The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1940-08-01

Dear Miss Brannon:
Inclose find your article by Mr..
Runyon. 1 got a good kick out of it
also my daughter, 10 years old, who is
interested in your kind of work.
Please send me copy of your paper.
And they say there are no more
opportunities in America.
w. H. BLAKEWAY.
Tulsa, Oklahoma
July "a, 1910.
Miss Hazel Brannon,
Durant, Mississippi.
| Dear Miss Brannon:
Reading an article in the Tulsa
World, copy of which l have sent
you under separate cover, by Ell
Runyon in his column The Brighter
Side" brought back some memories
of my native Mississippi.
My first landing place in this world
was at Jackson, and was reared at
| Starkville. Have lived in Oklahoma
many years.
l have a sister and two fine nieces
living at Walden.
| went with the student body o!
my college one time TO Tuscaloosa
for a foot ball game.
I had many friends and fraternity
mates in the university at Nashville
Tennessee, from Alabama and Mis-
sissippi.
One time / attended a formal open
ing at Castalian Springs, in the mid.
die of the summer, too. Had a date
with a Durant girl, but don't remem'
Der her name. 1 went down from
Walden on the local passenger to Du'
rant and then out to the dance in q
livery rig. 1t was an all night affair
as vas the custom in those days.
Imagine my catching a freight train
train the next morning and riding in
the caboose in evening attire, return.
ing to Walden. All the dance in those
days were made up of young people
from the various towns.
1 still thing the people of Missis-
sippi and Alabama are the grandest
on earth.
This Tulsa World I am sending
you is a good newspaper, but poll
tically, it is a turncoat,-sometimes it
is for the Democrats and sometimes
for the Republicans. This / don't
like, for 1 am still a Mississippi
democrat.
1 wish to congratulate you for
your courage in publishing a news
paper. 1t is a great and interesting
field,-especially for a young lady.
With best wishes for your continued
success, / am
Very sincerely yours,
JAMES S. WATSON.
Mill Valley, Calf.
July %. 1910.
Miss Hazel Brannon,
Weekly News,
Dear Miss Brannon:
Enclosed is an article regarding
you in todays San Francisco Examiner
by Damon Runyon. / figure it is al.
most a cinch that you will receive
many of these articles from different
parts of the country with all your
popularity, but l will probably be the
only n from Marin county Califor-
MIA across the Gate from San Fran.
cisco.
One of the things that attracted
me to the article is the fact that
used to live in Durant just AS years
ago this summer. 1 was a lad then
but had been working as telegrapher
for the railroad at West Point, Miss
and when that played out / took a
temporary job weighing mail on that
train running from Durant to Aber-
deem and back all the same day.
used to feel pretty big waving at the
girls at the stations along the way
when they would come to the depot
to see the train. That was a big kick
in those days when Clara Kimball
was young.
I have been trying to think of the
name of the conductor who ran on
that jerkwater train with me. He
was not the best dressed man in Mis-
sissippi. He had a big mustache and
always had a cold and a running
nose and he used to wipe his nose
with his uniform coat sleeve and that
sleeve got so substantial, when he
took his coat off it would stand alone
on the floor. The train dispatcher at
Durant for that short line was a man
lame Ed Lavell and he was jim
Dandy. ! think the superintendent was