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| J.W. Adams, Mildred, Bertha Elvira Henry |
|
THROUGH
THE
YEARS
March, 1982
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| Infant Mildred with Eliz. Hamilton |
I, Bertha Mildred Adams Seward, was born November 5, 1910, in a
little two-room house six miles northwest of Morgan Mill, in Erath
County, Texas, 20 miles north of Stephenville, the daughter of John
Wyatt Adams and Bertha Elvira Henry Adams. Doctor Shephard delivered
me. His little two-room office was in Morgan Mill. I weighed only 3½
pounds - a regular size teacup would fit over my head. My mother died
when I was ten days old. Until I was three months old, I was not
expected to live. Grandma Adams who lived in a log house on the farm
next to my dad's farm took me. I have heard many strange stories
about how I was fed and doctored. My Grandma Adams was half-Indian,
Cherokee , I think. The strange herbs, feeding, etc. must have been
O.K. as I am now 71 years old and in pretty good health. My mother
and two little brothers were buried in Sap Oak Cemetery, a
small country cemetery not too far from my dad's farm. My two little
brothers died, one in 1907 at birth and the other one in 1909 just a
few weeks old.
My Grandpa. Isom Adams was born April 7, 1850, and died January 12,
1915, and was buried in Morgan Mill Cemetery. In the late 1800's
Grandpa Adams hauled freight by wagon and mules from Louisiana to the
Pacific Coast through the desert. He traveled on the road made of
poles tied together. Some pieces of that old road can still be found
in the desert. He was paid for some of his freighting with land and
at one time owned the land on the coast just south of San Diego that
is now National City, California.
Grandma Elizabeth Payne Adams was born in Grayson County, Texas, near
Sadler about 1850 (not sure of exact date) and died in February,
1912, and was buried in a little country cemetery called The Basin
Cemetery three miles northeast of Sadler. Grandma Adams was married
to a Mr. Hamilton sometime in the 1870's. They had two children - a
girl Alice, and a boy; I believe his name was Will. When Aunt Alice
was four or five years old, two men road up to their house one
evening and asked Aunt Alice, "Little girl, where 1s your papa?"
About that time he walked out on the porch and one of the men shot
him. He fell dead at his little daughter's feet. Mr. Hamilton had
witnessed horse stealing by those two just before that and they knew
he could have them hung. They were later caught and sent to the pen
for life. So when my Grandpa Adams and Grandma were married she had
those two small children.
Grandpa and Grandma took me to Grayson County to visit Grandma's
family, the Paynes, in January, 1912. Grandma took pneumonia and died
in February 1912. My Daddy got on the train at Bluff Dale, Texas, and
went to Sadler to Grandma's funeral, then brought me home on the
train. He said I ate a dozen bananas from Sadler to Bluff Dale (well
I still eat a lot. Of bananas)! They're my favorite fruit, them and
apricots.
My Uncle Walter and Aunt Isabel Adams lived about a mile from my dad
in a little two-room log house. They had a little boy, Fred, a year
younger than me. I lived with them and my dad until I was three years
old.
II
In 1913 Doctor George Duff Ross and his wife Alma Henry Ross, who was
my mother's sister, moved to Paluxy, Texas in Hood County from
Gravit, Arkansas, and they talked my dad into letting me live with
them.
When I was five, they adopted a baby boy from Fort Worth. His name
was
Vaden Bennett to which the name Ross was added. He was three months
old and weighed eight pounds. Although he was so skinny and pale, I
thought he was the most beautiful thing I ever laid eyes on.
I lost both my Grandpa Adams and my Grandpa Henry that year, 1915,
and I was very disturbed over so much in such a short time. My
Grandpa Henry was taken from Morgan Mill to Rock Church Cemetery in
Hood County. about 20 miles, in a wagon to be buried. Believe me, 20
miles in a funeral procession of wagons and buggies was a long trip!
Uncle Doc had a 1914 Model T, but we stuck in sand several miles out
of Bluff Dale, between Bluff Dale and Morgan Mill.
Although my dad was batching and had lots of cattle to see after and
a farm to work for which he was laboring hard to pay, he often came
on horseback to Paluxy to see me, and I was delighted to see him.
Across the street from Uncle Doc and Auntie's house and Uncle Doc's
office, which was by the side of the house, was a General Merchandise
store owned and run by George Lock. The Lock's house was just back of
our house. I called them Lock and Aunt Susie. They had no children.
Lock tried to get my Dad to let them adopt me. They were quite well
to do for that day and time, a big house for two people and a nice
size farm. The Paluxy River ran through their place and they had many
pecan trees. I picked up many buckets of pecans under their trees. I
loved Lock and Aunt Susie like grandparents and they loved me. When
Auntie would go with Uncle Doc out on house calls, I always stayed
with them.
When Lock closed his store doors at night, no one dared ask him to
open up, even if they were out of kerosene for lamps or any other
item, and he always let Uncle Doc know he had better be sure he had
gas for that Model T to make night or weekend calls. Then one night I
couldn't find my kitten. I called and called and finally I heard it
mew in the street, I thought. It was a dirt street, no lights.
Uncle Doc took the lantern and went with me to hunt my kitten. You
guessed it - it was in Lock's store. I, of course, wanted to go ask
Lock to come let it out. No, Uncle Doc wouldn't go with me. He said
Lock wouldn't come and would be mad. I took the lantern and went to
Lock's by myself. Lock came with me and got my kitten and was so
sweet to me. It peeved Uncle Doc. He said, "If I had needed gas,
he would have griped." Lock gave me stick candy all the time and
I would slip off and go to the store. When Auntie came after me, Lock
would hide me under the counter. He gave me a little bell with a
little black wooden handle when I was five, and I gave the bell to my
great-grandson William J. Seward when he was five, and he I hope will
give it to his first son when he is five (wishful thinking).
Uncle Doc never gave me but one whipping, but Auntie made up for the
both of them. Uncle Doc got a little china twig and switched my legs.
I told him "Goodie, it didn't hurt". He said, "I'll
make it hurt!” and he did.
We went swimming a lot in the Paluxy River. Vaden and I both loved
the water. Uncle Doc bought us water wings. One day Uncle Doc took
Vaden and me to the river to get some gravel. While he was loading
gravel, Vaden and I were playing and wandered out of sight and were
throwing rocks in the water. Vaden was three and I was eight, but by
that time Vaden weighed almost as much as I did. I had had the
measles and whooping cough and was skinny. Well, Vaden got
over-balanced and fell in. I jumped in after him. He had on rompers
and I grabbed hold of them. He was fighting and screaming at me and I
was screaming for Uncle Doc. He heard us and came running, jumped in
- shoes, watch, and all, and caught us just as we going into very
deep water. Uncle Doc never could swim but he could float and that he
did, holding on to me and me holding on to Vaden. I was so scared of
water from then on I wouldn't go in and never did learn to swim. From
then on, even after we were grown, I would get peeved at Vaden and
tell him, "Why didn't I let you drown?"
The Church of Christ building was about two city blocks from our
house and every Sunday morning you could see Lock walking to church
and Aunt Susie trailing along behind carrying a basket with the
unleavened bread she had baked and the grape juice she had canned
from the grapes she had gathered; two small china plates and two
glasses for the communion tables and two snow white table cloths, one
to go on the communion table and the other to spread over communion.
I have this picture clear in my mind. Aunt Susie in dark calico dress
always to her ankles, dark apron tied around her waist that came
almost to the bottom of her dress, high top button shoes, and always
a dark, very stiffly starched bonnet on.
There was a large brush arbor just up the little hill from the church
building and in the summer both the Church of Christ and the Baptist
had two or three-week meetings there. Big kerosene lamps hung on
poles and there were straight wooden benches for teenagers and
grownups and pallets all over for the little ones (yes, pallets on
the ground). No one thought it a crime to be in the service one and a
half or two hours; in fact, it was a joy.
One night after we were home from church and had gone to bed, Uncle
Doc heard a baby crying. He dressed and went to the arbor and there
was a child (about a four or five year old boy) sitting alone in the
dark crying. He belonged to a family of six or seven more children
who lived seven or eight miles out. Uncle Doc brought the little
fellow home and started trying to call the parents. He finally did
reach them after their long drive home in a wagon. They had not
missed the boy until they were entering their house and the telephone
was ringing. I was scared to go to sleep at church after that.
We had a neighbor in Paluxy or a few miles out who was quite wealthy.
When anyone got in a tight and needed quick cash, Mr. Blank (I'll
call him) would loan them money at 10% interest, which I believe was
unlawful at that time. One day a bunch of men were gathered at the
store and Mr. Sawyer, a very good neighbor, said, "Mr. Blank, I
am going to place a tombstone at your grave when you die, and I am
going to write on it 'Here lies old 10%, the more he earned the less
he spent, and when he died to hell he went!
Aunt Menta Henry, my Mother's and Auntie's younger sister,
came and visited us a lot. One night we were going to church or a
singing and Aunt Menta had a date with Gerdon Glover. I couldn't get
my dress buttoned in back and Auntie was dressing so I marched in
where Aunt Menta and Gerdon were sitting in the parlor and asked Aunt
Menta to button my dress. Well, did I catch it from Aunt Menta and
Auntie later - the idea of a six or seven year old girl going into
the parlor where a young lady and her boyfriend were with three or
four buttons to be buttoned in the back of her dress (disgrace),
and the Glovers were practically like family. Gerdon Glover is
almost 90 years old now and lives in Georgetown. I shall ask him the
next time I see him if my disgraceful act was the reason he and Aunt
Menta never married.
III
In 1918 my Dad married Eura Sewell and they came to Paluxy in a
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| G.D.Ross, Vaden, Mildred, Auntie. |
buggy
and took me home with them, back to the little house where I was
born. Vaden and Auntie were crying so Uncle Doc took them riding so
they wouldn't see me leave. Soon after, Uncle Doc sold his office and
home and they moved to Lake Victor, a little place north of Burnet,
where he practiced medicine about a year before moving to Liberty
Hill.
I was very unhappy. I wanted to be with my daddy, but I missed Auntie
and Uncle Doc so much and Vaden most of all.
World War I - things were rough. My dad was called and if the war had
lasted just one more week he would have been on his way to some Army
base. Most people had no flour or sugar. My dad raised a large amount
of wheat each year, had it threshed, and took several hundred pounds
to the mill. It was ground into flour for our use, so we had biscuits
for breakfast. We had our chickens and eggs, pork, honey from our own
bees, potatoes and beans, also pumpkins and cushaws, some fruit we
had canned or dried, and plenty of milk and butter. We were lucky.
Our little house sat on a hill overlooking our field. Out in front
about 200 yards were large rocks hanging over the edge of the cliff.
We could walk down the steep cliff to the field and orchard but had
to drive the team down a place not so steep about a quarter mile to
the south of our house and barn. Many a warm, sun shiny day after
cooler weather we would walk out there and find a. rattlesnake
sunning, having crawled out from under those huge rocks. People
didn't gas them out of the dens in early spring like they do now. We
had to always be so careful watching for snakes in warm weather.
Grandpa Chisum, my Aunt Isabel Adams' father, would walk from two
miles south of Morgan Mill (Uncle Walter's and Aunt Isabel's place)
to six miles northwest to our place and spend several days with us.
He was getting so blind he could hardly see. One afternoon he walked
up to the barn door where Mama and I were shucking and shelling corn
for the turkeys and chickens and said, "You'd better get out of
there before you get snake bit like I have." We rushed out and
got him to the house. The bite was just above his ankle. Mama was
pregnant and she told me to run for Daddy. He was plowing in the
valley. I ran to the big overhanging rocks on the edge of the cliff
screaming to the top of my lungs, "Grandpa snake bit, and I was
waving a big white rag. Daddy heard "snake bit" and that
was enough. He didn't know who was bit but he didn't waste any
time. He unhitched one of the mules from the plow, left the other one
standing, and rode that mule (Old Jack) as fast as he could to the
fence at the bottom of the cliff. He left Old Jack and ran up the
cliff, untying the red bandana from around his neck as he ran. He
tied the bandana around Grandpa's leg just below his knee. While he
was doing that he had Mama get a foot tub. He placed Grandpa's foot
in the tub end grabbed a five gallon can of kerosene at the kitchen
door (we burned kerosene in our lamps). He poured enough kerosene to
cover the bite after he had cut an "X" on the bite
with his pocketknife. Then he called Doctor Shephard and he came out
on horseback from Morgan Mill. He gave us ease medicine for Grandpa
and said, "John, you have saved his 1ife."
On December 2 that year Johnny Sewell Adams was born. A few days
before Christmas a pal that my dad grew up with came in from the War.
Then about Christmas Eve mama's brother, Jim Sewell, returned and
came to our house. I stood on a box to reach the side table and put
together and baked a cake from scratch. Never heard of a cake mix
then. I made a three-layer cake and iced it with a sugar and cream
icing. Both boys said that was the best cake they ever tasted. They
spent hours telling about the trenches in Germany, etc.
On Christmas morning Daddy went to the barn and dug in the cottonseed
and brought out two big watermelons. They were cold and real sweet.
So that was our Christmas, my cake and the watermelons.
IV
Daddy sold the farm in late fall 1920 and bought a bigger ranch with
a larger barn and o'boy a three-room house with two porches.
