JOURNAL OF MEMORIES
by
Bertha Williams Hood
submitted by Jean Jackson

PREFACE

In each of our minds there are many images formed while we are very young-special places which are meaningful to us, especially the place we spent our childhood before we had to take on the cares of adult life. But wherever we go we are only a memory away from that place, and we can recall with great clarity fragrances of spring flowers, a certain cast of autumn light, tastes of favorite foods, the closeness of a loving family, and the joy of friendships.

This book is about my memories of life within the family circle and community in which we lived. I was born January 3, 1896, 31 years after the end of the Civil War. Especially the Southern states were laid waste and had to begin, by whatever means they could, to rebuild their homes and the country. Factories were mostly in the North, so goods had to freighted down rivers, then by train, and on to the western outposts by freight wagons. It was a hard life, but pioneers were hardy people.

As little settlements sprang up, someone would open a general store. Schools and churches would organize, and neighbors would help build homes and clear land of trees so crops could be planted. We didn't think about national problems very much. In those days before World War I most folks were more interested in their neighbor's sick cow than what went on in Washington. Without the government welfare programs those who didn't work didn't eat, so people were totally involved in providing food, clothing, and shelter for their families.

I grew up in a family of two boys and two girls, and I am the only member of that family still living. I was 88 years old on January 3, 1984. Mama outlived all of the rest of her children and died in 1972 at 101 years of age. Papa died in 1954 when he was 88 years old.

Thomas Hudson Williams, Father of my papa Charles Lemuel Williams, came to Texas with his uncle, Lemuel Newsom, and a cousin of his age, Eldridge Newsom. Thomas never saw his father who was killed by a falling tree limb as he sat on his horse while it was drinking from a creek. His mother, Mary (Polly) Newsom, Married again to a man named Richard Lester, but Thomas lost track of them during the Civil War and the Reconstruction period following. The Civil War was brewing when Thomas Hudson and young wife, Mary Ann(Simmons), moved from Rusk County to Collin County, TX in 1860.

They were well-to-do as far as owning livestock was concerned, but while the men were away at war some rustlers stole their horses and drove off their cattle. Their slaves ran away, and there was no one to tend the crops. Hard times followed. Mary Ann and her sisters, along with their small children, came home to their parents'. Her father and a few older men did whatever they could to help those who had no food or were sick. He made pine coffins for the dead, preached their funerals, and buried them.

Mary Ann, my grandmother, told her children how she and her sisters would hitch a yoke of oxen to a cart and haul water from a creek. Sometimes they would take along a big black pot and lye soap to do the washing beside the creek. Late one evening as they were returning to the house a young panther ran out of the woods and played around like a kitten, darting in and out among the cattle. The girls took off their aprons and "shooed" it until they got close enough to the house to call the dogs.

Because of exposure and poor food during the Civil War, Thomas never had good health during the rest of his life. He was a nice-looking man with brown hair and brown eyes, and he had a reputation of having the longest beard in Collin County. Mary Ann was Irish with reddish hair and fair skin which Papa inherited. A good manager of their resources, she always "set a good table." She had a big cookie jar filled with soft ginger and molasses cookies whenever the grandchildren were visiting. A hot toddy every morning was here antidote for the rigors of rearing thirteen children.

Papa grew up in a family that loved music. Neighbors would gather to sing with them on Sunday afternoons. The boys all played musical instruments, such as the harmonica, jew's harp, guitar, and violin. Grandfather made piccolos out of joints of water cane. The five girls learned to play the piano and organ. We grandchildren particularly loved to hear Aunt Betty (Martha Elizabeth) play the guitar and sing ballads.

Mama was Minnie Elizabeth, Daughter of Thomas William Harbour (Harber) and Sallie Agnes Harbour. She was born on October 14 1871 in Madison County, Kentucky. When she was nine years old she came with her parents and brother James Thomas Harber to Allen, Collin County, Texas. The first day they attended school my father, a big red-headed Irish boy of fifteen, thought she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She had dark brown hair and big brown eyes and was wearing a red cap and red coat. Years later he would still tell the story of how he remembered slapping his leg and exclaiming, "She's mine if I never get her!"

