Three Family Trees: Granddad "Bud" Webb for Father's Day

Saturday, June 15, 2019

Granddad "Bud" Webb for Father's Day

Father's Day this year, I decided to do a repost about Granddad Bud.

Albert "Bud" James (Joe) Webb, July 30, 1891

From my mother's photo album, showing a couple of portrait photos that may have been inside lockets. She had been only 2 when he died.

In the 1900 census of Goliad, Texas, he was 8 years old, living with parents Annie E. (age 37) and Larry F. Webb (age 42), who had been married for 22 years. Others in the household included a 16 year old sister, Maggie, a 13 year old brother, Thomas, and an 11 year old sister Clara. The census said his father had been born in Texas, and his father's father was from Maryland and his mother from Ohio. His mother, Annie E. Williams had been born in Missouri, and her father was born was born in Kentucky. Larry F. Webb has as his occupation " head" of (inscription is slightly hard to read) "General Merch" which I think would be a general store. There was also a "lodger" in the home, 25 year old Katy Ayers, whose occupation was house servant.

I always look at the original census data, because otherwise I would have missed seeing the next household listed was headed by James E. Webb, age 21, living with his brother, John L. Webb, age 20. Since their parents were born in the same places as Annie and Larry Webb, I believe these were elder brothers of Albert. James was a bookkeeper at the time, and John as salesman. They were born in DeWitt County, Weesatche, Texas.

Bud Webb at 18 (in the Census of 1910) was working in a real estate office in San Antonio. His father owned and operated a "confectionery." The family still had a servant who lived with them. Incidentally, my records show Bud having been born in "Huisache, Texas" which is a Hispanic way to spell Weesatche. Apparently this was difficult for the Anglos to sound out, so they phonetically altered the spelling.

When something happened in 1894, this photo of Bud's father's Store in Weesatche commemorates it with the friends and employees. Larry F. Webb himself outlived his son by many years, dying in 1921. So perhaps this was when the family moved to San Antonio since it says "In Memory of..."

The San Antonio City Directory in 1910 listed the Webbs who lived at the same address, 130 Lewis, and the first alphabetically was Albert (Bud). He was a solicitor for Conness Realty. The other Webbs were his sister, Miss Clara Webb, and his parents Leary F. and Anna Webb (he running the Confectionery on San Pedro Av. SW)

Albert and my grandmother, Mozelle Miller, married Aug 7, 1915, in San Antonio. He was 24, and she was a month shy of her 17th birthday.

Albert's draft card for World War I, dated June 15, 1917, lists his birthday but a year younger in 1892. And maybe the typist had some problems, because he's listed as Albert Joe not James. (He may have prefered that name, since he had an older brother named James.) He was living now at 95 Lewis St. and proclaims he has a wife and child. The registration just says he's "tall" and medium build, blue eyes, light colored hair, slightly bald. He just signed the card A. J. Webb. He never went to the war.

So what killed him? Apparently not the Influenza epidemic. My mother's story as I grew up, was that a bad extension cord on Christmas lights electrocuted him. What's wrong with this picture? He died Sept. 15, 1919, not in December. Maybe there was a bad electrical cord, and my mother was reminded of it when we strung lights at Christmas, and I've blended the time she shared about it into my own rendition. Early electric wiring was certainly not that good. Whatever took this young man's life, my mother had to be told about him by her mother and her aunts and grandmother. I don't think the Webbs had much contact with her throughout her life. His death certificate does say "electrical, not at business."

I also remember her saying that her grandmother, Annie Elizabeth Williams Webb, had been an heiress to the Woolworth fortune. And there was some connection with the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City. My sister may have found out more about these stories, and I never heard what they were.

For many years my genealogy records gave Joe as his middle name, but his death certificate says Albert James Webb. Perhaps either one could be right.

Here's a picture of his brother, another salesman (according to his 1938 death certificate), John Leroy Webb. (Apparently Larry was spelled that way, or Leary by these Webb gentlemen.)