Melvin Harris and Edna Marie Munn
MELVIN & EDNA MUNN
Taped Oral History — Written the way he spoke Interviewed by Melvin and Fern Munn.
The Munns come to the United States with Lafayette who was a general who had retired from France after fighting for America. He paid their way, regular French soldiers but they fall under George Washington and Lafayette at Cornwallis’ surrender. So George Washington told Lafayette he would do what he could for his soldiers. He said he would give them 160 acres, each one of them but they will have to go down to South and North Carolina. That was an English settlement. So they settled down there and spread throughout the United States during the Civil War. My father didn’t even know this because he didn’t talk much. His own cousin in Texas, he told me about it, Daniel Munn, he married a Munn, his cousin. I didn’t figure I would ever meet them. He knowed more about my granddaddy than my papa even knowed. He become overseer before he was 20 years old and til 40 years old–James. His children were three boys and three girls. He married after he was 40 years old to a woman by the name of Cynthia Stokes (This idea that the Munn’s came over with Lafayette was just one more romantic family tradition that hasn’t been proven. These kinds of stories can really make a genealogist’s job kind of crazy.)
I was born in Nevada (Nevada is pronounced with the first ‘a’ is a long A) county, Arkansas, Aug 22, 1892. Edna was born about five miles east same town on the tenth day of November 1898. I met her at Mainspring Camp Meeting in 1905. She was a little girl and I was looking at girls a little bit. I never did forget her. We got a picture shows her and me too. I was on the farm, no such thing as automobiles, very few buggies. About five miles out of Prescott. It’s what you call Redlands, it’s sticky, when it’s raining or wet you couldn’t make tracks, you picked the tracks up. Like backland. I thought it was the awfulest thing in the world until I was on sandland and found out it was all that way. But I just didn’t know how to handle it.
My parents married in 1891, Thomas F. Munn and she was Nettie Moore. My grandfather Fate Moore was one of the best farmers in the country but he also like whiskey really well. And my father didn’t like whiskey at all and wouldn’t even take it as medicine. We farmed all the time til I had been married three or four years. Then I moved to Prescott and worked at the ice plant.
My family was myself, Thomas Owen, George Washington, Eunice in 1901. March 2, 1905 my father passed away. He’d had heart trouble because he’d taken the fever powder in about 1890. Every time he got under the weather he got nightmares but that time he never did come out. I was 13 when he died. My mother married again in December that year and that’s when our trouble really began, W.C. Meadow. They separated in 1913. Grandpa Moore died that same year. Roxie was my grandma and she lived til 1946.
I went to school when I was seven years. Kids were bad about fighting, and my parents were afraid I might get beaten up. An old fellow named Phells, he got this school and I went to him, and in two years really learned something. I went to summer school after that. None of my children went to school where I went. We farmed and just barely made a living, And you children and us did more work on the garden than on the farm, cause we could eat what we made, and didn’t get money for what we sold. We lived well on our garden as far as that was concerned. I had a hard time getting clothes.
I met Edna at church and asked her if she forgot me. She said, “No way.” She had lots of competition, more than she thought she had. I had a man with plenty of money to even buy a farm, and he had a daughter that wanted to get married awful bad, Tom Barham. Dollars and cents just didn’t work.
My father moved to Texas in 1903, and I moved back to Prescott the same year. Made more money than I ever made in his life. We moved to Texas in a wagon. I’ve been all over northern Texas in a wagon and buggy. After Edna and I met, I went back to Arkansas in 1916. In 1905 she was seven years-old. BY 1916 she was 14 years old past. If there was boys and girls she was the main one I liked. She played hard to get; I couldn’t tell if she liked me. She don’t know about this Tom Barham; I never even wrote her a letter. We walked lots of miles but not hand- in-hand. After two or three years we kissed.
Grandma Munn jumped in and added: “We took a buggy ride, went a half mile, just let the buggy go along, I think he proposed that time. Between church services we met at one of our friend’s houses and we would try to decide what to do. We had lots of fun. We didn’t ride in buggies much, considered too dangerous. The family kidded us a whole lot about going on a buggy ride. I don’t think anyone was very uneasy about us. It was all fun.”
