Clay County, TXGenWeb Project
MEMORIES OF MY FIRST 85 YEARS-O.
J. MCADAMS
We are indebted to Mr. Obert James
McAdams for recording his memoirs and to his
daughter, Sandra McAdams Gardner for typing them
and binding them into a book. They
donated a copy to the museum and have given permission
for these edited parts to be
put on the Clay County web page.
He titled it "Memories of My
First 85 Years" and wrote in the
prologue: "The
following pages record memories and recollections
from my childhood and young adult
days. I want to share a history of a family and of
a time and place where I grew to
adulthood. I have written about the
many changes that have occurred during my 85
years...there have probably been more changes during
this period of history than in
any other era. This is for my children,
grandchildren and other family members so
that they may read and know of
the past...a past that helped shape all of their
lives.
"Always remember: 'We have arrived at who we are and
what we are because of where we
started in the past. And we shall
grow into the future from these same roots.'
(Author unknown)
"I began my writings to try
to explain and understand the many changes that have
occurred during the first 85 years of my life. At the time
I was born in 1914 at the
old Secret Springs Community in Clay County, Texas, the area
had been free from raids
by renegade Indians for only about forty
years. Clay County had been an organized
county for forty two years. Cambridge
and then Henrietta had been at one time the
judicial center for much of west
and northwest Texas only a few years before my
birth. As a youth, I knew many of the pioneer ranchers
who settled the western half
of Texas. Some I knew by reputation only...Colonel
Burk Burnett, J. G. Halsell, Tom
Waggoner, C. C. Slaughter, and many
others. These early pioneers created
the
environment I grew up in. Texas,
and Clay County in particular, was agrarian
depending on farming and ranching as its main source of income,
and this was true for
most of the United States.
"To try to understand why so much has changed
in a short time after being about the
same for so many centuries, we
should ask ourselves some questions. Could it be
because of inquiring minds seeking knowledge? Could it
be because of greed? Could it
be because of necessity created by the Civil
War and two World Wars? Could it be a
combination of all of the above? I will leave the answers to
others.
"Since the beginning of recorded history, and
probably before, inquiring minds have
sought the unknown. Each new bit of knowledge led to another,
but it was so very slow
to spread because of the lack of
fast communication. This fact is my reason for
devoting so much space to changes
in communication and transportation. Also much
space had been used to describe agriculture changes
because it is the first time in
history so few have fed and clothed
so many so well. "When Columbus accidentally
discovered the so-called 'New World,'
was he really trying to prove the world was
round, or was he really trying to find a safer
and cheaper way to get the goods of
the east to his native country for a profit? Two hundred fifty
to three hundred years
after Columbus my ancestors crossed the ocean to
get their share of the new World's
'riches' using the same small type sailing vessels
used from the beginning of time.
Then, after three or more months of travel
on the water, they still had to use the
same method of travel that had been used from the beginning of
time...walking, riding
an animal, or riding in an animal-pulled
buggy or wagon, as did my ancestors who
arrived in Clay County riding in covered wagons,
riding on horses, and walking. My
early ancestors came to the New World
seeking land and freedom to worship as they
wanted. They fought for their freedom from England. In
time, the same people who had
fought for their freedom, citing a need
for cheap labor to produce the cotton and
other products the New World had
to offer, created a slave trade that took away
freedom and rights from an entire race of people. This
led to the Civil War with all
its suffering. The Civil War was
fought about fifty years before I was born. My
grandparents suffered so much during
this war that the results affected
the
environment that I was born into.
"I was about four and a half years old
when World War I ended, and about all I can
remember about it was the soldiers coming home and their
well polished shoes. I grew
to manhood in the atmosphere created
as a result of that war. Then, World War II
changed our country in its direction and changed a way of life
forever.
"Memories of My First 85 Years" Chapter II - 2nd part
of his prologue.
"Now that I am an old man, I have seen many, many things
considered to be necessities
as a part of our everyday living come into being and have
seen so much change in the
way we live.
"I was here in this world before radio, television, VCR,
radar, ball point pens, tape
recorders, camcorders, electric typewriters,
word processors, and computers. I was
taught to write using a pen staff with a replaceable pen
point that had to be heated
by a match before the ink would stick to it when dipped into
the black ink well which
was a part of all school desks. (Some young girls had their pigtails
stuck in the ink
wells by the boys sitting behind
them even though the boys knew the trouble they
would be in.)
"I was here before Xerox, penicillin,
polio shots, vitamin pills, and disposable
diapers. Young parents who have not
washed diapers and hung them on an outside
clothes line in freezing weather just
have not experienced life as it was. "I was
here long before frozen food and decaffeinated
coffee. We thought 'fast food' was
what our Catholic neighbors ate during the
Lenten season. I was here before pizza,
cheerios, rayon, nylon, Dacron, plastics, and panty hose. I was
here when ladies wore
long flowing dresses, silk hose with a seam in the
back, high top pointed toe black
patent leather shoes (which were guaranteed to cause corns
on their toes), and their
whale bone corsets laced in the back. Married ladies had their
husbands lace them up,
and young ladies had to get their mothers, sisters, or
girl friends to lace them up.
I was here when young girls word bloomers, long black cotton
stockings, and Peter Pan
collars. When I heard of 'cleavage,'
I thought that was what a butcher used on a
chopping block. I was here when we talked about 'hardware'
and meant hammers, nails,
saws, and plow sweeps.
" 'Chips' were small pieces of wood
used to start fires in the wood stoves. I was
here when closets were to store clothes in
and not for 'coming out of.' I was here
before 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.' We would not have known
what 'software' was.
"I grew up in a time when smoking
and chewing tobacco were fashionable and were a
signal one 'had arrived.' 'Grass' was for cows and
horses to eat. 'Coke' was a very
good drink with a little cherry flavoring added, and 'pot'
was what my mother washed
our clothes in. I was here when the work day
was from daylight to dark, and in the
winter kerosene lanterns were a necessity. The work week was
Monday through Saturday,
often much later on Saturday night. I was probably
about 24 years old when I heard
about minimum wages. Sunday was a 'holy day' and was a time to
worship our God and to
visit with family and friends. "I
was here when doctors made house calls day or
night, and when he (the doctors were all men at that time)
went there, he would swab
your throat with iodine and give
you some calomel or quinine. To borrow a quote,
'Never did such dedicated men do so much for so many with so
little.'
"I was here before natural gas was used to heat homes and
cook food. I was probably 6
years old when the first city received natural
gas. As a youngster, I would sit in
front of my grandmother's gas heating stove and wonder
why the asbestos backing did
not burn in those beautiful blue,
red, and purple flames. "I was here
before
prohibition. And I was here before the 19th Amendment to
the U. S. Constitution gave
women the right to vote in 1920.
"I was here before Wolf Brand chili and
Kool-Aid. I was here when General Electric
introduced the first successful electric refrigerator with the
motor on top and I was
here when the first sliced bread was introduced in 1928. I was
when many doctors used
their alcohol prescription books to prescribe
a half pint of whiskey per patient
every ten days. Then I was here
when Clarence Birdseye introduced his frozen
vegetables in 1930.
"In thinking back, how did I
ever grow up without so many things that are
now
considered necessities of life?
"I was an old man before fax machines and e-mail became
a must.
"The automobile was here before
me, but the American 'love affair'
with the
automobile was just beginning when I was born.
"These are just some of the changes in my lifetime.
I have written of the past as I
remember it.
( Comment, not by Mr. McAdams: It seems hardly yesterday that
we had the privilege of
showing off the museum to a group of students, this time
third graders from Petrolia
the week before school was out. How time flies! Their teacher
is a descendent of the
Westbrooks, who came to Clay County in the 1870's. It was
also exciting for me since
the parents of many of these pupils
had been my pupils in the past. I am again
reminded how history repeats itself and
how we are living it each day, how each
generation builds on the past generation and stretches into the
next.
In keeping with this year's parade theme
of a salute to the states, we are asking
people to bring us the stories of their families for the
archives. We plan to have a
map for you to locate where your family originated.
If yours is like mine, you may
have to settle for one of the places they left behind when they
came to Clay Co.
This is one thing that makes Mr. O.J. McAdams' story
so interesting and also rather
typical of many of the families that ended up in
Clay County. Many of our ancestors
were immigrants from Europe in the 1600's and the
1700's and moved down the eastern
seaboard and across the southern states.
They often intermarried with the few
neighbors they had, working always for a better life. Then came
the Civil War, during
which they all fought, many died and they all lost
their livelihood. Many saw Texas
as a land of opportunity where they could start over to
build a new life. Some moved
from "older" parts of Texas looking for
a more healthful climate after epidemics of
typhoid and cholera.)
Chapter III
Mr. McAdams' grandmother on his father's
side was Helen Palestine Sellers, whose
folks came from England in the
1640's to Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
His
grandfather was James W.F. McAdams, whose people came from
Ireland to South Carolina
in 1768. Mr. Sellers and Mr. McAdams both fought in the
American Revolution and both
families located in Alabama by 1833.
Mr. James W.F. McAdams and 5 of his brothers
fought in the Civil War. He and Helen Sellers married in 1866.
Two other families were neighbors
to the Sellers and McAdams families
and
intermarried also, the Jefcoats and the
Childs families. It seems they were all
successful planters but lost everything in the Civil War.
They came to Texas by boat
from Mobile, Alabama, and landed in
Galveston in 1866. James Childs settled in
Bluegrove in 1881 and James McAdams arrived in Secret Springs
in 1897.
The Jefcoats stayed in Grayson County and Calvin Sellers
came, as a widower, in 1881
and spent time with his daughters, Mary Elizabeth Childs and
Helen McAdams.
When the McAdams family came to Secret
Springs, Clay Co., they leased the Metsger
place, on which the spring is located.
Mr. O.J. McAdams' grandfather on his mother's side
was James Thomas Christian, born
in Illinois in 1848. His grandmother was Lou Tishia Stapp
Christian, born near Rusk,
Texas, in 1867. Her family also fought in the Civil
War and she was raised by older
brothers in Indian Territory after her
mother died when she was small. The family
lived close to the Quanah Parker family and knew them well.
James Christian and Lou Stapp married in 1892 and settled
in Erath County. They went
to Roswell, New Mexico, to file on land but discovered when they
arrived that all the
good land had been taken and returned to Callahan County,
near Abilene. They finally
settled in Clay County and bought
the farm joining the Metsger place in Secret
Springs in 1909.
In 1919 they sold the farm to the Dugger family and moved
to Henrietta to a house on
the corner of California and Gilbert Streets. It is said
that a big mesquite tree on
the corner is the oldest tree in Henrietta.
Each time Mr. Christian moved and
bought a place he paid for it in gold which he
always carried, never fearing it would be stolen.
Chapter IV, "Memories of My First 85 Years."
Mr. McAdams' father was Claude McAdams,
born 1889 in Grayson County, who moved to
Clay County with the family in 1897. They settled in Secret Springs
in a log house at
the site of the springs on the Metsger place, which they leased.
Mr. Metsger had settled there in the 1870's and built the
house, a grist mill, and a
horse-powered cotton gin from oak logs which he squared and notched
with a hatchet or
ax while they were green and held them together with wooden
pegs. He also operated a
post office there from 1878 through its discontinuance in 1884.
(Alexander Dawson was
postmaster from 1876 to 1878.) Claude and his brother George
bought the Metsger place
later and Claude built a new house on the southwest part of the
place.
Mr. Obert McAdams' mother, Ida Josephine (Josie) Christian,
was born in Erath County
in 1894 and moved to Clay County when she was 15
years old; the family settled on a
farm established by a Mr. Lewter west of the Metsger place. The
McAdams and Christian
children attended the Secret Springs School.
The county road, laid out about 1876,
missed the springs by about a half mile so
the school was built on the road at the
entrance to the Sanzenbacher Ranch. The Secret Springs
School was in operation until
the middle of the 20th century.
Miss Lulu Johnson, daughter of one of the first
families in the community of Cambridge, taught her first school
at Secret Springs.
Claude McAdams and Josie Christian were
married December 25, 1910, by W.W. King,
Justice of the Bluegrove Justice Court. Their witnesses were
Harry Brown of Bluegrove
and Lizzie Sanzenbacher of Secret Springs, who were
in turn married by Justice King
with the new Mr. and Mrs. Claude McAdams as witnesses.
Claude and Josie lived in the
new house Claude had built and had three children,
Obert, Berniece and Oather. They
boarded at least 2 pioneer teachers, Almeta Houston, who later
married George Spivey,
and Louis Shortes. By 1917 Claude paid off his part of the Metsger
place by selling a
large herd of horses which he and Cook Gilbow (a later
sheriff of Clay Co.) drove to
Grayson County. Obert remembers seeing them
start out their gate and down the road
east. They drove them across the Sanzenbacher and
Hapgood and other ranches to save
time and thus reached St. Jo the first day. Later
Claude sold his part of the place
to his brother George and bought land and moved to the Neville
Community.
Mr. Obert praises his parents highly for their religious
beliefs and his strict, but
loving upbringing. "My parents were strict
but fun loving. They were strict in the
sense of expecting their children to
follow a few simple rules such as doing our
homework, doing our chores without having to be reminded,
and washing our hands and
faces before going to the table. No one ever came to eat at my
mother's table without
their hair combed and wearing a
shirt...she thought that cleanliness was next to
godliness. Yet, my parents were fun loving and never
too tired to play a few simple
games with us before going to bed, or, on a
rainy day pitch horse shoes, play ball
with us, or take us fishing. I began to believe I would never
learn to beat my father
at a game of checkers. My mother was never
too busy to have hot cornbread, popcorn
balls, or roasted peanuts when we returned from school.
My father had the ability to
laugh regardless of the adversities he might be experiencing,
and never saw a child
that he did not like. "By today's standards,
I was probably born into what might be
called poverty. But, that was not the case at all
at that time. I was actually born
into 'riches' in that I had loving and caring
parents who owned their own home and
farm, who taught me right from wrong, and taught me to
include God in my life. I was
a happy child with a sister and a brother. We were taught
to take responsibility and
to entertain ourselves with what we had. We were taught to share
with each other."
Mr. McAdams' mother died in 1947, his
father in 1987, his sister in 1935, and his
brother in 1986.
Chapter V
To continue from Mr. O.J. McAdams' memoirs, "Memories
from My First 85 Years:" "The
Secret Springs Community got its name from a very large spring
on land settled by Mr.
Metsger. It was in a rock outcropping which could not be
seen from three sides until
one was within a few feet of it. It opened into a
small creek on the north side and
still flows to this time. It is located about a half
mile north of the Bluegrove to
Sanzenbacher Ranch Road. The spring is
almost straight north of the old Jake and
Annie Sanzenbacher Lutz home which is now owned by Maurice Lutz.
I first remember the
Lutz home as the Jim Goodner place. "The only person
that I have known that had seen
mail postmarked at the Secret Springs Post Office
was Mr. Frank Brown of Bluegrove,
who stated that he personally had
seen a small envelope with a three cent stamp
postmarked Secret Springs, Texas, March 8, 1881
"The only person whom I have ever known that said he had
seen cotton ginned at Secret
Springs was Mr. Frank Hurn, who said when he was a 6-year
old boy he would ride with
his father when he hauled cotton from what is now Hurnville Community
to the gin.
"There were three events that probably led to
the demise of the Secret Springs gin,
mill, and post office and, eventually,
the school although indirectly. The first
event was the founding of Bluegrove
some five miles to the west. Second was the
advent of barbed wire around 1876, the fencing of
what had been the free range, and
the laying out of the public roads. And
third, very large ranches to the east and
south of Secret Springs prevented farmers from
settling in much of the surrounding
area. Another factor could have been that the Secret Springs
cotton gin was obsolete
by 1880.
"Bluegrove was founded in 1881 and 1882 when
several merchants set up shop. Many of
the families that called Secret Springs
home lived between there and Bluegrove.
Around 1876, roads were dedicated and barbed wire came
into common use by farmers to
protect their property from roving herds of cattle.
