Harrison Kye Chaney was known as "Bud" probably after his father's younger brother Ninevah who was killed in 1863. (Ninevah was called "Bud" and that appears as his name on his tombstone.) Later generations often said that he was named for his father and, thus, was a junior. However, his father was definitely named Hezekiah and called "Kye." It is possible that his father did use "Harrison Kye" instead of "Hezekiah" at some time late in life. His mother had a brother named General Harrison Goad thus it is possible that his name was derived from his father's and an uncle's names. It is just as possible that the name resulted from the slurring in pronouncing "Hezekiah" resulting in "Harrison Kye." Bud married Cora Reed in 1900 in Temple, Bell County, Texas.
Bud was known to be a rather rough character who was no stranger to alcohol. He farmed although he seems to have also have been usually involved with mules and mule-trading.
Railroads seem to have been an important aspect of his life as well. Jake recalled when he was a boy that his father, along with other men in the area, were hired by the Santa Fe railroad to bring their mules and wagons to help clear up after a train wreck near Moody at Willow Grove. At some time, Bud served as a "Bull" on a railroad.
In 1913, the family was living in southern McLennan County in the Willow Grove community near the Bell County line. It was at this time that the family home burned. "Bud" was out of town as he often was.
The fire started in the kitchen around five in the morning. Cora had started the fire in the cook stove and gone to her bedroom for something. When she returned, the kitchen was ablaze. One wall, dividing the kitchen and the bedroom where Tommy slept, was about to collapse.
The family hurriedly attempted to save what they could. Cora grabbed a pair of Bud's shoes only to discover later that they were not mates. Inez struggled with the sewing machine. She valued it highly because her mother made her dresses on it. Tommy wore only his long underwear as he ran across the field to his Uncle John's house. (Jesse Gerald Chaney reported that the uncle was John Pinkston who lived nearby. Although not an actual uncle, John was known as such by this family. Both Bud and the Pinkston's lived on the "Yarborough farm.")
Neighbors came to help but the house and its contents were lost except the few items initially rescued: all of their clothes, furniture and bedding. Some flat-irons were found among the ruins and Cora used them for years after. Just after the fire, someone stole all the meat, hams, bacon and sausages that had not been stored in the house.
The family stayed with relatives (not identified) and neighbors brought them clothes and food. They received meat, potatoes, cakes, cookies, fruit, beans, sugar, and many other things. Someone brought a big comforter and others brought other bedding. Bud and Cora went to Moody and spent what little money they had left on beds, dressers, chairs and other furniture at a secondhand furniture store.
Bud rented a house and had a job in Moody. Somehow, Bud got cottonseed for the next year's crop and the family began to rebuild its life. Everyone had to pitch in.
Most of the land was in cotton but they also grew corn and maize. There was a garden for vegetables including several rows of popcorn. The entire family had to help do the farm work including chopping and picking the cotton. A pipe ran from a creek so that water could be pumped to fill the livestock troughs.
They had one milk cow for which Inez was responsible for feeding. She helped with the dishes and did some of the ironing. She had to trim the lamp wicks and clean the glass chimneys on the lamps. While Cora was doing farm work, Inez tended the younger children. She had to tend them even when she was picking cotton. She would set them on the cotton sack or under the wagon where it was cooler. Jake would bring them cool water during the day.
The children got paid for "scrappin'" which consisted of going over the fields after the cotton-pickers were done and picking any cotton which had been missed. Tommy chopped the wood and kindling as well as other chores. The children were not usually paid for the cotton picking although Bud would take them to town for "red soda water" and, once, to a carnival as reward. They shelled corn which Bud took to the mill to be ground. The family had cornmeal everyday during this difficult time. The evening meal often was cornmeal and milk except when the one cow was dry.
The family had three beds: one for Bud and Cora, one for the boys and one for the girls. When the weather was cold, Cora would put a heated brick in the beds to keep the bed warm. They did not go anywhere except to Moody to do the necessary shopping and to church. Most of their life was home oriented.
One Christmas during this period, the children did not expect even a Christmas tree. However, Bud hitched up two mules and loaded them all in the wagon and drove to Cedar Creek where they cut a little tree. Back home, the little tree was set up and decorated with red and green paper that the children used at school. They popped corn and strung it on the tree. Mistletoe was hung over the doors. The children were thrilled to have a tree since they knew that they couldn't afford presents.
Suddenly, Kye's cousin, Marble Stone Chaney appeared with toys and peppermint stick candy for them that made it a memorable Christmas for them all. Marble had stored the goodies on top of his wife's wardrobe and wouldn't let his children touch them.
