JOHN & LINNIE BIRDWELL

The following bio was taken from page 113 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

John (Buddie) Birdwell and Mary Melinda (Linnie) Mansinger were childhood playmates who grew up in the Patrick Community, fell in love, married and lived happily as long as they lived.

John Birdwell was always called Buddie by his seven sisters and his only brother, W. H. (Bird) Birdwell. He and his twin sister, Isabel (Jude), were the youngest children of George Birdwell, Jr. and his wife Sarah, of the Patrick Community. The twins were born at Patrick January 14, 1883, he was brunette and she a redhead.

John’s grandfather, George Birdwell, Sr., had come to Texas in 1839 and settled in the Harper Community.

Mary Melinda (Linnie) Mansinger, born December 23, 1884, was the daughter of Ellen Hooper Bearden and Gilbert Shaw Mansinger of Patrick. She had one sister, Maggie, and three brothers, E. D. (Duff) Mansinger, Abe Mansinger, and J. R. (Bob) Mansinger. They were the first grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Bearden, with whom Linnie spent many childhood hours.

John and Linnie attended the Patrick School. As a teenager, Linnie, who liked to excel at whatever she did, was urged by her teacher to attend Normal school and become a teacher. She did become a teacher and later taught at Ragley Sawmill. That ended her teaching career.

At the time of her marriage to Buddie, January 1, 1911, Linnie was a widow with a small daughter, Nora Belle Iverson, born during her marriage to Pope Iverson.

Soon after his marriage, John sold his farm at Patrick and he and Linnie, with her little daughter, moved to Gainesville, where they bought a farm with an orchard and a vineyard.

Linnie, always energetic, enjoyed gardening, picking fruit, canning and preserving, so she liked living on the farm. She had other hobbies: sewing, crocheting, and quilting. Being self-reliant, she carded her own quilt bats.

In Gainesville, John, who had been called "Buddie" heretofore, became John. So accustomed was he to being called Buddie, he sometimes overlooked a greeting from a new acquaintance. He even became "John" to Linnie, who had always before called him "Buddie." John and Linnie’s first child, Nellie, was born in Gainesville; then came George and Mary.

Then World War I. Married men were being called. Linnie, thinking John would have to go, wanted to return to Rusk County were her family lived; therefore, in 1917 they returned, first to Pine Hill, then to Patrick, and then back to Pine Hill, where they lived almost forty years. Their youngest child, Ann, was born there and all the children grew up there. There also John served as constable in the early 1940’s. The children became adults. Nora married Herman Hunt in 1919. Nellie became a teacher, George, a pipe fitter, Mary, a beautician, and Ann chose to remain with her parents, who lived in Pine Hill until John’s death August 14, 1959. Linne and Ann moved to Mt. Enterprise, where Nellie and her husband, Joe Compton, lived. Linnie died May 23, 1978. Her five children survived her: Nora, in Patrick; Nellie and Ann, in Mt. Enterprise; George, in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Mary (Mrs. Jimmy Clifford), in Harlingen. There are also three generations of grandchildren.

Submitted by Nellie Comptom