The rooms were large. I thought it was just wonderful. Daddy moved
the hay and corn over to the new place, about three miles. It came a
freeze and ice was on the ground almost two weeks. The tanks froze
over and the ice had to be broken for cattle, horses, and mules to
drink. The feed was at the new place and the stock three miles away.
Finally Daddy got a boy to help and they drove the cattle through two
other ranches and got them located where the feed was and got us
moved over. Then Daddy got a summons for jury duty at Stephenville,
20 miles away and was gone a week. There was Mama and me and a small
baby with cattle, horses, mules, goats and chickens and turkeys to
feed. We had to haul water in a barrel on a sled pulled by Old Jack
from a tank about one-half mile away. We also hauled our drinking
water, but somehow we made it.
The next seven years we all three worked so hard in the fields and
with our livestock, etc., trying to payout the ranch. We cleared new
ground - two big fields. We pulled our corn and cut the corn tops for
feed. We headed maize by hand. We cut feed, tied it in bundles, and
stacked it in shocks until it dried out, then hauled and stacked it
in the loft in the barn. We cut our sorghum cane and made our own
syrup. We had a big sorghum trough and ground the juice out of cane
with a deal Daddy made and pulled by one of the mules. Daddy also
made syrup for neighbors. We picked our own cotton and sometimes
picked some for neighbors at 50¢ a hundred. We sheared the goats
each April and sold the wool and sold off some of the young kid goats
each October as that was the two times a year we made payments on our
ranch.
Daddy raised and sold horses. He also broke horses and mules to ride
and work at plows and wagons, etc., for other people. We had a big
crop of wheat and oats each year and when the thrasher came, the
neighbor men came in and helped Daddy and in return he helped them.
The women all got together and cooked big meals for the thrasher
hands. The children that were large enough had limbs with a lot of
branches and leaves cut from china trees, and with those we kept the
flies fanned off the food on yard tables until all the men ate. Then
the children and women could eat.
Daddy always had several hives of bees. We had a large orchard -
peaches, plums, pears, apricots, blackberries, and dewberries. We
sold dewberries at 15¢ a gallon if they picked them and 30¢ a
gallon if we picked them. We sold big beautiful peaches at 25¢ a
bushel and finally got 50¢ a bushel. We raised, gathered, and
shelled pinto beans and black-eyed peas and dried them, enough to
last a year. We canned and dried fruit, made preserves, jellies, and
juice. We also made kraut in large stone jars.
We killed several hogs each winter, hung the hams and shoulders in
the smokehouse; ground gobs of sausage and stuffed it in sacks and.
hung it in the smokehouse: and hung slabs of bacon, too. Then Daddy
kept a fire of coals of post oak bark in an old tub on the dirt floor
of the smokehouse going for days until all the meat had smoked good.
We dug our sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes and hilled them up
enough to last all winter. Daddy made a long hill by standing posts
up making a V-shaped hill, then covering the posts with hay or corn
tops and then putting dirt on top of that. Potatoes,+ onions, some
kind of squash, cushaws, and pumpkins all kept good lying on the
ground in those hills.
One early spring day when we were all working in the field, Mama told
me to go to the house and cook dinner. I decided to get some potatoes
out of the hill. I took a pan and had to crawl almost to the back as
the potatoes were almost used up and you could not stand up in those
hills. I was putting potatoes in the pan and all at once I had a
funny feeling. I looked over to the side and about three feet from me
was a rattlesnake coiled up and rocking its head back and forth like
I have seen them do when charming a bird. I froze for a second, then
I came out of that hill backwards 90 to nothing. I still wonder how I
was spared from a bite. That snake had not rattled until I almost
tore the place up coming out. I ran to the house, got the shotgun,
and shot the snake from the door of the hill. Of course, with a
shotgun it was torn all to bits, so I could always imagine it was
very, very big and had lots of rattlers. After that, I looked very
carefully before I crawled into the hill. Mama and Daddy heard the
gunshot and came to the house. It was a good thing for I shook too
hard to cook dinner!
We hauled water from one of the tanks for chickens, turkeys, and
hogs, and all household use including wash water for clothes until
August 1925. Daddy finally got the well drillers in there and drilled
a deep well, put up a windmill and big storage tank. A few
days after the well was finished and some water was pumped Daddy got
K.C. Rasberry, a neighbor boy, to tend to our stock, etc. and we got
into our new Model T that had just been bought and made a trip to
Logan Port, Louisiana, and Carthage, Texas, etc., to visit some of
Grandpa Adams' relatives, uncles, aunts, and cousins of my Dad's.
Going back home we stopped in Corsicana to visit Mama's brother and
wife, Jim and Edythe Sewell. He worked in an oil field there. We
started on home and out right in the middle of the highway a few
miles out of Hillsboro we stuck up to the hubs in that black mud and
had to be pulled out with a team of mules.
The next summer in August we made a trip to Grayson County seeing
uncles, aunts, and cousins. Grandma Adams’ relatives, and visited
Grandma Adams' grave. We also fished in the Red River. Daddy said we
were all as happy as if we had good sense. Ha!
I went to a one-room schoolhouse, Pea Ridge, until I was eleven. I
walked about one and a half miles through rain, sleet, and snow. I
had two school dresses each year. I had a slate and Daddy bought me
one large pencil tablet and two pencils when school started and I had
to make that last all year, seven months. Then when I was almost 12 I
started to a two-room schoolhouse, Sap Oak School. Boy, I thought I
was in a big school. I walked most of the time but could ride Patsy
or Trixy when I wanted to. It was three miles to Sep Oak up and down
hills, but riding horse back was too cold most of the time and I felt
sorry for the horse having to stand tied to a tree all day.
For several years when I went to Pea Ridge after we moved into the
big three-room house, the teacher boarded with us. One cold, wet
morning Miss Mearl Landrum and I decided to ride Patsy. Daddy saddled
her and we got on with me behind the saddle. Patsy started bucking
and we both fell off. I landed in a bed of rock. Daddy put his spurs
on and got on Patsy. She bucked and every time she stopped he spurred
and whipped her and made her buck until she gave out. Sewell was, I
guess about three years old at the time. He stood on the porch and
kept yelling, "Spur her, Daddy, make her jump." Daddy
laughed later and said, "Sewell didn't know Daddy was having a
hard time staying on!" Well Miss Mearl and I walked to school
and were so sore for days we could hardly get around.
I remember another time I went out in new ground to bring the mules,
Jack and Tobe, to the house. I just had a rope tied it around Jack's
neck, led him up by a stump, crawled on and started to the house. I
never knew but thought maybe a bee or something stung Jack. He
started running and I couldn't stop him with just a rope around his
neck. He ran under a limb of a live oak and it drug me off and I fell
in a pile of dead limbs we had cut in clearing ground. After that
when I went for a horse or mule I took the bridle. I drove Jack and
Tobe to turning plows, cultivators, go-devil, wagon, sled, etc.
We would work in the field all week; wash, iron, scrub floors with
left wash water, and sun beds on Saturday: then usually have a house
full of company to cook for on Sunday and sometimes on Saturday night
and Sunday. I think one reason we had so much company was that we had
such good meals. I did not realize it then, but there was plenty of
pork the year around, fryers all spring until late fall. Oh, those
good peach pickles, all kinds of dried and canned vegetables, good
sweet potatoes baked in a big dutch oven in the fireplace. There was
cracklin' bread, good fruit cobblers year around with either fresh or
canned fruit, fried pies made of dried fruit, fresh honey in honey
comb, fresh corn meal, and plenty of butter end cream, fresh eggs,
lots of watermelons and cantaloupes from early summer until late fall
and sometimes Christmas.
Christmas - a big tree in the schoolhouse with stick candy and maybe
apples for all. At home I usually got a stick of candy, an
apple, and one orange. But we had more fun than a barrel of monkeys.
Uncle Walter and Aunt Isabel and children all came Christmas Eve and
stayed all night, the kids on pallets and a big fire in the fireplace
all night. Sometimes Uncle Walter would bring a lot of bananas. The
Adams gang - Fred, one year younger than me; then Agnes; Loran and
Vernon, the same age as Sewell; next was Hazel, Hermon, and J.C. We
didn't get toys maybe a 5¢ horn or french harp. The boys made us
paddles with old pieces of lumber or a stout limb off a tree that
wasn't too heavy. The paddles were three or three and a half feet
long with about a ten or twelve inch board nailed or wired across it
about two inches from the bottom. We hunted up old iron rims off
wagon wheel axles and rolled them with the paddles seeing how long we
could roll the rims without turning them over or letting them get
away from us. Then we played Annie-over throwing a ball over the
house with a group on each side of the house. Then hide and seek was
fun.
We had a big cellar - just a big hole dug out in the ground with
poles or logs over top and dirt on top of poles. There were dirt or
rock steps down into the cellar. We kept our canned fruits and
vegetables on shelves in one end and some old chairs or kegs to sit
on when we went in out of a storm. I had rather stay in the house and
take a chance from the storm than to go into the cellar since I was
so afraid of snakes and spiders. We had a kerosene lantern and
matches in the cellar...never had a flashlight.
One day I was in the yard end saw some funny shadows on the ground. I
looked and there was smoke and blaze on top of the house near the
flue from the kitchen cook stove. I screamed, "Fire!" The
folks ran out of the house. Daddy had a big long heavy ladder leaning
against the chimney. Neither Mama nor I could ever lift it. Daddy ran
around the house and yelled for me to get a bucket of water and he
told Mama, "Eure, bring that ladder to me." She took that
ladder around the house and leaned it up against the kitchen wall. We
laughed about it later but it wasn't funny then, but we did get the
fire out.
Otho Rockmore owned and operated a large mercantile store in Morgan
Mill. He had everything from mousetraps, to cracker barrel cheese and
clothes. He decided to sellout and go out of business. We went to
Uncle Walter's and Mama and Aunt Bell decided to go to the store.
Lots of people were there looking and buying and Aunt Bell kept
looking: I don't think they bought much. Agnes kept pulling at her
mother's skirt and begging her to buy something. She was real excited
and pointing to rolls of ribbon, saying "Buy me, buy me...oh,
buy me bellyband". Little girls were wearing long-waisted
dresses with wide ribbon sashes then and Agnes couldn't think of sash
so she said, "Buy me belly band." I giggled until I was
about to be sent out of the store.
Uncle Walter lost a leg when he was a young boy and so he had a
wooden leg. He had a hard time making ends meet with his large
family, but he finally ran for County Road Commissioner and won two
or three terms. Then he was tax assessor for two terms. He finally
moved to Fort Worth and lived there until his death in 1965.
Daddy was Deputy Sheriff for 15 or 16 years and was School Trustee at
Pea Ridge until it consolidated with Morgan Mill. Then he was Morgan
Mill School Trustee for five or six years end then County Trustee
several years. A trustee for 17 years in all.
He was a big tease and so was Bob Heering who lived near Morgan Mill
and he was a Morgan Mill School Trustee, too. A young man from
Stephenville came to Bob Heering to apply for schoolteacher. They
talked a while and Bob Heering told him to go see Daddy. At that time
Daddy was not a member of any church and went to church very little.
Heering told the young man, "You had better not tell John Adams
you are a Methodist. He is a hot-headed Baptist and very
religious." Well, the man came and he kept saying "Brother
Adams" this and "Brother Adams" that, and Daddy was
stunned. Finally the man said, "Now Brother Adams, I am a
Methodist, but I'll go to the Baptist Church some." Daddy looked
at him and said, "I don't give a darn where you go to church!"
Then it dawned on him and he said, "Have you been talking to Bob
Heering?" The teacher said he had and they had a good laugh. A
few days later a teacher came out to apply (I believe he was from
Dublin, Texas). He came to Daddy first, and talked. Daddy told him to
go see Bob Heering and said, “Now you will really have to
talk loud. He is real hard of hearing." The teacher went to the
Heerings and got
up right at him and just almost screamed and just kept on. Finally
Bob Heering thought and said, "Have you been talking to John
Adams?” The man said he had and so then they had a good laugh.
Something like this was always going on among a bunch of those
neighbors, and they had a lot of fun.
If a men got sick back then the neighbors would take their teams and
plows and go in and catch up on the work and no one thought of
hiring work done.
In 1920 or 1921, after Auntie and Uncle Doc moved to Liberty Hill and
built their home, Auntie and Vaden came up one summer after me and I
visited them several weeks. They took me to see the Capitol and other
interesting sights. We went to Barton Springs with a picnic lunch. I
had such a good time that I dreaded to go home, back to canning and
fieldwork. I've peeled peaches all day long many days, and since my
hands were small I was always the one to wash jars as I could get my
hand in them. A lot of friends who lived in town gave us empty jars
that had been emptied but never washed so I hated washing jars. I
have never put a jar away dirty since I have had my own home.
We had a milk cooler that was tall and had a pan with water on top.
Each shelf going toward the bottom got larger. Then we had muslin
cloths we placed around the cooler and fastened together with
clothespins. The water trickled down the cooler to the large tray on
the bottom rack with a faucet to empty the water out. That milk
cooler had to be cleaned every day...old water all drained out and
fresh water added.