I would go down to see her and her mother had no trouble at all finding out about me. We’d be in a room and there would be three or four chairs and I would sit in one and she would too, not next to me. Mrs. Andrews would be standing in the hall, we’d get up and move to the yard, and she would come out and look at the flowers and the sky. Edna didn’t act like she was getting much out of the kissing. We’d joke about it. “When you had strict parents like I had, you had to be careful. Not much time for kissing,” Grandma said.
Catherine, our daughter, died when she was 39 years old. She got into some terrible things. Vernon was born 1918, Catherine was born 1920, Hazel was born 1922, Melvin was born 1923, Marjorie was born 1925, Tom ( Jim) was born 1927.
Vernon was helping your mom iron and would take little pieces of cloth and press it. He was more particular than the girls. He would play with the cats. He would chase the cats all around the barn, and the cat reached over and bit him right between the eyes on the nose. Boy, he wouldn’t get close to her again.
I made $10,000 the year Marjorie was born; the most I ever made. About that time we lived by Grandpa and Grandma Andrews. Melvin would get his clothes and run two or three hundred yards to Grandpa’s place. He said no one would dress him. Grandpa would say, “That’s all right. Grandpa will do it. Come right here to Grandpa.” You were Grandpa’s boy. You told him mom was mean to you. I told you not to say that.
Most of the kids went to Redlands School. “Vernon wanted to marry Lois in spite of the fact that we were moving West. I told Vernon we weren’t decently fixed to have a bride along. She won’t like it and we won’t feel comfortable. He wouldn’t wait til we got settled, so she came along on the trip,” said Grandma. “We stayed in Fort Worth, Midland, Las Cruces, Silver City (a bear had a fight in the snow–blood everywhere when we got up), Alpine, Arizona, Snowflake, Prescott (in ice and snow), Coolridge, and then Parker,” at which point Grandma stopped.
Melvin Harris Munn Historic Profile
Melvin Harris was born 22 August 1892 in Prescott, Arkansas as the third of six children to his father Thomas Franklin Munn (31 years old) and the first of four children to his mother Camilla Paranet (Nettie) Moore (20 years old). His older siblings, born to his father’s first wife Mary Ann Morris, were Arthur and Bynum, who were 6 and 4 years old at the time of his birth. He does not seem to have been raised with them as he identifies only with his younger siblings in his personal history.
When he was 2 years old in 1894 his little brother Thomas Owen was born. Then in 1896 another little brother, George Washington was born. In 1898, when 6 years of age, Melvin’s future wife Edna Marie Andrews was born not far from where Melvin was living at the time. Melvin started school at 7 years old and attended for a couple of years. Then in 1901, Melvin’s little sister Berva Eunice was born. Melvin was 9 at the time.
Farming consumed his younger years as his family had farmed for generations. Melvin said his grandfather was one of the best farmers in the country. His grandfather also liked whiskey really well but his father didn’t at all and wouldn’t even take it as medicine. Melvin describes these years as meager, a time when “We farmed and just barely made a living.” As children they preferred to work in the family garden instead of the farm, because they could eat produce whereas any money earned from the farm never made it to them. It was hard just to keep everybody clothed.
Two years later, Melvin’s father took the family and moved to Texas for better economic opportunities. Melvin reported that he made more money than ever before. The move to Texas was made in a wagon and even late in life Melvin was known to say, “I’ve been all over northern Texas in a wagon and buggy.”
Tragedy struck on 2 March 1905 when Melvin’s father passed away. He’d had heart trouble after taking “fever powder in about 1890.” Melvin was 13 when he died. His mother married again in December of that year to a W.C. Meadow, but the marriage did not last long. Melvin said, “that’s when our trouble really began.” All of the kids were relieved then they separated in 1913.
During his teenage years, Melvin would witness the invention of the radio, the automobile, and hear about man taking flight for the first time. He would learn about the tragic sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and finally watch as first Europe and then the rest of the world descended into the madness of World War I beginning in 1914.