Mama's parents moved to Clay County when she was sixteen, and Papa asked her to marry him the next year on December 27,1888. The following year Mama lost her first babies, twin girls, at birth. many years later when she was fifty, she fell heir to the task of rearing twin granddaughters, Kathalee Yocum of Wichita Falls and Nathalee Davidson of Bellevue, Texas, whose mother died shortly after their birth.

Papa and Mama bought a farm about three-quarters of a mile west of a new little store and post office that had just been names Vashti in honor of a Mr. Turner's niece. On November 13, 1890 daughter Mary Agnes was born. In 1893 they had their first son, Thomas Buford. I was third in line on January 3, 1896, and George Dewey came along to join the family in 1898. Mama had one more little girl, Audrey joy, in 1906. She was the love of our lives, but she contracted infant diarrhea which was untreatable in those days. She died at the age of two years, four months, and nineteen days, leaving a great sorrow in our home.

Mary married Edwin Dewitt Walker, the son of our neighbor, in 1910. They had seven children: Dorethy, Paula, Stuart, Nina, Phillips, Lota, and Joy. They lived in several towns in Oklahoma where he served as pastor of Baptist churches. It was while they were living in Dill City their second daughter, Paula, died in March of 1937 at the age of 21. Mary lived to the age of 81 and died on July 21, 1971. The local Sayre, Oklahoma newspaper called the family to verify the part of the obituary that stated she was survived by her mother. It was true-Mama was 100 at the time.

Buford married Salena George of Burleson, Texas in 1913. They already had three children-Thomas, Miriam, and Charles Newton- when twin girls were born to them on January 9, 1921. Mama went to Electra to help out, but Leta died when the babies were about six weeks old. Papa and Mama brought them home and reared them as their own. I postponed my marriage for a year to help mama, who also had her aged father living with us. Grandfather Harber died on June 17, 1922 and was buried beside his wife in the Vashti cemetery. Buford's next marriage to Dollie Herndon produced one son, Terry. After her death he married again to Gladys Hungerford. He died in Deming, New Mexico on December 17, 1967.

Dewey married Sadie Mae McCord of Waxahachie in November 23, 1919, and they moved to Electra,Texas where their daughter Minnie Earle and son Clifton Lemuel were born. In the summer of 1944 Clifton, a fine looking red-headed boy who was a senior in Electra High School and captain of their football team, was killed when a drunken driver ran into their family car. In 1952 Dewey was killed in a hunting accident.

I married Charles Hood on February 19, 1922 and we had three daughters: Mary Lee, Nettie and Audrey. But I have gone into detail about my life in this book, so I will not elaborate in it here.

As a summer project while I was in Eastland, Texas in 1982, my Family asked me to tape my remembrances for my grandchildren in order that they might know something of their family background. Much to my surprise I filled ten tape cartridges with the memories of my family and our life together. My daughter, Nettie, transcribed the material, divided it into chapters, and typed it for printing. It is my hope that all of Papa's and Mama's descendants will find pleasure in reading this book. I am so fortunate to have been able to live long enough to share my recollections and to pass along these memories to you, dear reader.

B. W. H.

Hereford, Texas

Spring 1984

MY EARLIEST MEMORY

My very earliest recollection I can pinpoint was in the fall before I was three years old on January 3rd-that would be 1899. I remember seeing Grandmother Harbour, Mama's mother who lived on far catty-cornered from ours, run across the kitchen and dump a bad egg into the garbage pail. I guess the reason I remember it so well is because I never had seen her run like that in the house.

That was the same fall my sister, Mary, was ill with "slow fever" for about two months, and she was very sick part of the time. My baby brother, Dewey, was about five months old, so Grandmother Kept me at her house, oh, quite a bit that fall. I remember at Christmas time-my sister was getting well-Papa went to Bowie and got her the prettiest doll I had ever seen. It had a china head with black wavy hair and a kidskin body. After the body was worn out my sister made a new one. And as long as she kept house she had that doll head with lace gathered around the shoulders, sitting up on a shelf.

