The Munsons of Texas — an American Saga
Inset 16
THE STORY OF THE FIRST MEETING OF WADDY MUNSON AND "WOODIE" WEST
"Woodie" West, age 9
The story of the complex circumstances of the first chance meeting of Joseph Waddy Munson and Mary "Woodie" West has been told many times in family reminiscences.
Jane Elizabeth Houston, "Woodie's" grandmother, had a brother named Abner Houston. It seems that as a schoolboy in Tennessee, Abner killed another boy (the family stories say "accidentally"). He fled to Jackson County, Texas, and changed his name to Abner Ware. There he took a wife and had a daughter, who years later married Lon Black, the son of Sarah Ann Waddy and Amos Alonzo Black of Black's Ferry. Lon Black was therefore a half-brother to Sarah K. Munson. The Blacks had a daughter, Mary "Minnie" Black, who was the same age as her second cousin, "Woodie" West.
In about 1880, the Wares, with their granddaughter, "Minnie" Black, were visiting the Wests in Columbus, when Abner Ware announced that they were going on to Bailey's Prairie for some business with "Colonel Munson". "Minnie" Black pleaded for her friend, "Woodie", to come along, and Mr. Ware is said to have replied, "Why not, it's time for "Woodie" to meet her new relatives." New relatives? Sarah Munson was "Woodie's" mother's cousin's son-in-law's half-sister!
So "Woodie", at maybe about the age of 11, first met Waddy, at maybe about the age of 19, and apparently he never forgot that meeting.
