Branton Durden

Jac gave the eulogy at his funeral in February 2001

Branton Anderson Durden. Uncle Bant, as all the nieces and nephews called him because, as children, Branton was just a name we could not get our mouths around. He was my only Uncle. I want to extend my sympathy to all of you who knew him. I feel sad for the sorrow I know you feel. And I  feel sadder still for those of you who didn’t know him. He was a grand person --  with a good heart.

My uncle was born on August 23, 1928 here in Houston Texas. Except for his time in the service, he never lived anywhere else. He grew up with two adoring older sisters watching over him. Some might say trying to control his every move, but certainly not anyone who KNEW Hazel and Doris. Branton graduated from Austin High School. He started to work for Texaco in 1951, where he became a Systems Analyst.

In 1952, he was drafted into the US Army, after working less than a year for Texaco. He went through his 18 weeks of basic training and then was sent to Korea. He was in the infantry, in the anti-tank and mine platoon. He landed in Pooshahn (phonetic) and then was sent to the front lines. After only a couple of days, the Sgt. asked for volunteers who knew how to type. My uncle said he had always heard that you should never volunteer for anything in the army, but he went ahead and raised his hand. It was the best move, he recollected, because he spent the rest of his time in Korea in HQ, a good 5 or 6 miles from the front lines. He was a Corporal and was awarded the United Nations Service Medal, the National Defense Service medal, the Good Conduct Medal, and the Korean Service Medal with three bronze stars.  He was discharged from the army honorably in February of 1954 and he returned to Houston and his job at Texaco. He never left either of those, until he retired from Texaco in 1984 when he was 55 years old.

When he came back from Korea, he took advantage of his veteran’s benefits by going to college. He went to the University of Houston at night and, although it took him thirteen years, he got his Bachelor of Business Administration degree. He saved his transcript and I was looking at it last night. He got As in his accounting courses and business law and he got his only D in psychology. I think Branton really liked to deal with the “what” of situations and not so much the “why.”

Branton didn’t have any children. I think maybe he got more than enough of a taste of having children by being around his seven nieces and nephews. His first was Marc, born in 1941. Next was Pat, born in 1942. Then Mike, born in 1944 and then Danny, born in 1945. Rusty was born in 1949, the last of the boys.  Then there was me and then my cousin Kay. We were born in – well, let’s just say we were the youngest.

The great love of Branton’s life was golf.  He shot a hole in one once. He loved to golf. That’s why we have two of his golf clubs in the flowers on his casket.  When he retired, the thing he was most looking forward to was spending more time on the golf course. Last year, after his hip replacement surgery, his first question was not about his cancer, but it was about whether he’d be able to play golf. He loved to watch golf on television, too. I could not imagine a more boring way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but he was always mesmerized. Of the pros on the tour right now, Fred Couples was his favorite.

He really did love sports. For 10 years, he ushered games at Rice Stadium just for the love of being at the games. I asked him recently why he did that for ten whole years. He said it was so that he could get into the games for free.  Between him and my parents, there was little doubt that all of us grew up knowing the proud traditions of Rice University and to this day, we always root for Rice, even when they play our own alma maters.

Branton and I had lots of good conversations in the last few years. He came to my office one day and he talked about his death. At that time, which was in 1998, he thought he didn’t have long to live. It was the fall of 98 and the Astros were in a fight for their division title. I thought they just might make it to the World Series. I told Branton he couldn’t die til the Astros made it to the World Series. He said they better hurry. Well, maybe next year.

He told me a couple of months ago that he didn’t really want to die, but he knew it coming soon and he felt peaceful about it. He said that he had a good long life and he had lived it pretty much like he wanted to live it. He hoped people, mainly his sisters, would not be sad when he died. But he said that he thought that, if he was aware of anything after he died, he would miss the start of baseball season most of all. He would miss the hope that he held out every season for the Astros that THIS would be the year. He said he would really miss that feeling of hope.

The first time he went to the Hospice was the week before the Super Bowl. He was at my mother’s house and he started having difficulty breathing and they had to call an ambulance to take him to the hospice. He seemed pretty out of it all day that day and we – my mother, my aunt, my cousin Kay, and I --  started making plans for his funeral. I told him goodbye when I left him that night. I went back early the next morning so that my mother and aunt could go home to rest and there he was, just sitting there watching TV and reading the paper and acting like nothing had happened at all. We spent a couple of hours alone together that morning and he told me that he couldn’t remember anything from the day before. He told me then that he was finally ready to die. He said, “I’m sooo ready that I can’t really figure out why I came back. I don’t even care about these two teams in the SuperBowl so I don’t think that was the reason I came back.” Our office had a little SuperBowl pool – the kind where you buy a square and watch for the score at the end of the quarters. Branton bought a square and ended up winning the last two quarters for $100. When I took him his winnings, his said, “Maybe that’s why I hung around cause I never did manage to win a football pool before now.”

