Typed as spelled and written
- Lena Stone Criswell

THE DAILY DEMOCRAT
Thirty-First Year - Number 72
Marlin, Texas, Saturday, July 25, 1931

FORMER WACO COACH FINDS
GRAVE OF BOYHOOD NURSE

Negro Woman Who Tended Him and
Brother as Children Buried
Near Marlin

The grave of Joe Akes, negro woman, who served as the nurse of Paul Tyson, former Waco High school football coach, and his brother in their boyhood days of Santa Anna, has been located in the negro section of a  cemetery at Hope church near Otto.  Tyson came to Marlin Friday and visited the cemetery.

Finding of the grave brings to an end an extensive search which has been in progress for some time to ascertain the location.

Joe Aken was described as one of those "negro mammies" typical of the old South, whose memories are revered by many white people of this section today.  Many were the homes harboring these types, most of whom were born in slavery and remained faithful servants of their "white folks" even after emancipation.

As told by a friend, following the death of Tyson's mother, Joe Akes was retained by the family to care for him and his brother and her memory has ever been cherished for her fidelity to the task.

Severing ties that had bound him to Waco High school for more than a decade and preparing to leave Texas on a leave of absence from that institution to study at Leland Stanford University in California, Tyson's thoughts turned again this spring to the old "negro mammy."  She had died at Santa Anna in 1920 and it was his desire to place some appropriate marker at her grave.

Inquiry developed that the body had been sent to the vicinity of Marlin for burial and Tyson came here in an effort to locate the grave.  Aid of friends was enlisted, but no trace could be found of such a grave in the Marlin negro cemetery.

Continuing the investigation, Tyson was referred to persons who told him where Joe Akes was buried, the body having been shipped by railway to Otto and taken thence several miles to the cemetery.

Already the grave bears a modest marker, while beside it is another said to be that of Joe Akes' mother, bearing the inscription:

"Hannah Roberts, faithful slave of Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Seay."

Tyson leaves for California August 23, he told a friend.

**********

 

Copyright permission granted to Theresa Carhart and her volunteers for printing by
The Democrat, Marlin, Falls County, Texas.