He was not a large man, as I remember him. About 5 foot 7 inches tall and always a slim build. When young his hair was light brown but thinned and receded early. He had light gray eyes. From the time I can remember him, he chewed Beech-Nut tobacco. He always wore sleeve garters, the only person I ever knew to wear them, and also wore suspenders.

Charlie never learned to drive a car, although he owned some and would drive a tractor only if none of the boys were there to do it.

He was a deacon in the First Baptist Church at Avery from 1912 till they left the county in 1923. He was later at First Baptist in Lamesa.

Charlie and Ruth also wore nightcaps to bed. I guess they clung to some of the old ways longer than most.

Tradition has it that Charlie was born in the covered wagon as they were crossing the Mississippi River in December 1869. He did state his birthplace as Helena, Phillips County, Arkansas.

In the fall of 1922, Charlie moved his family to Dawson County, Texas.
They moved by train. The family rode the passenger car, but Charlie rode with the stock in the freight car. Luther Lewis, a friend of the family in East Texas and had moved west earlier, wrote Charlie and wanted him to come out and help farm some land he had rented. Charles and Ruth had moved to Jones County in 1908 and stayed about a year but must not have liked it, as they moved back to Red River County within a year but the land here was worn out for cotton production and so it must have seemed a
good idea at the time in 1922 to move again.

When they moved to Jones County (1908), they were near Charlie's half brother Dr. James A. Arwood, a self educated Dr. who had moved there a couple of years earlier and bought land on the Clear Fork of the Brazos. In fact Dr. Arwood delivered the baby, Joe D., who was born while they were there.