Eli
Garner Birdwell (1850-1910) was a son of
George and Malinda (Moore) Birdwell and
a grandson of William B. and Matilda
(Garner) Birdwell, who came to Texas
from Tennessee via Arkansas before
1840. The ancestry of his wife,
Sarah Ellen "Sallie" Hoffman (1858-1938)
has not been traced, but she said she
was one-quarter Cherokee Indian.
Her family home was in Johnson County,
Texas, and she had three brothers, John,
William, and Frank.
In 1886, Eli
came from Johnson County to Coleman
County, bought a section of land south
of what is now Novice, and built a small
house for his family. Shortly
afterward, Sallie arrived in Coleman
City by train with their four small
children, Ada, Lee, Burton and
Kit. The Birdwells soon built
another home - a long, rambling house
surrounded by porches or galleries - and
used the first house as a kitchen and as
a bunk house for hired hands. E.
G. and Sallie later had four more
children: Myrtle, Reuben, Oda, and
Charles (who died in infancy). The
Birdwell children went to school at
Rough Creek.
In 1910, when
E. G. died, Burton, Reuben, and Oda were
still living at home. Oda left
about 1914 to marry Louis Morris.
Rube joined the military service about
1918. Later, he went to the
Panhandle to work, and there married
Birdie Brown. Burt continued to
farm the land, and his mother milked
cows and sold milk and cream.
About 1917, Burt married Maud Cooper of
Lawn, and brought her to live with his
mother. Only three months after
his and Maud's son, H. B., was born,
Burt died in the flu epidemic of
1918-19. Maud and the child then
went to live with her mother and brother
in Lawn. Kit's famiy (see Kit
Birdwell) soon returned to Novice to
live, as did Ada and her husband, Luther
Deakins. The Deakins children were
Cordie (later Mrs. Joe Brooks), Homer,
and Pete. After living in Dallas
and St. Louis, Oda and Louis also came
back to Novice. Their daughter,
June, was four years old when Oda died
in 1931. Louis Morris farmed west
or Novice tor many years.
Among the
twenty-one grandchildren of E. G. and
Sallie, there were several tragic
deaths. Jack Birdwell, one of
Lee's boys, died in an automobile
accident at the age of sixteen.
Myrtle (Mrs. Horace Ivy) also had a son
who died young. Rube and Birdie
lost two children in a fire.
Burt's and Maud's H. B. was killed in
World War II.