Virginia Richardson Roberts
Marion Richardson

Dedicated to:
Marion Richardson

He was the first born and he stayed at home after we went our separate ways. He continues to give a feeling of continuance to our trips back to the home place.

A feeling of being Home!

New Year's Day in the year 2001, 01-01-01, found Robbie and me still in bed at 8:30 in the morning. There was no need to rush. While Robbie walked his 30 minutes on the treadmill, I prepared breakfast of dry cereal. We were getting the New Year off to a healthy start in keeping with our resolution to watch our weight in the New Year.

We were getting ready to watch the Tournament of Roses Parade and some of the bowl games. Just going to take it easy on the cold, wintry day. At 9:30 in the morning there was a crackle and our electricity went out. We called a neighbor to verify it was all over and not just us. Then we waited for the power to be restored. After a while, we realized it might take a while and built a fire in the wood stove.

Here we were at the start of a New Year, and by some reasoning, a new millennium. Instead of being thrust into the 21^st century with jet-powered backpacks to transport us through space, we were returned to the days of our youth, before electricity came into our lives. Here we sat in an all electric home surrounded by electric skillets, George Foreman grills, and crock-pots.  Yet without the benefit of a wood-burning cook stove, we had no way to cook. We had ham sandwiches and potato chips for lunch. We only drank water and that without ice to make us any colder. No way to heat the traditional black-eyed peas.

At 2:00, sitting huddled by the heater, reading books by the light from the window, an overhead light came on and we knew we were back in modern times, with electricity.

At that point we could have heated peas, but discovered we had not bought any. There might have been some in the motor home, but it was too cold to check it out. We decided there really isn't that much magic in the luck of the peas anyway.

Four hours of reliving past experiences. Some of those times were filled with hardships. Yet, they served to build character and endurance for the hard times yet to come.

There were 5 of us Richardson children living through those hard times. We each remember different parts and in different ways. Patsy, Mamie and I have attempted to put into writing some of the things we recall. Marion has expressed a desire to add his remembrance.  This book is dedicated to his memories of the past.

As we sat by the wood stove on New Year's Day, memories of the olden days came to mind of times when money was scarce. Times when the only heat we had in wintertime was from a pot-bellied wood heater. Times when the house was not nearly as insulated from the northern winds as we have it today. However, in the glow of reflected light from our sunset years, those days have become Golden Days of Yore.

Chapter 1

Our cousin, Stephen Richardson, has been researching our history. In doing so, he was in contact with a distant cousin from the Rose heritage. Here is a letter he received from her.

This gives a brief history of our grandmother, Sarah Rose, and her move from Missouri to Texas. We used to go to Nocona to visit our Aunt Lillie and her family nearly every summer.

Chapter 2

Virginia:

Marion has said he is going to set the record straight. This is going to be book 3 of a trilogy.  He is going to tell us about the family history from his point of view since he is the oldest brother.

Marion:

I don't know where to start.

Virginia:

Well, go back in your memory as far as you can. What is the first thing you remember?

Marion:

Me playing with my little white dog. What else?

Virginia:

Well, there's got to be more to it than playing with a little white dog. Every boy plays with his puppy dog, if he has one.

Marion:

When I was two years, I had a little white dog that went with me everywhere. We were the best of friends. Until then, I had not begun to talk. People began to wonder when I was going to talk. Daddy said, "When that dog learns to talk, Marion will learn to talk. He'll learn in time. Don't worry about it."

Virginia:

Where were you living at that time?

Marion:

We were living on the creek down below my Grandma's house. The next incident I recall after that, I had just turned 4 years old, in 1939 on the 4^th day of July, my Grandma's house burned down. I faintly remember that.

Virginia:

That was Grandma Richardson. What caused the fire?

Marion:

Well, they thought there was a big rat that caused the fire up in the ceiling about 4:00 o'clock in the morning. They lost everything except Grandma's sewing machine and maybe another piece of furniture. Practically everything in the house was burned up. I think she had some other items at some of the other relative's house. That way those things were saved, even a 16-gauge shotgun that Daddy had traded for in 1916. He got it from his Uncle for 3 sacks of cottonseed. It survived the fire and is still in existence in the family.

This may not be the order, but when we lived in the house below my grandmother's, that was about the time I started to school. There was no well water at that house and we had to carry water approximately a mile. Leon and I carried the water in syrup buckets, two gallons apiece. They had lids on them so we wouldn't get dirt in the water or have the water splash out. When we got home we would have 4 gallons of water.

One day on our way home, we stopped at a concrete culvert to play. We put our syrup buckets down and were playing peep-eye-boo leaning over the bridge. We peep-eyed and booed too far over the bridge and I fell on my head.

After that Grandma always walked to the road and watched until we got home. She was very protective of us.

Virginia:

Were you hurt?

Marion:

No. I wasn't even bruised. It didn't even hurt me.

Robbie:

James, I'm not sure about that statement that the fall on his head didn't hurt him.

James:

I question that statement, too.

Marion:

I can see you are not going to give me any more respect than Manley did. He was always teasing me about something.

Virginia:

He ordered a load of wood from you one time.

Marion:

Yeah. And then sent me a bill. He wanted the wood cut to 36 inches, which was longer than we usually cut the sticks.  He wanted it to fit in his fireplace. He sent me a bill and charged me for all kinds of things, even for using his idea to make the wood longer, he charged me for gas to come get it. I don't remember what all was on that bill. All I know is, when I got it totaled up, I owed him about $1000 for the privilege of cutting him a load of wood. It was one sided, I can tell you that.  I went in the hole on the deal. I don't know how he did it, but he could take a dollar and make two out of it. For me it would wind up being half a dollar.

James:

Georgie Thurman was down here one time. I told him I had been to his house. He asked if I was the brother-in-law who insulted his horse. I told him, no that was not me. I didn't even know anything about it.

Marion:

He hasn't got over that yet. One time we went to Georgie's. He had a new appaloosa horse. He was really proud of that horse. So I took Manley over to see it. Georgie asked him what he thought of the horse. Manley answered: Well, I tell you what. It looks like an old plow horse to me, and it looks like it wore out the plow.

That got Georgie to no end. That horse was his pride and joy.

When we first got this telephone down here, Manley called us up. He said, "This is the telephone company. Would you mind putting a towel over your phone? We're fixing to dig a ditch over here and we don't want to get any dust on your phone.

Virginia:

Manley always was full of teasing. But I think we have strayed from the story. Where were we?

Marion:

When we lived on Mud Creek below my Grandma's house, my two older sisters were born, Virginia and Patsy. I don't remember about their births because I was too little. But in 1942, Leon and I were going to school at Atlee. When we came home from school that evening, they said we had a new baby sister. Her name was Mamie. That is my youngest sister of three.

Virginia:

Do you remember anything about going to school?

Marion:

Oh, yes. I remember my first day of going to school. One of our main subjects was penmanship. I remember making the letters. More or less, we started by making circles to cover from one end of the line to the other. The first day, I did real good. I recall I got probably six lines done. Filled up the page.

I went to school at Atlee 3 different times. We traveled quite a bit in our early days. For the next six years after Mamie was born, we were off the farm until about 1948.

Virginia:

OK. It was during that time we moved to California. Tell me what you remember about California.

Marion:

Oh, I don't remember too much about it. Mostly what we did was go to school. At playtime, I remember the boys and girls were separated. The boys played on the upper level, and the girls had the lower level of the school ground.

Where we lived was upstairs in an apartment house in San Francisco. I recall looking out the windows and seeing streetcars going down the street by our house.

After that we came back to Atlee for a while. Then from there we moved to Beaumont.

Virginia:

OK. Tell me about Beaumont. I can remember the incident when Mama took Patsy, Mamie and me down there on the train to meet you all in Beaumont. But how did you, Daddy and Leon get down there?

Marion:

The reason the family didn't go all together, there was an accident on the way back from California. Because money was scarce and he couldn't buy a new car, Daddy took the top off the car. He drove it like that. But it didn't have heat in it. He wouldn't take Mama and the girls to Beaumont in it. But we boys were tougher and we rode with him. They came on the train so they would be warmer. It was in November.

Virginia:

So, Daddy took you and Leon in November and went to Beaumont. Where did you stay when you got there?

Marion:

Daddy had already rented a place and had it ready for us. He had gone down earlier and got a job then came back to get the family. He sent money back for Mama to come on the train.

Virginia:

In Beaumont, didn't we live in an area called Rosedale or Voth?

Marion:

We lived north of Beaumont in a area called Voth-Rosedale. We lived in the Rosedale part. Where we went to school it was called Voth-Rosedale. The first time we went to school was in Beaumont. Then we moved out to the country. Daddy thought the country was better for us. Rosedale was a suburb of Beaumont and was out in the country.

Virginia:

Did we live on some acreage?

Marion:

No. It was just a rented place. I think the rent was something like $7.50 a month. Houses were cheaper to rent out in the country. You could live there cheaper than you could live in town. It was away from the traffic, too.  We lived in several different houses down there. We always managed to rent a house in the same school district. We might have to ride a school bus, but we went to the same school.

Virginia:

Tell me about the one that burned.

Marion:

It was probably down in the pasture off the highway. We were using pinewood in the heater. Daddy was working nights. When he came home from work one morning, he was chilly and cold. He built a fire in the stove and was sitting at the breakfast table eating breakfast before going to bed. He worked the midnight shift at Magnolia Refinery.

They looked out the window and saw a man running across the cow pasture. When he got close, they heard him shouting, "Your house is on fire." They didn't even know it was burning. It was too far-gone to put it out. There wasn't enough water from the well. It was so engulfed in flames, but they started getting furniture out. They did get everything out except a bedstead and a crosscut saw. They even carried the wood cook stove out. People just flocked in from the road to help.

