Wallingford/Jarlov Family Trees

Summer, 1994 recorded by Joan Mickler - Corinne Ogg Wallingford Farrar and Marjorie Ogg Courtney, daughters of Henry Warren Ogg, Jr. and Sarah Elizabeth Campbell:

Henry and Sarah both grew up in the country around Field Store, Waller, Magnolia. They probably met and married there. Henry was a cabinet maker.

Henry Warren Ogg, Jr. was working in Galveston with his brothers when the 1900 hurricane arrived. They were able to get home by walking over the railroad bridge across Galveston Bay.

Their first home in Houston was on Whitman or Wickman off of Washington. (523 Wickman on Corinne's birth certificate)

About 1915 while he was working at the Buge Manufacturing company, Henry built an oak curved-glass china cabinet for Bessie. They may have been living in a home at 13th and Ashland at the time (Ernest said they were).

When Corinne was 2, the family moved to 619 West 26th Street in the Heights. Henry had built the house - two rooms upstairs and two down. He added on to it through the years whenever he had the time and money.

Grandmother Ogg (Emmaline) lived with the family. Her bed was in the living room.

Margie (called Sister by Corinne and her family) was born in October of 1925. Aunt Gladys Scroggins (Sarah Elizabeth's sister) told Joan that Sarah never really got well from childbirth. Sarah died in January of 1926. Ernie was 17, Drew was almost 15, Leo was 12, Corinne was 5, and Margie was 3 months old.

Henry's mother Emmaline died a few days or weeks later. Sister has heard from somewhere that she caught pneumonia at Sarah's funeral.

Corinne cannot remember her mother or grandmother at all. She does remember lying on a brown leather sofa in the dining room crying, and that they sang "In the Sweet Bye and Bye" at the funeral. She says it really worried her that she couldn't remember her mother - that when she had children, she would think that if anything happened to her while they were young, they would not remember her.

Different aunts cared for Sister in their nearby homes - Aunt Lillie, Aunt Cora, Aunt Myrtie. Aunt Gladys and Uncle Gus lived in and cared for her for a while when Uncle Gus didn't have a job. There were a number of housekeepers. Corinne remembers telling one that she wasn't going to kindergarten, and the housekeeper didn't make her. Another one slapped her and got fired according to a story Sister heard. Drew took care of the girls a lot. He pinned the dirty diapers on the line and squirted them with the hose until they were clean.

Everyone without a job came to live with the Oggs. Most of the aunts and uncles spent some time with them. Henry managed to keep work. At one time he rode a bus, a street car, then another bus to Park Place to build houses. He had a wooden rack of tools that he carried with him every day. Corinne remembers how happy she would be when she saw him coming down the street, carrying his tools.

On Saturday night Henry bought a bushel basket of food for his family and one for the family of each brother who was out of work. He always shared whatever he had.

Two years after Sarah's death, in December of 1927, Henry married Mae Strickland Gray. Her husband had died of appendicitis, one baby was stillborn, and one died of crib death. She came to Houston, lived in an apartment, and worked at Munns Department Store. Henry met her while he was building showcases in the store. Corinne and Margie say they don't know why she would have taken on a man with 5 children. She had never even been around children.

Mae quit her job and moved in. The girls called her Mama and the boys called her Miss Mae. "Nigger Lizzie" came on Mondays to wash and iron. She did the wash outside in a big black pot. Her son, John Edward, played with the girls and sometimes wrung-out the clothes. The girls would dangle a lily plant on a stick over Lizzie's shoulder, and she would scream, thinking every time that it was a snake. Mae paid her $1 at the end of the day.

Sister remembers hugging Nigger Lizzie when she did something for her; then being embarrassed when everyone laughed. She also hugged the doctor after he gave her a shot.

Corinne slept with Sister. She slept on the outside of the bed so she could protect her at night. She was always very afraid that someone would climb in the porch window and "get her baby sister."

Henry bought a new dining room suite for Mae, and gave the china cabinet he had made to Uncle Dorris. Corinne rescued it in the early 1960's. It had the glass broken out and was full of pots and pans. She refinished it and had Leo and Drew put new glass in. She enjoyed it for twenty years; then gave it to Joan.

[Corinne to Nick, January 2004: The house needed painting, and there wasn’t much room for all the furniture anyway, so Henry Warren told Dorris that if he were to paint the house, he could have the china cabinet. Corinne had always told Gertrude that if she ever wanted to get rid of it, to let her know. One day she got a somewhat grubby postcard from Gertrude, pretty much just saying “Come and get it”, though she says it must have had an address. It was at a rental house in Conroe. Roland, Corinne, Johnny and a friend of his Joe Angel took the Plymouth station wagon to pick it up (it had a roof rack of sorts). When they got there, there were workmen in the house. Roland reached down to ‘heft’ the cabinet to see how much it weighed and said “They’ve nailed it to the floor!”. Without the workmen to help, they would never have gotten it on the car; she can’t remember how they got it off the car. When Leo was fitting the replacement curved glass (it had to be ordered from California, after careful measurements of the size and curves) Corinne had to leave the room – with Leo leaning into the cabinet tapping with a small hammer on the tacks through the oak beading, she was sure he’d break the glass again!]

On Christmas eve, Henry and Mae went downtown to buy Christmas gifts for everyone. Sister remembers a doll every year and a gold locket one year. (Margie Lynne wears it now.) Both remember the year they got a watch and another time, a bicycle.

