I suppose one might say I was born right after the turn of the century as the year was 1908. At that time Terrell was a slumbering agriculture-oriented town. The main payrolls in the community were the Texas Midland Railroad (a privately owned road) and the North Texas Hospital for the Insane, later they dropped the word "insane."
There was seasonal employment in the cotton gin and compress as well as the cotton fields. It has been, for years, a puzzle to me as to how persons could do so much on so little money there. A hundred dollars a month was a sought-after amount. There were no filling stations because there were no cars to sell "gas" to. There were several feed stores for the livestock and a wood yard or so which principally sold coal; due, no doubt, to the scarcity of useable timber of any kind of timber for that matter. The backs of the business buildings attested to the lurid and not-too-far-distant past, as traces of signs for saloons and livery stables remained.
One item of distinction which was an oddity in that part of the country was a minicipal band complete with a bandstand and full time director-teacher, and they played for special occasions and gave weekly concerts during the summer.
Also Terrell was on the itinerary of the Redpath-Horner Chataqua Circuit. This was an organization which, for a week every summer, provided a bit of entertainment and disseminated a smattering of knowledge giving a play or so-called scientific exhibition or two. For the elite there was the season ticket which sold for $2.50 and, to people of our economic status, out of the question. They hired a few local boys as roust-abouts and general flunkies in exchange for passes. That's how I got in. I don't think there was a picture show before we went farming. If there was, the price was out of the question. A kid's ticket cost a nickel and nickels were scarce.
I would like my descendants to know of my financial acumen. When I had about completed my first year in school and had been working good and hard for Mama, I begged her for a nickel so I could go to the store and buy some candy. Mama didn't have a nickel to give me so she gave me a dime. I lost all my faith in justice and motherhood--I didn't know what a dime was or what it represented. Finally one of my half-sisters went with me to the store and there we got change for the dime of two nickels, and each of us got a goodly sized sack of candy. That was my initial knowledge of high finance.
The chief reason that families were able to do nicely on such meager salaries was the fact that the cost of living was so low. Round steak was 10 cents per pound, 10 pounds sugar was 50 cents. A 48-pound sack of flour was 75 cents. There was no electricity, no natural gas. We used kerosene lamps for light. No city water supply, one drew water from the well and used it for all purposes; hence the only utility to pay for was phone service. There were no income taxes or sales taxes, so total expenditures were negligible. We raised our produce or went without. We had a cow for milk, checkens for eggs, hogs for lard and pork meat. We also had flies by the millions and as the old story goes about the fellow living at a boarding house, he acked an older man how, or at what time, was the best time to visit the Privy. The old codger replied, "Meal time--the flies all come inside to the table;" and they call it the "good old days" which is a bunch of hooey. The human race never had it so good and if one dances, one must pay the fiddler.
The stay on the farm was best forgotten even if we couldn't erase the results from our memory. Everything that was, went wrong, and Papa finally decided he wasn't cut out to be a farmer. To begin with, his inbability to please the Federal Government was the direct cause of this episode. During the era of World War I the railroads were, as they now say, nationalized. They were taken over and run by the Federal Government. This was the beginning of the decline of the railroad. They never recovered from it. When the G men took over they immediately raised Papa's pay to $75.00 a month. And whereas in the past he had had it easy, it now became, as far as he was concerned, impossible to tolerate. "Put everything down in writing, even an order for a keg of spikes." To begin with, the old man couln't write so he or anyone else could read it when it got cold. He quit; but Mr. Wells, his friend to the end, finally talked him into asking for a leave of absence so he might return after the war. This was granted so he began preparing for the Exodus.
First, as was customary in those days, he leased a boxcar from the railroad. It was spotted on an unused side track, and we began loading our possessions. We had a good milk cow and assorted pigs, chickens, and cats. At the time we had no dog. First he sold our home in Terrell, then three rent houses that he owned. And with the cash received bought the last two horses used by the Wells-Fargo Express Co. They motorized. The horses were twin Clydesdales named Fred and Frank.
Fred had a full blazed face and Frank, partial blaze. This was the greatest mistake he made. They ate us all he had or could gather together for the next several years. He also bought a wagon and surrey with the fringe on top for the family to ride in. After all the furniture was loaded, we built stalls for the livestock and loaded them. Papa and I rode the car to Leesville, Louisiana, out from which he owned a 160-acre farm. What amazes me in these inflationary times was the fact he had accumulated all this property on pay the most of the time was about 96 cents a day.
He also had four rent houses in Leesville that Grandpa Bob Baggett looked after and collected the rent for and promptly pocketed. The way I heard it, the only money ever returned to Papa was when he sold them to pay debts. We were in truth war refugees and we lived to regret the Exodus.
Ten days after a tearful farewell to Terrell, Papa and I and the livestock arived in Leesville. Mam and the girls, my helf-sisters, arrived and were staying at Grandpa's. The only thing that stands out in my memory of the unloading was that Texas cow's introduction to Louisiana. She was accustomed to eating anything green in reach of her prehensile tongue. The first thing she saw was a small pine sapling which she promptly inhaled, thinking it was edible. You would never have convinced me a cow could spit, but she did when the turpentine flavor became apparent to her. We took the livestock to Grandpa's as he had pens to put them in. We assembled the wagon and started hauling our stuff to the farm, which was about three miles from town. As we went with each load, it took about six hours round trip, so we enlisted the help of Grandpa and his one-horse wagon. It took us a week to make the move.
We found we had reasonably good fences surrounding the barn, etc., but there was one big drawback. Our livestock was accustomed to free range. A small matter of a fence was no trouble at all for Fred and Frank--they just walked through them and went on their merry way eating. The chicken yard was surrounded by a picket fence with the pickets close enough together to preclude them getting through, but nothing to prevent them flying to the top of the fence, hooking their head over the top, and down to the other side. There was one thing that was their downfall, however, the pickets in the fence were shaped to a point at the top so as soon as theyt reached the top their necks slid down in the space between the pickets and there they stayed until they choked to death. We collected about two dozen corpses the first morning. Then we clipped one wing on each remaining chicken and ate chicken until I never have liked it since.
After sawing some trees and setting some new posts, we corraled the livestock again and started our careers as farmers. By this time it was the first days of Decembr and cold weather was setting in. The kids were enrolled in the Bellview School and, to our pleasant surprise, we found that passing required absolutely no effort on our part. I was in the sixth grade and the curriculum was identical with the fourth grade in Terrell, so it was no sweat at all. Both of my sisters were in high school so they really enjoyed the vacation. We lived on the farm for 20 months and left it to return to Terrell in the spring of 1920.