The men in the community would all get together with the young girls
and boys and take us possum hunting in the fall and winter, one of
our biggest pastimes. We would walk for miles up and down those
hills. Always had two or three good hunting dogs along. I wish I knew
how many miles we walked. I tell you it was fun! We would, after
walking for miles, build up a fire and. sit down and rest, then get
up and go again. One night we got lost over in a big ranch end we
went round and round in circles. Mr. Fred Rasberry was our leader
that night. I kept, telling him which way was north, etc., but he
didn't believe me.
Finally K.C. said, "Dad, why don't you go by Mildred's
directions and see?" He did and we came out to a road just west
of our house. When I was a kid I was always good knowing directions,
and am still right most every time.
Some people put possums up fattening them, then cooking and eating
them, Uncle Walter said over and over he would never eat possum.
Daddy caught a young possum, put it in the chicken coop and fed it
good for about two weeks, then killed and dressed it. Mama baked it
with sweet potatoes. The W. L. Adams family was there for Sunday
dinner. Uncle Walter took two big helpings and said that squirrel
was so good. After everyone had finished, Daddy told him he had
eaten possum. He just couldn't believe it. A day or two before one
Thanksgiving Mama got a big fat turkey that she had been fattening
for several weeks out of the coop. She called me and told me to hold
its feet and she laid the turkey's head on the chopping block in the
woodpile and picked up the axe. I shut my eyes and held on to the
feet. She chopped and I let the feet go. When I opened my eyes Mr.
Turkey was running to the barn. Boy did I catch a tongue-lashing!
I always dreaded spring when the turkeys started laying. They always
stole their nest out in the woods somewhere. We had an incubator in
the cellar and we could set-I believe it was 75 turkey eggs at a
setting or 100 chicken eggs. It was heated by kerosene and every day
the eggs had to be turned one at a time by hand and the lamp filled
with kerosene. Many a day I followed an old turkey hen for three or
four hours at a time and then maybe I'd lose her or she would lose me
end I'd have to do it all over the next day or until the nest was
found. Then we had to watch and get the egg every time she lay before
a snake or a skunk got it. So when you hear people say turkeys are
dumb, don't you believe it for they can outwit you over and over.
I rode horseback a lot gathering up cows or goats or after other
horses, and if you were after a cow or calf on either Patsy or Trixy
you'd better watch for they were used to rounding up cattle. They
were real cow horses and if one cow or calf took off in another
direction, so did the horse, sometimes almost a complete quick turn.
If you were net ready you might pick yourself off the ground.
Sometimes we milked as many as thirteen cows by hand. If we lost a
cow or goat or any of the animals or fowls, Mama would worry over the
loss and complain. Daddy would say, "Oh well, them that have a
heap must lose a little."
We had a neighbor who worried over rain constantly. He worried if it
rained too much and if it rained too little. Daddy would say, "Well,
Lon, you must have not paid the preacher," and. he would say,
"Well now, John, you know the Bible says it will rain on the
just and the disjust."
I think my biggest thrill was riding to Stephenville in the fall with
my Dad in the wagon pulled by Tobe and Jack taking cotton to the gin.
We left home before day and sometimes we didn't get home until 10 or
11 p.m. My dad would take me to the drug store and buy me a 5¢ creme
soda. I usually slept part of the way home on the cottonseed. Another
thrill was going to the county fair at Stephenville. Sometimes my dad
would give me a whole quarter to spend on the merry-go-round and ice
cream.
In January 1928, I came to Liberty Hill and started to high school at
mid-term. Now anybody has got to be crazy to start into algebra and
physics at mid-term when they had not had the first half. I failed
both subjects, but Miss Margie Mankin, bless her, helped me after
school to get the experiments and my notebook up on the first half.
Mr. Johnson let me take the algebra test after I studied all summer
so I passed both. I had made good grades on history and English so I
went on with the rest of the ninth grade when school started in the
fall. I liked geometry, history, and geography and made good grades.
I couldn't brag on my Spanish. I finished the ninth grade and one
subject in the tenth...only had eleven grades then. But I had been
out of school two and a half years and I just wasn't too
interested. I wanted to quit and start into nurse training.
W.K. asked me to go with him to one of his class picnics one Friday
afternoon for our first date. The picnic was on South Gabriel just
east of the bridge on Highway 183. I think this was in February 1928.
We double dated some with Andrew Adams and Mildred Witcher and with
Edwin Gill and Ida Mae Hood. I went with W.K. to Austin with his
class one Friday and we climbed to the top of the Capitol steps. We
went to ball games, shows, picnics, class parties, church and
singings. We took a lot of pictures.
Once when W.K. and I were dating and Powell Stanley and Mildred
Witcher were dating, Mr. Bodie, the coach, took the boys to Bertram
for a baseball game with the Bertram boys. W.K. and Powell waited a
little while so Mildred and I could get out of class and go with
them. When we reached Bertram in W.K.'s Dad's Model T, they had been
waiting on W.K. and Powell about 15 minutes. Mr. Bodie was madder
than a wet hen and he told W.K. and Powell they couldn't play ball.
This made the team mad and all the other Liberty Hill boys refused to
play. So, Mr. Bodie had to let W.K. and Powell play. W.K. was the
back catcher. Mr. Bodie never did get over that. He treated all four
of us very cool after that.
In March, 1928, Brother Ramon T. Gentle baptized me in the South San
Gabriel River by the bridge on Hopewell Road.
W.K. graduated in 1929 in May and left in September to enter Tyler tan with gold braid. My dress cost $11.95. My
whole outfit, shoes, hat, dress, and under clothes, was a 1ittle less
than $20.00 and I was really dressed!
 |
| W.K. and Mildred Wedding |
|
Commercial College. I went home Christmas and on December 26 W.K.
came up in Papa Seward's '27 Model T that had curtains. Boy, it was
cold...had had a big snow. We were married by Judge Whisenant, a very
dear friend of the family, on Friday, December 27, in Uncle Walter
Adams' office in Erath County Courthouse in Stephenville. Witnesses
were Uncle Walter, Daddy, Mama, and Sewell. My wedding dress was gold
satin-back crepe with gold lace yoke and lace set in the cuffs. It
was long waisted with a long satin sash with gold tassels on the end
and tied in a bow on the left side. It was overskirt, and overskirt
and the bottom were scalloped with the left side about six inches
shorter than on right (latest style for '29). My hat was grosgrain
ribbon, rose
On Sunday, December 29, W.K. and Solon Waley, his roommate at
college, had to go back to Tyler. Mr. Waley, Solon's dad, had a new
Model A sedan, and W.K.'s sister, Lytle Jo, and I went with Mr. Waley
to take Solon and W.K. to Waco to catch the train (Cotton Belt) to
Tyler. There was snow still all along the ditches and very cold. I
stayed in Liberty Hill two weeks, then went to Georgetown and caught
the train to Fort Worth. I had to stay in Fort Worth several hours,
then caught the train to Stephenville.
While I was in Liberty Hill, Pat Smith, Effie Allen, and Bertha Smith
gave me a real nice shower at Mark and Bertha's home. The colors were
lavender and green. After some games, I was handed a string and told
to wind it up until I found the end. Two rooms were full of women and
girls and there was little room to get around. Well, I had to crawl
under tables, over stools, etc., and finally came to the end of the
string, which was attached to a huge box beautifully covered with
green and lavender crepe paper and the box was running over with nice
and useful gifts. I got 23 lovely towels and pillowcases, linens,
cooking utensils, and many, many useful things. After I got to Morgan
Mill I got a shower there - not as large as the one at Liberty Hill
but real nice and useful things.
On February 1, 1930, Oxford Sewell drove Daddy's car and took me and
Mama and Sewell to Tyler. Mama and Oxford had a brother living at Van
they wanted to visit. W.K. and I found an apartment - two rooms -
within walking distance of school.
Two weeks later I went on the Cotton Belt train to Corsicana. I got
there about 1 a.m. The station manager was there to meet the train to
put the mail on, etc., and then he went home. He asked me if there
wasn't someone I knew in Corsicana who could come get me. I didn't
know a soul, so he told me to lock myself in the ladies restroom
until the train came that I was to catch to Fort Worth about two or
three hours later. That was a long time to stay in a restroom but I
did. That was an oil town and lots of meanness going on there.
I was in Stephenville and Morgan Mill a week. My dad had to get a
release from being my guardian. He was appointed my guardian when he
sold the farm where he and my mother lived. We got those papers
straight and I bought a sport '29 Model Roadster with a rumble seat.
Boy, was I proud! We loaded the rumble seat with my personal things
and Mama and Daddy gave me a big smoked cured ham, some sausage, some
canned fruit, fresh eggs, and butter. Fred Adams, my cousin, drove
the car and we went to Tyler. I took Fred to the depot and got him a
ticket soon after we reached Tyler and he went right back to
Stephenville. When W.K. came in from school that p.m., there I
was...car, ham, fruit, etc. Was he surprised! He didn't expect me
back for several days.
After supper of good ham and eggs, we got in the car and drove all
over Tyler. I don't know which one of us was prouder of the car. We
went by the boarding house and picked up Solon and another college
boy, and although it was cold in that rumble seat, the boys enjoyed
the ride.
We came from Tyler to Liberty Hill in spring - late May. W.K. kept
books a while for George Russell, Ford dealer and filling station
manager. Then business got so bad Russell had to lay him off.
Remember this was 1930 and so many people were out of work. W.K.
worked at odd and end jobs and helped his dad in his gristmill some
on Saturday. Then he went to work in a produce house in Liberty Hill.
We were struggling along barely getting by. We could hardly pay
interest on $500 at Leander Bank that W.K. had borrowed to go to
college.
In 1931 early fall, we went to Sinton. W.K. was supposed to keep
books for a big cotton gin there. It came a big flood just after we
got there and washed all cotton away around Sinton and Odem, so there
went that job. Johnny Muller, W.K.’s brother-in law, was bookkeeper
for Hunt's Lumberyard in Odem and we stayed in Odem with Ina and
Johnny. W.K. got odd jobs to do through the lumberyard.
Aunt Pearl (Tucker) Lockhart and husband, Uncle John Lockhart, lived
in Sinton. Aunt Pearl was Mama Seward's sister. We went fishing with
them several times over near Corpus, but it was so hot and it had
rained so that the mosquitoes were terrible. I got sick and we
decided Liberty Hill was the place for us... so back we came. I was
pregnant and that hot muggy weather wasn't helping me. I vomited day
end night. All that stopped after we got back in Liberty Hill.
W.K. went to the Leander Bank to tell Mr. Wallace that he couldn't
pay anything on his note. Mr. Wallace pitched a check book out to
W.K. and said to go buy turkeys and just write a check on the bank.
We didn't have 50¢ to our name. W.K. made a four-wheel trailer and
put a trailer hitch on the Model A and started buying turkeys. Connie
Sylvester helped him. They would go out and catch turkeys off roosts
at night or sometimes the people would have them caught and in pens"
load them in the coops furnished him by Lenard East Produce Company
in Austin, and take off for Austin. Sometimes it was after midnight
before they could get them unloaded, weighed out, etc. He would come
home, sleep a little while, and go at it again. He had at times over
a thousand dollars checked out of the bank and maybe couldn't get to
the bank for several days with checks from the Produce house.
Sometimes he sent me down with checks while he slept a few hours.
When the season was over, he went into the bank and paid Mr. Wallace
every penny he could on the note.
1932 - W.K. was building fence for people, plowing, rounding cattle;
any job he could get. We were in the house with Mama and Papa Seward
and all struggling to get by.
On March 21 Gene was born. It was the first day of spring and the
wind was blowing so hard it seemed it would blow the house away. This
was a Monday and I was sick from 2 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. Uncle Doc would
come stay a while and go to his office a while, then back and forth
all day. W.K. went and brought Pat Smith Cluck and she and Mama
Seward took turns sitting by my bed. About an hour before Gene came,
Mama Seward called Mrs. John Redford who lived next door. I was so
sick Mama got real nervous. Gene was so tiny end skinny and wrinkled,
but I just knew he was the prettiest thing I ever saw. I was very
sick for a week or more and Mama Seward was so good to me. Auntie had
the flu and couldn't come over.
So many people came to see us and brought nice little gifts for Gene.
Marthele (Mrs. Frank) Ford lived near us and she came over and
brought a bassinet and a lot of baby clothes her little daughter had
outgrown. Mrs. Wade Barrington came with a darling pair of blue and
white booties she had crocheted. I hardly knew her then. She said if
everyone had worked as hard as W.K. did to save our hay, etc. when
our barn burned, we would have saved most everything."
We owed Uncle Doc $30 for Gene's delivery and had no money. W.K. told
him any work he needed done he would be glad to do it. He drove for
him at night out on country roads allover for 20 and 30 miles. He
plowed the orchard for him. Then in the fall of '32 we moved out
three miles east of town on Papa Seward' s farm. Uncle Doc and Auntie
gave us a milk cow. We managed to work for a few hens and a
pig.
Mr. Wallace told W.K. to buy turkeys again and so he did. Connie
helped him again. He and Beth lived in Uncle Jim Seward's rent house
just across the field from us. Beth stayed with Gene and me at night
until W.K. and Connie got home.
