Mae was fifty years old when her husband, J. E. Witcher, died on February 20, 1931. She appears to be doing well and managing her affairs, as newspaper notices indicate. She, or someone in her employ, oversees the cattle herd, which had increased by at least 55 calves by August 1932. Her bond with her youngest sibling, Clydine, a high school teacher living in San Angelo, grew stronger during this period. She was also very active in her church, hosting gatherings and providing refreshments for the Pearl Randall circle of the Methodist Missionary Society.

“Miss Clydine Stickney, of San Angelo, is the guest of her sister, Mrs. Mae Witcher, for the summer.” The Odessa American, 26 Jun 1931, page 5, Newspapers.com.

“Mrs. J. E. Witcher and sister, Miss Clydine Stickney, left Sunday for Roswell, New Mexico, to visit and from there will go to Ruidoso for a vacation in the mountains.” The Odessa American, 22 Jun 1932, page 7, Newspapers.com.

“Cattle Trade Shows Heavy Activity at End of Week – Mrs J. E. Witcher, 55 heifer yearlings to E. W. Cowden.” The Midland Reporter, Midland, Texas, Aug 14, 1932, Texas Tech Univ. Southwest Collection.

“Mrs. J. E. Witcher has had as her guests the past week her sister, Miss Clydine Stickney, of San Angelo, Mrs. C. H. Brown of Roswell, New Mexico, and daughter, Miss Elsie Brown, of Los Angeles, CA, and Mrs. J. S. Gardner of Robert Lee.” The Odessa American, 2 Sep 1932, Fri. Page 5, Newspapers.com.

“Miss Clydine Stickney of San Angelo spent the holidays here with her sister, Mrs. May Witcher.” The Odessa American, Fri, Dec.30, 1932·Page 5, Newspapers.com.

“Mrs. Mae Witcher of Odessa is a business visitor in Midland today.” The Midland Reporter, Apr. 2, 1934, Southwest Collection Texas Tech University.

Four years later, on November 14, 1935, Mae married Daniel Lee Buchanan, age 65. The only newspaper article about their marriage provides few details, not even the bride’s name. According to the marriage record in Ector County Marriage Record Volume 2, page 5, they were married in Odessa by W. C. Harrison, pastor of Odessa Baptist Church.

This was the second marriage for both Mae and Daniel, and it is believed their families were acquainted while living in Robert Lee in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Daniel married his first wife, Ida Mae Bennick, on December 1, 1892, in Robert Lee, by County Judge H. L. Adams. A couple of years later, Daniel was involved in a Robert Lee mail fraud case involving money orders, along with his brother W. F. Buchanan and several other men. Details of the case are found in a Sonora newspaper, the Devil’s River News, dated May 5, 1894, and are available in the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library of Texas Tech University. Six months later, on October 27, 1894, the same newspaper reported, “D. L. Buchanan of Robert Lee, a brother of W. F. Buchanan, pleaded guilty as being an accessory in the Robert Lee mail robbery case and was sentenced to 18 months in the penitentiary, at the present term of the El Paso federal court.” Daniel must have learned a hard lesson that crime doesn’t pay, and he appears to have led a respectable life afterward, even being elected in 1898 as a County Constable to uphold the laws. Mae and her family moved to Robert Lee in 1897 and may not have known about the mail fraud incident. Daniel was still in Robert Lee when the Coke County Rustler first reported that he was beginning in the grocery business, which would become his main line of work. In November 1898, the local newspaper reported that Daniel bought the “Deats Wagon Yard and stock of Groceries” in Robert Lee, and in 1906, the Colorado Record in Colorado City, north of Robert Lee, reported the following.

By 1910, Daniel and his family are listed in the Mitchell County, Texas, census as living in Colorado City. He is 40 years old, married for 18 years, and his occupation is listed as a farmer. According to local newspaper reports, Daniel was experiencing problems with his new grocery store in Colorado City and had issues with creditors in May 1913. It’s unclear whether the store actually closed, but by May 1917, Daniel is advertising a new business.

The 1920 Census shows Daniel still working as a retail grocer, with his wife, Ida, and their four children living at home. In 1924, a large fire destroyed a theater and a hotel on Second and Elm streets in Colorado City, along with several other businesses and the Buchanan home, believed to have been on Second Street. However, the report in the Colorado Record of April 4, 1924, states that the home caught fire due to an “explosion of a kerosene heater in the bathroom and was burned with practically all contents.” By 1930, the Buchanans are living at 344 Walnut Street. The census lists only Daniel, age 60; wife Ida, age 55; and son Grover, age 13. On December 7, 1934, Ida died, and her death certificate indicates she had been suffering from heart issues for the past five months, which caused her death. Less than a year later, Daniel married Mae in November, and she soon moved into Daniel’s home on Walnut Street in Colorado City.

Little is known about Daniel and Mae’s life together, except for social events reported in the newspapers. In April 1938, they welcomed all of Mae’s siblings and their spouses to Colorado City to celebrate Easter.

The local newspapers no longer advertise Daniel’s grocery business, and the 1940 census lists no occupation for either of them. However, it notes they had other income, possibly from royalty payments from wells drilled on the Ector County property. The Abilene Morning Reporter-News began reporting drilling details on the Witcher property in January 1936. Articles about drilling on the Witcher property are numerous and continued into the late 1970s, including updates on reentry and recompletion.

Daniel and Mae led retired lives through the 1940s and into the 1950s. Newspaper reports show they spent Christmas in 1947 with Mae’s sister, Jesse Gardner, in Robert Lee, and in June 1949 they joined most of Mae’s living siblings at Lake Sweetwater. Mae’s sister, Clydine, who had been a librarian at East Texas Teachers College in Commerce, Texas, since 1937, took a position at Colorado High School and moved in with Mae and Daniel during the summer of 1948. It was probably around this time that the Buchanans moved from Walnut Street to Cedar Street. Mae wrote her will on September 11, 1951, but lived several more years, passing away on November 15, 1957. In her will, Mae left her home on Cedar Street to her sister Clydine, who lived there for the rest of her life. Daniel moved to live with his son in Abilene shortly before passing away on March 14, 1959. Mae was buried in Robert Lee Cemetery near her father, and Daniel was buried next to his first wife, Ida, in the Colorado City Cemetery.

This concludes Bertha Mae (Stickney) Witcher Buchanan’s story.