The roads missed Secret Springs
by about half a mile so the
school was built on the road to the entrance to the
Sanzenbacher Ranch. After these events, no merchants
ever set up shop in the Secret
Springs area again. Also, steam powered cotton gin was established
at Bluegrove.
"When we lived at Secret Springs, we received our mail on
a route from Henrietta. Our
mail carrier was Me. Charlie Arnold, who drove his white horse
and buggy by our house
each day except Sunday. Mr. Arnold
was a very accommodating man who would bring
supplies to his patrons and would mail
packages for them. He also sold stamps and
stamped envelopes.
"The Chris Sanzenbacher family was
among the very first families to settle in the
Secret Springs area in 1874. Others
were John Sanzenbacher, Mr. Metsger,
Mr.
Hamilton, the Means family, Barney Davis, the
Gilvin family, the Skipworth family,
the Kimbroughs, the Gilbows. Also families of Sime
Graham, June Jones, Lewter, R.S.
Campbell, Charlie Lewis, Lowery and others.
"Cris Sanzenbacher was a very frugal man
and acquired extensive land holdings east
and south of Secret Springs and
accumulated large cattle herds. Just as today,
drought occurred rather often in Clay
County. Cattlemen depended on springs and
creeks for water. They also dug a few wells
and a few small stock ponds. They used
horses and what were called scrapers to dig the ponds. Drought
never had an effect on
the Secret Spring, which when taken care of
produced large amounts of water. I can
remember when it started getting dry
in the summer my father would meet with the
Gilbows, Kimbroughs, and Sanzenbachers to set a time
for each to drive their cattle
to the spring for water. There
was never a thought of charging the neighbors for
using the water from the spring.
Chapter VI "Memories from My First 85 Years:"
"My parents were married at Bluegrove.
I was delivered by a Bluegrove doctor.
Bluegrove was my family church home
as well as supply center. There were so many
relatives living there. I cannot remember my first
time there... it was just always
there."
The town was named for the large oak tree grove northeast
of the town site, about 5
miles west of Secret Springs. Around 1880 some large area ranches
and some east Texas
counties that had been allocated school lands began to sell tracts
of land to pioneer
settlers for farming and small stock farms. School lands included
Grayson and Hopkins
Counties and St. Augustine University. The
things very necessary to pioneers, wood
and water, were plentiful in the area. There were large post
oak groves and water was
shallow, allowing hand-dug wells. "I have been told there
is a well about a half mile
west of the Bluegrove Cemetery on land settled by Johnny
Russell that produced large
amounts of water. This well was on a trail from Ft. Sill, Oklahoma
Territory, and was
used by soldiers and Indians traveling
to Graham to Federal Court. The trail can
still be seen and the well still produces water."
Cotton was the cash crop for area farmers. A Mr.
Morman moved a small steam powered
gin about a mile and half southwest
of Bluegrove around 1881. He enlarged it and
moved it to a location a short distance from
the L. B. Brown home. He built a very
large dam on a small stream to create a pond from which to run
the steam engine. This
gin tank was the area swimming
hole and the area baptismal fount for many, many
people. The gin continued to operate until
after World War II, when cotton acreage
declined, making the gin no longer
profitable. It had been owned and operated by
Mabry and Cad Powell in its later years. "Some of the pioneer
ranchers who had staked
out and patented large acreage in the area were Tarlton f. Bates,
Chariston Thompson,
Thomas Morehead, Levi Sparks, William W. Yearly, and John Belcher.
They were all dead
or gone from the area by the time I was born except John Belcher."
"In 1881, my Great Grandfather Calvin
Sellers, his daughter Elizabeth Childs, her
husband James Louis Childs, and all of their children left
Grayson county in covered
wagons headed for the new cotton farming area."
Names of some other early Bluegrove
families were Roach, Copp, L.B. Brown, Johnny Russell.
In 1882 or '83, A.W. Flynn moved a small grocery
store to become the first merchant
in Bluegrove. He also moved in a small post office
to make Bluegrove the postal and
trading center for the area.
"It should be remembered that at
that time there were only two general methods of
traveling around the countryside. One
was walking. The other was riding horses or
riding in vehicles pulled by horses or oxen.
Thus small schools, post offices, and
stores were located very near each other. Bluegrove
was located near the center of
several of these small communities, a fact that made
it somewhat larger than any of
the others. Sixteen businesses were located
in Bluegrove when a tragic fire on
October 7, 1942, destroyed fourteen of them.
Mr. McAdams remembers many of these businesses. General stores
run by A. W. Flynn and
Rupert Speigel; Bud and Edgar Childs had a grocery store
that carried some drygoods;
Ed Childs operated a drug store;
Harve Rollins, a barber shop; Roy Van Houten, a
hardware store. E. A. Copp was a mechanic and blacksmith and
sold gasoline; Ed Childs
had an Overland automobile dealership.
Cars were just beginning to be used in the
first few years of Mr. McAdams' life. W.W. King had a drygoods
store and Floyd South
a variety store. Mr. Piercily had a blacksmith shop and
Mr. Fortenberry was a cotton
buyer. The ginned cotton was hauled
by wagon to the railroad at Bellevue to be
shipped to Galveston.
Chapter VII
To continue Obert McAdams' story, "Memories from My First
85 Years:" "Mr. O. A. Blake
settled about eight miles west of
Bluegrove, taught a school and operated a post
office named Shiloh is what later became Halsell."
He later had a threshing machine,
a cotton gin and the first telephone system in the Bluegrove
area.
Mr. McAdams remembers 4 doctors from the area: Doctors
Moffitt, Teddley, Patton, and
Payne.
There was a Masonic Lodge in a
large two-story building in Bluegrove that later
became the home of the JAC Electric Co-op, begun before WWII
and finished afterwards.
Mr. Cad Powell of Brown Community and Mr. W.
E. Lanham of Joy were instrumental in
this most welcome addition to rural Clay County.
The family church was in Bluegrove
even after the McAdams family moved to
the Neville Community. There were 4 church
buildings in Bluegrove: Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ,
and Christian. Services
were not held in each church every
Sunday so there was much visiting among the
congregations. Summer revivals were held under
a brush arbor and after an electric
generator came in use the bugs
proliferated around the bare bulbs. Once while
visiting minister J. N. Hunt from Henrietta was preaching,
a bug got in his ear and
services were suspended long enough for him to go to the drug
store for the doctor to
remove the bug. The names of some of the farmers Mr. McAdams
remembers are Reynolds,
Lowry, Parker, England, Callaway, McConnell,
Herd, Crump, Devers, Albins, Maddux,
Corley, Douglas, Dean, Brown, Williams,
South, Mann, Plemons, Russell, Rollins,
Akins, Lyles, Trout, Tate, Roach, Jameson, Meyers,
Van Houten, McMasters, Thompson,
Land, Pennington, Phillips, Duberley, Vandiver, Chapman,
and others. One family had
two children die the same day from spinal meningitis. "People
feared diseases so much
in that time that no one would help the family prepare
the children for burial. The
neighbors did dig the grave and made the coffins
but would not come in contact with
any members of the family."
North of Bluegrove Frank Neville and Ben Nutter were partners
who owned a large tract
of land which they divided and sold to smaller landholders
around 1917. Among these
were Mr. McAdams' parents, Less Thompson, Will Fields,
and Harry Brown. The McAdams
family continued to trade in Bluegrove
and go to church there. Since there was no
public road, they traveled across the
Tom Fields Ranch to a road known as the
Henrietta Jacksboro Road.
The post office at Bluegrove is still in operation
as is the JAC Electric Co-op and
the Baptist Church. The Methodist Church
is now the Community Center. Mr. McAdams
said he went to some length to describe the land and people of
Bluegrove to show that
its growth and decline are typical
of the changes he has seen in this lifetime.
"These changes have turned the United States from an agricultural
to an urban nation.
Although Bluegrove had been established 35 or 40
years before I can remember, I saw
it grow from seven or eight business firms to at least sixteen
businesses including a
large implement and appliance dealer, and I have lived
to see the businesses dwindle
to one. At one time there were five churches,
and now I believe there is only one
that is active. I have seen the
surrounding fields, which grew most
of the
watermelons, cantaloupes, corn and other
vegetables sold in Wichita Falls in the
1930's, 40's, and 50's , returned to grass
land. Cattle have replaced cotton which
kept the Bluegrove gin and the Brown gin running from early morning
to late at night.
And the school is gone."
Chapter VIII
To continue Mr. Obert McAdams' thoughts
on the decline of small-towns, from his
"Memories of My First 85 Years:"
"That which has taken place in the Bluegrove
Community is typical of what has taken place in the small
towns of the United States
whether it be the Midwest wheat and corn towns, the Wisconsin
dairy towns with their
cheese plants, or the Southern cotton, rice,
and sugar towns. Traveling across the
country and seeing the abandoned home sites
marked only by a few falling buildings
and through the small towns with their decaying buildings
and abandoned churches and
school buildings certainly could give one the impression
that this is a country that
has reached its peak and is on the way down.
I do not believe that to be the case.
"To me, it was sad to travel the
roads around Bluegrove and see all the abandoned
home sites where happy families had
once lived - feeding, clothing and educating
their children by tilling the soil - and where stay-at-home
mothers, along with the
fathers, instilled in their children the discipline
to make them into men and women
of integrity. As I traveled around Bluegrove, the town and community
that had been so
much a part. of my youth, remembering Mr. And Mrs
___ lived there and now there are
only a few trees and Mr. And
Mrs. ___ lived there and now only an old well or
falling-down building remains, I remembered some
things I think have been lost that
were very, very important in the rise of the United States.
I never knew of a single
incident where it was necessary to call the sheriff to handle
a family disturbance. I
never heard a young person say, "I'm bored.
There is nothing to do around here." I
never heard of a juvenile being arrested
for destroying the property of others. I
never heard of drugs being used by youngsters,
although rarely, one would drink a
home brew. "Just as Bluegrove grew to a prosperous small
town and now has dwindled to
just a memory, so have thousands
of other small towns across the nation. In my
opinion, along with the loss of the small towns we have
lost a way of life that will
never exist again. But we have also lost something else.
We have lost initiative and
determination that would cause men to
load their families and all they owned into
covered wagons and travel for days, or even months, to
reach their destination. When
they arrived , they cut logs, sawed the timbers for
their new homes and cleared the
land to plant their crops, and they depended
on the elements to produce their food
and clothing. The hard work, while depending on God to send the
rain, built character
and self reliance that are seldom seen in today's work force.
"All of the changes in knowledge, technology and other fields
of endeavor that I have
seen in my long life fail to compare
to the changes brought about by the loss of
small towns in the United States. In my humble opinion, the loss
of Bluegrove in Clay
County, Texas, along with thousands of
other towns across the nation, is far more
important than the development of a newer and faster
airplane or a faster computer.
It is a change that one day this
nation will regret, but it will probably be too
late. I have used these several pages writing
about a small town and families that
most people never knew existed. But
I believe one could name it "Any town, any
county, any state, U.S.A. " Bluegrove
is just the one I knew and its people, along
with my parents, forged my life.
My story is just one of millions who grew to
adulthood in Small Town America. The
sacrifices and hardships those brave men and
women endured will probably never again be duplicated
Chapter IX
To continue Mr. Obert McAdams' "Memories of My First 85
Years:" Frank Neville and Ben
Nutter came to Clay County soon after
the county was organized and formed a large
ranching partnership, just by a handshake,
no written contract, on lands west and
north of what was later Bluegrove. Around 1917, the two men dissolved
the partnership
and sold land to smaller farmers and stockmen.
Most of the buyers of the Neville-Nutter land were sons of families
who were pioneers
of other Clay County communities. Some of those from Secret
Springs were the McAdams
family, that of Les Thompson, John Bumpas, Bill Wallace, and
Mrs. Sanzenbacher.
From Bluegrove came the families of
Harry Brown, Bill Fields, Sam Russell, Edgar
Childs, Floyd McMaster, and Ed Brown. W.E.
Collie was from Shannon, W. A. Chowning
and Ben Gill from Halsell, Mack
Reeves from Deer Creek and Joe Bullinger from
Fairview. Others who bought land there
were C. B. McDonald, Mr. Claxton, W. W,
Calloway, Mr. Carter, Tom Green, Jim Williams.
A school was built near the center of
the partnership lands and named Neville. It
also served for community functions like picnics and elections.
School district lines
did not mean much and transfers were easy to obtain. Since children
walked to school,
rode horses, or rode in buggies, they attended the
school that was easiest for them
to get to, considering such things as creek crossings,
fences, and roads. Sometimes,
like or dislike of a teacher was a determining factor.
Like most schools at the time, Neville had a baseball team.
The Neville District was
consolidated with Henrietta around 1930.
The building was later torn down and the
land was fenced into the Collie Ranch, leaving no evidence of
a community or school.
"Bluegrove remained my family's main trading
center at least until 1927 and to some
degree until the town was destroyed by fire in the
1940's. My Grandfather Christian
had moved to Henrietta in 1919 and we visited
there often. The following is what I
remember before or around 1927." "The Courthouse
made a great impression on me as a
child. The St. Elmo Hotel was the
next largest to the Courthouse. It had three
stories with lobby being part of the
first floor. Wide sweeping stairs led to the
second and third floors where guest rooms were located
and also the living quarters
of the owners, Mr. And Mrs. Pete Snearly, on the third floor.
"On the first floor Bob Moore had a tailor
shop, Homer Butler a barber shop, and a
café was on the southeast corner.
"The St. Elmo was the meeting place for
pioneer cattlemen, bankers, merchants, oil
men, and others. It was 'rumored' that during prohibition days
some of those pioneers
stashed their 'refreshments' at the St. Elmo. Mrs. Snearly
would become upset if the
group became too loud, and she
would let them know about it in terms they could
understand. Mr. Snearly had been a gold prospector so he
was much more understanding
and was usually involved himself. It was said that Ed Boyd, the
black porter, was the
keeper of the 'cough medicine'.
"North of the barber shop Charles
and Mamie Sanzenbacher Scheer operated a meat
market. H. L. Bear had a hardware store and Jess Cunningham
a jewelry store, and the
Carter family a drug store. On
the north end of the block was the Schlosburg Dry
Goods and Clothing store. It had two stories
fully stocked with dry goods. Some of
the clerks were Dave Harris, Dub Hines, and a Miss McClure. "Across
from the St. Elmo
was the two-story Club Building for
businessmen. North of that was the Bon Ton
Grocery, operated by Rube Gant, George Smith,
and John Kosanke. Farther north were
the drug store of Carl Green and later the West Variety
Store. Across the alley for
the remainder of the block was the Alcorn Dry Goods Store.
"Across the street south of the St. Elmo was
a large two story building occupied by
Dale Brothers Bankers. The building was razed and
replaced by the present one which
housed the First National Bank and now the Clay Co. Appraisal
District. Farther south
John Cunningham operated an Oldsmobile dealership,
and south of that was a feed and
seed store.
"Foxworth-Galbraith Lumber Company was
located east of the Methodist Church with
Barlo Weaver the manager.
"Across the street west of Dale
Brothers Bank, the lot was known as the K.
P.
Building with several small stores operating on the
lower floor and the K. P. Lodge
on the second floor until Olsen-Stelzer bought the building.
South of that Jim Ansley
had a battery and radio store. He was a dealer for Williard batteries
for starters on
cars and Motorola radios. South of
him was the Gates Brothers Drug Store. Their
father had a cotton buying business.
"The drug store also had a soda fountain. I remember
when I was a very small child I
went with my father to sell cotton to Mr. Gates. Someone
gave me a nickel and I went
to Gates Drug Store and bought a cherry coke. After that,
anytime I went to town and
I could get 5 cents, I went to Gates'
and had a cherry coke, the best drink I can
remember.
Chapter 10
To continue Mr. Obert McAdams' "Memories of
My First 85 Years": Last week's article
told about the businesses that were on the 2 blocks of
Bridge St. south of the Court
House in Henrietta.
