Joseph Mote Gill, Junior ('Toon', rhymes with spoon)
Before JM was to be born, they took me and Sis to Gran Ma Hess's. We rode in the old buggy that Granmama gave us, when she got her new one. Etta was 10 years old and cried for Mama. They called the next morning and said it was a false alarm. Dad was coming after us. Etta couldn't wait, she was squalling, she started out walking, throwing that bad leg. I was walking along the road with her. Walter Daniel come along on his horse and got her to ride a ways with him. We got home. "Mama, I ain't never going off and leave you again! Mama I ain't never going off and leave you again!" The next time Etta and I spent the night in the house up the hill. She could look out and see home, that satisfied her.
Etta remembers the day that JM was born---August 20, 1917
"We had a tree of little Indian peaches, I had been watching them and they just wouldn't get ripe. Indian peaches are reddish outside, a dark red around the seed, they taste good. That morning I went out and ate a bunch. I had the worse stomach ache I ever had. Finally, I had to tell Mama. She said castor oil would fix it. We had some oranges. I squeezed the cup half full of juice, and she put the castor oil on top. Oh, it would taste awful, and so I asked her if she could put some whisky in it. I climbed to the top of the cabinet and brought the bottle to Mama. She poured it on top. That was the awful-est I ever tasted. My stomach ache was fixed after a while. That was the last green peaches I ever ate."
The night that JM was born
There was a crowd at the house. Grandad was there, he was there a lot. Along about dark, Dad and the boys went to the barn to sleep. Grandad went with them, he said, "If Mote don't quit having them dammed kids, I'm going to quit coming over here." JM said he knew it was true because, "Whenever we walked the 100 yds up to the barn, Hanner would laugh and tell me again". JM told that to Jack and Margaret Hamby, (Tid's daughter) in 1999. It was when they brought the Confederate marker stone, to put on Grandad's grave.
The Parole
Dora and Don were going through Aunt Anne's (Dads youngest sister) things, emptying out her house, after she died. Margaret bought a few of her things. There was a big box, just out the back door, they were filling it up. Margaret asked about that box. They said,
"We are throwing all that away. You can have anything out of there that you want."
Margaret said, "Well I would like to have this.” Out of the trash she picked up a 5 X 7 frame. It held the 'parole' that Grandad received when he was released, after his outfit had been 'cut up' and was captured by the Yankees, at the close of the Civil War. It looks like it has been folded and carried for years, very faded. (Many thanks to whoever put it in the frame, under glass and saved it. Margaret used the parole in that frame to get the Confederate marker for his grave.)
JM weighed 14 pounds
Sis just took him over. She wanted to take care of him, all the time. By then she didn't have to watch Ludie so much-- to keep her from eating dirt. But she just ruined Ludie in school. She did all her homework and wrote her stories. Sis had headaches for years. Ludie remembers--- Sis would beg, "Mama, make them kids walk easy."
JM was little
Mama took us to the county fair. Dock was driving a Model T Ford. Mama told him to stop and she would buy hot tamales from that old man that always peddles them on the street. Mama was handing them back to us and we were eating them, shuck and all. That old man was finally killed, when a car backed out over him. JM was grown by then.
Etta remembers AJ
JM was about a year old and I was 10. Mama and Mrs. Green were hoeing in the garden. I was watching kids. A bird flew up out of the grass close to us. I said, "There is a bird nest out there." AJ was about six years old. He jumped up and run out in the grass looking for the bird nest. He found a hole and put his hand in it. A copperhead snake bit him. I had to go for Dad and Mr. Green plowing in the back field. They put AJ in the wagon and met Dr. Smith on the road to Palo Pinto and he gave him treatment. His hand and arm was awful black and swelled for about ten days. He was a sick little boy. I was awful scared---He said that I said for him to, "Stick your hand in that hole." I didn't even know there was a hole there. Oh, I was thankful that he got well.
The Fuss
Mama, Julia, just heard of one fuss between Mote and his Pap. He called him 'Pap'. They were setting out on the porch and Mote come in the house and told Julia to pack, because they were going to move before night. Mote saddled his horse and said he was going to Cousin Alex Moore's. His wife, Mattie was one of Uncle Billy's girls. Their ranch was on the river too, down the hill from ours. Julia went out on the porch and asked Pap about it. He told her to go on---and not pack and it would be all right. Sure enough it was, and they never told her why.
