Etta---SIS was what we called her
October 4,1907 was a beautiful day! I was thrilled to have a baby sister, after 4 brothers. They were always called 'the boys'---Cam, Dock, Black and Hanner. She grew to want into everything---always wanting to 'go'. She got big enough to walk, if someone led her. So at milking time she went along to the lot, proud that she could go. One evening on the way back to the house, she set down and refused to walk. We said, "Come on, you can carry this empty bucket for us." She wouldn't. Mama was carrying two buckets full of milk. She told the boys to put her on their backs and carry her on to the house. She slept with me and woke up in the night crying. I was patting her and telling her to go back to sleep. Mama heard her and come and picked her up and carried her to her bed.
The polio had struck her, infantile paralysis
We forgot the name of the man that was buried that day, up in the Hittson graveyard. The graveyard is just up the hill, in our pasture. As usual, Dad had the grave diggers come down for dinner. Mama thought that she was supposed to feed them all. She always made a big cobbler for desert.
The Doctor knew what polio was.
It was epidemic all over the world. It was a year or two before the bad epidemic hit Texas. Then lots had it, no one that we ever knew. A Glidewell boy from the first marriage---had it at the same time that Sis did. They lived in town and we didn't know them then. He got around better, but he was always crippled. Sis could always talk. She couldn't move except to turn her head. In several weeks she got better and could sit up. There were times of pain, she would scream. When a spell would come on her, Mama would scoot the metal wash tub onto the fireplace coals. When it warmed, put her in it and rub her---and her screaming for dear life.
The Worse Spell
Once I was alone and a bad spell hit Sis. She screamed!! I put the tub on the fireplace coals. She set her in it and started rubbing. She pulled the tub off and ran to the telephone. She grabbed the crank and gave a long hard turn. It made one big long ring. That meant Emergency!! and everybody on the party line was to listen. I cried, "This is Julia, Etta is worse and I need help!" I pushed the tub back on the fireplace coals, because the water had to be hot. Neighbors come and helped rub. They marveled that Me and Sis weren't both burned.
Those days us kids were late for school a lot, we thought she would die, and we wouldn't leave home until we saw that our little sister was going to wake up. Rubbing maybe helped the pain. Her arms and legs were so limber---they wouldn't do nothing, especially her legs. She couldn't hold anything. She got as light as a feather, so poor. Her pain spells didn't last so long and they didn't seem to make her any worse. Someone wanted to get her a buggy. Doctor Rains said, "No, let the kids wool her around and rub her lots." And she got plenty of that. Dad would call the Doctor, and he would come. "There isn't anything in this world that I can do, but I will come." Oh we rubbed her and rubbed her constantly. She had a high temper. When she got real mad, it seemed to make a spell come on and it left her with a high temper. Our older girl cousins, Fred, Stella, Dora and Don lived across the river in Willow Pond Community. They walked through their pasture, on their way to school. By the trail was a big old dead tree. They stopped there every day, and fell down and prayed for Sis. They called it the 'prayer tree'. And always remembered it, there in their pasture.
Finally the pain left her, just spells.
We would set her on the edge of the table---her arms and legs dangling. Dad would come in and talk to her. He backed up to her and said, "Kick me". We could see her trying, but she couldn't move. We rubbed her and bathed her. One day her little foot moved enough to touch Dad!! Oh Boy! We all whooped and had fits over it, and Dad did too. That was her first move. Then every day we all took turns, having her kick us. The Doctor had told us that if she ever moved, she could do it again. Oh how she tried, it took years. She wanted to go with the boys, and they took her, or she followed them anyway. Dock was real good to help her when she got behind.
Grandad's old friends would come, Uncle Stith (rhymes with 'with') Edmonson, Cousin Alex Moore and Lemuel Daniels. They would sit on the front porch and rare back and tell their old jokes and spit ---Ha Ha--- I never was interested. Sis never was afraid of anybody. The Boone boys--- they all had to play horse shoes with her. Along the side of the porch, by the fireplace, Sis might take two steps and fall, no matter. She would get up and go two more. She never had crutches. Someone always helped her to walk. She would hold to the porch and go to the other end. We would hand her the horseshoes. She would throw them and pull on the porch and go to the other end and do it again. Her arms and legs kept getting strength and she kept going, and going.
Doctor Rains brought Sis into this world. She hated him for the polio doctoring, and he couldn't make her well. But when he died, she remembers slipping off down the little bluff, behind the house and crying, she was 5. Doctor Rains had to cross the Brazos by horseback, in mid winter and he died of pneumonia in 1912.
