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| W.K. Seward approx 1940 |
WILLIAM KING SEWARD
A Memoir 1982
(With minor editing and notes by William Carl Seward)
I was born November 28, 1908. Named William King Seward after my grandfathers William R. Seward and King Tucker.
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| William King Seward |
My grandfather moved here from San Saba, Texas where he was a member of the U. S. Home Guard. They protected the settlers from Indians. He later drove ox wagons from San Saba to Austin hauling freight. (There were) No roads in those days. When he first came to Texas he was 18 years of age. He ran off from home in Alabama. He never returned home. He helped build Smithwick Mill and helped run it for a while. Part of the old dam and part of the wall of the building still stands. When Travis Lake is full it covers it up. When the lake is low, it is still visible.
When my grandfather was working at the mill he was going with my grandmother at Pilot Knob. He would have a date on the weekends and would ride horseback to see her. He had one of the fastest horses in the country. Going through Hickory Pass at night sometimes he would have to outrun the Indians.(1)
When I was a child four or five years of age I was afraid of my grandfather.
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| W.R. Seward and Jennie. (Uncle Bill) |
My dad bought the south part of the old place about 1898 or 1899 when he married. He got 65 acres. He also bought 50 acres of pasture on the northeast corner. We used to drive our cattle across Uncle Jim Seward's place and Uncle Charley Miller's place to pasture. After leaving them there several months they would get as wild as deer. Sometimes it would take all day to round them up to bring them home. I remember one time we had a Jersey bull in the bunch that would fight. One of the horses got too close and the bull gored him before he could get out of the way.
We raised cotton, corn, maize, cane and oats to feed the stock. We never bought feed for stock, we raised it. We topped the corn for fodder and headed the maize by hand. Then we cut the maize stalks for feed. We raised most everything we ate. We raised hogs for meat, had cows for milk and butter, chickens to eat and eggs. Had our lard from the hogs. Ground corn for meal. Canned beans, beets, peas, fruit, pickles, and other things to last a year. Very little we had to buy. Didn't have the money to buy anything. Everyone in those days had to do the same thing.
Our transportation those days was by horseback, buggy, or wagon.
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| E.N. Seward and Children appox 1909 | . W.K. in E.N.'s arms. |
Going back a ways, my first remembrance was going to Port Lavaca, Texas to visit my Uncle Jim and Aunt Mandy Ruble. We went in a covered wagon. I was two years old. I remember we had a mattress in the wagon for the five kids. On the back of the wagon was a food box. Somewhere down the line, my dad stopped and bought some bologna and bananas. Boy that was a treat.
The next thing I remember about the trip was going swimming in the Gulf at Port Lavaca. I remember because I got up against a jellyfish. My Uncle Jim put his hand under the jellyfish and threw it out of the way. Uncle Jim was bald headed and he forgot and rubbed his head with the hand he threw the fish with. That stung him about as much as it did me.
About 1912 my dad bought a house in Liberty Hill. We moved there and my dad helped Grandpa Tucker run a gristmill. My sister, Annie Laura died while there. I also had Typhoid Fever and Pneumonia at the same time. Dr. Vaughn was the doctor and several times he said I didn't have a chance getting well. I remember afterwards, all my hair came out. I wanted to get some hair seed. I was five years old at the time.
While living in town, I remember getting into my dad's Brown’s Mule chewing tobacco. I got so sick I wanted to die. I wouldn't tell my folks what I had done but my dad knew and laughed at me. That broke me of the habit.
We moved back to the farm soon afterwards. Then somewhere around 1915 we moved to Bangs, Texas and my dad put in a gristmill. I started to school there at eight years of age. I remember we had gaslights there. There was a well close to our house and you drank the water and it was just like taking a dose of medicine. Your bowels was sure to move. I remember Halley's Comet came over one night and lit up the world.
We liked to have starved while at Bangs. My dad worked out during the week and ran the mill on Saturday. World War I was going on and I remember trainloads of soldiers would come through town.
We moved back to the farm about 1917 I believe. I started to school at Union Hall, a one-room wooden schoolhouse about a mile and a half by road from the farm. I walked to school rain or shine and don't remember missing a day. I had to get home in the evening and go to work either chopping cotton or picking cotton. I also had the job of feeding the hogs and carrying the wood. I remember one winter evening I played off and didn't get in the wood. My dad got up the next morning, it was cold, to build a fire. No wood. He woke me up and I had to get wood. I didn't forget anymore.
We had a billie goat that ran us kids all over the place when we got out of the yard.
We would climb up on the wagon or anything handy. We were out in the stack lot one day. There was a large straw stack where we had thrashed oats. The goat appeared and we climbed the straw stack. So did the goat. That changed things quite a bit.
Sometimes on Sunday afternoon or on a rainy day when we couldn't work in the field some neighbor kids would come visit and we would try to ride calves. Sometimes someone would ride one but most times we didn't ride the time limit. One boy was thrown and the calf straddled over him with all four feet. He finally got up and said, "that damn calf walked all over my frame."
We generally went to church at Union Hall on Sunday morning. Those days nearly all the community would go. Wagons and buggies everywhere. Many times one family would go home with another family for dinner. Spend the evening and go home in time to do their chores. No one was in a hurry those days. No use, you wasn't going anywhere very fast anyway.
Most neighbors lived from one half to five miles apart. Unless one was helping another neighbor, they wouldn't see one another only on Saturday evening.