As we grew a little older, Dewey and I had great fun playing together. We played out in the orchard under a big apple tree. He'd always agree to play whatever I wanted to, and of course I always liked to play house. We didn't take my good doll dishes outside. We marked off the rooms of the "house" with little rocks, and we used sticks or blocks of wood for furniture and bits of broken dishes for furnishing the "kitchen." When we tired of that, there was a forked limb on the tree that was just right for "skinning cats." We'd grasp the two limbs, walk up the tree, flip over between our arms, and drop to the ground. Many years later when I saw this forked limb on a mulberry tree in our front yard-I must have been in my teens-I thought about those times and wondered if I could still do that. I looked up the road and down the road and didn't see anybody in sight, so I quickly walked up the tree trunk and flipped over. I failed to turn loose soon enough, and I just darn near twisted my arms out of their sockets. Well, that was the last "cat" I ever "skinned."

Farm children in those days got up early. They went to bed early, and they got up early. The whole family gathered around the breakfast table. There wasn't any "sleeping in" for us, if we were well. So we'd gather around the table early in the morning, and we little ones always sat on each side of Papa so he could serve our plates and help us to manage the eating of our food.

Mama would churn in the morning, and Dewey and I would be there with our biscuit to have some fresh butter put on it. Then sometimes we would get some meat left over from breakfast, put that in between our biscuit halves, and go outside to eat it. Often we would punch a hole in the soft side of the biscuit and fill it with syrup. We'd go out on the west side of the house in the shade. Two rocks were there that made great seats.

Too, there was the swing on the oak tree in the back yard, as well as one in the barn. When we were a little older we could play up in the loft of the barn, and when the barn was almost empty we could make a swing on the rafters. Other times it was filled with hay and bundles of oats. Sometimes we'd find a hen's nest up in the barn, but often we didn't find it until the old hen was sitting on the eggs. We'd have to watch her very carefully and bring her and the chickens down when they hatched out so they could get food and water. We hunted eggs for Mama. Sometimes we would find hen nests in the woodpile. Sometimes we'd find them in the end of the trough where Papa fed hay to the horses. And then, of course, there was the hen house where the hens laid most of the eggs. We got to watch Mama and help her put the little chickens with the old hen in a coop to keep them safe. I remember on time she had taken off two hens and put all of the chickens,about twenty, under one hen she thought would make the best mother. A day of two later she went to let them out of the coop to feed them, and there wasn't a chick in sight. The old hen was agitated and clucky and fussy, and her feathers were all ruffled up. Mama knew at once a skunk had broken into the coop. She could see where he had scratched a hole to enter. She started to hunt for the lost chicks, and sure'nough, there in the old smokehouse behind a box was a pile of little dead chickens. The old skunk had bitten each one through the head, sucked the blood, and got another.

We couldn't let animals take our food supply because we had to live, too. So when an animal started to bother, such as that skunk, Papa would put a little strychnine in a hole of fresh eggs and place it in the smokehouse. The next morning that old skunk had dropped dead as a doornail, without time to even leave a scent.

There was one time when a 'possum got into the hen house, and Papa had to kill it. At different times bull snakes made their way into the hen nests, or among the eggs if the nests were out in the woodpile or along the fence. One time we came home from a trip to Collin County about sundown, and Mama went to see if there were any eggs in the nests. There was a snake in a nest which was close to the ground. she started pounding it with a stick which knocked the bottom of the nest out, and the snake landed on her feet. About that time she looked up at the row of nests on the wall, and another snake was looking her in the face. So she had to call for reinforcements that time, but Mama was pretty brave when it came to fighting anything that was bothering our food supply.
CHILDHOOD CHORES

We had chores to do as we got older. The butter churning was Dewey's and my job every morning. Mama would get the churn all ready with the cream and clabber in it. She'd come to the door-"Bertha, Dewey, the churn's ready!" Oh, we hated to quit our play and churn butter. We'd each take turns churning one hundred times. We'd finally get pretty tired, and we'd beg Mama to put some hot water in it to "come" to butter sooner, but that would have made the butter whit and puffy. Mama would churn for a little wile until we could take over again.

