Balis E. Dailey Family History
Balis Edens Dailey met Bulah Pool on a blind date while she was attending a Teachers’ Summer Normal in Grapeland in 1915. Balis were farming on family land ten miles west of Grapeland. Mr. Jackson, the teacher of the summer normal, had been a college friend of Balis’s at the University of Texas a few years earlier. Bulah was rooming and boarding at the home of Mr. and Mrs. T.S. Kent where about a dozen other young ladies were living that summer. Mr. Jackson asked Miss Pool to “double date” with him and a friend to attend revival services the following Saturday night. Bulah trusted her teacher’s judgment, but just to feel better, she discussed the matter with Mrs. Kent. “Well,” Mrs. Kent responded to her inquiry about Balis Dailey, “all I can say is that two of my daughters married two of his brothers and he’s as fine as they are.” Several of the ladies had dates to go to church that Saturday night. After church they all walked together to the railroad water tank. Watching the evening passenger train come through town, stop, take on passengers, let others off, and fill up with water to produce steam for the engine was a favorite pastime of the young people of that day. Bulah said that on one such occasion a friend of hers heard someone call her name, appeared on the train platform, called out to her, and introduced her fiancé. When the train had rounded the bend, out of sight, the young ladies and their dates returned to Mr. and Mrs. Kent’s where they all sat on the huge front porch, or veranda, and talked until midnight. Mr. Jackson announced that it was time for him to go and though Balis said that he was not ready to leave just yet, the teacher’s word prevailed. During the weeks that followed, Bulah got a teaching position in the Dalys community school about a half mile from the home of Balis Dailey where he lived with his mother, his younger brother and an uncle. In fact, she lived with Balis’s oldest brother and his wife whose older children attended Daly’s school. Bulah and Balis spent happy Sunday afternoons together. They both loved to ride horseback so Balis gave her a beautiful black pacing horse. She told her children that he gave her a horse instead of a diamond ring. Instead of accepting the contract at Daly’s School for a second year, she decided to teach near San Antonio in a small town named Smiley. “They paid more money” was her explanation. The following summer, August 11, 1917, Balis Edens Daily and Bulah Pool were married at her home in Groveton, Texas, where her father, Dryden Elisha Pool (1850-1923), himself a long-time country schoolteacher, and three of her sisters still lived. Her mother, Helen Lucinda Gaddis Pool had died in 1912. Bulah and Balis returned to Dalys, Texas where they lived in the frame house–many-times remodeled and added-to–built by Thomas Rutherford Daily in 1859. Their three children were born there. Bulah’s public school teaching days were ended. Balis continued and expanded his farming operations. They attended the Methodist and Baptist churches in Grapeland until Bulah became a Baptist, too. Later, Balis became a deacon in First Baptist Church, Grapeland, where they gave many hours of their time and Christian influence. Iva Helen Dailey, born August 19, 1922, died at the family home May 24, 1930. Jo Ann lived at Daly’s until the family moved to Grapeland in 1931 so that she could go to public school there. She retired in 1975 after teaching school inCorsicana, Texas for 30 years. Balis Gene lived in the house on the Greenwood League, moved to Grapeland and attended public schools there. On April 15, 1949, she and Jack Wright Shoultz, the youngest of three sons of James C. and Lorene Wright Shoultz, were married in the First Methodist Church in Grapeland. They lived in Nacogdoches, Texas where Gene taught in the Nacogdoches Public Schools and Jack graduated from Stephen F. Austin University following education interruptions of World War H. From Nacogdoches they went to Dallas where Gene taught school and Jack attended Perkins School of Theology. Their oldest daughter, Sue Anne, was born in Dallas, October 20, 1952. Their youngest daughter, Jo Ellen, was born in Houston, October 5, 1963. At present she is in Nacogdoches attending Stephen F. Austin University, her father’ alma mater. Sue Anne married William Allan Kuhns of Orange, Texas, son of Robert L. and Janet Walker Kuhns, on August 9, 1974, in the First United Methodist Church of Beaumont, Texas. They live in Conroe, Texas, where Bill is a mechanical engineer for Texaco Chemical Company. Sue Anne is a registered nurse. They have one daughter, Jacqueline Jordan Kuhns, born January 16, 1985. Jack Shoultz has been a Methodist minister in the Texas Conference for over thirty years. At present, he and Gene live in Lufkin, Texas, where he is a pastor of the FirstUnited Methodist Church. Balis died June 23, 1979. Bulah, at 92, lives in the family home they built in 1939. Jo Ann lives with her.
