Submitted by: Connie Draper

The Cousins Reunion was held March 30, 1996. After lunch everyone gathered around to hear Aunt Onie as she reminisced about the Drapers in the earlier years. This is Aunt Onie's story.

My father's name was Charles Stanford "Chart" Draper, my grandfather was John Stanford Draper and he was buried at the Antioch Cemetery. My grandmother was Margaret and she was buried there also. My father and mother are buried there, too. I scarely remember my grandmother, I was young and I don't remember a lot, but what I do remember about grandmother Draper is very interesting and I've never forgotten it through the years. One time we visited her in the Antioch community close to the Baptist Church and cemetery. I remember I thought she had the fattest beds I had ever seen in my life, she had beautiful covers on the beds.

I remember so well in those days, children were not allowed to meddle into things. I remember going into one of the rooms and she had a glass slipper sitting on the dresser and I was just tall enough to see upon the dresser. I remember so well as I stood there and looked at the glass slipper with its high heel, that I would love to have that, but I knew I was not to touch it. I, also remember she had 2 or 3 big solid white rocking chairs sitting on the front porch. I remember she had long hair and it was just as white as it could be and that is about all I remember about her. She was, perhaps, in her seventies when she died.
Grandpa Draper lived a long time, I don't remember exactly how old he was. He lived with us quite a long time before he died. I would say he was in his eighties when he died. I remember a lot about Grandpa, I loved him and he did me. For years and years, he wore long chin whiskers and they came down on his chest and they were snow white. He was a kind man, before he died he gave me his feather bed. I have a lot of memories about him, he thought a lot of my mother and she did him. He got along well with my father and mother, we had no problems with him in the family. I was a teen-ager, about 15, when he died. He died at our house. He was sick for a short time, but he was old. He chose to live with us.

His other children were Uncle Will, Uncle Tom, Aunt Maggie, Aunt Mollie, Uncle Sam, Uncle Cliff and Aunt Donie. We lived close to Uncle Tom and Uncle Cliff at Antioch and Aunt Mollie lived at Piney Grove. We were not very close because the only way we had to go visit was with the wagon and team of mules and we would stay for the week-end. People in those days did not seem as close as families are now, it was quite different.

My grandfather came here from Macon, Georgia, he was in the Confederate Army and the Union Soldiers had burned them out and they moved to Cass County, Texas, because a lot of people were moving to Cass County from Georgia. At that time Georgia was devastated, nothing left. All the children were born in Cass County, Texas, as far as I know. [Note: Records show that Tom, Will, Donie, Sam, and Chart were born in Barbour County, Alabama.]

Navada [Waters Haynes] had a picture that belonged to Hattie, it came out in the Atlanta paper years ago, maybe Navada kept this picture. My grandfather Draper was wounded in the war, he was shot in the hand. I remember one finger overlapped another finger, it was all crooked. We, as children would look at this picture and wonder what happened to him. It was a good picture of him but really and truly that's about all I remember about him back then.

As far as I know, my mother and father were born in Cass Co. [Charles "Chart" Stanford Draper was born in Alabama.] My mother was Martha "Mattie" Trimble Draper. [records do not show where she was born] We, children didn't know much about my mother's parents, if the older ones were here, they could probably tell you more. I was a little girl when I remember my mother telling us, her mother and father died young. She would tell us her father was Jonas Trimble and I don't remember her mother's name. I don't even remember visiting them.

In those days they worked in what they called the swamps, now we would call it the river bottoms or whatever, but mother always called it in the swamps. One day grandfather took what in those days was called Black Jaundice, which today we call it Yellow Jaundice. He died a rather young man, as I remember my grandmother was left with 6 small children to raise. Sometime thereafter she took the 6 children [all were walking] on a visit to one of her neighbors. I don't know all the details, whether they were still there or on the way home or maybe a short time later, her mother died leaving the 6 small children. The children were Aunt Sara, my mother's oldest sister, my mother, Mattie, a brother Bill, twin brothers Cicero and Monroe and Gertrude, mother's youngest sister. An old couple, I'm not sure, a Mr. and Mrs. John Griffin took the children. I'm not sure whether they took all of the children or not. This couple must have been up in years themselves, they never had any children and the Griffin man was a preacher. That is where the children went as far as I know, until they grew up or were married. I do not know where my parents met and married.