Grandad was at our house a lot
We would sleep on the porch when it was hot, on pallets. We would make a little smoke in a bucket to keep the mosquitoes run off. Then when it was at its hottest, sometimes hard to breathe, Grandad would, pant, "That (heat) is coming right out of Old Mexico."
(n-----s)
It was hard to get good renters. One time Grandad thought he would put n-----s in the old schoolhouse to live and work for us. They stayed one night. He went by the next morning and seen about them. They were wanting to leave. They said, "All night long--- white people went round and round the house, saying, "We're coming in out of the rain, we're coming in out of the rain. " We knew no one had bothered them---because no one knew they were up there. They left. We were taught to hate blacks. They were said to be mean or lazy. None lived around in the country, for us to find out different.
Etta remembers once during hay bailing time, a bunch of the farmers come to our house for dinner. A black man was working for one of them and he come to our house to eat. Mama was calling him 'Mr.'---Dad told her to call him 'uncle'. That’s what Dad learned to call them, when he lived with his Aunt Tildy, and went to high school in Alabama. Mama was flabbergasted when Dad told her to have the man eat at the little table on the back porch by himself. Mama filled his plate and he ate quietly. Etta thought the black man would fuss and there would be trouble, but he didn't.
Palo Pinto was a 'Lilly-White' town. No blacks lived in Palo Pinto---ever. They could come and buy things and then leave. We all remember the signs on the road, on both sides of town. " N----r don't let the sun go down on you here." One time they brought Mexicans in to pick cotton, but we couldn't understand them.
Etta Jazzie remembers
That was the name they gave me, when I was born. It is written like that in some of the old bibles. I never did like that name 'Jazzie'. I was about 10 tears old when I finally talked Mama into letting me change it to 'Javerne'. Mama sure did make me happy.
The Tyner house
A family named Tyner lived on Grandad's place. Mrs Tyner died. Dad had them move onto our place, they lived there several years. Rosamond, Bill and Johnnie were our ages. We all went to school together and worked in the garden and field together. Mama fed that family many a meal. That was always called the 'Tyner' house.
Etta remembers the school books
May 1918 and it was a beautiful day in Pleasant Valley. School was almost out. Me and Rosamond Tyner were on our way home from school. We had our old 4th grade readers. We had gone through that same book for the second time and had nearly memorized it. The teacher promised that she would keep trying to get us a new reader for the next year. We thought those old books wouldn't be used again. We stopped in this creek to burn those readers. I never had burned a book and didn't know how hard it was. They wouldn't catch fire. It was taking so much time to burn them--we knew that we had to get home. So we dug a hole in the creek bed and buried the two readers. We hurried on home. Later it come a big rain and washed the books up. Hanner and Black found them. They said they were going to tell Mama. I don't think they ever did. The teacher come back in the fall, she still could not get any new readers. She said that we had to go over the same readers again. When it come time for us to read, Ellen Boone would slip us her book. The teacher never did notice it, we did not need to study. The moral of this story---don't think that you can burn a book in a few minutes.
Etta remembers her britches
It was late in the year and cold in the mornings. We still had some cotton to pick and it was to damp to start early. I hunted out some of Hanners old outgrowed overalls. I took up the straps and pinned and got them to fit me. Dad called, "Come on let's go." I come out with the overalls on, I was warm. Dad said, 'No girl of mine is going to wear britches. You go put your dress on." Later Mama did get to wearing britches in the garden and we got to wearing them in the field. We had to pull them off, the minute that we stepped in the house. When it was that time of year, me, Etta and Ludie hoed cotton and corn. Then when it was time, we picked it. There was no fussing or complaining. You just did it. You didn't cross Dad. We never worked hard enough to hurt ourselves.
