Today’s Monday Diggings item is a copy of a letter from Elmer and Lena, shared with me by fellow Briles family researcher Mildred “Mickey” Briles Barby.
Briles Letter 045
July 9, 1995
1620 S. Kingston St.Dear Mickey,
I was glad to get the letter and clippings from you. I have always been interested in the Briles family. The things you sent are all very interesting and I am still going over them. Will send you some of the things that I have.
While I was growing up my folks never talked much about their relatives. My grandfather Zebadeer and Uncle Fred both died when I was young. Dad was raised by foster parents, because his mother died when he was about four. My mother’s parents and the people who raised Dad all homesteaded within two miles of each other in southeastern Colorado. The one thing that Dad always said about his family was that if they spelled their last name Briles that they were someway related, and he thought that some of the people that spelled it Broyles were also related.
As for me I was the baby of the family and probably an accident. I have two sisters which are 16 and 20 years older than me and a brother 12 years older. There were two who died in infancy and then me.
A little about me. Lived on the farm until I married Lena Thyfault, May of 1952. Then we lived in Pritchett Colorado for about 10 months, at that time I joined the Air Force, rather than being drafted. After my basic training in California, I was sent to Amarillo Texas for tech school. Lena joined me there and after tech school I was assigned to Albuquerque New Mexico, where we stayed for four years.
After my discharge from the Air Force we decided that I should go to aircraft mechanics school in California. We moved to Hawthorne, Ca. and I started school at Northrop, after a few months of trying to survive on the GI school benefits and a child on the way I got a job with United Airlines. I worked for United Airlines 33 years retiring in 1988.
I will send you some of the clippings that I have collected over the years.
Love,
Elmer & Lena