Melvin moved back to Prescott, Arkansas, where he met Edna Marie Andrews again at church. He had known her as a youth, but she was 6 years younger so they had not associated much. He remembered meeting her at a “Mainspring Camp Meeting in 1905.” She was a little girl, but he never did forget her. When he asked if she had forgotten him, she said, “no way.” He describes dating her as difficult since there was a lot of competition seeking her hand at that time. Melvin said, “She played hard to get, I couldn’t tell if she liked me.” They dated for 2 or three years before kissing and then later, between church services, he took her for a buggy ride and proposed to her. She said yes, and the two were married on 20 August 1917. Melvin was 24 and Edna was 18 at the time.
The following year their first child, Vernon was born on 25 September 1918. This same year the Flu Pandemic was washing across the world, infecting over a third of the world’s population and killing more than 650,000 Americans alone. With World War I still raging at the same time, these years were challenging for everyone.
Two years later on 21 July 1920, the same year as the first radio broadcast, Melvin and Edna bore their little girl Catherine into the family. Then on 24 March 1922 another daughter, Hazel was born to them. The following year on 15 May 1923, their son Melvin Harold was born. About this time Melvin stopped farming and went to work at the Prescott Ice Plant. On 22 February 1925 Marjorie was born. Melvin was 32 now and working at the Ice Plant. He said, “I made $10,000 the year Marjorie was born; the most I ever made.”
The following year, 1926, Melvin’s little brother Owen died at the age of 31. Melvin’s mother reported on a dream she had before Owen’s passing, in which she saw Owen come in from a trip very tired and sick with a temperature of 103 degrees. And he died later.
On 17 January 1927 Melvin and Edna welcomed their last child, James Thomas into the family.
The family lived next to Grandma and Grandpa Andrews at this time and they were a great help to the family. They would often help dress the kids and get them ready while Melvin and Edna were busy about their duties.
Then came the Depression of the thirties. Edna said of this time, “We weathered this through the lean years but with a growing family of boys and girls there were not too many dull moments.”
When Melvin was 36 years old, the collapse of the stock market marked the beginning of a decade-long economic downturn that closed nearly half of the businesses in Arkansas at the time. 4 in 10 men were unemployed, and then a drought delivered a crippling blow making farmers unable to grow crops. Millions of citizens of Arkansas were left without clothing, food, or housing. Thankfully, by 1937, massive amounts of federal money began pouring into the state offering jobs and hope to those who had been suffering.
The beginning of World War II in 1939 brought an end to the depression years as millions of Americans joined the war effort and those who remained at home contributed to the war effort in other ways. Arkansas had half a dozen military ordnance factories and employed tens of thousands of civilians in making explosives and fuses. Families conserved items like gasoline, shoes, meat, tires, and sugar and communities planted “Victory Gardens” to reduce pressure on the public food supply. During the war years Melvin moved his family west to Yuma, Arizona in 1940.
World War II proved to be the most destructive conflict in recorded history and finally ended in 1945 having killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, and leaving scars that would last generations.
The next decade marked the dawn of the Atomic age at the end of World War II (1945), the Korean War (1950), a Polio Vaccine in 1953, and the Vietnam conflict stretching from 1955-1975. Sadly, in 1959, Melvin’s daughter Catherine Nettie died at the young age of 38. Then in 1962, his mother Camilla Paranet Moore Munn passed away at the age of 90 back in Prescott Arkansas.
This was a time of great change in culture, in technology, and in global events. Martin Luther King Jr. would lead the nation in a civil rights movement. John F Kennedy was assassinated and the United States astronauts would land on the moon in 1969 when Melvin was 76 years old.
In his older years, Melvin and his wife Edna moved to Bakersfield California where they would live out their remaining years. On 29 January 1978 Melvin’s wife of 60 years passed away. Later that summer on 18 August 1978 Melvin would join his sweetheart and pass to the other side. He was survived by 5 children, Vernon, Hazel, Melvin Jr., Marjorie, and Tom and their families.
Melvin Harris Munn
Interview by Cheryl Munn
MUSIC: Thomas F. Munn and George were bass singers.
HOBBIES: Baseball-played until 16 when he broke his collar bone, croquet, traveling and reading.