Etta remembers the Soda Pop
An old man from town, one of Grandad's friends, liked to come out and fish. He had an old buggy with no top. He brought his own food and bedding and slept in the barn. Hanner knew he had something to drink, in brown bottles, he said it was good to drink. Me and Black wanted to try his soda-pop. It was covered up in a box, in the back of his buggy. We got into it while he was fishing. It was hot, it didn't taste good. Hanner said it would taste good if we put salt in it. He run to the house and got salt. He put a little in and it still wasn't good, it got to foaming. It never did taste good, even when we filled the bottle with salt. We found out later that it was beer.
The Dance
Dad had some cows on the land across the river that Grandma Hess gave Mama. He wanted to build a barn on it to keep hay and feed in. The old schoolhouse, up by the graveyard wasn't being lived in any longer. It had lumber in it that could be used to build a barn. He had some neighbor boys tearing down the old schoolhouse. He told them, "Boys we'll have a dance some night, if you do a good job and tear it down to the clean floor." Dad went to Arkansas in a few days. The boys asked Mama about having a dance. She hesitated. They reminded her, "Mote said it was OK."
So they hung lanterns and had a dance. Mama took a bucket of water to drink at the dance. JM, barely 3, was toddling around and fell in it. It was kinda cool after dark. Mama had to slip back and pull off one of her petticoats to wrap JM up in. It was square dancing, Fox Trot was just starting. Any girl that danced the Fox Trot, she had her good name ruined. There was a good crowd and we all had a good time. Mama's youngest brother, Uncle Charlie, he played his fiddle, we always liked that.
He was the only one of us that ever had an instrument or could ever play anything. He played with someone from up around Fairview. He started playing young, he was playing before 1900. Uncle Charlie died July 10, 1978. Nothing was took out of their house, which became Wallace's, until Wallace died May 20, 1987.
Uncle Charlie's Fiddle
Ludie got his old fiddle, nobody in the family played any instrument. It had several cracks, and under the strings, the wood was worn paper thin. It had come unglued nearly all over. It has no name or printing inside, 'Stainer' is stamped deep, in the outside on the back. It gathered dust under Ludie's bed, in its old wooden 'casket case' for over 10 years. She gave it to Thelmer Moore---to hand down in the family. He had it rebuilt, it still has its old brown color, it looks old, and has a real good tone. Uncle Charlie put rattlesnake rattles in his old fiddle, to keep dampness out. They are still there. Thel plays on it and sings at the same time, His favorite songs to play and sing are "In the sweet By and By" and "I Come to the Garden Alone" "And he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own."
'Mad as all git out'
Dad got home and found out about the dance. Etta remembers he got 'mad as all git-out'. He asked Mama, "What did you mean, letting them have a dance up there, nearly in sight of the graveyard, where my Pap lay buried, just a few months?" She reminded him,"You said they could." He said, "I thought you knew that I didn't mean it." He tore the floor down in a few days.
The Pasture Fire
Me and Dad had gone to town. Mama saw smoke to the south and could tell it was big. She called town. There were several cafes, and grocery stores. If Dad wasn't there, inside, they would step outside and call him. Dad got Mama's message. He found me on the wagon. He told me, "Your Mammy's out there fighting fire. I've got to ride my horse and go help her. You stay here and come home with the Flowers." We all liked the Flowers. They had three girls, Mayme, Murtes, and Muriel. Our Mama set up with their Mama many a night. She finally died having her fourth girl. They lived across from us on the Blue Pond side of the river. The sand was deep over there. Walking in it, anyone would sink 3 or 4 inches, over shoes or bare feet. That sand got hotter than any other sand. We would run along, from little weed, to little weed, to get to a shady spot. I rode home with them and walked across the river a mile to our house. The river was real low, it was most of the time. The kids were all little. Mama told them, "Stay right here in the house." She walked to some new neighbors and they were home. She told them to hitch up teams and get ahead of the fire and start plowing. The wind was high---there were not enough men plowing. They couldn't keep the fire back. It jumped the plowed line once, it was moving north and into our pasture. Dad got to the fire line and Mama was fighting it with a shovel. Finally, help kept coming---until the fire was put out. Mama stopped that fire. Some fishermen on the river had let their campfire get out.