Liberty Hill would be so crowded you could hardly walk up and down the street.
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| Liberty Hill Gin |
On Saturday night there was always a community party at someone's house. They would take time out. The whole community and their dogs would be there. The young played games such as Snap, Spin the Bottle, Drop the Penny, Drop the Handkerchief, Flying Dutchman, or Blow the Feather. One time one of the boys started to blow, he took a long breath and sucked the feather in his mouth. The older folks would play 42 or dominoes or just play music. There were several good musicians around.
Sunday night there was always a singing at someone’s house.
Monday started another six and a half days of hard work. If it rained or was real cold we fixed fences or fixed the equipment or cut wood. No one stayed idle for long.
When we planted cane for syrup we had to strip all the leaves off, then cut it by hand, lay it in piles straight, load it on wagons straight, and haul it to the sorghum mill, squeeze the juice out and cook it for molasses. Sometimes we would have a 50 gallon wooden barrel full. In the winter it would be so thick it would take fifteen minutes to draw out a half gallon. Boy it was good with hot biscuits and fresh butter. Generally that’s what we ate for breakfast.
I've seen corn sell for 15 cents per bushel also oats for 15 cents per bushel. Chickens for 12 cents per pound and eggs for 12 cents per dozen. Nearly everyone would take eggs, butter and chickens to town on Saturday and trade for groceries.
We kids got to go to town once or twice a month. Mostly once a month. That was a treat. There was a man in town who would buy me an ice cream cone once in awhile. That would make my week. They cost 5 cents. We could get six sticks of peppermint candy for a nickel. My dad would buy a nickel’s worth every Saturday and give us kids one each.
I never heard my dad sing but one time. One Sunday afternoon Mama was playing the organ and us kids was standing around singing some old songs from a church book we had. My dad walked up behind us and started singing bass. Mama sang alto and us kids did the best we could.
Those days you could buy a good piano from $87.00 or a Beckwith Special Concert Grand piano for $195.00. Not too many could afford one of those. You could buy a five-magnet telephone for $9.95. The best saddle was from $21.00 to $30.00, buggy harness for about $11.25. Wagon harness for around $25.00, a new buggy for $54.00, a surrey with top and oil lamps for $70.00 to $80.00 the very best for $105.00, a farm wagon from $31.00 to $41.00, a roll top desk for $15.00, a high grade bedroom suite for $24.85, a single barrel shot gun $6.95, double barrel $13.85, Remington 22 for $3.00, a 1984 Winchester 30-30 for $15.50, a 38 pistol for $4.25, a 12 x 14 tent for $17.00, a good suit for $8.00 to $14.00, shoes from $1.19 to $2.50, a good straight edge razor for $1.50 to $2.00. The prettiest, fancy decorated ladies hats for $1.50 to $5.00, men’s leather belts 45¢, a kitchen cupboard glass doors $9.75, 56 piece dinner set $7.50, a violin $2.95 to $20.00, a good cast iron cook stove from $6.75 to $17.00, wood axe 65¢. On and on you could go. Inflation wasn't so bad. In the teens you could buy a new Ford for $325.00 to $350.00 or land for $20.00 to $40.00 per acre. Up to the sixties land was under $100.00 per acre. Mostly around $75.00.(2)
I generally got one pair of knee pants and two home-made shirts a year. Most times I'd get two pairs of overalls, store bought, and a couple of pair of home-made overalls and home-made shirts to work in the field with. The new overalls would cost about 75 cents. Most of my school clothes were home-made.
That is enough about high prices. When I was a kid Liberty Hill was a thriving town. It supported a milliner store; tin shop, depot, two trains a day; silent picture show; two blacksmith shops; two drug stores; three gins running day and night; two garages; three filling stations with crank pumps, one gallon at a time; ice factory; two doctors; two funeral homes; I believe five dry good and grocery stores; cotton yard; feed store; light plant run with gasoline engine; café; meat market; grist mill; a college; tailor shop; a fine baseball team; produce house; lumber yard and hardware; dentist; a weekly paper, the "Liberty Hill Index"; bakery; telephone office; and a hotel. Everyone used to meet the passenger train on Sunday morning to buy a Sunday “Austin American" paper. We got it mostly for the funny paper. Sometimes it was hard to find the nickel to buy it with.
We didn't work by the hour, we worked by the day. A day was from sun up till sundown. Average wage was from 50 cents to $1.00 per day. Neighbors would trade work. When a farmer got sick and couldn't work, the neighbors got together and would plant or plow or gather his crop owing to the time of year. If a neighbor was sick someone would feed his stock, get in his wood and do anything else that needed to be done.
You didn't have to lock your house when you went somewhere. You could be gone all day or a week and nothing would be touched. My dad had his own blacksmith shop on the farm. It didn't have one end built in. (One wall was open.) That's where we kept harnesses, saddles, and all the tools. A road came through the pasture right in front of it. People passing several times a day, nothing would be bothered. Things was as valuable to us then as they are now. Although you were more apt to be hung then for stealing a horse than you would be now for killing someone.
I remember my dad telling me that when he was a boy many times some boy would come through the county looking for work. Some farmer would hire him for a year maybe and pay him 50 cents a day and board. A day then was sun up till sundown. He was treated as one of the family if he proved out. But, if one came in and proved undesirable to the community, that was a different story. If he proved to be a smart aleck, a liar, too smart around the girls or maybe try to steal some home boy's girl, he didn't stay in the community long.