"On the south side of the Courthouse Square, the building
on the east was a large two
story building which still stands. Known as
the Eustice Building, the ground floor
was occupied by J. F. Alcorn Dry
Goods and Thaxton Brothers Hardware. The second
story was occupied by doctors and lawyers." Also in
that block were Slagle Abstract,
W. B. Worsham and Company Bank,
W.W. King Dry Goods, and Floyd South 5 & 10 Cent
Store on the west corner. Also,
an A & P Grocery was built in that block in the
1930's and a Mr. Woods operated a variety store there.
"On the east side of the Courthouse
Square, I remember the Telephone Switch Board
Office on the second floor of the
first building on the south corner. Gates and
Dugger had a loan office on the
ground floor in about 1930. This was the first
location of the First National Bank when
it was organized in late 1933. A bed and
breakfast was there in the 1990's. The block was
completely filled with businesses:
the Dorothy Theater owned by H.
L. Bear, the Koethe Barber Shop owned by Mug and
Walter Koethe, a domino parlor owned by Henry Scheer, later a
dentist's office. I was
told that at one time there had
also been a saloon in that block, owned by Lewis
Willis.
"On the north side of the square, the
building on the northeast was the Oheim John
Deere Plow Co., operated by Alf and Fred Oheim and their
father. Their main products
were John Deere grain binders, breaking plows, disc plows, planters,
and cultivators-
all horse drawn. It is also possible that they might have sold
a few early iron wheel
two-cylinder John Deere tractors. West of Oheims,
Hanagan Brothers owned a poultry
and egg company. They also bought sour cream to be shipped to
creameries by railroad.
The Hanagan brothers were somewhat of a topic of
conversation themselves. One was a
bachelor, and one was a widower with several children,
all of whom lived together in
a large two-story house in southwest Henrietta. The
brothers walked everywhere they
went in town and were always together-one was never seen without
the other.
"West of Hanagan Brothers, Pete Harder ran a bakery. He
spoke very little English and
lived in the back of the bakery with his wife
and 3 sons. The first bakery bread I
can remember was Mr. Harder's 'Sho Nuff"
bread which sold for 5 cents an unsliced
loaf. The bakery also made doughnuts and fried pies
which a son, Rudolph, delivered
around town on foot carrying a large tray held up above
his head with one arm. Harry
Harder, another son, turned the bakery
into a grocery store which he operated for
many years.
"Much of the west side of the Courthouse Square was
vacant. The northeast corner was
used as the City hall and Fire
Station. When I can remember, there was one paid
fireman, Pap Heck, who lived above the fire
house. Near the middle of the block, a
Mr. Patterson had an abstract office, which he later sold
to Volvney Lefevre. At the
south end of the block was the Jones Building. Mr.
Jones, known as Dad Jones, was a
Justice of the Peace and had his
court in the front of the building while Cyrus
Coleman and son Clay published the
'Henrietta Independent' in the back of the
building. The newspaper was notorious for incorrect spelling.
"Across the street west
of the South's 5 & 10 Store,
Mr. Carl Olsen had a boot shop. He later formed a
partnership with Mr. Stelzer and moved to their location
on Bridge and Omega. G. A.
Hembre operated a dry cleaning business in this block and
Mr. Heck ran a meat market
which he later sold to Lon Kelly. Mr. & Mrs.
Munkres ran a feed store, later bought
by Louis Kerr, founder of Kerr Feed and Seed Co. The business
I remember most in this
block was the Merchant and Planters Bank, where
Mr. Marberry was the president. It
was the first of three Henrietta banks to fail near or during
the 1929 depression.
"The first post office I remember was across
the alley south of the South's 5 & 10,
now the office of the Edwards Estates. South of that
was Claude McKinney, Chevrolet
Dealer, Jim Hill's Garage and Lindon Garrison's
grocery store. "Another business I
remember was the Denver Hotel located
just east of the St. Elmo Hotel with Doyle
Thaxton Wells the operator.
"A Mr. Scoggins had a Ford Dealership where
the First Baptist Church parking lot in
now located. I remember he always wore leather leggings
in the winter. Floyd DeBoise
was a salesman there.
"Frank Henry operated a feed store and wagon
yard near where the frozen food locker
was recently located. He was a veteran of the Spanish American
War, where he lost one
leg below the knee in a battle in Cuba. He wore an artificial
leg with a shoe on it.
"My uncles, Ira Thaxton and Hardie McAdams, operated a livery
stable where the County
Extension offices were later located. They sold it to Charlie
McDonald, who continued
to use it in his horse trading business after livery stables
were no longer used. It
was known as the Mule Barn until it was
torn down and the present Senior Citizens
Building was erected.
"I also remember a blacksmith shop
north of the Oheim Building and the Graner
Brothers opera house at the northeast corner of the
next block north. "There were 3
cotton gins owned by Ira Thaxton, Mabry Powell,
and Oscar Graves. "Mr. Ebb Worsham
operated a garage in a large sheet metal building
near where the Waggoner Boot Shop
is now. Bill Sharp ran the White Rose Restaurant near the present
Allsups Store. Bill
McAdams also operated a café east of the Clay Co. Appraisal
Office."
Chapter XI
To continue with Mr. Obert McAdams' "Memories
of My First 85 Years," at this point
describing his memory of downtown Henrietta:
"As automobiles increased in numbers, several wholesale
gasoline and oil dealerships
were established in Henrietta. The first ones I remember
were Lee Street Texaco, A.
E. Sadler Gulf Oil, Claude Gates Conoco, and Forest Lankford
Panhandle Refining Co. A
Magnolia dealer built a station on the corner north of
the First Baptist Church. Tim
Rollins of the Bluegrove Rollins family
was the first operator of the Magnolia
station that I can remember. The pioneer
gasoline and oil dealers all built their
wholesale buildings and holding tanks
near the two railroads that ran through
Henrietta because they received their
gasoline and other products by rail. Even
though I don't remember seeing it, I am told Lee Street used
a horse drawn wagon with
a tank on it to deliver gasoline and
oil to the first few stations he served. The
first filling station that I can remember my
father trading at was located east of
the St. Elmo Hotel near the present
Chevron Station. It had one hand operated
gasoline pump near the road as there was no driveway.
Before that, my father bought
gasoline at E. A. Copps' blacksmith shop in Bluegrove.
"Two major railroads ran through
the south side of town. The Ft. Worth and Denver
City in its present location and the MKT (Missouri,
Kansas and Texas) probably 300
yards north of the Ft. Worth and Denver. The FWDC
Depot was about 100 yards west of
Hwy 148 and the MKT about 100 yards east
of 148. A flour mill was between the two
railroads. The two cotton gins were across the road
north of the MKT depot. East of
that depot was an ice plant that was there in my
earliest memory; it operated until
several years after World War II.
"Near the ice plant Mr. Ferguson operated a
mill and feed store in a large building
that at one time had been a cotton oil mill. He would grind
wheat into flour for the
wheat bran. A bushel of wheat would yield about 48
pounds of flour and 12 pounds of
bran. He also ground corn into meal. I have hauled both wheat
and corn to the mill in
a wagon during the depression.
"Mr. Dawson had a blacksmith shop
on the east side of downtown. He shod horses,
sharpened plowshares, and was considered an expert welder.
At that time, welding was
done by heating the iron and using
a hammer and anvil to weld the object. Mr.
Dawson's son, H. L. (Bud) continued to
operate the shop until he died after 1964.
"The Western Union Office was west of the Floyd South 5
and 10 cent store, where Mrs.
Goodnough was the operator.
"Mr. Royer had a cigar factory in a small building
south of the Methodist Church. I
do not remember the brand of cigars
he made. His widow was my high school math
teacher and his daughter a classmate.
"The Methodist Church was in the same location as the present
one, new in the 1950's.
My first recollection of the old building was attending the funeral
of my Grandfather
Tom Christian. I remember the pallbearers carrying
his casket up the steep stairs,
and I was afraid they would drop him.
"There were 3 doctors in Henrietta in the 1920's
that I remember: Dr. A. Greer, Dr.
Allison, and Dr. Jones. All three made house
calls in town and in the country. Dr.
Jones had his office in his home about two blocks east of the
St. Elmo. Dr. Greer and
Dr. Allison had theirs in the second story of the Eustice
Building. Also, a dentist,
Dr. Williamson, had his office there. Compared
to the present time, doctors really
had very little to work with. Druggists compounded most of the
medications prescribed
by the doctors. Most medicines used then
are no longer in common use. Castor oil,
Black Draught, and Calomel were in common use for stomach
problems. Quinine was used
to treat fevers. Cough remedies usually contained creosote, alcohol,
and morphine.
"Dr. Albert Greer was one of the finest gentlemen
I have ever known. He did so much
with so little. (He was the grandfather of Henrietta's
present day Dr. David Greer.)
No one was too poor for him to take care of at any time of the
day or night. His wife
was also a dear lady who suffered sight
loss at a young age. I remember Dr. Greer
coming to our house to treat my sister, brother and
myself when we were very young.
He traveled in his Model T Ford Roadster in all kinds of weather
over very bad roads.
I have known of Dr. Greer accepting chickens, eggs, a pig,
or vegetables as his pay.
If the patient could not pay Dr.
Greer, he treated that patient just as he would
anyone else. He started his practice using
a horse and buggy for transportation in
southeast Clay Co. near Newport. "Dr.
Williamson, the dentist, was also
an
exceptional man considering the fact that about
the only pain reducing elements he
had for use were gas and chloroform. I remember very
little pain in his removing my
impacted wisdom tooth when I was about 16
Chapter XII
To continue Mr. Obert McAdams' story,
"Memories of My First 85 Years": "Several
attorneys also had offices in the Eustice Building. Mr. Eustice
made an impression on
me. He was a tall, very erect man, even as a very
old man, At one time he owned and
platted much of the west side of
Henrietta, as well as the Eustice Building. He
walked around town always well dressed and wearing a derby hat
and bow tie.
"Mr. R. E. Taylor was a large man who was a very religious
individual who spoke in a
very loud voice. I remember his attending Baptist revivals in
Bluegrove when I was no
more than 5 or 6 years old. In 1927 when my family started
attending church services
in Henrietta, Mr. Taylor was always in every service.
When special collections were
taken, he was the first to make a pledge, but
I was told he would always forget to
leave his check. I remember a rather
funny incident concerning his pledges. Mr.
Taylor stood up and pledged $500 to a
church building fund. Mr. Sherwood Gowan, a
wealthy rancher, stood up and said, 'If Brother Taylor
will write his check and give
it to the church treasurer now, I will write my check for $1000
now..' Mr. Taylor did
so and I was later told that was probably the only
pledge he ever paid. He was also
an early day U. S. District Attorney.
"Another attorney I remember was a Mr. Wantland, who was
the father of Lois Wantland,
a long time school teacher in henrietta
and Clay County schools. I also remember
Judge Vincent Stine mostly when I was
young for his capacity for chewing tobacco.
From my high school days, three attorneys
made an impression on me. One was Judge
Rubbin Loftin. I was told that he was
a farmer in Young County when he decided to
become a lawyer. He sold his farm, moved his family to
Henrietta, and got a job with
R. E. Taylor. He read law books and then took the
state bar exam. After passing the
test, he became a partner in the
Taylor and Loftin law Firm with offices in the
Eustice Building. Two younger attorneys were Pierre
Stine and Earl Hall. Both loved
to play basketball. The two would be at our high school practice
session almost every
day to assist our coach. Then, they and Oscar Graves would get
two other persons or a
couple of our team members and scrimmage our
team. Pierre Stine was a partner with
his brother Vincent and Frank bunting with offices in the Eustice
building. Earl Hall
went on to become a District Judge and a judge on
the Court of Civil appeals in Ft.
Worth. "W. F. Suddath was a partner with his son Donley
in the insurance business but
I do not believe he was an attorney.
Donley was an attorney and was joined in the
practice of law by his brother Clyde. The father,
W. F., was president and managing
officer of W. B. Worsham Company
Bankers from my first memory until the
bank
collapsed in the spring of 1933.
"Mr. Durley B. Davis operated the first hamburger
place that I can remember. It was
located on Main Street around 1927. We called it a 'hamburger
joint'
Chapter XIII
"Election days were very important days in the
lives of Clay County people. A large
blackboard would be erected on the
bandstand at the southeast corner
of the
courthouse lawn. The names of all the candidates
were on the board at the left side
with a list of the voting boxes across the
top. Road and travel conditions made it
difficult for the ballot boxes to be brought to Henrietta
after the polls closed at
night. So, as the votes were counted, the person in charge
would call the vote in to
the county clerk's office who in turn
posted the vote totals on the board for the
very large crowd to see. Sometime during the next week, the boxes
would be brought to
the county clerk's office to be canvassed and certified by the
Commissioners Court.
"The way candidates ran for office was also
very different in those days. There was
no television and radio was limited to some state office candidates
advertising. Many
rural people did not have radios until after
WWII. Candidates tried to contact all
qualified voters personally.
"The first candidates I can remember
traveled around the county in a buggy or on
horseback. In county campaigns the candidate
would start out in a quadrant of the
county and cover all of the area before returning home. He would
spend the night with
a friend who would put him up and
feed his horse. There would be no problem with
lunch as when I was a child no
one who was at a home at meal time was allowed to
leave before eating. After roads were improved, Model T Fords
were the main source of
transportation for candidates and the
methods of campaigning changed. They could
cover more area and usually returned home at night
as there were very few places to
purchase gasoline in the county. The candidate
still ate his lunch with the family
where he might be at noon. He usually carried
a plug of Brown Mule chewing tobacco
and offered a chew to most men.
"In county-wide elections the south half of
the county usually determined who would
be elected as that half of the
county was more densely settled. Buffalo Springs,
Vashti, Joy, Bluegrove, Shannon and Bellevue
were the large rural voter boxes and
Henrietta had its four boxes.
"Even after Model T's and other
cars were used by candidates for county-wide
elections, it was not unusual for a candidate to walk long distances
across fields to
visit with farmers and ask for their votes. Many
times the walk was across recently
plowed fields in 90 to 100 degree weather. Flat tires and getting
stuck in a sand bed
in the road were just a part of running for office."
Presidential candidates often toured the country
by special trains. At stops along
the route, the candidate would make his speech from
the observation platform on the
last car. "The first trains I can remember were
powered by large steam engines that
used coal for fuel. On both freight and passenger trains,
the engine was followed by
a tender car that carried the coal. Clay County trains converted
to oil around 1930.
"On passenger trains, the tender was usually followed by
a mail car and a dining car.
The sleeping cars would be followed by passenger
cars. The mail car was locked and
occupied by a U. S. Railway Clerk. He picked
up, sorted and left mail at all stops
that had a post office on his assigned route. The
Postal Service had a mail carrier
to meet all mail trains to receive the local
mail and deliver outgoing mail the to
railway mail clerk. The steam engine
had to take on water at most stops and the
postal service clerk was not always at the depot to meet the
train so a mail post was
erected near the depot from which the mail sack of
outgoing mail could be picked up
by the railway clerk. He would just throw off
any incoming mail onto the carrier's
wagon.
"Freight trains were made of an engine, tender car
and then various types of freight
cars - cattle cars with slatted sides to let air pass through,
oil cars much the same
as those used today only about half as big.
"Banana cars had large ice bins on each
end and a lid on top. The bins were filled
with ice, and air passing over the ice
into the car did some cooling. The top lid
created a draft through the car and let out the hot
air. Any perishable produce was
shipped in this type car that was so called because bananas were
the most widely used
fresh fruit and one of the few perishable products shipped by
rail for many years
Chapter XIV
Since Clay Co. was originally organized
in 1861 but dissolved in 1863 because of
Indian raids, then reorganized in 1873, "the settlers
I knew and have mentioned were
in the second wave of settlers, or in
some cases, children of the first wave. The
original settlers were, in most cases, owners of large ranches
such as J. G. Halsell,
T. J. Belcher, W. B. Worsham, Sid Webb, a Mr. Scott, the
Jolly Brothers, and others,
all using public domain for all or part of their
ranches. "In order for the sate of
Texas to assist in establishing public schools, organized
counties were deeded large
tracts of the public domain to be used to raise money
for them either by selling or
leasing the land. Also, some early ranchers bought large tracts
of land directly from
the state, and then used other public lands as long
as they were classified as open
range. Also, there were those who just moved in on the public
domain and stayed until
someone ran them off.
