FRANCES ALINE RUTHERFORD THOMASON
Submitted by Frank Butcher, updated
May 28, 2007
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Frances Aline (Allie) Rutherford was born in Grimes County near Navasota, and
lived for a time in Johnson County before moving to Limestone County. She
married Wal Thomason on January 25, 1900, at Lovelady in Houston County. This
match makes a case for the attraction of opposites, because Wal was a rough
character with a reputation for meanness and heavy drinking--in remarkable
contrast to Allie's soft-spoken, temperate, and kind personality. Allie is mostly remembered for her faithfulness as a Christian. She committed her life to God at an early age, and her faith never wavered. Her grandchildren remember that she sang hymns as she worked, and when she wasn't singing, her lips were moving in silent prayer. Allie was a true prayer warrior, and prayed for every person in her family, for the mates-to-be of her children, and for her grandchildren and great grandchildren who were yet to be born. She said that God gave her the promise that, because of her faithfulness, He would bless her progeny to the fourth generation. Allie was a serious student of Bible prophecy, and preachers would often come to her house to solicit her thoughts. Any visitor who came into Allie's house heard about the Lord. Her granddaughter and namesake, Frances Lenamon DuPlantis, fondly remembers Grannie summoning her grandchildren into the house for a time of Bible reading. On other occasions Allie and her grandchildren would kneel in front of the fireplace while she voiced a prayer. An excerpt from a letter written in 1937 by Allie’s 9 year-old granddaughter, Mary Beth Lenamon, to her mother (Kate Thomason Lenamon) while she was visiting with Allie gives some insight into Allie’s emphasis on prayer: ….Grandmother and I prayed for my shoulder and just as soon as I turned the way that made it hurt, it didn’t hurt at all. I love to stay (at grandmothers) because we sit down and have prayers. Mother, I like Jesus more, more, more and more every day. He is sweeter every day. Mother, let’s have little prayer meetings every night like we do up here. Allie is also remembered as an encourager, making sure that her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren knew that they were smart enough do anything. Her granddaughter, Frances, also recalled that her friends enjoyed going with her to "Grannies", because Allie was such a loving and caring person and made everyone feel welcome. She was an incredibly intelligent lady, and self-educated. Allie sold eggs and milk to buy magazines and books and took advantage of every educational opportunity. She could see the picture of a dress in a magazine, cut out a pattern from newspapers, and then sew that dress. Allie was a super perfectionist and a fastidious housekeeper. Her great granddaughter, Linda Fife Butcher, remembered that when drying glasses at Allie's, two dish towels were required--one to dry, and one to polish the glasses. Allie laughed about the comment of a neighbor who told her " I don't know why you make such a fuss over keeping dust out of your house, since you yourself are going to turn into dust eventually". She placed great value on education, an attitude that filtered down through her children to her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Allie is remembered as a great story teller, talking her grandchildren to sleep in her feather bed with stories of the abduction of Cynthia Ann Parker by Comanches, wild panthers and mountain lions that roamed the area in her childhood, and tales of Texas caverns and caves used as hideouts by Indians and outlaws. Sometimes Allie would punctuate her stories with panther screeches to add a touch of drama to her rendition. She never told the same story twice and her granddaughter Mary Beth Fife was convinced that Allie could have been an author of children’s books. Allie was renowned as the family historian and could rattle off dates of births and weddings many generations into the past. She told her children that they were distantly related to a number of famous people including Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Sul Ross. Mary Beth wrote, “Even when I was little, Grannie said we were kin to John Hancock and Robert E. Lee -- and she traced it back for me. We are also kin to the Morgans, whose ships plied the Atlantic to Liverpool, England. Grannie said Sul Ross was Grannie Thomason’s (Mary Josephine Ross Thomason) first cousin”. * Allie was apparently afraid of a break-in at night and conveyed some of that fear to her grandchildren when she involved them in preparations for bed. Her great-grandson, Brad DuPlantis, remembers his Grannie arming him with a bottle of Clorox, a window stick, and a coke bottle. If an intruder broke through the door, her instructions were to throw the Clorox in his eyes to blind him, hit him on the head with the stick to stun him, and then knock him out with the coke bottle. No doubt speaking for all the great-grandchildren, Brad said, “You can imagine how uneasily we slept after she told us this.” Allie had the mind of an entrepreneur, and was very inventive. If she had been born at a later time when women had more opportunities, her grandchildren feel certain that she would have been a very successful businesswoman. Allie and Wal lived in a "shotgun house", a style so named because you could fire a shotgun through the front door, and the pellets would go through the house and out the back door without hitting anything inside. Due to the fire hazard, the kitchen was separated from the house by a "dog run", an open porch-like area. The house itself was one large room, sparsely decorated and containing only minimal furniture in a time when there was not so much emphasis on material possessions. Allie is remembered as being very modest and even Victorian in her demeanor. Her grandchildren recall that Allie bound her breasts with a flour sack, because she thought “jiggling” breasts were nothing short of scandalous. Great-granddaughter, Linda Fife Butcher, said Allie was “the most modest person I ever knew”, and commented that the grandchildren wondered how a person with such an exaggerated sense of modesty ever managed to have children. Allie made a point of teaching her children that the