We walked to school through a sylvan setting the likes of which you may never see again. It was a tract of virgin long leaf pines of which there ain't any more. the nearest thing to them is the Douglas Fir on the west coast. These statuesque trees didn't have a branch for a distance upward of about 100 feet and there was a carpet of pine straw about 2 feet thick on the ground. It was indeed awe inspiring. When we bid adieu to the farm they were cupping this tract of timber for turpentine preparatory to cutting for saw timber.
The following spring after we arrived was perfect, we had mended all the fences preparatory to planting our crops. Our major crop was to be cotton and there was some 50 acres of stiff black land to be prepared. It was a breeze as long as it was reasonably dry, but tended to ball up and adhere very tenaciously to the hooves of the horses after about 30 minutes of plowing. Their feet would become so large the horses couldn't move much to the chagrin of Papa. His friends had told him they weren't worth a damn for plow horses--what he needed was mules. But Papa's ideas about mules was this: He didn't like 'em and oft quoted a mule skinner's idea about them, "A mule will be your best friend for 20 years just to get a chance to kick hell out of you." So, no mules for him, he just took an axe to the field and cut the balls of mud from the horses' feet.
As spring progressed into early summer, it started showering and during the month of June it rained every day during the month, and that took care of the cotton crop, as this was BI (Before Insecticides) and the bugs ate it up.
But Mama's garden flourished, until one of old Columbus Stephen's goats climbed the fence amd started playing havoc with it. Mama had the goat cornered and was about to kill it with a hoe when Papa attempted to stop her. He made a near fatal mistake, he stuck his foot out to protect the toat and she hit it and broke his foot. This left all the feeding and tending of the livestock to me and I was 11 years old.
I went to the barn in the dark every morning; we had no such thing as a flashlight and Mama would bring the latern with her when she came to milk. Then I broke my elbow at school and that put me out of commission for about six weeks, but it healed much faster than Papa's broken foot so I was back doing most of my chores before it came time to harvest the crops. There was no cotton to pick (that was the cash crop). Papa sold the rent houses in Leesville.
Then the hogs took something. Papa and I, not knowing that such wasn't done, caught them and drenched them with Epsom Salts. Drenching is done by holding the animal's head up, pouring the salts down their throat, and stroking the throat until they swallow. Grandpa said you can't drench a hog. He didn't know Papa. They shit up a storm, but recovered and in due time were converted into food for the winter. Meanwhile Mama canned enough food to last us for five years.
On Sunday I got a chance to play for a few hours in the afternoon. Our closest neighbor had a boy about my age and he and I would catch a goat or yearling calf and try to ride them. We weren't too successful, but easily survived the few bumps and scratches.
Mama's youngest sister and her family lived about a half mile from Grandpa's on Snuff Ridge and the old folks and Janie and her kids would come out to see us. The cousin nearest my age was a boy and wanted to do everything we did but wasn't allowed to do anything as he had a hernia (acquired as an infant due to constipation). Although he was a nuisance, we felt sorry for him and he wanted to ride a goat. We figured he should be allowed to do so, but had to find some way to keep him from getting bucked off and hurt. So we caught a goat and hog tied the goat. Then we put Jodie on him and wired his feet together with hay wire under the goat's belly. When the goat was released, he took a couple of futile tucks and found that didn't dislodge the burden on his back so he took off for the tall timber. Jodie was screaming bloody murder. The goat ran under a low limb and it caught his burden in the chest, busted his wired feet loose, and knocked him senseless. We thought he was dead, but just the breath was knocked out of him. He never asked to ride another goat til this day. What Mama did to me, I decline to say, but I survived.
During that summer I went barefooted, naturally, and acquired numerous sores on my feet which didn't heal at all, so I went bare footed all winter and that sved buying shoes. And to this dy I het like the bare feet. I had one very persistent sore on the side of my left foot which stayed with me nearly all winter, but I finally got rid of it. I cut it off and the new wound healed--I was splitting some kindling and made a mislick and sliced off my chronic sore. Then I had to wear shoes again, much to my chagrin.
While all this was transpiring the horses ate and the family ate. Mama baked up a 48 pound sack of flour a week. The horses ate anything and everything. It seems they were omniverous. In fact, we finally ate ourselves out of the farm.
Papa put it up for sale and sold it to som guy named Dedrick from Ohio, thereby gaining some token of revenge for the Civil War. I never heard what his troubles were, but he lasted about three years and died.
We lived on the top of a lohg red-clay hill which became a nightmare for the few Model T Fords in circulation at that time. The horses turned out to be very adept at pulling stuck cars out and for once the brought in a little revenue. I never saw them hitched to anything that they didn't move it.
Papa, before this, was painting the house while he had it up for sale and slipped off the roof and fell about 40 feet to the ground and landed squarely on his posterior. The doctor said he would never walk again. He didn't know Papa. Papa walked and griped about his old hip for another 35 years. Mr. Wells gave him back his old job and he was soon getting $90 per month. He got enough out of the farm to make a down payment on a house in Terrell and we moved back. Two yers later, at age 14, I was working on the railroad and doing a grown man's work.
As an afterthought I want to relate one other incident related to the farm. Before we ever saw the farm, Papa bought the horses and he and I went to the corral to lead them home. Fred seemed to like me from the outset, but Frank took a completely opposite view. When I got close to him, he tried to bite me and continued to do so as long as I had occasion to be near him. The only time he didn't molest me was when I put his bridle on, but I never ceased to fear him and perhaps he could sense this fact. One day Papa was plowing Fred and we were going to plant peanuts in a field of deep sand east of the house. Now Mama had told me not to use bad language, but I was at liberty to say anything I ever heard Papa say. So that was one time Mama's instructions backfired on her. I was used to slipping old Fred a handfull of corn or some other feedstuff on occasion which he very gently ate from my hand, never coming cloe to nipping or harming me in any way.
Papa was plowing the field and it was my job to plant the peanuts. I had a kind of apron affair on and was dropping the peanuts in the furrow Papa had opened. He and Fred were approximately 100 feet across the field from me. Fred
Autobiography of R. D. Harrison, Sr.