Our family homeplace was in the Blaylock community, we always owned our home. So many very vivid rememberances of the place, it was a large log house that had been built onto. It was a very warm, stable, comfortable house. We went to school at Blaylock first, before moving to Linden. The Blaylock school was on the road going toward the park, I was real young when we went to Blaylock.

My daddy farmed his own land, he made us a good living. One time he bought a big farm out of Linden and sold this one with the log house. He would sell land and our home to make a profit from time to time. Daddy was head of the household completely. He was certainly a good business man. I never knew my daddy [he didn't have a barrel of money] to be without money and I never knew about a debt until after I married, that's the truth. If my daddy was ever in debt, you couldn't make me believe that. He owned his own farm, the farm he bought in Linden was 200 acres. I'm not putting any stress on anything, I'm trying to be as honest as I can. That was a fine farm, a lot of it was in timberland. This farm was two and one half miles northwest of Linden. We walked from there to school in Linden, never did we ever get there many times, before the last bell rang. Can you imagine that!!! We brought our lunch to school in a bucket when we were living in Linden.

Claude, the oldest boy left home before he was twenty, he went to live with Aunt Gertrude [mother's oldest sister] and Uncle Lewis Dupree in the Antioch community. When Berta left home, I don't know how old she might have been, she went to live with Uncle Tom [my daddy's oldest brother] and Aunt Florence. The reason they left home is a strong question for, we had a very strict daddy!!! That is as straight as I can put it! Hattie married Johnnie Waters, when we lived in the big log house and at that time she had a big wedding!! She was the first to get married, then Idalia married Bob Patterson and Berta married Newton Waters. He then had a job with Vivian Oil Company, he came up and got her in a jitney. They were married in Bloomburg and went to Vivian to live. Claude met Susie Griffin from Forest Hill [at one time he held a singing school at Forest Hill and he may have met her there] supposely, he married one of his students. That only left four children at home, Coy, Red, Milam and me.

My daddy helped Johnnie and Hattie a lot, I think she was his favorite!!! When we lived at Linden in the big house, my daddy had a rent house across the field from the big house, my daddy let Hattie and Johnnie have the big house and we, the bigger family moved over in this little rent house. Then my daddy built another rent house, for Bob and Idalia, on this land and that's where Clifford was born. Idalia and Bob had moved into the rent house at Linden that my daddy built, when Leon was a small boy. Navada was born in the big house, Hattie and Johnnie had two more boys that died. So, My daddy sold the big farm out of Linden and bought a nice house and lot in Linden, We were still going to school there, we lived in Linden quite awhile. My daddy, by this time wasn't in too good of health, nothing serious, but he bought a place in Arkansas.

I think he thought buying this place, being near the mountains, his health would improve. My daddy was a smart man, we had a telephone, but no one used it, but our parents. When my daddy bought this place in Arkansas, he took the newspapers, Arkansas Gazette, Kansas City Star and the Dallas News. He took, at least two of these newspaper, he kept up with what was going on, the best he could. He gets on the train and goes to Arkansas, by this time we have moved back to the Antioch community, down on the branch, where Morris and Navada's place is now.

My daddy bought this farm about two and one half miles southeast from Cove, Arkansas. It was a nice place, but we only stayed there two years, the crops were ready to be harvested when we moved there, the corn and the cotton was the main crops. It was a nice house with an upstairs, and a big barn. We gathered the crops and spent the winter there, mother was never satisfied there, but I loved the place. Coy, Red, Milam and I went to summer school there, they didn't have winter school. Mother was unhappy there, so we moved back to the Antioch community after two years. This farm was located about 20 miles south of Mena, Arkansas and us kids had never been out of Cass County before. My mother handled things very well, compared to that she never had any experience in moving that far. My mother hired a jitney to take us to Bloomburg to get on the Kansas City Southern train to take us to Arkansas. It took us all day long to get to Cove, we were startled, we had never been on a train before. We were coming into DeQueen, Arkansas, there we were beginning to get in the mountains and they had to change the engines, before we could continue. We were there quite awhile and we just waited and looked, finally they got another engine attached to pull the train into the mountains and we continued on to Cove. When we got there , Daddy was there waiting on us.