Virginia

Where did we move then?

Marion:

From there we moved to the last place we lived before moving back to the farm. That's where the turkeys were raised. We always had a milk cow. Uncle Oran always bought milk from us if we had a surplus. One of the cows turned out to have bangs and we got out of the cow business and never did have another one. We never did have any calves. Bangs causes that, for the calf to die in birth.

Virginia:

When we lived in that house, which is where I remember starting to school. I remember something about a canal.

Marion:

We lived right by a canal. We took a water hose and threw it over the canal dam and would siphon water from the canal to the flowerbeds. Daddy grew tomatoes in the flowerbeds. We would take a bacon rind, tie it to a string and throw it into the canal. When we pulled it up, it might have 5 or 6 crawdads on it.

Virginia:

Then what would you do with them?

Marion:

Oh, we would play with them a while, then put them back in the water. We never did eat them. We put them on the ground to see them walk backwards. There were some that were big and rusty looking. They would really hurt when they pinched you, but the little ones didn't hurt.

Virginia:

What was the purpose of the canal?

Marion:

The canal was there to provide water for the rice fields. We would go out when they were harvesting the rice to watch how it was done. They had combines like we see today only they had tracks on them like a bulldozer. They would take the water out of the rice field about two or three weeks before harvesting the rice. It was muddy in the fields. We would go out where the trailers were. They would let us ride on the trailers while they were gathering the rice. It was just across the road from us. We lived across the road from a big rice field.

Virginia:

What was it like after a rain? Do you remember any thing about a hurricane coming through?

Marion:

It was black gumbo clay and muddy when it was wet. They used seashells on the road like we used gravel in this country. They had a saying about the black soil that went: If you stick by it when it is dry, it will stick with you when it is wet.  It was the type of soil that dried out real fast.

I don't recall that a hurricane ever came through when we were there. But it would rain.  A little old cloud would come up and it would rain. It didn't take much for it to rain; we were so close to the gulf.

I do remember we were at school the year they had the explosion at Texas City. It rattled the windows in our school. It was about 75 miles from Beaumont, but it was such a big explosion, it rattled our windows in the schoolhouse. We didn't know what caused it at the time.

We were too far inland to worry too much about water. I don't know how they protected the house. I don't remember levees to protect against hurricanes. They did build cabins along the coast that were pretty high to get them above the water line when the tides came in.

Virginia:

Do you remember fishing or swimming in the Gulf of Mexico?

Marion:

It was a big treat for all of us to get in the car and go down to the Gulf of Mexico and go swimming.  We went through Port Arthur and Orange.  We didn't venture too far out into the waves.  We got in shallow water and let the waves wash us up on shore.  I'm sure we searched for seashells.  We were kids.  We did a little of everything.  More than you could mention.

Virginia:

Tell us what you remember about going to visit Uncle Oran.

Marion:

It was a big treat to go into town to Uncle Oran's house.  He lived right in Beaumont.  The supermarket was close by where he lived.  We always dropped by his house after buying groceries at the supermarket.  A lot of time Daddy bought food on the way home from work.  But sometimes we got to go in with him.

Virginia:

Do you recall we lived close to a house where there were some household goods stored?  Someone told Mama she could go down there and get what she might need to use in her housekeeping.  It seems like that is where she got that iron teakettle.

Marion:

I didn't remember how we ended up with that teakettle.  It was a cast iron teakettle and it was given to Christine Thurman.

Virginia:

Oh, is that right?

Marion:

I remember someone gave a gas iron to us.  We thought that was way above average to have a gas iron to iron with.

Virginia:

You probably need to explain what you mean by a gas iron.

Marion:

It was an iron that had a little tank.  You put a little gas in there and it warmed up a generator.  And would run until it ran out of gas.  You used white gas. You didn't have to pump this one.  There was one you had to pump.  But this one generated pressure.  You would light it with a match and it would heat the sole plate of the iron.  You could adjust the temperature.

Virginia:

Tell me about having risings or boils.

Marion:

When we were young, we had risings or boils come up on us.  They told us to put salt bacon meat on it and it would draw it to a head.  Then they would lance it and let out the poison.  After that, it would get well. We had them a lot in Beaumont.  Everyone did then.  I don't hear much about them anymore.  I don't know what caused them.

Virginia:

What else do you remember about Beaumont that I may not remember?

Marion:

They had magnolia trees and lily ponds.  It was swampy down there.  Mosquitoes were a big drawback to living there. They had pretty good-sized mosquitoes.  We didn't go fishing very often, but a lot of time on the weekends Daddy would load us all in the car and just drive around in the country.  We did that a lot on his days off.

Virginia:

What do you remember about going to school in Beaumont?

Marion:

One of my teachers was Mrs. Conniers.  Her husband was a Methodist preacher.  We went some to the Methodist church because she was our teacher.  What they did was, they had a contest in our school.  If you went to Sunday School, the class got a vote.  They took a percentage of the students who went to Sunday School.  Her husband was the preacher and I was in her class so she wanted us to go to her church for her class to win the contest.  We later on went to church at the Baptist Church.  It was not far and we could walk over there and go to Sunday School.

We never did draw names at school, but no one was left out of getting a gift.  I remember one time that teacher gave me a book for Christmas.  It was Black Beauty.  She signed it inside.  I kept it for a long time.  It was special because she signed her name.

Chapter 3

Virginia:

Tell me about our trip back to Oklahoma.

Marion:

It was in February.  We had an awful time getting back. Around Dallas, we ran into a snowstorm.

Virginia:

Were we still driving the hoopie or had Daddy traded cars?

Marion:

Oh, yeah. When we got to Beaumont, Uncle Oran had two cars and wanted to sell the 1936 Chevrolet.  Daddy bought that car from Uncle Oran for $650 and got the trailer.  Actually, the trailer is still down here at the home place, or part of it is.  The axle part is still here.  The car is long gone.

In 1944 Daddy had bought this piece of land southwest of Orr.  It was bought through Frank Hamilton and Lee London.  London Agency had the land.  He leased the land to John Cavins and went back to Beaumont.  He worked and paid it all off before we moved back.

We wanted to come back to the farm a year before we did.  Daddy didn't think big cities were the place to raise a family.  He thought it was better to be in the country.  He brought us back and put us to work so we wouldn't be running up and down the streets.

But we needed a tractor and they were hard to come by.  He finally found him a tractor down there and bought it brand new.  It was delivered 480 miles from Beaumont to Oklahoma.  He tried to buy one in Oklahoma, but it was after the war and there were not many tractors being made.  They were scarce to find.

We bought a tractor, cultivator, planter, tandem disk and it came to a total of $2200 for the whole package.

Daddy quit his job at Magnolia refinery.  He put all his belongings on the trailer behind the 1936 Chevrolet, put his family in the car and headed north.

We got to Dallas and ran into a snowstorm.  It was hard to get up the hills pulling the trailer loaded with all our goods.  When we got to Ringling, we discovered we couldn't even get down to the farm.  We stayed with Aunt Myrtle in Ringling until it cleared up.  We may have been with her for about two weeks before we could get on down here.

We finally managed to get to the farm. That is where we have been ever since.  That was on February 19, 1948.

We entered school.  We were all in school except Mamie.  That left her here by herself.  Orr was a small school.  John Cavins who had been leasing the land was on the school board at Orr.  He told us it was only a couple of months before school was out.  Just let Mamie go over there and go to school with the rest of us.  She wouldn't get any credit for it, but she could be with the other kids.  It was kindergarten in a way.  I feel like it gave her a boost, in a way.  Gave her a head start on schooling.

Virginia:

Describe the school, what it was like at that time.

Marion:

They had a high school.  It was a big brick building with a flat roof.  It was a single story building with an auditorium in the middle.  There were classrooms all around that.  I believe we were in the 5^th grade. 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd grade classes were in one room.  We were in the room with 4^th, 5^th and 6^th.  After that probably the 7^th and 8^th were together.  Then they had high school classes.

I do remember Texas schools were way ahead of Oklahoma schools.  When we came to Oklahoma, we had to buy our own textbooks for a while.  Finally the school did buy the books.  But what they were studying in the 6^th grade in Oklahoma, we had already studied in the 5^th grade in Texas.  We coasted right along.  It was down hill for us.  Sort of just review.

Mrs. Tucker was my teacher when I first went to Orr.  Mr. Jim Smith was the principal or superintendent.  He left in May.  We got us a new principal.  They lost their high school in the spring of 1949.  I was a freshman in Ringling in the fall of 1950.

In my class when I graduated there were 5 girls and 3 boys.  The girls were Oleta Edwards, Doris Williams, Bonnie Abshire, Laquita McKinnon and I don't remember the other one.  The three boys were Leon, Roy Lyles and I. I do recall that.

We played basketball.  We made the main string.  Well, we only had 6 boys eligible to play.  It took 5 boys to play.  We were almost guaranteed to make the main string.  It took all of us to make a team.  Besides our class the others to play were Benny Carroll, Don Williams and Bobby Carroll.  Benny Carroll was supposed to be in our class, but he was the only one, so they jumped everyone up a grade.  I actually didn't go to the 6^th grade.  I jumped from the 5^th to the 7^th.  Everyone did.

Mr. Charles L. Beatty came from Courtney up here to be the principal.  He was getting older in years.  He was a good math teacher.

Chapter 4

Marion:

We had guns.  Daddy bought a brand new 22 rifle.  It was a Remington Automatic.  He paid something like $20 for it up there at Collier Brothers in Ringling.  The gun is about 60 years old.  I've shot it many times.  It is still in good shape.  It has been taken care of, been in the dry.  It got to where after 60 years; it will jam a shell once in a while.

