Able David Williamson (1871–1896)
Chapter 8
Story told by his niece, Sina Cole (Thompson) Briley
From the book "William Williamson", printed June 2003

Able William son was working near Buna, Texas, in a logging camp. He had a girlfriend, as you'd call it nowadays, by the name of Emma Miller. They were planning on getting married. I don't know how long he'd been working up there when you got a terrible sore eye and came back home.

Now he was about the night child of Grandma and Grandpa Williamson. When able got to the settlement, grandma live his head on a [not legible]. He could never stay in the light. It seemed like weeks he was there, but finally he got well and went back to the logging camp, right after Christmas Day. On the 28th day of December, he went back to work. They had to go way out, maybe fifteen or twenty miles out in the country, where they were cutting logs and loading them. The tram railroad had been laid back into the area. The men loaded the logs on the flatcars up to a point, then put a chain across to hold the logs in place.

Uncle Abel's job it was, when they would get these cars loaded with logs they hooked them up together. Finally they would get enough to make a train of them. There was one log that was a little bit longer so when he got in between and went to hook them together, the log rammed him in the chest crushing him bad. That was the first cars that was put together that morning. And, of course, they didn't have no way to get them back to camp before noon. So they laid him on a little flatcar.

A boy, a young man, was sent to tell Grandma and Grandpa. It was about twenty miles through the woods on a horse. By the time he got back to Grandma's, he stopped by our place to tell Mother, then went on to Grandma's. That was about four o'clock in the evening. He had started out about nine or ten that morning.

The horses were out! Of course, the horses were always out. They rounded them up and started out in the wagon through the woods. They got to our house about sundown. Grandma had to borrow mother's (Emelia's) dress. And Grandma was just screaming as loud as she possibly could. And Mother, too. But Grandma was the worst. And that was in 1896 the 28th of December. So all the hope she had was that the Savior was baptized when he was 30, and Uncle Able was 25. And that was all the hope she had, maybe he would be redeemed. Otherwise he had gone to hell and would burn forever. She would just scream and throw her hands up. She would just walk the floor and scream just as loud as she could.

Finally, mother got the dress and Grandma put it on and away they started. About eleven o'clock, Grandma and Grandpa got to Buna and met their grandson.

Uncle Able didn't die until about night, at dark, after sundown. Well, the next morning, they had to start back with his body in order to get him back home for burial. We was all waiting there at Uncle Jasper's place, it was right across from the graveyard a few hundred yards. They all came, Emma Miller, her brother, and there was someone else. The three of them came in a buggy.

Aunt Belle and Uncle Parren lived in Uncle Jasper's house and went out to the cemetery at 9 o'clock that night. The grave had been dug and they buried him that night. That was six weeks after Aunt Mary had died, so mother had Maggie and Aunt Zill had Ab. Mother stayed at Uncle Parren's and Uncle Jasper's and kept Bob, Ab and Maggie.

When we got back from the cemetery, Mother was walking, carrying Ab and Maggie was hanging onto her dress. Ab was a cryin' and Bob was in the bed. There you have it.

A brief description written by Camellia Thompson Denys

Able David Williamson was born February 28, 1871, at the old homestead Orange/Jasper Counties, the fifth son and ninth child of William and Joissine Demarias Williamson. He was 5'7" tall with straight black hair, brown eyes and dark complexion. At only 150 pounds, he had a slender build. His manner was mild and kind; very reserved, but comical and witty. The most musically talented in the family, he could also draw very well. Abel loved "HOME".

The best looking of the Williamson boys, Abel had many admirers. When he died At 25 years old, three girls claimed to be engaged to him. He was killed by being crushed to death in loading logs at a camp near Wiess Bluff December 28, 1896.

Grandma Joissine grieved for him over the years and could not be comforted. She had been taught in her Catholic faith, that there was no salvation for the dead who died without the last rites. When the Mormon Elders preached of life after death, it gave her hope and she readily accepted the Gospel in 1900.