Lula Brannon Briscoe, ca. 1903. Courtesy of the Brannon/Briscoe family
It’s time for Episode 5 of “Voices from the West,” our blog series featuring audio recordings of historical documents from the Museum’s Dickinson Research Center.
Our goal is to show that history is more than a timeline. At its core, it’s about people. And not just the famous and infamous, but the everyday and ordinary. If you missed previous episodes, you can start here.
About Lula
The oldest of six children, Lula had moved with her family from Texas to the Chickasaw Nation in 1898. They settled in Sugden, a small community near today’s Texas border that consisted primarily of farmers. She married Robert Willis Briscoe and together they had five children.
Listen Now
[audio mp3="https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/5-10201903.mp3"][/audio]
Lincoln, Washington, ca. 1886. Erfurth Collection. Dickinson Research Center. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. 1971.006.03.
Source: The 1880-1930 United States Federal Census. Washington
Marriage Records. Washington Death Records.
Fun Facts
Several of Lula’s maternal relatives lived in Washington. Her grandmother, Nancy, her uncles, Lewis and William, her aunt Lillian, and at least three cousins, Roy, Pearl, and Daisy. Daisy was born in May 1877 in Iowa and married Gilbert T. Farrar on September 21, 1897, in Creston, Iowa. By 1900, she was living with her uncles and sister in Grand Coulee, Washington, and was working as a housekeeper. In 1904 she married a Boston electrician, Harris Wood, and by 1920 they had settled in Long Beach, California.
Daisy’s younger sister, Pearl (whose first name was Jessie), married Charles Saltmarsh in 1902 and they had a daughter, Hazel. Sadly, Pearl passed away in 1913.
This photograph shows the general store and post office in Lincoln, Washington, about 40 miles east of Hartline, where Lula’s mother lived.