"At the time Clay County was first settled,
there was still open range here because
barbed wire was not in use until
the late 1870's or early 1880's. I can remember
seeing the ruins of a very few rail and rock fences in the southeast
part of Clay Co.
around Shannon and Post Oak. "Colonel W. S. Ikard
was a very tall man who stood very
straight until his death at an advanced age.
I never saw him without a bow tie. He
had been credited with being the first rancher to introduce Hereford
cattle to Texas.
Colonel Ikard, at one time, controlled over 200,000
acres of range land in Clay and
Archer Counties. Colonel Ikard and his
gracious wife attended the Henrietta First
Baptist Church until their deaths. Their home was
in the western part of Henrietta.
"Colonel Ikard's son, Lewis, and grandson, Frank Neville
Ikard, were responsible for
my having seen Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees play baseball.
In 1928 the New York
Yankees scheduled a game with the Wichita Falls Spudders. Frank
Neville invited me to
go to the game with him and his father. Since it
was on a school day, my mother was
not going to let me go until Lewis Ikard convinced
her it would probably be my only
chance to see Babe Ruth play baseball. As it turned out,
Babe Ruth hit two home runs
which thrilled me very much." Another family Mr. McAdams
tells about is that of Frank
Neville. "The Neville family was very involved in the development
of the self starter
in the auto industry. Frank had a brother who was a machinist
who developed the first
successful self starter for Ford cars
and other makes and along with a partner,
launched a very successful manufacturing
company in Cleveland, Ohio, which still
exists. I understand the company held
a patent on the Bendex spring used in all
starters at that time. One of the sons, Bill, was a director
of the company as early
as I can remember and a grandson, Percy Neville, Jr., my
classmate, became president
of the company. Even with all of Mr. Frank Neville's
business experience, according
to his daughter-in-law, Mae Snearly Neville,
he had his problems learning to drive
the Model T Ford. She told me that soon after she
had married Percy, Sr., Mr. Frank
bought a new Model T Ford. He wanted
to show her his new car so he invited her to
take a ride out to one of his ranches. She stated
that when he drove up to the gate
he forgot to put on the brake and ran through the
gate before stopping. She said he
got out and repaired the gate and then, when he started
to drive on, he put his foot
on the reverse pedal and backed through the gate, tearing
it down again. She said he
did not say a word but was very quiet for awhile.
"Several pioneer attorneys were very
much a part of Henrietta's business world. I
have already written about Mr. Eustice and Mr. Wantland. Mr.
Wantland's wife talked a
lot and after he passed away, she was very lonely. Donley Suddath
said she would call
him and talk for as long as he would listen. He said when she
called and after he had
spoken to her he would just continue with his work, and
after a few minutes he would
say, 'Yes, that is right.' When he thought she had talked
long enough, he would say,
'I have to go. It was nice talking to you.' and then he would
hang up.
"One of the smartest men that I have ever known was
a black man who shined shoes for
many years at the old St. Elmo Barber Shop. He could barely write
his name, Doug, but
he accumulated what was considered to be considerable wealth
for the time. His motto
was, 'It doesn't matter what you make. It is what you do
with it.' Doug did not have
to have laws to give him respect...he earned
respect. I consider it a privilege to
have known him and to have had his friendship.
"A gentleman known only as Antelope
was a widely known resident of the Huggins Ranch
in east central Clay Co. His story
was one that fascinated many who knew him. He was
a cowboy who showed up asking for
work and even though Mr. Huggins never knew
who he really was, Antelope was one of
the best bronc riders he had ever seen.
Sometime just prior to 1920 he was thrown
from a horse on the ranch and
suffered a severe injury to his spinal cord. He
recovered physically but not mentally. The ranch owner
let him live on the ranch and
paid him his regular wages though he did very little work. He
had spells and when one
came over him he would start walking and hitch
hiking rides. He did not care which
direction or where he went. He might start out traveling west,
and at the end of that
ride he might go back east. Finally when the ranch
was sold, Antelope was committed
to the State Hospital. My brother Oather was employed
there and saw Antelope often.
He said no one could get Antelope to do any work even though
working was part of the
treatment. My brother told me that on one occasion
he saw Antelope pushing a wheel
barrow turned upside down. He said he asked him why he was doing
that. His answer was
that if he turned it over those 'fools' would put
brick in it and he was just using
his head as he would not haul brick for anyone. "
Chapter XV As we continue Mr. Obert McAdams' "Memories
of My First 85 Years," see if
this doesn't bring back memories to many of you who attended
a country school in your
youth.
"I started to school in the
fall of 1920 in the 2nd grade at the Neville School.
Because of the distance to the
school, my parents taught me at home for the 1st
grade.
"The Neville School was a large one room
frame building about four miles northeast
from our house. The teacher was expected to
teach anyone who wished to attend. The
first year we were in school our teacher had
students from 1st through 10th grade.
The school board, called trustees, was
made up of my father, Claude McAdams, Less
Thompson, and Mack Reeves.
"My first teacher was Miss Lena Ray, who was almost
18 years old when school started
and she had one year of college. At that time,
a person could get a certificate to
teach school in one of two ways...one year of college
or a passing grade on an exam
given by any county school superintendent.
The elected county superintendent was a
member of all the rural school boards. The only independent
school districts in 1920
were Byers, Petrolia, Henrietta, and Bellevue. If there
was more than one teacher in
a school, the lead teacher was the principal. "My
teacher boarded at the home of M/M
Less Thompson, whose son Dwight started to school that year.
Miss Ray and Dwight rode
to school on a Shetland pony. Since my sister
and I also rode to school on a pony,
they waited for us and we went together. Weather did not
stop us although we arrived
at school with very cold feet and sometimes very wet.
"I do not remember the number of students in
that first year, but there were 3 boys
in the 10th grade who were older than the teacher. Around
Christmas time, two of the
boys who were cousins had a fight
over the teacher - each claimed her as his
girlfriend - in the school yard at morning recess. One
of the boys suffered a severe
head injury that required stitches. The other had a broken
collar bone. The trustees
were going to suspend the two boys but were
saved the trouble when neither of them
returned to school. The third older boy also dropped out about
the same time.
"Some of the families whose children were in school while
I was there through the 7th
grade were McMasters, Reeves, McAdams,
Thompson, Carter, Ray (no relation to the
teacher), Chappell, Warren, Brister, Russell and
Lockhart. "My second grade teacher
was Miss Pearl Cunningham and the third Miss Ora
Vaughn. Miss Vaughn boarded at the
Jim Williams home and walked over a mile to
school. She later married the Williams
son, Boss, and they lived the rest of their lives in Clay Co.
"During the mid 1920's country schools
were spaced probably no more than seven or
eight miles apart because of the scattered
farms and lack of transportation. There
were five schools within five miles of our house, Neville, Bluegrove,
Halsell, Brown,
and Carmichael.
"Our school term was seven months
from October to early May. The first 3 years we
rode horses to school, and the last three we
rode in a one horse buggy with at top
and side curtains but no wind shield. It was warmer and
drier than riding horses but
slower.
"The Neville School was a large one room building
with a stage and blackboard across
the back of the room. There was a very large wood
and coal stove near the center of
the room. The front door was never
locked. The first boy to get to school in the
morning started the fire in the
stove in cold weather. If it was very bad, Mack
Reeves, who lived about three hundred yards from the school would
get up and go start
the fire very early in an attempt
to warm the building by school time. At the
beginning of each school term, the teacher would appoint a 'monitor'
for each week of
school. He (it was always a boy) was responsible for having a
daily supply of wood or
coal brought in from the storage building. The wood
was placed in a wood box at the
back of the room, or if we were burning coal,
the coal bucket was to be filled and
sitting by the stove. It was also his responsibility
to bring in a bucket of fresh
water each morning. The water bucket was placed
on a shelf at the back of the room
and had a dipper each one used. There was also a wash pan
and soap for washing one's
hands. A girl monitor was responsible for sweeping the floor.
"There was also a privey for boys and one for girls
about one hundred yards from the
school building and about a hundred yards apart. A privey
was an outdoor toilet that
was larger than most and had a wrap around
wind breaker around at least two sides
including the door. The wind breaker was about the same
height as the toilet and was
probably as much for privacy as for breaking
the wind. "The teacher would move us
nearer the stove on really cold days because the building
was too large and airy for
the students to stay warm in the rear of the building.
"We were fortunate to have one-student
desks which probably prevented a lot of
whispering. The teacher divided the room according to grade and
number of students in
the grade. All classes were held
at the front near the teacher's desk and at the
blackboard. When the class being taught was called, students
in that class would move
to the first row of seats, or to the blackboard if the class
was math or spelling.
"Our school day was from 8:00 to 4:00 with two recess periods
of fifteen minutes each
and a lunch period of one hour. All of the
students brought their lunch except for
the Mack Reeves family who lived nearby. Most students
ate their lunches in the coal
or wood shed next to the school unless the weather
forced them inside. There was no
playground equipment of any kind so the boys spun
tops and played marbles while the
girls played jacks. When spring came, all the students
would sometimes choose sides
and play ball.
Chapter XVI
"In my lifetime of 85 years, I have probably seen more changes
in the way the average
American lives and travels than had taken place in the past several
hundred years.
"In land transportation, changes have occurred that my grandfathers
would not believe
even if thy were to return to this earth and see
them. Both of my parents' families
came to Clay County in covered wagons, on horseback,
and walking. My mother told me
that when her father would decide to
move from place to place she and her brother
would walk along behind the wagons driving the family milk
cows and horses. I, also,
have traveled many miles in a horse drawn wagon,
and I rode to school on horseback
and in a one horse buggy. "Automobiles were
around before I was born, but they were
not practical for general use for the necessary
daily travel because they were not
dependable and roads were not suitable for cars.
"The roads were little more than
wagon trails. As cars became more plentiful, the
demand for good roads increased. A law was passed requiring each
land owner to donate
time to working on public roads.
The County Commissioners Court would appoint a
supervisor and assign so many days
of road work to each land owner or renter, A
worker furnishing a team of horses or mules worked half as many
days as a man who did
not.
"My father was appointed supervisor
for a section of roads while we lived in the
Neville Community. He and others succeeded
in improving the road from Henrietta to
Halsell and on to Scotland so automobiles could
travel over it. Around 1919 a mail
route was established from Henrietta
to Scotland and later on to Windthorst,
designated Star Route 2.
"The roads were built by using horse drawn graders
and fresnos. They were maintained
by horse drawn 'drags' after each rainfall. Since very
little dirt could be moved by
the graders or drags, all roads were sloped from the middle of
the road to the ditch.
All automobiles were built high off the ground so
drivers would straddle the center
of the road to be able to stay
out of the ditches. If two cars were to meet, one
usually tried to find a place to stop and let
the other move slowly by. The use of
motorized road equipment was a real treat to rural people.
"I have seen statistics that indicate
there were about 500,000 automobiles in the
world in 1910, and by 1920 there were 8,000,000 in the United
States alone, with most
being manufactured after 1915. The Model T Ford led the way to
the U.S. 'love affair'
with the automobile. Some of the names I have heard
for automobiles when they would
not start or were stuck in the mud would
probably lead one to think it might have
been a 'hate affair.' As the early day
automobiles chugged and backfired down the
roads and trails, they frightened many, many teams of horses
and buggy horses causing
them to run away.
"All of the makes of cars at that time depended on
a coil and magneto system for the
electrical supply, and there was only
one type of gasoline that was just a little
above kerosene. In fact, I have seen many Model T Fords
run on a mixture of coal oil
and gasoline.
"The engines were most of the time very difficult
to start. Both the spark and fuel
were controlled by levers somewhere near
the steering wheel. Before cranking the
motor, the spark lever was always
placed in the 'off' position to prevent back
firing. The engine was started by turning a crank at the front
of the car. Often with
the spark 'off,' the engine would backfire
anyway causing the crank to turn in the
reverse direction at a rapid rate resulting in many
broken arms and bruised wrists.
In cold weather hot water was often poured on a burlap
sack placed over the manifold
to warm the gas and help start the motor. Sometimes
the driver would jack up a rear
wheel and put the car in gear. The wheel would act as an
extra flywheel allowing the
person turning the crank to get a little faster rotation
of the motor, helping it to
start. I have also seen a pulley attached to a back wheel. The
person trying to start
the car would wind a rope around the pulley and spin the
wheel in an effort to start
the car. Some of the difficulty in starting the early
day cars was probably as much
the driver's fault as it was the motor. One must remember
that these were people who
had absolutely no mechanical experience
other than greasing a wagon wheel, and
suddenly they found themselves trying to operate a complicated
mechanical monster.
Chapter XVII
To continue Obert McAdams's story of the Model T from his book,
"Memories of My First
85 Years":
"The Model T had a box under the dashboard that
contained four coils...one for each
cylinder. The box had a cover but
it was seldom in place as the points
that
controlled the spark were on top
of the coil. When a cylinder began to miss, the
driver reached down and flipped the stuck point
with a finger. The coils were wood
rectangular boxes about five inches long
and two or three inches wide filled with
wires. There were no wires to and from
the coil directly to the magneto and spark
plug. Contact was made by electrodes
on one side of the coil wedged
against
corresponding electrodes on the front
of th coil box, making it necessary for the
coil to fit tight in the coil box. If it did not fit tight enough,
the operator would
make a wood wedge and push it down behind the coil.
"Plain water was used for cooling the engine. This, along
with the starting problems,
did not allow use in extra cold
weather. The radiator would freeze in the bottom
while the motor was running as early day cars did
not have water pumps. Some people
used wood alcohol as anti-freeze but its low boiling point
caused it to boil out too
quickly. Most people just heated the water
before putting it into the radiator and
always started the engine before pouring it
in. This practice continued until good
anti-freeze was developed after WWII.
"Lights were another problem with
early model cars. They would almost fade out
completely when the moor slowed down. I have
seen a number of Model T Fords with a
coal oil lantern hanging on the radiator for night driving
from church to home. Only
after WWII did engineers figure out a regulator that supplied
an even electric flow.
Overheating engines were another problem not solved until after
WWII and even later.
"Tires were another problem not solved until then.
The first ones were known as high
pressure clincher tires with inner tubes. They were made
of rubber and cotton canvas
and carried sixty to eighty pounds of pressure. They were
very small around and very
easy to puncture or have the fiber broken by rocks in the road.
Flat tires were a way
of life for the drivers of cars. The first tire with
a conditional guarantee that I
can remember was in 1933. The tire pump, tube patch, jack,
boot, and lug wrench were
standard equipment until after WWII.
Boots were made from the same type fiber and
rubber as the tire and were used
inside the tire to cover the breaks in the tire
itself. No one knew what balancing tires meant even
after balloon tires began to be
used in the late 1920's. "The first windshield wipers that
I can remember were in use
in the late 1920's and were hand operated.
"Most progress in automobile development
started in the late 1920's when Ford
introduced its Model A in 1928. Chevrolet may have been ahead
of Ford at that time as
well as several other makers. Ford
had been so successful with the Model T that
statistics indicate that he made 15 million
of the 1912 Model T's without a change
being made.
"Driving early model cars was complicated. The
'spark' was controlled by one lever,
gas by another, choke by another, and so on. The Model T had
three doors as there was
no front door on the driver's side because the main
lever to put the car in and out
of gear was on the driver's left side and acted as a gear
shift and emergency brake.
There were three pedals on the floor. One pedal on the
left, when pushed down at the
same time the gear lever was released, started the car moving.
There were two forward
gears, low and high. The driver
had to judge the speed in using the high and low
pedal at the same time he had to operate
the gear lever to get moving. The middle
pedal on the floor was the reverse pedal with the operation
the same as the low-high
pedal except the reverse gear was more powerful
than the low gear. The third lever
was the brake and had to be operated with the gear lever.
The choke was at the front
of the car by the crank. With the spark
lever pushed to the off position, the car
would idle very rough and if the spark was not increased,
the engine would soon die.