Branton and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye on politics so we just didn’t discuss it much. We kinda had an understanding. He didn’t say anything bad about Democrats in front of me and I didn’t say anything good about Harry Truman in front of him. Although Uncle Bant could have a reasoned discussion on just about any topic in the world, there was NO reasoning with him on the subject of Harry Truman.

Branton was definitely a creature of habit. He had his special places where he loved to go. The Texaco Country Club and the grill there, especially when Delores Caldwell was working. Sunday morning breakfasts at the 59 Diner. The Tel Wink on the corner of Telephone and Winkler.  Ruffinos where Loretta and Wanda worked. Henry Brown was his mechanic for all his Buicks through the years. If Golfcrest Hardware didn’t have something, he pretty much just didn’t need it.

He loved to play the lottery. A dollar for some hope. Most weeks he bought a LOT of hope. He never struck it rich, but he never lost hope.

In the last few weeks, his health was really leaving him and he told me many times that he was ready for his life to be over. He said he was at peace about his life and he was so tired of the pain and of the struggle just to breathe. I know it will sound preachy for me to say this, but I just wish that every young person who ever thought that taking up smoking would be cool, could just have sat with Branton and watched him and listened to him struggling to get air those last two days of his life. The Hospice made sure he was not in pain, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t fighting to get every breath because he was. As much as our hearts broke over the thought of losing him, the thought of him continuing like he was at the end was much worse. He was ready to let go, and in the end, we were all ready for him to let go.

For the last 15 or 20 hours of his life, he was more or less semi-conscious. His eyes were neither opened or closed exactly, but just between the two and unblinking. He would occasionally flash a quick smile or a grimace. Sometimes a word would come out of nowhere -–"where is she?” “a hole in one!” “jack of all trades” which is what he called my father; and one of his favorite expressions when things weren’t going his way – “Rats!” He had an air of kindness and goodness around him right through the end. He made it easy to do things for him because he never ordered and he always appreciated.

My mother, Doris Brennan, and my most favorite aunt, Hazel Couey, have taken care of my Uncle these past few months. Their deepest appreciation and that of the entire family is extended to his friend, Fernando Cassanova. We don’t know what we, or Branton, would have done without him these last few years. He has been a great help in all kinds of ways.

Two weeks ago, I asked Branton if there was anything he especially wanted me to say in his eulogy. He said no. Then he said – “Well, make me seem better than I really was.” I told him that would be impossible.

I would like to end by giving my Uncle an Irish Blessing:

Betty Rae Miller, James's Mom

Jac gave the eulogy at her service on September 22, 2001

Betty’s children, and her sister, want to thank each of you for coming here to share this very precious moment with them. I am proud to be the person here today to give some of their memories a voice. I want to extend my condolences to each of you who knew Betty. And while I am so sad for those of you who knew her, I am sadder still for those of you who did not know her well. She was one phenomenal woman!

You have already heard some of the basic facts of Betty’s life. Those facts – those milestones – while very important, of course, can only scratch the surface of this amazing woman’s life. I want to scratch a little deeper today so that each of you might leave here feeling that you know her just a little bit better than you did when you came into this church this morning.

I want to start with what Betty’s oldest daughter, Mary, wrote about her mother’s life. She asked me to read them to you just as she wrote them.

Mary began with a quote from Mother Teresa:

            What can you do to promote world peace?

         Go home and love your family

And now in Mary’s words:

We called her Mother, sometimes Mom. She was strict and old-fashioned, so it was usually “Mother.” She was a very practical woman. She taught us to put our family first – handed down to her from previous generations. I remember that she said many times that we wouldn’t need charities if we would take care of our own families. She always said that her mother taught her to be nice to other people. “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” So, following her mother’s advice, she was always very nice to everyone she met, whether on her bus rides or during a family gathering.

She loved her mother and father very much and, when she talked about the best times, they were of Riviera where she was born, and the people she knew there – P.J. Mixon, and now his wife, Janet, and Doris Yaklin.

