FHB Charles Lee Watson

From Family History Book

Family History Book: Charles Lee Watson (1885-1948)

The youngest child and third son of Mattie Smith and Charles M Watson, Charles Lee Watson was born on 6 August 1885 in Birmingham, Alabama. He was just 3 and 1/2 years old when his father died, and not quite six when his oldest brother, Harvey Emmett, drowned while crossing a river on the family's way to Texas in 1891. Once they got to Dallas, his oldest sister Irene's husband, Edmond Bush, had died by 1900, so she and her son, Harry Watson Bush, were living with Charles and his mother and youngest sister, Bertha May, when the census was taken that year. Their other sister, Carrie, was still living in Alabama with her husband, Charlie Cusack. Their remaining brother, Tom, had married in January and had his own household.
In December 1905, Charles Lee married Estella Barnes. Bertha had married E. W. Calvert in 1902, and by the time the 1910 census was taken, the Calverts had two daughters. Charles and Estella also had two daughters (Juanita May, born in 1908, and Loreita Arlee, born in April 1910). Charles' family was living with Estella's parents and siblings in Dallas at the time of the census. Sadly, Loreita died of whooping cough shortly after the census was taken, when she was only one month old. Charles' mother, Mattie, had died in December of 1904, about a year before Charles and Estella were married. Both Loreita and Mattie are buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Dallas, the only family members to be interred there. In the 1910 census Tom and his wife, Ida Cora Alexander, are shown with four living children (twin boys had died as infants in 1906 and 1907), and were living in Dallas. Carrie and Charlie Cusack had five children by then, and were living in Tucumcari, New Mexico. The next year, Charles and Estella had their third child and only son, Charles Sterling Watson, born 5 December 1911.
Like others in the family, Charles Lee Watson worked for the US Post Office. In 1910 and 1920 his occupation is listed in the census as a letter carrier, but by 1930 he was a postal supervisor, and in the 1940 census he is shown as a postal cashier.

Descendants

Charles Lee Watson's Descendants are:


Charles died 12 April 1948 of coronary thrombosis. He is buried in Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park in Dallas.

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