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Bring Me the Head of
My Least Favorite Nephew
Getting
what you wish for in Marlin, Texas, 1908
by John Troesser
In back of many lunch counters and cash registers
in Texas and around the South, there is a sign that states: "If Mama Ain't Happy,
Ain't Nobody Happy." It is mildly amusing if it was a family member who put the
sign up. It isn't funny at all if "mama" herself put it up. This is a story of
a son who tried to please "mama" a little too enthusiastically |
Like
certain parts of Louisiana, life in Falls County, Texas could sometimes be a little
scary. And like Louisiana, it was widely known that you could pretty much trust
your friends - while it was your family you really needed to watch.
This
tale of teenage obedience and decapitation comes from the entertaining memoirs
of Waco newspaper
publisher W. S. Foster - a man who knew a good story when he heard one.
In this particular case, Mr. Foster (while submerged in boyhood himself) witnessed
firsthand what happened when a Marlin mother and son had a "failure to communicate."
The story, as it often is with murder, is short and Mr. Foster's terse
writing only touches on the barest of facts. Foster relates that he was "about
a dozen years old" when his family moved to Marlin,
county seat of Falls. The year was something like 1908. He refers to the incident
as a "gruesome happening" strangely, those are the same words used decades later
to describe the gathering at Woodstock, New York. |
The
story (at last):
One
day a boy named "Bus" (no explanation is given for this unusual name) Wyers heard
his mother say she wouldn't be satisfied until a certain nephew's head was hung
from the front porch of her home. It's possible Mrs. Wyers may have had some novel
ideas on porch décor, but more likely she was expressing displeasure at some childhood
prank or misdemeanor performed by her nephew. Bus, however, took his mother's
wish as a command.
Soon after her spoken request, under one pretext
or another, Bus lured his cousin to a nearby creek where the "gruesome happening"
took place. The hapless boy's head was indeed placed on the Wyers family porch
albeit briefly. Unfortunately Mr. Foster omitted any mention of the mother's reaction
in his story. Presumably Bus was given a serious sermon on figurative vs. literal
speech and the incident undoubtedly caused a severe family rift.
After
it's appearance on the porch, the boy's head was taken back to the scene of the
crime and buried in the creek bank. The boy's body, however, was laid out at a
Marlin undertaking parlor - one that was run by Mr. Foster's Uncle.
The Foster family operated a restaurant right next door to the undertaker. 1908
Texas was nothing if not a practical place and people could enjoy a home-cooked
meal and between courses pay their respects to departed friends and neighbors.
Or else choose a casket and then grab something to eat before returning home.
Mr. Foster described the visit by simply writing: "We all went to see the
body without a head, lying on the slab." The head was sent for a second time and
brought back for a reunion and proper burial.
Bus was apprehended, (Now,
you just march yourself down to the sheriff's office, young man..") tried and
sentenced to 99 years. But he somehow managed to become one of the few people
to escape from the custody of the Falls County sheriff. He enjoyed freedom for
some time, if you call living under your girlfriend's porch and eating leftovers
freedom. Bus served two years in Huntsville before being pardoned by one or the
other of the Governors Ferguson.
This tragic and macabre case shows
that "the good old days" weren't always peaches and cream - at least in Falls
County, Texas - about 1908.
"They
shoe horses, don't they?"
September 7, 2003
© John Troesser
Source: Observations: A Compilation
of Events in Texas History by W. S. Foster, Founder of the Waco Citizen, Waco
Texas, 1976 | | |