By example, she taught us that self-discipline each day leads to success. Her grandparents had wealth and privilege, but living through the depression taught her that to survive meant sacrifice and hard work. I don’t think there is one of her children, grandchildren, or nephews that did not receive assistance during a financially hard time. The way that she was able to assist financially was to watch every single penny that she spent. She said that love was demonstrated by our actions. As were many from her time, she was uncomfortable talking about her emotions, though she seldom said she “loved” us, her actions left no doubt.

She was so proud of each of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She felt that God had truly blessed her with her progeny. She took great pride in the fact that all three of her children not only graduated from college, but that her son, Ronnie, is a professional engineer and her two daughters are CPAs. She followed her own advice and started college when she was 58 and received her associate’s degree when she was 61 years old. Mother believed in education, not only for financial gain, but also for life enhancement. In addition to academic achievement, she valued good parenting and skillful craftsmanship. She knew that our world needs all kinds of different gifts to contribute to society.

She had a great sense of humor and loved jokes and comedy. Her father had a good sense of humor and loved to joke and keep the family conversation fun during their family time together. Nancy’s husband, Paul, remembers talking to her one day about riding the bus. Paul rode the Dallas Area Rapid Transit, which was DART. Mother rode the bus in Fort Worth. So, he said, “If Dallas is DART, what do they call the Fort Worth area rapid transit?” Mother thought for a moment and just broke out laughing. From that moment on, Paul was accepted into her family’s “inner circle.”

I remember some of her happiest moments were during her genealogy research. I took her to Riviera for a long weekend and left her to spent time with her old friend, P.J. Mixon. She bonded instantly with Janet, P.J.’s wife, and I saw a transformation from a senior citizen to a schoolgirl. She was sitting up until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning talking and laughing. Nancy took a week off from work to take Mother to Rankin County, Mississippi. Mother loved meeting the relatives that she had never known and connecting to her roots. Her grandmother had died during childbirth with her father. So Mother grew up knowing nothing about the huge family support system that existed in Rankin County, Mississippi. Fortunately, she connected with these people during her visit. Again, she has left all of us with the fruits of her persistent efforts and hard work in locating and documenting her findings. What a beautiful legacy for her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all of the generations to follow. Once again, love in action.

Mom’s final weeks with us revealed a depth and strength that we did not know she possessed. Even though she was well aware that she was in a very serious condition, her thoughts were still on others and how “this” was impacting them. Mom set a benchmark of bravery and self-sacrifice that will be a very tough act to follow.

Her father and mother gave her a belief in the Bible and God that was very strong throughout her life. When asked what she believed would happen when she died, she responded, “My spirit will go immediately to be with the Lord.” Even though it is hard to let her go, we must all take comfort in knowing that she is in heaven doing the work that her Lord required of her during this time.

I am thankful that I chose her to guide me through life’s lessons, and teach me how to approach life with strength, determination, and persistence.

Thank you, Mary.

Betty’s life: Betty Rae Russell was born on August 2, 1929, in the farmhouse where her family lived just outside Riviera, Texas. She was named after both of her parents – her mother’s name was Elizabeth, although she was called Bessie, and her father’s name was Ray. So she was Betty Rae. Today, in fact, is her mother’s birthday. Dates were always very important to Betty and she would have liked this sweet coincidence.

Betty loved talking about her childhood. Always a trailblazer, she was the youngest girl in Riviera to make the Honor Roll in first grade because she was only five years old when she graduated from first grade. Church was an important part of Betty’s life. She said that her favorite Bible verse when she was a little girl was the oft-memorized and recited John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

She spent her childhood days on the farm helping to milk the cows, climbing trees, playing in the stock tanks at neighboring farms, and cutting up with her big brother, Jody. Betty was the little sister of the family for twelve years, until she became a big sister when the family’s third child was born. Betty’s mother told her that, if the baby was a girl, Betty could name her. She named the baby Wanda, after Wanda Wiles, a friend of hers in Riviera. Betty told me that she always felt a little like a mother as well as a sister to Wanda, because of the difference in their ages.

