LETTER - The following is an excerpt from a letter written by Franklin Hunt Broyles, M.D. in 1933.

I visited Uncle Michael K. DeVault in Illinois more than fifty years ago but had not corresponded with any of them for fifty years but once in a while I would send Cousin Laura a birthday card, or a picture of some place of interest I visited but never heard from her. Just this last Christmas I sent her a Christmas card, and two or three weeks later I received a letter from her niece saying her Aunt Laura died three years ago. That her grandparents, her father and her uncle and aunt were all dead and that as far as she knew one brother was the only living relative she had on earth and that if I was a friend of the family or knew any thing about the DeVault family she would be glad to hear from me. I went back to her great, great, grandfather and gave her a quite complete history down to herself, so complete should she wish to join the D.A.Rs she can do so. Although I stopped with the birth and death of my own mother of that branch of our family. I will give this to her in another chapter. I have not heard from her since I sent her that letter, and she has no idea she and I are second cousins. It is too bad relatives get so scattered they loose all trace of each other, but I can I think understand how it is she knows not of her father's family. Uncle Michael DeVault was one of the best men I ever knew, and his wife was just as good as long as she was boss and every one bowed to her, but when they did not she was a regular she devil. Their oldest son Elbert married a young lady his mother had taken a dislike for and I heard her say she never wanted to see him again and that she never wanted to look in her face either in life or death. This marriage took place at the time I visited them, and it is my opinion he gave his family a wide berth and told his children nothing about them, altho the rest of the family never said a word in my presence against the young lady Elbert married. The other two children never married. I know cousin Laura had an opportunity to marry a young man who has made a splendid success of his life, and her mother was willing that he and Laura marry, provided they would move right in and live with or very near her for he would not be domineered over by her and Laura did not want to live with her for she knew no one could do so in peace, but at the same time she said she could never marry with out her mother's consent and if she did not marry this particular young man she would never marry any. That decided the young man to break the engagement and some years later married a jewel of a young woman. None of the children were at all like their mother in disposition but seeing the heart aches caused by her brother's disobedience caused her to sacrifice a happy married life with a home and children of her own.