Edward Vivien (Jack) Flanagan
(1892-1979)

My grandfather, Jack (Edward Vivien) worked as a clerk for the Cotton Belt Railroad. He was a very dear grandfather who spontaneously composed songs about us grandchildren in a style that I now recognize as kin to that of Cajun Style. He told us that Sam Houston used to drink buttermilk on the porch of his grandfather's house and share his religious faith. I remember a beautiful letter he wrote describing his move from Henderson to Tyler. He and brother Emmet (or perhaps, Ernest) walked a cow to Tyler. Grandpapa never learned to drive a car and rather preferred walking whenever possible. He was very health conscious (never mind the cigars), ate balanced meals, lifted weights, hunted, fished, taught Presbyterian Sunday school, wrote letters, and watched "Gun Smoke" every week without fail. From him I learned such expressions as confounded *#!!!!!, rascals, carpetbaggers, dagnabit, rapskallions?, etc.

He was a gentleman, affectionate, and generous. We adored him as we also adored our father who was also a gentleman, affectionate, and generous. Papa, however, was not interested in sports, though he was interested in just about everything else. His profession was internal medicine (a 60 to 80 hour work week and probably the last doctor to stop making house calls), he read voraciously (history and theology), painted, built furniture, built model boats, planes and rockets tor blasting, collected and listened to classical music, taught a very scholarly adult class on the Old Testament, bathed his children, read us books, sang with us, prayed with us at bedtime, photographed us, laughed with us, corrected us endlessly, loved Gilbert and Sullivan, Laurel and Hardy, grew vegetables and flowers, ....I used to get up early in the mornings so I could spend time with him drinking syruppy coffee (yes, I'm short.), reading the paper, and trying to impress him one way or another (! usually to no avail...his compliments were few, but meaningful-----He made up for that by being affectionate. I think my Uncle Bud is the same way.)

The Flanagan family that I know is very devout religiously---two of my sisters married Presbyterian ministers and my third sister married the son of a Presbyterian minister. One of my brothers was preparing at one point to be a Christian Education director and my grandfather wanted my father to be a Presbyterian minister. This trend seems to continue from what I've read about James Winwright and David Webster.

I would be interested to know if other branches of the David Webster clan have similar attributes to the ones I've mentioned. (musicians, writers, doctors?)

---Patricia Flanagan Rippe