Virginia:

Marion, here is a picture Lennie Hodgson made and gave to me.  Have you seen it?

Marion:

(after looking at the picture)  Oliver Abshire was our cousin and Martha Gregg was his cousin, too.  We were cousins on his mother's side and she was cousin on the father's side.  Coy Abshire's sister married a Gregg.

Virginia:

While you are talking about Oliver, didn't he stay overnight with us some?

Marion:

Yeah, he would catch the school bus and come down here.  He always liked being on the farm.  He was more Leon's friend than mine.  We would find us a deep hole in the creek and go swimming.  I saw the creek one time when the water came down.  It came rolling down like a big flash flood.  It would be dry and the water came in a rush and it the creek would be half bank full in no time.

Virginia:

Marion, Delrena only has one tape and we have it full.  I guess this will have to close the session for this time.  We will get back to it another time.

Chapter 5

Virginia:

Marion, you were telling a story about Mama and Daddy walking on the home place. Can you tell that again for the record?

Marion:

They were out for a Sunday stroll.  They walked to the east. At that time this hillside was covered with timber so thick you could hardly even walk through it.  They had wandered around for some time when Mama made the comment that she didn't know where she was.  Daddy said, "I don't know either.  But whoever owns this land right here doesn't have much."

Virginia:

He knew all the time he owned it?

Marion:

He knew where he was, but she was lost.

Virginia:

Those woods grew either side of this road up to the gate I remember that.

Marion:

We had a bunch of trees here at the back of where the house is now. We trimmed those out.  Mama got energetic.  She took a chopping ax down there and cut down those trees with a chopping ax.  In her younger days if she decided she wanted to, she could do anything.  She would work just as hard as any body if she thought it would make an improvement.  She always wanted it open so she could see up the road.

Robbie:

How did you get the stumps out?

Marion:

They were mostly just saplings.  She cut them down and we just plowed over them.  They rotted in time. They were just little shinnery oak trees.  They never got real big.

Robbie:

We’ve got some of those.

Marion:

There has been a lot of water run under the bridge since we moved here.  I’ve already forgot more than I know.  I was 12 years old when I moved here.  I would have been 13 in July when we moved here in February.

Virginia:

What did you do on the farm as a 12 – 13 year old boy?

Marion:

Hoed cotton and corn in the summer time.  When school was out, the next day we would hear, "Boys, get your hoe, let’s go to the cornfield.  We need to get out some of that Johnson grass."  Daddy always said you could set a cotton sack at the end of the field and that Johnson grass would cover it up.

Virginia:

Do you mean you never did get rid of it?

Marion:

Shoot no.  It will grow with you fighting it.  The more we hoed, the more it growed.  I guess now, though, 50 years later, there is not a stalk of it in the field.  We quit cultivating the field and if you don’t cultivate it, it dies.  The more we fought it, the better it liked it.  Daddy said one time the way to have a good stand of Johnson grass is to try to get rid of it.  And he said the only way to get rid of grass burs was to move off and leave them.

Virginia:

That’s about right.

Marion:

I’ll never forget the time we had a good bumper crop of grass burs over there in the field.  They were baling hay about the time I got my vacation and I was going down to Fort Worth to see R. M. and Mamie and Patsy and James.  They always took me to see the Rangers play while I was there.  Daddy said he had that hay over there in the field that needed to be stacked, but he told me to go on.  He said he would get someone to help him pick it up.  Well, when the ones he got to help him went over there and found all those grass burs in the hay, they decided they didn't want to help him.  The hay was so full of grass burs they couldn’t handle it.  He called me in Azle and I had to come home and help him get it up.  I think that was the time R. M. came up and helped me pick it up.

Virginia:

Did the cows eat it?

Marion:

I guess so.  If they get hungry enough, they will eat almost anything.  I don't guess it hurt any of them.  We didn’t lose any of them over it.  We raised cotton, corn, maize and watermelons.  We worked all summer in the fields.  They had summer school and we went two weeks in the summer so we could be out two weeks in the fall to help with the fall crops.  It always thrilled me if it was foggy or rainy when we got out for Thanksgiving because if it had been pretty and sunny, we would have headed to the cotton patch to pick cotton.

Virginia:

So you liked to see it rain?

Marion:

You couldn't pull cotton if it was wet.  You had to wait for the dew to dry off to gather cotton.  If it rained, you sure couldn't pick it.  We were always hoping it would rain.  We didn't particularly like to gather that cotton.  It was hard work.  It is a back bending job.

Virginia:

How much did Daddy pay you to pick his cotton?

Marion:

Groceries on the table.  We didn't get anything for working at home.  If we got caught up and had a chance to go pick cotton for someone else, we got the money.  We were always taught to spend it for things we needed and to know the value of it.  We got the money when we worked for the other man, but we didn't get paid for working at home.  If we needed a pair of shoes, we got a pair of shoes.  If we needed a pair of overalls, we got a pair of overalls. Daddy always saw to that.

Ordinarily, back then we got $2.00 a hundred pounds when we picked for someone else.  I could pick an average of 400 pounds a day.  Some could gather more.  It paid about the same as hoeing cotton for someone else.  For that you would get paid 50 cents an hour.

Virginia:

Did you ever do that?

Marion:

I worked a few times for Larkin Burden.

Robbie:

How many acres of cotton or corn could you hoe in a day?

Marion:

It depended on how grassy it was.  If it was fairly clean, you could cover more ground.  I have seen it so grassy, you would be doing good to hoe 3 or 4 rows a day.  You saw a lot of Johnson grass, crab grass, and Colorado grass.  You would bob it off, and by the next day it was sprouting again.  It hoed pretty good when it was dry, but if it came a rain, the soil would pack down and you had a problem.  You could rake the roots out pretty good until it got packed down.

We grew enough corn to raise 8 or 9 pigs twice a year.  That got us a little money to buy groceries.  It was hard to survive on the farm back in those days.  We didn't make much money back then, but things didn’t cost as much either.  Gasoline was about 30 cents a gallon at the pump.  We had a gas tank for farm fuel and it didn't cost as much.

Daddy grew watermelons in the summertime.  We would go up into the oil fields.  I would walk on one side of the street and Leon on the other.  We would knock on doors and if we could get them to look at the watermelons, they would buy them.  Then the next time we would go by, they would come to us to buy a watermelon.  When I was working at Vic's filling station, people would ask when Daddy was coming to town with a load of melons.  He would come and park on the street and sell 15 watermelons without even moving the truck.  That was a money crop to get us through until the cotton was gathered in the fall.  One time a black man up north of Healdton wanted to buy a watermelon, but he didn't have any money.  He had an old chicken hen with 10 baby chicks.  Daddy traded him a watermelon for that chicken and her 10 chicks.

Virginia:

Daddy used to sell tomatoes also.  He had one real good customer who loved tomatoes and always bought from Daddy when he came by.  But the man was having a hard time making ends meet, too.  So the next spring, Daddy started some tomato plants and carried them to the man, and showed him how to grow tomatoes.  He did himself out of a good customer by helping him, but he made a friend.  It was Mr. Land.  I think Mama and Daddy played dominoes with them a lot.

Marion:

That was Grady Land, and Fanny.  She married Uncle Greenberry after Grady died.  She was by herself and so was Uncle Greenberry.  They got married for companionship.  They were both lonely and they went and got married.  She is buried over there in the Orr cemetery.  Uncle Greenberry is buried in Wilson cemetery.  He had moved over here to be close to Hudgin and Ethel and Hattie.  He lived with Hattie a long time out east of Ringling.  I used to bring him out here and he would stay 3 or 4 days.  To me he was like a Grandpa, because I didn’t know my real Grandpa.

Virginia:

The girls went to spend a week with Grandma, Cecil and Aunt Mamie. Did you ever do that?

Marion:

Sometimes I’d catch the school bus and go out there.

Virginia:

Cecil had a horse at one time, didn’t he?

Marion:

I don’t know what ever happened to Tony.  I know all the grand kids rode him.  You could put about six on his back at a time.  He was tame.  You couldn't get him to run even if you whipped him.  If there was ever a puddin' footed horse, that was one of them.  He never did hurt a child to my knowledge.  He sure was hard to catch.  You could chase him 3 hours and not catch him.  He was pretty smart.  If you ever cornered him in a lot, though, he knew he was caught and would give up.

Virginia:

What else do you want to record?  Can you tell us about going squirrel hunting?

Marion:

If you wanted a mess of squirrels, you went down to the woods and shook a tree.  We always had 3 or 4 dogs that liked to go hunting and tree a squirrel.  It didn't take many squirrels for me.  I didn't particularly like squirrel meat.  We didn't have deer in this country then.  We didn'’t see rattlesnakes either.

There’s always been water moccasins and poison ivy, but there weren't any rattlesnakes.

Chapter 6

Virginia:

We have heard what the girls did when they went to town.  What did the boys do?

Marion:

Stood on a street corner and listened to the men talk.  If we got there in time to find Cecil and Grandma before they went to the movie, they would pay our way in and we would watch a movie with them.  It just cost 10 cents.  We saw Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette.  Saturday was western days.

Virginia:

Do you remember the time Tom Mix came to Ringling?

Marion:

No, but I remember going to the circus up there.  It was Ringling Brothers Circus.  It set up north of Ringling.  It was after we got the new truck.  We all loaded in the truck and went to see the circus.  They set up a big tent.  As far as I know, it was the only time we ever went.  One time when we were in Beaumont, Daddy took Leon and me to see a ball game.  They had a team known as the Beaumont Exporters and they played the Dallas Eagles.  Fort Worth had a team too.

