Dencie & Winnifred Rawls

Dencie Bennett & Alice Winnifred Bollinger Rawls

Kids: Alice, Esther, Dencie, Virginia, Leona, Frona, James, Marie

I love the stories of Dencie & Winnie, I feel like I’m watching a movie as I learn about their adventurous lives. They didn’t join the church until they were young parents with children of their own. Grandpa Dencie was orphaned at a young age, here’s a couple stories from his youth:

During this time my Sister had moved at Washburn, a small place in the Panhandle of Texas [near Amarillo] where Mr. Bruner worked for the railroad.  So, with the help of “Aunt Fannie” as I always called my Old Black Mammie, I decided to go on a tramp.  I started out to go to my Sister’s.  I got out on the road trying to ride the freights, ran out of money and was not half way on my journey.  I met a Negro man and him and I ate parched corn until we arrived back in Temple. 

But I had a determined mind and again started on the road.  This time I was a little more use to the ways and means of tramping, and while I never got up the courage to ask for something to eat, I never refused to eat what others were able to get.  At last on a cold night while riding the rods (The rods were iron rods running from one end of the cars to the other, underneath the cars) I arrived at a stop and being cold I strolled to the station and found I was at the end of my journey.  I asked the way to my Sister’s house and were they surprised!  

Here’s another story of when he joined the Navy. Although he was only 15 years old, he had no parents so he was allowed to sign on:

The trip to New York was my first on water and turned out to be quite an experience.  We had not been aboard ship very long when I got in with the ship’s cook.  We hit it off together pretty good.  He fed me all the cake, pie and ice cream I could hold and I washed and dried dishes.  The ship soon began to pitch and roll, gently at first, [but] as we began to hit the larger waves she began to buck. 

All of us would go up in the bow of the ship and watch the porpoises swimming.  They were large fish, up to 10 or 12 feet in length.  They would play like a bunch of kids darting here and there, first on one side and then on the other.  As I watched them I began to feel *****, kind of sick at the stomach.  The more the ship rolled, the worse I felt.  I got so sick I began to feed the fishes.

The things I had ate I heaved over the side of the ship.  Soon I was so sick I took to my bead and was there for three days.  Just to mention food to me was to start all over again.  I was so sick I wished I could die.  Then I began to feel better.  I ventured back to the cook.  He sure gave me a laugh, and a surprise.  He had fed me all that cake and pie knowing it would make me sick.  Said if I got a good spell of sea sickness the first time it would not serve me so bad any more.

Then we had a storm.  (Up to now none of the other fellows had been very sick, some had felt bad but not down like I had been.)  And now did the Old Ship really buck, but the more she rolled the better I liked it.  Not so with the rest of the boys.  Now I was up, they were down. 

Winnie and Dencie met at a country picnic when she was 17. They courted for about a year, but she never allowed him to kiss her until after they were engaged. They were married at the Belton Justice of the Peace office, accompanied by a small group of friends.