OCCUPATION: Liked farm work because he understood it.
AMBITION: To be a minister (not any particular kind), doctor (a doc told him he would make one of the best doctors)
SICKNESSES: Tonsillitis (brought on by singing in Texas), chronic appendicitis at age of 20, tumor taken off which was benign (caused by carrying heavy loads).
At age 16 he was given three years to live, and told that he should go to Arizona. It was brought on by dust. It got in his bronchial tubes and caused a cough. He didn’t sleep for three weeks so he wrote to Cynthia Stokes Munn (his grandma, and her father was a doctor.) He wanted to know what to do. She said to fill a quart jar half full of salt and the rest with whiskey. He regained his health. It stopped the cough and he gained weight. The only time the doctor was in the house was when Owen had typhoid and died.
JOBS: 1921-23, Prescott, Arkansas: Night engineer for ice refrigeration.
1939-41, Parker: Farmed cotton and grain including alfalfa.
1953-62, Bakersfield: Carpenter work for the government, Custodian-maintenance and bus driver at Parker and Greely Elementary School
TRAVELING: January 1903 went to Gorman Texas. His father’s brother, Ed, had offered him $25 to go visit Arkansas to see if he liked it. “The very idea of wanting me to go back to the land I was born and raised in to see if I like it. Most damnable thing I ever heard of in my life.” Lived in Prescott 1906-07, then went to Springtown, Texas. Lived there til 1915. Moved back to Prescott. Got there in December, he met Grandma (Edna) in February. He went back on his own on the train to Prescott. Thomas, his dad, told Nettie to have their things sent
to Gorman. Nettie said no. Then they sold out that Fall. Rented a place in Arkansas ’cause no place in Texas. Then he died. Nettie (mother) married Wesley Coleman Meadow in November after that.
COURTING: Started at 18. Grandma says Grandpa was a regular Casanova. Grandpa says he thought marrying was for the weaklings-foolishness. Thought being a bachelor would be fun. Even after he was married, a girl’s mother told her she still was going to marry Grandpa. Lillie Beirnes told him he ought to date. He’d seen everyone in the neighborhood but grandma who had been sick. He sat in the back of her at church and thought she looked pretty good. He said, “I guess you don’t remember me? She said, “Sure I do.” On one date Grandma called it off ’cause her sister was about to have a baby and Grandma didn’t want Grandpa there when it happened. They didn’t talk about those things then.
Grandpa said something about marriage to her and she turned her head and grinned. Grandma said she wanted him to ask her the second time. Next time he asked her if she’d be his baby. She said, “Of course, I’d be.” And how did Grandma look? Well, Grandpa said the back side of her head looked as good as the other. When she married she weighed 108 pounds. In the picture Grandpa calls it a possum grin, just cracking one. The mail carrier, Brad, asked him to turn her over to him ’cause she turned out the cleanest washing on his route. Her eyes were blue-gray; nose, short pug; round face; very trim; natural curly hair, sandy, blond- reddish in color. On left crown she had gray hair all her life. She was always neat. Most of the people around her were messy and the women kept house cause they had to. But Grandma was neat and kept the place clean. Girls hated Grandma because she had a good shape. Grandma didn’t make it easy for boys to go with her. She was very independent.
Edna Marie Andrews Historic Profile
Edna Marie was born on November 10, 1898, on a small farm in Nevada County, Arkansas, near the town of Prescott, as the fifth of seven children born to James Wesley Andrews (44 years old) and Florence Elizabeth Andrews (35 years old). They called her Edna Mary (later she changed it to Edna Marie). Edna had two brothers and one sister older than she, one brother who was younger who died at the age of seven years, three other children died in infancy. Her older siblings Willis, Thomas and Susan were 13, 7 and 3 years old at the time of her birth.
In 1900, a little brother, Robert, was born into Edna’s family. During her youth, Edna would witness the invention of the radio, the automobile, and hear about man taking flight for the first time. In 1905 another brother, James was born to her parents. Sadly, he would die within his first year of life.
