My grandmother Laura Goin died when I was twenty-three years of age, before I started my own family of three girls and two boys. I spent lots of time with Grandma and I made many mental notes of what she said. I recall her saying to me, "Young man, you can keep digging into this family and all of this history you are working on, and one of these days you are going to find out something you won’t like. I think I need to prepare you for the challenge."

Well, words couldn't have been more prophetically spoken as they created in my mind just enough mysterious questions that I just couldn't wait to get answers for them.

I am nearing seventy-six year of age and many mysteries are unraveling, and more are coming to light as I study the past.

The following is an explanation of how I came about all this family and local area Onegan history. I recall the many large family gatherings and how different age groups of the clan gathered and talked of happenings since the last get together. This took place in what is now my own back porch, front porch, side and back yard.

After Granddad Goin died, Grandma made a will that leaving everything to her surviving children, Jim, Lillian and Joe. She appointed me executor of her estate, and Daddy, Aunt Sis and Uncle Joe were content with th arrangement.

When Grandma’s health declined, I was left with many responsibilities. I was nineteen, and was required to deal with close relatives very diplomatically in order to keep the family from going into hostile powwow.

When Grandma grew too feeble to live alone, my Mama and Daddy cared for her in their home. It was the accepted method during those years for each family to care for it’s own elderly members as there were no rest homes.

The old home place in Aubrey where I have now lived for forty-five years still contained many of Grandma’s possessions when she died, even though many of the boxes in the northwest bedroom had been hauled off.

The front window glass was broken out. Grandad’s tool box, the old high dresser from the living room and other items began to disappear. We knew Aunt Sis took the old pump organ and the secretary’s desk, plus old papers, but were not sure of the fate of everything else.

Grandma had sent the old mantle clock out for repairs while I was in the Army. She’d told me to keep it when I paid for repairs; she was living with Mama and Daddy at this time.

Daddy got the old bed that came from his paternal grandparents when they lived at Tin Top, Texas. The dining set also went to Daddy and after his death stayed in the house in Denton on Locust Street that Buddy bought from Daddy.

The little daybed from the hall of the Aubrey house now belongs to my sister Mary, who had it repaired and covered in green velvet. Mike McKinney of New Mexico, Aunt Sis’s grandson, has the secretary and it is a cherished possession. The china safe from the dining room was given to Uncle Joe, who gave it to Billie. I don’t recall where everything is, but most of the old stuff is still around at different places.

Before she moved in with Mama and Daddy, Grandma had a Mr. and Mrs.

Mitchell living with her in the house on Hill Street in Aubrey. After she moved, Robert Crowsey and family rented the house, and the last occupants were the Tommy Wright family, before Jackie and I moved in with our family.

I was working for the U.S.Department of Agriculture at this point in time and moving to Aubrey made me closer to my work. This was when Daddy transferred possession of the property to me.

Aunt Sis (Lillian Goin McKiney ) died September 7, 1970. While she didn’t possess all that much, (her assests can be described as modest) she left both her brothers and all their children an equal share of one quarter of her estate.

Her daughter Billie asked me to help clean out Aunt Sis’s apartment on Belmont Street in Ft. Worth. Billie loaded her truck with as much as she could safely drive back to Houston.

There were many books and I hauled a lot and shared them with my sister Mary, but we simply did not have a place to store the boxes of newspapers, books and magazines. These had personal value to us, but many people would think them trash.

We were about to leave the Belmont Street apartment, when I told Billie that we’d better look up in the attic hole in the breakfast nook. I got a ladder from my truck and pushed up on the plywood door which was about 24" by 24". The little ceiling door was hard to budge, so Billie and I pushed hard. After much tugging and pushing, we found it to be held down with about two hundred pounds of old books, magazines and newspapers from Grandma’s house.

Aunt Sis also saved everything that had a bit of family or local information. As time goes by, Billie and I find that we inherited much history from Aunt Sis. We find it interesting to have obtained this treasure trove and are still reading. I have a lot more material to go through.