She married Adam May in 1946 when she was only 16. They had three wonderful (and brilliant, to hear Betty tell it) children – Ronnie, Mary, and Nancy. I have heard so many stories from Betty about raising her children and the joys of being a mother. She sometimes doubted that she was best at mothering her children. She talked honestly about how she sometimes felt overwhelmed by the demands of mothering in the midst of frequent moves and housework. But when she looked at what good mothers Mary and Nancy had become, she felt that she must have done something right or they wouldn’t have learned how to mother so well. In one of the last emails I had from Betty, she bragged about what a wonderful mother Nancy was to Rachel.

I asked Nancy what she wanted everyone to know about her mom. In Nancy’s words:

Mom and I had a lot of good times together. I’m so glad that we lived in the same city for so much of my adult life because it brought us even closer.

We loved shopping together and spending the day in the mall. Mom loved going out to eat and her favorite place to eat was Luby’s. Sometimes she’d let me have my way and we’d go to a Mexican food restaurant, but she always preferred Luby’s.

Mother didn’t need other people to make her happy. She found happiness from inside herself and from her relationship with God.

Mom loved music. She loved to sing with her lovely soprano voice, not only in church choirs, but also in her everyday life while doing housework and while driving. She really loved music and, her Baptist roots notwithstanding, sometimes she just could not keep her happy feet still. She danced. I remember watching Lawrence Welk every week and Mother and I would dance together.

My childhood was very different from Mary and Ronnie’s – not simply because I was much younger than they were, but mostly because during most of my childhood, Mom was a single mother. Looking back, I don’t know how she managed everything she did. Even though money was very tight, she always found money for me to take piano lessons. It was a necessity like rent or electricity. And when she heard that my school was starting a violin program, she marched right out, without even asking about my interest in it, and bought me a violin. It probably cost a month’s rent – a whole lot to a single mother. When I was in Girl Scouts, she was a troop leader. I don’t know how she managed it all.

Mom was always a comforting presence in my life. When I was upset about anything, I turned to her first and she would always provide great calm and acceptance. I could always count on her.

Thank you, Nancy.

And I also asked Ronnie, a man of few words, what he wanted everyone to know about his mom. He thought for a long moment and then said, “I want everybody to know that, of all her children, Mom always liked me best!” She would have laughed so hard if she heard him say that. And then, I just know, she would have protested, saying it just wasn’t true, worried that someone might think he was serious.

After Betty and Adam were divorced, Betty started working for the City of Fort Worth. She said that she had no idea what kind of job she would get. She had very little money – she said that she had to borrow a nickel from Adam for the parking meter the day they went to court to get their divorce – so she started going to the employment office every morning. She thought it was better for her to show up in person rather than just call. She thought they would have a harder time turning her down in person. She got her job with the City without too much delay and she loved her work there. It was a big change for her, but she handled it with enthusiasm. She loved to do new things. She was very determined about things throughout her life. Some would say even a little stubborn, but she preferred “determined” as a description.

This determination led her to do something she had always regretted not doing before – continuing her education. She started taking classes at Tarrant County Junior College and, at the age of 61, she donned her cap and gown and walked across the stage to proudly accept her Associate of Arts degree. Remarkable woman!

Betty retired from the City of Fort Worth in 1994 and her life again headed in a different direction. She had a new granddaughter, Rachel, Nancy and Paul’s baby girl. She retired so that she could be Rachel’s caregiver while Nancy and Paul were at work. She loved rocking a baby again and, according to her supervisor at the City, Betty seemed to get younger-looking after she retired. Rachel made her young again.

Betty may have been a senior citizen, but she never quite managed to get her mind around that fact. She delivered food to senior citizens through the Meals on Wheels program. She spoke of the elderly people she met with great love and concern, but always with a respect reserved for those who were much older. She never saw herself as a peer to the “elderly.” Betty told me once that she never ever thought about dying. She just could not imagine that a day would come when she would not be alive – when the world would keep spinning without her. It wasn’t an ego thing at all. She just could not imagine not waking up to enjoy each and every day.

Betty had four grandchildren and she really loved being a grandma. She was a very young grandmother when her first grandchild, Robert, came along when she was only 38. Next came Mike and then Jason. She was even a young great-grandmother at the age of 58, when Robby was born on her birthday in 1987. Lyndsay was her first great-granddaughter. Then she had her first granddaughter, Rachel. And then another great-granddaughter, Madie. Then another great-grandson, Cooper. She loved bragging about her grandchildren and her great grandchildren and showing off their pictures and telling their funny stories. She could tell them again and again and they would make her laugh every time.