For instance, one boy came to work for a family who lived next to the Union Hall schoolhouse. After a few months he proved to be very undesirable among the community boys. After warning him a time or two and he didn't straighten up, some boy got hold of some of his work clothes and hat. They made a dummy to look just like him. It was hung by a rope in a large post oak tree, which stood in front of the schoolhouse. The next morning the boy went out to the barn to feed the stock. He saw the dummy hanging and recognized it as him. It had a letter attached. The letter said, "don't let the sun set on you again in this community." It didn't. He saddled his horse tied his clothes on and was never heard from again.(3)
Most was well liked and fit in with the community well. Sometimes a good joke would be played on them. One that lived about a half mile from my father fell in love with a preacher's daughter at Rock House Community. A Christmas party was held at the Rock House School. Several of the boys from Union Hall Community went horseback. One of the boys put a Negro doll on the tree for the preacher's daughter and signed this boy's name to it. As far as anyone knew, the preacher never mentioned it. My Uncle Houston was a good carpenter and he built a nice coffin just large enough to hold a .44 caliber six-shooter. Uncle Houston had quite a way with words. He wrote a note and put it in the casket with the gun. It was quite a long note. I don't remember all of it but in effect it was telling what the preacher was going to do to the boy for insulting his daughter.
Another party was held in the Rock House Community a few weeks later. The same bunch of boys went. While the party was going on one of the boys tied the casket on this boy's saddle. When they started home, trotting down the road, the gun was rattling in the casket. They stopped to see what was making the noise. The boy found the gun and the note. The boy was too scared to read the note and wanted Uncle Houston to read it. He read it by moonlight and put a lot of color in it. My dad and someone else had to ride home with the boy.
He told them that he was leaving the next day. They tried to talk him out of it, but nothing doing. My dad made him promise to come by his house before he left.
He came by early the next morning and wanted dad to play a tune on the fiddle that he liked very much. He wanted to hear it one more time. My dad played the tune very slow and sad. When he got through the boy was crying and said, "I sure hate to leave here but I've got to go." My dad started laughing and told him what had happened. Instead of the boy getting mad, he was one of the happiest boys you ever saw. He went home and stayed.
There were schools every few miles. There was Union Hall three and one half miles East of Liberty Hill. Taught through the eighth grade. About six miles East of Union Hall was Union Chapel School. North of Union Hall about four miles was Rock House. East of there was Jim Hogg School. North of Liberty Hill about six miles was Concord School. West of Liberty Hill was Hopewell School. South of Liberty Hill was a Negro school, Jinks Branch. Each community defended itself. Each would have it's own baseball team and play each other. Everyone went to the ball games.
Nearly every farm had a good hunting dog. In the winter boys would get together on an opossum hunt. Sometimes we would back each other eating a piece of the first thing we caught. I remember one night the first thing caught was a skunk. No one was backed out.
Sometimes while waiting for the dogs to tree we would play games like Capture the Flag, Kangaroo Court, or sit around a big fire seeing who could tell the biggest lie. Sometimes we would decide to have a chicken roast.
Another past time on days that there were nothing to do, some of us would hunt wasp nests horse back. No saddle allowed. We would get a stick about four feet long and when you saw a good wasp nest, ride under it and hit it, and take off. After a time or two, when you swung the stick, you didn't have to urge the horse to move. All you had to do was stay on.
On a cool rainy day was a good time to fight bumblebees. We got a thin board, made a paddle with holes in it, stir up a bumblebee nest and try to hit them as they came out. Be sure you didn't miss.
Lots of fun those days.
In 1918 a very dry year we made one bale of cotton on 20 acres. We had to load up a 1914 Model T with Papa, Mama, and five kids and went to Wharton and Bay City to pick cotton.
We stayed several weeks camped in a tent. It rained two or three times while we were there. What a mess. We got home with $400.00. Enough to tide us over till the next crop. Nineteen- Nineteen was a very wet year. We got the crop planted then it rained so much it couldn't be plowed. We had to pull the grass out of the cotton in the mud by hand. Made a bumper crop, and got about 40 cents a pound. Best price ever known. Crops wasn't harvested very fast. Everything was done by hand. Cotton wasn't pulled then it was picked, no burs. We were taught to keep it clean. I was a poor cotton picker. I've seen my dad pick 400 to 500 pounds a day in real good cotton. My mother could pick around 300 pounds. I never got 300 in my life. I could chop cotton, top fodder, or gather corn with anyone, also pull broomcorn. We had to pick cotton after school. Many times we didn't get the cotton in until November. Generally gathered corn after the cotton was all picked.
One neighbor, one year, was gathering corn the middle of February. A neighbor was planting corn. He said, "I'm far ahead of my neighbor, I'm gathering my corn and he is just planting his." We barely had time to get all the land bedded before planting time again.
We bedded land with four horses or mules and cultivated with two to a one-row cultivator. In the thirties when some of the farmers began to get two row planters and cultivators it sure was fast.
A few farmers began to get tractors in the late thirties.
Going back to my school days at Union Hall, many times we took cornbread to school in our lunches instead of biscuits. World War I was going on and flour was hard to get.
I believe I started to school in Liberty Hill in 1918 or 1919. Ina and I went to school in an open top buggy. Lots of times it was freezing or raining. We never missed on account of the weather. We had a good fast trotting horse. He could "fly" when needed.
