I am James T. Maxwells granddaughter. My grandfather was an ill man in the summer of June 12, 1912. He was 77 years old. He had prostate cancer, and cancers on his face. He suffered incontinence, and was terribly embarrassed about it. In fact he didn't want to live that way, and committed suicide. It was not a "doomsday sign due to the drought that summer." The family had known that he had been ill for sometime, and watched him where ever he was able to go. He slipped away one day went down in the back of the house to a beautiful place where a small spring fed creek continually ran, under huge pecan trees, and cut his throat with a razor. One of his daughters found him, and she said, he had the saddest look in his eyes that she had ever seen. He was dying and could not talk to her. The family carried him to the house, but it was to late to help him, he was dead. He first was buried in old Bluffton Cemetery and then he was moved later due to Buchanan Lake, to new Bluffton Cemetery. Suicide is not a trivial thing and should never be categorized that a person is mentally unstable, for some people know exactly what they are doing and mean to leave this earth due to trauma or illness. It makes for interesting reading. but sometimes life becomes unbearable for them. My grandfather was one of these people. James T. Maxwell had been in the Civil War, and he came to Texas after the war was over with his wife Elsie Spillers and their five children. They came from Yell County Arkansas. And behold, he was a Union Soldier. Which he suffered with all the days of his remaining life, he was shunned for it. Even by some family members. I hear even today that no American Flag has been placed on his grave during Memorial Day. I live in Florida and I don't get to visit Tow or Bluffton, like I would like to. I am 74 years young and not in able to do as much as I used to. There are other relatives living in the area all up in their years. After Elsie died, he married my grandmother Minta Minnie Oden from Kingsland, and they had seven children my mother Lilla was his youngest daughter. She knew many stories about the family and kept them written down in a book, not in book form but in notes about things she wanted to remember herself. and there to was a scrap book that I remember as a child, and I received after her death. She died in 1989. The James T. Maxwell family was very close and very private, you might say a little clannish.. But they were a family that laughed and cried together. None could laugh and joke more than the Maxwell daughters with their blue eyes shining sometimes with tears of joy. Most of this family is buried in Bluffton Cemetery. There are not many of us still around, but I love my family and will defend them till the day I die. No one should ever push their way in and tell stories that are questionable. If questions were asked of the family I am sure they would have been glad to tell the true story. My Grandfather James T. Maxwell. No are not ashamed of him, none of us. Maybe this will make some re-think suicide. Its not pretty or easy to deal with, but that is what he wanted. I believe in my heart that he was too tired and too sick to want to live any longer. Medical care for cancer was unheard of in those days. Faye74@exit18.com Lillie Faye Hershaw Kelly December 06, 2001