Memories

Farmersville, Texas - The Roots

1911-1915 • My First Four Years

My grandfather, E. H. Pendleton, came to Farmersville on a spotted pony with a wagon train in 1858 from Rye Cove, Virginia. He returned to fight for the confederacy a few years later. My maternal grandfather H. U. Keller came from Hiawasee College, Tennessee in 1878 with his wife and three year old daughter, my mother Mamie. Their first year Mr. Keller worked as a hired hand on a farm and they lived in a two room house, one room of which had a dirt floor. Enroute to Texas, the train came only as far as Terrell, Texas and then they rode by wagon three days and nights to Farmersville. Mr. Keller preached the gospel (methodist), when not working, so his family never practiced dancing or cards. My mother, the little three year old, enjoyed the camp fires, square dancing and music by the wagon drivers each night. She said it was the most fun she remembered ever and since then she always wanted to be able to dance but never learned because of religious training.

At about five years of age mother had great plans to ride the train from Copeville to Farmersville to visit a relative. She slept in the loft and said she was up well before dawn and ready to leave. She was gazing out the window waiting for the sunrise when a terrible rainstorm struck. Streams of tears fell on her pretty dress as she realized it would be too muddy to reach the Copeville station so her trip was ruined. Her most miserable disappointment ever.

Mr. El Pendleton, as he was called, had six sons and two daughters and later many grandchildren. He was a strict disciplinarian and a wonderful father. One Sunday morning my father was examining a white collar for his shirt when Mr. El came in the room. Mr. El said "Son, if its doubtful it's dirty".

I was born January 18, 1911. On that day Norma and Hugh were in a neighbors field gathering weedwax and stretchberries to make chewing gum. The three older girls were seated downstairs for they knew what was going on upstairs. When the doctor came down he invited them to go on up and see their little brother (me). I was the last of six children.

All Mr. El's six sons worked on a large farm near Nevada, about ten miles southeast of our town. They all later went to Texas A & M College. My dad Fred Pendleton, entered A & M in 1890 in the third class (sophomore) and left after the 1892 "Final Graduation and Hop" in June 1892. He went to work at that time for the Farmer Cotton Oil Company of Farmersville. Although he was only a junior at the 1892 graduation, he sent out invitations anyway. Although he was going steady with Mamie Keller, he did not invite her because her father would never let her come to the "hop". He therefore sent an invitation to a beautiful girl in Indian Territory whom he had met when buying cottonseed near Durant, Oklahoma. More than 60 years later that invitation was found after the lady died and her daughter sent it to me. I thought the story would please mother so I showed it to her at our large Christmas Breakfast. She was furious though dad had died years before. She later agreed so the invitation today rests in the archives at College Station, Texas.

In 1892 at A & M, dad roomed with Johnny Honaker, also of Farmersville, and two of dad's brothers, four in all. Johnny lived to be 100 and became Texas A & M's oldest alumnus at that time and was given an "honors party" at his Farmersville home attended by five A & M officials and a few family friends. He was questioned for more than an hour and his mind was very clear that day. News stories of the 100 year old aggie appeared throughout the United States. When ask by one editor how they came home at Christmas etc., he said they came by train through Hillsboro to Dallas, waited over an hour or two, then caught the train to Farmersville. What did they do during the wait over? "Well", he said, "I just looked at all the stores up the street, but for the others there was a saloon nest door to the station". Mr. Johnny Honaker, dad's roommate, turned over his trunk, his uniform and his solid brass drafting instruments from A & M days and today they rest in the archives at Texas A & M.

There were five daughters in mother's family. Mother was the oldest. She picked cotton at three and four years (no much good at it she said). She attended school at Cowskin School about two miles south of Farmersville. Mr. Arthur Yeager, Laurita's father, was in school with mother in the first grade. She rode her pony, Ribby, to school. She wanted to go to college and applied at Kidd Key College at Sherman but the day she was to go her mother became very ill and Mamie stayed home and reared the four sisters before and after her mothers death.

My sister Irene was red-headed and the major problem of the six (four girls older and two boys younger). When Grandfather Keller had lived in Farmersville a few years he ran a general store on weekdays and preached (methodist) in little communities all over North Texas on Sundays. Irene (age 6) was a regular visitor and quite welcome in Grandfather's store until she was observed leaving with bloomers absolutely full of candy for her friends. One of her grade school friends also confided to me in later life that she and Irene, when teenagers, were in the church early one Sunday evening when the stewards came in. Irene was caught playing on the church piano, Everybody's doin it, doin it, doin it.

