b. 10 Dec 1863
Atlanta, Georgia
d. 13 Jan 1936
on his farm in Old Palestine, TX
Buried in the Grapeland Cemetery.
m1: ELLEN DICKEY in Houston Co., Tx on 7 Dec 1886
m2: Bettie Price on 1 May 1906 (She was married before & had a daughter
named Effie Livingston, born 26 Sep 1901 - Disappeared 1938.
m3: Margaret DeMoss Key in Nov 1912
Dalton Hale: On his Maternal Grandfather; Brince Dickson:
"Ankle of right leg tied to his belt with a strap running from [ ? ]
had his knee in the stump part and a piece of wood ran up to his waist, and
his belt went through that. He walked with one piece running up through the
belt and he did good. Rode horseback. Hoed in the fields on his knees, all
that kind of stuff. He got around and had all those kids - three different
sets of kids - that didn't hold him back none. When he died it was wintertime.
He had his bed in near the fireplace. I was the only one in the room, (with
him) I was holding his hand. It was a natural death."
From his Granddaughter Mickey Seaton in 1995:
"Grandpa Brince was a big man. He had Brown hair and blue eyes. He stood
six feet tall. He had big bones. He wore a large-handle bar mustache.
"When he died, it was so cold, that his mustache actually ripped the
sheet that they had pulled up over him. You see, that big old handle-bar
mustache had frozen stiff.
"He was stern and all his kids worked hard on the farm, but he was very,
very honest. He wouldn't do anyone out of anything."
"He homesteaded 100 acres and bought more outright. When any of his kids
married, he'd give them 25 acres of land for a wedding present. Most of them
would end up selling the land back to him at a later date. He'd then give it
to whomever married next."
When the family celebrated Easter, friends and family would go out to his
farm where they would have a huge Easter Egg hunt and a Barbecue.
Cordie nee Dickson via Mickey Seaton:
"My father had me plowing fields at the age of six. I cut wood too; with
a two-man saw. Shortly before my father died, my father said:`Pretty Girl
come over here.' When I did, we talked about God. I asked him if he was saved.
He replied: `Pretty Girl, when I was twenty-five years old, a bee stung me
on my tongue. I liked to have died. I said to God that if he would let me live
to take care of my wife and all my children, that I would always walk in his
ways and teach my children to do the same.' He was a good man. They tried to
Baptize him, they did it in the creek, you know. Anyway, he was such a big man
that they couldn't tip the chair back over into the water, so he wasn't
`formally' Baptized. When he died, the preacher didn't know him. He was told by
some of the other relatives that he had never been Baptized. He was giving the
funeral sermon and saying how bad it was that he wasn't Baptized."
Cordie then got up and marched to the front of the church, where Brince
laid in state. She turned to face those assembled for the funeral. She
told them the story about the bee; and about him trying to get Baptized -
and didn't he always lead a good honest life and inspired others to
do so too?
Some of the relatives mumbled about her stopping the sermon; but the
preacher was glad that she did and said that that changed things.
He went on to preach a nice Christian service.
Brince did Blacksmith work when they lived in `town'. (This `town' only had
one street.) He told his wife that it was no place to raise children, so he
moved them to a farm five miles away. The house was built with a dog-run
in between. They called the dog-run a `gallery'. There was a porch all the
way across the front. On one side was the kitchen and a bedroom. On the
other side of the `gallery' was a living room with a bed in it and then
another small room. He raised all of his children on this farm.
Mickey says that the farm had a lot of wonderful trees. There were
black-walnut trees and hickory-nut trees, and sweet-gum trees.
Brince had a lot of sayings. The prayer he would use in jest over the family
meal if they had company eating with them was:
"Mighty poor eats
"dang little bread
"and no meat
"and if you've a mind to eat
"'fore the wife and kids are fed,
"Then go ahead!"
After his death, a family with twenty-two children moved into his house.
The people were afraid to go into the little room where his wooden peg-leg
had been left, standing up in the corner. The house was torn down shortly
after this family's brief stay and the lumber was sold for reuse.
On 6 April 1995, I rcd. a photocopy of a picture of Brince & Ellen from
Albert. Ellen was slender and fair. Brince is in a cowboy hat,
he has a walrus mustache in this photo.