Sil Reamy did the best he could with what life handed him. As a child, when he wasn't planting cotton, picking cotton, chopping cotton, or pitching cotton, he could go to school, and he made it through the 8th grade going to school in three-month stints, mostly in one-room schoolhouses. When he didn't pick enough cotton, he was "disciplined" with a razor strop. He spoke of living in tents frequently. For Christmas he would get an apple and an orange, but the best present of all was not having to work in the fields. The milestones on his journey to manhood marked long stretches of poverty and hardship.
He lived through the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, although he lost his 18-year-old sister, Evie, whom he loved dearly, in 1921 to pneumonia. (His eyes always filled with tears when he spoke of helplessly watching her die.) He lived through WWI. He lived through the Great Depression, and he lived through World War II.
Sometime in the mid-1930's, Sil married Woodie Maudane Wilson and had four children (Kenneth, Marthasil, Linda, and George) with her. After she died of a stroke on July 18, 1955, he raised the three children who still lived at home (Kenneth had married the month before) and never remarried. He visited the grave of his wife, nicknamed "Cooter," often, taking George with him, and never, ever stopped loving her.
A strapping 6'3", 200-lb. man, Sil was a roughneck in the oil fields but was hurt severely when a pipe fell on him from the top of an oil derrick just before WWII. The major, national oil company he worked for, which is still in business as of 2011, blackballed him after that because the hospital went after Sil aggressively for payment, so Sil had to go after the company. With the Great Depression in full swing, Sil was supporting an extended family and had little money, so he, in desperation, sued the company, which had initially refused to pay for his on-the-job injury and treatment. Subsequently, if company supervisors even caught him on a contractor's crew doing work in their oil fields, they'd threaten to cease business with the contractor altogether if he didn't fire Sil. Forced to seek other types of employment after that, he worked at the oil refinery in Wickett, drove a truck (and let his son George honk the big rig's horn), sold insurance, and sweated blood on a road crew, where he had a heart attack at age 54 working on Hwy. 80 just outside of Pecos. Considerably weakened physically after that, he scraped by working at gas stations and as a nighttime security guard in Pecos. He lived in a modest, wood-frame home at 705 S. Palm Street in Pecos.
Without a wife to moderate his sense of adventure and often working into the wee hours of the night, Sil developed into something of an alley cat over the years, and although it probably did his old heart good, it didn't do much for his heart condition; nonetheless, he lived another 20 years before his fun-loving and just plain ol' loving heart gave out, probably from sheer exhaustion. Sil knew his time was near and drove around West Texas a week before he died to tell his friends good-bye.
He was a generous man. When his family came for his belongings after his death, his house was virtually empty. He had given almost everything he owned away at one time or another. He is missed by many.
He lived through the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, although he lost his 18-year-old sister, Evie, whom he loved dearly, in 1921 to pneumonia. (His eyes always filled with tears when he spoke of helplessly watching her die.) He lived through WWI. He lived through the Great Depression, and he lived through World War II.
Sometime in the mid-1930's, Sil married Woodie Maudane Wilson and had four children (Kenneth, Marthasil, Linda, and George) with her. After she died of a stroke on July 18, 1955, he raised the three children who still lived at home (Kenneth had married the month before) and never remarried. He visited the grave of his wife, nicknamed "Cooter," often, taking George with him, and never, ever stopped loving her.
A strapping 6'3", 200-lb. man, Sil was a roughneck in the oil fields but was hurt severely when a pipe fell on him from the top of an oil derrick just before WWII. The major, national oil company he worked for, which is still in business as of 2011, blackballed him after that because the hospital went after Sil aggressively for payment, so Sil had to go after the company. With the Great Depression in full swing, Sil was supporting an extended family and had little money, so he, in desperation, sued the company, which had initially refused to pay for his on-the-job injury and treatment. Subsequently, if company supervisors even caught him on a contractor's crew doing work in their oil fields, they'd threaten to cease business with the contractor altogether if he didn't fire Sil. Forced to seek other types of employment after that, he worked at the oil refinery in Wickett, drove a truck (and let his son George honk the big rig's horn), sold insurance, and sweated blood on a road crew, where he had a heart attack at age 54 working on Hwy. 80 just outside of Pecos. Considerably weakened physically after that, he scraped by working at gas stations and as a nighttime security guard in Pecos. He lived in a modest, wood-frame home at 705 S. Palm Street in Pecos.
Without a wife to moderate his sense of adventure and often working into the wee hours of the night, Sil developed into something of an alley cat over the years, and although it probably did his old heart good, it didn't do much for his heart condition; nonetheless, he lived another 20 years before his fun-loving and just plain ol' loving heart gave out, probably from sheer exhaustion. Sil knew his time was near and drove around West Texas a week before he died to tell his friends good-bye.
He was a generous man. When his family came for his belongings after his death, his house was virtually empty. He had given almost everything he owned away at one time or another. He is missed by many.