So it now seems comical to remember a man cranking
his car and then hurrying around
the side to give it spark. From the time I can remember
up to 1928, it was my job to
give the car spark when my father cranked it. The Model
T Ford was probably the most
complicated of the early day automobiles
to operate but it was by far the most
popular make for a number of years.
"By the time I can remember, everyone
with a blacksmith shop was trying to make an
automobile: Essex, Overland, Nash, Hupmobile,
Studebaker, Mitchell, Hudson Pierce-
Arrow, Berline, Packard. I never saw one but
I have pictures of a Duryea (1892), a
Ford (1893), an Oldsmobile (1896), a Haynes, a White Steamer,
and some electric cars
built around 1900."
Chapter XVIII To continue Mr. McAdams' story of transportation
in his book, "Memories
of My First 85 Years":
"I don't know when trucks were first introduced, but
none were very successful until
about 1928 when Ford and Chevrolet came out with
trucks that could carry commercial
loads sufficient enough to make trucking
profitable. Mack made one of the first
really useful ones. Many early models had solid rubber tires
made on the wheels. Most
of the early trucks were chain driven. I remember that
Model T trucks could probably
haul as much as four thousand pounds.
"I remember a Mr. Pennington who lived near
Bluegrove who hau led cattle to the Ft. Worth
Stockyards using a Model T truck. He
could haul 4 cows or five or
six calves in each load. The main problem was the
condition of the roads, dirt and rough. All the truckers
had trouble getting up the
'Decatur Hill.' As late as the mid 1930's, many truckers would
unload a part of their
load at the bottom of the hill and take the rest
to the top, leave them and go back
after the first ones. This was what is
now Highway 287. Both mud and sand created
problems for both cars and trucks on many main roads until after
WWII. Ranger Hill in
Eastland Co. gave truckers problems as
late as 1965 on what is now Interstate 20.
Later, development of road building machinery made it possible
to cut down the hills
and eliminate some of those problems.
"As it was with early day
automobiles, many small companies were trying to make
trucks. The 'Wichita' was made in Wichita
Falls with solid rubber tires and chain
drive. One of the first I can remember was used to
haul cotton bales from the Brown
Gin at Bluegrove to the railroad in Henrietta. It was a
very strong framed truck and
could haul a little more than a wagon
and was faster. "As long as I can remember,
'good roads' have been an issue and how to pay for
them just as big an issue. Early
towns and cities used bricks to pave some of
the streets. The first concrete I saw
used to pave a street was about
1922. Main Street in Henrietta was paved with
concrete along with the other streets
around the Courthouse Square. The paving
machine was, in my mind, the largest machine I had ever seen.
Some of the cost of the
paving was paid by property owners. If
the owner refused to pay, that section was
left unpaved. For years the street
north of the Court House Square had unpaved
sections, as well as many other streets also.
"Before 1923 a 'good roads' district was formed from
the Montague County line to the
Wichita County line through Bellevue, Henrietta, and Jolly.
It extended out from the
road a few miles in each direction and property
owners along the road were charged
taxes to finance the road. They soon
realized that a lot of people were using the
road who had contributed nothing and other means
of financing were found, like cost
sharing, gasoline taxes and others.
"All of the dirt work in the
'good roads' district was done with horse and mule
power. I believe the road across Clay County was
paved in 1925 through 1927 and was
known as Highway 5. The second paved road ran from Henrietta
east to Montague County
and is now Highway 81. It was completed in 1936. "With
improved roads and trucks the
railroads lost business and many lines were abandoned.
"The first airplane that I can remember seeing
was an open cockpit bi-wing in 1917.
Although I was only 3 years old at the time, it made such
an impression on me that I
still remember it as if it were just yesterday. I was playing
in our back yard when I
heard a loud noise. When I looked up I saw
what had to have been an army air corps
plane. It had two sets of wings,
was khaki colored, had a U.S. flag on the side
behind a man sitting in between the wings. He was wearing
goggles and a cap that fit
tight on his head. It was about 500 feet off the
ground, going about 60 to 75 miles
an hour. Since I saw it first flying
behind our barn, I ran in and told my mother
there was something out behind the barn that she should come
see.
"I have seen airplanes develop from
the single seat bi-planes to the huge jets
seating more than 300 people and traveling
400 to 500 miles per hour. I have flown
from Amarillo to Los Angeles, taken care of business
and returned home in less time
than it took me to travel in a wagon from the home
farm in Clay County to Henrietta
(10 miles) and return." Chapter XIX
To continue Obert McAdams' "Memories of My First 85
Years": "I was probably about 10
years old when I saw my first radio,
a crystal set homemade by my cousin, Leland
McAdams. There was a broadcasting station in Ft. Worth. Leland
had long wires running
around the ceiling of his room for antennas, and we could sometimes
hear voices (most
of the time, just static) from
Ft.Worth, a distance of about 80 miles. The first
manufactured radio I can remember was made by Motorola
with a large horn sitting on
the top for a speaker. Mr. P.C. Lockhart, our neighbor,
bought one in about 1923 or
1924 and invited the whole neighborhood to listen
to it the first Saturday night he
owned it. I do not remember the type battery
used for power, but his party was not
very successful. The radio had several dials that
had to be set just right. Most of
the program we heard was static since it was a stormy night.
"I do not remember the year when
I saw my first television set, but it would have
been after 1937. The picture was black
and white with a lot of snow interference,
probably caused by the quality of the telecast.
"The telegraph was in general use long before I was
born. Transmission was fast, but
if a person did not live near a telegraph station,
delivery sometimes took a day or
two, but even so, it was much faster than the
U.S. Mail. "Communications have made
unbelievable strides in my lifetime. I cannot remember when my
parents did not have a
telephone. Mr. E. A. Blake of Bluegrove
owned the telephone system with the
switchboard located in Bluegrove. The telephones
were powered by dry cell batteries
placed inside a rather large phone
box. The batteries could be rejuvenated about
three times by soaking them overnight in rain water. Well
water was not used because
sometimes the chemicals in it would
damage the batteries. The line was a single
strand of smooth wire fastened to insulators, usually
along the tops of fence posts
running from the switchboard to different areas. To call
another person on your line
you simply turned the crank in a series of long and
short turns since each customer
had his own ring signal. To call someone off your line
you went through the operator
at the switchboard. Since all lines were party lines, everyone
often listened in and
often joined in the conversation. Needless
to say, service was very bad and it was
necessary to talk very loudly.
"If an announcement concerning the community was to be made,
the switchboard operator
would make a rather long ring, then wait for people
to get to their phones and then
make the announcement. Local patrons could do the
same in case of emergencies, like
fire. The operator would often hand deliver messages to people
who had no phone. Then
came single party lines but still needing
an operator, then automatic connections
with an operator for long distance calls to the cellular
phones today which need no
wires or operators.
"I remember a rather amusing event which
happened several times on Sunday mornings
before Prohibition became law. This certain rancher would go
to Henrietta on Saturday
and buy a keg of beer. He would lower it into a well
that had especially cold water
in it that was near a stock tank down
in the pasture. Then, on Sunday morning, he
would get on the telephone and make the long emergence
ring and say, 'We have a cow
in the bog on our place and we need help to get her out.'
Chapter XX
To continue Obert McAdams' "Memories
of My First 85 Years ": "The
reason for
describing the various types of businesses
as I knew them as a young person is to
show the differences between the family-owned business and the
present-day corporate-
owned giant multi-purpose stores.
"Prior to WWII the U. S. was a rural
agrarian society with a vast majority of the
population living on farms and ranches or in
small towns and communities that owed
their existence to farming and ranching. Just as this was the
situation in the South,
it also was the case in most of the U.S. The migration from the
farms and small towns
began during WWII when the giant armaments factories
began to draw people away from
farming and small town life. Young people
continue to leave today to find better-
paying jobs. As costs of producing food and fiber have increased,
larger farms become
necessary, replacing smaller units and displacing people.
"Prior to WWII the nearest thing
to today's conglomerate stores were the two mail
order businesses - Sears, Roebuck and Company and Montgomery
Ward. There were a very
limited number of companies such as J. C. Penney, S.H. Kress
and Woolworth's but they
did not locate in the smaller towns. Where they did
locate, J.C. Penney stores sold
only clothing and Kress and Woolworth stores
sold only small items that they could
sell for five or ten cents. The owner of a store in smaller
places was almost always
present at the business and he (most owners at that
time were men) stuck to what he
knew best, groceries if he had a grocery
store, for instance. An exception was in
very small places there might be only one store called
a general merchandising store
that would stock some groceries, patent medicines,
plow parts, and some dry goods -
the basic needs of the community. "In my younger days a
grocery store was just that -
they handled food products. A hardware
store sold nails, hammers, and small items
used in farming such as plow shares,
binder twine, hinges, etc. A dry goods store
handled clothing items. "The grocery store I remember
as a child sold wheat flour in
24 or 48 pound cotton cloth sacks, corn meal in 24 pound cotton
cloth sacks, sugar in
bulk from barrels, pickles by the dozen
from barrels, bacon, cheese, bananas when
available, canning supplies, candy and other staple food
items such as salt, pepper,
spices, and flavorings. Baking powder and soda were
packaged much as they are today
with Calumet and Arm & Hammer the favorite brands.
Fleischmans yeast was sold in dry
cake form that did not require refrigeration
and was a big selling item since most
housewives baked the family's bread.
Smoked dry salt bacon was sold in slab form,
unsliced. Cheese was shipped to grocery stores
in large round 40-pound wheels. The
store had special round boards for the cheese
to be placed on and the grocer would
cut off what the customer wanted, nearly always in
triangular pieces the way we cut
pies today. I was probably 20 years
old before I knew that cheese came in other
shapes and types other than sharp cheddar, when grocers began
selling longhorn cheese
which was a long round 20-pound horn. Bananas
were shipped to the store on a stalk
and hung by a rope from the ceiling. They were sold by
the dozen and pulled from the
stalk as the customer ordered them.
"Since most families grew and canned their own vegetables,
the grocery sold what were
called fruit jars. Vinegar was shipped in a barrel and
sold by the gallon, with most
people furnishing their own glass jugs.
The only candy I remember as a boy was a
chocolate covered round with a very sweet center,
sold in bulk form by the pound. A
nickel would buy about ten pieces. The first candy bars I remember
were Baby Ruth and
Hershey bars which sold for a nickel.
"In the fall and early winter
apples would be sold by the peck or bushel. Stores
generally handled delicious apples, oranges, walnuts and Brazil
nuts and coconuts for
Christmas. All grocery stores sold lard in tin buckets to be
used in baking cakes and
pie crusts. Dry pinto beans were
another staple sold by the pound. Fresh produce
might be found in season or might
be available from a peddler. "Larger towns had
farmers' markets where grocers could
buy wholesale from farmers who brought their
produce in very early in the morning. After grocers filled their
orders, the peddlers
would buy at a lower price what was left and peddle it
to housewives along a regular
route. The one in Wichita Falls was still peddling as late
as 1940, when I last sold
him watermelons.
"The cotton domestic bags in which flour and
corn meal were sold found many uses in
the homes, such as dish towels and clothing.
During the Great Depression the flour
companies started using a better grade
of material with various prints on it that
became standard material for making work clothes. "All
other items were usually sold
in brown paper bags or tin buckets. All grocery stores
carried a limited variety of
goods in tin cans. Pork and beans, sardines and salmon were some
of these.
"Since most people used oil lamps for lighting their
homes, most grocery stores sold
coal oil since gas and oil stations were few and
far between." (Dry good stores and
meat markets next time)
Chapter XXI
To continue Mr. O. J. McAdams' "Memories
of My First 85 Years": "In describing the
type clothing worn when I was young, one should remember that
the home and work place
were so very different from those of today. There
was no central heating and no air
conditioning so a completely different type
of clothing was needed. Insulation for
homes and buildings was unknown, and the only warm
place in the winter was near the
stove. There was no cool place in the summer.
"The dry goods and clothing stores I
remember in my young days were just that. They
sold material, patterns, and thread
for use in making clothes worn by most
family members. Overalls, khaki pants, and
blue denim shirts were the usual work clothes for men.
I suspect the shirts were the
reason for the term 'blue collar worker.' Men's dress
suits were made of wool, very
warm in the summertime. Men's dress shirts,
I remember, were always white with the
collars being separate. The collars were
always heavily starched or made
of
celluloid. Separate collars allowed their being worn
with several different shirts.
The shirts ha double cuffs so cuff
links and collar buttons were necessary. (The
museum has several personalized collar boxes with collars and
buttons.) Many men wore
derby hats or western Stetsons or even caps for winter
dress. They wore straw sailor
hats with straight brims and flat tops
for summer dress. Most boys wore bill caps
with ear flaps in winter and straw hats in summer.
For work, both men and boys wore
large straw hats, or some men wore the
so-called ten-gallon felt hats, which were
rather hot.
"Boys wore suits with short pants that buckled just below
the knees, called knickers.
Most of the ties that were worn were
hand-tied bow ties. Most men and women owned
heavy wool overcoats and slickers for bad weather. The slickers
were made of a yellow
oil cloth with a black hat of the same material.
Shoes and boots were staple items.
The shoes were stiff and required a breaking
in period. Two items probably not for
sale today but popular then were sock supporters to hold
up men's socks and leggings
made of either wool or leather
to keep men's legs warm. As leggings went out of
style, men began to wear spats to keep their ankles warm.
Long flannel underwear was
a must for winter wear for most people. Men and boys
wore either home-made BVD type
underwear in the summer or store bought BVD's. Many flour sacks
ended up as men's and
boy's underwear.
"Women and girls wore bloomers that could
be bought or made from material found in
dry goods stores (or flour sacks). There
were silk stockings for women to wear on
Sunday and ribbed cotton for everyday wear. Men wore
socks made of cotton in summer
and wool in winter. Whale bone corsets were a big item
in women's wear. No lady went
anywhere without being laced into her corset. Ladies
shoes were also very different
when I was young. To be stylish, ladies wore
high top laced or eyelet black patent
leather shoes with a pointed toe.
"The dry goods and clothing stores
I remember would stock about everything people
wore but nothing else. A few stores advertised
ladies ready-to-wear but most women
and girls wore home made dresses of cotton,
silk, linen, lace, or wool material. A
Singer sewing machine was one of the necessary items in
most homes. "Another special
type of store popular when I was young was the meat market, located
only in towns and
cities that had electric or gas cooled vaults. The conditions
under which small town
meat markets received meat were far removed
from today's methods. The meat market
owner or his butcher would purchase an
animal at the farm or ranch paying so many
dollars per animal. The butcher would kill the animal on the
farm and field dress the
carcass and then haul it to the vault
for cooling. After the meat was cooled, the
butcher either quartered it or halved
it. The customer would order so much of
whatever cut he wanted. The butcher would tear off two
sheets of butcher paper and a
sheet of wrapping paper and lay the paper on the scales. Then
the butcher would bring
a quarter of beef or pork out of
the vault and cut off the approximate requested
amount, placing it on the scale on top of the paper. Then the
cut was weighed and the
cost determined. Meat was hung in the
vault on a roller attached to a circle rail
that extended outside the vault for ease in
handling. A butcher friend of mine was
asked why so much paper was used. He said, 'Paper
is cheaper than meat, and it does
add to the weight.' "Another source of fresh beef in summer
was the peddler who would
dress the beef and cool it with ice. He then
traveled around the neighborhood with
his meat in tubs of ice and sell the meat.
"Some people canned their meat for summer use.
"The large packing plants furnished
the dry salt bacon, bologna, and some canned
meats to the grocers who had no way of
cooling. Their fresh meat went only to the
large towns and cities that had railroads and sufficient
electricity to operate cold
vaults. The stores would buy the meat by the quarters of
the beef or pork. Swift and
Armour were the main players in the meat business. Armour
operated many small cheese
plants in the Southwest, all of
which closed several years ago. "Boxed meat is a
rather recent way of shipping fresh meat.