Mother was the most religious, the most naive, the most perfect christian I have ever known. She never saw evil, or suspected it, in anyone, but was a strict disciplinarian. She sent my brother Hugh as a child over to church on prayer meeting nights when she could not attend. She went to every revival and took us all. Folks said when her children were babies she had been seen with two of them asleep on the bench and rocking the youngest back and forth in the isle not missing a word of the sermon. In mothers younger days revivals were held, 1885-1920 in gathering spots around the North Texas counties, often in brush arbors. She was a good religious organist and pianist. Folks have told me that she often played on a foot pedal pumped organ and being short of stature, she could not reach the foot pumps. No problem for her, she simply had Hugh (age 9 to 14) lie on the floor and pump the pedals. In Durant in-like manner, she had me sing "Love Lifted Me", at age 6, to the Missionary Society (all 15 women) with my front teeth out while standing behind a pot plant to hide and ugly, stumped toe.

Residence: Durant, Oklahoma

1915-1925 • Age 4 to 14

When we moved to Durant, Oklahoma in 1925 dad bought a large two story house with a big dining room, living room and kitchen downstairs. Upstairs were three small bedrooms. Dad immediately had a large sleeping porch built and it was equipped with 24 unpainted windows and no heat. It got quite cool in those Oklahoma winters. There was one bathroom upstairs with a small round coal oil (kerosine) stove. Downstairs there was a fireplace, a base burner (pot bellied stove) and the large wood burning kitchen stove. These served us well because we wore plenty of clothes in the winter. The third floor was sealed and provided a huge living space for the cook. Our life there was mostly outdoors and our hero was Sheriff Jim Kersey. He stood 6'2" tall, 200 pounds, 35 years of age with great courage and 2 pearl handled pistols. I delivered his paper and he looked after the youngsters in horse trades. We were "Kersey's Riders", about a dozen urchins 10 to 15 years of age. We gathered each Saturday morning on "Market Square", two city blocks which were covered with wagons and horses from throughout Southeast Oklahoma. They came to trade horses and mules. On one occasion I bought a riding pony which had a hidden disease. The sheriff looked the horse over then sent for the seller and canceled the trade. We rode on weekends in the country and tried to help cattlemen (just for fun) but in summer we would ride as far as "Devils Den" at Tishomingo. There we learned about "Choc Beer" as the natives made it for sale throughout.

So riding horses and delivering papers were our principal occupations other than school. Being the youngest I was assigned duties (on my pony) among which was bringing from the ice plants the ice drippings which our girls used for washing hair. Each trip I passed the small two room Catholic Church and the priest's house. One day I saw two men rolling a barrel of whiskey (XXX) with the priest leading the way to his house. My mother, a preachers daughter, was hard pushed to explain this to a ten year old.

We rode our ponies to school, but they were also a great advantage in early life courting girls. We kept out horses and the family cow in a lot with a shed, about forty feet wide and eighty feet long and it was divided from the family garden by a five foot wooden fence. You know that horses bring much more than just pleasure. One cold, snowy winter my dad came home from his Dallas office as usual and discovered the animals were standing in mud, water and droppings about four inches deep. He told my brother and me "When I return next week-end I want to find all this "slush" shoveled over the fence into the garden". Well, we simply forgot his orders. He woke us up the next Saturday about 10:00 p.m. and sent us out into the miserably cold night and we shoveled until almost daylight. After that we carried out considerably improved land management practices for the horses and cow premises.

My brother Hugh, being the oldest and the leader of the neighborhood boys was a beautiful horseman and trader. One day he came home from delivering papers with two beautiful greyhounds trotting along beside his horse. He had traded for them so we had to learn how to care for them. They were tall and a beautiful blue in color, male and female, litter mates. We were taught to make their food of corn meal, water, salt and hog cracklins, baked until it was almost brittle. We cut it into cakes about the size of laundry soap. It was baked in our wood kitchen stove, and prepared at night while we studied our lessons. Our sleeping perch had twenty-four unpainted windows and no heat. One very cold night we slipped the two dogs in to sleep on our bed. Mother said it was alright. The girls, having been exposed to college in Dallas furiously stated that this practice was uncivilized. Mother said it was our bed and our dogs and for them to leave us alone. Hugh often remarked that when we got cold we just "pulled up another dog".

When chasing jackrabbits, the dogs worked as a team. The faster dog caused the rabbit to turn in a great circle. The slower dog (the female) would lay and wait and catch the rabbit when it came by. It was a real sight to see a greyhound run by a jackrabbit, grab him by the neck and with one motion throw him about ten feet with a broken neck. We limited them to four races a day and we followed closely on our horses. It was thrilling to see a rabbit and a dog at full speed reach a fence, the rabbit goes under, the dogs go over never stopping as the race continues. The greyhounds' nemesis, however, is a cornfield. At full speed the rabbit dodges between the stalks and rows while the dog bumps his head continuously whining until he makes his way out of the cornfield. Meanwhile the rabbit has escaped.