Robbie:

It was the Fort Worth Cats.

Marion:

That's right. Beaumont had a ball player I followed all through his career.  He was playing there in the Texas league.  His name was Enos Slaughter.  I saw him play when he played for the Beaumont Exporters.

Virginia:

Who did he play for in the big leagues?

Marion:

I can't answer that.

Robbie:

St. Louis Cardinals, I believe.

Marion:

He ended up in the majors somewhere.  He was an outstanding ballplayer.  He is the only one I remember being on the Beaumont ball team.

Robbie:

I think he broke in with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Virginia:

Up here at Center Point, there was a kid who was a good ball player.  He got a chance to play, but I don't remember what ever happened.  Do you know who I am talking about?  I can't call his name right now.  Was it Clark?

Marion:

Clark Neal.  His daddy said when Clark went to New York;  the company he worked for had a baseball team.  Clark got on the team and was pretty good.  The New York Mets scouted him.  He pitched 3 innings on a special team for the Mets.  He struck out all 9 batters to face him.  He never went any further than that.  He said he didn't have a desire to be a baseball player but to him that was the biggest thrill he had in his lifetime, that he had the chance to pitch for the Mets those 3 innings.  Randy Thurman's boy had a good record in high school baseball.  He loved baseball.  He went to school in Texas on a scholarship.  He was scouted all the way through high school.  The Detroit Tigers signed him.  He got his shoulder hurt, though, and never did get to play on the team.

Virginia:

When we played softball at school, did it take everyone to make a team?  Girls and boys, good and bad?

Marion:

Some of the girl players could hit the ball as hard as the boys. In the 8^th grade there were only 3 boys and 5 girls.  They had to use the girls to make a team.  The boys had a basketball team.  There were 6 boys who could play and it took 5 to make a team, so we all made the team.  Every one of us made the team every year.  I made the main string.

I saw Stanley Patty at the Orr reunion this year. I said, "Stanley was our coach."  Someone asked if he was a good coach.  Stanley was standing there listening to the conversation.  I said, "I guess so.  All he taught us was to throw a round ball through a hole up on the board.  If we did that, we got two points.  Then we tried to keep the other team from getting the ball.  That’s about all he taught us."  He just laughed and went on.

I guess Mr. Foster is the only schoolteacher from Ringling we have left.  He has had a stroke.  He taught with the board of education.  He had a paddle about 12 inches long.  He could raise you off the floor when he swatted you with it.  He didn't move that paddle far, but he had power.

I got upset one time.  I never got a whipping, but when I was in the 8^th grade, our teacher was an old man.  To punish you, he would take off on your grades.  If you made 100 in spelling, he would take off 25%  if he thought what you had done was severe.  That was Mr. Beatty.  I got 25 taken off my grade one time in spelling.  It upset me.  I didn't like it because he took off my grade.  I would rather have had the whipping.

Oleta Edwards was always late getting to class.  She was always getting 10% taken off her grade for being late.  She was the only competition I had in the 8^th grade.  She was pretty tough competition. One time Clarence Roberts told me I was dumb.  He was a classmate in high school.  He said, "You're a dumbie."  I told him: "The only thing that saved me from being at the bottom of the class was because you were in there with me."

We were talking about having a 50^th reunion in 2004.  There are a lot of them who won't be around.  We started to high school in the fall of 1950.  Orr lost its high school in 1949.  That meant we had to go somewhere else.  So, in the fall of 1950, we headed to Ringling to go to high school.

When we got here in 1948, we planted cotton and worked it, but didn’t make too good a crop.  The next year we started farming earlier in the year. In 1949, we had a bumper crop.  In 1950, we planted a crop, and it was real rainy that year.  The boll weevils ate it up.  That was the year we bought a new Chevrolet, 1-ton truck, brand new for $1650.  It had sideboards and everything.  We bought it to haul cotton.  You could put a bale of cotton on it and didn't even have to get up in there to stomp it down.

Virginia:

When we had that big cotton crop, didn’t Cecil and Grandma come down and help pull that?

Marion:

Grandma just came along for the ride in 1949.  Grandma was born in 1876, making her 24 years old when Daddy was born.  So 24 and 49 would have made her 73 years old.  I doubt she picked very much cotton.  She put a sack on, and her bonnet (she always wore a bonnet wherever she went), and played like she was picking cotton.  She had her picture made.  Cecil and Daddy were the main ones who picked the cotton.  There were 29 bales of it on 36 acres.  Some of it made over a bale to the acre.  They were 500-pound bales.

One incident I remember, in 1949 we were plowing through Johnson grass as high as your head, and that was standing on the tractor.  It looked like a hay meadow.  Larkin came over on a horse.  He wanted to know what we were going to do when we got it plowed up.  Daddy told him we planned to plant it in cotton.  Larkin shook his head and went back home.

A rain came and rotted the Johnson grass in the field.  Larkin came back in the fall, and we had a bale to the acre cotton and it was clean.  Larkin shook his head again and went back home.  He couldn't believe it.

When we first came up here, we were the only ones with a tandem disk.  Everyone used a turning plow back then.  After they saw how we chopped up the weeds and grasses with that tandem disk, they all traded in their turning plow for a tandem disk.  Today that is all you see, tandem disks.

Larkin Burden was a good farmer.  He raised a lot of corn.  Then you planted two rows of corn and two rows of peas for a cover crop to build up the soil.  Larkin would plant 4 rows of corn and two rows of peas.  They had plenty of black-eyed peas.

We continued working the fields and going to high school.  I graduated in 1954.  Then was when we started separating and everyone going separate ways.  After a while it left Mamie and me at home.  In 1960, she left as well.  In the early 60's Daddy decided he wasn't going to farm quite so much.  I got a job at Vic's Service Station.  I worked 9 years there.  The farm just sort of took care of itself.  From the early 60's until 1974, he raised cattle.  Then in 1974, Daddy got down in his back and couldn't lift anything so he completely sold out and rented the place until he passed away in 1988.  He more or less retired.

He would take off and go see the girls at one place or another.  In 1979, just 3 months before he had his wreck, he went to Tyler to see Virginia.  He went right through Dallas.  I don't know how in the world he made it.  But the accident in 1979 in Ringling, Oklahoma, washed him out.  From 1979 to 1988 he was more or less helpless.

I kept on at Vic’s until 1969 when I quit the service station business and went to work at the pants factory.  I was there until the 90's.  In 1957, work on the place was slack.  The county was building a bridge across Mud Creek.  Daddy and I went over there and got work with the contractor who was building the bridge for 6 weeks.

Chapter 7

Virginia:

Can you tell us about plowing the fields?  How old were you when you started?

Marion:

About 12 or 13 years old.  Daddy just turned us loose on the tractor and told us to keep it in the field.  He said as long as you keep it between the fences you are doing good.  He didn't come back until the cool of the evening to see how we were doing.  He let us do it the best way we could.  If we made a crooked row, we just had a crooked row.

Virginia:

How many rows did you plant at a time?

Marion:

Oh, I never did run the planter.  I could cultivate, but mostly we did disking and harrowing and getting it ready to plant.  But we had a two-row planter and a two-row cultivator.

Virginia:

That took a long time, didn't it?

Marion:

It’s slower than it is today.

Robbie:

But it was faster than using a horse, wasn't it?

Marion:

Oh, yes.  They said in those days you could work all day and plow 3 acres.  With a tractor, you could plow 10.  So, I guess it was 3 times faster than using a horse.  A tractor ran on gas but a horse would eat hay or graze grasses.  You had to get up before daylight and get the horses ready to go to the field.  I never did do that.  I don’t know much about the horses.  That was before my time.  I was in the machine age.

I remember that we had a team of horses one time when I was about 6 years old.  They were hooked up to the section harrow.  I never will forget it. I wanted to harrow with the horses.  I was doing pretty good as long as they were going straight, but when I started to turn them, I turned them too short and I had that section harrow upside down with the horses out of their trace chains and everything else.  That ended my career plowing with a horse.  I thought I could do it until I tried it.

Virginia:

Was it harder than it looked like it would be?

Marion:

Well, I didn't succeed in doing it.  It didn't work out right. Of course you can do the same thing with it hooked onto the tractor.  We bought a brand new section harrow one time and hooked it onto the tractor.  Daddy said, "Don’t turn too short with it.  It will get up on the tractor with you."  Well, I went over to the field and started harrowing.  Sure enough I turned too short.  It had a 2x4 for the tongue that went all the way across both sections.  We had a sawmill over across the creek.  I got there with it and broke that 2x4 in half.  It was made out of pine and was easy to break.  I came to the house and told Daddy I had broken the board that went across to pull the section harrow.  He went over to the sawmill and got an old oak 2x4 they had sawed when they were making lumber.  He put that in there and said, "You won’t break that one."

That old Johnson grass, when you were chopping it with a gooseneck hoe, it tightened down.  Sometimes you would break the hoe handle out of the hoe.  It just cost a dollar to get the hoe - handle and all.  But daddy would put another handle in it for maybe 50 cents.  We were breaking them out pretty steady, because it was hard to hoe that Johnson grass.  He said, "If you break this hoe handle, I’ll put you a rope handle in next time.  You won’t break it out."

He never did really punish you, but he had ways of doing it without even saying anything.  He knew how to handle the situation.

Chapter 8

Virginia:

How was doctoring handled this far away from town or medical services?  Can you tell me how Mama handled the broken wrist she had?

Marion:

It was a Sunday afternoon.  There was just the three of us here.  Daddy and I were watching a ball game.  Mama didn't want to do that so she went out to gather guinea eggs.  A snake ran across her path.  She fell down and broke her arm.  She managed to make it back to the house.  She hollered out that she was hurting.  When we got to her, we saw the bone was sticking out.  We put her in a car and took her to Ardmore.

