JUST MARRIED--70 YEARS AGO

The Winters Enterprise, Winters, TX Thursday August 26, 1993

submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Panola & Rusk County Coordinator

In 1900, George W. and Ida F. Ash Briley moved their family from the East Texas area to Crews in Runnels Co., which was then known as the land of opportunity. About 20 years later, James Robert and Anna Lela Long Wood moved their family from Milam Co. To Winters.

In the fall of 1922, Myrtle Best Wood and Robert Lee Briley met and soon love blossomed and on the 18^th of August, 1923, they quietly went to Abilene to get their marriage license, so that no one would know and also, as R.L. said "....she was too young to get the license in Ballinger, and they didn't want anyone to know.."

On the night of the 20^th, R.L. drove the buggy to the home of the Worthington's and Myrtle slipped out and they drove on to Winters to the house of Mr. Brown, who was the Justice of the Peace, and were married just two blocks east of the present First Baptist Church.

Life took them from the farm, through the depression, the W.P.A., World War II and the wheat harvest, combining wheat and grain from South TX. to the plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. They finally arrived in South Dakota, where they lived for the next seven years moving houses across the frozen ice of the Missouri River, moving Indian Reservations, buildings, bridges and even graves just to clear the path for the Oahe Dam, the largest man-made earth dam in the world. It was here, in 1957 that they lost their son Jimmie as a result of an auto accident. The next year, they returned to Winters.

In 1987, R. L. and Myrtle retired, sold their property in Winters and moved 100 miles south to Christoval, where they now live.

On Saturday, August 28^th, Myrtle and R.L. were wished the best anniversary by their children: Robert Lee and Faith Briley, Jacqueline Yvonne and Jimmy Shipman, Gloria Jean and Elmer Mayfield and Michael G. Briley. Two of their children, who could not attend the celebration but sent their good wishes, were Bettye and Jim Webb and Teddy H. Briley.

Joining the Briley's children in wishing the best of everything to Myrtle and Robert Briley were 29 grandchildren and 31 great grandchildren and numerous relatives and friends.

Robert Lee Briley was the grandson of Nehemiah and Nancy Garris Briley, and the grandson of Dr. Will H. and Maggie Ruth Morris Ash.