~ Ron Vincent