Fall of 1917 to Spring of 1920
Danielle Neal Perkins
Danielle Neal Perkins originally shared this on 15 May 2010
Robert Daniel Harrison
Danielle Neal Perkins
There was seasonal employment in the cotton gin and compress as well as the cotton fields. It has been, for years, a puzzle to me as to how persons could do so much on so little money there. A hundred dollars a month was a sought-after amount. There were no filling stations because there were no cars to sell "gas" to. There were several feed stores for the livestock and a wood yard or so which principally sold coal; due, no doubt, to the scarcity of useable timber of any kind of timber for that matter. The backs of the business buildings attested to the lurid and not-too-far-distant past, as traces of signs for saloons and livery stables remained.
One item of distinction which was an oddity in that part of the country was a minicipal band complete with a bandstand and full time director-teacher, and they played for special occasions and gave weekly concerts during the summer.
Also Terrell was on the itinerary of the Redpath-Horner Chataqua Circuit. This was an organization which, for a week every summer, provided a bit of entertainment and disseminated a smattering of knowledge giving a play or so-called scientific exhibition or two. For the elite there was the season ticket which sold for $2.50 and, to people of our economic status, out of the question. They hired a few local boys as roust-abouts and general flunkies in exchange for passes. That's how I got in. I don't think there was a picture show before we went farming. If there was, the price was out of the question. A kid's ticket cost a nickel and nickels were scarce.
I would like my descendants to know of my financial acumen. When I had about completed my first year in school and had been working good and hard for Mama, I begged her for a nickel so I could go to the store and buy some candy. Mama didn't have a nickel to give me so she gave me a dime. I lost all my faith in justice and motherhood--I didn't know what a dime was or what it represented. Finally one of my half-sisters went with me to the store and there we got change for the dime of two nickels, and each of us got a goodly sized sack of candy. That was my initial knowledge of high finance.
The chief reason that families were able to do nicely on such meager salaries was the fact that the cost of living was so low. Round steak was 10 cents per pound, 10 pounds sugar was 50 cents. A 48-pound sack of flour was 75 cents. There was no electricity, no natural gas. We used kerosene lamps for light. No city water supply, one drew water from the well and used it for all purposes; hence the only utility to pay for was phone service. There were no income taxes or sales taxes, so total expenditures were negligible. We raised our produce or went without. We had a cow for milk, checkens for eggs, hogs for lard and pork meat. We also had flies by the millions and as the old story goes about the fellow living at a boarding house, he acked an older man how, or at what time, was the best time to visit the Privy. The old codger replied, "Meal time--the flies all come inside to the table;" and they call it the "good old days" which is a bunch of hooey. The human race never had it so good and if one dances, one must pay the fiddler.
The stay on the farm was best forgotten even if we couldn't erase the results from our memory. Everything that was, went wrong, and Papa finally decided he wasn't cut out to be a farmer. To begin with, his inbability to please the Federal Government was the direct cause of this episode. During the era of World War I the railroads were, as they now say, nationalized. They were taken over and run by the Federal Government. This was the beginning of the decline of the railroad. They never recovered from it. When the G men took over they immediately raised Papa's pay to $75.00 a month. And whereas in the past he had had it easy, it now became, as far as he was concerned, impossible to tolerate. "Put everything down in writing, even an order for a keg of spikes." To begin with, the old man couln't write so he or anyone else could read it when it got cold. He quit; but Mr. Wells, his friend to the end, finally talked him into asking for a leave of absence so he might return after the war. This was granted so he began preparing for the Exodus.
First, as was customary in those days, he leased a boxcar from the railroad. It was spotted on an unused side track, and we began loading our possessions. We had a good milk cow and assorted pigs, chickens, and cats. At the time we had no dog. First he sold our home in Terrell, then three rent houses that he owned. And with the cash received bought the last two horses used by the Wells-Fargo Express Co. They motorized. The horses were twin Clydesdales named Fred and Frank.
Fred had a full blazed face and Frank, partial blaze. This was the greatest mistake he made. They ate us all he had or could gather together for the next several years. He also bought a wagon and surrey with the fringe on top for the family to ride in. After all the furniture was loaded, we built stalls for the livestock and loaded them. Papa and I rode the car to Leesville, Louisiana, out from which he owned a 160-acre farm. What amazes me in these inflationary times was the fact he had accumulated all this property on pay the most of the time was about 96 cents a day.
He also had four rent houses in Leesville that Grandpa Bob Baggett looked after and collected the rent for and promptly pocketed. The way I heard it, the only money ever returned to Papa was when he sold them to pay debts. We were in truth war refugees and we lived to regret the Exodus.
Ten days after a tearful farewell to Terrell, Papa and I and the livestock arived in Leesville. Mam and the girls, my helf-sisters, arrived and were staying at Grandpa's. The only thing that stands out in my memory of the unloading was that Texas cow's introduction to Louisiana. She was accustomed to eating anything green in reach of her prehensile tongue. The first thing she saw was a small pine sapling which she promptly inhaled, thinking it was edible. You would never have convinced me a cow could spit, but she did when the turpentine flavor became apparent to her. We took the livestock to Grandpa's as he had pens to put them in. We assembled the wagon and started hauling our stuff to the farm, which was about three miles from town. As we went with each load, it took about six hours round trip, so we enlisted the help of Grandpa and his one-horse wagon. It took us a week to make the move.
We found we had reasonably good fences surrounding the barn, etc., but there was one big drawback. Our livestock was accustomed to free range. A small matter of a fence was no trouble at all for Fred and Frank--they just walked through them and went on their merry way eating. The chicken yard was surrounded by a picket fence with the pickets close enough together to preclude them getting through, but nothing to prevent them flying to the top of the fence, hooking their head over the top, and down to the other side. There was one thing that was their downfall, however, the pickets in the fence were shaped to a point at the top so as soon as theyt reached the top their necks slid down in the space between the pickets and there they stayed until they choked to death. We collected about two dozen corpses the first morning. Then we clipped one wing on each remaining chicken and ate chicken until I never have liked it since.
After sawing some trees and setting some new posts, we corraled the livestock again and started our careers as farmers. By this time it was the first days of Decembr and cold weather was setting in. The kids were enrolled in the Bellview School and, to our pleasant surprise, we found that passing required absolutely no effort on our part. I was in the sixth grade and the curriculum was identical with the fourth grade in Terrell, so it was no sweat at all. Both of my sisters were in high school so they really enjoyed the vacation. We lived on the farm for 20 months and left it to return to Terrell in the spring of 1920.
