The Story of the Children of Joseph Jarrell Sinclair and Lula Kate Evans, Welch, Sinclair

By Don Sinclair

This book is the story of a family of 10 children as remembered by the youngest child. The children were all very different as noted. It was the second marriage for both parents. Each brought children into their marriage but none of the children chose to be as great or good as the parents were except the youngest child who prepared this written

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writers Branding LLC
• Release date: Oct 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781639451494

Don Sinclair

Donald Wood Sinclair is the youngest of the 10 children of Joseph and Lula Sinclair-the only one still living. When he would tell the stories of his family, people began to ask if these stories were in print. The answer has been "No" until now. What was intended to be a few brief pages quickly became this book contained in these pages. He knew all these brothers and sisters really well, and he remembered many important things about his family as he wrote about each member from the eldest to the youngest. He had such good parents, but none of their children wanted to be like them except him.

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The Story of the Children of

Joseph Jarrell Sinclair and

Lula Kate Evans, Welch, Sinclair

By Donald Wood Sinclair

I was the surprise birth to middle-age parents Joseph Jarrell Sinclair and Lula Kate Evens, Welch, Sinclair. I was their fourth child together. My father did not think he would live long enough to see me grown. He was 45 years old when I was born, October 6, 1929 in Minden, Texas. I was 45 years old when he died near the age of 90 years.

This document is the story about my relationship to my father and mother and our family of 10 children growing up in east Texas. There was another child born to my father and his first wife in 1910 that lived only one year. I had never heard about her until I went home to get all the names straight. My mother remembered this child born to my father and his first wife. Her name was Mary Sinclair.

Joseph Sinclair was 9 years older than Lula Kate Welch. He was a cotton farmer in Minden, Texas, Rusk County. His farm was about 2 miles west of Minden. He was a respected community leader and a successful farmer. He first married a young woman from the Barton family in Minden. Lula Kate was the daughter of the owner of the huge 2-story store located in the middle of Minden. She kept the books for her father and helped him keep up with restocking his huge store. She was also a school teacher. She first married a tall young man named Bentley Welch.

Joseph had 5 children and Lula Kate had 1 child before the flu epidemic at the end of World War I (about 1918) took both their partner’s lives. Joe was on the School Board that hired Lula Kate to teach, and it didn’t take him long to realize he needed Lula Kate to help him raise his and her children. So, they married and Lula Kate gave up her teaching career to make a home for all six of their children plus the 4 she bore to Joe in the next few years. I was the last one of those four.

Lula Kate turned to housekeeping, cooking, and washing all those children’s clothes and being a mother to them all. Joe’s oldest daughter, Syble, was only 9 years younger than Lula Kate, but mom told me Syble was always very helpful to her in the many tasks and responsibilities with the children and the house. I was glad she told me that, because I didn’t like Syble as I grew up. I’ll share more on that later in this paper.

So, I was Lula Kate’s baby boy. That means I had her at home when all the others were off in school. I will be sharing with you some of my strong ideas that developed early in my life. I will begin by sharing some of the relationships within my family that I consider significant.

My oldest half-brother, Marion Sebastian Sinclair, was probably the sorriest human being I have ever met. During the worst depression ever known (1930) he made $300 per month as head driller on oil rigs. Between jobs he would disappear with the money and show up a few days later unable to pay his grocery bill. He would flop on the bed and go to sleep. Once I saw his wife, Louise Lawrence, take a razor strap in both hands and lay it into his back. It popped like a gun shot. He got up, chased her down and beat on her for a while before returning to sleep. My father always blamed Louise as the problem, but I knew she was never treated right by her husband usually called Boots. Their 4 children were my playmates and friends. I was always very fond of all of them.

My father would have to pay their grocery bill so Louise could get food for his grandchildren. On many occasions, my mother would place a large flat pan filled with biscuits and gravy on my lap and my father would drive me 4 miles to provide them food before going to school. Their home was my father’s old home in which I was born. They lived there rent free. Their oldest child was Virginia, the sweetest woman I have ever known. In self-defense Louise divorced my half-brother and took the children to Houston. She found defense work during WWII and finally remarried to a nice man. I always loved Louise and her children. Virginia spent several months in our home to finish school. They were all very special to me.

Boots, that half-brother with more money than the rest of us, refused to pay child support on their children. If he came back into Texas to work on a well and Louise heard about it, she would call the authorities and have him put in jail. He would call our father and ask him for the money to get out of jail telling my father he had paid the child support and had the receipts. My father would believe him and criticize Louise for causing all the trouble. Lula, my mother, but not Boots’, would try to tell my father that if he had the receipts, he would not be in jail. To which my father would get louder in his criticism of Louise as the ‘trouble maker’ and bail Boots out again. I suppose everyone is entitled to one major imperfection, but I just never could grant my father the right to that one. That happened many times exactly the same way. I do not buy this adage that the first ‘boy’ always gets the best deal in the family. This borders closer to the line I think of as insanity.

Boots injured his left arm seriously on the job and was not able to work for the big money any longer. He met a very ugly woman in Houston out drinking with his brother Joe Everitt. Boots and Athine were both alcoholics but they decided to stop drinking and support each other. He brought her back to Henderson and talked one of my classmates into letting him remodel an old run-down tourist court my classmate had bought to open another used car lot on later. Boots and girlfriend, Athine, lived there for several years and were very happy. Boots’ children actually grew fond of Athine because the two were so happy for so long together, and they had helped each other stop drinking.

One Sunday morning, Boots, who had worked around dangerous machinery all his life, went out to adjust the trip switch that lowered the bed on a dump truck he had bought to make extra money. He attempted to adjust the switch without propping the bed up. The bed dropped on him killing him instantly. Athine took it real hard, and Boots’ kids tried to maintain relationship with her. But Boots’ son stopped by on his way home early one evening and found her drunk and in bed with a traveling bug exterminator who had rented a cabin from her. Athine was so embarrassed and hurt, and Boots’ children were so disturbed by it that it tore apart the good relationship they all had.

Syble and Frankie were my two half-sisters from Joseph’s group. They were both married before I was old enough to know them. We went to visit Syble when I was about eight years old. We went to the beach at Goose Creek, Texas. Today it is called Baytown.

A lady on the beach was floating on two inner tubes that fit inside a nylon cover. She asked me if I would play with her float while she went up the beach to get a hot dog. I have never enjoyed doing anyone a favor as much as I enjoyed getting my hands on that marvelous float. When she got back, I immediately brought her float back to her, but she asked me to keep it while she ate her hot dog.

Syble saw me pick up the float at that point and start back toward the water with it. She came running down to the beach and began to spank me shouting, Sinclairs do not beg things off people! The lady tried to explain, but Syble just kept spanking me. She hurt me! I had on a tight-fitting small bathing suit, and her angry spanking kept me from explaining I did not beg that float off the lady. Syble was so angry and wild that we had to take down our tent, load everything in the car and go home. Sinclairs really do not beg things off people, but I am glad all Sinclairs do not jump to conclusions like Syble did when people involved were trying so hard to offer her a different understanding