The Bees
Us kids were always on the look-out for a bee tree in the woods. We would go walking and hunt them. Dad would cut the tree down and get the honey. Sometimes there would be a gallon, sometimes more. He could usually bring the bees to our house to live. He would peck on a wooden box that he had built. The bees would make a little trail and slowly crawl into the box toward the pecking noise. After dark he would cover them with a big cloth and bring them home. Dad had 8 or 10 hives under a little shed, 75 ft back of our house. He would rob them in the fall. He would leave enough honey for them to 'winter on'. In a real hard cold winter, Mama would boil sugar and water and set it out for them to eat. So that they could live, until the flowers bloomed in the spring. Dad had a 'bee smoker' that he held. He would get a little rag on fire and put it in the smoker. Angry bees pranced on their tiptoes and had a high pitched, angry-bee buzzing sound. When Dad gently puffed smoke on them, they settled down.
His 'bee-mask'
It was gauze that fell over his hat and down to his shoulders. He wore long sleeves and gloves. If they had a good year, with rain to make the flowers grow, they could make lots of honey and multiply. They would have a second Queen and divide and fly off to make a second colony. Sometimes they would settle on a tree limb with a quart size bunch of bees. They were all crawling and clinging and hanging down on each other. It wouldn't take them long to move on to a tree that they had scouted out. We left them alone, but we weren't afraid of them. Sis was just getting around---slow and slinging that leg. She went everywhere we did and had to be right in it. Us kids were all outside near the shed with the beehives. We heard an unusual buzzing and were watching them. We saw a swarm of bees coming out of a hive. Dad was gone. We wanted to save that swarm. We set Sis next to the box that we wanted them to go in. We started her to pecking on that beehive box with a little stick. We told her that whatever happened--she was to sit still and keep pecking. She was proud to do that.
Suddenly, a big bunch of bees swarmed out!! They flew all together and a big glob settled on her. We all run, Sis was to slow to move. We were all scared to death. We told her to keep pecking and we would do the talking. She didn't make a sound--but the pecking. She kept pecking. The bees settled down, they moved toward the pecking. They made a little trail and went through the little hole in the bottom, up to the pecking sound.
Of course we called Mama. She couldn't do anything but stand back and encourage Sis. "Now, just keep on pecking, they are going into the box." As most of them got off of her, Mama would tell her, "Reach over and shake your sleeve just a little and get that bunch of bees to moving." In a little bit she would say, "Now shake your skirt on this side and these bees will start moving." We were so proud of her. If we had grabbed her, or if she had jumped or screamed, it would have been too bad. She didn't get a sting! She was so brave. Everyone who heard it was amazed that she could save herself---at 4 years old.
The Ice Cream Cone
Mama and Dad's sister, Aunt Oaksie were in town with Etta, she was nearly five. They bought her an ice cream cone she was 'tickled pink'. It was the first one that she ever had. They set her down on the steps outside to eat it. A woman at the top of the steps had on a stylish hobble skirt. She tripped and come rolling down the steps. She knocked Etta over and her ice cream cone was smashed. Etta was bawling and squalling. Aunt Oaksie wanted to whip the woman. Mama told her that it wouldn't do any good. Aunt Oaksie kept telling the woman how bad she was. She left as fast as she could hobble.
Etta remembers when Ludie Marie was born
Stith Edmonson and Alex Moore married Hittson girls. Them and Lemuel Daniel and Grandad liked to set on our porch and talk about old times. When Uncle George come from Arkadelphia, Arkansas---they really had a time. Lemuel Daniel was the first commissioner of Palo Pinto County. His wife was Francis Elizabeth Edmonson, the daughter of Stith Edmonson. He was the first sheriff of Palo Pinto County. (They had a son John, who married Grandad's daughter, Oaksie in 1896. Lemuel Daniel never come to visit after July 24, 1916. That was when John shot Oaksie and then himself. That story is "Oaksie".)" Yes, them old men set on the end of the front porch and told tales and spit. Mama had to cook dinner for them, so many times. They were sitting there the next morning after our sister was born was born, Sept 2, 1912. Me and Anne was tickled to have a sister. I might have been only 5---but I remember. Dad went out there and asked, "What shall we name the baby?" Uncle Stith had a wife and baby, both named Ludie. The wife was called Lude 'Cousin Lude'. They had both died.