We walked to school through a sylvan setting the likes of which you may never see again. It was a tract of virgin long leaf pines of which there ain't any more. the nearest thing to them is the Douglas Fir on the west coast. These statuesque trees didn't have a branch for a distance upward of about 100 feet and there was a carpet of pine straw about 2 feet thick on the ground. It was indeed awe inspiring. When we bid adieu to the farm they were cupping this tract of timber for turpentine preparatory to cutting for saw timber.
The following spring after we arrived was perfect, we had mended all the fences preparatory to planting our crops. Our major crop was to be cotton and there was some 50 acres of stiff black land to be prepared. It was a breeze as long as it was reasonably dry, but tended to ball up and adhere very tenaciously to the hooves of the horses after about 30 minutes of plowing. Their feet would become so large the horses couldn't move much to the chagrin of Papa. His friends had told him they weren't worth a damn for plow horses--what he needed was mules. But Papa's ideas about mules was this: He didn't like 'em and oft quoted a mule skinner's idea about them, "A mule will be your best friend for 20 years just to get a chance to kick hell out of you." So, no mules for him, he just took an axe to the field and cut the balls of mud from the horses' feet.
As spring progressed into early summer, it started showering and during the month of June it rained every day during the month, and that took care of the cotton crop, as this was BI (Before Insecticides) and the bugs ate it up.
But Mama's garden flourished, until one of old Columbus Stephen's goats climbed the fence amd started playing havoc with it. Mama had the goat cornered and was about to kill it with a hoe when Papa attempted to stop her. He made a near fatal mistake, he stuck his foot out to protect the toat and she hit it and broke his foot. This left all the feeding and tending of the livestock to me and I was 11 years old.
I went to the barn in the dark every morning; we had no such thing as a flashlight and Mama would bring the latern with her when she came to milk. Then I broke my elbow at school and that put me out of commission for about six weeks, but it healed much faster than Papa's broken foot so I was back doing most of my chores before it came time to harvest the crops. There was no cotton to pick (that was the cash crop). Papa sold the rent houses in Leesville.
Then the hogs took something. Papa and I, not knowing that such wasn't done, caught them and drenched them with Epsom Salts. Drenching is done by holding the animal's head up, pouring the salts down their throat, and stroking the throat until they swallow. Grandpa said you can't drench a hog. He didn't know Papa. They shit up a storm, but recovered and in due time were converted into food for the winter. Meanwhile Mama canned enough food to last us for five years.
On Sunday I got a chance to play for a few hours in the afternoon. Our closest neighbor had a boy about my age and he and I would catch a goat or yearling calf and try to ride them. We weren't too successful, but easily survived the few bumps and scratches.
Mama's youngest sister and her family lived about a half mile from Grandpa's on Snuff Ridge and the old folks and Janie and her kids would come out to see us. The cousin nearest my age was a boy and wanted to do everything we did but wasn't allowed to do anything as he had a hernia (acquired as an infant due to constipation). Although he was a nuisance, we felt sorry for him and he wanted to ride a goat. We figured he should be allowed to do so, but had to find some way to keep him from getting bucked off and hurt. So we caught a goat and hog tied the goat. Then we put Jodie on him and wired his feet together with hay wire under the goat's belly. When the goat was released, he took a couple of futile tucks and found that didn't dislodge the burden on his back so he took off for the tall timber. Jodie was screaming bloody murder. The goat ran under a low limb and it caught his burden in the chest, busted his wired feet loose, and knocked him senseless. We thought he was dead, but just the breath was knocked out of him. He never asked to ride another goat til this day. What Mama did to me, I decline to say, but I survived.
During that summer I went barefooted, naturally, and acquired numerous sores on my feet which didn't heal at all, so I went bare footed all winter and that sved buying shoes. And to this dy I het like the bare feet. I had one very persistent sore on the side of my left foot which stayed with me nearly all winter, but I finally got rid of it. I cut it off and the new wound healed--I was splitting some kindling and made a mislick and sliced off my chronic sore. Then I had to wear shoes again, much to my chagrin.
While all this was transpiring the horses ate and the family ate. Mama baked up a 48 pound sack of flour a week. The horses ate anything and everything. It seems they were omniverous. In fact, we finally ate ourselves out of the farm.
Papa put it up for sale and sold it to som guy named Dedrick from Ohio, thereby gaining some token of revenge for the Civil War. I never heard what his troubles were, but he lasted about three years and died.
We lived on the top of a lohg red-clay hill which became a nightmare for the few Model T Fords in circulation at that time. The horses turned out to be very adept at pulling stuck cars out and for once the brought in a little revenue. I never saw them hitched to anything that they didn't move it.
Papa, before this, was painting the house while he had it up for sale and slipped off the roof and fell about 40 feet to the ground and landed squarely on his posterior. The doctor said he would never walk again. He didn't know Papa. Papa walked and griped about his old hip for another 35 years. Mr. Wells gave him back his old job and he was soon getting $90 per month. He got enough out of the farm to make a down payment on a house in Terrell and we moved back. Two yers later, at age 14, I was working on the railroad and doing a grown man's work.
As an afterthought I want to relate one other incident related to the farm. Before we ever saw the farm, Papa bought the horses and he and I went to the corral to lead them home. Fred seemed to like me from the outset, but Frank took a completely opposite view. When I got close to him, he tried to bite me and continued to do so as long as I had occasion to be near him. The only time he didn't molest me was when I put his bridle on, but I never ceased to fear him and perhaps he could sense this fact. One day Papa was plowing Fred and we were going to plant peanuts in a field of deep sand east of the house. Now Mama had told me not to use bad language, but I was at liberty to say anything I ever heard Papa say. So that was one time Mama's instructions backfired on her. I was used to slipping old Fred a handfull of corn or some other feedstuff on occasion which he very gently ate from my hand, never coming cloe to nipping or harming me in any way.
Papa was plowing the field and it was my job to plant the peanuts. I had a kind of apron affair on and was dropping the peanuts in the furrow Papa had opened. He and Fred were approximately 100 feet across the field from me. Fred
Autobiography of R. D. Harrison, Sr.
