Then in about 1908 Mama & Papa desided to leave Hood Co. So we loaded our belongings in covered wagon and left or at least my Papa did. he went to Cottle Co. and after a little while we went by train, he met us in Chillicothie tex. and loaded us in the wagon & took us about 50 mi south of there & He was working for his brother, Ben Brooks & (Aunt Mattie) Bin was building the Quana, Ackma & Paudua R.R., and we all lived in tents, even big tent for the horses & mules that they used to build the R.R. bed, cuts & dikes. There was even a supply store where we got all our grocerys.
We lived in a place along the R.R. & moved along as the work progressed, all on a large ranch, about 50 mi from the nearest neighbor & schools so that year we didnt go to school. Late in fall we moved to Oklaunion tex. Papa gatched[?] corn, Mama did sewing, Bruce & I went to school. We still lived in a tent.
We left there and went to Wichita Falls, stayed in a wagon yard in Misquito flats. Then Papa got a job at Thornbery, picking cotton for Mr. Thornbery & we had our tent near his house, for a while. Then we moved into one of his rent houses on the hill. Zetskies lived in the house & we moved in with them, in abut 2 weeks they moved to another place. Bruce & I went to school. This was 1909 now, so Maggie started in Primer, she was 7. I was 9. Bruce 11.
Then Papa bought 150 acres of sod land from Mr. Thornbery & build a frame house on it 4 rooms, a barn & barnyard. We had a cistern, no well. He broke the sod & planted it in cotton & feed stuff. We had a few cows & 2 or 3 team of mules -- Red, Blue, Tobby & Snake -- 2 horses -- Dock & dick -- 1 buggy horse -- Rhondo. We had a cricket buggy we drove to school in bad weather but when it was nice, we walked. Was about 4 mi, of corse no pavement in those days -- all dirt & sand -- and we had to face the north wind in the winter. We used to put newspaper inside our coats to keep the wind out. Wore tobbogans & facinaters (a wool cap & scarf).
We liked school. There was 3 rooms, and my first teacher was Miss Mamie Walker. later on they ony used 2 rooms of the school. We soon got aquainted with other boys & girls the Roop children, Wallers, the Hamsards, Stevensons, Fowlers, I guess was our best pals.
We went to Sunday school & church on sunday, & sometimes Mama woud let us ask our friends to come & spend the day with us. She was a good cook and we alwys had lots of good things to eat. Of corse there was no tv, radio, car, telephone, no gas or elect. We cooked on a wood range, burned coal oil lamps, milked cows & churned our own butter, had no rugs on the white pine floors, we scrubbed them with wood ashes to make them white & clean. We heated water in a big black 3 legged pot to wash clothes in & we had to scrub them on a rub board, boil them, wrench through 3 waters & hang out on a fence to dry.
We went to town in a wagon 8 or 10 mi, about twice a year, in fall for winter clothes & in spring for summer clothes. Mama made most of our clothes on an old treddle new home sewig machine. Of corse Papa went to town more often for he had to get supplys & take grain & cotton to the market & take the wagon load of cotton to the gin in town to have it gined & bailed. Sometimes he woud let some of us children go with him, near the end of the Picking Season, then he woud take us to the big store where he got grocerys & get us some candy and fruit. Those were eventful days.
Those days were not a bed of roses for those dry land farmers. We had to haul water to drink & cook with, but we used the water fom the cistern for washing & bathing. We had no bath tub of corse. The bath water was heated on the wood cook stove then put in the wash tub near the kitchen stove & we 4 children all got scrubbed in the same water. Then after the bath, the water was used to scrub the kitchen floor, and for this we used wood ashes, to bleach out the pine floors. We washed on a rubbord, boiled the clothes in a big black pot.
Just how did one do a days washing in those days. Well, first, early morn, the Pot was filled with water, and a fire was built around it, & when the water got hot it was dipped out with a pail & put in wash tub. And the white clothes that had already been wet in cold water was put in the hot suds, & we rubbed them on the rub-board until they were clean, (using soap that we also had to make) then the clothes were put in the Pot of hot soapy water and boiled, & while they were boiling we scrubbed the towls or what we called the 2nd Pot to be boiled. Then we used the Punching stick to punch them down while they boil. We used the Punching stick to take them out of the hot water & back in a tub of cold water. This we called the take up water, which woud be hot & soapy after the hot clothes were added in it. Then the second Pot of clothes was put in the Pot to boil. The first Pot (sheets ect) was washed again & renched through 3 waters & had blueing in it, then, starch, if was to be starched. We rang them out by hand & hung them on a wire line to dry. The colored clothes were scrubbed & renched but not boiled, and it took 1 full day to do a family wash. The tubs were all emptyed & the Pot washed out & turned up side down to dry.
The next day all those clothes had to be ironed with a sad iron, heated on wood stove & heavy rag to lift it by, as it had an iron handle & got very hot. When you ironed with an iron & it got to cool to iron you put it back on the stove & got a hot one. Most of the ironing was done on the kitchen table with a quilt & sheet over it. Very few folks those days had ironing boards.
