Marilou Quinn, daughter of Edna Merriman FEAGIN and Luther T. “Bood” FEAGIN, was “birthed” in her Grandmother’s home on Christmas Day, 1933. I probably began to “really” know her somewhere around 1956, because she and her husband of 40 years, Jim Quinn, moved almost directly across from the “Themer Home” on Maple Avenue/ Street. One of our street signs posted “Avenue,” and one posted “Street.” I do not to this day know which is the “official” Forney designation. I do know that my Dad purchased the first lot (from Mr. McKellar’s cotton field) that was on the dirt, then gravel, road southwest off of College Street/Farm Road 741. Maple did not intersect with what was to become Shands Street until the Roy Thomas and Billy Montgomery homes were constructed at the end of Maple.
Marilou and Jim were blessed with two children, girls by the names of Susan (“Susie”—oldest) and Laurie, and both were blessed to have Coach/Mr. Themer as their teacher. They were good about realizing that neighborhood “older kid” Don had become their teacher and was, at least at school, their “Boss.” It took Laurie a little longer to accept this than it did Susie!! Marilou and Jim were good neighbors and let the children of the Maple Street area (Don, Ann, Phil, Debra, “Little Frank,” and Eddie— and later on Lana, Wayland, and Tammy—play in their yard, come into the house some times, and treated us to Kool-Aid and cookies at times on hot summer days.
I (Themer) received my first introduction to “mowing yards” when Mr. Quinn was ill and also too busy at the “shop” and asked if I would like to mow his yard. I had no rotary lawn mower— just a “reel” type—and had to use his lawn mower. He had a BIG (over-sized by today’s standards) yard, and I earned a “whopping” $3.00 check, which I cashed at Forney State Bank with the help of Florence Reagin. That was “a lot” of money to me, for I believe I was 11 or 12 years of age— and “bottles of pop” were maybe a nickel or a dime, as were candy bars! I always thought Mrs. Quinn influenced her husband to pay me a little extra!
I remember that Marilou had a brother with “reddish” hair, and his name was a “cool” one—JETER—actually Thomas Ray Feagin, and she had three sisters, who were in many ways counterparts of her—Evelyn, Shirley, and Gloria—and I always liked to be over at the Quinn house when the siblings were there because they talked to me and told me interesting things!
I also remember that Mara ilou was a Baptist Sunday School teacher and that the Quinn family had Sunday “after-Church meals,” like the Themer family did—and Marilou liked to cook!
Marilou, back to being Mrs. Quinn when she worked at the School as an “aide” and as the Principal’s secretary, took some college courses at about the same time I finished at E. T. S. U. and was an employee of F. I. S. D. the first ten years I was there. When she “retired” from education, she became a secretary a few places and finished her “secretarying” after working about ten years for and with the Preacher (Brother Griffin), who always teased her about being a year older than he!
I, and Forney, will miss our “native daughter,” with whom I last worked as a member of the Forney Ex-Students Association, and I will especially miss the refreshments she generally provided, since she always stated that we younger folks were nice enough to come to her house instead of making her come to ours! And, I will have to say now, as I often do when someone “leaves” us, “I wish I had not taken for granted that Marilou would always be around next year,” for I had great plans to record some of the history of the Feagins and their days in “old Forney.”
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