Palo Pinto Schools · Moore Family Stories

Palo Pinto Schools

There were better schools in Palo Pinto and they went up through the 8^th grade. Aunt Jennie was always wanting me to spend a week with her. Aunt Jennie and Uncle Aaron asked me to stay with them and go to school in Palo Pinto. I stayed two years, during the school year, of my 7^th and 8^th grade.

The Mail Hack

Dad would take me to Mineral Wells and I would ride with Mr. Lewis to Palo Pinto. In 1910, Mr. Lewis signed a contract for $3 a month to carry the mail between the two towns. He hauled freight and sometimes passengers, for 16 years. One day he told me, "This is your last trip and them goats will be paid for. You tell your Dad." He had bought some goats from Dad and hadn't ever paid for them. That was the first that I knew what they were doing. I never rode with him again. Dad would take me the 12 miles to Palo Pinto in the wagon.

Aunt Jenny and Uncle Aaron had a son that was born and died the day before Mama and Dad's big wedding. Aunt Jennie always kinda blamed Mama and Mama never could figure out why. Their son, Thomas Gill Jordan, 'Tom', their only child was a year younger than me. He married Christene Cleveland, they had a daughter Margaret H. She was born September 6, 1927, she died the same day, their only child.

Oliver Lee Hindman ('Cactus'). Aunt Jennie and Uncle Aaron raised him from the time that he was seven. In the early 1870's his father and his wife, his father's twin sister and her husband---and two neighbor men, who were brothers, and their wives, left Cedar Creek, Alabama, to come to Texas. The eight of them rode horse back and each led a horse carrying their bedding and supplies, as they camped on their way to Texas. Then the 4 couples separated. In a few years, Thomas Clement Hindman had bought land. He eventually owned 4,000 acres SW of Palo Pinto. He was a sheriff deputy when the only man ever hanged in Palo Pinto County, was a man by the name of Love. He was elected sheriff for one term. His first three wives died, and he married Uncle Aaron's sister, Fannie. They lived in town and would ride out to their ranch often, to see about their cattle. Usually Oliver was riding behind one of them.

Good Friday 1904

The three of them were on the way to their ranch and when they got to the Gordon road, it come up a freezing rain. They took off in a fast lope. Their clothes were frozen on them. His Mother and Father (Oliver’s) both took pneumonia, and never got over it. His father died in a year. Two years later, the day before his Mother died, she gave him to Aunt Jennie.

Pocket Knife

One Christmas they gave Oliver a good pocket knife, just like he had been wanting. He accidentaly cut his eye and was blinded in that one eye. Uncle Aaron and Aunt Jenny felt so bad about that. Aunt Jenny especially grieved---every time she looked at him---there was that eye. After that, no one in our family will give anyone a knife. If they cut their self, you will feel so bad, kinda like you did it yourself. No one wants to feel as bad as Aunt Jennie. Oliver married and it didn't work out, he died childless. On weekends and when he could get any time off, Uncle Aaron and Tom and Oliver would jump on their horses and rush out to the ranch and see about things. Every dollar he got, they bought another cow. He was a rancher on weekends, Sheriff, the rest of the time. Uncle Aaron did a lot of politic'n on the court house square.

School Programs

There were lots of them, the whole community always come. Everybody was encouraged to do something on stage. Uncle Aaron was big and gruff. As sheriff, he was head of everything. He went to the platform, he let it get real quiet. He boomed out,

"THE LIGHTNIN‘ FLASHED - THE THUNDER ROARED" and then whispered, "the old hens squatted, and all the little chickens run under her." Everybody just roared.

Another time he boomed out, "I WAS BORN AWAY OUT ON GUADELUPE MOUNTAIN - 365,000 MILES FROM LAND - AND I'M A ROOTIN-TOOTIN, SON –OF - A - GUN"

There was always a big community Christmas tree at the court house. It went clean to the ceiling, everybody decorated it. There was music and singing, plays and little gifts for all. Etta never did like to spend the night away from home. She remembers one Christmas that Aunt Jennie talked her into staying with her and she had a big time. She got two pretty little blue dress-pins at the Christmas tree. She still has them, put up somewhere. Aunt Jennie made her a pretty pink dress, another time. Aunt Jenny, she was nice to all of us. Maybe--- because she just had the one son---

The Jail

The jail was a separate rock building. It had a built-in place to hang a person. It was built over the stairs going up to the second floor. It never was used to hang anyone. Before the jail was built, a man was hung. A scaffold was built out on the street for that.