Many times when we would get to our gate going out on the gravel road to town, one of the neighbor girls who lived about a mile and a half below us would be coming. She also had a fast horse. The race would be on. We would race to school, three miles.
When I started to school at Liberty Hill I was supposed to be in the fourth grade. My mother told them to keep me in the third. She figured going from a country school to town I didn't know enough. Nearly always when a new boy started to a new school the school bully would try him out. I was expecting that, but for some reason I was never tried.
When I was in the eighth grade, there was about fifteen kids. We had an old maid teacher that was a cat. Everyone hated her. Every one in the grade failed that year but two. I wasn't one of the two.
We moved back to town, I believe, in 1921. My dad ran a gristmill and worked the farm.
When I got in high school, I started playing football, basketball, and entered in track and
There were only eleven grades in school then. I graduated in 1929.
After graduation, one of my classmates and I went to Tyler Commercial College in Tyler, Texas. We started in September of 1929. When we came home for Christmas, Mildred had moved back home to Morgan Hill. I went up there in a 1927 Model T and we got married.
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| W.K. & Mildred Wedding |
Remembering about the reaper, I started driving six horses or mules to a reaper for my dad when I was about 13 or 14 years old. I never had a runaway while driving. We rode one and drove the rest. Several times, with a green driver, something would happen, maybe a loud noise or a rattlesnake, the team would get away from them. All you could do was ride for you were on the inside horse next to the sickle and platform and reel. If you fell off or was thrown off you was a dead duck.
Generally, when they stopped, the driver would be holding on to the horn of the saddle, white as a sheet and you would have to help him off the horse.
Generally had a repair job on the reaper. I was riding the reaper one day and a neighbor boy was driving. We had a horse on the outside that would throw a fit sometimes. I told him to watch that horse and keep a tight checkrein on him. He got careless. The horse started pitching and scared the rest, all hell broke loose.
When they stopped he had to be helped off and we had half a day job fixing the reaper. When we got the reaper repaired, we told him to get on and let’s go. He said, "Hell no. Not me." I had to start driving.
We had one runaway that the team went right through a fellow's corn patch cutting and bundling the fellow's corn. Many things happened those days that was very dangerous but was funny after it was all over.
After I married and started farming we put tractor wheels on a 1914 Model T Ford. I bedded land and pulled a reaper with it. I would use about ten or twelve gallons of gas per day.
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| Car/Tractor with Gene Seward 1935 |
Gas was 15 cents per gallon.
After farming a couple of years I went to Willis, Texas and started a store for my brother-in-law at Hunt Lumber Co.
After four years there we came back to Liberty Hill and worked for Vaden Ross at the Texaco Warehouse. He sent me to Marshall Ford Dam to service up all the equipment while the dam was being built. We serviced every piece of equipment three times a day. We hauled gas and diesel oil between servicings.
Hauled out of Austin in the day time and out of Liberty Hill at night. Me and my partner would get about two hours sleep out of every 24 hours. That went on for months. In the Winter much of the time it was cold and raining. You have heard about the good old days? That wasn't it. I forget but I believe the pay was $100.00 per month.(4)
World War II was declared while we lived in Willis. Three fellows and myself went fishing at Galveston one Saturday night. While sitting in the car on the beach that night, we heard Roosevelt declare war on Germany.
After I quit hauling gas at Liberty Hill I went to an aircraft school in Dallas. While there one Sunday afternoon, we were between Dallas and Fort Worth watching an air show. About the time it was over there were newsboys allover the place selling papers with big headlines, "Japan Bombs Pearl Harbor".
I went from Dallas to San Diego to work in aircraft.(5) After nearly four years I was transferred to Fort Worth. Helped build the B-36 (bomber) there. After a little over a year there, we bought Seward Junction from my dad and mother and moved back.
In my grandfather's days and my father's up until about the teens, when progress began to take place, the tools they had to work with was pretty primitive. Some was still being used when I was a child. I remember lots of them. Such as the stump puller. A team was hooked to a long pole fastened to a steel spade and the team went round and round winding a large cable up on the spool. You could pull up a pretty large stump.
I remember running a horsepower to run a thrasher. It was a large cogwheel, laying flat on rollers. On one side a small cog was turned. A shaft went out with a pulley on it. A belt went from the pulley to the thrasher. Some used a tumbling rod to the thrasher. This was pulled by a team going round.
Our first hay baler was a wooden box made of heavy lumber with a winch on each side operated with a long lever. You filled the box with hay, laid a wooden block on top, pulled it down on the hay by a man on each side operating the winches, then tie with wire.
They used walking turning plows to break the land. By working from sun to sun you could break two or three acres a day. Walking bedding plows and walking cultivators.
When the hay baler came out that could use a team going round and round to compress the hay we had it made. A hard days work you could bale 200 to 225 bales a day.
The baler was fed by hand and hay tied by hand. The thrasher was fed by hand one bundle at a time.
There was no electricity, no gasoline engines to pull anything. We used kerosene lights.
We shelled corn to make meal by hand until we finally got a corn sheller you cranked by hand. The sheller was much faster, but wasn't easy to turn. Wood cut with an ax. The large logs was cut with a crosscut saw, a man on each end.
Our first washing machine had a wooden tub and a lever on it you pumped. We finally got a cream separator you cranked by hand.
