JOURNAL OF MEMORIES page 4
by Bertha Williams Hood submitted by Jean Jackson
 

Courtship and Marriage 

During my early 20's I dated Homer Hodges for quite a while. He had a new Ford automobile, and often, on Sunday
afternoons, We would double-date for an afternoon "singing" at the church or go to Bowie for hot chocolate if it was
wintertime or cherry ice cream in the summer. At different times, three men had dated me. I had loved them each as a
friend and had tried to keep the subject of marriage from coming up, because I knew when I had to say "no" I would not
only lose him as a friend but he would start looking elsewhere for a wife. I had about decided I was incapable of loving
anyone enough for marriage, and then Charles Hood came along-quite unexpectedly- and I realized what love was. I met him
at his sister Rua's wedding. When she was a school teacher at Vashti we had been friends. Then she moved away, but she
came back home to be married to Mr. Jess Girard's son, Blake. She invited me to Post Oak for the wedding. That was when
I met Charles Hood. Rua had talked frequently about her old bachelor brothers who lived in Colorado, and I had pictured
two grizzled old men living 'way out West in a little cabin. I was pleasantly surprised to meet this nice looking man
with blue eyes and black hair in his early thirties. Later he said he fell in love with me when he first saw me. It
wasn't very long before I was quite interested in him, because I felt this was a man I could spend the rest of my life
with and trust my future to. We started dating. After about a year he asked me one day, " Do you think you could learn
to love me just a bit?" I shook my head and said, "No, but I think I could learn to love you a lot!" We began making
plans to marry the next spring, 1921. Fate intervened, and my sister-in-law, Lena died and left little twin baby girls
babies. Kathalee and Nathalee were five weeks old when Mama and Papa brought them home to rear. Mama had taken care of
them the whole five weeks of their lives and was just in love with them. Lena also left three other children: Thomas,
Miriam, and Charles Newton. I had stayed home to care for Grandfather Harber, who was living with us, while Papa and
Mama brought the babies back on the train. I just couldn't marry and leave Mama with such a burden just then, and
Charles understood. We put off our wedding until the next year, on February 19, 1922. I was twenty-six and Charles was
thirty-four years of age. We were married at my home with the family and a few close friends in attendance. My brother-
in-law, Dewitt Walker, performed the ceremony. Charles had a farm, we'd call it, but in Colorado everything of any
acreage was called a ranch. So we went there on our honeymoon by train. We changed trains at Pueblo, went on to Salida
to spend the night, and got on a little narrow gauge train that took us over the mountains-over the Continental Divide.
I'd never been in the mountains nor had ever seen anything like that scenery, and certainly I'd never seen so much snow.
We left the little train at Montrose and got on the wide gauge train to Delta. From there we went to Cedaredge on what
was called the stage, a bus, and Charles' brother Oscar met us. He had married a Colorado girl, Mabel Fogg, and they
were livings in Charles' house. They had to move out in order that we could move in. When we had been there long enough
to get settled, the neighbors came bringing gifts, and we all had such a good time together that we decided to form the
Cedar Mesa Club. Now, after sixty years, that club is still going strong. Not long after we moved from there, a
clubhouse was built on land across the road from our house. We lived together in Colorado for sixteen year, and I guess
we would still be there except for the drought of the 30's and the problem of getting water for irrigation down off the
mountain, Grand Mesa, which made farming impossible. But my memories of those early years of marriage in that beautiful
country are very dear to me.