My daddy had two horses, Old Charlie and Old Shorty, fine horses, daddy had hired, his brother Cliff and Lee Watkins from the Antioch community to help with the move. My daddy had a covered wagon and he had hired these two men to take everything we would need to live on in this wagon, it took several days for them to get there. Uncle Cliff and Lee Watkins were there with Daddy when we arrived in Cove.
Cove was just a small town, there was a well in the middle of the street where you could get water and to water your horses. We went on out to the farm, it was late afternoon as we left Cove. We went up this little mountainside and I looked to the north, saw what looked like a blue norther, from the east, west, south and north, it looked like a big cloud coming over and I said something about it, my daddy said it was the mountains. It was a chain of mountains, we had never seen anything like it before, anyway that's the way it was. I was about 12 then.

Coy was so scary and Milam wasn't scared of nothing in this world, he was Coy's bodyguard in school. That's the truth!! The only way we had to get mail was to go into Cove. Coy had a little Bay or Sorrel horse that could really run. I think he had a saddle, I'm not sure. Anyway, daddy sent him into Cove to get the mail. He thought he saw an Indian [Coy was scared of his own shadow] he ran that little horse, I guess as fast as that horse could run, back to the house. He said he saw an Indian [there were lots of Indians back then].

[Aunt Pauline is telling this] "Red said when they got to Cove, they ate supper with a neighbor and Red remembered that they had a bucket of persimmons on the table for dessert." Oh, you children should be glad you live in 1996, I'll tell you I've been through it.

Uncle Cliff and Lee Watkins came back to Cove to move us back to the Antioch community, they came back just like they went, They had horse feed and I'm sure mother fixed some food for them and they brought our belongings back to Antioch. One reason my mother was unhappy there, she was not well there. Had it not been for Berta, my mother might not have made it, she was at the age she needed help. Berta was the only one that could help her and buy the medicine she needed. Daddy was not too well at this time either. My mother was going through the change of life. but we didn't talk about those things back then.
We moved back to the house on the creek [it was vacant], it probably belonged to Hattie and Johnnie. You, the younger generation has had it so good, in so many ways and it is a nightmare to you, when we tell you things, you can not understand. But we did have a good life. We were living in the house on the creek, my daddy was drinking some, I don't want to leave this on a sad note, we'll try not to do that. Although it is a fact, it's not a secret, we lived with it and we lived through it. One thing about it, my daddy got on opium named Brometial [spelling may not be right], I do not know whether it is on the market now nor do I care. By now we were living where Hubert Hill's rent house is now. My daddy was not well at all, he had what has come down through the generations, the irregular heartbeat. I saw my daddy many times, when the main artery on his neck would be pounding with each beat of the heart. Our opinion was that the opium medicine, that he took by mouth, was to make him feel better if he wasn't drinking perhaps this opium was his substitute for drinking. By this time my daddy was rather thin, he took to drinking even more, it was beyond control by this time. I'll never forget Uncle Cliff, oh, how we loved Uncle Cliff. By this time Aunt Willie, Uncle Cliff's wife was dead and he lived with his young daughter, not far from Antioch. We were afraid of our daddy and who wouldn't have been? Late every afternoon, we would hope that Uncle Cliff would come. I guess Ila, Uncle Cliff's daughter may have married Chester Griffin by this time and Uncle Cliff lived down the road from the Antioch Baptist Church by himself. We would look down this road hoping to see Uncle Cliff coming, I remember he almost always wore striped overalls. You children will never know the relief we felt, when we saw him coming, he would take care of everything and he did. When my daddy got so bad at this drinking, at night Johnnie, Bob and Uncle Cliff would come trying to control him. I will never forget that one night [he didn't like Bob, but cared a lot for Johnnie] they were trying to control him in the kitchen, mother had a cloth over the dishes. He ran his hand under this cloth to get a knife. He was going to cut Bob's throat, but they all helped to get him under control.

When he got to where they couldn't control him anymore, my daddy's doctor, Dr. Strong from Queen City got everything organized. He made arrangements to coax my daddy to get in the car and they took him to the jail in Linden. We don't know how long he was there, it was an old jail. We had passed it everyday, when we went to school in Linden. He had been there several days, when Hattie and Johnnie took mother, Milam, Red and me to the jail to see daddy. I remember we sat down on the bunk bed to visit with him and then we went home. We never knew if he had an attack with his heart or what, we never knew!!! That's what took his life, he died there in jail, he was only 56 years old!!! A lot of you children do not know about the family because your parents did not tell you. I only remember going to see him one time while he was in jail, he may have been there several weeks, I do not know. When he passed away we went to Linden, someone had made a casket for him and we came back to this house at Antioch. When he died I was already married at this time, about a year. Milam, Red and Coy were still at home. Mother stayed on with the boys for quite awhile. Mother got a little insurance money, not very much. Maybe it was after the boys had married or left home, that she moved in the little house on our land up above my house.