Our first car was a red Buick. Steering wheel on the right, two cylinder engine under the front seat, brake and clutch were long levers on the outside, you cranked it on the side, leather upholstery, folding top, gas tank under the hood, kerosene lights, slick tires, and sounded like a motorcycle. As well as I can remember, it was a 1908 model.
The first automobile tires were smooth and made out of what looked like heavy tent material with rubber on the outside. Hardly ever went anywhere without a flat or two. Everyone carried tire tools and a pump and jack. They were clincher type tires and carried 50 pounds of air. Not enough air and you would ruin the tire. When the cord tire came out with tread on it, that was something. It was advertised big as a cord, non-skid, and would go 5000 miles.
Advertising then was as now, don't believe it.
I don't believe I mentioned that our first 1914 Model T was obtained by trading a house and lot we had in town. We still had it in the late thirties. We sawed wood with it, thrashed broomcorn and finally made a tractor out of it.
My dad had a solid silver case 7-jewel Elgin watch that he traded a single shot 22 target (rifle) for back in the 1800’s. All us kids cut our teeth on it. It has a real thick crystal on it. He wore it until the late thirties. It quit running. A jeweler in Georgetown said it was worn out. I traded my dad a 21-jewel gold case watch, an Illinois, for it in 1939. An old jeweler man from Dallas said, "that watch is not worn out." I asked him what he would fix it for. He said, "ten cents on the year of its age." I told him to fix it for I knew my dad had it many more years than that. He fixed it for $4.10. It is still running. I have the watch now and would like for it to always stay in the Seward name. He always wore overalls. He wore the watch in the bib pocket. Had a plaited leather strap fastened to a button. About 1916 we went to visit Uncle Hez Cobb and Aunt Emmy at Goldthwaite.
They lived on the river. We went fishing. Late that evening my dad stooped over and washed his hands in the river. He always wound the watch before going to bed. He started to wind the watch that night and it was gone. He lay there that night wondering where he lost it. He happened to think about washing his hands. Next morning he went and looked. The watch was laying in about a foot of water. He picked it up. It was still running and had the right time.
We used to have what they called a blue norther. You could see them coming. It didn't gradually get cold, it was freezing when they hit. My dad said he and someone, I forget who, was coming from Brown wood one time in a wagon. It was a pretty day. They looked back and saw a blue norther coming. They knew a mile or two down the road they had to cross a creek and it was about three feet deep. They wanted to get across before the norther hit. They speeded up and the norther caught them just before they got there. They crossed the water and stopped to build a fire. The horses liked to have froze to death before they could build the fire.
I've seen hot water dashed out the back door and freeze before it hit the ground.
In 1935 after I married, and lived on the farm, our turkeys froze and fell out of the tree dead.
The coldest I ever got was when I was walking home from school from Union Hall and just as I got to our pasture gate my dad was coming in from town in a buggy. Someone was with him and I caught the back of the buggy and held on to the back of the seat. A blue norther had just hit. We had about 400 yards to go. When we got to the house I could hardly walk. I went in got by the fireplace and warmed up too fast. I never ached so bad in my life.
When one of those spells were on never stick your tongue to a (iron) wagon tire. You can't get loose. I know.
One fellow said that he and another fellow riding along one day talking. It was so cold that the words they spoke froze and they didn't find out what the other said till the next Spring.
I guess I should mention my first train ride. Sam Miller a cousin of mine, and I had a cousin, Mable Nichols, who lived in San Antonio. She had been up here on a visit and knew Sam and I were pretty green city-wise. I guess I was about sixteen. Mable invited Sam and I to visit her on November 11 and we could watch the Armistice Day Parade in San Antonio. On the tenth Sam and I went to Austin in the 1914 Model T and stayed all night with Aunt Jo Simmons. The next morning early they took us to catch the train to San Antonio about 9 a. m. Mable met us at the station. I noticed she looked at us kind of funny like but she didn't say a word. We got in her car, a Star Touring car, and went downtown. The parade was just beginning. We watched the parade then went to her house for dinner. She told us to go to the bathroom and wash for dinner. We looked in the mirror and we looked like. Negroes.
We had rings around our eyes and faces nearly black. Why we didn't notice each other, I don't know. The smoke from the train engine painted us good. We stayed two days and Mable took us to a circus and lots of interesting places. We got a pretty good education.
Sam and I bought us a 22 Stevens Favorite rifle. I believe we paid $9.00 each. We could buy shells for 15 cents per box. We used them a lot when we could rake up 15 cents. We put stick matches in the ground about fifteen steps away and bet each other whether we struck the match or shot the head off. Sam still has his rifle. I gave mine to Bill for a keepsake.
Might as well talk a little about the Durnbull(6). Uncle Charley Miller and Uncle Jim Seward made it out of an old cedar churn. Uncle Charley, Uncle Jim, and my dad made it up with my brother Hubbard to take a bunch of boys on a chicken roast. They all went horseback to the Union Hall School house. They walked several hundred yards down in a brushy pasture and built up a big fire. Two or three went to a neighbor's house and stole some chickens. They dressed them and started frying. They was nearly through frying chicken and some were eating.
