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.