Fall of 1917 to Spring of 1920
Danielle Neal Perkins
Danielle Neal Perkins originally shared this on 15 May 2010
Robert Daniel Harrison
Danielle Neal Perkins
I suppose one might say I was born right after the turn of the century as the year was 1908. At that time Terrell was a slumbering agriculture-oriented town. The main payrolls in the community were the Texas Midland Railroad (a privately owned road) and the North Texas Hospital for the Insane, later they dropped the word "insane."
There was seasonal employment in the cotton gin and compress as well as the cotton fields. It has been, for years, a puzzle to me as to how persons could do so much on so little money there. A hundred dollars a month was a sought-after amount. There were no filling stations because there were no cars to sell "gas" to. There were several feed stores for the livestock and a wood yard or so which principally sold coal; due, no doubt, to the scarcity of useable timber of any kind of timber for that matter. The backs of the business buildings attested to the lurid and not-too-far-distant past, as traces of signs for saloons and livery stables remained.
One item of distinction which was an oddity in that part of the country was a minicipal band complete with a bandstand and full time director-teacher, and they played for special occasions and gave weekly concerts during the summer.
Also Terrell was on the itinerary of the Redpath-Horner Chataqua Circuit. This was an organization which, for a week every summer, provided a bit of entertainment and disseminated a smattering of knowledge giving a play or so-called scientific exhibition or two. For the elite there was the season ticket which sold for $2.50 and, to people of our economic status, out of the question. They hired a few local boys as roust-abouts and general flunkies in exchange for passes. That's how I got in. I don't think there was a picture show before we went farming. If there was, the price was out of the question. A kid's ticket cost a nickel and nickels were scarce.
I would like my descendants to know of my financial acumen. When I had about completed my first year in school and had been working good and hard for Mama, I begged her for a nickel so I could go to the store and buy some candy. Mama didn't have a nickel to give me so she gave me a dime. I lost all my faith in justice and motherhood--I didn't know what a dime was or what it represented. Finally one of my half-sisters went with me to the store and there we got change for the dime of two nickels, and each of us got a goodly sized sack of candy. That was my initial knowledge of high finance.
The chief reason that families were able to do nicely on such meager salaries was the fact that the cost of living was so low. Round steak was 10 cents per pound, 10 pounds sugar was 50 cents. A 48-pound sack of flour was 75 cents. There was no electricity, no natural gas. We used kerosene lamps for light. No city water supply, one drew water from the well and used it for all purposes; hence the only utility to pay for was phone service. There were no income taxes or sales taxes, so total expenditures were negligible. We raised our produce or went without. We had a cow for milk, checkens for eggs, hogs for lard and pork meat. We also had flies by the millions and as the old story goes about the fellow living at a boarding house, he acked an older man how, or at what time, was the best time to visit the Privy. The old codger replied, "Meal time--the flies all come inside to the table;" and they call it the "good old days" which is a bunch of hooey. The human race never had it so good and if one dances, one must pay the fiddler.
The stay on the farm was best forgotten even if we couldn't erase the results from our memory. Everything that was, went wrong, and Papa finally decided he wasn't cut out to be a farmer. To begin with, his inbability to please the Federal Government was the direct cause of this episode. During the era of World War I the railroads were, as they now say, nationalized. They were taken over and run by the Federal Government. This was the beginning of the decline of the railroad. They never recovered from it. When the G men took over they immediately raised Papa's pay to $75.00 a month. And whereas in the past he had had it easy, it now became, as far as he was concerned, impossible to tolerate. "Put everything down in writing, even an order for a keg of spikes." To begin with, the old man couln't write so he or anyone else could read it when it got cold. He quit; but Mr. Wells, his friend to the end, finally talked him into asking for a leave of absence so he might return after the war. This was granted so he began preparing for the Exodus.
First, as was customary in those days, he leased a boxcar from the railroad. It was spotted on an unused side track, and we began loading our possessions. We had a good milk cow and assorted pigs, chickens, and cats. At the time we had no dog. First he sold our home in Terrell, then three rent houses that he owned. And with the cash received bought the last two horses used by the Wells-Fargo Express Co. They motorized. The horses were twin Clydesdales named Fred and Frank.
Fred had a full blazed face and Frank, partial blaze. This was the greatest mistake he made. They ate us all he had or could gather together for the next several years. He also bought a wagon and surrey with the fringe on top for the family to ride in. After all the furniture was loaded, we built stalls for the livestock and loaded them. Papa and I rode the car to Leesville, Louisiana, out from which he owned a 160-acre farm. What amazes me in these inflationary times was the fact he had accumulated all this property on pay the most of the time was about 96 cents a day.
He also had four rent houses in Leesville that Grandpa Bob Baggett looked after and collected the rent for and promptly pocketed. The way I heard it, the only money ever returned to Papa was when he sold them to pay debts. We were in truth war refugees and we lived to regret the Exodus.
Ten days after a tearful farewell to Terrell, Papa and I and the livestock arived in Leesville. Mam and the girls, my helf-sisters, arrived and were staying at Grandpa's. The only thing that stands out in my memory of the unloading was that Texas cow's introduction to Louisiana. She was accustomed to eating anything green in reach of her prehensile tongue. The first thing she saw was a small pine sapling which she promptly inhaled, thinking it was edible. You would never have convinced me a cow could spit, but she did when the turpentine flavor became apparent to her. We took the livestock to Grandpa's as he had pens to put them in. We assembled the wagon and started hauling our stuff to the farm, which was about three miles from town. As we went with each load, it took about six hours round trip, so we enlisted the help of Grandpa and his one-horse wagon. It took us a week to make the move.
We found we had reasonably good fences surrounding the barn, etc., but there was one big drawback. Our livestock was accustomed to free range. A small matter of a fence was no trouble at all for Fred and Frank--they just walked through them and went on their merry way eating. The chicken yard was surrounded by a picket fence with the pickets close enough together to preclude them getting through, but nothing to prevent them flying to the top of the fence, hooking their head over the top, and down to the other side. There was one thing that was their downfall, however, the pickets in the fence were shaped to a point at the top so as soon as theyt reached the top their necks slid down in the space between the pickets and there they stayed until they choked to death. We collected about two dozen corpses the first morning. Then we clipped one wing on each remaining chicken and ate chicken until I never have liked it since.
After sawing some trees and setting some new posts, we corraled the livestock again and started our careers as farmers. By this time it was the first days of Decembr and cold weather was setting in. The kids were enrolled in the Bellview School and, to our pleasant surprise, we found that passing required absolutely no effort on our part. I was in the sixth grade and the curriculum was identical with the fourth grade in Terrell, so it was no sweat at all. Both of my sisters were in high school so they really enjoyed the vacation. We lived on the farm for 20 months and left it to return to Terrell in the spring of 1920.
