ARCHIVES: Family Photo Album

Albert Monroe Cauble C45 (24 September 1882 Somervell County, Texas-06 November 1966 Bexar County, Texas, of emphysema; buried Georges Creek Cemetery, Somervell County, Texas), a son of Sarah Ann Arnot and James K. Polk Cauble, found his bright mind bored and his strong body tired from the heavy work on his father’s farm. When he was seventeen, a traveling show came to a nearby town and Albert realized an opportunity to make a different life for himself. He left with the show and eventually acquired shows of his own, as the wagon in the photograph above illustrates. [Mabel Cauble Farris, interview by Reba Hughes Torres, 17 June 1986, Cleburne, Texas]

Only one other among the show people in the above photograph is identified. He was Thomas Elmore [Tommy] Hughes C145 (09 July 1890 Brownwood, Brown County, Texas-09 August 1947 Nueces County, Texas, by murder; buried Rose Hill Cemetery, Nueces County, Texas), son of Sarah Helen Mathews and Thomas McCulloch Hughes. Tommy Hughes owned a traveling show known as Oklahoma Shorty’s Wild West Show. Tommy married Susie Mae Caulder (19 November 1893 West Plaines, Missouri-30 March 1974 Arizona; buried Southlawn Cemetery, Tucson, Pima County, Arizona) in 1917 at El Dorado, Union County, Arkansas. They had five children. [Emma Harris Hughes, “Trunk and Branches, Our Family Tree,” typescript, copy supplied 21 February 1998 by Vivian Hughes Hughes (5416 Yeary Street, Fort Worth, Texas 76114-1240]

The first child of Susie Mae Caulder and Thomas Elmore Hughes was Geneva Hughes (24 July 1915 Dagona, Missouri-January 1983). She married Roy Schuyler (07 December 1891– 28 February 1991), who worked in the Great Camp Shows and was first married to Mr. Camp’s daughter, Blanche, who left him a widower and a show owner. [Leona Bruce, Santa Anna’s Peak (Quannah, Texas: Nortex Press, 1976), 129-134] —photograph supplied by Reba Hughes Torres (1405 North Humac, Pine Bluff, Arkansas 71602)