The prisoners were upstairs, there never were over 5 or 6. They didn't like their food, it was always cold, after it had being walked over, from the café. They complained that they could smell the good food, that the jailer's wife was cooking downstairs--- where the jailer lived with his family. The jailer quit. Uncle Aaron couldn't find a jailer to hire. He said, "For us---not to think that we were to good to live in that jail."

We moved into the jail out of their nice big home. Aunt Jennie cooked for all of us always a desert, usually a cobbler of some kind. Uncle Aaron, Tom and Oliver carried food up to the prisoners. I peeled potatoes and helped, and washed their dishes with ours. "Why not?---they were humans just like us." Once in a while there would be a woman in jail. There was a private room up there, that he could put her in. Uncle Aaron or a deputy took their visitors upstairs, to see them.

'The Killing'

There had been a 'killing' at Mineral Wells. The one who did it-- he had been caught and he was in the jail where we lived. Just at dark, a crowd started coming over the hill, from Mineral Wells. Such a string of car lights!! We were all scared to death---that they were coming to try to bust him out of jail. Come to find out, there was a big "to-do," that night at the big Odd Fellow Lodge. Dad was an Odd Fellow, he went to the meetings there, about three times a year. That was the biggest scare that we ever had. We never were afraid of the prisoners in the jail. The old jail is a museum now. You can go and see where I lived, when I went to school in Palo Pinto.

Later, Uncle Aaron was bringing a black prisoner into the courthouse. Uncle Aaron accidentally stumbled on the steps, and shot and killed him.

Measles

W.A. Jordan, Uncle Aaron's nephew, came to visit them. He was getting over the measles, three of us took them. Some of my girl friends come, and tried to catch them. They wanted to get out of school, they didn't catch them. I was in bed, really broke out. That’s when my hearing got worse. Aunt Jennie just never could stand for anybody to say, "The measles settled in Anne's ears." I kinda got over them in April. I didn't go home until it was safe that my brothers wouldn't take them.

We lived in that quiet bend of the Brazos and weren't exposed to the childhood diseases. None of us eight kids, ever had the Chicken Pox, until our kids brought it home from their school and gave it to us. Because we were grown, it made us all sicker than our kids were. I just couldn't keep from scratching.

Graduation

There were 8 or10 in my eighth grade graduation in Palo Pinto. That’s as far as it went. Students come from all country schools to go to school for the two extra years. On our graduation program, we all sang. There were goats. City girls would "try" to ride them. Country girls "could" ride them.

We were all in the class play. "Not a Man in the House." Here---would come a little mouse. Us girls were dressed as women, and we would scream and climb up on chairs, and scream, "There's not a man in the house!"

We were making fun of women wanting to vote. It was five years before women were allowed to vote. And then I voted in Palo Pinto. The year I turned twenty one. That was the lowest voting age then. I voted for Uncle Aaron, but he didn't get back in for sheriff again.

Ninth Grade

The next school year, for the ninth grade I planned to stay with Granmama and go to school with Fred in Mineral Wells. They had bought a house in town and we could walk to school together. I started to school, in Mineral Wells, I always tried to sit on the front seat. The English teacher, saved those seats for her favorites. She set me on the back seat. Before long, she asked me a question and then louder said, "You answer me---or I'll see that you do!" A friend of mine told her, "She is deaf and don't even know that you are talking to her." I was boiling mad, I had always had kind teachers. I had it all planned,---to meet her in the hall and make her apologize to me. I met her in the hall---and I was struck dumb, I couldn't say a word. The school soon sent word to Dad that, "Anne is deaf and can't go to school." In those days, 'deaf' was pronounced to rhyme with 'leaf'.

I never thought about it---but Dad had always been a trustee. He had hired every teacher that I had until I went to school at Palo Pinto. And there, everyone knew that my uncle was the sheriff.