Beginning school at the age of six in a one room school building which held an average of 75 pupils from beginners to the highest grades, one teacher took care of all grades. Edna was a good student and usually managed to be at the head of the class. As time went on the school expanded to having more classrooms and more teachers. In those early days, school was a split shift of three or four months in the winter and a couple of months in the summer. This was done to enable children to help with crop planting in Spring and harvest in the Fall. In 1907 Edna’s little brother Robert died at the young age of 7. Edna was 8.
When Edna was nine years old her “Grandma Florence Elizabeth Wells, came to live in the home. She was the only living grandparent the children had. Grandma was an early settler in Arkansas and the stories she could tell of the relatively new state and Civil War days were always a never ending source of pleasure to the youngsters who eagerly listened. Her husband having been a soldier in the Confederate Army, Grandma knew a lot about hard times and taking care of a family alone.”
In 1912, Edna would learn, with the rest of her community about the tragic sinking of the Titanic, and watch as first Europe and then the rest of the world descended into the madness of World War I beginning in 1914.
In 1915, Edna was reacquainted with a boy from her youth named Melvin Harris Munn. Having recently returned from Texas, he met her at church and began to date her. They dated for 2 or three years, then later, between church services, he took her for a buggy ride and proposed to her. She said yes, and the two were married on 20 August 1917. Prior to their marriage, Edna had been seeking a career as a teacher like each of her siblings had done. Dating Melvin changed her mind about a career for herself and she decided that a housewife’s career would be satisfactory. A couple of months before her 19th birthday she married the handsome Melvin Munn, who was considered quite a success as a farmer in the community. Melvin was 24 and Edna was 18 at the time.
The following year their first child, Vernon was born on 25 September 1918. With the Flu Pandemic washing across the world, and World War I still raging at the same time, this year was challenging for everyone.
Two years later on 21 July 1920, the same year as the first radio broadcast, Edna bore their little girl Catherine into the family. Then on 24 March 1922 another daughter, Hazel was born to her. The following year on 15 May 1923, their son Melvin Harold was born. On 22 February 1925 Marjorie was born. Edna was 26.
On 17 January 1927 Melvin and Edna welcomed their last child, James Thomas into the family.
The family lived next to Grandma and Grandpa Andrews at this time and they were a great help to the family. They would often help dress the kids and get them ready while Melvin and Edna were busy about their duties.
Then came the Depression of the thirties. Edna said of this time, “We weathered this through the lean years but with a growing family of boys and girls there were not too many dull moments.”
When Edna was 30 years old, the collapse of the stock market marked the beginning of a decade-long economic downturn that closed nearly half of the businesses in Arkansas at the time. 4 in 10 men were unemployed, and then a drought delivered a crippling blow making farmers unable to grow crops. Millions of citizens of Arkansas were left without clothing, food, or housing. In 1935 Edna and her husband and some of her extended family pulled up and moved to Prescott, Nevada. Thankfully, by 1937, massive amounts of federal money began pouring into the states offering jobs and hope to those who had been suffering. Near the end of the depression years in 1938, Edna’s father J.W. Andrews passed away in Prescott Nevada at the age of 84.
The beginning of World War II in 1939 brought an end to the depression years as millions of Americans joined the war effort and those who remained at home contributed
to the war effort in other ways. Arkansas had half a dozen military ordnance factories and employed tens of thousands of women in making explosives and fuses. Families conserved items like gasoline, shoes, meat, tires, and sugar and communities planted “Victory Gardens” to reduce pressure on the public food supply. During these war years Melvin and Edna moved their family west to Yuma, Arizona in 1940. This same year Edna’s mother passed away at the age of 77 in Midland, Texas.
World War II proved to be the most destructive conflict in recorded history and finally ended in 1945 having killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, and leaving scars that would last generations.
The next decade marked the dawn of the Atomic age at the end of World War II (1945), the Korean War (1950), a Polio Vaccine in 1953, and the Vietnam conflict stretching from 1955-1975. In 1953 Edna would have received the sad news that her brother Thomas Watson Andrews had passed away in El Dorado, Arkansas at the age of 61. Then sadly, in 1959, Edna’s daughter Catherine Nettie died at the young age of 38. In 1965 Edna’s sister Susan passed away at the age of 69. Edna was 66 at this point.