We walked to school through a sylvan setting the likes of which you may never see again. It was a tract of virgin long leaf pines of which there ain't any more. the nearest thing to them is the Douglas Fir on the west coast. These statuesque trees didn't have a branch for a distance upward of about 100 feet and there was a carpet of pine straw about 2 feet thick on the ground. It was indeed awe inspiring. When we bid adieu to the farm they were cupping this tract of timber for turpentine preparatory to cutting for saw timber.
The following spring after we arrived was perfect, we had mended all the fences preparatory to planting our crops. Our major crop was to be cotton and there was some 50 acres of stiff black land to be prepared. It was a breeze as long as it was reasonably dry, but tended to ball up and adhere very tenaciously to the hooves of the horses after about 30 minutes of plowing. Their feet would become so large the horses couldn't move much to the chagrin of Papa. His friends had told him they weren't worth a damn for plow horses--what he needed was mules. But Papa's ideas about mules was this: He didn't like 'em and oft quoted a mule skinner's idea about them, "A mule will be your best friend for 20 years just to get a chance to kick hell out of you." So, no mules for him, he just took an axe to the field and cut the balls of mud from the horses' feet.
As spring progressed into early summer, it started showering and during the month of June it rained every day during the month, and that took care of the cotton crop, as this was BI (Before Insecticides) and the bugs ate it up.
But Mama's garden flourished, until one of old Columbus Stephen's goats climbed the fence amd started playing havoc with it. Mama had the goat cornered and was about to kill it with a hoe when Papa attempted to stop her. He made a near fatal mistake, he stuck his foot out to protect the toat and she hit it and broke his foot. This left all the feeding and tending of the livestock to me and I was 11 years old.
I went to the barn in the dark every morning; we had no such thing as a flashlight and Mama would bring the latern with her when she came to milk. Then I broke my elbow at school and that put me out of commission for about six weeks, but it healed much faster than Papa's broken foot so I was back doing most of my chores before it came time to harvest the crops. There was no cotton to pick (that was the cash crop). Papa sold the rent houses in Leesville.
Then the hogs took something. Papa and I, not knowing that such wasn't done, caught them and drenched them with Epsom Salts. Drenching is done by holding the animal's head up, pouring the salts down their throat, and stroking the throat until they swallow. Grandpa said you can't drench a hog. He didn't know Papa. They shit up a storm, but recovered and in due time were converted into food for the winter. Meanwhile Mama canned enough food to last us for five years.
On Sunday I got a chance to play for a few hours in the afternoon. Our closest neighbor had a boy about my age and he and I would catch a goat or yearling calf and try to ride them. We weren't too successful, but easily survived the few bumps and scratches.
Mama's youngest sister and her family lived about a half mile from Grandpa's on Snuff Ridge and the old folks and Janie and her kids would come out to see us. The cousin nearest my age was a boy and wanted to do everything we did but wasn't allowed to do anything as he had a hernia (acquired as an infant due to constipation). Although he was a nuisance, we felt sorry for him and he wanted to ride a goat. We figured he should be allowed to do so, but had to find some way to keep him from getting bucked off and hurt. So we caught a goat and hog tied the goat. Then we put Jodie on him and wired his feet together with hay wire under the goat's belly. When the goat was released, he took a couple of futile tucks and found that didn't dislodge the burden on his back so he took off for the tall timber. Jodie was screaming bloody murder. The goat ran under a low limb and it caught his burden in the chest, busted his wired feet loose, and knocked him senseless. We thought he was dead, but just the breath was knocked out of him. He never asked to ride another goat til this day. What Mama did to me, I decline to say, but I survived.
During that summer I went barefooted, naturally, and acquired numerous sores on my feet which didn't heal at all, so I went bare footed all winter and that sved buying shoes. And to this dy I het like the bare feet. I had one very persistent sore on the side of my left foot which stayed with me nearly all winter, but I finally got rid of it. I cut it off and the new wound healed--I was splitting some kindling and made a mislick and sliced off my chronic sore. Then I had to wear shoes again, much to my chagrin.
While all this was transpiring the horses ate and the family ate. Mama baked up a 48 pound sack of flour a week. The horses ate anything and everything. It seems they were omniverous. In fact, we finally ate ourselves out of the farm.
Papa put it up for sale and sold it to som guy named Dedrick from Ohio, thereby gaining some token of revenge for the Civil War. I never heard what his troubles were, but he lasted about three years and died.
We lived on the top of a lohg red-clay hill which became a nightmare for the few Model T Fords in circulation at that time. The horses turned out to be very adept at pulling stuck cars out and for once the brought in a little revenue. I never saw them hitched to anything that they didn't move it.
Papa, before this, was painting the house while he had it up for sale and slipped off the roof and fell about 40 feet to the ground and landed squarely on his posterior. The doctor said he would never walk again. He didn't know Papa. Papa walked and griped about his old hip for another 35 years. Mr. Wells gave him back his old job and he was soon getting $90 per month. He got enough out of the farm to make a down payment on a house in Terrell and we moved back. Two yers later, at age 14, I was working on the railroad and doing a grown man's work.
As an afterthought I want to relate one other incident related to the farm. Before we ever saw the farm, Papa bought the horses and he and I went to the corral to lead them home. Fred seemed to like me from the outset, but Frank took a completely opposite view. When I got close to him, he tried to bite me and continued to do so as long as I had occasion to be near him. The only time he didn't molest me was when I put his bridle on, but I never ceased to fear him and perhaps he could sense this fact. One day Papa was plowing Fred and we were going to plant peanuts in a field of deep sand east of the house. Now Mama had told me not to use bad language, but I was at liberty to say anything I ever heard Papa say. So that was one time Mama's instructions backfired on her. I was used to slipping old Fred a handfull of corn or some other feedstuff on occasion which he very gently ate from my hand, never coming cloe to nipping or harming me in any way.
Papa was plowing the field and it was my job to plant the peanuts. I had a kind of apron affair on and was dropping the peanuts in the furrow Papa had opened. He and Fred were approximately 100 feet across the field from me. Fred
Autobiography of R. D. Harrison, Sr.