The next two years we farmed cotton, corn and broomcorn. W.K. made a
broomcorn thrasher from an old 1914 Model T frame and engine sitting
on the farm and he thrashed our own broomcorn and thrashed for
neighbors all over. He sold the broomcorn to the Texas Blind
Institute in Austin and they made it into brooms. Boy, we both
worked ourselves into a frazzle those two years. We had a big garden.
I canned a lot and I helped in the field. I could beat W.K. picking
cotton, but I couldn't stay up with him pulling corn or hoeing. I
milked cows and tended to stock most of the time as W.K. worked in
the field for other people so much.
Mr. Charlie Hickman had a grocery store in Liberty Hill and he tried
to get W.K. to sign up to get on W.P.A. which about 8 out of every 10
families were on in the Depression. W.K. said, “I will if my wife
and baby get hungry, but not until then.” Sam Miller, W.K. 's
cousin, would bring his "22" over and after dark he and
W.K. would stand up in the rumble seat of our car as I drove around
and around those country roads for them to shoot rabbits. They were
so thick then, we don't see many rabbits now.
Someone gave me a swing for Gene that had a ducking seat with two
holes for his feet to hang out. W.K. put a big hook in the ceiling
and hung a No.2 screen door spring to hang swing to. Gene was so tiny
but he could hop in that thing for hours. He would hop three or four
hops straight out in front, then three or four hops backwards. He
spent a lot of hours in that swing.
On February 5, 1933, Grandma Henry died. It was a Saturday night. The
corpse lay in Auntie and Uncle Doc's house on Sunday. Then on Monday
the 7th we went to Rock Church Cemetery in Hood County to bury her.
W.K. drove Uncle Doc's car. Mr. Charlie Hickman took the corpse in
his hearse. We got home about 1 a.m. the 8th and a norther hit here
about 5 a.m. The worst cold spell; old timers said they had never
seen it that bad here and it sure hasn't been that bad since. Our
turkeys froze to death end fell out of the trees before daylight.
That spell lasted a week. We couldn't keep warm in that farmhouse
with a big fire in fireplace. We went to Uncle Doc's and stayed the
week and W.K. drove the car for him on his night calls.
Vaden was going to Abilene Christian College and he and Nelwyn were
married just before school was out.
I don't know what our grocery bill was in '33, but it was $35.65 in
'34 and $36.00 in '35. We only bought flour, salt, a little sugar,
soda, baking powder, etc. We ate what we could raise, canned fruit
and vegetables, dried beans. We had milk, butter, and eggs. Killed
one hog each year and raised fryers.
W.K. continued to work all he could, running binder, cutting wheat
and oats for people, thrashing their broomcorn and buying turkeys in
the fall. I went on confinement cases with Uncle Doc and helped him
deliver babies when he needed me and Mama Seward kept Gene.
Oscar and Allie Mills moved to Burnet, and they gave us a beautiful
yellow and white dog, part bulldog and part bird dog (Old Sport). He
stayed very close to Gene. W.K. was cutting Uncle Jim Seward's oats
just across the fence from our field. Papa Seward took Gene down
where they were. Papa was real hard of hearing. Gene was a little
over three years old. A big rattlesnake was coiled up by the fence.
Papa didn't see or hear it. All at once Old Sport made a leap, jumped
between Gene and the snake and knocked Gene over away from it.
Another time Papa was cutting weeds in the pasture about where our
house sets now. He always wanted Gene with him when he could and Gene
always wanted to go. Gene decided to go to the house up
through the pasture and didn't tell Papa. An old mule we worked
started just stalking Gene. I heard him crying (I was on the front
porch). Old
Sport was for some reason on the porch too and about the time I
started running and screaming Sport jumped the yard fence and ran to
Gene and knocked him away from the mule. He started biting that mule
on the nose. We couldn't ever make Sport leave that mule alone; that
mule couldn't come to the barn for feed and water after that unless
W.K. or I put Sport in the house or tied him.
One day Gene ran off and went to the field where W.K. was plowing. I
think this was early '36. Gene was about four. When I missed him I
started for the field as I could see him down there. I got me a
switch at the pear tree on the way down. I got to him and asked him
why he ran off. He said, "I've been deer hunting. I killed a
deer!" I told him, "You have not." He kept saying he
had killed a deer. Finally I said, "If you had killed a deer you
would have brought it for us to eat." "Oh," he said,
"I couldn't - it had worms in it." He had been hearing
Uncle Doc's deer tales.
Vaden got hold of Uncle Doc's ledger and looked on the W.K. Seward
bill. He laughed...there was hay, fryers, eggs, two brooms (brooms we
had gotten from Texas Blind School), labor, fence building, etc.,
quilting, and the credit came to a little over $30, the amount for
Gene's delivery. Uncle Doc told Vaden to just quit laughing, that the
bill was paid in full and so many people who were in much better
shape than us owed him big bills and weren't trying to pay.
Robert Tucker, W.K. 's cousin, stayed with us several weeks in the
summer of '35 and did odd jobs for people. He had been pulling
broomcorn one week. It was hot sticky weather. Robert was about 16 or
17 and he had a date on Saturday night. He couldn't get his hair to
lie down after he had washed it with my lye soap, so W.K. told him,
"I always used castor oil to make mine stay put." Well, in
a few minutes Robert was hunting everywhere and I asked him what he
was looking for. He said, "I want the castor oil for my hair."
Well I put a stop to that and W.K. said why didn't I leave him alone.
Now wouldn't that have been a pretty kettle of fish, going to see his
girl with castor oil on his hair!
I decided to bake light bread one day. I got some yeast started from
Mrs. Wintrcek, our neighbor. I baked two loaves and placed them on
the table to cool. W.K. came in from work. I was in back bedroom and
I heard something going “plump” over and over. I went in the
dining room and he was holding a loaf of my bread up and letting it
bounce on the floor. I'll have to admit it was a little hard, but I
got so mad that I told him, "I'll never bake bread again!"
To this day all the yeast bread I bake is ready mix. I put up with a
lot of capers like that.
One of our pastimes was "42". We would get together with
Coleman and Armenta Chance, Connie & Beth Sylvester, Clyde and
Ida Mae Landry and play 42 for hours. The first time we played with
Coleman and Armenta they came to our house. Neither W.K. nor I knew
Armenta - had just met her- and I hardly knew Coleman. Well, we girls
were just beating the socks off those men so Armenta kept teasing
Coleman and she would reach under the card table and pinch his
leg...she thought. You guessed it - she was pinching W. K. instead
and he was trying to be still as he knew what she thought and not
knowing her didn't want to embarrass her. Finally she pinched so hard
he flinched and said "oh". I have never seen any one's
face as red in my life. Of course I giggled.
In 1935 when our car license came due, we didn't have the money to
pay for them ($6.+) and it was several months before we did. Uncle
Jim and Aunt Becky Seward would come by on Saturday p.m. and take us
to town and sometimes Papa Seward would come get us. Uncle Jim called
Gene “Penny" he was so little. I wouldn't let Gene touch Aunt
Becky's many whatnots. “Come on, Penny, let's get into something."
Uncle Jim would say, Papa Seward called Gene "Toad Hopper".
Both Papa and Uncle Jim petted him all the time.
I never had to take Gene out at church but once. One Sunday, when we
still met in the old church in the west end of town, he kept
wiggling. We started home and Aunt Becky had gone to church with us.
I said "Gene, if you wiggle and squirm in church again like you
did today, I'll take you out and get a limb off one of those trees
and really give you a whipping." He studied just a second and
said, "Mommy, those people may want those limbs on those trees."
Aunt Becky laughed all the way home and of course told Uncle Jim the
minute we got there. I didn't hear the last of that for a long time.
When any of the grandkids came around, Papa Seward would put stick
candy over his ears and read his paper or just sit there still. The
kids would finally venture up and grab the candy, and he would always
jump and let out a war whoop that would scare the horns off a billy
goat, and the kids ran. Sometimes it would take the kids 30 minutes
to get up nerve to grab the candy - not Gene, he would just grab the
candy and run.
Auntie would give me white shirts of Uncle Doc's that were only worn
on the collar and cuffs and suits he had decided to discard. I made
Gene little suits and cute little white shirts and little ties.
I pieced up some quilt tops. Aunt Lottie Walton, my mother's sister,
brought me a lot of scraps and I pieced them up on halves. Auntie
gave me scraps. Then I got scrap cotton from Steve West. He weighed
cotton in Liberty Hill cotton yard and loaded it on the platform to
be loaded on flat cars. I carded the cotton for my quilts and used
feed or flour sacks for linings. I made several quilts. One
four-pointed star quilt I made of just strings set together with
Durham tobacco sacks. Imagine anyone now ripping up those 5¢ tobacco
sacks, washing and drying them, then ironing and cutting into diamond
shape for a quilt. It was a large quilt too, and I quilted inside all
those small diamonds. I quilted a large quilt for Auntie of small
stars and the stars were set together with a hexagon-shape piece. I
quilted inside each little star and in the hexagon pieces, which were
all pink. I quilted a flower design. She gave me $5.00 for
that on our account. I was thrilled to death - I had made $5.00!
Well, after turkey season was over in '35 and the crops were
all in, we finished paying Mr. Wallace the $500.00 school
debt. We were so happy to get that over and Mr. Wallace said, "You
kids lived and paid off a $500 note in this Depression and others are
griping, borrowing money and living on W.P.A. I am proud of you
kids." So many people griped about Mr. Wallace and he was one of
the best friends we ever had. We never ever signed a note on all the
money W.K. used to buy turkeys.
In March 1936, we sold our stock and chickens and moved to Willis.
W.K. ran the store at the Hunt Sawmill. We got a two room apartment
across the road from the mill. We paid $6.00 a month rent. We lived
there until January 1937 and then we moved into a big house four big
rooms and a bath, a big sleeping porch, big back screened porch and a
long porch all across the front. It had been empty for several years.
It belonged to the ex-depot agent of Willis. He had moved off and
wouldn't rent it. I finally got in touch with him and talked him into
renting it to us. We painted and repaired it and then he charged us
$12.00 a month. It had lots of built-in cabinets and a nice fireplace
in the living room, big nice yard, pretty trees, and a nice fence. I
bought some second-hand furniture and made one dressing table out of
orange crates. I made stools, etc. I was as happy as if I had good
sense getting to live in a house like that. I paid $3.00 for a nice
wooden bed and $4.00 for a studio couch.
In the summer of '36 Johnny and Ina Muller bought a new car
and they invited us to go with them to Dallas to the Texas
Centennial. We were gone two days and sure enjoyed every minute of
it. Marthella, J. Fred and Gene had a ball. Sometime later Ina took
Marthella, J. Fred, Gene and me to Houston to see Collene Moore's
dollhouse.
We went to Conroe to see the Shirley Temple shows and the Gene Autry
shows. I think most of the tickets (grownups) were 25¢ I think Gone
with the Wind cost us $1.00. We and the Mullers took time about
taking the three youngsters to see the Tarzan shows and Zorro, Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, etc.
In the summer of '37 I went to Mineral Wells with Ina and Johnny
where we took those hot baths for ten days. We left the children at
Mama' s and Daddy's" and I don't know who had the most fun - the
kids or Mama and Daddy. Gene and J. Fred were prowling around one day
and came in the house and Gene told Mama, "There's the prettiest
kitty in the cane patch but we couldn't catch it." She asked
what it looked like and he said, "It was black with a pretty
white stripe down its back and tail." If they had stayed with
it, I'm afraid we would have had to take them to Mineral Wells for
hot baths! When we started home, Daddy talked me into letting
Gene stay with them another week. I did finally say O.K. and that was
the longest week I ever spent. They brought him home and stayed
several days.
Gene and I had bicycles, also J. Fred and Marthella. We rode our
bikes a lot every day. J. Fred, Gene and sometimes Marthella were
always having adventures. When they were all not at our house they
were usually all at Ina's. One Saturday afternoon Gene just had to go
home with J. Fred. Ina was busy and they were supposed to play in the
yard. She missed them. She called and hunted and finally telephoned
me. I started hunting. We were all really getting alarmed until I was
driving slowly along the highway on the south edge of town and in the
ditch I saw a dog's tail waving and saw it was J. Fred's dog. I
turned around down the road a piece, came slowly back, and all three
kids were crawling up the ditch. I'd never have seen them if the dog
hadn't been along. I drove back and found Ina. She drove out and
passed. They saw her coming and did like they did when they saw me.
She also passed on by, turned around, and came back. She made them
walk or run back home and she gave them their supper and told them to
go to bed. She told them W.K. and I went to Conroe to the show (which
we did) and that we wanted to take them but they were nowhere around.
That sure put a damper on some of their adventures for a while.
Sewell Adams and Jettie had just gotten married and Sewell was just
helping Daddy on the ranch. So they came down and Sewell went to work
helping W.K. in the store.
I had to have an operation and was in the Conroe Hospital eight days.
Dr. Norvell Wilkins operated on me. Charged W.K. $75.00 for a major
operation. I don't remember what the hospital bill was but think it
was a little over $200.00. Jettie took care of Gene and did the
housework. One night soon after I came from the hospital Jettie was
baking a cake. I went in and sat in the kitchen. Gene came in and
started in about something - I don't remember what, something he
wanted to do and I said no. I was very weak and I guess he knew I
wasn't able to spank him so he just kept on. I just sat there. Jettie
said, "Gene, who on earth are you arguing with?" He
said, " I'm arguing with Mama but she won't say a word."
