The Story of my Papa* by Mary L. Flynn

The only ancestor I knew was my maternal Grandfather. All of the others had finished their span of time on the earth before I was born. His name was Alfred Thomson, but all the family called him Papa. Papa often entertained me, and my siblings, by telling us stories about his childhood and his father.

He often reminded us that his name was “THOM ‘p’ SON - without the P”. Papa’s father came to America from the coal mining area of Wales, therefore when Great-grandfather Thomson arrived in America he went to the coal mining region of Pennsylvania and Ohio. When my Grandfather, was born his mother died, either of child birth or shortly after, and Papa was cared for by the Matthews family. After that his father went out west, and was known to have been a friend of Wild Bill Hickock. It was also recorded that he was a writer and reporter and that his book, “The Early History of the Methodist Church in America” is in the Library of Congress, but this has never been checked out as far as I know.

Papa was never adopted by the Matthews family. However, when the west opened up, and many families were going there to claim their offer of free land, the Matthews went to Oregon to claim their homestead. Like many others, they got 2 Conestoga Wagons and loaded everything they could take and Papa signed on as a driver for one of the family wagons even though he was only in his late teens.

They took the Oregon Trail (some of that route is still evident today). When their wagon train arrived in Denver, Colorado, it was late in the year so they wintered next to the Old Fort, both for protection from the winds and the Indians. It was a rough winter. One day, during a blizzard, when everyone was in the canvas shelter eating, ten Indians cut slits in the canvas and stepped in, ready to do battle if necessary. Papa was about to take a bite of his sourdough flapjack. He turned to look at the young brave who had stepped in beside him, and said “Do you want a bite?” The Brave looked to his father, who was the Chief, the Chief nodded slightly, and the rest of their group passed flapjacks out to the other Indians, and a peaceful meal was continued. While they were eating some of the women sewed up the cuts in the canvas, to keep the cold wind and snow out. After the blizzard was over, Papa and Mrs. Matthews went with them to teach their women how to make flapjacks.

Papa was made a “Blood Brother” to the Chief’s Son and was given an Indian name. He was also given an Indian Pony. After that, every morning the Matthews would find fresh meat; a deer, antelope, goat or buffalo, hung outside their wagon. Even though they never saw who had delivered them, they knew it was their new friends – the Indians. Somehow word gets around, and though others had problems with the Indians, the Matthews party and those with them never did. Once they reached their planned destination, and got settled in, Papa returned to visit the Blackfoot Indian tribe in North Dakota.

He then went on to Missouri where he boarded a train for Washington, D.C. By this time Papa had grown up quite a bit. He was 6’ 2” tall and had not an ounce of fat on his frame; he could shoot a chicken hawk in flight, and work from dawn to dark every day of the week. When he arrived in Washington the muddy ruts on Pennsylvania Ave. were so bad he had to walk his horse instead of riding him. When he met his father there, his eye level was at the top of Great-Grandfather’s stove top hat. The first thing his father said to him was, “How is the weather up there?”

About that time Papa learned that an uncle had just completed the first successful transatlantic cable. When the Queen of England knighted him and changed his name to Lord Calvert, the entire Thomson family disassociated themselves from him forever and never spoke his name again.

Papa stayed in Washington and got a job at the Government Printing Office. He had married and had a son, Henry, and two daughters, Grace Louise and Mildred Ross (Auntie), who was not well and was under a doctor’s care. Grace Louise was my mother, and our family was living in Cherrydale, Virginia, when both my Sister and Brother were born. When my brother was four years old and my mother was expecting me, they moved to Hyattsville, Maryland. When I was born it was not an easy delivery. I was fine, but Mother had lost so much blood the doctor prescribed a medication for her, to build up her blood. The medication was “German Black Beer”. Since it was during prohibition, Papa had to arrange with some Old German folks he knew to provide it for her.

Through it all God provides for our every need. At this time there was a black preacher in Georgetown who died. He was Rev. Jackson, and his wonderful wife prayed for help from the Lord, and asked, “What am I to do?” She knew she was led by the Lord to come to our house, and knock on the door. Papa answered the door and this Black Angel (Papa said that was what she looked like to him) said “Mister, God has sent me here. What am I to do?” Papa said, “Come in, we need you, and she did. She stayed with Mother and nursed her back to health. She helped Auntie with the housework and took care of my brother, sister, and me, and I had to be bottle fed, which was not done very often in those days. The Black Angel’s name was Vivian Jackson and she stayed with us as long as she was needed. Then one day she simply said “Goodbye, it’s time I went home,” and she left. Papa knew she was dearly loved by her people. They would often come to see if she needed anything even though she only had to ask for anything she wanted, and Papa would see to it that she got whatever it was. Papa liked to tease her about all her boyfriends and she would say “Now Mr. Thomson I’ gonna starch your shirttail,” and one time she really did. Some years later we heard that Vivian was sick, and we went to Georgetown to look for her. Her address had changed, so we went to the church to inquire, and were told that we could do nothing, they were attending to her needs and that was the way they wanted it to be.

