Damie Roberts - 90th Birthday
The following biography of Damie
Richards Roberts was written by her grand daughter, Dawn Willis.
Damie
Richards was born on March 1, 1909 in Cryer Creek, Navarro County,
Texas, near Corsicana to Maggie and CC Richards. Her unusual name,
given to her by her father, has always been a source of curiosity.
When she was a girl, Damie once asked her father where he got the
name. Her father told her that around the time of her birth he had
been reading a farming magazine which contained a story about a girl
and her dog, and was thus inspired to give her the name "Damie". Mr.
Richards said that was the name of the little girl, but Damie has
always suspected that she was named after the dog!
One of Damie's fondest memories of her girlhood revolves around an
incident when she was sick one day. Her father asked if there was
anything he could do to help her feel better. She replied that she
thought a hamburger would help (!) So her darling Poppa saddled up
the mule and rode to town to buy her a hamburger....hardly fast
food!
Damie was born to older parents, the baby of a large family (a
"yours, mine, and ours" situation), and was, in some ways, just a
bit "spoiled". Damie remembers that Roy, her brother who was five
years older than her, set up a charge account for her at the little
grocery store that did business along Damie’s two-mile route to
school. She was allowed to buy whatever she wanted and Roy paid for
it out of the money he made off of his paper route. Damie graduated
from Itasca High School in 1925, and went on to attend business
college in Dallas.
After the death of her father, Damie and her mother moved to
Crockett to live with Damie’s older sister and her family. She
worked in the bakery owned by her brother-in-law. Jeanette and Lonzo
Courtney owned a grocery store there, and after meeting Damie,
Jeanette decided to introduce the young Miss Richards to her
bachelor brother, Floyd Roberts, who drove a truck for the
Courtney’s grocery store. They dated or some time before Floyd made
a proposal of marriage. The young couple had planned to be married
on a Sunday afternoon, but on Friday, August 17, 1934 (two days
before the proposed wedding) Floyd arrived on Damie’s doorstep,
asking her to move up the wedding date to that very night so that
they could have a week-end honeymoon to Galveston before he had to
return to work on Monday. Damie was reluctant due to the fact that
her wedding dress was still at the dressmaker’s shop, but decided
that she could wear her second-best dress instead. She got dressed
quickly and the two walked to the theater, interrupting the "picture
show" to ask their close friends to come "stand up for them".
(Wouldn't it be interesting to know the name of the movie?)
Together, the little group walked to the pastor's home where Floyd
and Damie were married. From that simple beginning, their marriage
lasted 49 years, until Floyd’s death in 1983, producing three
children, nine grandchildren, and 17 great-grandchildren. Floyd and
Damie lived in Pasadena, Texas from 1936 until Floyd’s retirement
from Shell Oil Company in 1959. They returned "home" to Huntsville
in 1959, where Damie still resides.
Through the years, Floyd’s "McAdams cousins" have become her family,
and she counts many of them among her very dearest friends.
Damie will celebrate her 90th birthday on March 1, 1999
Note: Sadly, Damie died on October 23, 2000