Fall of 1917 to Spring of 1920
Danielle Neal Perkins
Danielle Neal Perkins originally shared this on 15 May 2010
Robert Daniel Harrison
Danielle Neal Perkins
There was seasonal employment in the cotton gin and compress as well as the cotton fields. It has been, for years, a puzzle to me as to how persons could do so much on so little money there. A hundred dollars a month was a sought-after amount. There were no filling stations because there were no cars to sell "gas" to. There were several feed stores for the livestock and a wood yard or so which principally sold coal; due, no doubt, to the scarcity of useable timber of any kind of timber for that matter. The backs of the business buildings attested to the lurid and not-too-far-distant past, as traces of signs for saloons and livery stables remained.
One item of distinction which was an oddity in that part of the country was a minicipal band complete with a bandstand and full time director-teacher, and they played for special occasions and gave weekly concerts during the summer.
Also Terrell was on the itinerary of the Redpath-Horner Chataqua Circuit. This was an organization which, for a week every summer, provided a bit of entertainment and disseminated a smattering of knowledge giving a play or so-called scientific exhibition or two. For the elite there was the season ticket which sold for $2.50 and, to people of our economic status, out of the question. They hired a few local boys as roust-abouts and general flunkies in exchange for passes. That's how I got in. I don't think there was a picture show before we went farming. If there was, the price was out of the question. A kid's ticket cost a nickel and nickels were scarce.
I would like my descendants to know of my financial acumen. When I had about completed my first year in school and had been working good and hard for Mama, I begged her for a nickel so I could go to the store and buy some candy. Mama didn't have a nickel to give me so she gave me a dime. I lost all my faith in justice and motherhood--I didn't know what a dime was or what it represented. Finally one of my half-sisters went with me to the store and there we got change for the dime of two nickels, and each of us got a goodly sized sack of candy. That was my initial knowledge of high finance.
The chief reason that families were able to do nicely on such meager salaries was the fact that the cost of living was so low. Round steak was 10 cents per pound, 10 pounds sugar was 50 cents. A 48-pound sack of flour was 75 cents. There was no electricity, no natural gas. We used kerosene lamps for light. No city water supply, one drew water from the well and used it for all purposes; hence the only utility to pay for was phone service. There were no income taxes or sales taxes, so total expenditures were negligible. We raised our produce or went without. We had a cow for milk, checkens for eggs, hogs for lard and pork meat. We also had flies by the millions and as the old story goes about the fellow living at a boarding house, he acked an older man how, or at what time, was the best time to visit the Privy. The old codger replied, "Meal time--the flies all come inside to the table;" and they call it the "good old days" which is a bunch of hooey. The human race never had it so good and if one dances, one must pay the fiddler.
The stay on the farm was best forgotten even if we couldn't erase the results from our memory. Everything that was, went wrong, and Papa finally decided he wasn't cut out to be a farmer. To begin with, his inbability to please the Federal Government was the direct cause of this episode. During the era of World War I the railroads were, as they now say, nationalized. They were taken over and run by the Federal Government. This was the beginning of the decline of the railroad. They never recovered from it. When the G men took over they immediately raised Papa's pay to $75.00 a month. And whereas in the past he had had it easy, it now became, as far as he was concerned, impossible to tolerate. "Put everything down in writing, even an order for a keg of spikes." To begin with, the old man couln't write so he or anyone else could read it when it got cold. He quit; but Mr. Wells, his friend to the end, finally talked him into asking for a leave of absence so he might return after the war. This was granted so he began preparing for the Exodus.
First, as was customary in those days, he leased a boxcar from the railroad. It was spotted on an unused side track, and we began loading our possessions. We had a good milk cow and assorted pigs, chickens, and cats. At the time we had no dog. First he sold our home in Terrell, then three rent houses that he owned. And with the cash received bought the last two horses used by the Wells-Fargo Express Co. They motorized. The horses were twin Clydesdales named Fred and Frank.
Fred had a full blazed face and Frank, partial blaze. This was the greatest mistake he made. They ate us all he had or could gather together for the next several years. He also bought a wagon and surrey with the fringe on top for the family to ride in. After all the furniture was loaded, we built stalls for the livestock and loaded them. Papa and I rode the car to Leesville, Louisiana, out from which he owned a 160-acre farm. What amazes me in these inflationary times was the fact he had accumulated all this property on pay the most of the time was about 96 cents a day.
He also had four rent houses in Leesville that Grandpa Bob Baggett looked after and collected the rent for and promptly pocketed. The way I heard it, the only money ever returned to Papa was when he sold them to pay debts. We were in truth war refugees and we lived to regret the Exodus.
Ten days after a tearful farewell to Terrell, Papa and I and the livestock arived in Leesville. Mam and the girls, my helf-sisters, arrived and were staying at Grandpa's. The only thing that stands out in my memory of the unloading was that Texas cow's introduction to Louisiana. She was accustomed to eating anything green in reach of her prehensile tongue. The first thing she saw was a small pine sapling which she promptly inhaled, thinking it was edible. You would never have convinced me a cow could spit, but she did when the turpentine flavor became apparent to her. We took the livestock to Grandpa's as he had pens to put them in. We assembled the wagon and started hauling our stuff to the farm, which was about three miles from town. As we went with each load, it took about six hours round trip, so we enlisted the help of Grandpa and his one-horse wagon. It took us a week to make the move.
We found we had reasonably good fences surrounding the barn, etc., but there was one big drawback. Our livestock was accustomed to free range. A small matter of a fence was no trouble at all for Fred and Frank--they just walked through them and went on their merry way eating. The chicken yard was surrounded by a picket fence with the pickets close enough together to preclude them getting through, but nothing to prevent them flying to the top of the fence, hooking their head over the top, and down to the other side. There was one thing that was their downfall, however, the pickets in the fence were shaped to a point at the top so as soon as theyt reached the top their necks slid down in the space between the pickets and there they stayed until they choked to death. We collected about two dozen corpses the first morning. Then we clipped one wing on each remaining chicken and ate chicken until I never have liked it since.
After sawing some trees and setting some new posts, we corraled the livestock again and started our careers as farmers. By this time it was the first days of Decembr and cold weather was setting in. The kids were enrolled in the Bellview School and, to our pleasant surprise, we found that passing required absolutely no effort on our part. I was in the sixth grade and the curriculum was identical with the fourth grade in Terrell, so it was no sweat at all. Both of my sisters were in high school so they really enjoyed the vacation. We lived on the farm for 20 months and left it to return to Terrell in the spring of 1920.