For a couple of years we would run the dogs at every opportunity in many grassy areas near Durant. One such experience took place near Albany about 22 miles southeast of Durant. It was indian country and there weren't many fences. They liked open land. One of Hugh's friends suggested that the two of them go out and spend a couple of days with an indian friend of his, a forty-five year old single indian man whose farm was near Albany. They left by horseback on a cold day, ran the dogs and then spent the night. They had invited me, so I went by myself two days later. I may have been eleven years old. I had my horse well prepared, with a .22 rifle, scabbard on my saddle, a heavy winter coat, yellow horseman's slicker, hunting knife on my belt and fifty cents in my pocket. I left Durant about 1:00 P.M. and there was no traffic on the sandy, winding road as the sun seemed to go down faster and faster. Nightfall caught me half way to Albany in a very lonely country, when I finally came to a little two room grocery store, the store in front and family room in rear. Three men were sitting around a pot-bellied red hot stove. It sure looked good. I tied my horse, went in and ask if I could sleep on the floor near that hot stove. After a little conversation the owner said he had played football with Bryan Nolen, my brother-in-law, at Southeastern State College in Durant. He called his mom out of the back room and i was instructed to follow her. She told her son to feed my horse extra well because it was tired and it was very cold outside. I told the wonderful big fat farm woman I only had fifty cents. She said that was exactly the cost as she explained it was too late to eat anything. Then she helped me onto a full feather bed and believe me I sunk out of sight. At 4:30 the next morning she fed me oatmeal, ham, eggs and steaming coffee. Who could ever forget. As I reached the Indian's farm house that day there was Hugh, his friend and the dogs preparing to go home. I ask the Indian owner if I could stay by myself. He said I could. I stayed three days and that wonderful Indian cooked our food on the open fireplace.

He hardly spoke at all. He left in the mornings and returned an hour before dark. He neither ask or gave me any instructions. I slept on a couch since there was no other furniture except for his bed, and eating table and a chair. My horse and I had freedom each day and rode over that lovely, beautiful country. There was a quart of whiskey on the mantel. The first night I was there he said "If you touch that whiskey, I will whip you till you bleed". Obviously, I didn't. When I returned home after that wonderful trip my brother-in-law, John McDonald, a prominent Durant lawyer, said "Alfred, where have you been". He further added that he had a team of mules he took in on a fee and he wanted me to take them to Colbert for pasture. I explained I had spent three wonderful days with an indian near Albany. His face flushed and he gasped "That was very dangerous for you to be way out there by yourself". I replied "Those people were wonderful out there and they were really good to me.

The only gang experience I had in Durant was a fight with rocks and coal chucks that broke my nose, and introduced me to advanced sinus for a life time.

In those days we must have had to get our medicine wholesale. I guess I only went to the little hospital once but boy what a trip. At about 10 years of age I was operated on, and boy was I ever operated on. They removed adenoids, tonsils, pulled a pre-wisdom tooth, and cut a mole off my neck while I was asleep.

I delivered papers after school when I was 9 to 12 years old, and made $1.25 a week for the first two years then $2.50 the last two. This paid for horse feed and other wants. The twelve paper boys were taken to the picture show by the company every Monday night. This was the greatest day of the week.

This would have been about 1920-23 and at that time most rural theaters had a vaudeville, stand-up comic or dancing show occasionally. One such brought the mind reader act. We twelve urchins (paper boys) had gotten to the show early and were seated in the front row of the Liberty Theater. Among other procedures the act contained a written question time. Ask the mindreader who knows all. That night my brother wrote "Where are my four $1.00 dollar bills. I lost them last year and have searched everywhere". Now, although my question and most others were ignored the mindreader answered Hugh "You have not looked in the proper place. Your money is safe. Go home, go upstairs to the small room adjoining the sleeping porch. This is the boys room and it has a chest of drawers for your clothes. Pull out the second top drawer and look under the paper lining. It is there". All we urchins ran the two blocks to our house and followed my brother, who was the oldest and the leader. With the Lord as my witness, I looked as he raised the paper. There they were, four one dollar bills. I have told this story to great educators, psychologists, and teachers in many great universities. There is no explanation.

Our meals were typical of Southeast Oklahoma in those days. We had much cracklin corn bread, corn meal dumplings, hominy, cottonseed meal pancakes (1/4 C/S meal), green grape pie and 1/4" thick sweet potatoes sliced lengthwise and baked until almost brittle with a touch of butter and sugar. We never ate a meal at a cafe in Durant as I remember.