Virginia:

That was after we had all left home.  Delrena was telling me there is a story connected with the time she had gall bladder surgery.  Can you tell us that?

Marion:

I had taken Delrena to the hospital because she was scheduled to have gall bladder surgery.  When I came back home, I decided it would be good to get Daddy out of the house for a little while.  I had found a colt up in the north pasture, the first baby colt I had, and decided to take Daddy to see it.  Mama and Daddy got ready and we all went out toward the car.  Mama said, "You’ll have to give your Daddy some time.  He can’t hardly walk."  So I said, "What’s wrong with him?"  Mama told me Daddy had killed a rattlesnake in the yard by stomping on it.  I said, "He WHAT?"  I had him show me his foot.  It was all swollen up.  It nearly scared me to death.  I wanted to know how he knew it was a rattlesnake.  They showed me where it was and it was a rattlesnake.  We didn't go look at that colt.  We went to the hospital as fast as we could. The doctors looked him over and told me a rattlesnake hadn't bitten him, or he would have been dead by that time.  It was in the wintertime and so cold the rattlesnake did not strike at him.  He probably hurt his foot stomping the snake.

Virginia:

There was another incident I remember happening.  Daddy was cutting wood and got hurt somehow.

Marion:

We were sawing with a buzz saw.  It was before we had the chain saw.  It was the first saw we had after the cross cut saw and was a lot faster and easier than a cross cut saw.  But a stick of wood got caught in it and flew up.  It hit him in the mouth and broke his teeth.  Then he took the saw to the shop and had a shield put on it to keep that from happening again.

Virginia:

What did he do about the teeth?

Marion:

Seems like he had another set made.  It broke the teeth in two.  They couldn't put them back together.  He tried to glue them, but the clue didn't hold.  Another thing, the second set didn't fit as well as the first ones did.  He had the first set made in the 1950's.  He went to Waurika to Dr. Pierce, who looked at his teeth and told him he needed all his teeth pulled out and false teeth made.  Daddy told him to get started.

Chapter 9

Virginia:

Let's talk a little about what kind of entertainment we had.

Marion:

There wasn't much entertainment.  We had a battery radio.  It was a dry cell.  It would get the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night.  The batteries would get weak in about 5 or 6 weeks, then you would have to wait until you got a new battery to pick up Nashville.  Every body listened to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night.  That was one of the main features.

I always liked to listen to baseball.  We listened to a baseball game every day in the middle of the day when it was hot.  Then when it cooled off, we went to the field again until sun down.

We got a TV in 1960.  There was something on every night until 10:00.  There used to be some good programs on.  You could watch "Red Skelton" one night, and Carol Burnett another. I liked "Tennessee Ernie Ford", "Wagon Train", "Gun Smoke", "Have Gun Will Travel".

Virginia:

Didn't Mama and Daddy get interested in watching wrestling at one time?

Marion:

Daddy was a big fan of wrestling.  He might go to bed, then get up at 10:30 at night and watch wrestling for an hour.  He got right into that.  He ate that wrestling up.  I didn;t know it was a big fake until we went up to Ringling one night.  I could see right away it was a fake.  They've got sound deals under the ring to amplify the sound when they hit.  It makes it sound worse than it really is.  They can hit each other and it looks like they have knocked the fire out of each other, and they don;t even hit the other person.  I don't guess Daddy ever knew it was fake.

Chapter 10

Virginia:

It was after I left home that this house was built.  Daddy liked to plant things to make it pretty.

Marion:

It was 1959 when we set out those cedar trees out there.  They were about 6 foot tall then.  Now they are about 40 foot.  I trimmed them up so you can see underneath them.  I can remember when that little hackberry tree was only two inches in diameter.  It came up and grew through the yard fence.  The fence was right there at one time.

Daddy had the prettiest yellow mums out there.  In his older days, after he quit raising cotton, he loved to grow flowers.  He had gladiolas all on the north side of the house.

We have a picture somewhere of Ronald and Daddy holding a watermelon on a tow sack.  It was cut into and had a stick on each side.  Daddy was holding one side and Ronald was holding the other.  That watermelon probably weighed about 85 pounds.  I raised one that weighed nearly a hundred pounds, right out there in the garden.  You leave about two to the vine to make them that big.

Daddy said anyone can raise a watermelon that weighed 50 pounds but when you start putting on the other 50 pounds, you have to do something to it.  People used to spread cottonseed meal around the plants for fertilizer.  They say it is pretty good.

Back then they used natural methods.  You built you soil up through turning under vegetation.  Black-eyed peas gave nitrogen to the soil.  When the vegetation decayed, it built up the soil.  You also put fertilizer from the cow lot or chicken house on the gardens.  You made your own fertilizer.  Now it is all commercial fertilizer.  Farming is different than it was 50 years ago.  They use herbicides and insecticides now.

Virginia:

What was the machine Cecil bought one time that was supposed to kill bugs?

Marion:

That was in 1950 when it rained just about every day in July.  Everybody in the country had a bug catcher.  The leaf worms were so thick they were eating the cotton up.  They would strip the cotton.  The bug catcher was a two-row machine that had air and would suck up the worms and put them in a bag.  You took them out of the bag and destroyed them.  But it didn't work.  It was a one-year trial.  You could hear those things running night and day.

We wanted to go three ways on one with Cecil and Buck.  They cost about $350 and that was a lot of money.  Cecil said if he was going to get one, he wanted one by himself.  So Daddy and Buck split the cost of one 50/50.  Daddy would use it two or three days then Buck would use it two or three days.  None of us made any cotton that year.  We didn't even make our money back on the bug catcher.

Virginia:

Cecil also bought a pecan shaker, didn't he?  But I think that worked out pretty good for him, didn't it?

Marion:

He had good pecan trees down there on the creek.  We never did get involved in that though. Daddy wasn't willing to invest in things like that.  Pecans are something that is a gamble.  The last crop we ever made was in 1960.  There have been very few pecans made since then.

Virginia:

The thing about raising pecans was if you made a big crop, the price was so low you didn't make anything after all.  Everyone had pecans.

Marion:

We stacked 10,000 pounds in the back end of the kitchen one year.  We had them stacked up to the ceiling, two rows deep.  Ten cents a pound is what we sold them for.  We made about $1,000.  That was the first year we moved up here in this new house.

Our house was something we used.  We were proud of this house compared to what we had been living in.  Man it was a lot warmer.  It was a home; this house cost $5,000 to build it in 1959, from the ground up.  Today you can't build it for $80,000.  But that $5,000 was a lot of money back then.

Virginia:

What happened to the old house?

Marion:

Well, it was so rotted that by the time we got it torn down, we didn’t have anything.  There were no 2x4's in it.  It was just an old box house.  All the 2x4's were in the rafters and the joists in the floor.  Those were rotted.  We took it across the creek and built a cow shed next to the field.  We had just got it built.  Remember, it had sheet iron on the roof because it leaked so bad that was the easiest way to cover it up to keep the rain out.  We used the sheet iron and built a cowshed.  We just barely got it built when a little sack whirlwind came and blew it all the way to the creek.  Then it was gone.  That tore it up, that finished it right there.

Virginia:

The old house didn't have a stud framework at all, as I remember.

Marion:

The walls were 1x12's laid side by side with a slat over the cracks.  They had a 2x6 at the bottom and a 2x6 at the top and they just nailed the walls to the top and to the bottom.  It was a box house.  That is what they built in the 20's and 30's.  That house was probably 30 or 40 years old.  That was the way grandma's house was built.

Virginia:

Grandma’s house was built the same way?

Marion:

It was just a box house.  They covered up the walls inside with sheet rock.  It didn't have any studs in it.  It was just a box house.

Virginia:

What else do you want to put in this book?

Marion:

I guess that is about all I know.

The End

Cousin's Corner

Evans

By Jerry Abshire

(Myrtle Evans Abshire)

I don't remember much about Marion when I was growing up.  I remember your dad more because I worked for him selling watermelons for $5.00 a day in Ringling, Wirt, Dundee, Fox, and Healdton.  We would sell a truckload every Saturday.  He would always come and get me to help him.  Uncle Albert would pick me up about 7:00 on Saturday morning to go with him.

We didn't have a spot to sell.  We went door to door selling them.  He would drive down the street and I would walk from door to door.  All you had to say was they were Albert's watermelons and people would buy them.  When they bought one,  I would ask if they would like to pick it out and they would tell me,"Let your Uncle Albert pick it out."

They sold for $.50 to a $1.00 back then.  Big watermelons, not the little ones you get today.  We would be gone sometimes all day or sometimes a half a day.  Just me and Uncle Albert.  I never had to ask for my money.  He always paid at the end of the day; sometimes he would give me a few extra dollars for doing a good job.

But like I said, I really don't remember much about Marion back then.  You kids were older than me.  I am just 54.  I don't remember much.

By Coy Abshire

(Myrtle Evans Abshire)

This is some of My Remembrances of Charley and Tiny Evans.  Or "Wee Tince" as Pa called her at times.  I, as most of us, was born when they were in there 60's.  I wish I had taken the time then to put down things on paper and had them give me information that is now lost to oblivion.

I would stay during the summer with them and help with the chores.  Pa taught me how to drive a team of horses and to plow.  We chopped wood and drew water from a well.  This is something that is now lost.  Pa had a wooden sled and I would hook it behind his team and I would go too Dan Kings and fill it with water and drag it back for water for the livestock.  Later we would hook up the wagon and go to Ringling.

