In 2019, I came into possession of this Brown family artifact, which my father had collected while settling his aunt Clydine C. Stickney’s estate after her death on December 30, 1989. Clydine kept important estate papers and keepsakes from her sister, Bertha “Mae” (Stickney) Witcher Buchanan, and niece, Elsie Brown, neither of whom had children to inherit such items. This autograph album belonged to Cephas Hampton Brown, who was Elsie’s father. It seems to have been given to him by his teacher, E. L. Ousley, who completed a very nice calligraphic signature on one of the pages below.

“Compliments of your teacher, E. L. Ousley”

I initially thought the teacher’s name was E. L. Cusley, but I could find no evidence of a teacher with this last name, I did find several occurrences of E. L. Ousley and specifically a teacher and concluded the signature belonged to Euzema Larmartine Ousley. No wonder his initials were most often used in documents. I could not find any evidence that he was teaching in Hamilton or Coryell Counties, Texas, so believe Cephas Brown may have encountered this teacher in an upper-level college. I know Cephas’ brothers Creek and Over went to upper-level colleges such as Baylor University, Southwestern University in Georgetown, and the University of Texas. E. L. Ousley is listed in a Waco City Directory as “Prof. Commercial Department,” and the 1920 US Census states his occupation as “Teacher Business School.”

The album contains about thirty-five pages, but only ten have been written on. They are shown below, some with my transcriptions. The few dates included with some of the autographs, range from December 22, 1889, to May 18, 1891, except for his daughter Elsie’s entry into the album, which was added much later in 1909. Cephas’ mother, Martha J. (Elkins) Brown, was the first dated entry in the album.

       

The crazy quilt design graces the front cover and a few of the internal pages. Crazy Quilts were popular from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. Unlike earlier quilts, which were constructed of one specific pattern repeated to complete various-size spreads, crazy quilts are constructed with irregularly shaped pieces of fabric sewn together in random patterns and embellished with embroidery stitching along the seam lines.

Back cover is embossed with flowers.

This concludes my posts on the Stickney/Brown family. Next will be posts on the Joseph Henry and Lula Belle (Stickney) Sauls family.