Jettie talked about that for years later. She told him she believed
he was arguing with himself.
Bob Cargill, J. Fred, and Gene all started to school at the same time
-September '38. Miss Sanders was their first grade teacher. She never
had a dull moment.
Kent and Mojie Weise Jennings (W.K.' s nephew and niece) spent
several weeks with us in '38. Kent helped some in the store. A little
14-year-old girl was just crazy about Kent and he was very shy. She
came to the store every little while for something. One day W.K.
said, "Here comes ______”. She came on in. W.K. was busy
waiting on customers as about that time the mill hands got off for
lunch and flooded the store as usual. Kent was nowhere to be found.
He had hidden under the counter so the girl couldn't find him.
They were doing so much business in the store that Mr. Hunt had a new
store built and hired an old man (one of his special friends) to work
in the store. He had a college education and no horse sense...just
drove W.K. up the wall. A load of groceries came in one day and while
W.K. was home for lunch Mr. ____ stacked the breakfast food and Kotex
all together on one shelf. That was the straw that broke the camel's
back. W.K. quit and had started to work for Brown & Root when in
the late summer of '39 Vaden Ross called and told him he had to have
help.
Vaden was Texaco Consignee at Liberty Hill. They were building the
Marshall Ford Dam and he had a contract to service equipment down
there. We were good and ready to come back home to Liberty Hill so
back we came. We couldn't find a house so we put our furniture on
Vaden's porch and covered it with a wagon sheet. We stayed with Vaden
and Nelwyn a while and Gene started to school. Mr. Warren Bryson had
built a house to sell just on the south end of town toward Chapman
Dam. I finally talked him into letting us rent it.
W.K. and Junior Ramsey were driving Texaco trucks day and night to
the dam and sometimes would get two hours sleep and sometimes none. I
found a camp house near the dam that a couple was selling. He was
going into the service and was asking $125.00 for it. It was about
impossible to find a camp house to rent but we barely had the $25.00.
W.K. couldn't get away so he told me to go to Leander and see Mr.
Wallace. He told the owner to meet me at Leander Bank. I went and
told Mr. Wallace the story. Mr. Wallace gave me the $125.00. I paid
the guy and got my receipt. I told Mr. Wallace the first time W.K.
could get by he would sign the note. Mr. Wa11ace laughed, which he
didn't do much, and said, “Now do you think W.K. Seward's note
would be any good?”
W.K. and Junior could get maybe a few hours sleep at the camp house.
Gene stayed with Mama and Papa Seward who were then running a store
and station at Seward Junction. He rode the bus to school. I would
get him on Friday afternoon and bring him back on Sunday afternoon
until school was out.
The boys hauled gas from Liberty Hill days and Austin at night. One
day W.K. had a big load of gas and started down one of those steep
crooked mountains and discovered he had no brakes and no clutch. He
had the truck door opened ready to jump if he saw it was necessary.
That mountain road was narrow and steep and crooked. As it happened,
no traffic got in his way.
He took that truck right through the little town and on to the
parking lot and rolled up into 10 feet of where he would have
ordinarily parked. I don't know but I imagine when he got out of the
t truck he was thanking the good Lord. Vaden said no one else
could have done that.
A pleurisy pain hit W.K. in the chest and he almost fell off the
truck. He got to the camp house and it got worse and worse until
I finally talked him into coming to see Uncle Doc. I brought him up
and Uncle Doc examined him and wouldn't let me take him home. He sent
us out to his house and put W.K. to bed and made him stay there for
several days. He gave W.K. and Vaden an eating out because had been
working day and night. After the dam was finished the name was
changed from Marshall Ford to Mansfield Dam. We were so happy when it
was finished and we got back to Liberty Hill. We sold our little
house for $150.00.
We rented an apartment in what was called the Alberson apartment
house up near the school. It's the Spivey house now. W.K. was still
working for Texaco hauling gas and oil to filling stations and
farmers. Yes, and kerosene - it was 15¢ a gallon. Gas for tractors
was 15¢; regular gas 18¢; stations sold it for 20¢ and 21¢
then.
I went to Seward Junction and helped Mama and Papa Seward in the
store a lot. They had started the store and station in 1936. They
built their home with store in front room of house and station in
front...had old hand-pump gas pumps. Papa had put out a big peach
orchard. Mama had a large number of white Leghorn hens and sold eggs.
They milked a cow, so believe me they had their hands full... a real
struggle to get by, trying to build and live through the Depression.
People would drive up and buy one and two gallons of gas at a time.
Dee Roberts, a good neighbor, named the place Seward Junction. That
corner was a part of the land W.K.'s grandpa William Seward bought in
1862 and paid 50¢ an acre for some and $2.00 an acre for others.
I’m not sure but think Papa Seward had paid Grandpa Seward (his
dad) $5.00 an acre for the 170 some odd acres. Mama Seward would hide
from Papa and eat candy now and then and Papa would hide from Mama
and drink a strawberry or orange soda water. Then if they caught one
another, Papa would say, "The old lady is eating up the profit
from the store," and she would fuss at him for his soda water.
When we moved into the Alberson apartment, we bought a Frigidaire
refrigerator from Wilson Parks. He was selling the last one he had
and let us have it for $140.00. Boy, I thought. I was in hog heaven -
an electric box and we did well before to get 15¢ block of ice twice
a week for the little portable icebox we had bought in Willis...milk
and butter were about all there was room for in it. We used that
refrigerator until 1968 when we sold out and moved from the store. We
had spent $1.50 on it one time about 1960 when Carroll Canady
replaced some little something on it.
Fall, 1941 - Things were tight and Vaden couldn't pay his hands much,
so W.K., Junior Ramsey, Tom Foust, and Milton and Stewart Pogue (all
from Liberty Hill) went to Dallas and started to welding school.
W.K. stayed with Sewell and Jettie. Gene was in school in Liberty
Hill so he and I stayed here with Papa and Mama Seward and I worked
in the store and station. Jettie got pneumonia. David and Jane were
tiny tots - Jane was just a few months old, so W.K. came one weekend
and got me to go run the Adams' house and care for the babies. The
following Sunday, December 7, we drove out to an air show just out of
Dallas and were sitting in the car. W.K. turned on the radio and we
heard about Pearl Harbor.
In January 1942, W.K. and a lot of the other boys from school were
sent to San Diego, California, to work in defense plants. W.K. was
sent to Consolidated Aircraft and so were Junior Ramsey and Tom
Foust. At mid-term I put Gene in school in Morgan Hill and we stayed
at Daddy's until school was out. W.K. couldn't find any place for us
to live in San Diego. He stayed in a boarding house with a bunch of
other men.
My cousin, Loran Adams, and his wife and two children lived at Lemon
Grove, six or eight miles east of San Diego. He was supervisor of the
Frito route of San Diego and vicinity. He had just gotten a new panel
truck and he and the family came back to Fort Worth to visit for ten
days or two weeks. He told me to get things ready and Gene and I
could go back with them. W.K. had left the car for Gene and me and
wanted me to drive through, but I lost my nerve; the car had one bad
tire and we couldn't get any more without a lot of red tape and gas
was rationed. So I stored the car in Papa Seward's garage and off to
California we went.
We left Fort Worth on Saturday morning about 10 o'clock and drove
into San Diego Sunday night at 8 o'clock. There was a mattress in the
back of the van for the kids. I drove some while Loran slept, so we
only stopped for gas and eats.
W.K., Gene, and I stayed at Loran's for about three weeks with me
hunting a place to live. I had to ride a crowded bus everywhere I
went. I finally got a job at a nursing home that had a little house
in the back yard we could live in. That old lady, an R.N. from
Australia that ran that home was something else. She changed up mine
and Helen's (another practical nurse who worked there) jobs and
shifts every time the moon changed. One day she wrote on the bulletin
board "After this week Mildred will work from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
on Sundays and have Thursdays off." I had taken the job with the
understanding of all Sundays off. I had to ride the bus to church and
everywhere - no way I could work those hours and go to church on
Sunday. I walked out to our little house and started packing with no
idea on earth where we would go. Mrs. Wilson came in from town and
Helen told her I was quitting. She flew out there and started in on
me, how I couldn't live in her house and not work for her. I asked
her didn't she know that there was a law in California that no
defense worker could be put out of a house? But I told her she need
not worry; I didn't want to live in her house. I went on with my
packing and my cousin Pat Edwards (my mother's niece) came by. They
had a lovely new home in Chula Vista, ten miles south of San Diego.
She said, "You are going to our home." So we did and Morris
White, a friend from Willis out there in the Marines, loaded stuff in
his car and Gene and he took the things to Chula Vista, just clothes
and linens, etc. So off I go to the plaza to meet the incoming
Consolidated bus and catch W.K. before he transferred to the street
bus for the nursing home. That was the second time I'd met him to
tell him we had moved from Lemon Grove to San Diego and from San
Diego to Chula Vista. I believe it was three weeks we stayed there
until we got a government house at Pacific Beach, north of San
Diego. Again I met the bus at the plaza to tell W.K. we had moved.
Pat and J.D., her husband, had moved our things. They were so nice to
us. It got to be a joke - my meeting the bus at the plaza to tell W.
K. where we lived.
Junior Ramsey and Tom Foust came to our house some. We wanted to play
"42" and walked ourselves down hunting dominoes. The clerks
showed us Domino cigarettes, dice, you name it...didn't even know
what they were. I finally found a set of toy dominoes and Mama Seward
mailed ours to us.
*Wayne Smith and Jake Bonnett from Liberty Hill were out there in the
Navy and visited us, Ray Seward was out there in the Army and
Jim was up at Camp Pendleton in the Marines. He would come down for a
weekend. Robert Brooks from Liberty Hill was also in the Army out
there.
Earl and Marie (Winslett) Morrow, a second cousin of mine, were out
there working and they had a new car and would come take us to the
beach or to Tijuana on weekends. [See, Aunt Alice, Daddy's
half-sister (remember her?), married a Winslett when she was very
young. They moved to Oklahoma and she had three little boys - Ramon,
Connie, and Johnny. Their daddy died when they were very young. Ramon
and Connie both worked their way through school and both had jobs
with the railroad as telegraph operators. Johnny was a farmer. Aunt
Alice died in the late '20's I think and is buried in Oklahoma.
Johnny Winslett had a girl named Marie and she married Earl Morrow.
Will Hamilton, Grandma Adams' grandson, lives in Fort Worth. His
brother Bob died about 40 years ago. I'm sorry we lost track of the
Winsletts.] Loran came too so we had a good time. We lived
just a few blocks from Pacific Beach entertainment center.
My Aunt Menta and Uncle Claude Mann from Long Beach and Babe and
Virginia Walton (Aunt Lottie Walton's son and wife) from an oil field
in Arabia came to see us. Pat and J.D. and we all went over in Mexico
and spent a day. We had a lot of fun but the bunch of crazy cousins
had me so embarrassed I finally went to the car. First, they tried to
get me to drink a tequila, $aid that was Spanish for Coke. We were
then in what was said to be the longest bar in the world.
Then we went to the nicest cafe in town...a real nice place with a
Mexican string band playing while we ate. Aunt Menta (now remember
about now embarrassing her when I asked her to button my dress when a
little girl) finished eating, got up, and walked over in front of the
men's restroom, pointed to the sign on the door and said real loud
(everyone in the cafe heard her), "Claude, does Senor mean
ladies?" She was sounding like she was about lit. Uncle Claude
said, "No, and if it did say ladies you couldn't go in." I
took out to the car and Gene followed. That foolishness went on all
day. I got home and said I'd never go with all that gang again.
Two weeks that summer Gene and I went up on a bus to Long Beach and
visited Aunt Menta and Uncle Claude, then on out to Vista ____
and visited Aunt Ruth who was cooking for men on a big vegetable
farm. Then we spent two days in Bel1 Flower visiting Margarette
Rasberry and family, an old school chum from Pea Ridge School.
One weekend we went with a cousin to Santa Ana to visit Uncle Ed
Henry and family (my Mother's brother). W.K. was by then working
seven days a week.
In the fa11 of 1942 I put my application in San Diego City School
office for a four-hour a day job in Pacific Beach Cafeteria. They
called me back in the office and said Miss Henderson wanted to see
me. She told me, “Mrs. Seward. I've been supervisor of San Diego
City School cafeterias for 24 years and something on your application
I've never seen before." I was surprised. She said, "You
said you had never had any experience in any cafeteria work." I
told her that was right. She hired me and sent me to LaJolla for
eight hours a day. Said this was for training under an old cafeteria
hand and as soon as the cafeteria was finished in the new school in
Pacific Beach Government Project she was sending me there as manager.
It scared me to death. I told her I couldn't do it, but she convinced
me I could and I did. Jewell Seward came out to be near Jim and she
got a job there -with me and stayed with us until Jim was transferred
to, I believe it was, Georgia. We had a full-time pastry cook, two
part-time helpers, besides two schoolgirls who helped with the
dishes. Jewe11 and I both worked eight hours each. Some days we fed
600. A lot of food was rationed and it sure was a headache making
those menus out two weeks in advance because at times we could not
get sugar and other groceries I had ordered. We had a surplus of
peanut butter and powdered eggs at all times. Mrs. Yost, our pastry
cook, was German. Boy, could she ever cook pies, cakes, etc.