We'd have to take a bucket down to the horse lot, or corral, and pick up dry cobs for Mama to start her fire in the stove to get breakfast. She'd put a little coal oil in the bottom of a can, put about three corncobs down into it ,and during the night it would soak up to about halfway on the cob. The next morning she could take hold of the top of the cob without getting oil on her hands and start a fire very easily.

As we got a little older we could pick cotton. We thought it was great fun at first, but then the fun soon wore off. Papa let us pick on each side of the two rows he was picking. We had big flour sacks to put our cotton into until we filled them; then we'd put ours into Papa's sack. In those days we "picked" the cotton out of the burr. We grew special kind that had big bolls which made fluffy white cotton. Later, when mechanical means were used to pull the burrs and all, the cotton was so dirty and didn't look at all pretty. I never picked very much cotton, and we had the most fun when we could get into the wagon and play.

Papa let us go to the cotton gin about once during the season, just to see how it worked. We would ride 'way up high on the big load of cotton. We would have to wait our turn at the gin. And sometimes we wouldn't have to wait very long before Papa would get the signal to pull our wagon in underneath the suction pipe. The men running the gin would let that high old pipe down and guide it all around over the top of the wagon to suck up the cotton. It was taken up into the gin. There it was ginned (cotton separated from the seed), and a big roll of cotton would go down into the press where it was formed into a box-like shape. When the correct amount of cotton would come into the press, then they'd let the big form that hung above it come down, and the steam would give it the power to compress the cotton very tightly. As soon as they got it all into a bale-of course they had ties and bagging already in this box-like shape-they would wrap the bagging over the top and fasten the ties around the bale. I think it took about three steel ties to hold the bale. The final step was letting down one side of this box and rolling the bale out, and it would be all finished. About 500 to 600 pounds of cotton would be put into one bale. A 500 pounder was called a "light bale" and sometimes when a man was finishing up his field, he would want to put all of it into the last bale. That one might run as large as 700 pounds, but the men who ran the press didn't like to put that much into one bale because the ties might snap and hurt them. They made a rule that if a person brought in a really large bale of cotton, he had to "treat" the whole gin crew. Several times, whether Papa had an over-sized bale or not, at the end of the year he would go up to the store and get a big bag of candy for all of them to eat.

One year the ginners needed a new boiler to make the steam for running the press at the gin. They found one for sale at Post Oak, but the problem was hauling such a heavy object for fifteen miles and setting it in place under the gin house. A Mr. Isabel who worked oxen offered to do the job. Some sort of weed that grew on his farm in Jack County was poisonous to horses and mules, so he learned to handle oxen and farm with them. We had never seen oxen, so everybody who lived along the road went out to watch. I took a picture of them as they passed our house. Papa and the boys followed them to the gin and watched as one yoke was unhitched, and the two called the "wheel yoke" obeyed Mr. Isabel's"Gee" and "Haw" until the boiler was eased down right into place.

PLAYING IN THE COTTON SEED

We had a little cotton seed house in the corner of the cow lot, and we had good times playing in the cotton seed. We had to remember to close the door when we left because an old cow might stick her head in there and eat enough cotton seed to kill her. Cows loved cotton seed, but you had to be careful not to feed them too much-just a double handful. Papa would put that much into a tub or box for a cow to eat along with her hay and sorghum, or whatever else she had to eat. In the wintertime when the cows didn't have fresh grazing, such as wheat, and just had cotton seed and dry hay to eat, the butter we churned was white. If they had green stuff to graze on, the butter and cream would be yellow. it tasted about the same, I think, but there was just a difference in the color.

We'd get in the seed house with some of our little friends who had come to play, and we'd build thing out of the cotton seed. It would stick together pretty good. We'd put our foot down into it and pack seed over it. Then we'd take our foot out and pretend the hole was a cellar or a bear's den, or whatever we wanted to pretend. Sometimes one person would volunteer to let the rest of us cover him up in the seed. So we'd bury him except for his face, being careful not to get a seed in his ears or up his nostrils.

