Eunice S. ABNEY

     Eunice S. ABNEY, daughter of Francis Marion ABNEY and Sarah Ann Summers, was born on 1 December 1883 in Kaufman County.¹

Eunice married Arthur Hurst in 1901 in Van Zandt County, Texas.¹

Eunice was born in Kaufman Co., Texas to Francis Marion & Sarah Ann "Sallie" Summers Abney. Her mother Sarah is buried in New Hope Cem. in VZC. Her father, Francis is buried in College Mound Cem. in Kaufman Co., Texas.

Eunice married Arthur Hurst in 1901 and was a young widow with three small children by 1914. They had had two children earlier who had died young. Eunice worked very hard trying to provide for herself and her three children, Arthur Lee, Farris, and Elzonia. She took in washing to earn a meager living. In that day and time the laundering was done outside in a large black wash pot. The water was heated by building a fire under the wash pot and usually had a "bar" of homemade lye soap in it to clean the clothes. The water had to be brought from the cistern or well of water or from a stock tank. It was carried one bucket at a time from the source and poured into the pot. A rub board was inserted into the pot with the clothes and the soap was rubbed on the ridges of the rub board and then the clothes were rubbed over the soapy ridges to clean them. Such was the work of this little widow trying to provide for her three children. Eunice was a Baptist.

Eunice only lived a year and a half after the death of Arthur. She died of Pneumonia and jaundice. The children of Eunice and Arthur were taken by a sister of Eunice, Jane Abney Pickens. Jane had a house full of children of her own, as well as two of her grandchildren whose mother had died in childbirth, to care for, but looked after the Hurst children as long as she could. She made them each some new clothes and then had to place them in the Buckner Orphans Home just East of Dallas, Texas. The children grew up there.

In the year 2001, one of the grand-daughters of Jane lives next door to one of the grand-daughters of Eunice.---notes by Betty Pickens Phillips, grand Neice of Eunice.¹

Eunice S. ABNEY died on 17 April 1916 in Van Zandt County, Texas, at age 32.¹ She was buried in Highland Cemetery, Van Zandt County, Texas.¹