"My mother's brother, Leslie Christian,
operated a meat market in Byers for many
years. He bought the animals - cattle, hogs, sheep
- at farms in the Byers area and
handled them as stated. (Drug stores and hardware stores next
time)
Chapter XXII
To continue Mr. Obert McAdams' story, "Memories
of My First 85 Years": "Drug stores
were very different from the modern drug
store. Most of them in small towns would
have a doctor who had his office at the store. If his office
were elsewhere, he would
write all his prescriptions for a particular
store unless the customer requested a
different one. What we now know as a pharmacist was then
called a druggist who might
have been to school for a six week course or he might have
read some books and taken
an exam.
"Several types of patent medications were stocked. Some
that I remember were aspirin,
lineaments, Lydia Pinkhams, and Doan's
Little Liver Pills. Several so-called cold
remedies were sold as well as iodine,
turpentine, and other products. "All
prescriptions were mixed by the druggist...many in powder
form. He would measure out
the required amount of each ingredient
by weighing it and then mixing all of the
ingredients together in a bowl using
a mortar stick. After the ingredients were
mixed, the druggist would spread the mixture on a sheet
of paper and arrange it in a
square form. With a special knife
designed for such use, he would divide
the
medication into equal doses. Then he would place each dose on
a small square of paper
and fold it in a way that would
keep the medicine from spilling out. To take the
medicine, the patient usually mixed it in water. The taste was
usually not too bad as
the filler used in most dry powder
mixes was baking soda with the long name of
bicarbonate of soda. For liquid medication such as cough syrup,
the druggist measured
the ingredients by the ounce by pouring from
a large bottle into a smaller bottle.
The filler for cough syrup was alcohol. Later on, the druggist
would mix the powders
the same way but put them in capsules.
This made the medications with a bad taste
easier to take as well as being more convenient.
"The most frequently prescribed medications
were quinine and purgatives, such as
calomel, black draught, and castor oil. It was recommended
by makers of purgatives,
and also by many doctors, that a person take
at least three rounds of purgatives a
year for good health. Considering the fact that most water came
from unsealed springs
or wells, that outdoor privies were used, and other
existing conditions such as the
family water dipper used by all for drinking,
it probably was a good idea to take
three rounds of purgatives a year. "A few patent
medications in common use then are
still used, such as iodine, turpentine, menthols, and camphor.
"Quinine was used for typhoid and other
fevers. Its extremely bitter taste gave us
the expression "bitter as quinine."
When I was about seven years old, I personally
heard a doctor tell a druggist that a good dose of soda
never hurt anyone...in other
words, sometimes when a patient thought he was getting
a medication, he was getting
only soda. This was not meant to
deceive the patient but was simply all the good
doctor had to prescribe. "For cuts
and scrapes, the average drug store would have
camphor based salves or liquid. Paregoric
was the only medication I can remember
doctors prescribing for dysentery, which was common. It
was so strong that it had to
be taken by the drop in a glass of water. The taste was very
bad, and if too much was
taken, then more purgatives were needed.
"By the time I remember, drug stores
in the larger towns had electricity and most
would have a soda fountain. There
a person would sit on a tall stool or on small
chairs at a round marble top table.
Most soda fountains offered coke, root beer,
lemonade, and ice cream. The coke could have cherry flavoring
added. The drinks were
mixed at the fountain using the syrup and soda water. Thus,
the term "soda jerk" was
born. Many stores in smaller towns
had their own generators, but if there was no
electricity, there was no soda fountain.
"The three hardware stores that I remember from my youth
all had very similar shelves
and show cases. One wall of each store was covered
with shelves, drawers, etc. from
floor to ceiling and had a ladder that hooked onto
a rail at the top and rollers on
the bottom so the clerk could move it along to reach the
higher drawers and shelves.
The drawers would be filled with
bolts, nails - including shoe nails -hinges of
various sizes, door locks, door knobs, and other
small items. The shelves were used
to store larger items such as buckets, larger tin items, and
water well buckets.
"One of the hardware store's big sellers was all kinds
of stoves from the large coal
and wood burning furnaces to the small one burner
coal oil space heaters. Some were
very plain and others would have silver trim and enamel
on them. The hardware stores
I knew also sold guns and ammunition as well as all
kinds of knives. They also sold
small hand type garden plows and
all kinds of plow shares, shovels, picks, and
posthole diggers. Of course, there were many
other items like binder twine, baling
wire, rope, harnesses for work horses and buggy horses. Stove
pipes for wood and coal
stoves were also a big item since it was rare for them to last
more than a year
Chapter XXIII
"From the time I can remember,
there were other types of businesses that were
considered to be necessary. The blacksmith
shop, the saddle maker, the implement
dealer, the ice plants, feed stores,
and cotton gins. "The blacksmith did welding
which was much different from today's welding. He also sharpened
plow shares and shod
horses. He was the one who kept the farm
machinery of that day operating. To weld
iron or steel, the blacksmith would heat it to a point where
it was semi liquid, then
join the two pieces by hammering
them together on his anvil, using a blacksmith
hammer. The different types of iron required different
heating, causing him to know
all of the types of iron and steel. The blacksmith was so necessary
that almost every
community had one or more.
"The saddle maker did leather work as well as make saddles,
which were very necessary
at that time. His shop was operated by skilled leather craftsmen.
Young people looked
forward to getting their first saddle
much as young people today look forward to
getting their first driver's license. A good saddle made by a
good saddle maker would
last a lifetime if given the proper care. Good
harnesses for both buggy horses and
work horses could be bought at most hardware stores
but if a person wanted an extra
fancy leather harness, he would have it custom made at
the saddle shop. Also, saddle
shops would customize horse bridles to the customer's liking.
"The implement dealer sold farm tools,
buggies, and wagons. They were much as they
are today except for one thing. The implements sold
long ago were horse powered and
much, much smaller. There were no motorized
implements until the late 1920's. The
types of plows, grain binders, grain drills, hay
balers, etc. that were sold by the
implement dealers prior to the 1930's are now collectors' items.
This is also true of
old tractors.
"I cannot remember when there were no ice plants. Since
railroads were heavy users of
bulk ice, all of the plants were located near a railroad with
a track up to a loading
dock. The trains would take on large 300 or more pound blocks
for cooling bananas and
other perishables that they might be hauling. All of the ice
plants that I knew about
froze the ice in 300 pound blocks that were grooved so that they
could be broken down
into 25, 50 and 100 pound blocks to be
sold at the front dock. Exact weight was a
myth as the plant employee would
use an ice pick to break the block of ice, and
sometimes the buyer might get 20 pounds or, then again, it might
be 30.
"The buyer might be in a wagon and later a car.
He would have some type of material
to wrap around the ice block to keep it from melting.
Some people used wagon sheets
which are now called tarps while others might have a burlap
cotton bale bagging. The
most common wrap was an old quilt
since the cotton was good insulation. Some
merchants in smaller communities, such as Bluegrove,
would sell ice so that people
could make ice cream on weekends. The merchant covered
the ice blocks with sawdust.
The ice was delivered to him in 300 pound blocks by freight
wagons and then later by
trucks. City and town dwellers were
served by horse drawn ice wagons on regular
routes. Housewives had a square card
with numbers 25, 50, 75, and 100 written on
them, usually in large red letters. On the ice delivery
day on her route, she placed
the card in a front door or window to let the
ice man know how much ice she wanted
that day. The ice wagon was pulled by
one horse who knew the route as well as the
delivery man. The horse would know where and when
to go as well as when to stop and
when to go again. This method of delivering ice in
towns and cities continued until
electric refrigerators became popular in
the late 1930's and in some cases until
after WWII.
"In Clay County, Virgil Townley
and a son started ice routes for farm and ranch
people around 1936. They delivered the
ice in Chevrolet trucks and continued the
routes until the US entered WWII. The railroads
used so much ice in the war effort
that ice rationing was necessary. Following the war,
the Rural Electric Cooperative
Associations were able to complete their electric lines so that
farm people could get
electric refrigeration. This, coupled with mechanical refrigeration
of railroad cars
and truck trailers, caused the demise of ice plants as
they had been for many years.
We now have two generations who have missed the opportunity
of keeping the drain pan
under the wooden refrigerator empty and two generations who have
not had the pleasure
of lugging the old quilt to the ice plant for
a chunk of ice make a freezer of ice
cream." (Next: cotton gins and feed stores)
Chapter XXIV
To continue Obert McAdams' "Memories of My First 85 Years":
"Most farmers raised most
of their livestock feed and seed but those
in the towns needed a place to buy feed
for their buggy and saddle horses, their
chickens and hogs; thus most towns had a
feed and seed store. It also sold garden seed, baby
chicks, wheat bran, poultry and
livestock medications and vaccines, and some manufactured
feed like cotton seed meal
and cake. Strange as it may seem
the same type of store exists today but for a
different type customer. Today, many feed store customers
are town and city dwellers
buying for pleasure horses and seed for
bird feeders. Many feed stores today sell
protein supplements for livestock as
well as block salt and mineral blocks for
cattle.
"Another type of business still
flourishing today but in a completely different
manner and area is the cotton gin. Cotton was the cash
crop of early Clay County and
much of Texas as well as the southern United States from
the earliest settlers until
after WWII. After the cotton was ginned
and baled, it was hauled to a cotton yard
where it was weighed by a public weigher and sampled.
The cotton gin and the cotton
yard were a dreaded disaster for many places without
fire fighting equipment except
for the bucket brigades.
"It was customary for businesses to stay open late
during the busy cotton harvesting
season as farmers often brought their cotton to the gin
late in the afternoon. After
getting their cotton ginned, they would stop by the
stores for supplies. Before the
store owners had electricity, they lighted the buildings
with oil lamps and Coleman
gasoline lamps. If and when a store received electricity,
there would be an electric
fan over the entry door to keep flies and other flying insects
out of the store.
"Wholesale companies located in large cities
had drummers, now called salesmen, who
called on the store owners for their orders. The drummer sent
the order to his office
by telegraph when he found a telegraph office. Dry goods
and hardware drummers would
call on their customers around four times a
year. Grocery drummers called monthly.
The drummers I first remember traveled to a central location
by train and then leased
a horse and buggy to make their calls. Drummers
were very good customers of livery
stables until around 1930 when they
began to use cars. That which they sold was
shipped by railroad to the nearest depot and delivered by horse
drawn wagons.
"When I was born in 1914, a great
majority of families in the U.S. lived and made
their living on small farms or in small unincorporated communities
and in small towns
and cities that depended on the farms and ranches for their existence.
"Even from the
beginning of colonization of what was to become the
United States, land grants were
made by the King of England, the rulers of Spain
and the rulers of France to induce
farming and ranching. After the War for US independence
and the Louisiana Purchase,
homesteading became the tool used to
settle large areas of the western
and
southwestern US. Homesteads ranged from
160 acres to 640 acres, depending
on
location. Two of my father's brothers, George and Hardie,
got their start in life by
homesteading 640 acres in Moore Co. in the
Texas panhandle. My wife's grandfather,
Jackson Evans, received 160 acres as a homestead
in Eastland Co. and since he was a
pioneer doctor, he was given a grant of more than 1000 acres
by the state.
"Some migration from farms to cities had begun by the time
I can remember, especially
among young people seeking work in the growing automobile
and machinery industries.
But the early movement was very
slow, and those leaving agriculture were usually
children from large farm families who
were unable to get work on farms or in the
small rural communities. Migration continued at a very
slow pace until the beginning
of the conflict in Europe in 1939, the beginning
of WWII. "The Roaring 20's," which
we still sometimes use to describe the period from
the end of WWI to 1928 were just
that, a time of great prosperity in the United States.
Farm products were needed in
great quantities to feed and clothe our growing population as
well as to help restore
war torn Europe. Farm product prices and land
values were at an all time high. The
popularity of the automobile reached
a frenzy as Henry Ford and others turned out
large quantifies of cars at reasonable prices for the time.
"But while all this was going on, the methods of farming
and raising food had changed
very little from the beginning of the colonies in the new world.
Some improvements in
kinds of crops and varieties had been made and some
improvements in processing were
evident. But the raising and harvesting of crops depended
on horse or mule power and
manpower creating many millions of jobs. This changed
very little from the time the
iron plow was invented until after I was born in 1914."
(Next: The Great Depression)
Chapter XXV
"The Great Depression of October 1929 really started
on the farms of the U.S. in the
fall of 1928. It took a year for the depression in
agriculture to reach Wall Street
and the streets of large cities and towns across the United States.
The 1920's made a
large impact on my memory as my parents and
many members of their families were in
agriculture and living in small communities that depended on
farming and ranching.
"From the time I was born
until about 1925, my father's main interest had been
raising and training horses and mules with some cattle. Cotton
and wheat farming were
returning good profits so he decided to go into farming on a
large scale for the area
and times. He bought and rented additional
land as well as some new equipment. By
1927 he was the largest cotton farmer in south Clay County
and making good money and
expanding further - his banker told him to
buy anything that would make money. The
1928 cotton crop was a very good one.
The first few bales sold at what was then a
high price - the mid $.20 per pound. By mid October, the
price dropped to about $.05
per pound or lower.
"Following WWI, the market for food and fiber
reached new highs because of the need
to rebuild war torn Europe. The
world supply of wheat, corn, and cotton was not
sufficient to meet the needs of Europe.
At the same time, the internal combustion
engine was being adapted to be used in large iron
wheel tractors making it possible
for millions of acres to be plowed
and planted in crops in the Great Plains and
western Texas. This caused an explosion in grain,
corn, and cotton supplies. By the
mid 1920's, Europe had recovered to the extent that
it could again produce food and
fiber crops, and by 1928, the world found itself with an
over supply of agricultural
products with the U.S. being the
main producer. Farmers, finding themselves with
large grain supplies, increased their livestock herds.
This caused an over supply of
meat as well as wool, mohair, and hides. The age old supply and
demand formula kicked
in with disastrous results for agriculture,
and as hard times hit the farmers and
ranchers, they stopped buying. Since
at that time more than eighty percent of the
population was in agriculture, the end result was world wide
depression.
"My father continued to gather cotton as long
as he could clear $5.00 per bale. The
cotton ginners began ginning the cotton for
the seed, allowing my father to gather
the entire 1928 crop. Many farmers plowed under the latter
part of that year's crop.
Wheat declined to around $.30 per bushel, oats $.10 and corn
$.10. Hog prices dropped
to as low as $.02 per pound. I remember
my Uncle George McAdams shipping his calf
crop from Muleshoe, TX, to the Ft. Worth
Central Market, where the cattle did not
bring enough to pay the freight
and commission. He had hoped to have at least a
couple of dollars a head above expenses. Instead,, he received
a small bill.
"Many farmers and ranchers were
unable to make their payments. Many banks allowed
them to continue to operate if
they could pay interest on their loans and their
taxes. Soon, the collateral for their loans had little or no
value. I personally knew
farmers who wrote their banks where the collateral was and they
could come get it.
"Mr. Luke Williams, agricultural agent
for the W. B. Worsham Bank,
told an
interesting story about a farmer customer.
He had borrowed money from the bank to
finance the next year's crop but ran out of money before he had
finished planting it.
He went to the bank to borrow enough to finish. He
told Mr. Williams he didn't have
money enough to plant and to buy groceries.
Mr. Williams told the farmer to finish
planting and to catch a jack rabbit for groceries. A few
days later Mr. Williams got
a letter from the farmer telling him he had taken
his advice and was running a jack
rabbit through Bowie and the rabbit was still going.
He said the farm tools were by
the barn and the horses were in the lot and that
if Mr. Williams wanted them he had
better go get them. That rabbit was still
running east and he thought it wouldn't
stop until at least Louisiana.
"Many loans were long past due before foreclosure
took place. This resulted in many
small town and city banks being closed. Herbert Hoover, the Republican
president, was
blamed for the depression with its long soup lines
in the larger cities of the East
and for the foreclosures in the Southwest. As a result, Franklin
D. Roosevelt won the
1932 election by an overwhelming majority.
