Grandad and Granmama got to Palo Pinto County in 1875
They built their big log cabin in 1876, a year after they got to Texas from Alabama. We have the original State and County Tax Receipt for his 1876 taxes. It is dated February 12, 1877. He paid $2.85 taxes on his 100 acres. That included $1 for state Poll Tax. Sheriff J. T. Wilson was the tax collector. Grandad paid his tax bill with a $5 bill and received $2.15 in change. (Thanks to Julia Jean, Hanner's daughter, she rescued and framed this and several other papers).
Mineral Wells
Mineral water was found in the hills, less than two miles north of them. They watched as a little town grew there. When Grandad was 40, he said he was too old to work any more. He soon sold most of his 100 acres, but the house and garden. He lived 28 more years.
Grandad slowed down. He wasn't able to make the trips to Arkansas. He was a 'good hand' to go to town and set on the street all day. He liked to straddle his horse and go and watch this crew or that. He would tell them what to do, and how to do it. They knew he didn't know any more than they did--and they didn't like it.
Alex Moore,( His wife, Bettie, was one of Uncle Billy's girls.) 'Cousin Alex', was our neighbor across the road to the south, on the river too. He had a son, Fritz, that was grown. They got crossways with each other. They were close to shooting each other---just looking for the opportunity.
Dad kinda patched it up between them. They would at least get together in a crowd. They always acted like they appreciated what he had done. Fritz had a son, Fritz Alex.
Alex's windmill quit on him. It had to have the sucker rod pulled. That was a big job and all the neighbors come in to help. You never were too busy to help a neighbor. Mr. Boone was there with his young son Ashby. Ashby got in Fritz's way. Fritz told him, "Get back out of the way. You are as bad as 'Old Man Simon Gill', to get in the way." They called the boy, 'Simon' after that, Ashby was forgotten. He was 'Simon Boone' the rest of his life, until his obituary.
'Back Home'
Fred, their granddaughter, that they raised was going to school in Mineral Wells in 1914. They bought a house in town, so that she would be closer to school. Grandad decided that he wanted to 'go back home'. So they cleaned up their old log house and moved back in it, for about a year. Grandad felt that he was really 'back home'. He 'scouted' out a good place in the yard, under the biggest tree. After supper he took his chair out there and parked his self.
Suddenly--- SPLAT----on top of his head and down his face!!---
So much--- the smell. The aw-ful smell. They did not know that hoot owls had started roosting in that tree. Granmama just laughed and laughed about it. The grocery store and the hardware store in town, they got holt of it.
He would walk in, "Mr Gill, did you and the owls meet up again, last night?"
The Little Bullet
It was left over from the Civil War, in Grandad's arm above his elbow. He let me, Anne, feel of it one time. Etta remembers him letting her feel of the bullet. That’s the only time that she remembers touching him. I was always kinda afraid of Grandad. It was just his way of talking. Dad was just like him. Kids didn't go to their house to get hugged.
'Old Stingy Gut'
Grandad cared for Ludie and JM. He would bring them little sacks of candy. One time him and Granmama was coming to see us in their buggy. He asked her if she had any candy for them, she thought he had some in his pocket. He said, "Well, we have to go back and get some candy. If we didn't, Ludie would say, "Old Stingy Gut--- Old Stingy Gut".
He was well all his life except the last year. He would start out in the woods after dark. Granmama could find him, because he had on his long white underwear. He would have nightmares. It was always blacks trying to get him. He would cower in his bed and scream and try to fight.
Grandad finally died in 1919. He was 'layed out' in his 'Sunday Best' in his casket, and set in his living room. Family and friends set around, just like he was alive, around the clock. No one ever uses a broom in the room, where a corpse lays. JM went in to see him, he was almost three. He told everybody, "Gran Paps' asleep" Ludie was 7, Etta was 12. He was buried in the Hittson grave yard, they weren't cemeteries yet. Before that, they were,' burying places.'
The Little Black Box
It belonged to Grandad, it was a little bigger than a cigar box. It always set out, on a chest. No one had ever dared to touch it, until after he died. It was empty!! No money!! No papers!! Nothing showing how much money that Dad had paid on the Hittson Ranch, those last twelve years. Dad went to the bank, not a dime had Grandad paid on our ranch. He had kept the taxes and interest paid. No one knew where all that money went. I didn't think that he ever gave Granmama any. She made her own money. She milked cows, and sold milk, butter, eggs and sometimes chickens, when she got some ahead. In her garden she raised blackberries, dewberries and she got 100 pounds of sugar every year, to make jelly. She sold anything that she raised. She had a regular buggy route, regular customers in town.
Grandad, Him!---blowing money on Arkansas trips.
Grandad, Him!---buying the house in town.
Mote's kids, work, work, work. We knew that place had to be paid for. All those bales of cotton that we planted, hoed, picked and sold. Corn we raised and fed to hogs and we sold them and mules too.
Dad butchered a hog several times every summer and sold part of it among the neighbors. We could buy ice, and bring it home wrapped in an old quilt. But fresh meat had to be cooked in a hurry.
The only buggy that we ever had was Granmama's old one. After she wore it out and bought her a new one. We didn't have braided rugs for our floors. We wore our clothes OUT.
The Oil Lease
Etta remembers when she was a little kid that an oil company paid $1900, to lease the Hittson ranch, to drill for oil. One well was drilled and nothing ever come of it. Oil was found on the Boone land, they bought a place and moved to Palo Pinto where their kids could go to school better. Grandad took the money, to pay on the ranch. He went on a trip to Arkansas, when he come back, he had nothing. They knew he hadn't paid any on the place before he left.
Me and Etta remember Granmama's words. "That place should never have been in Marsh's name. This is where we get something done." She had Dad get busy and have papers made out -- to get the Hittson ranch in Mama and Dad's names. Grandad signed them. Aunt Sudie, Aunt Jennie, Aunt Anne and their husbands, they all thought they should have a part, 'It was all in Grandad's name.' Granmama told them all, that the place had always been Dad's. And that he had been paying on it for years. They were satisfied. The ranch was in Dad and Mama's name for several years. But Dad had kept on giving Grandad the money to pay on the loan.
So after Grandad died---we had to keep paying, on what we figured that we had nearly already paid for. The Hittson Ranch was paid off in 1925, 6 years later. None of us ever talked about it.
In 1994, it was 75 years after Grandad died. Black (Theodore) was asked if he had, "that big framed picture of Grandad". Black softly said, "I wouldn't have a picture of him in my house." Leona his wife, said, "I didn't know that." They had been married 68 years. Black was 17 when his Grandad died, he had never talked about it. None of us ever talked about it. Miss Ola, one of Mama Gills sitters, in later years, she heard of all his trips to Arkansas. "Don't you know, that he had a girl friend there?" This was told to Margaret, Uncle George's granddaughter in Arkansas, Little Motes daughter. She laughed, "If he did, I never did hear about it."
Copyright © 2004-2005 by Anne Louise Moore - All rights reserved.