When I gave Miss Henderson notice that W.K. was transferred to Fort
Worth and I would have to resign, she said, “Never, I’ll put you
on leave of absence." As far as I know I'm still on
leave of absence.
Mr. Scott, a neighbor, was Scout Master. W.K. was Assistant Scout
Master. The only time W.K. took off all the time we were in
California was one week in the summer of '43 or '44 to go up in the
mountains with their scout troop. The boys learned the flag signals
and one day Gene was on the front steps sending flag signals to
Hilda Underwood, his girlfriend who lived in one of the government
houses across the perking lot from us. He was real shocked when I
told him the message he was sending. He didn't expect me to know the
different signals.
My blood pressure got so low the doctor said I had to get away from
that bay and rest a while. Consolidated said no when W.K. asked
for a transfer to Fort Worth. W.K. and Melvin Swartz from Comanche,
Texas, were riveters in the experimental department and they were the
only two in the whole plant to be certified by both Army and Navy.
There were others certified by either Army or Navy, but not both.
W.K. and Melvin went on those secret planes that landed bn Coronado
Island and did little repair jobs on them that their foreman couldn’t
go on.
W.K. never did ask for a deferment, but every time he came up for
examination the plant turned in a request and he would get another
six months deferment. The government even got certified copies of
W.K.'s parents' births making sure they were born in the U.S. etc.
After the plant said no to a transfer, W.K. planned to quit.
He knew he would be drafted but he was determined to get his family
back to Texas. I told my Doctor and he wrote a letter to Consolidated
about my health. So W.K. got a notice he could transfer to the same
department in Fort Worth in four weeks.
I wrote the folks we were coming back on the train, I thought. Daddy
and Sewell came out in Daddy’s pickup and we loaded all our things
we could bring...sold some things and gave some away. We headed for
Texas. Three at a time rode in the cab and two in the back swapped
about. Sewell and
W.K. took time about driving, but one night Daddy just had to drive a
while, and before we could stop him he drove right through the
inspection place between Arizona and New Mexico. We expected to be
stopped and fined until we got through New Mexico. I guess the
inspector was asleep. We stopped to eat and rest a little while at
some cafe way out from nowhere. Gene went over and put a nickel in
the juke box, turned it loud and was playing "Oh, How I Want to
Go Home!"
We rented a house in Fort Worth that a cousin had just finished. In a
very few weeks W.K. was Scout Master and had a big group of scouts.
One weekend he took them out to Daddy's ranch and camped out near one
of the big tanks. Mama and Daddy made it up with some Morgan
Mill girls to happen out on Saturday p.m. A girlfriend who was in
Gene's class that spring he was in school there got up a car load of
girls. They dressed up crazy - like a bunch of hillbillies, and
landed into that scout camp running. Each girl went for a boy and the
boys started running. They scattered all over. They were just
at the age to be shy. One boy went up a tree and the girl went right
up after him. Those girls, rancher’s and farmer’s daughters, were
stout, and those city boys were about helpless. Some of the girls
drug the boys back into camp. One real shy boy stayed hid in the
woods until W.K. had to have Gene call him in with the bugle. After
the laughing was over, the girls played baseball with the boys. I
still think Gene let his girlfriend catch him. Ha ha.
W.K. had written Papa Seward to sell our car stored here, so we were
afoot. W.K. rode to work with some more guys. So Christmas Eve my
cousin Vernon Adams and wife Evelyn, J.C. Adams, my brother
Sewell Adams, W.K., Gene, and I all loaded in one car and headed for
Morgan Mill. We stopped at the Brazos Bridge Cafe just out from
Weatherford, Texas, to eat. Sugar was rationed. The café was just
full of people. J.C. and Sewell were acting like two hillbillies from
out of the sticks, J.C, just kept putting sugar in his coffee. The
waitress kept watching him and the other people did too. Finally, he
said real loud, "I've put sugar in that coffee three times and
the darn stuff is still too sweet!" Evelyn and I got up and went
to the car. We got to Daddy's and Uncle Walter and Aunt Bell and some
more of Uncle Walter's family had come. Some of the men played "42"
all night, and of course Christmas Day we had a big feast and a lot
of fun. Christmas evening Vernon and Evelyn, W.K., Gene, and I came
to Liberty Hill to see Mama and Papa Seward, Auntie and Uncle Doc and
stayed two days.
A few days before Christmas I told Gene to get a gift for
Vernon and Evelyn. I knew they had him a record he had wanted. W.K.
had just given him a certain amount to spend on gifts and he was
running low. He said, "Well, I'll tell you what the Bible says,.
it’s more blessed to give than to receive, so I will let the other
fellow have all the blessings."
W.K. bought us a car soon after Christmas. We had been riding to
Diamond Hill Church with McCubbins, a close neighbor, and riding with
a cousin after groceries. So it sure was good having a car again.
Gene was baptized one Sunday night by Brother Adkinson at Diamond
Hill Church.
W.K. bought Gene a bike that Christmas and he was showing out riding
and not holding on to the handle bars. The bike fell and he broke his
arm.
J.W. Adams ran an ambulance for Shannon Funeral Home on the north
side of Fort Worth and he came down the street about three blocks
from us everyday at noon going home to eat. The law had just passed
making it illegal to use the siren unless it was an emergency in the
city. Down through town came J.C., siren on. A policeman
stopped him and asked him didn't he know the law. J.C. told him it
was an emergency - he was going to eat and was real hungry! The
policeman let him go with a warning.
Uncle Walter and six of his seven children and families and W.K. and
I all lived in ten blocks of one another. Loran still lived in
California. There was never a dull moment. Jay Fallin and Agnes Adams
Fallin had a nice little home there on Harding Street on the same
block we lived on. Jay's mailbox, on a post, in front of his house,
was leaning. W.K. kept telling him, "Jay, better fix that mail
box before it falls down!" One afternoon W.K. sot some big well
cable in the vacant lot just back of us. It was all rusty, etc. W. K.
drove great big old rough stobs down way out to the edge of JAY's lot
and ran that old rusty cable to the mailbox and tied it up. Looked
terrible - all across in the front of house and right against the
street. Jay was shop foreman at Armour's Meat Packing Company. Jay
came home and saw the cable. He gave Dorothy, his oldest daughter,
$10 and told her to go pay him for fixing the mailbox. She was about
ten or eleven. She brought W.K. the money and the message.
W.K. took the bill and said, "Dorothy, you are always doing
little things for us and I'm paying you with this bill. Now it's
yours and don't let your dad have it." Jay like to have never
talked Dorothy into letting him have the bill back.
Jay pulled so many pranks on the kids and his wife that they almost
quit ever going anywhere with him. One Saturday afternoon he took
Dorothy and Kenneth and some neighbor kids to Isom Theater, a nice
big theater, to a Jesse James show. About the middle of the
show he stood up and loudly said, “Hi Jesse! Remember when we used
to hide out around Bluff Dale in them old cellars?" Dorothy
moved to another seat and she kept looking for her little brother
Kenneth. He had crawled under a seat. Another time he took a bunch of
the kids to the show, all that could pile in his car, he lined them
up at the ticket office and pulled his hat down over his eyes and
said to the ticket girl talking like a hillbilly, "I’ve got
some eggs out in the wagon. I will get them to pay for
tickets. My young'uns ain't ever seen a picture show." Those
kids scattered all down the street.
He called up his sister-in-law, Hazel Adams Broom and told her that
Edwin, Hazel's husband, said to call him at a certain number, Hazel
was very young and very jealous at that time. She called the number
and. a colored girl answered. Hazel asked if Edwin Broom Was there.
The girl said, "I don't think so, Ma'am, this is the
ladies lounge in Lenord' s Deportment Store."
He called Evelyn one day and told her that Vernon, her husband, said
to bring him a lunch, that he couldn't leave work to go
home for lunch, Evelyn walked about five blocks to take Vernon the
lunch. When she got there, he had gone home for lunch.
February I, 1946 - We moved back to Liberty Hill and bought
Papa and Mama's store and station and they built them a rock house
next door to us. They were Just worn out and couldn't keep running
the store and station. Papa sold his gristmill. Seward Junction was
just a big wide space in the highway...no islands and no lights then
and not too much traffic.
Gene kept having trouble with his side just after we moved to Liberty
Hill so as soon as school was out Uncle Doc and Dr. Joe Sheppard
operated and took his appendix out. He was in Burnet Hospital a week.
I went to the Leander Bank to cash some war bonds. Mr. Wallace
wouldn't get the bonds out for me. He handed me a new checkbook and
said, "Write checks on the bank for what you need." No
note, no nothing. He knew we had made a big down payment to Papa and
Mama on our place and was paying every penny we could spare each
month.
W.K. was the Liberty Hill Scout Master from the summer of 1946 to
1952. Finis Anderson was assistant Scout Master. Almost every day we
had scouts in our home. He took them snipe hunting, hiking,
fishing, and camping. He had tub races for them, and baseball games
and tacky parties for the scouts and the parents.
We worked so hard. I kept house end worked in the store and station
almost all day, everyday but Sunday. I had my portable machine in the
store and made bonnets when I wasn't waiting on customers. The first
year I sold 163 bonnets, 172 bonnets the next year. After that I quit
counting. I started out selling them at $1.50, soon went to $2.00,
and finally the real fancy stitched ones were $3.00. I sold bonnets
that went to California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Germany, end especially
all over Texas. I would wear a bonnet to Georgetown or Leander and
almost always sell it right off my head, especially if it was a red
one stitched in white.
W.K. worked hard all day in the garage and sometimes most or all
night if he had one of Vaden' s trucks or a school bus in there. He
wouldn't quit until it was finished.
Then two or three nights a week a bunch of us (the Jake Bonnett
family and the Ramsey boys) would get together and sing gospel songs
until midnight. We had a quartet until Gene left for service. We sang
at funerals, school programs, fifth Sunday singings, etc. Gene lead
or bass, W.K. tenor, Charles Bonnett bass, Juanita Bonnett and I
alto.
In 1948 Brother Claude McClung from Fort Worth was conducting a
gospel meeting in Liberty Hill and he baptized Mama Seward twenty
years after he had baptized W.K.
Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Parker bought Papa Seward's farm in 1948 and
moved there. Parker and W.K. got a deer lease near Spicewood from Mr.
Despain. Mrs. Parker helped me in the store and stayed with me at
night when they were on the lease.
In 1949 Damon Smith and his wife Grace were staying with us while he
taught singing school. Gene Ramsey was helping some in the store. He
and W.K. put trotlines out in the North Gabriel River. It was real
cold. After singing school one night, they went out to run the lines.
W. K. told Gene Ramsey they would run the lines in washtubs since it
was too cold to get in the water. W.K. stalled around and let Gene
get his clothes off first. Gene placed a tub in the edge of the water
and stepped out in the tub. Of course it turned upside down and over
into the icy water Gene went. W.K. said he never heard such a war
whoop. Well, when W.K. got home, I was asleep and I think Damon and
Grace were just retiring. W.K. came in laughing and he called Damon
and told him the tale. Well, they laughed and laughed...finally went
to bed. About the time Grace and I got to sleep, they would start up
again and this went on until the wee hours of the morning. I've never
seen anyone laugh as much over one thing; and when Damon taught a
singing school here summer before last, he and W.K. had another big
laugh about this.
I went into the Georgetown Hospital Saturday, February 26, 1949. It
snowed all night Saturday night and all day Sunday, and Gene and two
more families were all that made it to church that Sunday. I had
surgery on February 28 and came home on March 8 and there was still
snow on the ground and along the ditches. ..and a snowman by the side
of the store that Gene had made.
Gene graduated in May, 1949, exactly twenty years after W.K. had
graduated (same school). We wanted him to go to college, but he
joined the Navy Air Corp and on July 28 he left for six weeks boot
training in San Diego. I cried all night he left. After boot training
he came home on two weeks furlough He had made second highest grade
when finishing boot training so he was one of the few sent to
Memphis, Tennessee, for nine months college. He and Doris Millard
were married while he was home. He left here by train on to Memphis,
got there on Saturday night, and on Sunday he met Mr. Richardson, an
elder in the church. Mr. and Mrs. Richardson asked him home with them
for dinner and they let him rent two rooms from them so he sent for
Doris. She went out and was there until he finished nine months
college. He then got two weeks furlough and was then to report to a
base in San Jose, California.
W.K. and I went out to Memphis for a week and brought them back here
(Doris was pregnant). Doris stayed with us and after two weeks Gene
caught the train to San Jose.