Soon after taking office in 1933,
President Roosevelt took some very drastic action
in an attempt to right the United
States' economy. He had limited success. "One
of his first actions was to declare a
bank holiday, whereby all banks were required to close
for a short period to stop so
called 'runs' on the banks. People had lost faith
in all banks and were withdrawing
their money. Only banks that were considered financially
sound were to reopen. Many
banks that reopened failed in the following months,
including the W. B. Worsham and
Company Bank in Henrietta. This was the bank that
was financing my father. The same
thing happened to the bank that my wife's
father used. I believe the Worsham Bank
paid unsecured depositors about $.17 on the dollar
after all the bank's assets were
sold.
"The failure of the Worsham Bank changed
my life forever. All of my father's funds
were in that bank; there was no money to pay for my college
education, forcing me to
leave college never to return. My wife
Cleo suffered the same fate. That, coupled
with the depression, changed my parents' life. My
father was forced to sell several
hundred acres of land and a number of cattle. From that time
until his death in 1987,
he never again would borrow money to expand
his farming operations. I remember one
group of very good cows that he bought just before the price
decline that he held for
about three years. When the cows and two calf crops were
sold, my father did not get
his first dollars back that he
had invested in the cows. It also made a great
impression on me that probably has caused me
to be over cautious about investments
and borrowing money throughout my life. "The
depression influenced the people of my
fathers's generation who were able to struggle through
with at least a home and some
land or their business intact by making
them over cautious about expanding to get
ahead. Others who lost their life savings were broken in spirit
and never again tried
to restart a business or own a home.
"For the generation of children, such as myself, who
were old enough to remember the
roaring 20's and watch their parents struggle to keep a home
for their family and put
food on the table and clothes on their backs, there was the fear
of a repeat of 1929.
Thus, they were so over cautious about borrowing money
to expand that they soon felt
left behind.
"As farmers and ranchers started
losing money, they stopped going to movies. They
quit buying ready made dresses, pants, coats,
and shirts. They quit spending money
except for basic necessities. When they quit spending
money, millions of workers in
manufacturing plants found themselves out
of work or working for greatly reduced
wages. This also contributed to the Great Depression." (More
on the Depression later)
Chapter XXVI To continue Obert McAdams' discussion
of the Great Depression from his
book, "Memories of My First 85 Years":
"President Roosevelt used the entire
resources of the United States Government in
trying to restore the economy of the country. But in spite of
all he tried to do, the
depression never really ended until after World
War II. The Reconstruction Finance
Corporation, with Texan Jessie Jones as the head,
financed businesses. The Civilian
Conservation Corporation furnished jobs for
young men employed in conservation
projects such as building roads and school buildings,
flood control, planting trees
for wind breaks on the great plains, and other
public projects. The Works Progress
Administration furnished jobs on public
projects such as building roads. Farm
programs designed to reduce surplus commodities
were started. Farmers were paid to
reduce the number of hogs raised and acres of corn planted. Farmers
were paid to plow
under a portion of their cotton crop in either 1933
or 1934 - I do not remember the
exact year - but I plowed under a lot
of good cotton. Cattle, especially cows and
heifers, were bought and killed right
on the ranches. This program drew a lot of
public criticism and was used only one time. In fact, of
all of the programs started
by President Roosevelt to relieve the
depression, this was probably the most
criticized by the general public. The cattle were slaughtered
and left to rot on the
ranches - the meat was not for consumption; many felt the
meat should have been used
to feed the hungry, and there were millions
of hungry people in the cities of the
eastern United States, as well as the larger cities of
the south. But, of course, to
use the meat would have defeated the purpose
of the program which was to raise the
price - the old supply and demand formula,
again. I personally know people who did
use some of the meat.
"During the depression of 1929 with its unemployment,
reverse migration from cities
to farms was common. Although there was little money to be made
in farming, one could
raise enough food to feed a family. In
early 1933, the federal government began a
program designed to encourage people with farm experience
to return to farming. The
government would buy large tracts of raw land and
develop it into small farms of 20
to 40, and sometimes 80, acres of land.
Then the government sold it to people who
wanted to farm. The terms were
nothing down and 30 years to pay for it with the
government loaning the farmer the money to purchase horses, feed,
seed, equipment and
living expenses for the first year. Also, in Texas,
a milk cow was a requirement. I
was very familiar with this program as I worked as a certifying
officer for Clay and
Wichita Counties in 1934 and 1935.
"The Supreme Court ruled that many of the president's programs
were unconstitutional.
In most cases, what the programs were
designed for was accomplished. Even so, the
depression, while somewhat relieved, continued until after
World War II. We probably
became adjusted to cheaper prices after
the effects of the roaring 20's had been
forgotten. "
Chapter XXVII
To continue Mr. McAdams' "Memories of My First
85 Years": "All of the foregoing was
written to describe conditions in my early childhood and youth
in order to get to the
great advancements I have witnessed in
my lifetime and the changes in our society
since my birth in 1914." Agriculture saw many changes
from small one bottom breaking
plows, one row listers, planters and cultivators,
usually pulled by two horses with
the farmer walking along guiding them. Small two section drag
harrows, ten hole grain
drills, row binders and seven foot swath grain binders
were also in use. Then about
1925 came two-row, horse-drawn equipment. "Preparing
the land for planting usually
took all winter and early spring. The first riding
turning plows I remember are the
one bottom 'sulkey' plows and the two disc turning plow followed
by two bottom riding
'gang' plows."
"The first tractor that I can remember seeing pulling a
plow was a large iron wheeled
steam engine designed to power thrashing
machines; it was not successful. In the
early 1920's a two cylinder 'Rumley' replaced steam engines in
powering thrashers and
some cotton gins. In this same time period, International Harvester
Co. developed the
large gasoline burning 'Wheatland,' used
for large western wheat and other grain
farms to prepare and seed grain land. International
Harvester, John Deere Plow Co.,
Case Implement and other companies developed iron
wheel tractors that could be used
for both grain farming and row
crop farming. Some were successful, but the real
change from horse, man, and mule power to mechanical
power for farmers came in the
late 1930's and early 1940's when
manufacturers began putting rubber tires on
tractors and developed implements especially for mounting on
or pulled by tractors.
"So, I have seen farming advance
from the horse drawn one row walking plows to
today's giant four wheel drive diesel
powered tractors with air conditioned cabs,
radios, heaters, and computer controls
capable of pulling fifty foot plows and a
fifty foot series of grain drills behind them. Some
tractors have computer controls
that adjust the depth of the plows so that all the field is plowed
at the same depth.
"The grain thrashers in use by the time I remember consisted
of two units, the engine
and the separator. They were efficient but very labor
intensive. The separator were
powered by a belt usually ten or
twelve inches wide and about one hundred to one
hundred fifty feet long. Since the
front of the tractor faced the front of the
separator, the belt had to be twisted. The engine
was supposed to be started with a
crank, but often it was necessary for several men
to take hold of the belt near the
engine and pull it as fast as possible to assist
the starting operation. Later more
efficient gasoline powered tractors were developed, some with
self starters.
"A thrashing crew usually consisted
of eight or ten bundle haulers, four or five
pitchers, clean up men, engineer, and
separator operator. The bundle haulers used
wagons with hay frames on them pulled by two
horses to haul the grain bundles from
field to separator. The pitchers pitched
the bundles with a pitchfork up to the
person running the bundle wagon. Each
was responsible for loading two wagons. The
clean up man kept the loose bundles and straw around the separator
cleaned up and ran
it through the separator where the operator usually
stood on top, being sure it was
properly oiled and operating as it should.
The operator also fed the horses three
times a day. The engineer operated the tractor, keeping
the belt tight and the fuel,
oil and water at the proper levels. Some crews were hired
by the owner of the outfit
and carried a bedroll and ate at
the cook shack, a wagon equipped as a portable
kitchen. Other crews were the farmers
and their neighbors trading out work to get
their own crops harvested and the
women folks cooked for them. Working days were
long, usually starting at sunrise and ending at sunset.
The work was hard and dirty
with grain dust a big problem. Nearby
stock tanks or creeks were usually busy and
crowded after dark as the hands tried to get the dirt and dust
off their bodies.
"From the time I can remember,
the separator was very efficient in thrashing the
grain out of the heads and separating
it from the straw. The wagons hauling the
bundles from the fields drove up on both sides of the separator
where the drivers fed
the bundles into the separator feeder.
A chain devise pulled them in and cut the
strings as it fed them into the
separator. The grain and straw went through a
cylinder which did a very good job of loosening
the grain which then passed over a
series of shakers which started separating grain from straw.
As it passed toward the
back of the separator a series of small fans blew the chaff
and grain dust away from
the grain which then fell into
a bin at the bottom of the separator where it was
picked up and carried by a chain auger to the top of the
separator and dumped into a
weighing devise. As the weight bucket
reached the pre-set weight, the grain was
dumped into an auger that carried it to the grain wagons
where it usually was sacked
and carried to the owner's's storage bin. The straw was
blown by a large fan through
a pipe called a stacker to the straw pile. Since the stacker
would rotate as much as
a half circle, the farmer could set it to make any size straw
stack he wanted and his
cattle could eat the straw in the winter. "The
owner of the grain stored it in bins
and took it to a dealer later in the winter when
he had more time, since hauling in
wagons was slow.
"Machines were developed to take the place of
the grain binder and the separator by
combining parts and functions of both,
hence the name 'combine.' Their use was
limited until the late 1930's when better tractors were built
and shorter grains were
bred to stand up better and produce less straw. The 'Gleaner'
was pulled by a tractor
but Massey Harris developed a self-propelled combine after
World War II. Trucks were
developed to carry grain directly to
market from the field, greatly reducing the
labor needed to harvest the crops.
"Modern combines allow one man to harvest
and thrash in one day the amount of rain
and acreage that formerly would have taken twenty-five
men as much as a week or more
of hard dirty work plus twenty-eight or more horses and
mule teams just to thrah the
grain. Another step in harvesting was
eliminated: shocking the bundles. This was
picking up the bundles formed by
the binder and placing them into small upright
stacks to let the grain dry."
Chapter XXVIII
"Just as there were tremendous changes
in the growing and harvesting of wheat and
other grains as related in the last article from
Mr. McAdams' "Memories of My First
85 Years," so there were many changes in the growing
and harvesting of cotton, which
was one of Clay County's most important cash crops in the early
years.
"From the beginning of cotton farming
in this country on a commercial basis, very
little in its cultivation and harvesting
changed until around 1935. Cotton was
generally planted with a horse drawn
one or two row planter, was cultivated with
horse drawn cultivators. To produce taller
and larger stalks, the farmer planted
several seeds per nine inches and then thinned
the small plants with a hoe, giving
rise to the term 'cotton chopping.' The choppers
also cut out the grass and weeds.
"Shortage of labor during World War II
brought about changes. Farmers learned that
cotton plants thicker in the rows produced a smaller stalk
with fewer bolls each but
produced more cotton per row. They also found ways
to remove weeds mechanically and
later chemically.
"From the beginning of cotton cultivation in
the U.S. to the 1920's, all cotton was
hand picked by laborers taking the cotton from the burrs
and keeping out of the sack
all leaves, burrs and other trash. Gin machinery
was improved until about 1927 when
it could remove burrs and other trash. This
enabled the cotton pickers to pull the
entire open cotton boll from the stalk, hence the term
'pulling bolls.' This made it
possible for the laborer to double the amount of
cotton he could harvest in a day -
often from 400 to 600 pounds. This
was still hard, heavy, dirty work with the
laborers crawling along on their knees with a long cotton sack
across their shoulders
accumulating weight as they went. Hours were from first light
until dark. I have seen
pickers strike a match to be able to read the scale weight for
their last sack of the
day. "Thousands of migratory workers,
as well as many locals, made their living
picking cotton. This added tremendously to
the economy of small and large towns in
the cotton belt.
"Cotton prices dropped in 1928-29 to a
point where it did not pay the expenses for
harvesting and ginning. Farmers began
to look for ways to cut costs. Machinery
companies developed cotton strippers after
World War II that did a good job of
harvesting the cotton without the waste that was
involved in versions that came out
before the war. Now two or three people
could harvest and haul to the gin several
bales a day. About 1800 to 2000
pounds of cotton would yield about 500 pounds of
lint, 750 pounds of seed, and the remainder waste.
"Later improvements resulted in today's self-propelled,
eight to twelve row strippers
with mounted storage bins so the
cotton can be dumped directly into a truck or
trailer to be hauled to the gin. Often times,
the cotton is dumped into a 'module'
machine that presses about 7 bales into one module which is left
in the field until a
later time when there is less glut and fire danger
at the gin. The mechanization of
cotton farming eliminated many thousands of
jobs but allowed what was a very labor
intensive commodity to be produced at a much reduced cost. "Of
course, the production
of other crops was affected by advances in machinery just
as much as were the cotton
and wheat industries.
"I have written a great deal about changes
in farming practices to attempt to show
the effects of these changes during my lifetime
and how these changes affected the
entire United States. As we analyze the changes, we come to the
question, 'Did the or
the chicken come first?' Did the development of machinery
cause the rural population
to move to cities or did the fact
that workers leaving farms was a cause for the
development of the machinery? Also, what part did inflation play?
What part did World
War II play in the changes? Keep in mind that there is no usable
substance or product
on this earth that did not come from
the earth in some raw form. I think this one
fact will determine the road the United States will follow in
the next 200 years."
Chapter XXIX
To continue O. J. McAdams' observations in
"Memories of My First 85 Years": " From
the beginning of the United States until about 1940, a farmer
and his family could do
well on a farm of 80 to 160
acres with proper management. Larger farms usually
combined some farming with ranching, raising cattle
and horses. Some larger farmers
had 'share croppers' working part of their
land. They rented all or part of a farm
with the owner furnishing the land, farm tools,
horses or mules, and seed. Usually
some type of house was also furnished. The share
cropper furnished all the labor in
planting and gathering the crop; then they divided the
crop half and half. This gave
us the term 'share cropper.' This was a way a person
could get into the business of
farming but most of the time he
remained a share cropper. This practice almost
totally disappeared after World War II. It was this type of farming
that gave rise to
the memories of good times down
on the farm with Grandmother and Grandfather -
memories shared by many town and city dwellers.
"The size of farms has increased greatly. Although
there are always exceptions, most
experts think that a farmer in
general farming today - raising cotton, corn, soy
beans, etc., will need at least 1200 acres to be able to
own the necessary equipment
and to expect to make a reasonable living.
Some exceptions are specialized farming
such as fruits, vegetables and dairy farming.
"During my lifetime, this nation has
gone from an agrarian population to an urban
population, The United States has the
best fed, clothed, and housed population in
the world. The farm labor displacement
described earlier occurred throughout most agriculture related
products, leaving only
a small number of food and fiber products that are still labor
intensive.
"According to government estimates at
this time in 1999, only two per cent of the
population is engaged in producing the food and fiber
used by the United States and
also a large part of that used by many other nations. While
only two per cent of the
population is engaged in producing agriculture
products, some thirty to thirty-two
per cent have jobs connected to agriculture in processing and
distribution.
"During the Great Depression of
1929 and the 1930's farm families in
the U.S.
probably suffered the least of all. Their cash crops were hit
very hard and some lost
their farms. But, for those who
showed that they were trying and managing, the
lenders and the taxing authorities were very lenient.
Farmers raised their own food
and fiber crops. They had milk cows, hogs,
and chickens providing food. They could
get by without many items the merchants
had for sale and they could trade surplus
eggs, butter, and vegetables for necessities
such as sugar, coffee, tea and other
items they could not produce. Their expenses were generally
low - no electric bills,
generally no heating bills. Horse power and man power were cheap.
"Increased hostilities in Europe in late 1938 and 1939 sparked
an increase in defense
spending. Then, the build up of
the armed forces took laborers from farms and
businesses. The need for farm products
increased dramatically. To find ways to
replace lost laborers, the farmer turned to using and developing
more machinery. This
period of time was also the beginning
of the great exodus from the farms to the
cities. The coming of electricity, butane, and propane
to the farms made county life
more enjoyable but also more expensive. Farm prices did
not keep pace with increased
costs of operation. This led to the farmer's need
of more land and bigger equipment
and to farms being combined which led to more people moving to
the cities.
