Gus, or sometimes Gustie, and sometimes Gussie, as she was called was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi, the daughter of Richard Florence Palmore and Theresa Ann Weeks. Her mother died when she was a baby and she was raised by her father and step mother, Mary Elizabeth (Lizzie) Ferguson. When she was about 9 years old she had scarlet fever and lost her sight. Although her sight returned, she had weak vision, and lost her vision completely in about 1943. Her grandson, Joseph Marvin Kilgore, was the only one of her biological grandchildren she ever saw. Nevertheless, Grandma lived an independent life. As a child it never occurred to us to question how she played "I Spy" with us when she couldn't see!!

Grandma was a one-room school teacher in Mississippi before traveling to Texas to visit her brother in early 1918. It was on this trip to Angelina County that she met Isaac Marvin Wright, called Marvin. Marvin was 40 years old and a widower with six living children. He was a Methodist-Episcopal minister whose wife Bessie Wright had died four years earlier, a few weeks after giving birth to their infant daughter Elma Bessie Wright, their ninth child. (At that time Methodist was still a part of the Anglican/ Episcopal church.)

Marvin Wright and Gus were married on her birthday Sep 22, 1918. As children some of us grandchildren loved to be honored by Grandma opening the big storage trunk and allowing us to look at her beautiful wedding dress.

Grandma loved piecing quilts, and passed many hours hand piecing quilt tops. She pieced a quilt top for every one of her granddaughters. She lived alone after Papa died and all the children were grown, did her own washing, ironing, cooking and anything else she elected to do. To water the trees in her front yard she tied a rope to the porch post and the other end around her waist so that she could find her way back. She did the same when she went to hang out clothes in the back, plus the clothes lines were where she could hold on to them when she stepped off the porch. She told time with a wind up clock with the face removed. She seemed to always find a way.

Grandma was a wonderful Christian lady. After Papa died, she and her children still at home moved to Stephenville, Texas. Her step daughter-in-law, Ethel Lee Haney Wright, started attending the Nazarene church and got Grandma to attend as well. When I was a child, the church was located within walking distance of Grandma's home. I have been told by a cousin, however, that this was the "new" location of the church. Grandma still attended the Nazarene Church at the time of her death. And I believe she could recite the Bible from the first verse in Genesis to the last verse in Revelations.

She made each of us grandchildren feel special. She loved to talk, and some of us loved to listen. We would sit out on her front porch in the summer evenings and she would test some of us with math and memory questions and teach us about our family history, who was who, birth dates, born where. I counted those times as some of the treasures of my life.

Spending the summer days with her was so much fun. We listened to the radio and one of the songs she loved to listen and laugh to was "Ahab, the Arab," by Ray Stephens. To this day I can see her laughing while she listened to that silly song.

Radio was an outlet for Grandma and a connection to the world. She loved listening to gospel music and one of her favorites when it came out was, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, There's Just Something About that Name." Every time I hear it, I think of her.

As a blind person, Grandma had a record player provided by either Lighthouse for the Blind or some other organization. Each month she would receive records that had stories on them. She loved to listen to them. This was her way of reading.

Grandma's siblings were: Robert Lee Palmore, Wilburn Allen Palmore, Florence Louvenia Palmore, and Dewitt Clinton Palmore.

Bio by Granddaughter, Dorthy Kilgore Casten.