I can’t say that nothing ever fazed Mom because the last thing I want to do is to make it sound as if she was too good to be true. She was human, of course. Sometimes she would get mad about people or things and sometimes she would go into a long list of things that she would do or should do and she could rant and rave with the best of them. But she would always end her tangents by saying something like, “Well, maybe that’s what I could do, but I never really would. I bet that person was just having a bad day. You know, that happens to everybody.” And her sweet spirit would just talk her right out of her anger. She had a great gift of spirit.

Then sometimes things really didn’t faze her the way you would think they would. All of her children were frantically trying to reach her on the day, about a year and half ago, when deadly tornadoes unleashed themselves on Fort Worth. It was hard to get a phone line through at all, but even when we did, there was no answer at her house. We were all so worried. At long last, she answered when I called. I told her we had all be worried about her. She said she was fine – that she had been at the downtown library when the tornadoes came. The library? That was in the middle of the hardest hit area. She said that, yes, they had gathered everyone in the basement of the library and yes, the skylight had crashed in and yes, there was shattered glass and some blood, but she and her friend were both fine. She said that, once the excitement died down, they were going to catch the bus to go home. Of course, the buses were not exactly running on schedule ten minutes after the tornadoes came through. Another woman heard them talking and offered them a ride home. When they got out to the woman’s car, all of her windows had been blown out. But Mom said they just brushed the glass off the seats and they got home safe and sound. She just was not fazed at all.

Not every person asks for a computer for her 70^th birthday, but that’s just what Betty did! Her son, Ronnie, had gotten a little notebook computer and he showed it to her. She had never wanted a computer. Like many people her age, she was somewhat afraid of them. But when she saw his, and it practically looked like a toy, she said, “Well, you know, I believe I would be able to work one of those little things without the big computer attached to it.” And so we got her one. And so she did learn to use it. She loved email. I had email from her nearly every day. Even in the last few weeks, when she was sometimes too weak or tired to sit at the computer, she would ask Mary to check her email and shout out instructions to Mary about how to reply or to print it out. Just like her loyalty to her soap opera, her “story,” she was very faithful in her email correspondence.

The computer helped her in another interest that developed into a true passion in the last years of her life – genealogy. As you heard in Mary’s words, this led her into all sorts of new directions – to new places, meeting new people, developing new skills, and leaving her family with the priceless treasure book of family history that goes back to the 1600s. For a few months there, you could not have a short phone conversation with Betty because even the most innocent of questions like “how are you doin’?” would send her off on endless explanations of everything she had discovered about the family. She would always talk as if you knew as much detail as she did, but no one ever came close. She knew so much detail and could just spout it off seamlessly.

Ronnie wanted so much to take his mom back to Riviera for a last visit during these last few weeks. He knew that it was not going to happen. But his act of faith was in the planning, not the doing.

Yesterday, we were talking about trying to sum up Betty in single words. Some of the words that kept coming up were:

• Comfortable – Mom was content with herself. She lived alone, but never complained of loneliness. She was enough for herself. She read, she researched, she prayed, she learned. She was comfortable in her own skin and content.
• Sense of Humor –Mom loved to laugh and tell jokes. She sometimes didn’t get the punch line just right, but her laughter was infectious. And she loved to watch funny things on television and listen to her grandchildren’s jokes.
• Friendly – Mom was always outgoing and friendly around people. When she used to catch the bus from Fort Worth to San Antonio to visit Mary, she would invariably get off the bus and introduce Mary to the new friend she had met on the bus and explain the person’s life history to Mary. And if you drove down Camp Bowie, where Mom would ride the bus, she would point out people at the bus stops and tell you about them and their families. She loved to talk to people.
• Thrifty – She could stretch a penny farther than anybody. She loved a sale! One day, she pulled out six pins and let Mary, Nancy, and me each choose one. There was no special occasion except, she said with pride, she found a really great sale!
• Sacrificing – She would give and give without complaining. If you were in need, you had only to ask her for help. But most of the time, you didn’t even have to ask her. She just gave without being asked.
• Vain – Not in a bad way. Just in a way that said she always cared about her appearance, no matter how bad she was feeling.
• Protective – She was protective of the people she loved, especially her children. She could criticize them when they needed it, but no one else could. I’ve seen her rewrite history many times to preserve the perfection of her children.
• Her Smile – Ronnie and I saw her last night before the viewing at the funeral home and we both had the same reaction – where is her smile? She could always, no matter how bad she might be feeling, manage some kind of a smile. And that smile was pure magic.<