The Fruit of Shame
So very destructive.
John Walter Graham, Sr., my grandfather, born in Seguin, Texas on April 4, 1878. Died in Costa Mesa, Orange County, California fifty-eight years later.
He and Mary Louise (“Pearl”) Norsworthy had four children—Gertrude, John, Sue and Mary Ann (my mother), all of whom are now gone. Not much is known about my grandfather—I never heard Aunt Sue mention him. Mother mentioned him, but only when she had been drinking and was feeling remorseful.
As best I have been able to piece the story together, John Walter Graham (Convict #73194) got himself a two-year prison sentence in Huntsville, Texas. A certain, J. W. Graham, County Clerk of Uvalde County, Texas, was accused of securing in May 1927 the approval of a claim payable to himself from the commissioners’ court in Uvalde County in the amount of $8.55 for transcribing record, brands and marks and subsequently of presenting a warrant issued by the Country Treasurer of Uvalde County payable to J.W. Graham in the amount of $1,188.55. Testimony was presented that the instrument set out in the indictment for $1,188.55 was signed by J.W. Graham and that the rest of said instrument was in J.W. Graham’s handwriting.
He was indicted in 1927. His conviction was affirmed on appeal by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (Graham v. State, 123 Tex. Crim. 121 (Tex. Crim. App. 1933). He served his two-year sentence from 1933-35. He died in California in 1936—one year after getting out of prison.
My mother was eleven years old when her father was indicted. She must have been something of a daddy’s girl. The few times she mentioned him, she talked about how dapper and charming he was.
Aunt Gertrude and Uncle John were somewhat older than Aunt Sue and Mother. I’m under the impression they. reconciled with their father. I’m also under the impression that Aunt Sue and my mother never saw or talked with their father after he went to prison.
The fruit of shame—estrangement, disgrace, festering wounds, false pride, humiliation, secrecy.