When I was 2 years old, we moved to Beltsville, Maryland. Papa was very busy doing all the farm work, as my Dad worked the night shift at the Evening Star newspaper, and had to sleep in the daytime.

Ten years later we moved back to Hyattsville, Maryland. When my brother finished High School, Dad got him a job at the Evening Star Newspaper, in the Composing room, as a printer’s devil. My brother said it was hard work, but he was making $10 a week working 6 nights. This meant he had to sleep in the afternoon and evening. I’m sure that wasn’t easy, since he and Papa had to share the “sun room” which had windows all across the back of the house. One evening he woke up and was just lying there waiting for Papa to call him, when he heard him praying. He was saying, “Please Lord let me come home, I hurt so bad, and I’m not good for anything anymore,” My brother said, right then the room got so bright that he knew the Lord was standing right there, and he squinted to keep from being blinded by His presence. Then he heard Papa say, “Thank you Lord, thank you.” After a few minutes Papa took hold of my brother’s big toe and said, “It’s time to get up and get going to work”. He got up, dressed, and got his lunch. Then went back to kiss Papa on his high forehead (not quite bald yet) and said “Good bye Papa” instead of ‘Good Night’ as he had always done, and Papa looked up and said, “Good bye, be a good boy.”

That night my brother didn’t tell anyone what was on his mind, but at 6 a.m. when the telephone rang, in the composing room, he knew Papa had died. He walked toward his boss as he hung the phone up, and his boss said, “You go on home, I’ll check you out at 7”. So he left early for home that morning.

The funeral service was at Gashes Funeral Home in Hyattsville, MD, and burial was in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC. When we all returned home from the service, we gathered in the living room and just thanked God for Papa’s life, which he had shared with us.


*Much of the information in this story was from a paper written by my Brother, Wallis Montgomery Hurley, which he entitled, “The Way it was 1919 to 1999”. He wrote the paper when his Great-Grandson, Justin Gold, asked him what it was like having his Grandfather living with him while he was growing up.

My Story - a step back in history

Written by Mary L. Flynn (known to us as May) in 2011 who now lives in Tampa, FL.

I was born in Sibley Hospital, Washington, D.C. on June 13, 1923. My parents were Lawrence Leroy Hurley and Grace Louise (Thomson) Hurley. I had one sister, Grace Mildred, six years older and one brother, Wallis Montgomery, four years older. They were living in Hyattsville, Maryland at the time. Our family also included my mother’s father, Alfred Thomson (Papa), and her sister, Mildred Ross Thomson (Auntie).

While I was two years old, we moved to a house on top of a red clay hill known to be the highest point in 20 miles around. It later became known as “Hurley Hill”. The house we moved into was built before the Civil War and had not been inhabited for many years. That is, not by humans. The neighbors in the town of Beltsville, Md. informed us that it was definitely inhabited by many ghosts. After we moved in it didn’t take long to establish that the “ghosts” were: bats in the four chimneys, snakes, and many other critters who had found a nice dry place to make their homes. Needless to say, being only two years old, I was shielded from the trauma experienced by the other females in the family.

The main thing that I really remember about that house was the fact that I could lie in my bed and look outside through the cracks in the wall, and the fact that it was awfully cold in the winters. However, when the temperature got down near the zero mark we were allowed to roll up our covers and crowd into my Grandfather and Brother’s Bedroom over the kitchen, where a fire was kept going in the big old stove all night long.

There were many things that I do remember, and many more that I know were in my memory after being reminded of them by other family members. I remember standing in my crib and calling mother for her to come get me up and dressed after the other family members had had their breakfast and had gone on their way to their daily schedule of school and work. Another early memory I recall was that in the morning during the winter I would kneel on a window box in a corner of the kitchen watching mother hang the wash on the line, and each piece would freeze in the strangest shape as she pinned it to the clothes line.

We had a vegetable garden in back of the house, which my Grandfather tended. One day he was planting various vegetables and he called to me and told me, “You are just 3 feet tall and I need you to lie down after each time I plant one of these plants, so I will know just where to put the next one”. Oh, I felt so important; I was really helping Papa with his work. We all loved Papa so much; he was always trying to help all of us feel good about ourselves.

