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ENNIS ALLGOOD NEELY September 1, 1904 - January 26, 1905; Almost 5 months old
By Roy "Buddy" Neely Jr.
This boy was a twin to Allgood Ellis "Bud" Neely. He died as an infant at the age of four months and twenty-five days. There apparently remains nothing in oral history from living cousins that bears on the reason for his demise. However, it should be pointed out that our grandparents, Will and Ulah, did successfully raise 13 of their 15 children to adulthood, during a time and in an environment that lacked much in hygiene, nutrition, and medical resources that are common today.
Ennis Allgood is buried in Auburn Cemetery in western Ellis County,Texas near the Johnson County line. His grave lies in a plot with his aunt Georgia Ann who was a sister of Ulah and "Aunt Kansas”. Georgia and her husband, William Clinton Huffstutler, had come from Blount County, Alabama in 1903 and successfully farmed and lived out their lives in that area of Ellis County, and in the vicinity of at least two of the farms Will worked as a tenant farmer. The Ennis Neely grave is marked with a well preserved upright limestone marker. One might wonder why he wasn't buried at Maloney Cemetery along with his older brother Marcellous who died June 11, 1893. One reason might be simply that of distance, some 20 miles from where the family was then living. The Auburn Cemetery is just a short distance from where the Will and Ulah residence was at the time. Another reason might be that there was no space available next to Marcellous at Maloney since his cousin J.T. Neely Jr (who died May 8, 1902) had been buried in the adjacent plot on the north side, and his grandmother Sarah Hood Neely and great grandmother Rachel Scott Hood likely occupied the only available spaces on the south.
The burial of Ennis in early 1905 in Ellis County and the birth of Miles in March of 1907 in Nolan County supports other evidence that the family's move to West Texas occurred during that interval. Unice remembers that they moved "in December just after my third birthday" (November 15, 1905). There exists a photograph of Erastus climbing what appears to be the rocky walls of a stream bed with the note on the reverse that it was taken 20 miles west of Roscoe in 1905. That could be the Colorado (Texas) River which is located at about that distance. Will's brother Stephen Farris had previously moved his family from Ellis County to Roscoe in 1902, perhaps providing advance information on the land availability and farming prospects in the area. Will's location in Nolan County at what was later named Wastella (for Will's oldest daughter) was only about 10 miles from the Stephen Farris farm at Roscoe. Although Marcellous is well known by name and frequently referred to as such, the baby Ennis Allgood who also died as an infant is, seemingly, not well known by name (if at all by most living cousins). More often than not, one simply hears "Bud's twin."