When we left Durant to move to Dallas, Texas, I was a sophomore in high school and my heart was so heavy with leaving all the dogs, horses, school friends, sandy streets and a lifetime of memories. I was too young to realize that happiness is where you take it, not where you find it and that even in a big city you can find a good life if you have faith and if you work at it.

Residence: Dallas, Texas

1925 to Present • Age 15 to Date

In 1925 we moved from Durant to Dallas. The youngest sister was in SMU. Hugh at Texas A&M and I in high school. Our home near SMU was a large frame two story home with big living room, big dining room, big kitchen and few places to sleep. Dad, as always, built large screened sleeping porches (no heat) but the single tub bath still had to serve. We got along alright in it but at Christmas when more than twenty of my brothers, sisters and their children came for a week, there often were anxious moments. Life changes drastically. Mother and Dad were more in my thoughts than free life on the plains of Oklahoma.

Dad took up golf at about age sixty to relieve the strain of hard work and volatile markets in the cottonseed oil business. He played with some younger fellows from the office and he realized one day that he bought more of the wooden tees than anyone. A slot machine in the club was the supply and he always seemed to need a quarter to get a new package.

One afternoon he played then attended a meeting at the office still dressed in his golf clothes. When the boys drove him home that night Mother was waiting up for him. As any preacher's daughter in that day might, she said to Dad, "Fred, we must have a talk. You have been a wonderful husband for more than forty years but I can't stand this any longer." "What in the world" he exclaimed. She arose and produced a cardboard box with about a gallon of wooden golf tees. "I cannot live with a gambler", she explained, "I've been finding these poker chips in your clothes and I can't keep it from the children any longer."

I've said that Mother was very naive but she was a good trader as well. One Christmas with about twenty plus of we kids and our kids spending a week at home in the old Abbott Avenue house, a new wrinkle for entertainment appeared. In spite of the well known ban on cards, poker chips, liquor, etc, at Mother's home, my brother, Hugh, brought home a standard size slot machine for the gang. "Not on your life", Mother said. But Hugh knew that she kept a little piggy bank to accumulate money for the "lepers relief fund" which she favored for many years. He explained there would be no gambling since he had the key to retrieve the money, so it was just for fun. She was unimpressed. He offered to give the leper bank five cents on the dollar. She later settled for fifteen cents on the dollar.

Mother and Dad attended and supported the First Methodist Church, Ross and Harwood Avenues, for more than fifty years. In her later life her vision failed somewhat so she sat on the second or accustacon row. One night she was singing with the hymnal in the left hand and magnifying glass in her right, when a little girl next to her tugged on her dress indicating she should sit down. Mother said later she thought "none of my children would act like that in church." Again the tug came and Mamie realized she was the only one standing. She sat down and laughed to herself. When church was over one of her sisters sitting in the rear of the church said, "Mamie, I never was so embarrassed." Mother said, "Whoever heard of a whole congregation sitting down when they sang 'Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus'."

After finishing high school in January 1928, I went to Texas A&M College and really loved it. When I graduated from college in February 1932, there were no jobs to be had in Dallas so I went to Business School to learn shorthand and typing. This did the trick and I landed a job at a Cottonseed Oil Mill in Dallas. After that I spent forty years in the oil mill and cotton gin business and I loved every minute of it. I retired in 1972 and I wrote these notes in 1994 - twenty-two years later.

One little experience took place a few weeks after I had been hired as the "rookie" in the oil mill and I was weigher and assistant bookkeeper at $75 per month. I was the "lowest authority" in this little business. One day the manager said to me, "Son, we (all senior officers) are going to West Texas. Now don't let any of our customers run up more charges on the feed bills. They must pay for the last balance before new charges." Well, on a sleety Saturday afternoon, two days later, ten trucks pulled into the millyard and the leader said, "700 sacks of cottonseed cake for Mr. Big's ranch." With that he shook the snow off his slicker and waited. I looked up his account and Mr. Big (one of Dallas' richest) owed for the last big purchase. I said, "Pardner, you will have to bring me a check for the old account before we can load you." He was shocked and tried to explain how big Mr. Big really was, that the cows were almost freezing and the roads were terrible. He called the large downtown bank where Mr. Big officed. Finally the bank's vice-president gave me a scolding and explained how mad Mr. Big would be. Then I said, "Sir, you tell the bank people I want a cashier's check for the old bill first, and the gates closes at 6:00 P.M. in exactly one hour." The vice-president showed up thirty minutes later with the cashier's check, the trucks were loaded and the matter was closed - that is until Monday noon. You see I did not know that we borrowed all the corporation's funds from that bank. Mr. Big was one of the biggies at that bank and he roasted my manager and boss alive. When the boss returned to the office after lunch at the bank, he sort of educated me on those details then said, "I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for this event. Alf, you are the only man in Dallas who ever denied Mr Big anything."