The lion roared, sounded like a good ways off. The boys wondered what it was but not much was said. A few minutes the thing was turned a quarter around and it sounded closer. Everyone stood up and listened. About five minutes it was turned to face them and it sounded real close. No more questions asked. The race was on across prickly pears and brush. They jumped the fence and ran in the schoolhouse. One or two wanted to bring the horses inside. My brother talked them out of that. They stayed inside about an hour and didn't hear it any more. My dad and uncles knew two of the boys and had to come around the road where they were so they got under a culvert and stayed till they came along. They heard them coming and waited till they crossed the culvert, then cut loose with the durnbull. One of the boys was riding a horse and the other a mule called Tiny.
The horse could outrun the mule. As they took off the boy on the mule still had the frying pan in his hand. He started beating the mule on the tail with the pan and saying, "come on Tiny." They ran over a mile, came to a wire gate. They didn't stop to open the gate they went through it ran another half mile home, got off and ran in the house. The saddles were still on the next morning. Hubbard went to see them the next night. They told the story. They said the thing ran right along with them just inside the fence. Some of the boys still had chicken in their hands when they got to the schoolhouse.
The next day before breakfast, my uncles came to our house and Hubbard gave the report. I've never seen three men laugh as hard and tears running down their cheeks.
Two or three years (later) another bunch was taken out hunting. They tied their horses down in the creek bed. One boy was riding a horse called Old Snider. When they carne running back to the horses, Old Snider was laying down. The boy said, "By God it got Old Snider." They ran the horses up a rocky hill that you could hardly walk over.
A lot of discussing went on about what it was. Some called it a cougar, some a lion. Some called it a damn wolf. It went by that name for years. One boy said we need more men and more guns.
After about ten years it became my time, for everything had been quiet. No one ever knew for sure what took place.
Several years ago a Negro who lived in Marble Falls came by my place and had car trouble. While working on his car I asked him if he knew Luther Atwood. He said, "sure, I work for him." I told him to ask Luther if he knew anything about a damn wolf. Several months later he came by again and stopped. He told me he asked Mr. Luther what I said and he told me to tell you to go to Hell. The damn wolf hasn't been heard from for over 50 years. I guess they have all been killed out. They had better be for now there is a law again it.
I haven't seen a jack-o-lantern (7) since the middle of the twenties. There was a branch running across the middle of our field about 600 yards from the house. Sometimes at night, not very often, there would be a string of lights evenly spaced and about waist high floating up or down the branch. They would be about the size of a volleyball. They would move very slow. Their spacing was always even. They came up out of the ground. Sometimes as many as fifteen. One after the other they would rise and float along very slowly. Finally disappear.
In the middle of the twenties, one night several of us boys were opossum hunting one night. We were on top of a hill. To the North of us was a long string of lights moving very slowly. We first thought it was car lights. They were moving slow and evenly spaced. We discussed it and knew there was no road there. They were jack-o-lanterns. That is the last time I've ever seen any.
At school one day one of the boys was bragging about what a good hunting dog he had. He wanted us to come out and go hunting with him. One moonlit night we went to his house and he had a hound. We took off cross country and walked two or three miles. The old hound stayed right at our heels. It was winter. No leaves on the trees, I spotted an opossum in a tree, high up. I didn't say a word. I started running in large circles barking like a hound. After three or four wide circles, I ran up to the tree still barking. They thought I went crazy. The old dog never made a sound. That was the only thing we caught that night. No more bragging on the dog.
Used to on a dark clear night the sky would be a beautiful dark blue and you could see millions of stars. Now about all you see on a clear night is a hazy sky and the largest stars.
In the summer, in July or August, when the crops were pretty well laid by and not much to do about 12 or 15 boys would hitch up to a wagon, had our bedding and enough to eat for a week and go to the Colorado River at Smithwick to fish and play ball. It would take about a day to go and a day to get back. We camped out on the river. We fished at night and played ball every evening at the Smithwick schoolhouse. People would come out of those hills and valleys from every direction. Some walking, some horseback or in a wagon. We would stay from three or four days and a ball game every evening. In between fishing and ball games we might raid someone's watermelon patch. I think they expected that. Sometimes the last night we were to be there the community would throw a big party at someone's house. I remember going to Smithwick from Liberty Hill there were thirteen gates to open. After a few years some built stick culverts for the Model T's.
We made our own fun but didn't destroy anyone's property.
Everyone had an outdoor toilet. On Halloween the gripey ones would have their toilets either turned over or moved up on Main Street. A wagon or buggy might be put on top of some building. One man that raised so much cane every year was determined to stop us. He got in his (outhouse) with a shotgun. We turned it over with him in it. Old people or sick people were left alone.
My dad always got up at 4 a. m. the year round. They went to bed around 8 p. m. He would get up and build a fire in the cook stove, also in the fireplace if it was cold. He would then go out and feed the teams so they would be through eating by daylight. He then would come in and eat breakfast and be ready to go to work by daylight. Mama would generally do the milking of the cows a little after sun up. When us kids got big enough we had to learn how to milk. I always hated to milk. When we would have a young heifer with her first calf, she would have to be broke for milking.
Cotton chopping time we would start about good daylight. Cotton picking time, unless there was a heavy dew, we would have to wait at the wagon until it got light enough to see how to pick.
If we were a little behind with work, we worked till nearly dark then have to come in, shuck corn for the teams and hogs and feed them. Generally ate supper after dark.
My dad always read by an oil lamp after he went to bed until he got sleepy. He always read Western magazines. I remember one winter he read to me, "Peck’s Bad Boy". He was a good reader, although he just went through the third grade. He put feeling into his reading out loud.
