Brendle descendant recalls family's colorful past

By Tom Blakey

Transcript Staff Writer

Ray Brendle said he was frightened by the headline of an April 11 Transcript article, "Fire Destroys Brendle House" -- until he saw the photo and realized his family's homestead was safe, sound and unmarred by fire.

Brendle, 66, lives in Houston, and read the story on The Transcript's Web site.

Although the house destroyed by fire once was owned by Murray Humphreys, a Chicago gangster who was married to an aunt, Mary Clementine Brendle -- "none of that property was ever owned by my grandmother, and it was never a Brendle House."

Mary Clementine Brendle was the first child of his grandmother, Martha Brendle, he said.

Martha Brendle was a postmistress in Oklahoma Territory -- the first woman to hold the position.

"She raised 10 kids. After the 10th child was born, grandpa died, so she had to raise the children by herself. My dad was the second oldest," he said.

Ray's father, Bill Brendle, built the Brendle House in the early 1920s.

"Being the oldest male, my dad had to pick up the loose ends (after his father's death)," he said.

A church near Little Axe was being torn down and the lumber was to be given to Martha Brendle as a gift, he said.

Bill Brendle took the covered wagon, went and tore down the church and carried the lumber back to the home site, where he built the original Brendle house, a large, white, two-story, all-frame house.

"My grandmother originally had 1,000 acres. She sold it down to 80 acres," he said.

After Martha Brendle's death in 1965, the house went through several heirs, and Ray Brendle said he bought the house in 1980.