Remembering Browning Ware

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Remembering Browning Ware
By Hal Haralson

Our mothers were sisters. Our grandparents went by covered wagon to Monument, New Mexico in 1910 to homestead 160 acres on the prairie. Oscar was a Baptist preacher and rode horseback into the ranches of New Mexico to preach to the cowboys. Bertha lived in a dugout with six small children. She took three Mulberry seedlings to plant near the dugout and the well they dug.

In 1913 on one of his trips, Oscar was caught in a snowstorm. He died from the illness resulting from the exposure. His death left Bertha with six children under the age of twelve and pregnant with the seventh one. Our uncle Dell told me he heard his mother praying under the Mulberry trees asking God to help her keep her family together and to educate them. She did just that. There were five sons (four of whom became lawyers) and two daughters who became teachers with Masters degrees.

Our grandmother and her seven children went back and forth between Monument and Colorado City, Texas, until the homestead was perfected. The 160 acres remain in the family l00 years later. The three Mulberry trees are still there, rising out of the prairie, fifty feet tall.

Myrtle was the oldest child and married J.W. Ware, a Baptist preacher. They had four sons. The oldest was named Browning Worth Ware. The other daughter, Adah, married D.W. Haralson, a farmer. They had three sons. The oldest was named Hal Holmes Haralson.

My earliest memory of Browning was when he came from Dallas to visit our farm in Loraine, Texas. He was my "city cousin." Ever the competitor, he soon was challenging my father in every imaginable arena. Browning was six feet tall and 170 pounds. My dad was five feet four inches and weighed 130 pounds. They competed in horseshoes, washers, chin-ups, and my father won them all. These contests continued year after year and Papa always won.

At the supper table one evening, Browning looked up at Papa and started speaking in what could only be described as an unknown tongue. Dale, my younger brother and I were beside ourselves, wanting to know what they were saying. The language was known as "Zambizi of the Flu-Flu." It supposedly originated in the deepest jungles of Africa. Years later we learned we had been led down the garden path.

When Browning entered college at Baylor, he hitchhiked from Waco to Loraine. My father had selected his first car-a 1946 Ford. He helped Browning complete the transaction and he drove his car to Waco. The bond between the two was strong.

My father died in 1970. His funeral was at the First Baptist Church of Abilene where he was a deacon. The pastor, Dr. James Flamming led the service. The family was waiting to enter the church when the door opened and in walked Browning. The clothes he wore were obviously ill fitting. They were Jim Flamming`s clothes. Someone had gotten word to Browning of my father`s death. He was on a deer lease in the hill country, 200 miles from Abilene. He left the lease immediately and arrived just in time for the service. Since he had only his hunting clothes, he had to borrow from Flamming.

Browning loved hunting. The fellowship around the campfire with his friends was his delight. I hunted with him on a lease near Junction, Texas, for several years. This was while he was pastor of Calder Baptist Church in Beaumont. He would wait until the last minute to leave on Saturday night. Making the long drive from Junction to Beaumont, he would arrive just in time to shower, change clothes, and step into the pulpit.

On one trip his car broke down at 3:00 A.M. in the middle of nowhere. The water pump had gone out. He repaired it with the necktie he was to wear for church that Sunday and some bailing wire. It was during that time on the lease that he began to call me "Haleesco." I never knew where the name came from. I suppose it was some Hispanic version of Hal.

Browning was a prankster. The story is that when he was a student at Baylor, he and several of his friends staged a gangland slaying at the Elite Café in Waco. One of the fellows went into the café and sat in a back booth with the collar of his raincoat rolled up his neck. Two "thugs" (one rumored to be Buckner Fanning), entered the café and started beating the guy in the booth. The beating was a joke, but looked and sounded very real. The man was "shot" (with blanks), dragged out of the café, and shoved into a car which then spun off into the darkness. The headlines in the paper read: "Gangland Slaying at the Elite Café: One Feared Dead." Someone got the license number and description of the car. They had to hide it for months.