Family from both sides lived close by. Aunt Gertrude lived nest door. Aunt Lilly had a sing along on Sunday afternoons. Aunt Lilly and Uncle John had a wind up Victrola, but not many records. They played, "If I Had the Wings of an Angel" and "Pennies from Heaven." Henry sometimes stayed home because he needed rest. Corinne would say she didn't want to go because she felt sorry for him and didn't want him to stay alone.

Henry would make kindling at night by shaving pine lumber with his pocket knife. Corinne felt very sorry for him when he had to go out in the cold and split wood for the fire. They had a wood stove for warmth, but cooked on a kerosene stove. Biscuits were everyday food. Toast made from "light bread" was a real treat.

A favorite pastime was playing paper dolls. The girls made paper dolls by cutting out pictures from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. They would pretend that the bookshelves in the end of the library table were the dolls house. They recall that the shelves were mostly empty - they didn't have to remove the books first.

All the children played hopscotch in the dirt area outside the back door. Mae insisted that all grass be regularly hoed from this area because she was afraid of snakes and didn't want them to have a place to hide.

The children also played under the DeLeon's house. It was raised from the ground. Under the house was cool and shaded in the summer. They made stilts by tying tin cans to their feet with strips of inner tubes and walked all around the neighborhood. They went to the movie on Saturday. As they came out, they began selecting parts: "I want to be ________." All week they would act out the movie.

Once Corinne and her cousin Cregor Campbell nailed together scrap lumber to make a ladder. They stood the ladder on Corinne's bed and got into the attic through the trap door. While playing there they wanted light, so they pushed some shingles aside. Corinne remembers worrying later that rain might come in the holes and she would get in trouble, but she never told anyone about them. If rain came in, it was not enough to be noticed.

One Easter Garland bought Jessie May an Easter toy and put it on her bed so she'd find it when she awoke. Corinne kept looking in her blankets thinking something must be hidden for her, too.

The most remembered meal was pinto beans and cornbread. They remember eating boiled cabbage, greens and tomatoes, but say they did not usually have a garden. They did not eat much meat. Squirrel dumplings were on the menu whenever anyone shot a squirrel. They sometimes had chicken and dumplings. Breakfast was always chicken and dumplings.

They attended church at the Baptist Temple. Dinner every Sunday was round roast, potato salad, and English peas cooked with butter and cream. Sister would cry if the peas were not served.

A common weekend activity was camping. All the relatives went - aunts, uncles, and cousins. They put blankets and quilts in the area in front of the back seat. Henry, Mae, and the kids would go early on Friday afternoon. They tied rags to bushes so the others could follow as they got off work. They made long pallets on the ground and everyone slept in a row.

Sister says they didn't have many school dresses - she remembers having three and wearing each for 2 days. When they got home from school they were supposed to change their clothes immediately. They didn't have pants or shorts so it must have been to old dresses. Corinne got her first pants when she was a teenager. They had full legs. She had to really work to talk her dad into letting her have them.

Corinne and her cousin Addice worked on Henry for a long time before he would let them go to the movies on Sunday afternoon. He didn't think it was right.

They really worked hard to get to drive the Grand Page car (it had eyebrow bumpers.) They would take Sister so they could get the car. They would buy a pint of ice cream and eat it as they drove around. One used the free dish that came with the ice cream, one used the lid, and one ate from the carton.

Henry got sick about the time Corinne and Roland married. They lived in a rent house on Grace Lane. When Joan was 8 months old they bought a new house and moved to 5934 Grace Lane. It had two bedrooms and one bathroom. Sister came to live with them because of friction at home. Andy and Peewee had moved in to care for Henry, and money was tight. Every day, Corinne would take Joan, pick Sister up at San Jacinto High School, and go to visit her dad. Henry died the day after Joan's first birthday.

Corinne's cousin Addice was her best friend and companion. She and her husband went fishing in Galveston and drowned about 1945. Their daughter Nancy, age 5, had been left at home. The Wallingford's fear of ocean swimming comes from this event.

1910 census of Harris County, Texas, Houston Heights, 2nd Ward, shows Henry (28) as a cabinet maker (showcases) with wife Bessie (22), Ernest (11 months), Emma (his mother, 58), Joe (his brother in law, also a cabinet maker, 24) and Callie (sister in law, 17).

When Henry paid a poll tax in 1910, he stated that he had been in Harris County, Texas for 6 years, meaning he probably came there in about 1904.

In the 1917 Houston City Directory, Henry W. Ogg is shown as a cabinetmaker, working for Houston Show Case and Manufacturing Company, with a residence at 1309 Ashland St, Houston Heights.

1920 census of Waller County, Texas, household 55, precinct 3, ED 128, shows Henry W. (38) and Sarah E. (32), Earnest (10), Andrew (8) and Lee (5).

In 1935 in the Houston Directory he and Mae were living at 619 West 26th Avenue. He was a cabinet maker for Bunin Fixture Company.

In 1936 Henry took the family to Lake Charles, Lousiana, in order to get some work at the Davidson Sash and Door Company. The family lived at 203 Ford, Lake Charles, Louisiana. Dorris and Gertrude Campbell would sometimes bring their family over for the weekend to visit, as (according to his daughter Thelma) Dorris really missed his brother in law Henry.