H.M. as most people called him, was a musican long before he became interested in religion. In listening to my eldest sister Cecil talk about the early days of their marriage, when he would play at dances at night to make extra money. He played both the violin and the guitar and sang off key. At the time of WW 11 he was 34 years old with a wife and four children, but he was called into the service anyway.
By the time I can remember much about him they were at our house in Texico, New Mexico during the 1940's during cotton picking time. There was not much work at the time back where they were living and they came to pick cotton along with Hattie and her family and visit with Mom and Dad because visits were rare. Uncle Lonnie and his family were also here picking cotton and visiting. I am sure he had began preaching by this time because he and Uncle Lonnie would work all day, come in and clean up to go to church somewhere. As a small child I remember goimg to visit them in a place called
Simmons Bottom and he was preaching at the church there. While there we went to Houston to see the Battleship Texas which had just been put there and the tower at the monument of San Jacinto.
After the death of my father, my mother decided we should leave Texico, so H.M. and Cecil came and moved us to a place in Texas called Hull. This was during my freshman year in high school. Hurshel went to a great expense to set Mom up with a washateria and she worked at that along with Cecil. Things didn't work out as planned so he had to bring us back to Texico the next year. I didn't get to be around him much after that, but in the 1960's he again moved Mom next to him at Seagoville so he and Cecil could look after her. She lived close to them until the time of her death in 1973. All through his life I can't remember him and Cecil not having someone that they were taking care of, even in his last years when his older brother lived next to them.