We walked to school through a sylvan setting the likes of which you may never see again. It was a tract of virgin long leaf pines of which there ain't any more. the nearest thing to them is the Douglas Fir on the west coast. These statuesque trees didn't have a branch for a distance upward of about 100 feet and there was a carpet of pine straw about 2 feet thick on the ground. It was indeed awe inspiring. When we bid adieu to the farm they were cupping this tract of timber for turpentine preparatory to cutting for saw timber.
The following spring after we arrived was perfect, we had mended all the fences preparatory to planting our crops. Our major crop was to be cotton and there was some 50 acres of stiff black land to be prepared. It was a breeze as long as it was reasonably dry, but tended to ball up and adhere very tenaciously to the hooves of the horses after about 30 minutes of plowing. Their feet would become so large the horses couldn't move much to the chagrin of Papa. His friends had told him they weren't worth a damn for plow horses--what he needed was mules. But Papa's ideas about mules was this: He didn't like 'em and oft quoted a mule skinner's idea about them, "A mule will be your best friend for 20 years just to get a chance to kick hell out of you." So, no mules for him, he just took an axe to the field and cut the balls of mud from the horses' feet.
As spring progressed into early summer, it started showering and during the month of June it rained every day during the month, and that took care of the cotton crop, as this was BI (Before Insecticides) and the bugs ate it up.
But Mama's garden flourished, until one of old Columbus Stephen's goats climbed the fence amd started playing havoc with it. Mama had the goat cornered and was about to kill it with a hoe when Papa attempted to stop her. He made a near fatal mistake, he stuck his foot out to protect the toat and she hit it and broke his foot. This left all the feeding and tending of the livestock to me and I was 11 years old.
I went to the barn in the dark every morning; we had no such thing as a flashlight and Mama would bring the latern with her when she came to milk. Then I broke my elbow at school and that put me out of commission for about six weeks, but it healed much faster than Papa's broken foot so I was back doing most of my chores before it came time to harvest the crops. There was no cotton to pick (that was the cash crop). Papa sold the rent houses in Leesville.
Then the hogs took something. Papa and I, not knowing that such wasn't done, caught them and drenched them with Epsom Salts. Drenching is done by holding the animal's head up, pouring the salts down their throat, and stroking the throat until they swallow. Grandpa said you can't drench a hog. He didn't know Papa. They shit up a storm, but recovered and in due time were converted into food for the winter. Meanwhile Mama canned enough food to last us for five years.
On Sunday I got a chance to play for a few hours in the afternoon. Our closest neighbor had a boy about my age and he and I would catch a goat or yearling calf and try to ride them. We weren't too successful, but easily survived the few bumps and scratches.
Mama's youngest sister and her family lived about a half mile from Grandpa's on Snuff Ridge and the old folks and Janie and her kids would come out to see us. The cousin nearest my age was a boy and wanted to do everything we did but wasn't allowed to do anything as he had a hernia (acquired as an infant due to constipation). Although he was a nuisance, we felt sorry for him and he wanted to ride a goat. We figured he should be allowed to do so, but had to find some way to keep him from getting bucked off and hurt. So we caught a goat and hog tied the goat. Then we put Jodie on him and wired his feet together with hay wire under the goat's belly. When the goat was released, he took a couple of futile tucks and found that didn't dislodge the burden on his back so he took off for the tall timber. Jodie was screaming bloody murder. The goat ran under a low limb and it caught his burden in the chest, busted his wired feet loose, and knocked him senseless. We thought he was dead, but just the breath was knocked out of him. He never asked to ride another goat til this day. What Mama did to me, I decline to say, but I survived.
During that summer I went barefooted, naturally, and acquired numerous sores on my feet which didn't heal at all, so I went bare footed all winter and that sved buying shoes. And to this dy I het like the bare feet. I had one very persistent sore on the side of my left foot which stayed with me nearly all winter, but I finally got rid of it. I cut it off and the new wound healed--I was splitting some kindling and made a mislick and sliced off my chronic sore. Then I had to wear shoes again, much to my chagrin.
While all this was transpiring the horses ate and the family ate. Mama baked up a 48 pound sack of flour a week. The horses ate anything and everything. It seems they were omniverous. In fact, we finally ate ourselves out of the farm.
Papa put it up for sale and sold it to som guy named Dedrick from Ohio, thereby gaining some token of revenge for the Civil War. I never heard what his troubles were, but he lasted about three years and died.
We lived on the top of a lohg red-clay hill which became a nightmare for the few Model T Fords in circulation at that time. The horses turned out to be very adept at pulling stuck cars out and for once the brought in a little revenue. I never saw them hitched to anything that they didn't move it.
Papa, before this, was painting the house while he had it up for sale and slipped off the roof and fell about 40 feet to the ground and landed squarely on his posterior. The doctor said he would never walk again. He didn't know Papa. Papa walked and griped about his old hip for another 35 years. Mr. Wells gave him back his old job and he was soon getting $90 per month. He got enough out of the farm to make a down payment on a house in Terrell and we moved back. Two yers later, at age 14, I was working on the railroad and doing a grown man's work.
As an afterthought I want to relate one other incident related to the farm. Before we ever saw the farm, Papa bought the horses and he and I went to the corral to lead them home. Fred seemed to like me from the outset, but Frank took a completely opposite view. When I got close to him, he tried to bite me and continued to do so as long as I had occasion to be near him. The only time he didn't molest me was when I put his bridle on, but I never ceased to fear him and perhaps he could sense this fact. One day Papa was plowing Fred and we were going to plant peanuts in a field of deep sand east of the house. Now Mama had told me not to use bad language, but I was at liberty to say anything I ever heard Papa say. So that was one time Mama's instructions backfired on her. I was used to slipping old Fred a handfull of corn or some other feedstuff on occasion which he very gently ate from my hand, never coming cloe to nipping or harming me in any way.
Papa was plowing the field and it was my job to plant the peanuts. I had a kind of apron affair on and was dropping the peanuts in the furrow Papa had opened. He and Fred were approximately 100 feet across the field from me. Fred
Autobiography of R. D. Harrison, Sr.
Fall of 1917 to Spring of 1920
Danielle Neal Perkins
Danielle Neal Perkins originally shared this on 15 May 2010
Robert Daniel Harrison
Danielle Neal Perkins
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