Well, when Daddy [Henry Holland] died... Aunt Elizabeth was living there with him... She was in the next... the middle bedroom. He was in the front bedroom... She always had a hard time getting up in the morning because of her arthritis. She had to sit on the side of the bed and rub her legs with some kind of stuff to help her arthritis -- calm down a little bit so that she could get up and walk. Well, Daddy always went into the kitchen when he first got up, after he went to the bathroom, he'd go to the kitchen next to make the coffee. So then after... he'd have his coffee, probably he'd go on and leave the house and go about his work and then Aunt Elizabeth... she'd finally get her legs to going and she'd have some coffee that Daddy had left. And so, this particular morning, she heard Daddy going down the hall, he always drug his feet, you know, he got where he just slid instead of picking them up. And it... was a wooden floor in the hall -- no covering on it... so she heard him going to the bathroom, and running water and all, and then she heard him coming back to his room. And then she heard him moaning and groaning in there. And she knew that... he was not well... she heard what she heard, but she never did go in there... He had quieted down and she thought everything was ok and so she went into the kitchen then to get her a cup of coffee but there was no coffee in there. So, she and her temper, she was going to go in there, and say, "Henry! Why didn't you make some coffee this morning!" But when she got to the bedroom, he was dead... He died in his bed. And so... she began to holler and scream... and carrying on, and so, the lady that lived in the back apartment, come running up there -- and even the neighbors heard her screaming, came over to see what's happening... So, Daddy always wore a money belt, nobody knew that but I did... he had cashed Aunt Elizabeth's check -- the day before he died... She was always embarrassed to cash her check, and she'd get it cashed somewhere... where nobody... would see her getting this check cashed. And so she'd ask Daddy, "Do you have enough money to cash it?" So he'd say, "Yeah," and so he cashed it... her money that he gave her, was in her room with her, and the check that he had cashed of hers, was in his room on the dresser. Well, when these neighbors came in, they said, "Miss Elizabeth, here's a check of yours in his room... here's your check in Mr. Holland's room." And so they took it in there and gave it to her. So now she has the money for the check, and the check also see... but the money from his money belt was gone. We knew that he had... the belt and the money was all gone... and Aunt Elizabeth said that he had taken the money out of his money belt, to cash her a check, the day before, and... we said, "Aunt Elizabeth? Did he have any money left?" Joe and James... were looking into this, to see... where his money belt went and why she had gotten money from him and the check was not there either. And so, Aunt Elizabeth then finally told us, "My conscious is hurting me, and I'm going to give you this check back -- that it's not mine," she said, "Henry gave me the money for it..." So, she gave James the check back, but then James was still concerned about what happened to the money belt. And he said, "Aunt Elizabeth? Did he have any money?" And she said, "In the belt," after he got through cashing her check, she said, "Yes, he had quite a bit of money." So... we never did find the money belt needless to say, but the neighbors got mad at us, and wouldn't even come around much after that, because they thought that we were accusing them of getting it. But the people from funeral home could just as well of gotten it...
Well, Daddy never was... he was a good worker -- he worked -- really worked hard. But he was never much of a money maker, you know... he knew how to make money, but he didn't know how to keep it or how to charge correctly were he'd come out with any money for himself, you know... And so then... here came... Joe and James got there before I did because they drove in from Houston, and I had to catch a bus... from Odessa... And I rode all night on the bus, and got in there the next morning, and... so this was... already in action, you see, when I got there -- the money belt and the money and all that stuff, was already in action... so the woman in the back -- they came running up there -- when Aunt Elizabeth was screaming. She was an alcoholic and so it's possible that she got the money... But... I want to tell you something that's really strange that happened... there was James, and Joe, and Aunt Elizabeth, and Bob Miller was there... he slept on the coach in the living room after Daddy died... He was right there with us for a long time, and so there was... that was five of us... Mama had wanted me to have what money was left in the bank, and... it was a hundred dollars left in the bank. And so I got the money out of the bank, she had me to sign a card when she was alive... so that I could get the money and so we were going to have the will she had written by hand... we were going to have it... the will probated, you see. And so... but the lawyer died and... so my fifty dollars just went... The other fifty dollars that I had from the money that was in the bank. Well, I used it to buy groceries with. And I cooked a turkey and dressin' and I cooked ham, and I cooked this, that and the other... for all of them. And everything that I cooked would be eaten up as you looked... even the turkey... that Bob Miller, he could really eat... Well, I did... all of cleaning, all of the cooking, and all of the buying... Aunt Elizabeth... well she couldn't do anything because of her arthritis. She was there, but she didn't have any contributions to make except that she did wash up the dishes a few times, after the meals... And she jumped all over me about something, that I had no idea, of what she was fussing at me about now. It was such a shock to me, `cause I never have been a fusser. I couldn't fuss with a cat, you know, or a dog... I've never been like the Hollands and uh... not exactly like the Barkers either, you know, because some of them could lay it out there... but I never have been one to fuss... we were there for about ten days or more together, they just stayed, my brothers and... so I needed to clean up and I needed you know, to get someone to manage the apartment... we needed to do something about Elizabeth... so we put her in a nursing home, against her will... but none of us could take care of her, you know... and so that's what we had to do -- so we did that... And I did an awful lot of cleaning and carting -- just carting stuff out... and I took some of the things with me, that were in the house, and... Daddy would always leave the house open and sure enough, they had that cupboard between the dinning room and the kitchen... it was full of glasses, well see, when I went back there when Daddy died, there was not a glass in there... that the people who lived there had carried them out... they got that silver too then... but then with this... money belt of his money being gone...
I let these people, a man and his wife and his daughter take care of the property -- you know as to renting the apartments, when they became vacant -- collecting the money, and... even making payments on the... note that was against the house... I depended upon them to do all that, and they sent me the receipts and all that stuff... when I went back there, then -- to do the things I did for the house -- this was a few years later, you see, and... these people that were living there with their daughter -- their little daughter about twelve... thirteen years old, was sleeping in Daddy's room. And her mother was in the next room... and now they said, she was just screaming, screaming, and screaming, and they ran in there to see what was the matter with her, and she was sittin' up in the bed, and they say, "What's the matter! What's the matter!" And she says, "Mr. Holland! Mother! Mr. Holland!" And they said they looked, but they couldn't see, anything anywhere. But she was seeing Daddy, and he was over there at the fireplace... not the fireplace, but the thing that went... where you put a stove... you put a flue in there... and it had a cover over it, you know, maybe to cover up the hole to it... but she was pointin' there -- to that, "Mr. Holland! Mr. Holland! Mr. Holland!" And so they said, they couldn't see him. So a week or so later, she was screaming again, and they went running in there, and... she was saying, "Mr. Holland!" again and pointing up there, "Look! Mr. Holland! Mr. Holland!" And they said, "Honey, we don't see him anywhere -- he's not in here." "Yes, Mother, Yes! He's over there!" And so, I got to thinking, do you suppose that he knew that he was so sick that morning, and something might go really wrong, that maybe he could have taken his money belt off and laid it up there in that flue -- that hole, and thinking that if he got all right, he'd get it you know, and if he did that, maybe it could have fallen all the way down in there to the floor. And I got me some things to try to dig down in there to see if this could possibly be true... but I couldn't get in there without tearing it all the way out, from the floor up you see... I don't know how much money he had in there. Aunt Elizabeth didn't know either, "But it looked like", she said, "that he had a good bit of money left in his money belt, after he cashed my check..."