There was an old black man, 'N----r George', that helped in the kitchen, there on the ranch, when the nine Hittson girls were growing up. He had TB, most of the girls caught it and died young, in their early 30's. All of them died before their 40th birthday.
"Yes, name her Ludie." (rhymes with Judy)
'Rip', that was all she was ever called at home. Dad gave her that nickname, when she started running around and getting into things. I thought Marie was the prettiest name I had ever heard, no one listened to me. But Mama did later, 'Ludie Marie'. Ludie always said, 'They went to the graveyard and picked a name off a tombstone for me." Anne didn't have time to talk. She was in the kitchen trying to get some dinner cooked for them old men on the porch. Seems like, one of the women that lived in the Tiner house helped her.
Etta remembers the Tarantula
Mama was hoeing in the garden and the big black thing crawled up her leg. She felt it when it got just above her knee. She slapped her hand down over it and pinned it to her leg. It bit her. We run to the house and rang the bell and got Dad out of the field. He hooked up the wagon. Mama called Dr Smith, to meet them at Tom Whatley's house. It was on the road--halfway to Palo Pinto. They met and he doctored it. It made a pretty bad sore on her leg. Ludie was the baby, and they took her with them in the wagon. I wanted to go, but they made me stay with the boys. I remember bawling and squalling---all the time they were gone. "Mama, if you won't ever leave me again--I won't never leave you. Mama, if you won't never leave me again---I won't never leave you." Now they say they aren’t poisonous. Teachers show them, and kids hold them at school.
Halloween
The boys went down under the hill to play dominoes with the family that lived there. They would come back by the graveyard. Sis was just a little tot. She always wanted to be in on everything. Me and her put on white clothes. We carried a piece of Mama's long quilting frame, a white sheet and a lantern up to the graveyard. We waited and waited and thought the boys would never come---we heard them talking and coming. We held the lantern up on the board with the sheet tied to it. We held it high. They got scared and they run. A renter was with the boys. I can still see that man running. Mr. Green run home and fell across his porch, out of breath. He told his wife, "That was the tallest ghost that I ever saw----it reached up ---to the heavens." He wouldn't speak to me and Sis for a long time. We followed the boys as best we could. We got home dragging the frames and the sheet.
(2004, the Hittson cemetery working. Etta is 96, she re-tells this story and points to a grove of oak trees. "That’s the trees right over there, that we waited under." The same oak trees where our Mama saw the Indians slipping around their school house, about 1886.)
The Dead Tree
A big old tree was dead, out our back door. When we washed dishes, we throwed the soapy water out on it and it died. Mama wanted it cut down. Dad was in town. She said, "If we can get it cut down, Dad will have to move it." Cam got the axe. We all got back out of the way. Cam raised the axe and hollared for all of us to stay back out of the way. Cam swung the axe. Ludie was just big enough to run. She went running through-- to get on the porch. Cam slowed the axe down, but it hit her on the head. She screamed. Mama picked her up. Cam was standing there--scared--we all were. We thought she was dead. I screamed, "You've killed our baby! You've killed our baby!" Mama said, "Well if he did, he didn't go to." She was ashamed of me for screaming, I was too. We had took all precautions. It cut Ludies ear, she was scared more than she was hurt. Lots of times we have heard Mama say, "If anybody screams that loud---You can know that they aren't dying."
Etta remembers The Litte Tank.
When it rained and got water in the little tank, that was up in the pasture, us kids liked to play in it. I wore a kind of a long robe to swim in. I decided to walk straight across it, just because I wanted to. The mud was deeper than I thought it would be. The water was up to my neck, I could not swim. I was afraid to call for help, I shouldn't have got out so far. But I got so scared---I hollered for help. The boys saved me. She told it again at 96, "I am so thankful that my brothers saved me."
Etta remembers Miss Callie.
She was the great big fat wife of one of the renters, Callie Smith. Ludie was barely talking and she started calling her, Miss Callie. I don't remember her name. We all loved Miss Callie. It was April Fools and we wanted to 'get something' on her. About half a dozen of us kids went up to her house, about dark. I was to be the one to tell the tale---and did I do it up. We called her out on the porch and I started telling her.
"Our old mule, Speck, has fell off the highest point of the river bluff. And would you come and help pull her back up on top?" It would have killed her dead, if she had fell where I said. I got so tickled, I began crying and Miss Callie thought I was crying over the mule. I was trying to keep from laughing---she thought I was crying. She was willing. She said, "Oh, Yes, I'll do what I can. Let me get my shoes." And she started out. Hanner jumps out of the dark and hollars, "April Fool!!"---and we all did.
