Christine Anderson Taube
Eulogy For Mom
By Herman Henry Taube IIIAdditional Research added by Marylee Knight
To all my family and friends,
My Mother, 89 years of age, passed away on Thursday 17th of April, 2003. She had just been hospitalized the day before for acute intestinal problems, they operated, she survived that, but during post operation her heart would not control. I believe she did not suffer. She had enjoyed good health all her life, except for us kids driving her crazy, as we grew-up. I was very thankful that she had such a full life, and did not have to watch herself to waste away.
The services are to be private with just family members. Place of cremation, Catoosa, Okla., April 17th, 2003. She was cremated, so I'm guessing that my sister, Kathren, will keep the urn. We west coast descendants wanted to try to get the family together the weekend of April 26, 2003 for a private memorial service at her ranch in South East Oklahoma, but it is just too complicated to pull off this soon. I think we will do a family reunion later in the summer/ fall, and at that time have a memorial to the good memories of her life.
The family requests, that you call someone or go see some one very dear to you, today, and tell them of the good things you remember of their influence on your life.
Sincerely Yours.
The entire Taube Family
Christine Anderson Taube was born 1914, in McKinney Texas, just north of Dallas, the daughter of Alice and ____________ Anderson. She left home at 18, moved to the Beckville area, where she lived with her grandmother, "Maw Porter".
I know you are not going to believe this but I'm not sure. I think my great grandmother's name was Minnie or Winnie Porter, my grand mother would have been Alice Porter, who married Mr. Anderson, making my Mom Christine Anderson, who of course married my Dad, Edward Taube.
I believe some of the locals called my great grandfather "Doc. Porter". Who knows, maybe a nickname, maybe a horse doctor, or maybe a real doctor in those days. I'm thinking he died when I was 4 yr. old, because great grandmother Minnie or Winnie came to live with us when I was 4 yrs old. I remember she hid her snuff inside of her flour tin. But being kids, we could find any thing. So Austin and I would sneak a pinch, and get higher than a kite, and sicker than a dog.
My Dad was born in Germany in 1903, came to Sugarland Texas with his parents in 1907. The Sugarland Cane Company would give you a house on land, mules, plows, and seed to plant sugar cane. Of course they bought your cane at their price, minus what you owed them for all the "gimmies".
In Mar. 1929, he was 26 yrs old, he had saved enough money to get him to Cincinnati, where he went to the-state-of-art "McSweeny Automotive and Electrical Training Shops Schools". The tuition had to be paid up front, $125.00. I'm guessing in those days, given a factor for the great depression, that could have been what you would get for 125,000.00 today????????? Maybe not????????????
After he made his "fortune" in Cincinnati, he came to East Texas to buy land to farm, ranch, grow pine trees, to operate his own home made saw mill. His sister Marie Taube, had married a fellow by the name of Durand Crawford from Center, Texas. Durand's parents were quite wealthy, he was the heir to all their land in East Texas, and a store or stores in Center.
Dad's sister and her husband, the Crawfords, sold my Dad some of their land, 100 acres, where I grew up. His brother, Uncle Herman Taube, had also bought 50 acres directly across the dirt county road from their sis and brother-in-law, on the north side. I think they paid the going price of $10.00 per acre.
How Edward and Christine met, I don't remember. They both were out in that neck of the woods, about 6 miles west of Beckville. Probably word of mouth, "there's a rich, young, handsome batchelor in the community". My understanding was that my mother was not the only batchelorette that had her sights-set-on him at that time. My mother was pretty tight lipped about her ancestors, until later years. She revealed that she was 1/32 Cherokee. It all made sense to me then, why great grandmother Minnie or Winnie Porter looked exactly like an white Indian, so did my grandmother in her later years.
Edward Taube and Christine Anderson, married in the mid 1930's. Warren Edward was born in 1938, Austin Kay in 1942, Herman Henry in 1945, Kathren in 1952.
I remember Mom re-telling us kids stories that had been told to her by her grand parents, great uncles, and great aunts, about how they survived the Civil War back in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Mississippi. And they spoke of those that did not survive. After the civil war was over, a lot of her ancestors moved to East Texas, even way out near Dallas!
I remember her making her bonnets, dresses, and blouses for herself, and making shirts from flour sacks, for us boys. She never attempted to make pants for we three boys, she said it was impossible to get them to look store-bought. She did, make a lot of dresses, skirts, blouses, and bonnets for my little sister.
I remember her having "quilting parties" in the living room of our home. It looked to be very tedious work to me, (they produced some really awesome quilts). I don't think the neighbor ladies saw it as tedious work. It was more like a ladies day out, and a time to catch-up on all that was new in that neck of the woods. At that time phone lines had not been installed outside of town, and most people could not afford one if there had been lines out in the rural areas. Could not afford the luxury of the Panola Watchman either.
I remember her out in the cotton fields picking cotton, with me as a toddler riding on the cotton sack whenever I got tired of walking. When I turned five, she made a special cotton sack for me to drag down those very long rows, (it would be called child abuse now-a-days). She would take cotton from her bag, and put some of hers in mine, so I would be encouraged to pick more diligently to fill it to the top.