Sil Reamy did the best he could with what life handed him. As a child, when he wasn't planting cotton, picking cotton, chopping cotton, or pitching cotton, he could go to school, and he made it through the 8th grade going to school in three-month stints, mostly in one-room schoolhouses. When he didn't pick enough cotton, he was "disciplined" with a razor strop. He spoke of living in tents frequently. For Christmas he would get an apple and an orange, but the best present of all was not having to work in the fields. The milestones on his journey to manhood marked long stretches of poverty and hardship.
He lived through the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, although he lost his 18-year-old sister, Evie, whom he loved dearly, in 1921 to pneumonia. (His eyes always filled with tears when he spoke of helplessly watching her die.) He lived through WWI. He lived through the Great Depression, and he lived through World War II.
Sometime in the mid-1930's, Sil married Woodie Maudane Wilson and had four children (Kenneth, Marthasil, Linda, and George) with her. After she died of a stroke on July 18, 1955, he raised the three children who still lived at home (Kenneth had married the month before) and never remarried. He visited the grave of his wife, nicknamed "Cooter," often, taking George with him, and never, ever stopped loving her.
A strapping 6'3", 200-lb. man, Sil was a roughneck in the oil fields but was hurt severely when a pipe fell on him from the top of an oil derrick just before WWII. The major, national oil company he worked for, which is still in business as of 2011, blackballed him after that because the hospital went after Sil aggressively for payment, so Sil had to go after the company. With the Great Depression in full swing, Sil was supporting an extended family and had little money, so he, in desperation, sued the company, which had initially refused to pay for his on-the-job injury and treatment. Subsequently, if company supervisors even caught him on a contractor's crew doing work in their oil fields, they'd threaten to cease business with the contractor altogether if he didn't fire Sil. Forced to seek other types of employment after that, he worked at the oil refinery in Wickett, drove a truck (and let his son George honk the big rig's horn), sold insurance, and sweated blood on a road crew, where he had a heart attack at age 54 working on Hwy. 80 just outside of Pecos. Considerably weakened physically after that, he scraped by working at gas stations and as a nighttime security guard in Pecos. He lived in a modest, wood-frame home at 705 S. Palm Street in Pecos.
Without a wife to moderate his sense of adventure and often working into the wee hours of the night, Sil developed into something of an alley cat over the years, and although it probably did his old heart good, it didn't do much for his heart condition; nonetheless, he lived another 20 years before his fun-loving and just plain ol' loving heart gave out, probably from sheer exhaustion. Sil knew his time was near and drove around West Texas a week before he died to tell his friends good-bye.
He was a generous man. When his family came for his belongings after his death, his house was virtually empty. He had given almost everything he owned away at one time or another. He is missed by many.
He lived through the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, although he lost his 18-year-old sister, Evie, whom he loved dearly, in 1921 to pneumonia. (His eyes always filled with tears when he spoke of helplessly watching her die.) He lived through WWI. He lived through the Great Depression, and he lived through World War II.
Sometime in the mid-1930's, Sil married Woodie Maudane Wilson and had four children (Kenneth, Marthasil, Linda, and George) with her. After she died of a stroke on July 18, 1955, he raised the three children who still lived at home (Kenneth had married the month before) and never remarried. He visited the grave of his wife, nicknamed "Cooter," often, taking George with him, and never, ever stopped loving her.
A strapping 6'3", 200-lb. man, Sil was a roughneck in the oil fields but was hurt severely when a pipe fell on him from the top of an oil derrick just before WWII. The major, national oil company he worked for, which is still in business as of 2011, blackballed him after that because the hospital went after Sil aggressively for payment, so Sil had to go after the company. With the Great Depression in full swing, Sil was supporting an extended family and had little money, so he, in desperation, sued the company, which had initially refused to pay for his on-the-job injury and treatment. Subsequently, if company supervisors even caught him on a contractor's crew doing work in their oil fields, they'd threaten to cease business with the contractor altogether if he didn't fire Sil. Forced to seek other types of employment after that, he worked at the oil refinery in Wickett, drove a truck (and let his son George honk the big rig's horn), sold insurance, and sweated blood on a road crew, where he had a heart attack at age 54 working on Hwy. 80 just outside of Pecos. Considerably weakened physically after that, he scraped by working at gas stations and as a nighttime security guard in Pecos. He lived in a modest, wood-frame home at 705 S. Palm Street in Pecos.
Without a wife to moderate his sense of adventure and often working into the wee hours of the night, Sil developed into something of an alley cat over the years, and although it probably did his old heart good, it didn't do much for his heart condition; nonetheless, he lived another 20 years before his fun-loving and just plain ol' loving heart gave out, probably from sheer exhaustion. Sil knew his time was near and drove around West Texas a week before he died to tell his friends good-bye.
He was a generous man. When his family came for his belongings after his death, his house was virtually empty. He had given almost everything he owned away at one time or another. He is missed by many.