Ghosts
It was hot summer time, we were all lined up out on the porch to sleep. Me and Mama got chilly and went in and laid on the bed. The door opened, it was Will Hogan and another man. They were both tall. We both recognized him, and we knew that he was dead. Will said, "O Honey, lay back down, we're just looking around." We pulled the covers over our heads. When we peeped out, they must have done their looking---because they were gone. Will Hogan married one of Uncle Billy's girls, her name was 'Willie'. They had a baby that died mysteriously. After a lot of other trouble, Uncle Billy paid a friend to shoot him. His body was throwed in the hog pen. His coffin was buried with rocks in it. That was to make it weigh right. His grave and tombstone is up in the graveyard. It is on record that Uncle Billy's friend served his sentence by working on the county roads.
Ludie remembers
Me and Sis were sleeping with Mama in her bed. A skeleton was digging at the foot of the bed. We were to scared to wake Mama. We slipped under the covers. When we got nerve enough to look, the skeleton was gone.
The house where we saw these ghosts, it was the one that Aunt Martha and Uncle Billy had lived in. Aunt Martha probably died there. Dad had it torn down in 1924. No one ever saw a ghost in the new house that was built there in1925. We were told that every night at 12 o'clock, ghosts would come down from the cemetery. They would dance on the bluff around the old house and the old log smokehouse. If they did, we never saw them and they never bothered us.
Uncle Billy
We were told that Aunt Martha's ghost would chase Uncle Billy's ghost. Chase him around that old smokehouse of ours, with a butcher knife. Could it be---that Aunt Martha is still sore at Uncle Billy, over his last trip alone? It was a long long time ago when I first heard this old tale.
Uncle Billy's last trip
He would go off on trips, maybe gone a month. Aunt Martha disguised herself one time and followed him. She got on the same train he did. She got off when he did. He rented a buggy. She did too, and stayed way back behind him. He drove a 'good ways' and stopped at a house. Out come a red headed woman and a bunch of red headed kids---so glad to see him. Before he got to hug them all---Aunt Martha got there with her buggy whip. She beat him black and blue. She took him home and he never did take another trip alone.
Modern Ghosts
The house that Dad had built in 1925 has been moved away. No one ever saw ghosts in it. Dock's daughter, Linda Lou says,"I lived on that place for 16 years and never saw a ghost. Nor did my Dad or Mother, or Sister, Betty Sue, or any of our children."
Etta remembers, "I always wanted to cut my hair."
Dad wouldn't let me. One time Hanner cut one of my braids off. He knew that I wanted it cut. Mama had to trim it so it wouldn't show, and put it up in corkscrew curls. They had to be rolled on a rag every night. I would cut it a little bit at a time, Dad never noticed.
Our Toy
One of our best toys was two buggy wheels with an axle between them. We would push it up toward the graveyard and set on the axle, and ride it down toward the house. There was nothing but the axle to set on. We could go pretty far before we fell off. (Ludie thought so much of them---they were still setting in her yard in 2005.) We thought we were having a good time---just like you do now.
Etta remembers learning to swim
Ida Moore, our neighbor to the south, called us to meet her and her kids, Henry and Betty Marie (Bib), at Oaks Crossing, so we could all play in the water. Mama met her there with me, JM and Ludie. Me and Bib were setting on a big rock. It was over our heads and shallow a little further out. Henry and JM could swim. They told us that we should push off of that rock, and swim. Then our feet could touch bottom. Our Mamas did not know that we were in water over our heads. I learned to swim that day. On the way back home, us girls were holding hands and running ahead. There was a little hole that had washed out by the bank and we jumped in the water. It was over our heads. Ida pulled Bib out of the water, she was passed out. Ludie remembers being scared. "Seeing Ida holding Bib up by the feet, and seeing all that red water running out of her." Ida carried her up toward the crossing where her Dad, Fritz was. He brought her to.
Halloween
The boys rode to town on their horses. The nearest road into town was through 'colored town'. There was a little park and there along the road were three little outhouses. Hanner roped one and pulled and tipped it over. There set a colored woman!! (Etta told this on Feb 8, 2005, the first time I ever heard this tale, Anne Louise Moore)
Copyright © 2004-2005 by Anne Louise Moore - All rights reserved.