My Husband

My Husband, Charles Hood, had six brothers. The two older than he got to ride the two saddle horses, while he rode a
little mule. At first it was fun, but as he grew taller it was embarrassing to ride into town or to church with his feet
in stirrups almost reaching the ground. But he preferred that to riding in the wagon with his five sisters. The mule
used the stirrups to rest first one hind hoof and then the other while he was tied to the hitching rack. Once in a while
he would get tired of standing in the heat or cold, so he would sit back on his haunches and that would break the strap.
Then he would slip out of his bridle and trot home. His Uncle Tom Hood gave Charles a pig. He was so proud of owning his
own livestock, and he spent numerous hours in building pigpens until he got one built strong enough to keep the pig in.
When his pig became a mother he traded hogs for calves, then cattle for horses. Later, when cars became more available
and affordable, he bought his first car with his livestock money. He was always such a hard worker, first with his big
family of brothers and sisters, then out on his own, and finally with our family. Charles and brother Oscar were
"batching" in Colorado in the years before World War I. Charles had gone to Colorado to be near his oldest brother,
Lester who was not well. Doctors didn't know what his problem was, but he kept getting weaker. He wrote Charles to come
out to be with them, and he went on the ninth of January, 1909. Maggie, Lester's wife, said they all had the best times
together. making candy and popping corn and telling stories. Lester was quite a trader, and he and Charles bought a
piece of land together that spring. Along in May Lester was getting so very weak, so a doctor from Salida was called in
for consultation. He diagnosed his problem as pernicious anemia, but I suppose it was leukemia because he died soon
after and left Maggie and two little children, Gene and Almeda. Charles stayed on and helped all he could until Maggie
got work as a nurse in Delta. Then Oscar came out to Colorado, and they "batched" for several years until Charles was
drafted into the army; Oscar was too old for military service. Charles worked, not only on his own land but also for
other people, in order to earn extra money. One very back-breaking job was clearing rocks off the land, big and little
rocks, so there would be more acreage for planting. Some of the rocks were so large that they had to be blasted apart
into more manageable sizes. A team would be hitched to a "slip" - like a sled. Then a large rock would be gradually
inched onto it with a lever, then hauled to a fence, and worked off. Nearly all of the fields had rock fences dividing
them from their neighbors. We had stone fences on the south, north, and east sides of our land. One day when Charles was
working by himself in the middle of his land, he heard a voice as plainly as if it were beside him. He knew immediately
it was the Holy Spirit speaking to him, so he accepted Jesus Christ as Lord of his life. He went to town each Saturday
for groceries, supplies, and the mail. On that special Saturday he received a letter from his mother in which she wrote,
"Oh, I wish you wee here. We're having the best revival meeting, and Son, I'm praying for you." So he knew that what he
had experienced was an answer to his mother's prayers. He was a self-taught carpenter, first working with and learning
from others, then drawing plans and building houses. He also learned the bee business from a neighbor, G. H. Patterson,
who lived on an adjoining farm near Cedaredge. After our marriage he began to buy hives of bees, only to lose a lot of
them from poisoned spray used on the apple blossoms where they gathered honey. So he moved his bees to near Ridgway,
Colorado. He also leased several bee yards already in that vicinity, and he had the busiest summer ever. He took off
twice as much honey as he ever had. It is interesting work, but very few people are willing to endure the inevitable bee
stings. My husband seldom got stung, and when he did he would brush the stingers out and go on about his work. I
remember one time when Dr. Bolton, a retired medical doctor, came by our place. Seeing Charles working in a nearby bee
yard, he stopped to learn something about beekeeping. It was a sunny day, and the bees were working contentedly. All
went well as Charles showed him a young queen that he had given to a hive needing a new queen. He also showed him a
swarm of bees that he was ready to put into a hive. Well, that was so interesting that the good doctor stopped by a week
or so later for his second lesson in beekeeping. That day was partly cloudy with a dry wind that had shriveled up the
alfalfa blossoms, so the bees were making a high-pitched whirring sound that told Charles they were mad and ready to
fight with any intruder, He warned the doctor not to make any quick movement, but when a bee started buzzing around his
nose, the doctor jerked off his cowboy hat and swung at the bee. Reinforcements arrived immediately, and the doctor was
last seen running down through the apple trees- still hitting at the line of bees that were following him. Charles' only
comment was: "He should have kept that hat on his bald head." Needless to say, the doctor never came back for lesson
number three!



My In-Laws

My mother-in-law, whose full name was Lucy Jackson Hightower Hood, was a little woman with brown hair worn in a flat bun
on the back of her head. Most of the Hightower's were large, tall people. She had three preacher brothers, and she
reared two sons to become ministers of the gospel, Oslin and Luther. She had seven sons and five daughters. Her Mother's
maiden name was Dudley. The Hightower's were English, as were the Hood, and the Dudleys were Holland Dutch. In the
larger families their genealogy would show two or three persons with the same name. I asked Mother Hood about that and
was told that if a child died, another child was sometimes given that same name. And I think, too, it was probably
because they didn't have a great variety of names as we do now in the United States. I also noted in their lineage that
one of the Dutch women in the family married William Penn, and they emigrated to what was then called New Amsterdam- now
New York. Mother Hood was always learning, always a scholar, but women in her circumstances didn't have opportunities to
better themselves in those days. She loved to read during the little leisure she had, and if she came across an
unfamiliar word she would look it up and learn how to spell it. When there were spelling bees at the school in Post Oak,
the captains of the teams would choose her first; she was such a good speller and could "spell down" all of her
opponents. William Andrew Hood was reared at Grandview, Texas, along with his two brothers and one sister. His father
died during the Civil War, and he had to take on the responsibilities of the whole family at the age of fourteen. He was
about six feet in height with black hair and blue eyes, and he always wore a beard and mustache from the time I knew
him. He was a man of few words, a staunch Methodist, and he never missed a church service. He was a self-appointed
custodian, building the fire to warm the church in the wintertime, and leader of the singing. One Sunday some of his
sons complained after church that he had pitched the songs too high. "Dad, when you came to 'Wiping Your Weeping Eyes'
we just couldn't reach you to help out." Several of their twelve children were delivered by midwife. It was difficult
for such a large family to make a living on a cotton patch, but, on the other hand, the more children they had the more
help they had for picking cotton. It was rather revealing that none of his children had over three offspring, and many
of them had only one. During one reunion, Daddy Hood was chiding some of the girls for not being more productive. They
told him that they didn't need all of those numbers to pick cotton since they didn't raise it anyway. Mother Hood would
mend at night by the fire after the other work was done. If a hold came in a patch, she would take the old one off. She
used to say, "Patch by patch is neighborly, but patch on patch is beggarly." She claimed she could always tell whose
pants she was working on by the place of wear-Oslin's were worn on the seat, and Charles' were worn on the knees; he was
always kneeling down to work on building some project. She was from Granbury, Texas, where they were married in the
early 1870's. Her parents, as well as a lot of other relatives, are buried in the Granbury cemetery. All twelve of the
children received certification and were school teachers at some time in their lives, except Clara. She cared for the
parents in their old age until their deaths, then she married late in life. Mother Hood died first, and Daddy Hood lived
to eighty-four years of age. All twelve children are dead, too, but a few of their widows are still living. We, along
with a grandchild representative from each family, still keep a family chain letter going that was started over sixty
years ago. In that way, we have been able to keep in touch with each other's lives all through the years.