Two or three different times some old timers told me that no one could hit a baseball farther than Newt Seward.
They tell me that Uncle Will Simmons was the first curve ball pitcher in the county.
They beat everybody.
AFTER THOUGHTS BY W. K. SEWARD
1984
There were a few things our parents did not tell us when we were growing up, guess it was for the best. My mother didn't tell us she played a French harp. I knew she played the organ and picked a guitar and sang. I found out recently that she and Hutch and Milt Love and some other young folks near Andice had a musical group. They played at parties. One Saturday night they walked and played for a dance for several hours.
I had a Great Uncle Moses Tucker. When he was a young boy he rode a donkey to school. One morning he couldn't find his donkey. He hunted and finally found him out at the end of Sunset Lane about two miles from home. He rode him back to school and was about two hours late. The teacher reamed him out good and asked him why he was so late. He said, "Well, when I got up this morning I couldn't find my ass nowhere." I understand the school came unbuckled.(8)
One lady near Andice had a sick spell every time she got mad at her husband. Her husband called the doctor out from Florence one day when she was having one of her spells. Dr. Atkinson was asking her about her symptoms and she said, "Well Doctor, I just feel like going out and setting on a hot rock."
A Liberty Hill real estate salesman took a client out to look at a farm. The land was very poor. It would hardly make 20 bushels of corn to the acre in a good year. He told the client this land should make 75 bushels of corn to the acre. A neighbor asked him why he told the man it would make 75 bushels to the acre. He said, "I didn't tell him it would, I told him it should."
Years ago Lee Lydie, a neighbor of Mildred's Dad, was always telling some big tall tales. People laughed about Lee and his tall tales and teased him all the time, which Lee enjoyed. One day a neighbor was on his way home from town when Lee came riding his horse at a run passing by the wagon. The neighbor said "Hi Lee, stop and tell me a lie." Lee said, "Can't your house is on fire and I'm going to put it out." The man almost ran his team to death to get home. When he got there, NO FIRE! You see, he asked for it and he got it.
Copy of “Do You Remember” written by W.K. Seward to an old friend on his 50th Wedding Anniversary. 1986
DO YOU REMEMBER the boy that used to trap every winter and he would come to school sometimes with skunk on him?
I believe he was sent home one time?
DO YOU REMEMBER some boys that caught an opossum with eleven little ones and turned them loose upstairs in the school house?
DO YOU REMEMBER you, me and Genevieve Whitted having to help Pat catch up on her yearly report she said she had lost. Ward told her to get it or fail. We worked two or three nights on it.
DO YOU REMEMBER Pat telling Mr. Chance to cut her hair like a boys behind?
DO YOU REMEMBER three or four boys always robbing class picnics of their food?
DO YOU REMEMBER going opossum hunting in the Hopewell Community one night, catching nothing and decided to have a chicken roast and you and I was elected to get the chicken? It was around Christmas time and we knew everyone was at a Christmas tree trimming at Hopewell school house. We went to a house, there was no lights, there was a rail fence in the back yard and some large oak trees with chickens roosting in them.
You got on the fence to get one and we heard something drop in the house. Sounded like a shot gun shell. You hit the ground making about 90 m.p.h. and me right behind you. We ran through all the other guys and kept going for another hundred yards before we stopped. The other guys
didn't want to give up so you and I agreed to try another place. We crawled over a rack fence into a large field where all the guys sat down while you and I went to the house. We made it up between us to have a race. We got behind the house at a wire fence. You had a 22 target with you. We waited a few minutes and shot over their heads; we rattled the fence like we ran into it.
You went on one side of them and me the other side as fast as we could run. They all got up and ran and jumped the rack fence like bunch of deer. No chickens that night!!!
DO YOU REMEMBER Bill Isaaks bragging on his hunting dog and wanting us to go hunting with him? About half a dozen boys went out one Saturday night and went hunting. The old dog stayed right on our heels as we walked about two miles. It was a moonlight night and no leaves on the post-oak trees. I saw a possum climb a tree. I didn't say a word... I started running around barking like a dog for a minute or two and ran up to the tree still barking. That was the only thing we caught that night and Bill never bragged on his dog anymore.
DO YOU REMEMBER 219 South Bonner at Tyler? Twelve or thirteen boys stayed there. How did the landlady stand it? You remember the squeaky step about halfway up? Our room was over the landlady's room and sometimes a little excess noise went on. When we heard the step squeak we would jump in our bed and cover up. The old lady would open the door right quick and we would be asleep. We would have to chew her out for waking us up. Saturday was a day off. Everyone was always doing something to somebody else. One guy was always bursting into our room... so we opened the door about two inches and put a paper cup of water on it. When he came in he got all wet. One night when all the boys were in town and it was real cold, you went in their room pulled the cover back and poured a glass of water across the bed and put the cover back. When they came in , they jumped in bed... let out a war hoop ... and raised cane!!! The land lady came up and chewed out everyone, but us...we were asleep. Remember she griped because she said it would leave a stain across her mattress?
DO YOU REMEMBER a guy, I believe his name was DeCate from Louisiana who would come in on Sunday mornings and pour water in our faces to wake us up? One morning you got up early and got a glass of water and went back to bed and covered up, holding the cup beside the bed with cover over it. DeCate slipped into the room and just before he got to the bed, you threw back the cover and let him have it...from head to toe. That stopped that little act.