Pa was the one who went to town.  Ma seldom went; she stayed at home and went about her work.  She had all kinds of home remedies for almost any kind of illness.  She picked herbs and different plants to make teas and poultices.  Some of them you didn't want applied.

Pa has a lengthy history that I will describe later if you wish.  Ma is from a closed book, she as far as I can find, doesn't exist before the year 1900.  She is on the 1900 U.S. Census.  The only thing we know is her dad's name.  No mother's name has never been known.  But, in all our eyes and minds, she was just our tiny "LITTLE ANGEL".

By Coy Abshire

(Myrtle Evans Abshire)

Some of this was related by Pa's sister, Susan, to her daughter and passed on to me by her grandson's wife.  My wife, Marjorie, and I have spent many hours in the dusty basements of Courthouses, Libraries and on the computer trying to locate Charley Evans.  No one could tell who he was other than that he was born in Texas.

One day as we were going through Microfiche films in the Wichita Falls Library, I found my Dad's grandparents.  As I was printing it off, Marge kind of squealed and said, "Look here."  As I looked up, there was Pa, his parents and grandparents on the same film.  Both sides of my family were living almost next door to each other.  I found out that there is no one in our line by the name of Charley Evans.  His name was Addison Calvin.  I had known it wasn't Charley, but didn't know exactly what it was.

Pa's sister, Susan, who related come stories, told about how the Evanses came from Charleston, S.C., by boat around the Keys to Velasco at Rio Brazos de Dies.  From there they moved up the Brazos, tarried a while around Waco and went on to the Paradise area of Wise County near Decatur, Texas.  This is where Pa was born and where his Mother died.

When Pa's dad, Harvey, had some trouble with the law, Pa accepted the blame and he spent some time in a youth prison in, we think, Michigan.  As I remember the story, Pa's dad stole a horse and convinced Pa he was too old to go the pen.  So he had Pa say he was the one who did it.  Being 12 years old he only got a couple years of reformatory time.  This is where Pa learned to read and write and cipher.

After he got out and his mom had passed away, his dad turned into a rounder so Pa brought his brothers and sisters, with the exception of Susie to Indian Territory.  They waded the Red River at Jimtown; he didn't have the money for the Ferry.  Later Harvey found Pa and tried to get the kids back, but it was to no avail.  Susie stayed in Texas in a school for the blind.  Later she played the piano and sang, making her living touring around the country.

He settled in the Orr area.  This is where he met and married Ma on September 15, 1900.  He worked as a store clerk and as a teamster.  He hauled freight between Waurika and Orr.

More Memories by Coy Abshire

(Myrtle Evans Abshire)

Long, long ago in a Galaxy far, far away it would get busy around Ma and Pa's Birthdays.  When every one showed up, you talk about a passel of kids.  Our family was one of the larger with 5 kids.  But, get them all together and at my best count there were 29 grandkids.  That is a yard full.  There was never a lack of entertainment and when we would tire, Pa would pull down the old fiddle and make music.  When he played it got very quiet.

I remember sitting on his lap and watching those big huge hands go up and down the neck.  I have said it was like he was in a trance as he would play.  When we were young, we would go to the dances at some one or the other's house and we would sprinkle corn meal on the floor so the adults could dance.  Pa would play the fiddle and one of Dad's Uncles played the Doughbrough (a guitar with a steel center, normally played like a steel guitar laying flat).

They would dance almost all night.  When we would start home, we wouldn't much more than make it out the gate and we would be asleep.

Dad knew Ma and Pa all his life and lived with them a while.  He would tell me how strong Pa was, that he has seen him lift his truck with his back and use his hands to block up the axle so he could change tires.  I have seen him while in his 70s lift plows and harrows and put them in the wagon like they weighed nothing.

Pawpa & Mawma Evans

Norma Hall Smith

Ruby Evans Hall

I loved to hear Pawpa and Mawma talk about old times, but through the years I have lost most of that memory.  I can't ever remember Mother talking about the past.

I remember Pawpa and Mawma as very loving people.  They didn't have much to give you, but what they had they gave freely.  Pawpa would build a playhouse out of tin for us to play in.  It didn't look like much, but we thought it was.  I am sure Mawma didn't think so, because he would sometimes build on to the side of the house.

I had to walk a mile from the highway and would always stop off to visit and get a drink of water.  I didn't know for a long time that Mawma was drawing a fresh bucket of water everyday for me.

Pawpa taught me the little jig that he did and Mawma would let me braid her hair.  I guess the funny things I remember are: Pawpa wouldn't chop the wood for the wood stove.  He would put big logs in and as the log burned he would push it in the stove.  You had to walk around it.  I liked to hear Mawma when she would scold him.  This little woman could make this tall man move sometimes.

My mom was afraid of storms, so one day Pawpa was going to town with his wagon and team of horses.  She asked him to pick me up at school because a storm was coming.  I was in grade school and I came around the corner to go to the bus and saw Pawpa with his horses.  My first reaction was to pretend I didn't see him because I was ashamed to ride in the wagon in front of my friends.  But I loved him so much that I couldn't do that.  We were half way home when the bus caught up with us, so I laid down in the wagon, thinking I was hidden.  The next day some one asked me if I was in the wagon, they could see the long blonde hair flying.  Looking back I shouldn't have been ashamed, we were all poor back then, but at the time I thought it was just us.

Remember when the children thought he should sell the horses, because they were afraid he was going to get hurt?  He finally sold them and bought a car.  He would gun the car when he took off and dirt would fly everywhere.

Martha and Sug seem to remember the most about Mawma and Pawpa's heritage.  I just remember they loved all their children the same and I loved them.

The Ramblings Of Oliver Abshire

Oliver Abshire

(Myrtle Evans Abshire)

When we were in High School, Leon and Marion came from Orr to Ringling and were in the same class that I was in.  We just started hanging out together and it wasn't long until they talked me into going home with them on Friday and returning on Monday.  While at your house we milked cows, gathered eggs, plowed or hoed, (whatever was needed that weekend).

I remember sitting around the house on Friday or Saturday night during watermelon season and Albert would say, ";You boys go to the patch and get a melon for me, mom and the girls.  Then get one for Leon and Marion.  And then get one for Oliver.  He He!"

We three boys had to sleep in the same bed and if I remember right you three girls had to sleep in the same bed.  Things got a little crowded in those days.  We sold watermelons with your dad on Saturdays in Ringling and Healton and Wilson but all I remember getting was a hamburger and coke for lunch.  Ha Ha!  We didn't make a lot of money but we had fun.  In November, I think it was, we would spend most of Saturday and Sunday picking up pecans.  Monday mornings were busy getting chores done, getting dressed and getting to the bus stop in time to catch the school bus.

After the Army all of you were gone except Marion so he and I became close and we have been close ever since.

Wasn't there a creek running through the property with a swimming hole deep enough that in the summer we could go down there for our baths?

Virginia:

Yes, there is a creek running across the property, Clear Creek.  But it was not always very clear.  There were times when trees and brush would get trapped in a bend, forming a pool of water deep enough for us to use as a swimming hole.  I remember once when you were there that you, Marion and Leon even took a dip in the creek when it was bank to bank with high water.  You all seemed to be having a great time.  We girls didn't get into water that deep because we couldn't swim.

You are also right about the sleeping arrangements.  I slept between Patsy and Mamie until the day I left home after graduation in 1956.  I guess that is why I was always so skinny then.  I didn't have any room to grow.  I've gained a couple of pounds since them.

Oliver:

I remember going to the pecan bottom, syrup mill, and the sawmill. We  would cut and sell fence post and if I'm remembering right, your dad cut all the timber that he built the new house with.

Most people, who picked pecans, for whoever, would get half and the owner of the trees would get the other half.  But because Albert fed us, he would give us enough to go to the movies and have some popcorn.  If we were lucky, we would still have enough to go to the drug store for milk shakes after the show.

I was at your house every weekend and for weeks at a time in the summer.  That is where I learned what a rick and cord of wood was.  As Albert would cut it he expected us to have it stacked in the proper measurement.

He had the biggest cornfield that I had ever seen before going to Ohio.  Up there they have some really big ones.  We would take the wagon out to the field pulled by two big horses and we would all walk at the back of the wagon and pick the corn and throw it into the wagon.  Then take it to the corncrib.  Those were the smartest horses I can remember.  They knew gee and haw and all the other commands that he would give them.

Your dad could raise some of the biggest and best tomatoes, and watermelons that I have ever eaten.  When we would get up in the morning your mom would have a big platter of some kind of meat on the table and a platter of eggs and some of the best biscuits I had ever eaten.

Virginia:

Oliver, I think your memory might be playing tricks on you.  As far as I can remember, Daddy never had any horses.  He bought the tractor in Beaumont and that is what he used all the time I can remember when we were on the farm.  You may be thinking of the team of horses and wagon that Pa had.  Ronnie Carroll remembered coming to our house with Pa and they rode in a horse drawn wagon.  Norma Ruth had memories of riding with Pa in a wagon pulled by horses.

In answer to your question about building the house with lumber sawed on the sawmill.  Daddy did buy a sawmill.  He and Henry Whitener cut down an oak tree and sawed some lumber.  But it didn't work as well as Daddy thought it would, there was always some problem with the sawmill.  Then, too, I don't think the oak trees provided the type wood you really needed to build a house.  For that the tall, straight pine trees would have been better.  Daddy built a chicken coop and gave Henry enough lumber to build a room on his house, then gave up the venture.  The house was built after I graduated and left home.  Patsy was gone as well.  Only Marion and Mamie were still at home.  Daddy got a loan through the Farmers Housing Association and paid it off in 5 years.