The fire had destroyed almost everything the family had, but, with the help of friends, family and neighbors, they slowly returned to normal.
In 1916, the family lived north of Temple where Beatrice was born. Bud was working for a Dr. Stevens then. Then they moved into Temple to Nugent and Fifteenth Streets where James was born in 1918. In 1921, when Jack was born, they were living in Pendleton. By 1924, they were again living in Temple, on Bentley Hill, and Bud was working for R.V. Nichols who operated a mule barn. Bud travelled and bought mules.
While living in Pendleton, Bud had somehow obtained a racehorse. Jake and Tommy decided to hitch the horse to a buggy and see how fast they could "race horse" to Temple, nine or ten miles distant, and back. It must have been a rough trip on the gravel road as Bud made the boys take the wheels off the buggy and take them to a blacksmith to be tightened.
On 27 August 1924, Bud was in south Texas buying mules for Mr. Nichols. Tommy worked nights with the Santa Fe railroad as a night supply man. Jake worked for the city driving a dump-truck. Cora tended the family while Bud was out of town.
Cora and the younger children had been picking cotton that morning. They came home for lunch. Tommy was sleeping since he worked nights. He awoke and borrowed some money from his mother since he was broke and wanted to go to the "show." They ate lunch at a table that was located on a screened-in porch at the back of the house.
Cora returned to pick cotton leaving Irene to wash the dishes, clean the kitchen and tend three-year-old Jack. Tommy wrote a letter to his girlfriend and left on foot. Many years later, Irene remembered that she had to go to the outhouse and, there, she had an overwhelmingly strange feeling that something was going to happen.
That night, Irene slept with Cora. Jack usually slept with his mother. They had trouble sleeping since their cow was bawling. It was unusual for the cow to be so noisy. They eventually got to sleep but at about four in the morning they heard a car pull into the lane to the house.
It was Mr. and Mrs. Nichols. They told Cora that Tommy had been hurt and that they had come to take her to the hospital. She went with the Nichols while the children helped Jake try to start the city dump-truck so they could go to the hospital too. They were still attempting to get it started when the car returned.
Tommy had been struck by a switch engine as he walked across the tracks in the yards near the downtown Sante Fe passenger depot. He was terribly injured and lived only a short time. It was a large funeral after which a long caravan of cars drove to Moody where Tommy was buried next to his sister, Loraine, who had died as a child in 1911.
(Jesse Gerald Chaney added some interesting details to the story of Tom's death that did not appear in his newspaper obituary. Tom and his father had been working for the railroad during a strike by the Unionized railroad workers! They were actually "scabs" and it is not unlikely that Tom was deliberately run down by the engineer of the switch engine. (Gerry feels that the incident might have occurred at one of the railroad yards north of town, but the obituary specifically states that it was near the downtown depot.)
Bud had a group of buddies that he spent much time with. One story tells of the time that they were all down by the Leon River drinking. Of course, most of the men usually carried their rifles. One of the men, a barber, expressed an interest in Bud's gun. Bud told him if he touched it that he would shoot him. The barber thought he was joking and reached for the gun. Bud grabbed the rifle and shot him. It evidently was not a serious wound since Bud continued to let the barber shave him afterwards.
There is a story that Bud led a lynch-mob at one time. The story is that it involved a black man involved in the killing of an entire white family. (Another source reported that the crime was the rape of a white woman.) Tradition holds that Bud headed the mob carrying an axe. The mob built a fire and burned the man alive. While being dragged through the fire the Black man bit off one of Bud's earlobes.
Jesse Gerald Chaney recalls another story of his "Cousin Bud." A brick building was being built between the two main streets in Moody. A man was chasing Bud with a knife and Marble was chasing the man chasing Bud! Marble snatched up a loose brick and hit the man causing him to drop the knife. Gerry does not remember what the chasing was all about but it added to the lore of Bud Chaney.
During prohibition, Bud was not deprived of his alcohol. He hid bottles all around the farm where they were living. Jack recalls finding one of the bottles in a barrel of grain and drinking it. He got very ill and was on the porch throwing-up. Cora was very upset because she thought he was deathly ill. Claude came home then and immediately realized that Jack wasn't sick but down-right drunk.
Evidently, alcohol caused Bud to become unreasonable quite often. More than once he became angry with Cora and took after her with a butcher knife. He was known to use a wet rope from the well to "whip" his children when he had been drinking.