DO YOU REMEMBER a nut who come in every morning and used our hair oil? I don't remember his name. We ran out of hair oil so we filled the empty bottle with Sloan’s Liniment.
He had a heavy set of hair. So he sprinkled a lot on top of his head and started to rub it in good. He stopped al of a sudden, looked around and left quick like. We didn't loose any more hair oil.
DO YOU REMEMBER the day we went racing up the stairs? The stairs went up half way to a landing and made a right turn and up again. At the landing there was a stained glass window. At the landing you got over balanced and rammed your pumpkin head right through the window. Now why would the landlady get mad about that? It was an accident! I don't remember if she ever found out who did it or not??
DO YOU REMEMBER the time you had just taken a bath and came back into the room naked as a jaybird? You started to do an Indian war dance and making a lot of noise. So much noise that you didn't hear the step squeak, so when the landlady turned the doorknob you darted for the closet. She just got a glimpse of you, she said "OH YES GOODY I SAW YOU!"
You said O.K. and just came walking out. She went back down those stairs faster than she came up.
DO YOU REMEMBER a dull Saturday night when we didn't have any thing to do but loaf?
So we decided to go into town and look in the store windows. We didn't have any money to buy anything. Saturday was a busy time for the stores. We walked into a big store and on the top shelf about eight or nine feet high was a line of suitcases standing on their ends. That's what we wanted to buy!! We pointed one out and the clerk would climb up and get it down and we would look it over and it didn't suit us. After having him get several down and scattered allover the counter, we decided none of them suited us.
DO YOU REMEMBER one day the landlady called out real loud and said, "BOYS PLEASE DON'T THROW WATER OUT THE WINDOW! Now think about it... you weren't
THROWING water out the window...were you???
DO YOU REMEMBER at that time you were a Methodist and I belonged to the Church of Christ. One Sunday evening we decided to go to church. I don't remember how we got there or how we got back, but we went to a First Christian Church. There were a lot of young people there and we went to class with them. When it was over the young people all ganged around introducing themselves. One good-looking gal introduced herself and you said, "I'M MISTER WALEY." When we went to leave some were inviting us back and saving they were glad to meet us. You said, "I'M GLAD YOU GOT TO MEET ME TOO!"
DO YOU REMEMBER the trip from Tyler to Waco on the Cotton Belt (Rail line) at Christmas? Then the trip from Waco home in Model T in a big snowstorm at night? All you could see was the fence lines. I'm glad there wasn't any traffic.
I'm getting to where I can't remember anything anymore. I'm sure there is a lot I should say, but I don't remember! I just don't remember why you acted like you did?
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HAPPY 50th ANNIVERSARY!
W .K.SEWARD
Notes by William C. Seward.
General Note: W.K. Seward was my grandfather. I have done very minor editing of misspelling and grammar where it didn’t affect the flavor of the narrative. For the most part this is just how Dad told his stories. Where clarification is helpful, I have added a word or two in parenthesis.
1 Hickory Pass. In Burnet county east of Smithwick. Around 2.5 miles northeast of CR1471 on CR1174. Can be seen on Google Earth using National Geographic Topo overlay.
2 One of W.K.’s favorite things was to look at reproductions of old Sears and Ward’s catalogues to see what things were selling for back in his childhood. These prices are, I’m pretty sure, the result of one of those forays.
3 Another story W.K. told me on this subject was this: A certain family of renters was found to be very undesirable in the neighborhood. A group of boys went the house when they were away and they tied a long string from a tree to a nail in the wall of the house. The string was rubbed with rosin. Late that night the family was asleep and the boys returned. They played the string like a fiddle, causing an unearthly moaning and screeching to echo through the house. Scared witless, the family moved away and were never seen again.
4 Another story about hauling for Vaden Ross. W.K. was driving one night hauling gasoline to the Marshall Ford Dam, which is the dam that forms Lake Travis near Austin. The road that is now called 620 is a very twisty road even now, and was much more so then. As W.K. was topping one of the last high hills before the dam site the brakes AND the clutch went out on the truck. The road was something like a roller coaster at that point, but mostly a very steep downgrade. There was no traffic and he wrestled the truck along the road with the door open so that he could jump if necessary. A truck load of gasoline, remember? He made it all the way to the worksite, and rolled up into the parking lot, but somewhat short of where he usually parked. As he rolled to a stop and chocked the wheels, Vaden came out of the job shack and told him to pull it on up in place. W.K. said “You do it!” Vaden tried, but quickly discovered the problem. There was some amazement that W.K. hadn’t crashed.
5 Consolidated Aircraft. I believe W.K. worked mostly as a special projects riveter.
6 Durnbull. W.K. never said where the name came from. However he did tell me more about the construction. According to him, an old wooden churn was used with the bottom knocked out. The dasher was reversed in the lid so that the crossbars were outside the churn, giving a sort of handle. A bit of leather was wrapped around the handle where it penetrated the hole in the lid, and that leather was coated with rosin. When the crossbars were rotated, the rosin would cause the churn to give a terrific screaming or yowling noise. The more the open end was pointed toward a victim, the louder it would be.
7. "Jack O'Lantern is what they called swamp gas or Will O' the Wisp I think.
8 Uncle Mose Tucker also had a reputation as a recluse in later years. W.K. said that he and some of his friends came across Mose while hunting one time, sleeping in a hollow tree.