role of sex was solely for the purpose of procreation, but her granddaughter, Frances Lenamon DuPlantis, also remembers Allie’s premarital advice that a wife should always powder herself before going to bed in order to smell good for her husband. Allie looked starched and ironed at all times and was also devoted to the correct use of the English language, making sure that her children and grandchildren used proper grammar. She had rheumatic fever as a teen, and doctors thought she would die of the resulting heart problems by the age of 18. This bout with rheumatic fever caused Allie to have spells of very poor health for most of her life, including one period when she was confined to a wheel chair for more than a year. Remarkably, in spite of her health problems, Allie lived to be 91 years old. Allie's life with her husband was marred by a tragic event that almost ended their young marriage. Wal and his father, in a dispute over 30 acres of land, shot and killed Bob and Will Rutherford, who were Allie's brothers. As might be expected, this event put quite a strain on the relationship between Allie and Wal. Allie and her year-old daughter Kate lived for three years with her mother, Lizzie Rutherford, but eventually reunited with Wal. The entire episode was never talked about in the family, but her grandchildren feel that Allie went back to Wal for a combination of reasons: First, Allie probably felt that she and her baby were a burden to Lizzie, who already was raising 5 orphaned grandchildren. Then, those who knew Allie’s strong principles are convinced of her commitment to marriage as a life together for better or worse. In addition, Allie truly loved Wal. She told her grandchildren that it had been love at first sight for both she and Wal. Finally, a persistent rumor in the family is that Wal sought out Allie, and told her that because he could not live without her, he intended to kill her, Kate, and himself if Allie did not come back to him. Regardless of Allie’s motive(s), the consequence of her return was that Allie was effectively excommunicated from the Rutherford and Clancy families who were greatly angered by Allie’s reconciliation with a husband who had killed her two brothers. Even 40 years after the killings, the resentment was such that when Lizzie died, her obituary did not include Allie as one of the surviving children. Lizzie’s granddaughter, Eva Rutherford, insists that Lizzie told Allie that she would be welcome in her house, but that she (Lizzie) could never visit Allie at Wal's. Other members of the Clancy family express the contrary view that Lizzie made her children promise never to mention Allie’s name again. In at least one Clancy household, the children were not even allowed to say Allie’s name because “she no longer existed”. However, Allie’s grandchildren report that Lizzie did occasionally visit with Allie at Kate and Bart Lenamon’s home, and it is known that Lizzie wrote to Allie when she traveled. These contacts, though infrequent, suggest some measure of reconciliation between mother and daughter and that Lizzie forgave her daughter for going back to Wal. Regardless, Allie’s grandchildren remember that she never quit loving her Rutherford and Clancy kin and always spoke lovingly of her mother and her brothers and sisters in spite of this estrangement and its resulting heartache. After Wal died, Allie took turns living with her three children. When she was 85, Allie bought a house and moved it to her Box Church acreage where she lived until her death. Her son Paul lived with her the last two years of her life. Allie was an exceptional cook and her grandchildren remember her special way of preparing French fries. She floured and salt and peppered thick-cut potato strips before frying, and added a skillet of delicious cornbread to make a meal that her grandchildren remember as being just this side of Heaven. Some of her recipes were so tasty that they have filtered down through many generations to grateful descendants. An all-time favorite is her hot water cornbread. Her granddaughter, Mary Beth Lenamon, for the Lenamon Family Cookbook, wrote up the recipe that follows: GRANNIE'S HOT WATER CORNBREAD I guess the thing I like most that my grandmother cooked was her hot water cornbread. I, along with my sister and my sisters-in-law and some of the grandkids still make it today, and the whole family considers it a real treat. When all of my nephews would come in from college with their friends, I would cook a big vegetable meal, a roast and always hot water cornbread. You can make up any amount you want, but if Haskell and I are really, really hungry, I will make up one cup of meal for us. It takes a very large black skillet to cook 1 cup of meal made up, so if there are LOTS of you to eat, you will need two skillets going and two cups of meal. In a pan, mix 1 cup of corn meal with 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder and a small amount of salt. Have your water at a rolling boil and keep it that way while you are using it. Add the boiling water to the meal, stirring all the time. Add as much water as you think it can take and wait a few minutes and then it will take some more. Keep resting awhile and adding boiling water until it just won't take any more at all. This is what makes it light on the inside of the pone. Too little water makes it gummy and heavy and no good to my way of thinking. Have your grease very hot, but not burning. Let the cold water run slowly and put some on your hand and then spoon a spoonful of hot mix onto your palms and shape into a flat, rounded pone, and place it in the grease. Even being careful, if you fry a lot, you will make a mess on the stove, but it is so good, you don't care too much. Use up all you mix and let brown as much as you want on one side and then turn and let the other side do the same. Drain on paper toweling. Have your food ready to serve so you can eat your cornbread hot. I love it so much that I can make a meal on just it and a glass of tea. * Allie’s claims to famous ancestry seem to have been the product of the vivid imagination of a great storyteller. Research on the Ross side of the family shows no relationship to Sul Ross, and the John Hancock in the family line is not the one who signed the Declaration of Independence. Frank Butcher 2007 |