Bryant, James Hickman "Fuzz"

James Hickman "Fuzz" Bryant was born to James L. Bryant and Mildred (Fellows) Bryant in Keokuk, Iowa, on 25 April 1927. He was joined later by two brothers--Gaylord Eugene "Tub" Bryant and Harold Leroy "Monk" Bryant--and a sister--Bonita.

When he was thirteen, he came home from school to find the house empty and stripped. His mother had moved to divorce his father, taking custody of his brothers and sister as she did so; she declared in open court that she did not want him because "he looked like the Bryants," a statement that no doubt wounded the teenage James deeply. The separation from his siblings also likely told on him, although he would in later years work to redeem that time apart from them.

As soon as he was eligible to do so, James enlisted in the United States Navy, serving in the Construction Battalions in the Phillipines before seeing ship-board service. His service was distinguished in both capacities, and with the end of the Second World War, he returned home to the American Midwest and married Patricia Jean (Hardy) Bryant. They quickly had one child together, at which time he, a member of the United States Naval Reserve, was activated and assigned to the USS Missouri.

During his reactivated service, he suffered a mental breakdown and was treated for it in Philadelphia. He was discharged a few months afterwards, at which time he returned again to the American Midwest and resumed his job at a sheet metal shop before beginning work with Sunbeam Bakery. One other attempt was made to call him into active service, but, because of the number of dependents he had at that time (wife, two sons, and a daughter on the way), he was released after only two weeks on base.

Afterwards, he and his wife moved to Alexandria, Missouri. They built two houses there (of which one was destroyed in the 1993 flooding) and were markedly involved in the community. James served as the president of the local school board, during which tenure, he worked to build a new school so that the local children could attend classes in town rather than being bused some twenty miles away. He also continued to work as a salesman for Sunbeam Bakery during that time.

James was promoted to the post of supervisor by Sunbeam in 1963, at which time the family moved to the Peoria, Illinois, area. He remained there for some nineteen years, where his children grew and began to make their ways in the world.

A combination of family moving away and the opportunities afforded by retirement prompted a relocation from the American Midwest to Louisiana in the early 1980s. While there, James worked in the oilfields in Northern Louisiana as a gauge reader, checking oil tanks for the amount of oil in them. In the mid 1980s, he relocated again, this time to Kerrville, Texas, where he worked at a local meat market, the Groceteria. Not long after, he and his wife purchased and moved to land on Elm Pass Road in Bandera, Texas, where he lived the rest of his life.

James died of cardiac failure on 18 October 1988. He was and continues to be greatly mourned by his family, of which he was the lynchpin. He was survived by his wife, Patricia Jean (Hardy) Bryant; his children: Johnny Bryant, Murray Allen Bryant, Carol Lassey, Deena Elliott, and Christy Rynearson; their spouses; and their children. His youngest grandchildren, Geoffrey Bryce Elliott, David Dean Rynearson, and Daniel James Elliott, never really knew him, a fact which has been often lamented.