"Of all the changes I have seen in my
lifetime, I believe that the exodus from the
farms to the cities may be the most dramatic single event so
far as the future of the
U.S. is concerned. In my humble opinion, all
of the changes technology has brought
about pale in comparison to the
demise of a lifestyle that sustained the United
States from its beginning to rather recent times.
In the future, people will travel
by some means. People will still communicate one way or another.
But, never again for
as long as the United States stands and operates under
the form of government it now
has, will the rural lifestyle that
fed and clothed the masses from the earliest
colonization until the World War II years be
seen again. This nation has had, from
its beginning, a cheap food policy
caused by plentiful land and cheap labor. The
United States still enjoys a cheap food
policy now made possible by technological
developments never dreamed of in years
gone by. "I can remember my Grandfather
Christian saying he would not believe
an airplane could fly even if he saw it
happening. I wonder what he would say if it were possible
for him to see the changes
made since 1925 in farming, which was his longtime occupation.
"Today's farmer is likely to live in a small
town and commute to his farm when work
is to be done. He is likely to have a hired man living
on the farm doing much of the
work. Today's farmer is likely to
be well educated, and, if he is a younger man,
usually inherited all or part of the farm.
He probably will be using a computer to
keep his records and to determine
which crops to plant and how much seed
and
fertilizer to use as well as to map out his operation.
Chapter XXX
To continue Mr. Obert McAdams' "Memories of My First
85 Years": "When I was a child,
Christmas was very different from that
celebrated today. Remember, there was no
electricity any place except in the larger towns and cities until
the late 1930's and
in much of the rural U.S. until after World War II.
The only Christmas trees I ever
saw prior to 1930 were the community
trees in the churches. The decorations were
homemade or were made at school using homemade paste
and different colors of paper,
usually red, white, and blue. There were popcorn
strings and lighted candles spaced
carefully on the tree. " Gifts for children
were dolls for the girls, air guns for
the boys, and iron wheeled tricycles,
iron wheeled red wagons, cap pistols, fire
crackers, and fruit and nuts for both boys and girls. Some
children who lived in the
larger towns might be lucky enough to get a
bicycle. Bicycles could not be used in
the country because the tires could
easily be punctured by goat heads and grass
burrs. If a girl was very fortunate, she might get a doll
made from porcelain, or if
not so lucky, her doll might be either a rag doll or a
celluloid dolly. The rag doll
was usually made by the girl's mother... maybe
she was the 'lucky' girl after all.
"In most homes, there would be lots of homemade candy,
an extra orange or two, a few
walnuts, brazil nuts, and almonds. At our home there was
always a coconut. "I really
do not have the words to really describe the difference
in the Christmas of my youth
and that of today. The routine on Christmas was pretty
much the same at our house as
that of our neighbors. After Santa visited - it was
always while we were eating our
evening meal - we would hurry into
the living room to see what Santa had left. I
never could figure out how Santa Claus always came to our
house while we were eating
our night meal. There were never gifts wrapped and sitting
around before Santa came.
We always received just one gift from Santa. We had been taught
to share so if one of
us received a very special Christmas gift such as
a red wagon or a tricycle we knew
all three of us were to get to use it. We took care
of our toys because if we broke
them there were not going to be any others.
It was not that our parents could not
afford more presents; there simply were very few toys on the
market. The abundance of
toys in stores today did not exist at that time.
"We always had an abundance of peanuts, popcorn, and pecans
produced at home. Besides
the toy we received, there would always be nuts, a large
red apple and an orange our
stocking and sometimes clothing. For some reason, Santa always
left fire crackers and
sparklers for my father, which he always shared with us
children. With the exception
of my Uncle George McAdams, we never received a Christmas gift
from our grandparents,
uncles or aunts.
Late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve
we would see Uncle George riding up on his
horse to spend the night with us. For some
unknown reason, he always had met Santa
along the way and Santa gave him a present for each
one of us children. Needless to
say, we were always looking for him to arrive.
"After we opened our presents, my father would take
some coals from the stove and we
would go outside to shoot the fire crackers.
If the night was still, we could hear
all of the neighbors doing the
same. After the firecrackers were gone, we would
return to the living room to get warm by the pot-bellied wood
stove with one side too
hot and the other side too cold. Then Father would crack
open a coconut, giving each
one of us some of the coconut milk and a slice of
fresh coconut. "Then, just before
going to bed, our mother would read the Christmas story
from her Bible. We were then
tucked into bed for a very happy
night's dreams. If the weather was extra cold,
Mother would place sacks of salt in the
cook stove oven to heat so we could place
them in our bed to keep our feet warm.
"On Christmas Day after lunch, Uncle George would get on
his hors, Old Snip, and ride
away, regardless of the weather, leaving us children
sad to see him go. "As I wrote
before, by today's standards, we might have been considered
to be living in poverty.
I think not - I think we were 'rich' beyond belief."
Chapter XXXI
To continue Mr. McAdams' "Memories
of My First 85 Years": "I have lived at a time
when the knowledge and technology gained
by mankind since the creation have been
brought together and developed by creative
and knowledgeable people that have
resulted in changes in all phases of human endeavor at
a more rapid pace than at any
other like span of time in mankind's history. "Prehistoric
man seems to have had some
knowledge about the sun, the moon and the stars.
He had some knowledge of medicine,
engineering, travel, and providing shelter
and food but he did not have
the
technology to develop that knowledge. He knew greed and how to
make war on his fellow
man but he failed to develop the knowledge of peace and how to
control his greed.
"In my lifetime, I have seen two world wars. Each was fought
to end all wars and each
brought weapons more destructive than the preceding war. I have
never known a time in
my life that was free from war or the threat of war
someplace on earth. Peace seems
to be the one accomplishment that
man has been unable to achieve. "In place of
striving for peace, we have used our energies and
our resources to develop tools of
war capable of destroying entire armies, cities, nations,
and maybe, the world as we
know it.
"Methods of making war changed very little
until the Chinese developed gun powder.
"From the beginning of time until science developed
gun powder, warriors engaged in
hand to hand combat. The invention of gun powder and muzzle
loading flint cap rifles
and small cannons allowed armies to stay separated by a few hundred
feet and shoot at
each other. The battles for the independence of the United States
and the war between
the States were fought with those types of
weapons. Then someone discovered that a
shell could be made with cap, powder, and bullet all in a case
or shell. This allowed
hundreds of shots to be fired where
only one shot at a time could be
fired
previously.
"By the end of World War I - the first
war to end all wars - on November 11, 1918,
machine guns and long range cannons were in use. The cannons
could send a shell that
would explode on impact for a distance of twenty miles.
Armored tanks were in use as
well as a limited use of airplanes and submarines. Then, by the
end of World War II -
the second war to end all wars - airplanes capable
of destroying entire cities were
in use. Now, in 1999, bombs hundreds
of times more powerful than those dropped on
Japan in 1945 are capable of being launched
thousands of miles from their targets.
Motorized weapons are capable of moving troops at an amazing
speed.
"So in my lifetime I have seen the weapons
of war being developed from what we now
would call a 'deer hunting rifle' to missiles capable
of untold destruction. I have
witnessed war planes develop from the
single seat bi-plane armed with a single
machine gun to the huge B-52 bomber
to the modern stealth bomber and to fighter
planes capable of speeds above the speed of sound and flying
as high as 60,000 feet.
"What a wonderful world this could
be if mankind had in some way discovered the
secrets of peace."
Chapter XXXII
To continue O.J. McAdams' "Memories of
My First 85 Years": "What a wonderful world
this could be if mankind had in some way discovered the secrets
of peace. If only man
could conquer greed, if the energy, the resources
and the money that have been used
in my lifetime to kill, injure, and destroy could
have been used in a peaceful way,
perhaps there would be no poverty, hunger or homelessness in
all of this world.
"But, then, we must ask ourselves a question in a
prayerful, humble and honest frame
of mind. 'Is the survival of the fittest God's plan for his earth?'
"Out of war in my
lifetime - even with all of its sorrow, heartache and destruction
- has come so much
that we today consider necessities of life. These
things might have been discovered
anyway but probably at a much slower
pace. Necessity is the mother of progress. A
number of times my father told me a story of
his father when he was in the army in
the war between the states. The confederate
army had run out of cannon balls while
engaged in close combat with the northern troops.
In their search for cannon balls,
they found a large amount of nails which served the purpose.
"I believe that greed is the root of all wars.
Someone wants what someone else has.
At the time of the war between the states, the cost of
firing a rifle was only a few
cents, and the rifle would not
destroy the land and buildings. Now, the cost of
firing a missile that will not only kill but also destroy large
areas is estimated to
be over $1,000,000. Could it be
that the cost of war will be one thing that will
force man to find a way to peace? Or will greed continue
to control man until he not
only destroys his kind but also the world as we know it. "I
will never forget the day
the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. I was in Plainview,
Texas, and went into
a café where all the people
were gathered around a radio. I, along with all the
others, had no idea as to what kind of
bomb had been dropped. It was difficult to
imagine the destruction being described. It was as
if we were not believing what we
were hearing.
"The celebration of victory and peace following
World War II was short lived. Soon,
our nation was involved with the Korean
War, the Vietnam disaster, several small,
very localized operations, and Operation Desert
Storm. Now in 1999, our nation has
become involved in the Balkan area - the same area where World
War I started.
"Is it any wonder that I am pessimistic about prospects
for peace?" (More later)
Chapter XXXIII
To continue O.J. McAdams' "Memories of
My First 85 Years": "The two most important
developments, in my opinion, that completely
changed the way most of us lived were
the invention of the internal combustion
engine and the discovery of electricity.
Farm labor became easier, sanitation methods improved,
preservation of food products
allowed a more balanced diet and advances
in medical practices made life far more
comfortable.
"It was not until 1935 when the Rural Electrification
Administration Act was passed
that electricity was brought to rural areas and small
towns. The building of lines,
etc.,was interrupted by World War II but quickly resumed and
resulted in the creation
of many jobs and the development
and sale of numerous appliances. "The internal
combustion engine combined with electricity
made so many changes possible. I will
explain one very common event -
taking a bath - that will
show why so many
appreciated the two inventions. In order to
take a bath, one had to draw the water
from the well, carry it to the house, heat it on
a wood stove, and then take a bath
in a wash tub - usually in the same water that other family members
had already used.
Electric water well pumps that made running water
possible and later electric water
heaters made a common event much
easier. "Electricity made possible shipment of
perishable foods in refrigerated trucks
to improve the variety and safety of the
American diet.
"One thing that stands out in my
memory is the first time I saw a hamburger, even
though they had probably been around for some time. At the Texas
State Fair in Dallas
around 1922, the man who was cooking them sang out, 'Get
them while they are hot. An
onion on the bottom and a pickle on top.' It sure
tasted good and only cost 5 cents
and probably had more meat on it
than a Big Mac has today. "Improvements
in
sanitation and medicine that I have seen
and experienced in my lifetime cannot be
applauded and praised enough. Long after
I was grown, the 'old oaken bucket' and
family dipper were a fact of life. Sealed water wells were
unknown even though there
was usually some sort of covering.
"The wonders of medication, vaccination and surgery that
have occurred in my lifetime
seem to be nothing short of magic. Sulfa drugs, which preceded
antibiotics, seemed to
be the first really new medication developed for hundreds
of years and replaced many
home remedies. The only vaccine I knew about as a
youngster was for smallpox. Polio
was one of the most dreaded diseases
for years until the Salk oral vaccine was
developed. Advances in surgeries have
taken us from the time when
a simple
appendectomy was a major operation to our time of organ transplants.
"There have been many drastic social changes
in my lifetime, some good and some not
so good. For the most part, this country was settled by God fearing
people who wanted
their children to learn to read, write, and add as well
as learn to worship God. The
church and school were often times the center
of the community. Prayer was part of
the regular school day and most community gatherings.
Now prayer has been taken out
of the schools. This concerns me as prayer is one of the foundations
of our country.
"I am also concerned about the seemingly inability
of some educators to lead in our
schools. Too many people think passing more
laws and throwing more money at school
problems will solve them. More parents need to get involved and
help instill in their
children a desire to learn.
"I am concerned about the use of so-called recreational
drugs and abuse of alcohol by
so many in our society. I was 19 years old before
I even heard of marijuana. I knew
there were such things as morphine, opium and codeine for
medicinal use but I was at
least 40 years old before I heard of
their use as recreational drugs. Tobacco and
home brew were the drugs of choice when I was
growing up, along with corn whiskey,
which was also known as white lightning.
"I am also concerned about some of the changes in
the way that people dress. Fads in
clothing come and go and do not bother me at
all. But the casual look that started
around 1965 seems to me to have gone too far,
causing some to lose all respect for
themselves. A trip to a modern mall will convince one that
either a lot of people do
not own mirrors or are afraid to look in one. "I
have seen some good social changes
that were not even thought of in
my childhood. Integration of the races in the
schools and society in general may have been a highlight for
me."
Chapter XXXIV
To conclude Mr. O.J. McAdams' "Memories of My
First 85 Years:" "At this time in our
history, many people seem always to
be in a hurry and always wanting
faster
everything - faster computers, faster cars, faster
airplanes, faster trains, faster
just about everything. Why are we in such a hurry? We are
only going to pass through
this world one time, as far as
we know, so why don't we slow down and enjoy the
journey just a bit more? "With all of the changes
in technology and knowledge that I
have seen and experienced in my lifetime, I think
we have gone too far with some of
our endeavors. I am afraid we leave
God out of too much of our lives. Not having
prayer in school is, to me, a
tragedy. The lack of reverence for the Sabbath is
shocking to me. I think we have carried casual dress and
living too far. "I fear the
lack of authority to lead and discipline in our public
schools.. I fear the lack of
morals shown by so many and I fear the
greed that seems to be rampant in everyday
life and in business. I fear the lack
of self-respect as indicated by the lack of
cleanliness and common decency. I fear the lack of respect
for the laws of our great
nation and for those who make and
enforce those laws. It seems that many of the
principles on which this great nation was founded have fallen
by the wayside.
"I have lived at an exciting period in time. I have lived
a good and exciting life. I
was born to a loving mother and father who wanted only the best
for their children. I
was lucky to have found a beautiful and loving lady for my wife
and lifetime partner.
I thank God each day
for my wonderful children, grandchildren
and great
grandchildren.
"I have heard people say in recent
times, 'I wish we could return to the good old
days' or 'I will be glad when things
return to normal.' Let me tell you what the
'good old days' mean to me. It means sweating in the fields in
summer and freezing in
the winter while riding in a wagon or on a
horse. It means trying to milk a cow as
she swats me in the face with a tail filled
with cockle burrs. It means dragging a
pallet around the house in the summer trying to find a spot with
a breeze cool enough
to let me sleep. It means huddling up to the stove in cold weather
with my front side
too hot and my back side too
cold. To me those are the 'good old days' and even
though I have many fond memories
of those days, I do not want them back. As for
'returning to normal,' I am not sure
what normal is. If I were to see it, I would
probably be scared silly. Air-conditioning,
now an absolute necessity, was first
developed by enterprising business owners who realized that people
shopped longer and
bought more if they were in a
cool pleasant place to shop. Also, entertainment
establishments learned that more people
would come to a cool place and ministers
learned that people would pay more attention if they were
not having to use a fan so
much. (I suspect that we have at
least two generations who have never seen a
cardboard fan such as was used in churches before
air conditioning. These fans were
advertisements for business establishments and were complimentary.)
It was not until
after World War II that air-conditioning was developed for use
in southern homes.
"If a shy country boy born at Secret Springs, Texas,
and growing up during the Great
Depression of 1929 could later find himself in the presence of
three president of the
United States discussing problems in his chosen field of
work, and being on a first-
name basis with one of them, then
there is no limit to what my grandchildren and
great grandchildren can accomplish. I pray
that they get the chance to be as lucky
and blessed by God as I. "They may never experience
the same type of pleasure that I
did on receiving a cap pistol or a flash
light along with a few nuts, apples, and
oranges at Christmas. They may not
be as proud of their first car as I was of my
first horse. Things change - so many precious things
have been lost - but they will
have their own pleasures in a world that has
changed so much in my lifetime".
(The end)
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