This was a time of great change in culture, in technology, and in global events. Martin Luther King Jr. would lead the nation in a civil rights movement. John F Kennedy was assassinated and the United States astronauts would land on the moon in 1969 when Edna was 70 years old. In 1971, Edna’s brother Willis Nathaniel Andrews passed away at the age of 86 leaving her as the last of her parents’ family alive at the age of 72.
In their older years, Edna and her husband Melvin moved to Bakersfield California where they would live out their remaining years. On 29 January 1978 at the age of 79, Edna passed away just seven months before her husband of 60 years would follow her to the other side. She was survived by 5 children, Vernon, Hazel, Melvin Jr., Marjorie, and Tom and their families.
“Highlights” in the Life of Edna Marie Andrews
On November 10, 1898, on a small farm in Nevada County, Arkansas, near the town of Prescott, a baby girl was born to James Wesley Andrews and Florence Elizabeth Andrews. They called her Edna Marie. Edna had two brothers and one sister older than she, one brother who was younger who died at the age of seven years, three other children died in infancy. Beginning school at the age of six in a one room school building which held an average of 75 pupils from beginners to the highest grades, one teacher took care of all grades. Sounds impossible, but you would have been surprised at what was accomplished in the way of education in this manner.
Edna was an average good student and usually managed to be at the head of the class. Of course, as time went on the schools improved. More classrooms and more teachers were required.
When Edna was nine years-old her maternal grandmother came to live in the home. Grandma Florence Elizabeth Wells was the only living grandparent the children had. Grandma was an early settler in Arkansas and the stories she could tell of the relatively new state and Civil War days were always a never ending source of pleasure to the youngsters who eagerly listened. Her husband having been a soldier in the Confederate Army, Grandma knew a lot about hard times and taking care of a family alone.
Oh, yes, there was something else about the schools in those days. We didn’t have nine months of school, it was a split shift of three or four months in the winter and a couple of months in the summer. This was done because the children had to help with the crop planting in Spring and the Fall harvest.
In the meantime the children were growing up pretty fast. Willis, the older brother went away to college and prepared himself for a teaching career. Thomas, the
second brother, being a rather brilliant student was doing a very good job of self-education at home. In a couple of years he had a short term of college work and came back and began teaching school. Believe it or not, he began teaching at the age of 17 years and had students who were a couple of years older than he.
Edna and sister, Pearl, received the equivalent of a high school education in the small country schools they had attended. Since they were not accredited schools no diplomas were issued. Pearl took the teacher’s examination which was given by the County Superintendent of schools. She made second grade and was allowed to teach the primary grades up to the fourth grade. The second time she took the test she made first grade. She taught several terms then decided to get married.
Meantime, Edna had met a young man who changed her mind about a career for herself and she decided that a housewife’s career would be satisfactory. At the age of 19 she married the handsome Mr. Melvin Munn, who was considered quite a success as a farmer in the community. Then with marriage came great responsibility as the children came along one by one, until there were six, three boys and three girls. Then came the Depression of the thirties. We weathered this through lean years but with a growing family of boys and girls there were not too many dull moments.
Edna Marie Andrews
Interview by Cheryl Munn Ward
SICKNESSES: Measles, whooping cough, chronic tonsillitis
TRIPS/MOVES: In 1902 we went to Texas for prospective living there. 1904 went back to Arkansas. Both were in covered wagons. Thinking she was big enough (although she was the youngest) to walk alongside the wagon with the older ones, she tried walking but soon gave out. They left from Prescott and went back to Prescott. Before and after marriage changed farms. 1939 moved from Prescott to Parker, Arizona. Just wanted to move west hoping it would be healthier. 1945 moved from Parker to Arvin, California. Just wanted to move to California. 1947 went back to Parker to work for the government on Mojave Indian Reservation for six years. 1953 moved to Bakersfield to be with the children.
JOBS: Three years in Arvin packed fruit in the summer and fall.
