Andy C. Aston of Granbury, Texas

Andy C. Aston’s gravestone is found with others just outside of a fenced plot that contains the graves of three of his family members. The Astons are in an area where there are older markers, some dated, some not.

It was winter when I visited the country cemetery, so the grass was brown and the fields bare. Mount Pleasant is in Hood County near the town of Granbury where they played such a prominent role in the life of the town.

I don’t know if there are Aston descendants still in the area, but there are believers that Andy’s wife, Dollie Ficklin, still visits their home on Bridge Street, even though she is reported to have died in 1961.

The Aston family plot and surrounding fence have fallen into disrepair and the weeds are high and the buffalo grass is thick.

When thirty-nine year-old Andy Aston asked young Dollie Ficklin to marry him she was twenty-one. He promised that if she would say yes to his proposal, he would build her one of the finest homes to be found. She agreed. Their marriage is recorded in Book D/page 200 of Hood County Marriages as having taken place on the 30^th of January in 1896. The famed Aston House still stands at 221 E. Bridge Street in Granbury, Texas. It has been designated an historical landmark by the Texas Historical Commission. Andy had the gifted designer and builder, E. J. Holderness erect the ornate Queen Ann style house in 1905.

Andy Aston and his partner, George Landers, owned and operated a saloon at 113 Bridge Street close to the square. They had it erected in 1893.of native stone with a patented iron front. There is an account of a 1901 duel taking place there that badly injured a non-participating horseman on the square. In 1892 both Aston and Landers were having financial difficulties and maybe that is why they started the business of operating a very lucrative business of the day ~ a saloon.

Carrie Nation visited Granbury in 1905, and in 1906 the local voters approved prohibition. Ms. Nation’s efforts in outlawing liquor succeeded. Aston and Landers “sold every drop of liquor in the saloon; taking in over $100 the night before prohibition took effect.” Aston later had the building converted into a harness and buggy shop.

Andy C. Aston

Oct. 8, 1857 – Aug. 19, 1917

ASTON

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”

Sources:
Hood County Texas Genealogical Society
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Tolar, Hood County, Texas

All photographs were taken by me, Judith Richards Shubert
2008 Mount Pleasant Cemetery