Neighbors
John Trollinger and his wife Genive, were neighbors. She died of consumption. She was the only one of the Trollingers that ever had the TB. The man took a couple of wide boards off the barn and made a nice looking casket. Mama was one of the neighbor women who came to get her ready for burial. She came on a horse and brought JM. She tied the horse and JM, off out under a tree. The neighbor women washed and dressed her in her 'Sunday Best' and fixed her hair. The prettiest quilt that she had made, they spread it in the coffin. She was laid in it, in her living room. They spread a cloth, damp with vinegar, over her face, to keep her from turning dark. They all watched to keep the cats out of the room. After they finished, the women changed, into other clothes they had brought from home. They burned the clothes they had took off, they knew TB was catching. No one was ever to busy to help a neighbor. Mama untied the horse and she untied JM and they rode home. JM always remembered--and he always resented--being tied out with the horse. "Why couldn't Mama do something else, anything, and not tie me out with the horse?"
Neighbor men dug the grave up at the Hittson graveyard. A wreath of small cedar branches was laid around the open grave. There was a song or two, prayers and usually there was a preacher living near enough to be there. Leather harness lines were placed under the casket and it was lowered into the ground. Family and friends helped until the dirt was all piled back on. There were no flowers, later a field rock had her name scratched on, and it was put at the head of her grave. Pieces of china cups or plates or a china doll head, was laid on the mounded grave.
Hittson Cemetery Working
A historical marker was put up at the gate in 1982. The first Saturday in May and October has always been the date for the Hittson. "Cemetery working" Each cemetery has different date set for its working. Neighbors gather to clean the graves that have no family around close, to keep it looking nice. This tradition is still carried on at the Hittson Cemetery, come and join us. There is 'Dinner on the Ground' in May, and good visiting, after the cleanup. In 1975 there were 101 graves, the oldest birth date is 1798. The oldest death date is 1861. It is on Jesse Hittson's marker, he lived 60 years. The average years that the people lived, was 48.8 years. 20graves have no names, 18 have no date.
THE RESTING PLACE (Hittson Cemetery)
A sense of peace clings to each grave
Like moss to the north side of trees.
A natural gift from God's own hand
Pointing to the great reunion that is to be.
This is a garden of faith and hope
Growing in this sacred, hallowed place,
A pathway leading ever upward outward
Where troubled hearts meet God face to face.
Like the trees shadowing this resting place
The winds whisper quietly of God's love.
As do the soft songs of the mocking bird
And the muted voice of the mourning dove.
All are a part of this hallowed land
Nestled in a river's wide smile.
A land sheltering pioneer, poet, soldier, heroes all.
And others who also walked the extra mile.
Oh the joys in a walk of faith,
Especially when cradled by the hallowed land.
We know a peace that knows no bounds
When softly touched by God's own hand.
By Leon Sutherland
The Jones family
The nicest family with a whole bunch of kids, moved into the old Tyner house. They rented farmland and bought a span of mules from Dad to farm with. We had more fun, we all went to school together. Joe had a banjo. That fall, Mr. Jones said, "You kids pick my cotton and I’ll wait and pay you at the end. You will have lots of money then." We had a good time. Dad never picked over 100 pounds of cotton in a day. He never expected us to do any better than he did. So we never hurt ourselves. Hanner always liked to gaze up---and watch that buzzard sail around. Sis didn't pick much, but she went along and done her best, and she kept books. Every time the sacks got full or were very heavy, they were weighed. Every pound counted, Sis said that I picked a whole bale. Mr. Jones put our cotton-picking money on his other debts. Sis got so mad, when she saw they were going to move and not pay. She said, "I'm going to keep Joe's banjo". She started down to their house, alone. We run and told Dad. He said, "Let her go, she will be all right." I trailed along and kept quiet. Joe begged, "I've just got to keep my banjo--It's all I've got, and all I'll ever get." They drove off in their wagon, driving Dad's mules. The family was setting on top of their belongings. Joe was perched up on the very top, playing his banjo. Sis Yelled, "Don't forget that you owe us for that cotton picking, don't make any difference how long, we'll never forget it." Dad finally got his money for the mules.
Copyright © 2004-2005 by Anne Louise Moore - All rights reserved.