Oliver:

I remember when most of this stuff took place, because I almost lived at your house from 1950 to 1953 when I went into the army.

Virginia:

Here is one thing I remember about Oliver and his visits to us:

Oscar the Trained Flea

Oliver:

"This is Oscar, my trained flea.  See him here in my left hand.  Now watch.  He will jump from my left hand to my right hand, and turn a flip in mid air."

Virginia:

He looks at his left hand, his head makes an arc, following the path of Oscar, makes a loop in the middle, ends up looking at his left hand.

Oliver:

"Now, Oscar is going to jump back to my left hand and do a double flip."

Virginia:

Once again Oliver's head follows the route of the flea, doing a double flip in the middle.

Oliver:

"Oscar would now like to try something he has never tried before.  He will try to jump from my left hand to my right hand and turn a triple flip in the middle.  Come on, Oscar.  You can do it."

Virginia:

This time Oliver watches the progress through two loops.  Then his head stops.  He looks all around.  Oscar seems to be lost.

Oliver:

"Where did Oscar go?  Oh, there he is."

Virginia:

He then reaches to your hair and picks Oscar from your head.

Oliver:

"OK, Oscar. Let's try that again. Come on, you can do it.  Oscar?  Oscar?  Oh, I see.  This flea is not Oscar."

Virginia:

Then he laughs and laughs..............

Richardson

Grandma's House

Joe Dean Richardson

There were so many great memories I don't know where to start.  I guess the best memories were during the summers when I would go back to the farm and work with Cecil--this may sound crazy but I enjoyed it--getting up early in the morning and milking the cows, slopping the hogs and feeding the chickens.  Each day always brought something to do in the fields.

On Saturday afternoon we would all load in the pickup go into town.  They would always give me a half-dollar and before the truck would get completely stopped I would be out and headed to the picture show for a movie, a Coke and a bag of popcorn.  Then after the movie there would be enough money left to go to the drug store for an ice cream soda or a float.

Then on Sundays all the clan would gather at Grandma Richardson's for dinner.  Boy, talk about a meal.  Grandma and all the rest could sure put out a feast.  After dinner someone would say, "let's go catch the horses" [easier said than done].  All the kids from the littlest to the biggest would ride old Tony and Pet all afternoon.  Tony was Uncle Cecil's horse and Pet was a red and white paint mare that Daddy had up there.  I'll bet there sure were some bowlegged kids walking around the next few days.  After the horseback riding, then like Steve said, would come the time for the ice cream and watermelons.

Grandma went with us to see Uncle Ed in Sunnyvale in 1950.  She was not too fond of traveling.  It was such a long trip out there.  She ate a lot of cheese sandwiches and that caused problems after a while.  We come back across the lower end of the Continental Divide at Hoover Dam and that was impressive to her.

I lived in the country until we moved to Azle in 1943.  Even that was in the country until the town grew out to us.  Judy and I live out in the country now.  We live 2 1/2 miles north of a little town called Thrall.  There ain't nothing like the country.

I don't care what anyone says--THOSE WERE THE DAYS.  Well that's about it for now so I'll sign off and catch you next time.

Joe Dean

Sherman Dale Richardson

As I can best remember back to the good old days, there was the time when we came to visit you guys at the old home place.  We had to walk the plank bridge across the muddy creek.

There was also the time when your dad, Marion and Leon decided to raise the broom straw and built the drying sheds in the fields.  I don't know if it was successful.

I think the best thing I can remember is the big black diamond watermelons your dad used to bring to Grandma's old home place for all us to enjoy.

The next thing I remember is, that Marion was always there to help.  He has always been a friend, cousin and all around nice guy.  I am sure he was there for your family as well as Cecil and Mamie.  That is what I mean when I say he has always been there.

Keep being yourself,

Cousin Sherman

Virginia:

Thanks for your memories.  It seems one of the memories all the cousins share is of that bridge across the creek.  We called it a footbridge.  I don't know what age you were at the time, but it probably seemed very high, and very narrow.  It was made (to my remembrance) of a 2x12 plank and was probably as much as 12 feet above the creek bed.  Would it surprise you to know that Patsy, Mamie and I used to sit in the middle of that bridge and jump to the sandy creek below?  We thought that was a lot of fun.

Daddy did raise broom cane a year or two, even when I was still at home.  I know one thing; it was hard work to harvest it.  It had to be cut and stacked.  The leaves of the plant were very dry and cut the skin when you grasped it to cut it.  Daddy made me the bookkeeper and that was a much easier job.  It must not have been as successful as cotton, because they soon went back to cotton and grain.

Memories of Grandma

Stephen Richardson

(Oran Oliver Richardson)

My earliest memories were getting up early in the morning (before daylight) and getting in the car and starting the trip to Oklahoma.  This was an all day thing.  The car was not air-conditioned.  They didn't have air-conditioners for cars back then.  We had the 4-60 kind of air-conditioning, 4 windows down and 60 miles per hour.  We wouldn't get there until after dark.

We made one trip up during the winter that I can remember.  Most of our trips were during the summer.  This trip was the first time I can remember seeing snow.  Being from the Gulf Coast where it never snowed this was a real surprise to me.  This was around Christmas time.  I remember we stopped for lunch at Gainesville at a roadside Truck Stop.  I don't think they were called Truck Stops back then.  We were sitting next to the window and I remember hearing the wind whistle around the windows.  I had never heard wind do that before.  My biggest worry back then were would Santa Clause find me at Grandma's?  I had never been away from home on Christmas.  When I awoke the next morning the ground was covered with this white stuff that I had no idea what was.  I had heard of snow, but had never seen any of it.  Daddy got out and we built a snowman in Grandma's front yard.  It wasn't too big but neither was I at that time.  I also learned how to make snowballs and a snowball fight ensued.

I can remember they didn't have electricity or indoor plumbing.  I can remember Aunt Mamie and Grandma sitting down after the supper dishes were finished and Crocheting from the light of an Aladdin kerosene lamp.  They had other lamps but this was the brightest.  When I got older I got to help clean the chimneys, trim the wicks and fill them with kerosene every morning.  You never washed the chimneys in water because the soot would smear, but wiped them with paper.  I never got to see them quilt.  I remember the quilting frame hanging from the ceiling but they never let it down while I was there because it took up the whole living room when it was down.

Saturdays there was the big day.  It was go to town day.  Uncle Cecil, Aunt Mamie, and Grandma would get in the truck after the lunch dishes were finished and head for the big town of Ringling.  Cecil would have on his best coveralls Aunt Mamie would have on a clean dress and a starched bonnet and Grandma would have her good dress and her black hat.  Sometimes I do remember her wearing a bonnet, but that wasn't often.  In the days before electricity they would buy enough ice to keep the icebox cold until the next Saturday and if we were up there they would buy some extra ice.  Aunt Mamie would take the extra eggs and cream to sell.

Saturday night was bath night.  They would bring in a number 3 washtub and then pull the curtains around the kitchen.  They didn't have doors, but had ticking hanging from bailing wire at the entrances to the kitchen.  They would heat the water on the wood-burning stove.  This would make the room nice and warm and if it was summer, it was hot.  They would put a little water in the tub to use while you soaped up.  Now this was homemade lye soap and it didn't suds and it didn't foam, but it did get you clean or took the hide off which ever occurred first.  After you got soaped up you then would pour more water over you to rinse off.

Sunday was Church day.  That didn't mean the chores were skipped.  It seems that the cows didn't take a day off from producing milk and they had to be milked.  Everything would get done in time to make Church and Sunday School.  Uncle Albert, Aunt Idamae, Marion, Leon, Virginia, Patsy, and Mamie would come over for Sunday dinner.  Us kids would get to eat at a card table in the other room because there wasn't enough room around the "Adults" table for us.  We would get our food first, but couldn't take a bite until the blessing was said and that was after all the adults got served.  After eating, everyone would go to the living room and talk.  Us kids (Virginia, Patsy, Mamie, and myself) Marion and Leon went in with the big people.  We would play "Old Maid" that was the only card game Grandma would allow in the house.  The only reason she did that was because it took a special deck of cards.  We would cheat and make sure that Mamie wound up with the "Old Maid".  Around 2 in the afternoon the good times started to roll.  The ice cream freezers would come out and we would head for the front porch.  There would be at least two of them.  One for Grandma's Lemon Ice Cream and the other would be for Vanilla.  Sometimes if we had brought fresh peaches with us from Beaumont we would make Peach Ice Cream.  I got to start turning the crank on the freezer.  My arm would get tired before the Ice Cream would get hard and Marion would come up and say, "Stevie let me do that." and finish it up.  We would eat Ice Cream until it made our heads hurt.  Sometimes Uncle Albert would bring along a watermelon and we would have that too.  He raised the best watermelons because his soil was sandier than Uncle Cecil’s.  In my later years I finally figured out why the watermelons would come.  The kids would fill up on watermelon and leave the ice cream for the adults.

I was there for one hog butchering.  This was in the fall.  I don't remember just why we had come up there then other than Grandma might have been sick.  It was cool that day and it was supposed to stay cool all day.  After the cows were milked Daddy and Uncle Cecil headed for the hog pen.  Daddy had a new hunting knife and he got into the pen with the hogs.  He found the one they decided that was to be butchered.  Daddy leaned across the hog and slit its throat.  This didn’t get rid of the squeal.  I remember going back to the house while that was going on. They then drug the hog up to the house where Aunt Mamie had heated a wash pot of water. They then shaved most of the hair off the hog's belly before starting to cut it up.  It took all day until after dark to get the hog cut up.  Everything was used except the tail and ears.  I won't go into more detail because it might make some of the younger readers ill and they will never eat sausage again.