In 1912 we got a little baby brother he weighed 12 lbs -- we called him Buster, but he was named Hugh Morris -- and we loved him very much. I was now 12 years old and now we had a telephone that hung on the wall. My dad was still farming, and on the farm next to us lived the Osborns -- John Henry & wife Elizabeth and 3 sons -- Ashby, Willie & Tom. Ashby was born in about 1890, Willie in 1893, Tom 1896 -- or about that. The other son Robert died in 1909 when he was about 4 years old. East of us lived the Pools, south of us the Fowlers, the Osborns on the north side their 160 acres run paralell to ours. The houses were on the road & the fields went east to the Pool Place.
We were what was called dry land farmers and the land was Sod land newely broken pasture land. About this time Mom's sister Lucy & family lived with us. Our house was small & there was 5 children, so Lucy & family had a tent set up in our back yard for sleeping. I think my parents alwas had some of the relation living with them as long as my father lived (passed away in 1944).
In 1914 June 24 we got another little brother. My cousin Nola Ferol Brooks was staying at our house that summer. She took us 5 kids on a picknic the day the baby arrived, over in a thicket of trees in the Pharris's pasture. About 4pm we big kids (I was almost 14 them) saw my Aunt Zue waving a white cloth that ment we could all go back home the baby was there they named him Voris Paul Brooks (V.P. Brooks Jr.)
About this time I heard my mother tell a lady friend, "If she had a marageble daughter she would tell her to set her cap on that Willie Osborn" on the next farm, He is about the nicest young man I ever met -- so I desided to look at this fellow. he went to the same school, but was quite a bit older than I was. he rode a Harleydavison motorcycle & I thought he was quite nice. That fall I was 14 and we was soon walking home from school together.
He bought a car in 1915 late in the fall, a Saxson Roadster. Some time Mom would let me go with him & my brother Bruce to town to a show. The sumer I was 15 just before I was 16 in sept. she let me go to curch with Willie (as everyone called him)
Willie's mother died July 30 1916. Ashby & wife Annie lived up the hill from us about 1/4 of a mile or less. Mr. Osborn left in the fall & went to Ga or alabama to see his father & step mother. On Dec 20th Blanche was born to Ashby & Annie, first Grandchild but Mrs. Osborn didnt live to see any of them.
Willie was lonesome & needed help to run that big farm -- so on Dec 22, 1916, we got married at Bobtest chuch on 4th st. Wichita Falls. Tom Osborn & Rentie his wife took us to get married. (My brother Bruce stood up for them) She was a Handsond girl.
Along about this time we all began to call Willie, Billy. I think my cousin Nola started it, and soon he was just Bill Osborn. We lived at Mr. Osborn's place & gathered in the crop and took care of the livestock while Mr. Osborn was in alabama. Bill had a cotton patch over on Tom's place & we set us up a tent & lived over there & picked the cotton.
Then in 1917 we moved to the Parmer Place (rented it) planted cotton. Was a bad year made 1 bale of bowls, but got a good price for it. We sold the car & got a motorcycle & side car. That fall we both had the fluenza, about Nov 1918, it was. Had just gotten up when armistace was declared. Bill went to town with Papa, & I think just about everyone in the neighborhood went but I was in bed with flu yet & they wouldn't let me go. Was snow on the ground & very cold. PaPa had a Maxwell car then. Soon we sold our motorcycle & got another Saxon car.
Then on Jan 1, 1919, Papa took the wagon & moved us to Pocotown near Burkburnett, tex. Bill had been up there working for a long time & in his spare time he built us a 1 room house, about 18 x 20 ft. Was built by the light of his car, & built on derrick timber 12x12 I think it was, & just like a sled so we could move it in case we had to move.
We had nice neighbors the WC. Wrights were our best friends next door. They were Walter & Lemon, & they had a little girl Annie age 5. He was a carpenter, Bill was a mecanic, worked on compay cars, $4.50 per day, & we practely lived on beans & blackyed peas, cornbread. By this time I had learned to cook a little better.
In 1919 Burkburnett was a boom town, no paved streets or side walks and rained a lot that year & the mud was hub deep. Our small Saxon car woud go down in one of those mud holes & we got stuck & the pipe hauling wagons woud hook on to us & pull us out.
That town including Ragtown was a wild and wooly place. Ragtown was a town of tents had cots for men to sleep in & stores & evything were tents. No fit place for a woman. But was nice out in Pocotown where we lived. We had a place to swim & we had a rollerskating rink. Our neighbors were the Attaways, the Walter & Cecil Wrights & a woman called Slim. dont remember her real name she had a cat and I had a pet chicken named Cutsie that Mrs. Ataway had given to me. I was 18 them.
We lived there from Jan 1st to Jan 1st, 1919 to 1920. One neighbor was named Parmer. One couple named Grant they had a little boy 8 yeas old named Ollie he had to still set in a high chair, nothing but his head had ever grown still just a baby.
Bill roomed & boarded at a place they called the Dirty Spoon (Hotel) while he was building the house. Then he came & got me. About this time Mom's sister Lucy died & left 3 children. Mom agreead to take care of them for so much a mo. which she was paid the first month, but none after that & she keept them over a year at 5 of her own. Well I guess Bruce was married to Hattiamy McCoy in 1919, while we were living in Pocotown.
To Be Continued ...
[Note: This material is copyrighted to Bessie Ferol Osborn, Mae Elizabeth Flood, and Kimberly Appelcline.]