Everyone of you listen to this, I had one of the dearest, sweetest mothers that ever lived in this world. At this time I was living in Henderson, Texas, Idalia and Hattie decided that my mother should break up housekeeping. Please, I don't hold any grudges toward anyone, but that was one of the worst things we have ever done. She wasn't that old, she lived there in that little house, she had her chickens, her flowers and her grassless yard. When Hattie and Idalia did all this arrangement, they didn't mention one thing about it and I think I have mind enough to know that I'm right. They decided that mother would stay a month with each of us girls [didn't include the boys] for fifty dollars a month. I have regretted taking mother's fifty dollars a month, I hope and pray that the Lord forgives me for taking her money. Although I know we probably needed it and was glad to get it, but I still regret it. Mother only got sixty-five a month and after she died, Berta divided her money and I got thirty-five dollars. I took that money and bought a table, a coffee table, which I still have in my home today.

I never ever heard mother say a thing about a daughter-in-law, and she could have, but she didn't. My mother had a hard time, she put up with the kids, the grandkids without one bit of trouble.

[LaRue] I remember we were living with Granny when Delorias was born, something must have happened that her kids would come back to live with her!!
Maybe that was when Milam quit working for Magnolia and began pipefitting, but it wasn't for long.

[Delorias] Was grandpa mean to you all when he got on that drug? Was there any abuse?
I can't say he was any worse when he was on the drug, but I know one thing when you got a whipping, you knew you had one. Sometimes when he gave us a whipping, if he had of explained why we were getting a whipping [parents didn't explain anything in those days], maybe we would have done things differently. I remember one time when he gave Milam a whipping, Milam and Red were swinging on a swing near a shed. Anyway, Milam was pushing Red in the swing and they were going too high and Red hit his head on a nail. I imagine that Red was crying and hollering loud, daddy picked up this rope from the ground, double it and gave Milam a whipping with it, I'll never forget that!!! He didn't abuse us, oh no, not at all. One time my daddy gave me a whipping with a switch, when I was just a little girl. My mother had made us some apron dresses with big pockets, I had on this little apron dress when he gave me a whipping. I guess I just stood there and took it. Later my mother called me to her in the fireplace room and she pulled that little apron dress up to my neck [I can almost see and feel it right now]. She said Chart. I want you to look and see where you have whipped this little girl. Sometimes when you think Aunt Onie has a lot to think about, she does. I think about that scripture where Paul wrote in the Bible, "I forget the things that are behind and I'm looking forward to the things ahead." I wish to the Lord that Paul had of told us how to do that, but he didn't.

[LaRue] What kind of diet did you all have? Did you have plenty of food?
Daddy raised the food that we ate, we had our own pigs, cows and chickens. Raised our own vegetables. Daddy went to town to buy the other things we needed. I never knew my mother to go into town, but a very few times in the wagon. We always had plenty to eat and my mother was a very good cook.
I can say a lot of good things about my daddy, don't misunderstand me, it wasn't always that bad. My daddy went all out for Christmas. At Christmastime, my daddy would go into town, he had the money, Mother didn't have money. You children probably don't know about the wooden boxes of raisins that were dried on the stems, they were tightly packed in this wooden box, which was not very thick. He would buy a box of raisins, apples and oranges. He would always buy us girls a doll, these were porcelain dolls. He probably paid 1.98 for them, I wish I had one today!! Berta would get the brunette and I got the blond, we played with these dolls, they would close their eyes to sleep, oh they were so beautiful. I would always examine their eyes, I would poke on the eye and it would go back in the head, I would never see it again!! That's the truth!! Us girls always got dolls and the boys got B.B. guns. I remember one time, my daddy, he was coming from Atlanta [he was drinking] and as he was coming out of town, he was chunking apples and oranges [he had bought] to the neighbors. He did get home with some of them. Something I remember down the years to this day, oranges smell like Christmas to me.

