From Proud Heritage, Volume II by DCPA. This hardcover book is available online.
The last of the herds of wild buffalo in Texas were grazing on the lush grass of Parker County when Camden Brady, the son of Harry and Sarah (Belknap) Brady, was born in April, 1885 in Weatherford. Harry Brady was part of a hide business in Dallas, and he followed the dwindling herds to supply his trade (see Proud Heritage, Vol. I, p. 12).
Camden Brady met Laura Hill on a Santa Fe Railroad promotional trip call “Galveston Excursion” in 1902. They married 18 December at Caldwell, Burleson County, Texas, the third time they had seen each other.
Laura Hill was born 10 April 1885 at “Gay Hill.” The two-story cedar log cotton plantation at Washington-on-the-Brazos was the home of Amelia Williams and the patriot, William Carroll Jackson Hill. Jackson’s parents, Asa and Elizabeth (Barksdale) Hill, had migrated from Columbus, Georgia, in the spring of 1835 bringing their nearly grown family of six daughters and six sons.
After their marriage, the young couple lived in Dallas with Cam’s family on Exposition Avenue while he worked as a salesman with Moroney Hardware Company. His salary was $25.00 a week. After the birth of daughter, Helen Marie Brady, in December, 1905, the couple moved to the edge of the city at Lemmon and Travis streets. Here they could keep a hog given them by Mama Hill. They had fine hams and sausage, curing the meat by smoking it using wood from their own walnut trees.
During the next few years, they moved to Kansas City, Somerville, Texas, to Houston. Their second daughter, DeLois, was born in Houston on 13 December 1911. Cam Brady returned to Dallas and joined Huey-Philip Hardware Company. He established his own retail appliance store on Elm at Stone streets, later moving to Pacific Avenue.
Their home was at 2611 State during World War I, which is presently being restored as an historical area. In the spring of 1919, they bought what would become their permanent family home place at 3235 Cole Avenue.
Fifteen years after the birth of their first child, a son was born on 20 August 1920, Hudson Hill Brady. He and his two sisters, Marie and DeLois, were reared in the same neighborhood as their father. Each child was put under Miss Willie Gibbs’ cradle roll at Trinity First Methodist South. Laura, the mother, seemed to know just what to do when her children were ill. She consulted her doctor books and each child was given the most loving and efficient nursing care. She took Cam’s Aunt Millie Myers into her home the last five years of Millie’s life. (There were no nursing homes then for invalids.) Aunt Millie died at the age of 92 and was buried at Greenwood Cemetery.
Cam and Laura’s only son, Hudson, attended Sam Houston, William B. Travis and Ben Milam elemen tary schools before graduating from Dallas Tech on Bryan Street in 1942. Miss Effie Johnson, his second grade teacher had taught his father. Hudson’s high school achievements included student government and chorus. His first salaried job was with Texas Employment Commission in Austin, Texas. His mother persuaded him to come home and enroll in a two-year engineering course at S.M.U. This training enabled him to secure a position at North American Aviation at Grand Prairie, Texas, during World War II. Following the war, he continued to work in defense industries until 1965.
On 25 November 1955, he married Jeannette Wright in Dallas. They were divorced in California in 1963. They had two children: Newton Chovoin Brady (born 10 August 1956) and Valencia Salicional Brady, born (6 January 1959).
In March, 1967, he was aboard the freighter, H.M.S. Cedarbank at New Orleans. He sailed across the Gulf of Mexico into the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal. He finally arrived in Queensland, Australia the first of May, 1967, which was Labor Day. He made his home there until November, 1985. Upon retirement, he then returned to the United States to visit with his children in California.
Hudson’s son, Newton C., lives in Irvine, California, with his wife, Kim Elaine (DeProspero) Brady, and son, Matthew Ryan, who was born 11 June 1988.
Hudson’s daughter, Valencia, has a son, Joshua Michael Hultman, born 1979, by a first marriage. She married (2) David Baxter, and they had Tanya Marie Baxter, born 6 August 1991. They live at Desert Hot Springs, California.
Hudson, who is a life long genealogist, settled in Fort Worth to re-establish his Texas roots; however, his active life came to an abrupt end the day before Thanksgiving 1990 when he suffered a massive stroke. He now resides at Heritage Gardens Nursing Home in Carrollton, Texas.
Laura Hill Brady, wife of Camden, was a real daughter of the Republic of Texas, and was honored annually at James B. Bonham Chapter meetings as well as State conventions. Her parents were life members of the Texas Veterans Associations and Dallas Pioneer Association.
By Marie Brady Hunter, Dallas, TX