FARM ANIMALS

I loved the baby animals on our farm. Dewey and I would pick out our favorites when the little calves were born in the spring of the year and claim one as our own. Very often we would name our pet. Of course, it probably wasn't called that name when it got older. After their calves got larger, the cows wouldn't want to come in to be milked, so we would have to go down to the big pasture and drive them in. We had a little pasture by the house where the buggy horses and younger calves would graze; then down a long lane between two fields was the big pasture. There it was very wooded-lots of trees and brush- and the cows would rather have stayed down there than to have come home.

I think I've always been afraid of animals, and I have three good reasons why. One time I started down the lane to get the cows, one of which had a small calf. When she saw me coming-or maybe thinking that her little calf was up in the cow lot-she started to run. I thought she was running toward me to attack me, so I turned and ran as fast as I could. Ever aft that time I was afraid of that cow and of all big cows. Incidently, well-bred ladies in those days never referred to the male of the bovine species as a "bull." That would have been very indelicate. They were called "steers" or "sirleys."

Another time, our buggy horse was in the little pasture. Mama told me to go down to the barn and get a gallon bucket half full of hops take it out to the pasture and "toll old Sol in," because someone wanted to hitch him to the buggy to go to the store. I had never gone after the horse before, and I didn't realize he knew what was in the bucket when he spied it. He started running toward me, nickering and whinnying, and oh, it was just awful! I ran around and about through the bushes, but I couldn't shake him. Finally, I worked my way over toward the fence. I ran for that fence and tried to throw the bucket of hops over. It hit the wires and bounced back, but I escaped between them. With torn dress I went to the house, crying and trembling like a leaf. I told Mama I would never go after that horse again, and I didn't. She explained that if I had just set the bucket down the horse would have stopped right there.

Once, long before I went to school, all of our family had mumps except for Mama and Me. At supper we heard the sounds of terrible fighting; our old dog and puppy were fighting for their lives. It sounded as if some other dog were chewing them up. Sure'nough, the next morning we discovered our two dogs had been ripped badly. Papa was sure the other dog must have been a mad dog to have come onto our place and attacked the dogs living there. Because he had the mumps and wasn't able to take care of the situation, he got the renter up on our rent place to take his gun and the dogs down to the pasture and dispose of them. I don't think I ever had a dog I called my own, but I have always had to feed my children's dogs and take care of them.

GRANDFATHER'S CANDY

Grandfather Harbour would stop by our house on his way home every day or two, after he would go to town for the mail. He always had some candy in his pocket, and he'd give some to Dewey and me. Mama told him we had gotten to expect him to give us candy, and she thought it would be for the best if he didn't have some every time. She thought we should learn to appreciate his visits without thinking about the candy. He came by one day and didn't offer us any candy. I felt I was too big and ashamed to ask him for it, so I put Dewey up to it. "Grandpa, do you have any candy for us?" "No, child, I don't have any candy for you today." We were disappointed, but we learned not to beg for candy. But very often he would have some for us.

ICE WAS NICE

In the summer time when Papa went to Bowie to take a wagon load of things down or to bring supplies back, he would go by the ice house the very last thing and get a 300 pound block of ice. Mama would send along some blankets to wrap it in. When he got it home he would bury it, blankets and all, in the cotton seed at one corner of the seed house. At every noon and evening meal someone would have to go to the shed, ship off some ice, and cover the block back up with the blankets and seed. In that way we had iced tea for lunch and iced milk, or whatever we wanted, for supper. It was quite sometime later before anyone kept ice at Vashti so that we could by smaller amounts, fifteen or twenty pounds at a time. We surely enjoyed the iced drinks during the hot summer weather, and we missed it terrible when it was used up and we had to go without for awhile until the next trip to Bowie. Buford bought an ice shaver, and we would shave off the flat surface, then sweeten it with syrup made of sugar and flavoring: strawberry, vanilla, lemon, grape, or whatever. That made a good cold drink. And then we also bought a tin or metal shaker you put the milk and ice and sugar flavoring into, and you shook it until it foamed to look like the professionally made milkshakes.

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