Another incident that I remember clearly, but I don’t remember if I was actually taking part in it, or just watching my brother. He had learned that if he would put an apple, or other tasty tidbit, on the end of a long stick, and hold it over a pig’s head as he jumped on its back, he could ride the pig all over the farm. I guess I was just watching, because my brother was the one who got the spanking.

As I got older, I was able to recall more things we enjoyed doing on the top of “Hurley Hill”. We had many fruit trees: very tall cherry trees that towered over the top of the house, as well as quite a few shorter ones around the house. We had pear trees, apple trees, one persimmon tree, and especially one sweet dark red cherry tree. However, the big cherry tree harvest was the most exciting event to me. There were a half dozen of those tall trees, and folks from all over the community came with their buckets and ladders, and climbed all over those trees. My only problem was that I wasn’t allowed to climb up in the trees with them, and I wanted so much to be up there with everyone else. Of course, I did finally grow up enough to be part of the pickers, but, somehow it didn’t seem like as much fun as I thought it would be.

During the ten years we lived on “Hurley Hill,” twice we had a National Geographic Survey Team come, and build a 100 foot tower right over a stone marker in our side yard to update the survey of our nation’s shoreline. It seems our eastern shoreline is receding and this was the way they were able to keep track of how much land was being washed away year by year. (Now this is done by aerial photography.)

This also brings to mind that there was another event that happened twice in the 10 years we lived there - we were surrounded by a forest fire. It was really frightening to stand in our front yard, and see the fire getting closer all the time, as well as see the adults who were beating the flames as they would get to the edge of the lawn. The fire fighters eventually won out. The ones who were there helping beat the fire out said the house was saved because we had a large expanse of green lawn around it.

As I mentioned earlier, the hill we lived on was a red clay hill. Do you know what a red clay hill does when it becomes very wet? It turns into a very big sliding board. It would freeze in the winter, but when it thawed it would be almost impossible to travel on. My mother would never leave home in the spring without having sand bags and shovels in the car. One morning, on her way back from taking us to school, she found a bread truck stuck on the hill. She got out her equipment, and with her help the Bread Man was able to go on his way. Of course, he insisted he pay for her help, but she refused. Somehow he found out when her birthday was, and that we were at our cottage in Sylvan Shores near Annapolis, for the summer. Needless to say, we were all very surprised when he showed up with a beautiful, big Birthday Cake for her on the 29th of July.

I was excited when I heard that a family had moved in next door to us that had a daughter my age. Of course this was out in the country, so next door meant at least a mile down the road from us. That didn’t seem too far to walk on a Saturday morning, especially when I knew that my friend’s mother did her weeks baking on Saturday mornings and always sliced a loaf of Cinnamon-raisin bread while it was still hot.

While we were living on the hill our family increased by 2; Thelma and Pernie Marcus moved in with us. The sisters were in need of a place to stay while they finished high school and my parents invited them to join our family. During this time my mother and dad were active in the 4-H Club in Beltsville. In addition to all the usual activities of the club, they also had a very active Chorus and sang all over the County, even on the radio’s “Farm and Home Hour” program, at least once each year. This was one activity we all enjoyed, especially the year when Arthur Godfrey was the young redheaded announcer, and he had such fun teasing and flirting with the girls.

I was only 10 or 11 during this time and too young to officially join the 4-H Club. So I was not a member, but was always at the meetings and rehearsals since they were held after school. This was where I first learned to sing the alto part, since they were usually in need of more altos.

Such were the pleasures of living in the country. However, when I was 12 years old, Dad received a notice from the government saying they were buying our 54 acres, as well as many of the neighbor’s homes and land, to build a town they would call “Greenbelt.” We were given 90 days to find a place to live and move. We went back to Hyattsville to a house on Oakwood Road, which was later renamed 40^th Avenue. I often wonder how in the world we managed in that 3 bedroom and 1 bath house with 4 adults, 4 teenagers, and me.

The Hurleys, a couple of generations ago

Written in 2011 by Mary L. Flynn (known to most of us as May) who now lives in Tampa, FL.





Mr. Lawrence Leroy Hurley 1895 – 1969

Mrs. Grace Louise (Thomson) Hurley 1893 - 1988

I have always been grateful that I had the parents I did. My Maternal Grandmother died while my Mother was a teenager, and Mom had, not only to take over the household duties, but to take care of her father and her younger sister, who had never been well. They both were part of our family until they died.

