You talk about a drive down memory lane, this view of driving into Linden looks peaceful, but even more peaceful in 1935 and then again in 1941 {as peaceful as you can get at the start of World War II} because Mama McMichael’s {Bonnie Elizabeth Kelly McMichael’s} house was just to the left of the car and from her old homestead {after she was married to Thomas Bruce McMichael in the Hugo Indian Territory} was nothing but woods all the way into the court house; and at the dip in the road shown to the left was set back further in the woods a path across the creek and one of those classic one room school houses.  To the right almost downtown was the First Baptist Church Mama always took us to, and continued as her habit, part of God’s grace and guidance, in Shreveport at Queensboro Baptist Church.  In the recent photo {1996 on Google Earth} of the house shown below, it has changed little.  Looks like the famous pear and fig trees of her preserves have disappeared from the back, much also of the shrubs and flowers around the house.

In fact, it appears from the 1865 census, that great-grandfather John Bruce back from the Civil War lived in the same house where he and Francis Carline Lanier McMichael raised 3 children.  The burial place of John Bruce {Bartlett} is a mystery, as somewhat less is that of his father, Judge Griffin C. McMichael, but in the Linden Cemetery #1 both Carline Lanier, Thomas Bruce, and Mama are buried.

Since great-grandmother Lanier was shown in a Hugo Indian territory census post civil war, one could also speculate that John Bruce got caught in the run for Indian territory, or died there while he and his son Thomas Bruce were building houses.  Some have tried to speculate that Sgt. John Bruce died in a Virginia Hospital after release from a nothern prison camp.  (Nelson’s 10th Infantry was captured at Arkansas Pass in 1862.

This civil war photo is on display at SMU, and was the subject of a blog of confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War, John B and Rufus Edwards.  And the blog also sports a image of a notice from the physician in the Virginia hospital as to the death and belongings of John Bruce.

J. B. McMichael application for Pension in Linden in 1909

Francis’ application for Widow’s pension in Linden 1914.

     1935 The years of depression continued in 1935 with unemployment still running at 20.1% , and the war clouds were gathering as Germany began to rearm and passed the Nuremburg laws to strip Jews of their civil rights, and Mussolini’s Italy attacked Ethiopia. The Gallup Poll was introduced and a reformed drinker

1935 Ford Tudor Sedan

named Bill Wilson formed Alcoholics Anonymous on June 10th , also for the first time a completely synthetic fibre was produced called nylon by a Dupont chemist. Also this was the year of the birth of “Swing” by Benny Goodman and the world was ready to boogie. Persia is renamed to Iran.   {http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1935.html}

     1909 was a year of many “firsts.” U.S. Navy engineer Robert E. Peary became the first man to reach the North Pole. The first transcontinental auto race took place between New York and Seattle, and up in the sky, French engineer Louis Bleriot made the first English Channel crossing in a heavier-than-air machine. The United States Mint was preparing a first of its own: a regular-issue U.S.

1909 Lincoln head penny, now worth $1,225. on ebay.

coin honoring an actual person. Defying a tradition that dated back to George Washington’s presidency, plans were made to honor the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth with a new cent featuring a bust of the beloved president.