Browning`s call to the ministry led him ultimately to First Baptist Church of Austin. He was pastor there for 20 years, longer than any other. Many times as a child I heard my mother admonish me to "Be like Browning." I tried, but it didn`t work.

An incredible chain of events led me to Law School at The University of Texas. We joined First Baptist Church and my cousin became my pastor. The last trip my mother made before she died of cancer was to Austin to see her favorite nephew ordain her son a deacon. I was later to be chairman of the Deacons under Browning.

About five years after his divorce, Browning came to me and said he had found a woman he thought he wanted to marry. She was a widow who lived in Golden, Colorado. Her husband was a Presbyterian minister who died of a heart attack.

I knew immediately he was talking about Juanell Johnson, who had been one of my closest friends at Hardin Simmons University. She sang and played the piano with me in youth revivals. What a "coincidence." My friend of forty years was to be my pastor`s wife. Judy and I were invited to the wedding at the First Baptist Church of Elbert (population 20, near Throckmorton, Texas).

As I was leaving the ministry in 1960, I became pastor of this church. We moved into the parsonage. I preached on Sunday and my depression returned. I resigned on Wednesday night. The people of Elbert were gracious and loving. Judy and Jill, our daughter, were allowed to live in the parsonage while I decided what to do next. The wedding was 25 years from the week of my "pastorate."

One day a call came to the church asking for Browning. He was out for lunch and since this was before the days of cell phones, the secretary told the man they didn`t know how to reach him. The caller told the secretary he owned the ranch at Mountain Home where Browning`s son was working and that Brooks had been killed. "Who should I call?" "Hal Haralson" was the reply. The rancher gave me the news.

I drove to Sid`s Café on Lamar where Browning ate frequently. He was coming out of the café when I got there. I pulled him to my side and told him Brooks had been killed in an accident on the ranch. He was quiet for several minutes. He turned to me and said, "I am sorry you had to be the one who delivered the message." He was concerned about me even under those circumstances.

He responded to every call for help. While in San Marcos attending one of Ramsey Yelvington`s plays, a woman called Browning`s name and asked him to come to the lobby. He returned after a short period of time and told us to go ahead if he did not come back. He didn`t. He spent the night in a sleazy motel room with a man who was drunk and threatening suicide. The lady had seen Browning on television and thought he would help. Neither of them were members of First Baptist Church.

I only confronted Browning once in our lifetime. It was over a situation that was causing a great deal of concern among members of our church. Several people asked me to talk to him. I did. It was one of the most difficult things I ever did. He listened attentively and thanked me for speaking to him. He said he knew it was difficult for me to do this. The problem was resolved and the incident was never mentioned again.

He lived the last five years of his life with cancer. Near the end of his life he found his last "pastorate." A down-home eating place in Georgetown called the Monument Café. He would arrive about nine o`clock and make breakfast last two hours. He spoke to every waitress, asking about her family and listening to her expressions of pain.

We talked about the beginnings and the end of his life: the homestead at Monument, New Mexico, and the Monument Café in Georgetown. Browning`s compassion for people grew out of the pain he had experienced in his own life. His mother died when he was a Baylor student. Their youngest daughter Camille suffered from cancer when she was ten. Their son Brooks died when he was in his thirties. His closest friend took his own life the day after hunting season was over. His first marriage ended in divorce. Alzheimer`s took his wife Juanell from him and robbed him of companionship in his final years. Connie, his youngest brother, died of cancer a year before Browning.

In his column, Diary of a Modern Pilgrim (carried in various newspapers for forty-nine years), Browning wrote: "My friend wanted to see the Isle of Patmos, the rocky residence of the Apostle John. In his vision, surrounded by the sea, John saw release from sickness, tears, and death. No more sea."

At the death of his friend Browning wrote, "Go, friend, there is no more sea."

Go, B-Ware-cousin, friend, pastor-there is no more sea. Haleesco