Stirpes, Volume 34, Number 1, March 1994 Page: 33

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Their Aunt Gladys married Howard King (whom the young Howard Taulbee was
named for). Their Aunt Gladys and Uncle Howard were in the circus business, and they spent
every winter with the Taulbees when the circus was in winter quarters.
Mrs. Taulbee and their Aunt Gladys were both very generous people. At Christmas
time, they always made up food baskets and took them to the poorer families of the community
who welcomed them and always appreciated them. Dr. Saenz remembers Mrs. Taulbee as
being very refined and extremely intellectual.
Paul Taulbee, Jr., today states: "My love of history ranks below only God, wife,
family, and country -- even the history of a house I once lived in that I feel is a landmark. I
have many memories of the home my Taulbee family lived in before my grandfather died in
1937, and we children had to leave Benavides, scatter throughout the country, and live with
other members of the family." Howard, Paul, and Sister Anne would spend the summers in
West Virginia with their aunt, but through the years they have always regarded Benavides as
their home.
The house is as dear to the Adams family who lived there for 38 years from 1937 to
1974.
Paul remembers his childhood days quite vividly. He says, "I have many wonderful
memories of the home for so many years -- good and bad."
"When I was a boy of about 10 or 12, some of my friends and I hunted together in
back of the house and would visit an old native who lived back in the brush in an old adobe
house. He must have been in his 90's then. He lived alone except for a bunch of cats, a mangy
dog, and some chickens. His name was Saragosa. He told us all sorts of stories from his youth.
He said that his father had deserted from Santa Anna's army and settled in the Benavides area
where there were only a couple of other families. If only we could talk to him now!"
As for the bad memories of this home, he recalls: "My dear grandmother died there
several years before my 70-year-old grandfather died, as a result of a house call on a cold and
rainy night. He was wet and chilled and developed pneumonia and died." Also, Paul's
youngest brother, William, was hit by an automobile on the highway in front of the house and
died there. (All three are buried in the Alice, Tex., cemetery.) Paul continues, "I have an oil
painting of the home hanging on our rec. room wall." (As does also the writer of this paper,
Vivian Adams Rudisill, of San Antonio, Tex., who has another oil painting on the wall of the
dining area of her home where she can see it at every meal.)
Paul says the house was originally built by a Corkill. The Peters family lived in the
house prior to the Taulbees. Mrs. Peters was formerly a Corkill, possibly a sister to Monte
Corkhill and a brother who lived in Hebbronville.
The house (built in 1907) is possibly the oldest standing frame house in Benavides. In
those days there was a dearth of lumber in that part of the country, and most of the older
homesteads were built of adobe. Edds and Acklin had the first lumber yard in Benavides and
supplied the lumber for building the house and others later. (See additional information in
STIRPES, Vol. 33, No 1, March, 1993, pp. 15-16).
If only we had oral or written history of this Taulbee family and their home, or if only
this home could talk, what tales it would tell us!
Mentioned would be the reason this doctor from West Virginia and his family settled in
Benavides in South Texas, the type of medical practice that he had, the first charity or welfare
program in this area since only about 10% of his patients paid in cash, the visitors in his home
including all the various family members, and throughout, the childhood memories of the
Taulbee children, Paul, Jr., and Howard, as well as their love of their old home, and also the
love of the Adams family for this same 87-year-old house.

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