Little Green Frog

My nephew, Charles Newton Williams, lives in Lordsburg, Mew Mexico. He was on Corregidor Island during World War II when
General MacArthur surrendered to the Japanese and left the islands. He happened to be sitting in a truck when the
Japanese came in to take them over, so he was ordered to drive the truck out. In that way he avoided the Death March.
But where his group went was a very difficult place with very little food, and many sickened and died. They were put
aboard a ship and taken to some other islands, and his detail of men were assigned to work in the copper mines. During
the cold wintertime they had nothing but straw sandals to wear on their feet. They were so starved that at one time they
boiled crankcase oil in water to clean it enough to use as a spread for their bread. They were so hungry for oil in
their bodies. He said he was determined to endure and come home, and he kept that thought foremost in his mind. When he
tried to imagine home, a picture of a little green frog kept coming into focus. That little green frog as a toothpick
holder that always stayed on his grandparents'-my parents'-table. In his misery it seemed to help him to keep his mind
on that. At last, the war was over, and he really did come home.



You must know that there is nothing more important to later life than some good memory, especially a memory of
childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good memory preserved from childhood
is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his
days; if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may be the means of saving us. -Dostoevsky, The
Brothers Karamazov



Epilogue

Mama lived with us a total of twelve years, four of those were after Charles' death. When she was no longer strong
enough to get around on her own two feet, at 99 years of age, she requested that we put her in a nursing home in Wichita
Falls, Texas. The twins, Nathalee and Kathalee, were dedicated to her welfare the last two years of her life. Her
funeral was in the Vashti Baptist Church where she and Papa had been charter members, and many of her descendants
gathered to sing "Amazing Grace." We all walked behind the casket the few yards to the cemetery that she had served as
the first association president. The cedar trees she had planted were still there. I could look around that small
community at the crossroads in North Texas and remember a gentle and slow-paced way of life. There was Leslie Liggett, a
barber who cut the boys' and mens' hair on Saturday afternoons when they would gather at his shop for a soda pop and
monthly haircut. No girls nor women went there because they didn't have their hair cut; the fashion of the day was long
hair done up in buns. Beauty shops were unknown(to me) until after I married in 1922. I remember a magic lantern show
Papa took us to see at the school house. Lights were turned out, and a kind of lantern reflected pictures onto a small
screen- a forerunner of the silent "movies." I remember the victrola with its cylindrical records and big painted
"morning glory" horn. I remember the crystal sets which were the first radios. I remember when we could first buy screen
wire, and soon everyone had screen doors and windows to keep the flies out. I remember May 10, 1906 when a tornado wiped
out the town of Bellevue. Papa and Buford were attending a "medicine show" at Vashti, and a man came riding into town
with the news. The show people went to Bellevue that night and worked at caring for the injured and dead. Papa went the
next day with his wagon and team to help clear away the dead animals. The earth has revolved 32,120 times, n=more or
less, since I was born there. I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams that I would live to travel from coast to
coast by jet plane in less time than it would take to go by horse and buggy to Wichita Falls. My children and
grandchildren think nothing of going on trips to the far corners of the earth- China, Egypt, South America, British
Isles, Spain, New Zealand.------(there were three chapters about the family, my mother etc... They have been omitted
because they are about living people. Maybe someday they will be included.)------I have spent several months of each
year with one of my girls' families, but I have kept my home in Hereford. It is a nice feeling to have my own place to
come back to between visits. I think about the vast changes in morals and family structure that have come about during
my lifetime, the Twentieth Century. Some of these changes could be cause for distress unless we also remember the
blessings brought about by breakthroughs in medical treatment, technology, travel, educational opportunities, and
government help for those who cannot care for themselves. Those of us who believe that God is in His heaven and is still
in charge of His creation can deal with all of the changes in our lives, knowing that there are those things which
endure and which we pass down to our children and to our childrens' children: truth, goodness, love of beauty,
friendship, family, courage, loyalty- the list goes on and on, but it all bonds together to form their heritage from us.
I began this book in order to pass down to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren something of their family history. -
--(Each grandchild wrote a short excerpt about themselves and their memories of Grandmother and Grandfather. I haven't
included these stories because they are very personal and all but one are still living-including me! jj)---It has been
interesting for me to watch these young people grow and develop their talents.

I will close my book with this appropriate quotation from the Book of Psalms 103:17 and 18: But the loving-kindness of
the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children; To
those who keep His covenant, and who remember His precepts to do them. 

THE END