James Edmund Fairfield

     James Edmund Fairfield was born on 20 July 1870 in Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana.¹ He was the son of James Monroe Fairfield and Jane Elizabeth Thurber. He married first Catharine Minerva Cordrey, daughter of Francis Cordrey and Christiana Catharina Gramlich, on 4 March 1896 at Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana.^2,3,4 He married second Pearl May Garver on 6 March 1901 at Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana.^1,5 He died on 3 September 1952 in Houston, Harris County, Texas, at age 82.¹ The Texas Death Index gives the date of his death as 2 September 1952.⁶ He was buried in Houston, Harris County, Texas.⁷
     
     Ed, youngest child and only son to survive childhood, grew up in Fort Wayne. As a young adult he worked for the railroad, and at age 25 married Minerva Cordrey who died three years later from complications of childbirth. Their only child, Ruth, told her daughter, Ruth Anna, that there was an older son who died at birth, and that Minerva was told she should have no more children. If true there was another child, his birth is not recorded in Fort Wayne. (This has little meaning as birth records were poorly kept at that time). But, whatever the facts may be, Ruth always felt that her father blamed her for her mother's death.

     Ed remarried in 1901, and while still living in Fort Wayne, he and Pearl had two daughters. Ruth, who barely knew her father, was living with Ed's sister Sadie and her family in St. Louis. It was supposed to be a permanent arrangement, and there was quite a "to do" when in 1909, Ed decided Ruth should move with his new family to Texas. It caused a permanent, or almost permanent, rift between he and Sadie, who by some accounts never spoke to her brother again. (Ruth Anna now says she thinks they may have reconciled very late in life).

     The preceding year, Ed had bought land along the Brazos River in Brazoria County, Texas, perhaps unseen, as the transaction was in Fort Wayne. He left for Texas in 1908, and there built a new home (probably the only one in Brazoria County with a cellar) before sending for Pearl and the children. They left Fort Wayne by train to meet Ed, with Ruth worrying all the while about how "Papa" would recognize them.

     Ed was by all accounts an excellent farmer, his main crops being cotton and corn. He was a stern man of few words who showed little affection, but a hard worker who expected the same from his children. It seems rather strange considering he was supposedly "spoiled rotten" in his youth by his six older sisters who called him "Cap." His granddaughter, Ruth Anna, says he was frugal, but was a good provider who always availed himself of the latest technology. He was the first or second in that part of Brazoria County to have electricity run to his house, to buy a car, and to get a telephone.

     In the writer's memory, Grandpa was a very old man sitting silently in a chair at his home in Lochridge. My mother says I probably don't remember him before he had a stroke. He died at a hospital in Houston, and his daughter, Ruth, swore that he kicked at her on his deathbed.