I would always go to the cow lot with Aunt Mamie and Uncle Cecil.  I would get to chase the right cow around to who ever milked it.  They had certain ones they would milk and Uncle Cecil would not milk Aunt Mamie's cow or visa versa.  I remember they had one Jersey cow named Daisy.  She gave the most cream of all of them and she was milked last because they kept her milk separate.  I tried to milk several times but I never could figure out how to get the milk to come out.  When I got old or big enough I got to turn the "Cream Separator".  It had a little bell on it that would ring if you were going too slowly.  I learned how to take it apart for cleaning and then put it back together afterwards.

Another of the big kid jobs I got to do when I was older was drawing water out of the well.  I remember the well was about 4 inches in diameter and looked like it was cased with round down spout pipe.  The bucket was another round pipe thing that had a little ring at the top that you pulled up to let the water out.  You would let this bucket down into the well until you got to the end of the rope and then pull it back up.  I took both hands to pull it up because they didn't have a crank to crank it up with.  The well bucket held exactly one regular water bucket full of water.   I guess about two gallons.  Then you would bring the water bucket to the house for drinking or what ever it was needed for.  Water was drunk from a metal dipper.  Everyone used the same dipper and if you didn't finish the dipper full you tossed the remainder out.  You didn't pour it back into the bucket.  I think at one time they had a "Pitcher Pump" that is the kind that there was a little bucket of water setting next to it to prime the pump.  If you couldn't pump up any water you had to pour this water in the top of it and then it would pump.  You hoped that nothing would happen when you poured that water in because if it did, there wasn't any more around to prime the pump with.  If it wasn't primed, you didn't get any water.  The first water out of the well went back into the priming bucket no matter how thirsty you were.

I remember one fall Uncle Cecil was bothered by squirrels.  They were eating all the corn he had stored up for the winter.  Well, Daddy decided that he knew the perfect solution to the problem.  It was kill them little buggers.  He got Uncle Cecil's single shot .22-rifle and found the dog under the step and started out.  The dog would tree a squirrel and Daddy would shoot it.  He would kill it with one shot but the darn things wouldn't fall out of the tree.  He would have to shoot it a couple of more times to get it to fall.  Then it was scramble to see who would get the squirrel first Daddy or the dog.  Daddy always seemed to win that race.  He killed about 6 or 7 squirrels that day and then took them and dressed them out and gave them to Aunt Mamie.  She fried them and we enjoyed every bite.  They ate our corn and so we ate them.  That seems fair to me.

If we came up in the late fall (after the first frost) there were pecans to be gathered.  Uncle Cecil didn't have any pecan trees, but Uncle Albert did.  Daddy had this big white tarp that he had gotten just for this occasion.  Everyone would head for Uncle Albert's that included Grandma too.  She didn't want to miss anything.  I think that Daddy had "budded" some of Uncle Albert's trees so that he had "paper shell" pecans.  He would spread the tarp under the tree and then would take a long cane fishing pole and beat the limbs of the trees to get the pecans to fall.  They would fall on the tarp and were easy to dump into a "tow sack" us kids would pick up what was laying on the ground after the adults finished.

If it was cotton planting time I got to ride on the tractor with Uncle Cecil.  He had a Farmall Super C. My job was to watch the seeds coming down and to tell him to stop when he ran out.  There was about a 6-inch space from where the seeds got put in the furrow and the disc that put the dirt back on them so I watched that area.  There were two feeders, one on each side of the tractor so you were looking from side to side.  It really didn't make him happy to plant a row and not put any seeds in it.  He had to watch ahead to keep the rows straight.  The way you would do that is to pick out a fence post on the opposite side of the field and drive toward it.  You couldn't keep the tractor going in a straight line if you tried to look at something that was close to you.

Summer was haying time.  We would go out and start mowing hay as soon as things dried up.  You didn't want to cut it if it had dew on it because it would mold in the bale.  The tractor had a long arm that reached out and cut the grass and anything else that got in its way.  Now rocks and large sticks might break one of the teeth of it.  They were riveted on and could be replaced fairly easily.  It just took time and that job was saved until the end of the day.  The mowing was done in the morning and then in the afternoon they would bale what they had cut that morning.  First they would pull a rake over the cut grass and pile it up in rows about three feet wide.  This was the width of the front end of the hay baler.  Then they would come along with the baler and bale it.  They didn’t have round bales back then just the square ones.  Later that evening Uncle Albert, Marion and Leon would show up to help get the hay into the barn before it would get dew on it.  They had flat bed trailer that was pulled behind the pickup.  They would load the pickup bed full until the springs would turn wrong side out and then load the trailer the same way.  The poor old truck could just barely pull the load.  I was too small to help load.  The bales were too heavy for me to lift.  Every once in a while a snake would get caught into the bale.  No one would know that until they would put the hay out for the cattle and the cattle wouldn't go near it.  If the weather was right (no rain pending) the best way to do it was to cut it one day and let it lay in the field for a day or two to dry out or cure.  Then winnow it and bale it after it dried.  This made the bales lighter.  Even so they still weighed about 75 pounds.  The first baler they had was one that tied the bales with twine.  This twine would break at times and the hay would spill everywhere.  The second one they got used wire and you could actually pick the bales up by the wire and not worry.  Uncle Cecil didn't own a baler, but would borrow one from someone when he needed it.

Grandchildren's Corner

Cindy's Memories

Cindy Gaudet

(Mamie Richardson Gunn)

Oklahoma! We would always squeal "Okla....Homa!!" as we crossed the Texas-Oklahoma long, scary bridge.  I always had to look ahead and make sure there were no big 18-wheelers crossing at the same time we were though because if there were, it was time to hit the floor!  I couldn't stand to look!

But then I would see the Welcome to Oklahoma sign and everything was fine and it would be no time until we reached Grandma and Granddaddy's house.  I couldn't wait to see how tall Ronald was.  He was soooo tall to me and got taller every time I would see him.  Of course I always loved it when summer came around and we got to spend time Oklahoma.  I always looked forward to running around with all of my cousins, taking chances at the creek, walking across logs that we would sometimes pretend were alligators.  We would look for "treasures" such as arrowheads and rocks that looked like diamonds.  It was always an adventure.

I remember Grandma and Granddaddy waiting on the porch when we drove up.  I guess they could see our dust from that old dirt road!  I was always glad to see them too!  Seeing them meant that we made it by that big (we had small eyes) canyon that I was so sure that we were going to fall into.  After all, there was evidence that there had already been people who had fallen into that thing with all of the old junk cars that were already there!

We would say our "hello's" and then the kids would scatter!  There were so many kittens and cats to chase!  Who had time for hugs and kisses?  We had too many sights to see and things to explore.

Uncle Marion would sometimes have a great watermelon patch to explore and if the season was right, we could pick out a good one.  Then sometimes there were grapevines and rows of potatoes and peas and squash and O.K., too many things to list.  I'll just say they had a good garden and the food at Grandma and Granddaddy was always fresh.  Sometimes it was too fresh.  I remember that Mom would always have to bring our milk and butter from home if she expected ME to eat!!  The taste of real butter and milk straight from the cow was a little too fresh for me but Grandma and Granddaddy would drink the milk with every meal!

Then Granddaddy would always share with the kittens.  He would call them either inside or to the back porch and even though he didn't name each one of them (how could he think of hundreds of names) I believe he would know if there was one missing.  They were his babies, each and every one of them.  He loved his cats and I guess that's where Mom and I get our "cat lover" personalities. (Dad is even starting to like cats!).

Granddaddy would always get up in the morning and fix breakfast.  We always woke up to the smell of bacon; of course it was always 5 o'clock in the morning!!  We were always expected to get up too!  I guess that he didn't realize that we didn't go to sleep and get up with the chickens like he did!  But we would stretch and stumble our way into the kitchen anyway.

Grandma and Granddaddy would always say Grace before eating and I liked it when Granddaddy or Marion would say grace because if Grandma said grace it was going to be a l...o...n...g one!!  She would leave out nothing.

Our sleeping arrangements were always interesting, especially if everyone was there.  Marion was the luckiest of course because he had his own room but Grandma and Granddaddy would share their bedroom.  We usually got the living room on the couch with a mattress and some chairs at the end to hold it up somehow.  I can't remember how we all fit on that bed, but we did and it was as good as camping out to me!  Seems like Patsy and her "gang" always got their own room.  Of course Aunt Jenalou and Manley slept in their own Winnebago, which was "way cool"!!

Sometimes at night if we were real quiet, we could hear coyotes in the distance and thunderstorms, which were neat but scary, which meant we just got to sleep closer to Mom and Dad!  Granddaddy would always have peppermints for sore throats by the bed but with Grandma you didn't have to be sick to get a treat!  She was always "loaded" with chewing gum, which she kept in the old sewing machine drawer in her bedroom.  We didn't get into it either but she would always give us whatever we would ask for.  We could choose between Big Red, Wrigley's Juicy Fruit, Wrigley's Spearmint or Peppermint.

I think the story that I will always remember though is the time that Granddaddy told Kent that he was going to tie me up and see how I liked it if I didn't quit tying his dog up.  He got upset with me for tying up his dog and I couldn't figure out how that dog kept getting loose!  I still remember that dog and could probably describe that dog all the way down to his wagging tail.  When Kent told me what Granddaddy had said, I stayed clear of him the rest of the day.  He made a believer out of me and I knew that I didn't want to be tied up!

I remember the "bridge" that Granddaddy had made so that he could cross when the creek was too high to get over in the pickup.  Lord only knows why he would need to cross that creek using that bridge that was sure to come crashing down any minute with the least amount of weight!  I think I remember crossing that bridge once and wondering how I was going to get back across to the othe