The Carpenter-Curtis House 902 West Elm St., Olney, TX

This house was built in 1927 for J.D. Carpenter and his family. Mrs. Carpenter was a Howard and they had three children – Joe, Mattie, and Mauddie, the latter of the two being twins but only fraternal twins. Mr. Carpenter was farming 240 acres at the Southwest corner of Shearer Road and Campbell Road when the oil boom came, and this acreage was completely enveloped by oil production and today it is scarred by saltwater spills. The children graduated from OHS – Joe in either 41 or 42 and the girls in the class of 44. Joe went into the service and to Texas Tech afterwards. Joe married Jacqie Duggan in the late forties and this calls for a detailed explanation about his wife. She was the niece of Bowman Criswell who came to Olney with the opening of the Baldwin-Lovett Clinic in 1935 as the head nurse. Bowman was her maiden name and if she had a given name, it was never used. The Criswells settled into the Anderson Apartments on West Bloodworth for a long tenure. Joe joined with Mr. Criswell in oil ventures and citrus groves in the lower Rio Grande Valley. Mr. Carpenter invested in farmland around Plainview and eventually the girls settled in that area to manage the farms.

The Carpenter heirs sold the house to E.H. (Gene) and Loree (Strealey) Evans, who were returning to Olney after a stint on the High Plains in 1965. Their previous residence in Olney was in the 300 block of North Avenue F. Loree was the long-time pianist at First Christian Church and a member of the Amity Club. A widow and a widower found one another in the mid-1980s. Loree’s husband passed away and two blocks away Harald Hunt Myers (1903-1995) lost his wife Audrey (Rogers) 1904-1981) who came to Olney from St. Jo as a school teacher also passed away. The Myers were the parents of Mike Myers for whom athletic venues are named in his honor at Tarleton State in Stephenville and in Austin at the University of Texas. Mr. Myers made this his domicile for the rest of his life.

Loree Myers passed away in 2011 and her daughter, Genette (Evans) Pastusek – Hays- Smith, sold her interest in the house to her brother, Willian H. (Bill), and his wife Sue (Hamilton). Genette’s son Kenneth Pastusek married Melissa Wood who was an outstanding drama instructor in OHS in the mid-1980s. (Melissa was the daughter of Bill and Laverne (Jackson) Wood.)

Sue Evans became the owner of the house through the will of Willian Evans in 2014. Not needing such a large house, Sue sold the house to Rodney and Jenney Curtis and moved to the South Terrace Homes in South Olney. Mr. Curtis had been a coach in the OISD and he and his wife could hardly wait to return to live in Olney. They have made improvements to the property both inside and out to restore it.

If you have any relevant information you would like to add or subtract from this article, please contact Clifton Key at 940-564-2979.