I made some real life decisions at that early age. One was to run-away from home and never come back, the other was to hang in there 'til age 18, then haul buns. I was convinced picking anything was the worst punishment on earth!!!!!
I remember her cooking breakfast, dinner, and supper on the old wood cook stove. Each of these meals were gigantic, and fed a small army. We had no toaster, so she buttered the bread first, then slipped it into the baking oven, where the world's-best-ever-toast was made. She taught each of us kids how to cook just about everything. Back in those days lard was the only cooking oil we knew. It was used in all baking, frying, and sometimes a dab in what you cooked by boiling. Lard for all deep fried foods in the cast iron pans, for all pastries, and especially for making white gravy, dark gravy, and tomato gravy. The wood cook stove was kept going 24 hours a day, because it also provided you with hot water for dishes, and bath water. In the summer that kitchen had to be running about 140 degrees F inside, while it was a cool 120 degrees F outside the house.
My Mom would on occasion, catch the school bus and ride into town to "visit" each one of us kids' classes. When I was in kindergarten, Austin was in the 4th grade, Warren was in the 8th grade, so my Mom could talk to each one of our classes to monitor us and the teacher and the material being taught. She would also look at everyone's home work that was handed back graded to determine if there was any favoritism going on.
She was a very well read person, and an excellent debater. She could see through peoples "airs", "put-ons", and lies. She was an excellent negotiator when it came to selling our cotton, cows, trees, and buying cars. She once cut a deal with my Father, that she would pay him what the high bidder was going to give him for the selected standing timber. Dad agreed, she bought it, turned around and sold it within days for about three times what he paid him for it!!!!!!! She kept the difference!!!
She had dreams way beyond her reach. She seemed particularly interested in creating some type of a summer retreat / camp for children and adults. When she finally reached the financial status to do that, all of the liability laws and liability insurance made it financially prohibitive to follow through.
In her late 70's and into her early 80's she would volunteer at the local elementary schools around Tulsa, Catoosa, Broken Arrow, and Antlers Oklahoma, to help the kids that were falling behind. She seemed to be in her glory when she could see a child break through their own glass ceiling.
She could plant just about anything, and make it grow beautifully. After she moved from East Texas to Tulsa, in the 70's, she decided to plant her entire two acre front yard in Texas blue bonnets. She did and they came up so beautiful, she was able to talk the Tulsa newspaper to come out to her home on Admiral Place, take a picture of herself out in the middle of her 2 acres of blue bonnets. The paper ran it as the top 1/2 of the second front page. She was very proud of it all.
I can remember her teaching me to drive on the county dirt roads when I was 10. By that time I had driven tractors on the farm, 5 mph top speed, so I thought it would be a piece of cake. Well, no one in the family knew I was near sighted. I kept it out of the ditches, but every one in the car was sea-sick by time we got home. 30 mph was too much for me to handle, with the poor eyesight, and trying to over correct when I could see the ditch coming up fast. But it never deterred my Mom, she continued to allow me to drive the country roads until I got good at it.
She once told me that the great depression really did not affect her or my Dad all that much, because they were so self sufficient with their own ranching, farming, and their timber, saw-mill, and finish wood planer. She did say the second world war was very hard on everyone due to the rationing, giving up all your aluminum pots, even your spare tires and inner-tubes for the war effort. Every time you wanted to buy something, from sugar to nylons, you had to stand in the ration lines, and some times when you got to the front, they were all sold out. She had a lot of relatives in WW II, so she thoroughly understood her inconveniences were nothing compared to loved ones that never came back, and those who came back with missing or permanently crippled body parts. No one ever wanted to get a telegram those days.
I don't think my mother ever saw life as a struggle, because as time passed, she became more and more modern. All through-out the 50's, she started to gain conveniences. She got her foot operated sewing machine converted to a motor driven sewing machine, got her first electric cook stove - four electric burners, one huge oven, no more wood splinters and bark in the kitchen floor, no more smoke boiling out of an over stoked wood cook stove, no more insects crawling out of the stove wood. Then came the electric hot water heater, when the kitchen stove went, so did its hot water heater. Then the old kerosene-fueled refrigerator would not hold an ammonia charge for very long, so out it went, and in came a very modern, very large electric refrigerator.
My mother taught us how to make ice cream in an empty syrup bucket. It was a little tricky to spin the bucket with no handle, and all that ice crushing against the sides, with lots of cow salt on the ice to get it to melt faster, so as to freeze the ice cream very hard.
Then came a three year old Plymouth station wagon, which made us a two car family. Now we actually had a vehicle at home when Daddy took the other one to work. We got our first motor powered lawn mower, so we could mow the grass around the house, just before invited city guest were to arrive. Probably so they could actually see the house.
I guess the saddest I ever remember my mom being, was the day she drove me to Love Field in Dallas, for me to board the American Airlines flight to U S Naval Training Center, Great Lakes Illinois, for boot camp. I think there was that reality check moment, "He's just a 17 year old kid, where has time gone". I was doing fine 'til I saw her choke-up and a few tears began to flow down her cheeks. I knew then that if I did not start climbing that stair case up to the plane entrance door, my legs would not be able to carry me.
There are lots of other cherished moments that I will carry with my memory of Mom. And this is the way I choose to remember her.