On June 27, 1950, Papa Seward died - heart attack, just sick ten
days. I've never missed anyone more than I did him. He was so good to
me. For months I looked expecting him to walk in the store. I gave
him orange or strawberry soda water everyday. Some times he would sit
in the store with me a half day at a time. Milton Pogue preached his
funeral services. I was so glad that we and W.K. 's three sisters
(Alma Jennings, Ina Muller, and Jo Pratt) and brother (Hubbard) had
had a big Golden Wedding Anniversary party for Papa and Mama on our
back lawn on July 23 the year before (1949). There had been a string
band. Papa's sisters, Amanda Ruble from San Antonio, Jo Simmons from
Austin, Bee Linder and Ellen Miller from Liberty Hill, and his
brother Jim Seward from Liberty Hill were all there. Also Mama
Seward's sisters, Pearl Lockard of Andice, Emma Cobb from Brady, 8nd
brothers, Ben Tucker of Georgetown and Walker Tucker of Austin. All
these as well as dozens of nieces, nephews, grandchildren and
great-grandchildren, and lots of friends were present. On August 18,
1950, William Carl Seward was born in Georgetown hospital. We were so
thrilled. We called Gene and then W.K. wrote him about the baby. He
told him that he had looked in the nursery and (Bill) was making
eyes at the little girls in the nursery.
In October 1950, we took Doris and Bill to Temple and they caught the
train to San Francisco to be with Gene. It was night and we
stood outside the train until we saw them seated. The light was
shining on Bill's bald head. I cried most of the way back home.
Things were so empty with that baby gone.
In October 1951, W.K. bought a '48 model Chevy Coupe (two seated),
and we took off to California. We went up through Big Springs,
through the Indian reservation in northern New Mexico, through the
petrified forest, saw the Painted Desert at sunrise (beautiful), on
to the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, saw Hoover Dam, went up through
Tioga Pass, down through mountains, Sequoia Forest to San Francisco
to San Jose. We stayed a week. Bill's hair was long, W.K. took him to
the barber shop and got his first barber shop cut.
We came back the lower route - lower Arizona down to El Paso. He
spent the night in Van Horn on Saturday night and went to church in
Balmorhea. Ate dinner in Fort Stockton, went by Alpine to SuI
Ross College and stopped and saw Herschel Bonnett, Martin Blessing,
and Charlie Foust, all Liberty Hill boys in college there. We went up
the Davis Mountains and saw McDonald Observatory.
Soon after this Gene was shipped to Japan. Doris and Bill came back
with us. 1952 - Gene shipped back to a base near San Jose. He came
home on two-weeks pass in July. He got here July 1st late that
night and on July 2nd Steven Scott Seward was born in Georgetown
Hospital. A few months later Gene got his release from the service
and came home. They moved to Willis where Gene ran a store for
his Uncle Johnny Muller.
One Sunday afternoon in 1952 some Liberty Hill people and Doctor
Bryson from Bastrop met in 'Titia Russell's house and organized the
Liberty Hill Cemetery Association, elected officers and five
trustees. W.K. was elected trustee, then over and over again. He is
still trustee in 1982. He sells the grave plots, oversees the
maintenance and keeps up the equipment. He received a certificate
several years ago for 25 years of unselfish service to the cemetery.
Just before Bill was three years old W.K. took him to Liberty Hill
one day to Barnes & Jones Lumberyard. Clarence (Red) Ellison was
manager. They had a lovely display in one of the big plate glass
show windows of a bathtub, lavatory, and commode. W.K. and Red began
looking for some nails or something W.K. had gone for. Red walked up
to the front of the store and called W.K. He told him to be real
quiet and said, "Now don't you say a word." W.K. eased up
toward the front and there Bill was, sitting on and using the
commode, overalls down around his feet and very content. Red wouldn't
let W.K. disturb Bill. I never did know who cleaned up the display.
Mr. and Mrs. Dee Roberts, one of our good neighbors, their daughter
Alice Beth and husband Cleo Rogers, gave W.K. and I a Silver Wedding
Anniversary party at the Rogers' home in Georgetown in December 1954.
Sure had a nice party.
s soon
as the outside and partitions were finished, W.K. and I did the rest.
When Pap started building the steps from inside the store up to the
living quarters, he yelled out to us and said, “Anyone want to buy
two short ladders?” He had built his long ladder into the step
area.
W.K. and I tore the old store building and our living quarters down.
We stored the equipment, etc., in the garage, storerooms, ice house,
and at Mama Seward's. We lived with Mama Seward while tearing down
and rebuilding. We did all the tearing down ourselves. I stacked
lumber and pulled nails until I could barely stand. Mama Seward would
help me pull nails a little at a time. We saved every little plank.
We hired Pap Mears and Clarence McFarland to help us rebuild. Built
the two-story building that is known as Country Store now. A
He broke the lavatory that went into the ladies rest room, walked
out, and calmly said, “Clarence, hand me another lavatory.”
Spring, 1954 - Gene and Doris separated. Bill had been with us off
and on most of the time they had lived in Willis. He would cry so to
stay with us they would let him, so then Steve came. Never a dull
moment. That summer Bill decided to adjust the electric pump in the
back yard and cut his finger off at the first joint (just hanging by
a thread). Steve and I both were in bed sick and Gene had gotten a
week's leave to help with the work, etc. So with blood pouring and
Bill screaming, Gene drove 100 miles an hour to Georgetown Hospital
and Dr. Gaddy sewed the finger back on and he still has it. Bill had
attacks of asthma and missed a lot of school and wouldn't want to go
back to school. He would tell his teacher he was sick and she would
call me to come after him. I kept telling the teacher he wasn't
really sick but she thought he was. One day she called me and said he
was sick. I picked him up and headed straight for Dr. Gaddy. I talked
to Dr. Gaddy before we let Bill come in the office. I told Dr. Gaddy
I was sure he just had "Home-itis". He examined Bill from
head to toe and told me I was right. We got home and I told W.K. I
didn't know Bill had heard me but the next day he laid his head on
the desk and told Mrs. Ford he was sick. I had talked to her that
morning on the telephone, so she told him to study and that he was
O.K. He said, "Mrs. Ford, I'm sick. Dr. Gaddy said I have
home-itis." Well, anyway he stayed at school.
Brother J.W. Hicks baptized Bill and Steve both the same time. I gave
the boys a dime each to spend when we went to Piggly Wiggly in
Georgetown for groceries. One day Steve and I went and he wanted this
and that. I told him he could have only one dime and I'd buy Bill
something for a dime to take to him. Steve said, "O.K., I'll
ride the horse with my dime" (electric hobby horse outside
store), "and I'll take Bill two funny books.”
Those boys kept W.K. and I hopping. Steve got real mad at Bill
because Gene had sent Bill a watch for his birthday so Steve said to
Bill, "Let's play cowboys and Indians," which they did.
Steve tied Bill to a china tree near, the garage, built up a fire in
front of Bill and ran off and hid. Bill was screaming. I ran out of
the store, raked the fire away, untied Bill, and then I played
Indian. I found Steve and showed him who was Heap Big Chief of Seward
Junction. About 1956 or '57, Leta Mears gave W.K. a little Fox
Terrier pup. It was about the size of a rat. She slept in a stone
churn with a hot water bottle. Someone gave Bill and Steve a Collie
dog. After we had had him a few weeks, he wouldn't let me whip either
boy. He wouldn't bite me, but would just grab the arm or hand
with the belt or switch and pull on it. W.K. told me to take the boys
upstairs when I had to use the belt, that the dog might really bite
me someday. So I took them to their room after that and when they
started yelling that dog would get on the bank in back of the house
and howl and bark. The boys screamed bloody murder so the dog would
hear.
W.K. put a collar, the smallest one made, on his little pup which he
named Miss Leta and had a leash on her. Bill and Steve's dog would
hold that leash and drag Miss Leta up on the bank between the store
and the garage and sit and hold the leash in its mouth. Sometimes he
would turn her loose, but if she ever started toward the drive he
would grab the leash and pull her back. How about that - babysitting
for the pup.
Miss Leta learned to take mail to Mama Seward. We had put a little
harness on her and we would put letters, etc. in small paper sack and
slip it in her harness on her back. She would go to Mama's back door,
shake the screen door over and over until Mama heard her and came and
got her mail. But if Mama didn't hear, she would finally get tired
and shake the mail off and come home leaving the mail on the step.
She would take notes to the garage to W.K. or if I just told her to
go bring W.K. to the store, she would go pull on his pants leg until
he called. I taught her to honk the pickup horn. She always had to
ride in the pickup when W.K. went to town, and if it was hot or W.K.
stayed in the store or cafe too long, she would honk that horn. It
was the kind you mashed down the steering wheel to honk.
On May 21, 1957, I arose real early to bake two pies for a bake sale
our Union Hall Home Demonstration club was having in Georgetown. W.K.
and the boys were still in bed. The weather was terribly muggy. Just
as I was ready to place my pies in the oven, I looked out the north
kitchen window and the foggy look had turned to a green. I knew
something was wrong. I rushed to the west window and out to the
southwest was a terrible looking cloud and the wind began to blow. I
ran through the hall calling to W.K. and the boys to get up and
downstairs quick.
W.K. got dressed, carried his shoes, and rushed do 1m the steps. I
drug Steve to the steps pushing Bill ahead and said, "stay in
the back room or store." I rushed to open up windows and started
downstairs and here was Bill running back up and ran past me as hard
as he could with me screaming, "Get back down these stairs."
Bill ran to the magazine stand by his bed, grabbed his white Bible
Mama and Daddy had given him the Christmas before, and said, I'm not
leaving my white Bible because I love it next to you and Dad.” So
down the steps he went with me following Just then off the roof went
and in a very few minutes everything in our house was drenched. But
our good neighbors and friends rushed to our aid and helped us get
the water up and had very little loss except our roof. About 15
minutes after the roof flew off and the cloud passed over, we were
running around like chickens with their necks broke. I heard singing.
Bill was sitting on the top step where the steps went into the hall
singing a song we sang at church, Lord Send Me, “There is much to
do, there's work on every hand”, and believe me there sure
was.
In the summer of 1957 Bill and Steve both had their tonsils removed
in Georgetown Hospital.
In 1957, the Union Hall Home Demonstration Club of Which I was
president, got up a petition asking the Highway Department to install
lights at Seward Junction as there had been seven people killed in
wrecks since the isles were put in. After we got no results, we
contacted Homer Thornberry, our state Congressman, and ten days later
the surveyors were out working and about two weeks later L.C.R.A. men
were out installing lights.
Wild Bill Tucker, (Mama Seward’s cousin) who was sound and stunt
man for a Hollywood studio, came down. He had a very large collection
of old guns. He was dressed and looked like Buffalo Bill. He could
handle a gun many ways and he could make sounds of any kind...bird or
animal, freight train, and other things. Bill sure got a kick out of
all that. I took Wild Bill, Mama Seward, and Bill over to the old
Tucker home and the Matsler Cemetery near Andice where so many of the
older Tuckers are buried.
Emma Cobb, Mama Seward's sister, came down from Brady and I took Aunt
Emma and Mama Seward to Andice to see their cousin Dell Tucker
Suttles. Dell had a room full of old newspapers, scrapbooks, etc.,
Williamson County Sun, Round Rock and Austin papers and others. Some
had all about the shootout in Round Rock with Sam Bass. Their Grandpa
Tucker was Deputy Sheriff and helped get Sam Bass.
Dell and Lee, her husband, wanted to take us up in the field. Their
son, Wallace, had p1anted about six or eight acres of onions and
contracted them to some produce company. They had picked what they
wanted and left others laying, lots of nice white onions. So Mama and
Aunt Emma rode in the back seat, Dell and Lee in the front with me
and me driving. We drove up in the field, a terrace every few yards.
Dell would tell me, "Mildred, go up this terrace." "No,"
Lee would say, "Go this way." "No," Dell argued,
"Drive to next terrace." This went on until I was ready to
scream and didn’t know where to drive when Dell said, "Lee,
who's driving this car, me or you?" I stopped the car and we
picked up onions, but Mama, Aunt Emma and I giggled all the way back
to Seward Junction.
Gene married Charlotte Daniels in 1960 and the next year he
took the boys to Willis and put them in school, but when school was
out Bill came back to Seward Junction. He had just lived with W.K.
and me too long and felt he belonged there.
In 1963 Uncle Doc died. He and Auntie were living in McAllen with
Vaden and Nelwyn. He was brought back to Liberty Hill Cemetery for
burial.
Angela, our oldest granddaughter, was born December 17, 1963.
We were so thrilled to finally have a granddaughter. Then on May 21,
1973, Michelle Rae was born in Conroe. Angela was so proud of her
little sister, and we love both of them so much.
Auntie Ross came from McAllen in early '65 and stayed with W.K. and
me until September. She kept being sick and I took her to the
hospital for a second time. Dr. Gaddy told her she could not come
back home with me. She must have a nurse's care. So he and Gerdon
Glover helped get her in Sweetbriar Nursing Home in Georgetown. She
entered the home four days after they opened for patients.
Mama Seward had fallen and broken her hip several years before and
after Conroe Hospital, John Sealy at Galveston, and Villa Siesta
Nursing Home in Austin, she was put in Sweetbriar the day they
opened, four days before Auntie. Mama Seward died in July 1966, and
four days later Auntie died. Both are buried in Liberty Hill
Cemetery.
Daddy died in April, 1967, and is buried in Morgan Mill Cemetery. He
had emphysema.
In January 1968, we sold out the store and garage and on April 28
moved into our rent house just north of the Junction on U.S. Highway
183. W.K. built a large building behind the house for his garage. We
planned to move the rent house down on the next lot and build us a
larger rock house under the big beautiful live oak trees.