[Delorias] Did your daddy ever hold you all, show any affection or tell you that he loved you?
I never heard the word "Love" mentioned in my family until I married Lillian Young. No one ever told me I was loved, parents just didn't say it then. One time Red was telling me this, many times I visited him, we could laugh and cry together when we talked about our past, we shared many memories. Red said one time when we were younger, we were all sitting around on the porch, daddy told Red to come here. Red got up and went to daddy, he wanted Red to sit on his lap. You were too scared not to do what you were told. I believe that my daddy was a very unhappy man, for what reason I don't know. Berta told me one time, when they were sitting on the back steps and he had a handkerchief, he held it up and said I've cried this handkerchief wet with tears, We never knew why, I think, he was unhappy and he was depressed a lot. We never understood him, I don't believe any of us did.

I guess I felt closer to Idalia than some of the others, we could talk so easily. She had the personality and lifestyle that was entirely different than Berta. When I visited with Idalia and then went to visit with Berta, I had to completely change over to Berta's personality and lifestyle. I loved them both.

[Joe Draper] Wasn't grandfather a perfectionist in his work?
Very much so!! My daddy was smart, I remember when I was a young girl, I could remember all the presidents we had since Taft. Daddy took the newspapers and he read a lot. Daddy said we were going to have trouble with Russia, I didn't know Russia from Adam, but that has stuck with me through all these years. He was well-read and he had the most beautiful handwriting you would ever want to look at. What I would have given to have a handwriting like his. Hattie's handwriting was like his. He would have made a good politician, I took after him in this. He loved to read, I don't know what kind of education he had, he didn't help us with our school work, we had one lamp to study by, I would clean the lamp globe with newspaper, so we could see better.

[Aunt Pauline] Red said one time, that he wished that he could have been older when his daddy was living, maybe he could have understood him better and helped him!!
Yes, I think so!! We didn't know him and we were so intense not to disobey or to go against his will. I remember one time in my daddy's fields, he almost wanted it to look like the yard, before he plowed it. We cut the corn stalks, cotton stalks and picked up rotten stumps to burn them, before he would plow. It was like he was kinda driven to work hard at all times. I remember one time we were in the fields and he needed something to get the fire started. He told me to go out in the woods and get some pine straw. I didn't know how much he was talking about. I found a limb with some pine straw on it. I brought it to him [I was shaking], I didn't know whether it would work, but he took it and use it. You children have so much to be thankful for and I have, too. We didn't go to school until the crops were in good shape, The crops were well started before we went to school.

[Mae Patterson] Was there any Indian blood down the line?
Not that I know of, we knew so little about my mother's family, she was a precious mother and grandmother.

This is the conclusion to the whole matter, the way I see it. With the chance we had, I'm including my immediate family, we had the potential, but we didn't have the opportunity and we could have had, my daddy had the money. But this is the conclusion!! This is the way Aunt Onie sees it and it will always be there. I don't like to use the words pride or proud because the Lord doesn't like that word. He doesn't like pride and I don't want to be proud or have too much pride. This is the way I see it and I think you would have seen it this way, if you had of lived through it. This is the conclusion!! None of us in the immediate family did not reach fame or fortune, but we did real well. I don't want anyone to ever insinuate to me in any form or fashion that we have not done real well with the chance we had.

[Delorias] How did you all come in contact with the Lord? How old were you all?
You know Berta and Newton were living in Northfell, Arkansas, near Luanne, Newton was working for Mobil Oil Co. at that time. Brother and Sister Hemphill were there in a revival meeting and that's where Berta and Newton got started going to church, Later, Bro. and Sis. Hemphill and family came here to Antioch near the Baptist Church at a Brush Arbor on Mrs. Josey Allen's property. Mrs. Allen really did like everything about Pentecost, but she never made any moves as far as I know, The Brush Arbor was built on her property close to the church, there was a lot of persecution then. One night in a service, someone was throwing rocks and hitting the backboard behind the piano, we never knew who was throwing the rocks. Mrs. Baker, Coy's Mother-in-law, was sitting on the end and one of the rocks hit her foot, I don't know how bad she was hurt. There were persecution and there will be more, listen to Aunt Onie, there will be more, it's on its way. Remember that!! There was a lot of persecution, they threw us out of the church, they said we denied the faith. Hattie and Johnnie were the hub of the church. God in Heaven only knows about all the bouquets of flowers, the food and all the things Hattie and Johnnie did for the church. Claude got the Holy Ghost at this time and went into the ministry, we were all married at this time except for Red and Milam [they helped build the Brush Arbor].

I appreciate being here so much and I love each and every one of you so much.