In 1936, while walking across the viaduct on Adams Street in Temple near their home on 19th Street he collapsed. He was taken the short distance home where died. He was buried in Moody Cemetery along side his son, Tommy, and daughter, Loraine. Cora was buried there in 1968.
Children:
1. Morran Thomas Chaney
Birth: 25 Jul 1902 Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Death: 28 Aug 1924 Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Burial: 29 Aug 1924 Moody Cemetery, Moody, McLennan Co., Texas.2. Inez Chaney
Birth: 3 Nov 1903 Bell Co., Texas.
Marriage: circa __ ___ 1921 Raymond Lee Shearin (b. 7 Nov 1902, d. 13 Oct 1933),
son of John Booker Shearin and Anna E. (--?--); Texas.
Marriage: circa __ ___ 1940 Claude Wesley Newman ( (b. 26 Jul 1906, d. 9 Apr 1949);
Texas.
Death: 21 Sep 1982 Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Burial: __ ___ ____ Moody Cemetery, Moody, McLennan Co., Texas.3. Fred Harrison “Jake” Chaney
Birth: 2 Oct 1905 Willow Grove, Bell Co., Texas.
Marriage: 17 Oct 1924 Zelma Cownover (b. 14 Mar 1907, ),
daughter of William Cownover and Annie (--?--) (2334);
Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Death: 20 Jul 1998 Bell Co., Texas.
Burial: 21 Jul 1998 Resthaven Cemetery, Temple, Bell Co., Texas.4. Loraine Chaney
Birth: 9 Aug 1910 McLennan Co., Texas.
Death: 21 Dec 1911
Burial: __ ___ ____ Moody Cemetery, Moody, McLennan Co., Texas.5. Irene Chaney
Birth: 13 Jan 1913 Bell Co., Texas.
Marriage: 3 Apr 1930 Ray Pyeatt (b. 30 Oct 1910, d. 8 Jan 1990), son
of Samuel Marion Pyeatt and Sarah Trasdy Burton;
Bell Co., Texas.
Divorce: after __ ___ 1945 Ray Pyeatt
Marriage: after __ ___ 1955 Russell Vaden "R.V." Davis (b. 3 Jan 1909, d. Sep 1981)
Marriage: after __ ___ 1980 Dick Roy
Divorce: __ ___ 1987 Dick Roy
Death: 24 Dec 1992 Temple, Bell Co., Texas.6. Claude “Big Man” Chaney
Birth: 15 Apr 1914 Moody, McLennan Co., Texas.
Marriage: 10 Jun 1939 Maudie Alice Ruth Canady (b. 14 Jul 1911,
d. 1 Mar 1999), daughter of William Jefferson Canady
and Sallie Elizabeth Damron ; Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Divorce: 13 Jan 1977 Maudie Alice Ruth Canady.
Marriage: 11 Apr 1987 Meriam Lou Harper (b. 27 Feb 1924, d. 19 Nov 2003);
Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Death: 24 Feb 1989 Scott & White Hospital, Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Burial: 27 Feb 1989 Moody Cemetery, Moody, McLennan Co., Texas.7. Beatrice “Dook” Chaney
Birth: 16 Aug 1916 Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Marriage: 5 Nov 1932 D. Clifford Williams (b. circa 1915); Bell Co., Texas.
Divorce: after __ ___ 1940 D. Clifford Williams (b. circa 1915)
Marriage: after __ ___ 1950 Courtney Owen (b. 15 Jun 1913, d. 8 Jul 1989)
Death: 21 Jun 1988 Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Burial: 23 Jun 1988 Moody Cemetery, Moody, McLennan Co., Texas.8. James Edward “Manny” Chaney Sr.
Birth: 12 Jul 1918 Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Marriage: 1 Jul 1939 Mary Alice Pyeatt (b. 1 Mar 1921, d. 24 Oct 1988),
daughter of Martin Presston Pyeatt and Vera Gladys
Buckley ; Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Death: 20 Aug 1988 Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Burial: 23 Aug 1988 Bellwood Cemetery, Temple, Bell Co., Texas.9. Jack Chaney
Birth: 2 Nov 1921 Pendleton, Bell Co., Texas.
Marriage: 14 Jul 1940 Edith Merle Paulk (b. 20 Oct 1919, d. 13 Sep 1985),
daughter of Joe Dan Paulk and Annie Elizabeth
Breeson; Belton, Bell Co., Texas.
Marriage: 2 Jun 1989 Lydia E. Hoelscher (b. 1921); Bell Co., Texas.
Death: 22 Nov 2003 Temple, Bell Co., Texas.
Burial: 24 Nov 2003 Bellwood Memorial Park, Temple, Bell Co., Texas.