In May Bill graduated from Liberty Hill High School. He started to
Central Texas College in Killeen that summer, driving back and forth
45 miles each way. He took electronics the first year and a half, and
drafting the next year and' a half. He got his degree in drafting.
When he was in college, I made him 30+ ties. His drafting teacher
laughed and said he had to wear dark glasses as he never knew what
kind of tie Seward was coming in with. I made the teacher a tie and
he had it on the night Bill graduated.
Mr. Parker died a few weeks after Bill finished high school. W.K.
didn't even want to deer hunt that fall since he and Parker had
hunted together for about twenty years.
Mrs. Parker bought her a little red Toyota, and Bill taught her to
drive it. She went to work at Stonehaven Center in Georgetown and
worked there until January 1, 1982. After she moved to Georgetown, I
missed her so much.
In September, 1968, I went to work in the laundry at Westwood Boys
Ranch, just a few miles up Highway 29 from us. Bill worked there some
at night and on weekends when he was in college. He worked with the
boys. In early spring of '69, Wayne Lippold, owner of the ranch, sent
me to the girls' home in Jollyville two days a week. I was seamstress
there. I liked it so much I asked to be transferred there, and I
worked there until May 30, 1975.
When I left they gave me a surprise Farewell Party. The Chinese cook,
Lilly Brooks, baked a large cake, decorated it, and said on it, "We
Will Miss You." They gave me a large set of Living Ware china, a
big ceramic cat, and other gifts, and took a lot of pictures (some of
me crying).
Aunt Ruth VanLiere, my mother's sister from Phoenix, Arizona, came in
January of 1969 and stayed with us six weeks. She was a wonderful
cook and just a lot of fun. Since I was working she cooked the meals,
and boy did we miss her after she left. It was the last time we saw
her as she dropped dead with a heart attack in May 1978, in Arizona.
Mama Adams died January 23, 1974, of a heart attack and is buried in
Morgan Mill Cemetery.
Bill and Linda Carole Berry were married September, 1971, bought a
mobile home and lived in Austin. Linda worked as a secretary for the
Texas Merit System Council. William James (Little Bill) Seward was
born in Georgetown Hospital on Thursday, August 14, 1975. It was such
a thrill to have a precious little great-grandson and another William
Seward, the fifth William Seward.
In 1979, Bill and Linda bought a new home in Round Rock. Bill has
been leading singing at church since he was a junior in high school.
Steve and Lisa Clay were married January 17, 1976, in Austin, and
they had a beautiful home built in Conroe. Steve works for Carrier
Air Conditioning out of Houston. Lisa works for a Real Estate
company. Lisa has been so wonderful to W.K. and me.
The FIFTIETH ~
THE GOLDEN ONE -
wedding anniversary
celebration for
Mildred and W.K. Seward, which was held September 2 in the
Stonehaven Community Center in Georgetown, was hosted by their
children and grandchildren, Mr. and Mrs. Gene Seward, Angela and
Michelle, all of Conroe; Steve and Lisa Seward of Conroe; and Bill,
Linda and Little
Bill Seward, all of
Round Rock. There was a lace covered
table centered with an arrangement of
autumn flowers, a
golden punch, a
three-tiered Wedding cake adorned with golden roses and green leaves
and-a golden "Fifty" on the top.
This appropriate cake was
baked by Mildred Hicks of Liberty Hill, and it was served along with
finger sandwiches, coffee and nuts. The serving table was reigned
over by Florence (Parker) Crone, Mrs. Arlie Steyer and Mildred
Hicks. Mrs. Isabel Parker was in charge of
the guest book, where a 1arge picture of the Sewards at their
wedding was stationed, and Dorothy Clay attended the gift table.
Mrs. Seward wore an
aqua si1ver dress with
a white orchid tied with a golden
ribbon as she and W.K., with Mr. and Mrs. Gene Seward, Angela and
Michelle, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Seward and Little Bill, and Mr. And Mrs.
Steve Seward stood in the receiving line to greet their guests.
The guests
included Mr. and Mrs. Loran Adams, Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Adams, Mr.
and Mrs. Herman Adams, Mr. and Mrs. Jay Fallin, and Hazel Broom, all
of Ft. Worth; Mr. and Mrs. Morris Jennings and Jerry Thermon. all
from Dallas; Gloria Wesker and daughter from Temple; Mr. and Mrs.
J.S. Adams
and Larry, and Sandra P. Plymell, all of Waco;
Mr. and Mrs. Earl Crone of
Belton; lna Pearl Muller and Marthella Mears from Willis; Lytle Jo
Pratt from Navasota; Mr. and Mrs. Roger Payne, April, James, 'and
Katherine from Lampasas; Mr. and Mrs. Ed Davis, and the Tara family
from San Antonio; Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Powell, Barber Kaufman Karm,
and Mr. and Mrs. Elbert Insall, all from Bertram;
Mrs. L.L. Billington from
Houston; Amanda Pardonner, and Mr. and Mrs. Harold
Grimes of Corpus Christi.
Mr. and Mrs. Solon
Waley, Bernice Wiley, Mrs. Jimmie Alley, Edith Wiley, Mrs. Agness
Wade and Michael Falgouse, all of Leander; Etta Rush (Hickman) Dees
of Andice; Mr. and Mrs. Bi11 McCoy and Meloney from Burnet;
Mr. and Mrs. Gene
Parker, Edna Gibson,
Dorothy Clay, Bessie
Wilson, Mary Louise Hemple, Richard Stadler, Peggy Millard, Jane
Ramm, Kathy Tomme,
John Vance Tomme, Katherine
Whitehead, Mr. and Mrs. David Tomme,
Mr. and Mrs. Connie Sylvester, and Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Lickman, all
of Austin.
There were also a large
number of
other relatives and
friends from
Georgetown and Liberty Hill to bring the grand total in attendance
to over 160. The
Sewards received phone calls from
many scattered points
throughout Texas and
one from California,
and they
received 95 cards and
letters with some still arriving. Many other friends came to their
home to congratulate them.
- The
Williamson County SUN
Thursday, September 13, 1979
On April 15, 1981, Melanie Lynne Seward was born in Georgetown
Hospital. Such a little doll. Little Bill won't spend the night with
us now; he says he can't leave Little Sister.
The last weekend in July has been set for the annual Seward reunion.
This will be the fourth year (descendants of E.N. and Minnie
Seward).
I sew gifts since I retired from Meridell People call me and come by
to see if I have gifts for stork shower, bridal shower, birthday
gift, etc. I sold about $1,400 in 1980, a little over a thousand
last year. I make everything from baby bibs to diaper shirts to
placemats, laundry bags, aprons, potholders, dish towels, afghans,
and many other items. I decorated over 100 blue denim shirts in
1975.
Bill and Linda or Mildred Hicks drive for me each year the third
Saturday in May and take me to the annual homecoming and
cemetery working at Sap Oak. I see some old friends and we talk
about what has happened...through the years.
AFTER THOUGHTS BY MILDRED A. SEWARD
1984
In 1913 Grandpa Isom Adams went to Louisiana to visit relatives.
While there he met Miss Virginia Henderson who lived next door to
one of his brothers. They were soon married and came back to
Grandpa’s farm near Morgan Mill, Texas. She refused to let
Grandpa’s grandchildren call her grandma so we were soon all
calling her Aunt Jennie. We all loved her very much. She kept us
entertained with tales of old.
Aunt Jennie dipped snuff and one by one she kept losing her teeth and could not chew her toothbrushes, which MUST be hackberry roots. I would go out with her many times and help
dig hackberry roots. Aunt Jennie would cut the roots up in about
four inch lengths, then I would chew one end of them to make a soft
brush so she could dip her snuff. She was so funny. I just loved to
have her come stay a week or more. She had moved to Morgan Mill
after grandpa died and stayed with different elderly people who
needed companions. She was born October 10, 1864 and died May 1,
1947. She is buried in Morgan Mill Cemetery near Grandpa Adams.
The last time Loran and Alberta came to see us in the fall of 1983,
Loran was laughing about the trip Uncle Walter and family made to
Louisiana in the early thirties. Aunt Jennie went with them in Uncle
Walter's Model T. While there, they all went to a party at one of
the Adams' home a ways out in the piney woods. They had music and
singing and decided they wanted to square dance. Not one of them
knew how to call the square dance so Aunt Jennie surprised all the
bunch by calling. On the way back to Morgan Mill Aunt Jennie told
Uncle Walter's kids, "Don't you kids mention to anyone I called
for dance or I'll get turned out of church. " Loran said if she
hadn't told them that, they would probably never thought of it
again.
One day, I believe it was 1922, while Pleasant Ridge School was out
for lunch, 3 or 4 of us 11 or 12 year old girls were playing by the
road. A stranger came along in a buggy, stopped and said, "Little
girls, can you tell me the way to John Holbert's house?"
Margarette Rasberry said, "Yes sir, you go right straight down
there right straight up and you will be there." She was right.
The road went down about 200 yards from where we were playing, then
the road turned to the right and up that road about 200 yards was
the Holbert's house.
For years in the twenties and on through the forties, about every
other summer Brother Claude McClung of Forth Worth would conduct a
gospel meeting a week or ten days at the Liberty Hill Church of
Christ. He always stayed in the Dr. Ross home. One summer Auntie had
a black girl helping with the housework. Through the meeting Brother
McClung was a big tease. He asked Rosie, the black girl, "Tell
me what you think of this refrigerator making ice, you cooking on
this electric stove, ironing, etc. and it all coming in there on the
same electric wire?" Rosie at once said, "LAUSY MERCY man,
that’s in the mind of God and the hand of man."
Uncle Doc and Brother McClung would get up early and go fishing,
dove or squirrel hunting. Rosie would dress their catch. After
eating fish, birds, and squirrel several meals, she cooked a big
roast with all the trimmings. Brother McClung said, "Rosie,
this roast is delicious." She said,
" About time you appetite is taming down. Been running wi1d all
week."
I still laugh about things that happen in Uncle Doc's office in
1929 and 30. One day a real old couple came in. He was sick and real
hard of hearing. After Uncle Doc examined him, he told his wife he
has ear ciplis. The old man asked what did Doc Say. The old lady
screamed so loud you could hear her down the street. "He said
you had AIR CIPLIS, but I don't believe a word of it." A lady
came in the office one day just after the dentist Dr. Mankin
retired. She wanted Uncle Doc to pull her tooth. Her jaw was all
swelled up and he told her he wouldn't pull it. She argued with him
and said, "Doctor, that tooth hurt
me so bad I couldn't enjoy my Uncle's funeral yesterday."
Charles
Franklin Dennis and Junior Purser were playing at Junior's Grandpa
Ples Ford's one day. They found some kerosene and drank some.
Myrtle, Junior's mother and Edna Earl, Charles' mother, brought them
to Uncle Doc's office. He and the nurse were working as hard as they
could pumping their stomachs out. Myrtle was pacing up and down in
the office saying over and over, "If it don't kill him I'm
gonna beat him to death." Finally, Uncle Doc, hoping to calm
her said, "Myrtle is there any use in me pumping Junior's
stomach out?"
W.K. drove for Uncle Doc at night some when he was so tired and
sleepy and I went with him on some confinement cases. One real cold
night I went with him out near Bear Creek on a case. The house was
so full you could hardly get to the bedroom. Looked as if it was a
family reunion, aunts,' uncles, parents, cousins, etc.
One cold night after a lady had been in labor for hours Uncle Doc
walked out in the kitchen where the husband, father, uncles, etc.
were sitting by a fire. They were all snuff dippers or tobacco
chewers. He asked for a drink. One man pointed to a wooden bucket
with a dipper in it. Uncle Doc looked at it, took it, and turned the
dipper around and was drinking right against the handle. A little 5
or 6 year old gal running around there half naked said, "Oh,
that's where Grandma drinks on the dipper."
W.K. and Gene had gone to the Scout meeting one night. I had stopped
off at Vaden's. Nelwyn was ironing and we were trying to talk. Vaden
was in the living room playing the piano. Polly was about 3 years
old. She kept running around from room to room. I said, "I
think Polly's got ants in her pants." She started running
faster and screaming at the top of her voice. Nelwyn finally caught
her and said, "What is the matter?" She said, "Mildred
said I have ants in my pants."
When Angela was 3 years old Charlotte was setting out some pansies
in the yard. Angela said they were woses.
Charlotte said these are not roses they are pansies. Angela pulled
up her dress and said, "Them woses, these pansies,"
pointing to her panties.
One
night W. K. and I were sitting out in front of the store at Seward
Junction. A couple stopped at the stop sign, arguing. The old man
wanted to go toward Georgetown and she wanted to go straight ahead
toward Austin. He said, "That's not the way to Austin cause
that sign points straight up."
W. K. and I will be married 55 years. William James Seward, our
great grandson will be 9 next week, August 14, 1984. Melanie, his
little sister was 3 April 15, 1984. Next January or February there's
to be another new arrival in that home, making us three great
grandchildren right here near us. We are not getting old, just been
here a long time.
On January 29, 1985, a great granddaughter, Holly Marie Seward, was
born. She weighed 7 pounds 1 1/2 ounces and was 19 inches long. What
a doll!
The above is a memoir written by Mildred Adams Seward. I have done only minimal editing and added the pictures where appropriate. The formatting went a little wonky, I'll see about fixing that later.
William C. Seward.
