1923

Richard Eugene "Bud" Hayes & his wife, Gertrude Hood Hayes, and their two small boys, Altus and Orville Lee, moved from Flat Creek in Cass Co., to Jefferson (Marion County), in 1923. Mrs. Hayes, a devout Seventh-Day Adventist, wished to have the children study in a church school.

Mr. Hayes' parents, Edward & Lulu Irene Pilgrim Hayes, and their family had moved from SC to Tx. in 1901, when Bud, the third of the ten children, was six years old. The "family" included Bud's grandfather, William F. Hayes (1844-1908), and his grandmother, Lucinda Hayes(1839-1916), his uncle Rufus with his family and his aunt Mary and her husband, Henry Haines. All of them settled in Cass Co., northwest of Linden in the Flat Creek Community.

The first year the Hayeses were in Jefferson, Bud farmed. To supplement his income, he toured the county repairing wood stoves, picking cotton in West Texas, and doing some carpenter work. About 1927, he worked on a low-cost housing project in Northwest Jefferson, some of whose houses still stand today.

About this time, Bud purchased from Sears, Roebuck and Company two volumes of The Steel Squard, by Fred T. Hodgson, to supplement his six grades of schooling. and he bought an Underwood typewriter to "hunt & peck" out his bids. To add to his experience, he worked for Gulf Oil Company, building service stations, a job he kept until laid off when the depression hit. Then "it was back to cuttin wood," says Altus, "doing odd jobs, and raising a garden to survive."

One day Bud got word that Fred E. Meisenheimer, a local merchant, was going to build a new home. And Bud was asked to bid on the job. With no money, little education and experience, this man courageously bid $4,300....and got the job. Altus remembers his father "ended up with a profit, including labor, of about $430.00".

When this job was completed, he built a cottage for Mr & Mrs Olin C. Billingsley, Sr. This one was "more expensive, in the $5,000 category." Following this success, Bud's business expanded to the construction of schools, churches and commercial buildings. The school districts regularly hired him to build school buses......of oak timbers before "Bluebird" steel bus bodies were made. His building career saw the phasing out of the hand ripsaw, the Stanley hand plane with its more-than-50 bits, and teh hand-operated drill bits to the advent of the power-driven tools, prefabricated cabinets, pre-hung doors and windows, and sheetrock.

The Bud Hayes family livedin the Jefferson from 1923 until their deaths, Bud in 1952, age 57, and Gertrude i 1977, age 70. The three children survive. After completing school here, Altus was graduated from Union College, Lincoln, Nebraska. He, his wife, and two children live in Ft. Worth. Jimmie Lou, born in Jefferson, also resides in Ft. Worth. The O.L. Hayes family remain in Jefferson. Their daughter, Dianna Hume, a graduate of Jefferson Adventist Academy, makes her home in Keene, Tx.

Altus pays tribute to his father. His successful business was "built on service, honesty, and integrity".

By Dr. Lessie Culpepper Hagen as told by Altus Hayes - 1988

This information was taken from the Cass County Connection, Vol. 25, March 1999, pg 7-8

As published (expect where formatting was web prohibitive) in Cass County Connections. Cass County Connections is a quarterly publication put out by the Cass County Genealogical Society of Cass County, Texas.

Permission granted by Cass County Genealogical Society to Dana Thomas for publishing on The Cass County, TXGenWeb Project Pages.