Miz Lethy: A Meditation

Subject: Miz Lethy: A Meditation Tue 31 Jul 2007, 11:06 pm

She was beloved of much of northeastern Grayson County from the ending of the Civil War until her death in 1914. Her simple name uttered from one set of lips brought a sympathetic nod of the head from almost any hearer in conversation across the northeastern band of the Red River Valley. Miz Lethy's long and melancholic life might be mistaken for the stuff of folklore had it not found its way into the written record and had been verified by an army of witnesses. But this woman -- who some might say was a victim of Reconstruction -- and her vigil, are solidly historical. Of her importance to her section of Grayson County, author Joe W. Chumbley wrote:

"Perhaps above all other stories of individuals who have ever lived at Kentucky Town, that of Letha Penn Bevin should survive and be made known to every boy and girl who may grow up in this community." *

She was born into a family of eight children who -- along with their parents -- parted ways with the old state of Kentucky during the early 1850s in favor of the fresh abundance and unclaimed promises of Texas. This flourishing clan settled in the little community that was filling up with other families who'd recently pulled out from the same spent sod; hence the name 'Kentucky Town' in the new (1846) in the county of Grayson. But soon enough came the War Between the States and Letha's father, Sanford Penn, marching off in service of the Confederacy. He died for that cause in 1862. Young Letha was left with her mother and sister(s) to draw in funds through spinning, weaving and sewing; her handsome brother -- William Perry (Bill) Penn -- began a small, overland freighting business between Kentucky Town and the shady port of Jefferson to do his part in supporting the family.

It is said that it was in Jefferson that Bill Penn decided to place his faith in gold, and in his own neighborhood that he began to shuck the ways of the new order of Reconstruction. Refusing the heavy and -- he felt -- undeserved bond cast upon him by a judge in Sherman for the alleged assault of a freeman; and for a tardy arrival in court due to his freight wagon wheels being swallowed by the area's notorious black gumbo -- treacherous after a rainfall -- Letha Penn's brother chose to become a fugitive from the law. He took shelter in a remote tangle of southwestern Fannin County known as Wildcat Thicket, in the company of another refugee from corrupt governance, alien influences and potential death at the end of a Yankee-man's pistol .... a returned Confederate Cavalry officer called Bob Lee.

Meanwhile, Miss Letha Penn worked quietly at her loom, which had been erected in the family smokehouse in Kentucky Town. To her name she had a few gold pieces and a pony; her industrious spirit and a gentle, studied countenance. Had she fallen in love with a young man of the community, she might have been received and cherished for the qualities of her own person. But this was 1865: passing through the border country of northeastern Texas was an uneven train of men from parts unknown or parts untold. Among them was a charming gentleman who sought a place to cast off his boots and hang his hat. When asked his name by the locals in and around Kentucky Town, that which he held out to them was 'John W. Bevin.'

The identity of John Bevin seemed to devolve in a counterclockwise trinity from the time he rode into Kentucky Town, through the short season that he slept there and finally, to the point when he vanished into a thin and distant strand of cannon smoke. At first, he was said to have been an honorably discharged Confederate soldier in route from Missouri; before long, he became a Kansan arrived in northeastern Texas to lend support to those in the area who had favored the Union cause; finally, he was considered little more than a scalawag or bushwhacker, despite the charm that had worked its wiles on gentle Miss Letha Penn.

The progress of their courtship is hidden in the shadows, but in March of 1865, the stranger -- John Bevin -- and the sister of Bill Penn were married. Young Penn may have sought cloister in the brambles of Wildcat Thicket; the man who Letha chose as a husband, however, must have had briars wrapped around his heart. One morning, not long after their wedding day, John Bevin rode off on his wife's pony .... headed to Sherman in order to invest her treasury -- Letha's few pieces of gold -- in some opportunity which would bode well for the newly tied couple's future. He would return to Kentucky Town ere the sun had passed below the horizon. Mrs. Bevin likely bent her chin upward, kissed her husband, patted her pony's soft, rounded cheek, and turned back toward her home to complete the chores of the day.

As afternoon relinquished its brightness to dusk, and dusk its pale light to evening, Letha may have become worried about John. Fears likely troubled her peace as she considered what might be impeding his progress toward home. Perhaps highwaymen had jumped out from the brush as John made his way back to Kentucky Town, injured him and stolen their gold. Maybe he -- being a newcomer -- had become lost on one of the thin trails that were favored as shortcuts, but which easily could lead a rider in circles so that he lost his sense of direction .... especially when the sun no longer shone as a sure guide. At some point on that first night, Letha Penn Bevin arose, lit a candle and placed it in the front window of her newlywed's home to ease the passage of her husband back to the nest they had created together. It was to be a nocturnal ritual which she kept almost to the last evening of her life.

Life went on. Letha Bevin's widowed mother remarried, and bore a son on which her much-older daughter seems to have doted. Letha continued to provide homespun to her neighbors -- yielding a small income -- until commercially produced fabric overtook the market and her output was restricted to sewing and mending. When kerosene became widely available, this yet-young woman took advantage of the innovation and replaced the candle which flickered through the night on her front windowsill with a fine oil lamp. Still John Bevin did not return home.

As the years passed, Letha Penn Bevin was referred to fondly as 'Miz Lethy' by her neighbors in Kentucky Town. Perhaps 'Mrs. Bevin' was too painful a title to bear; those who loved her halted before bringing to remembrance the betrayal of her innocence and her subsequent abandonment. But like one of the faithful virgins in Jesus' parable of yore, her lamp was kept alit during the night watches should her husband return to her .... even if old and gray. And in this longsuffering and seemingly unrequited commitment, the community -- rather than considering her strange as we might do today -- deemed Letha Penn Bevin worthy of respect and esteem.

What if John Bevin had perished on the roadside, yet harboring love for this gentle and devoted wife? Noone ever learned for sure.

Holly

* Joe W. Chumbley, 'Kentucky Town and Its Baptist Church' (1975)

G. B. Ray, 'Murder at the Corners' (1957)
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The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves