The Family › Temple–Catchings › West
Chloye Ann West
1931–2002
✦ A story has been written about this person: Correspondence between Eugene Catchings and Chloye West — Five years of letters, from sixteen years old to married, 1947–1952 — in their own hands.
Life
- Born
- 30 Aug 1931 · Humble, Harris, Texas, USA
- Died
- 27 Oct 2002 · Kerrville, Kerr, Texas, United States of America
Parents
Marriage & children
Timeline
- Jul 1945ResidenceWoodsboro, Refugio, Texas, United States of America — Month is approximate. Moved from Houston to Woodsboro
- 1 Sep 1948EducationKingsville, Kleberg, Texas, USA — Started college as journalism major at Texas A & I
- 1949ResidenceKingsville, Texas, USA
- 20 Dec 1949MarriedEugene Lloyd Catchings — Taft, San Patricio County, Texas, United States of America
- 2002ResidenceKerrville, Texas, USA
- —ResidenceKerrville, TX
Life as they lived it
Not the dates — the person. What the records happen to show of work, habits, possessions and the odd episode. Each line says where it comes from.
1947 At sixteen she sent Gene a letter that read, straight through, as a flat rejection: "I can assure you that I never intend to marry you." A postscript gave the key, "Dear, now start again and this time read every other line," and read that way it was a love letter.
voice · Her letter to Gene, 10 November 1947 (Catchings–West Letters)
1948 In August 1948 she wrote that she was going to the college at Kingsville to major in journalism: "You'll probably be reading articles by me some day." A year later, minoring in speech, she wrote that her knees "all but buckled" at the microphone in her Radio Speech class, and that "my one ambition is to be a radio announcer."
work · Her letters to Gene, 19 August 1948 and 29 September 1949 (Catchings–West Letters)
1948 At seventeen she had been telling her family she would join the WACs or the WAVES when she was old enough: "As yet, they think I'm nuts." By March 1949 she had dropped the idea and was considering nurse's training.
belief · Her letters to Gene, 29 December 1948 and 22 March 1949 (Catchings–West Letters)
1948 "I'm a jitterbug fene [fiend]," she wrote from Woodsboro over Christmas 1948. "I guess I could just dance every night of the week."
habit · Her letter to Gene, 29 December 1948 (Catchings–West Letters; her spelling, the editor's reading)
1949 She loved cars and jewelry and said so. "Love those cars with a passion," she wrote of Studebakers in February 1949, adding, "Not that I would ever marry any one for his car." Of rings and earrings that July she wrote, "Someday I hope to have a diamond!"
possession · Her letters to Gene, 19 February and 9 July 1949 (Catchings–West Letters)
Photographs
Records behind this page
read the transcript
U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 (Ancestry collection 60901), primary record for CHLOYE ANN WEST — read on screen 31 Jul 2026. NAME: Chloye Ann West · GENDER: Female · RACE: White BIRTH DATE: 30 Aug 1931 · BIRTH PLACE: Humble, Harris, Texas DEATH DATE: 27 Oct 2002 FATHER: Hugh O West MOTHER: Grace Carpenter NOTES: Jun 1945 — name listed as Chloye Ann West; May 1951 — name listed as Chloye Ann Catchings; 30 Oct 2002 — name listed as Chloye W Catchings. (SSN present on the record and deliberately not transcribed here.) ⭐ BOTH PARENTS ARE NAMED OUTRIGHT and both match the tree: Hugh O West = [229] Hugh Othal West Sr; Grace Carpenter = [230] Dolores GRACE Carpenter, recorded under her middle name. ⭐ The 1945 → 1951 name change independently brackets her marriage to a Catchings between Jun 1945 and May 1951, consistent with the 19/20 Dec 1949 marriage already in the tree.
Research notes
Working notes from the research, kept verbatim — what was read, what it proved, what stays open. Many open with a line grading the parentage; what the grades mean.
Research note · 30 Jul 2026
Elsewhere
This person on Ancestry (sign-in required)