Meet Our Great Uncle Dick

I didn’t know my dad’s “Uncle Dick,” Richard Bryant Creech, one of my grandfather’s older brothers. He died of a heart attack in June 1953 when I was only six months old. However, he and his wife, Mary Bertha Titus, “Aunt Mayde,” (I have no idea how she might have spelled her nickname)  resided on a ranch outside Floresville on FM 537. Mayde lived until 1987, and I recall visiting her a couple of times with my parents when we came to Floresville to see my grandparents. What I remember is the screened-in back porch of the house. It had a cistern, square with a hinged cover. You could lift the lid and, using a metal dipper that hung there, reach into the cistern and get a drink of water. 

 Dick was a rancher. My dad told me stories of staying with him on the ranch in the summer, riding horses, and working with the cattle. He told me that once, when he was a little boy, he got Uncle Dick’s pocketknife and buried it in the ground, hoping it would grow a knife tree. That did not go over well with his uncle. 

 This week, I attended a Wilson County Extension Master Gardener class, and one of the new interns approached me. She asked if I was related to Richard Creech, who once lived in Floresville. It turns out her last name is Titus, which was Mayde’s maiden name. She and her husband have now inherited the ranch and are living there. They considered building a new house but decided to renovate the old one instead. The cistern is still on the back porch. 

Last night at our meeting, she brought me a folder with some photos of Dick, Mayde, and the house. She also brought the memorial book from Dick’s funeral. My dad was one of the pallbearers. And there where my family was signed in, it says, “Mr. and Mrs. Joe Bob Creech and Richard Robert.” I was there as a six-month-old. The list of other mourners included my aunts and uncles and a few of my cousins– Uncle Richard and Aunt Jean, Uncle Earl, Uncle Sterling and Aunt Rainey, Uncle B. W. and Aunt Butch (with Richard Earl), Uncle John and Aunt Bonnie (with Kay and Johnnie Ruth). 

 It's easy to picture this gathering, younger than I remember them now, at Grandad’s old house on the hill, which was only recently bought. They filed somberly into the Floresville Methodist Church and took their seats next to each other on the front pews. Reverend Albert Peterson presided. Brother Peterson, as Grandad and Lil called him, had been a longtime pastor and friend to them. Eighteen years later, he would be the one to bury my grandfather. They sang "Rock of Ages" and "Sweet By and By," and the choir sang an anthem.

Dick was buried at the Floresville City Cemetery. Mayde would not join him until 1987. The couple had run a café in Corpus Christi for fifteen years and then in Kansas City for five before moving back to Wilson County to take up farming and ranching. I knew little about this until I attended a Master Gardeners meeting this week.