SCHOOLS/EDUCATION: Sweet Home School and Wire Road School. Both schools were combined to be Redlands School. She quit when 18. Her grade work was 10th or 11th grade. The high school in Prescott was too hard to get to. No further education except on her own. Her family read everything they could get their hands on. Her brothers went to college but the girls stayed home.
FAMILY AT HOME: When she was nine years old, Grandmother Florence Elizabeth Wells came to live there for 30 years. Died at 96 years of age living with them. Her husband died when she was about 38. He was about 42 or 43 years old. Their children included Dave, Mary (Molly), John, Abe, Electa, Ida, Florence, Pauleen, Jacob, and another boy who died when small. Grandma Wells raised her children. Her husband, Grandpa Jacob Wells, fell in the creek during an overflow rain and died of pneumonia. Her family lived in Beirne and Gurdon, Clark County, Arkansas. Grandma never did remarry. Their oldest son, Dave, was 18 when his father died. They lived in Arkansas until the children were grown. The children moved to Eastland county, West Texas so Grandma Wells followed. Grandma Andrew’s great-grandma is buried along the Colorado River. Her husband left from Arkansas in the 1849 Gold Rush and she died
on the way. He was in California for two years and went back to Arkansas. He had a daughter there. He had gone to Northern California. At Yuma and Parker there were ferry boats that took them across.
FATHER’S OCCUPATION: General farmer of livestock, cotton, corn. He didn’t have any businesses.
BEST KNOWN FOR: Her canning. Due to poor rocky land in Arkansas they lived from the garden and livestock.
COURTING: She started courting Grandpa Munn at 15 or 16 years old. He was her first love. Knew him by family acquaintances. Thought he was good looking but too old. When they came back from Texas she looked at him. Courted him 18 months. Worried about each other’s loves. Grandpa kind of liked her older sister. Wrote to her while she was in Texas. Grandma snuck and read his letters.
DESCRIPTION OF GRANDPA:
Brown eyes, black wavy hair-bushy and thick, long, square face, high temper, impatient, outspoken, generally right in his opinions.
WEDDING: We were going to have a small wedding but people got mad. Grandma called everyone in the country. Too many to fit in the house so they had the ceremony on the front porch of their house. It took place about 10 in the morning. People left from there and went to church. Grandma and Grandpa went to church too. He wore a navy blue suit. She wore a white silk dress regular length. After church some people were invited to Sunday dinner. Then they went to live on Grandpa’s farm.
HOBBIES: Embroidery, crochet, cooking, reading AMBITION: Wanted to be a business woman
WHAT DID SHE LIKE IN SCHOOL: Everything but math. Calls herself a homebody.
NAME: She changed her name from Mary Edna to Edna Marie during World War II.
James Thomas Munn
(Melvin Harold’s brother)
Historic Profile
James Thomas was born on 17 January 1927, on a small farm in Prescott, Nevada County, Arkansas, as the youngest of six children born to Melvin Harris Munn (35 years old) and Edna Marie Andrews (29 years old). His older siblings were Vernon (9), Catherine (7), Hazel (5), Melvin (4), and Marjorie (2) at the time of his birth.
In the year of his birth massive flooding caused the Mississippi river to flood well over its banks, sweeping away homes and businesses across nearly a fifth of Arkansas. 500 people were killed and 200,000 men, women and children lost their homes. After losing everything most of the displaced families joined the Great Migration to cities in the North rather than rebuilding their lives in the state of Arkansas.
In 1930, when James was only 3, his family moved just a few miles east, out of town to Redland, Arkansas. The Great Depression had just begun and would define the childhood years for James. Unbeknownst to James, his future wife, Patricia Ann Yoeman was born in 1933 in far off Bakersfield California, where his family would settle in later years. The collapse of the stock market marked the beginning of a decade-long economic downturn, from 1929-1939, that closed nearly half of the businesses in Arkansas at the time. 4 in 10 men were unemployed, and then a drought delivered a crippling blow making farmers unable to grow crops. Millions of citizens of Arkansas were left without clothing, food, or housing. In 1935 James’ parents moved the family back to Prescott, Arkansas a few years before his grandfather, J.W. Andrews passed away at the age of 84. Thankfully, by 1937, massive amounts of federal money began pouring into the states offering jobs and hope to those who had been suffering.
