My earliest memories of my sister Ann are from the farm at Lohn. Ann was quiet. Very quiet. She was the kind of child who could be around you all day without calling attention to herself. I remember walking with her the quarter mile from our farmhouse to catch the school bus in the morning. Then, at the end of the day, we made that quarter-mile walk back home. Those walks were simply part of our lives then. I didn't know I would remember them more than seventy years later.
The Day I Fought Back
Ann was also there for one of the incidents from my childhood that I have never forgotten. For years, some of the bigger boys had bullied me. Ann had seen it. She knew what had been happening. One day I finally fought back against Lynn Fullagar. I had a club in my hands, and both Ann and Lynn’s sister, who Ann was sitting with, were screaming at me that I was going to kill him if I didn't stop. But killing Lynn—or even seriously injuring him—never entered my mind.
What I wanted was for Lynn to understand something. I could hurt him if I chose to. And I wanted the bullying to stop. I restrained myself. What is interesting to me now is that I don't remember Ann ever telling Mother or Dad what had happened. I think she understood. She had watched those bigger boys torment me for years, and although she was frightened by what she saw that day, I think she also knew Lynn had finally received some of what he had been giving me.
But Ann herself would never have stepped into one of those fights. That wasn't who she was.
Ann and Wanda
My sisters were very different. Wanda would have interfered. In fact, Wanda had fought some of Charles's battles for him when he was little. If Wanda had been there when some boy was bullying me, I doubt she would have stood quietly and watched it happen. Ann was different. She was painfully shy. She didn't want confrontation. She didn't want to draw attention to herself. So, she watched. And she remembered. That was Ann. At least, that was the Ann I knew on the farm.
After we moved to Brady, another side of her began to appear.
James Davis
Mother sometimes had her hands full with Ann after we moved to Brady. I remember one particular incident involving one of our Latimer family reunions in Marlin, Texas. Ann had a date back in Brady. The boy's name was James Davis. Apparently that date was important enough to Ann that she was not about to let a family reunion interfere with it. She persuaded Charles to drive us all the way back to Brady so she could keep the date. Charles had recently bought Mother a 1953 Studebaker.
Unfortunately, the Studebaker had a water leak. On the trip back to Brady, Charles overheated the engine and damaged it. For as long as we owned that car afterward, it announced our arrival with a cloud of smoke behind us. All because Ann had a date she wasn't going to miss. There is a sad footnote to the story of the boy she was going to see. Years later, the name James Davis became connected with one of the tragedies of country music.
On November 5, 1960, country singer Johnny Horton was driving his Cadillac from Austin toward Shreveport after performing at the Skyline Club. Riding with him were his manager, Tillman Franks, and guitarist Tommy Tomlinson. Near Milano, Texas, Horton's car collided head-on with a pickup truck driven by 19-year-old James E. Davis of Brady, Texas. Horton died while being taken to the hospital. Davis survived the accident. Franks and Tomlinson survived but were injured. Horton had just reached one of the greatest periods of his career, recording songs including “North to Alaska” and “Sink the Bismarck.”
To most people, James Davis is simply a name associated with the accident that killed Johnny Horton. To me, he was also the boy Ann once thought important enough to make Charles drive us from Marlin all the way back to Brady for a date. Life makes some strange connections.
Business College
After Ann graduated from Brady High School, Charles once again stepped in to help one of us. He paid for Ann to attend business college in Victoria, Texas. There she met Buddy Guenther. They married. Ann became a wife and mother and raised four children: Greg. Jeff. Doug. And their sister Michelle. For years, Ann devoted herself to her family. Then, after the children were grown, her life changed dramatically.
Starting Over
Buddy found someone else. He divorced Ann. The quiet little girl from the Lohn farm was now a grown woman whose marriage had ended after she had raised four children. She had a decision to make. And this is where I see something in Ann that perhaps wasn't so obvious when we were children. She went back to college. The girl who had once been so shy that she would not interfere when other boys bullied her little brother started over. She earned the education she needed and became a schoolteacher in La Porte, Texas.
I like thinking about that. A woman who spent so much of her childhood quietly observing other people eventually stood in front of classrooms of children. She had found her own place. She had found her own voice.
Cancer
Ann eventually retired from teaching. Then cancer came. She fought it, but cancer took her life.
The Quiet Ones Can Be Strong
When we were children, I might have thought Wanda was the strong sister. Wanda would fight. Ann wouldn't. But age has taught me that strength comes in different forms. Charles had found strength in boxing; Ann found hers in rebuilding her life after divorce. She returned to college, became a teacher, and made a new beginning. The little girl who hardly made a sound had been stronger than I knew.