My Mother and father were trained musicians, and taught all of us to appreciate and love music. They were always active in Church and Sunday School, as well as community affairs. The Methodist Church in Beltsville had a balcony along the side of the sanctuary where the organ and choir was located. My earliest memories of that church were lying on the floor, with my Sunday school papers from the pre-school class I attended, spread in front of me. My hands were full of the wonderful colored pens that Daddy used in his work and let me use, only on Sunday, if I would be quiet and very careful with them. Since Daddy played the organ and Mother directed the choir, and I had all the choir members watching me, I knew I had to be really quiet.

When we moved to Hyattsville during the year I was 12, they continued with all their outside activities. Mother was the teacher for the teenage girls’ Sunday School class and Dad was the substitute organist. He played at the Sunday evening services. One Sunday evening as he was standing on the back steps of the church office wing, a young man came up and introduced himself to Dad. He was the younger brother of a church member who we all knew and loved. Dad came down to the basement, motioned for me to come out of the Epworth League meeting, and introduced him to me. Dad told me to introduce him to the rest of the teenagers after the meeting. I did this, not knowing this was the young man I would marry in a couple of years.

Many years later the folks decided to buy a lot on the South River near Annapolis and build a home. This took several years, as most of the work was done by family members in their spare time. The three of us, my sister, brother, and me, had all married and started our families. We didn’t live close to our parents, but we had many wonderful “family fun times” during the building of this house. One of the “fourth of July” weekends during this time, we all planned to get together there when the basement was the only part of it that was completely finished. As you would expect, it was quite crowded. Later, my sister, Grace and I were deciding where our children would sleep, but we were short one place. My sister said, “Butch has a date, and will be very late getting in, and he asked me to leave him a note in the middle of the table, telling him where he was to sleep.” So she did, the note said “right here!”

By the time Dad retired our family was even more scattered, with my brother and his family living in Northwest Florida, my sister and her family still in Baltimore, Maryland, and my family in Atlanta, Georgia. Dad started talking about wanting to move to Florida. However, it took him several years to convince Mother she wanted to head south; she had too many good friends in the Baltimore-Washington area. It took several more years of traveling, and deciding in which area of Florida they wanted to live. Meanwhile, they celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary at the home the family had so lovingly built on the South River. The whole family had a chance to find out just how many good friends Mom and Dad had in that area. It was estimated there were at least 350 people who had come from miles around to help them celebrate. Even a dear friend of many years, who was my first grade school teacher, made the trip. My children were amazed that someone old enough to have been my first grade teacher could come all that way for a party.

It wasn’t long before the folks were headed south. They had decided to settle in Cape Coral. Dad said it would have to be -- “below the frost line” -- wherever that was. It wasn’t long before they were just as active in the First United Methodist Church, and busy with other activities in the community, and found they had many good friends there too. They even discovered several of the friends they had enjoyed back home had also moved to that area.

Our youngest daughter, Rebecca and her boyfriend, decided they would be married on December 27, 1969. Mom and Dad drove from Cape Coral to Atlanta on the 22^nd. He planned to be there a few days early so he could practice on the church organ, since he was expected to play for the wedding, as he had done for all the other grandchildren who had married by this time. He came back very upset, and told us he just couldn’t get his fingers to do what he wanted them to do. We called and made an appointment for him to see the doctor the next day. The doctor said that he had had a small heart attack and he wanted to put him into the hospital, but they didn’t have an available room. So we could take him home, but he would have to forget about playing the organ, and stay in bed. The doctor then made an appointment to meet him in the hospital emergency room the day after Christmas. At that time he would decide if he would even be able to go to the wedding. The next day my husband took him to the emergency room and while he was there, with the doctor in attendance, Dad had a massive heart attack and died.

As church Families do, our church family was there for us. The only thing that was cancelled was the Bridesmaid’s Luncheon, which was scheduled for noon that day. We all insisted that Rebecca and John go on with the wedding and honeymoon, while the rest of us packed up and headed to Maryland for the funeral. This was all accomplished with much help from our friends and neighbors. After we returned from Maryland, my husband took the next week off and drove Mother back to Florida and took care of all the paperwork that was required. Mother said she wanted to remain in her home in Cape Coral by herself, so we all went down to see her as often as we could during the 13 years she lived there alone.

On June 26, 1982, I retired from my position with the Center for Disease Control, and we moved Mother to Atlanta so I could take care of her. Then on July 10, 1988, the Lord called her and she passed away in her sleep just 10 days before her 95^th birthday.