The beginning of World War II in 1939 brought an end to the depression years as millions of Americans joined the
war effort and those who remained at home contributed to the war effort in other ways. Arkansas had half a dozen military ordnance factories and employed tens of thousands of women in making explosives and fuses. Families conserved items like gasoline, shoes, meat, tires, and sugar and communities planted “Victory Gardens” to reduce pressure on the public food supply. During these war years James’ parents moved their family west to Yuma, Arizona in 1940. James was twelve years old at the time.
World War II proved to be the most destructive conflict in recorded history and finally ended in 1945 having killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, and leaving scars that would last generations. James grew to be a young man during these years and eventually met and married Patricia Ann Yoeman in the Las Vegas Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on 5 June 1949. James was 22 at the time and Patricia was 16. The next year the U.S. would enter into the Korean War.
11 months after their marriage, James and Patricia’s first son Robert was born to them on 18 May 1950. They were living at this time near the California coast in Monterey, California. California is located along the Pacific Coast of the U.S. and offered to James and his family a land of endless opportunities–from the sunny beaches in the south, to farmlands in the Central Valleys, all the way up to the redwood forests and Sierra Nevada mountains in the north. James moved his family 220 miles inland to Bakersfield, California where he would live for the remainder of his life. His second son, Michael, was born there on 18 July 1952, and then a year later on 19 November 1953 another son, Russell, was born. Then lastly, on 17 December 1954 his youngest child, Richard was born to their family. Four boys in four years. The next year, Disneyland was opened to the public in Anaheim. During these years James would say goodbye to his sister Catherine Nettie Munn who passed away in 1959 at the age of 38, there in Bakersfield California. James was 31 at the time. The next year The Vietnam conflict would begin, stretching from 1960 fifteen years until 1975.
These family building, child-rearing years were a time of great change in culture, in technology, and in global events. Martin Luther King Jr.would lead the nation in a civil rights movement. John F Kennedy was assassinated and the United States astronauts would land on the moon in 1969. The Watergate scandal of 1972, involving President Richard Nixon led to his impeachment. At the same time a franchise owner created the first “Egg McMuffin” which became so popular that eventually it was responsible for one-third of all McDonald’s profits.
Nearing the end of the 70’s James would say goodbye to his parents Edna Marie and Melvin Harris as they both passed away in 1978 in Bakersfield. Four years later in 1982 his brother Melvin Harold Jr. would join them, passing away in Lompoc, California at the age of 58. In 1987 his sister Hazel Florence passed away at the age of 65, and then in 1989 James joined his deceased family, passing away on 25 February 1989, at the age of 62 in Bakersfield. He was survived by his wife Patricia and his 4 sons, Robert, Michael, Russell and Richard.
World War II
While World War II was raging, at age of 17 he was living in Parker, Arizona with his parents, Jim signed up for the Navy and was shipped off to San Diego in 1944 for basic training. At 6 foot 2 inches he was big for his age.
After training he was assigned to the Taffy III task force on the small aircraft carrier, the USS FANSHAW BAY CVE- 70, as a DRW, Damage Repair- Wood 3rd Class. They called the taskforce the “Tin Can
He helped load ammo into a 4- inch gun until the ship got damaged. Then he was off to put out the fires and repair the ship. He was injured two times and was on a hospital ship till he recovered from a concussion and then once when he was knocked down while carrying a 4-inch shell to load, sustaining a hernia and pulled muscles in his leg, and shrapnel. On one occasion he was assisting a welder in a ship repair when the welder did not inform him of his intention to start up the torch. Just as he lit it up Jim did not have his glass googles on and was looking right where it lit and was momentarily blinded. He had light sensitivity to his eyes all the rest of his life.
Jim settled in Monterey California with his best friend, Bill Jackson. Together they worked for a tree company call Davies Tree Service. Mostly they pruned palm trees, some of which were 70-80 feet in the air. This work was for PG&E.
He later reenlisted in the Naval Reserves for 4 years in 1954. Far as I can gather, he was in several battles and may have been in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.