Heathcock Genealogy Database - Person Sheet
Heathcock Genealogy Database - Person Sheet
NameOpal Cynthia Adair 
1076, 1C2R
1076, 1C2RBirth27 Dec 1905, Hays Co TX
Death20 Jun 1986, Bishop, Nueces Co TX Age: 80
FatherEdward Lee “Edd” Adair (1868-1947)
MotherMargaret Frances (Maggie) Cleveland (1876-1959)
Notes for Opal Cynthia Adair
THE ADAIR FAMILY HISTORY
Written By
Opal Adair Harvey
My Great-Great-Grandfather and Great-Great-Grandmother Adair were:
JAMES ADAIR born on June 8, l790. He Died on March 22, 1851
ANN SMITH ADAIR was born on May 17, 1789. She Died on October 16, l852
JAMES ADAIR AND ANN SMITH were married on February 11, 1814
JOHN SMITH ADAIR born on May 21, 1822
ANDREW JACKSON ADAIR born on May 13, 1831
My Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother Adair were:
ANDREW JACKSON ADAIR born May 13, 1831 -Died July 18, 1911 at Buda, Texas
FRANCES GAUNT ADAIR born October 28, 1839 - Died November 2, 1882 in Tate County, Mississippi
ANDREW JACKSON ADAIR married FRANCES GAUNT ADAIR in Marshall County, Mississippi on October 1, 1857 at the residence of W. M. Gaunt, the brother of Frances Gaunt, by Elder James S. Power.
Their 8 children were:
LAURA ADELINE ADAIR born 1858 — married William I. Hargis, December 20, 1876– Died on August 17, 1948. William I. Hargis died September 6, 1925. They lived in Oxford, Mississippi and never lived in Texas.
CORDELIA PARALEE (Dilley), we called her Aunt Dee, born June 28, 1861. She married Charles M. Harris January 24, 1883.. Cordelia died January 19, 1944. Charles M. Harris died May 12, 1945. They lived in Georgetown, Texas.
JAMES WILLIAM was born February 15, 1866. He married Mattie Howe, November 6, 1894 and died March 30, 1923. They lived in Buda, San Marcos and Austwell, Texas.
EDWARD LEE was born July 14, 1868. He married Margaret Frances Cleveland on November 11, 1896. He died February 4, 1947. Margaret Frances died December 6, 1959. Both died at Bi9shop, Texas and are buried there.
MARGARET PEARL was born November 27, 1871. She married Joseph Johnson Franks on November 9, 1893. She died April 9, 1951 and lived in Muleshoe, Texas.
MARY CORAL was born December 16, 1874. She married James Robert Stewart, November 22, 1893 and died December 29, 1950. J..R. . Stewart died January 18, 1946.. They lived in Dilley, Texas
ARTHUR IVERSON WAS BORN October 11, 1877. He died October 26, 1892 at the age of 15 years. He is buried in Kyle Cemetery, Kyle, Texas.
LULA JUDSON was born September 25, l882. She married Buckner Harris Rylander, November 15, 1903. They lived in Buda, Texas.
The A.J. Adair family moved from Mississippi to Texas in 1886 and settled near Kyle, in Hays County, Texas.
(NOTE: David and Sarah Cleveland moved their family from Dalton, Georgia to Knoxville, Arkansas in 1889 and from Knoxville, Arkansas to near Kyle, Texas in 1901.)
My parents were:
EDWARD LEE ADAIR was born July 14, 1868 and died February 4, 1947.
MARGARET FRANCES CLEVELAND was born October 18, 1876 and died December 6, 1959. They were married November 11, 1896 in Kyle, Texas.
The children of Edward Lee and Margaret Adair were:
EARL and PEARL, twins born 1897 - born stillborn.
LUTHER born March 24, l899 - Married Roxie Olivia Griffin on June 7, 1926. They had one daughter, Nell Rose.
DEE was born July 21, 1901. He married Nettie Davenport of Elgin, December 22, 1922. They had one son, Charles Edward. Dee Died in May, 1942.
ROY was born February 12, 1903. He married Amelia Hunt. They had one son, Billy Roy and later divorced.
He later married June (Billie) Goerick of Corpus Christi. They had one son Eddie. Roy died February 1, 1962 and Billie died October 1962.
OPAL was born December 27, 1905. She married Earl T. Harvey, March 11, 1928. They had two sons, David Lee and John Baker. Earl died January 19, 1958.
LULA and EULA were twins born October 25, 1907. Eula died at the age of 9 months. Lula married Norman Mork of Kingsville. They had no chi8ldren and were divorced. She later married Cecil Witt, and adopted two girls Judy and Brenda (Bing. Cecil died December 2, 1951.
LORENE was born December 5, 1909. She married Durwood Miller on October 11, 1933. They had 2 sons, Don and Dwain. Durwood died February 11, 1964
ELMER was born on November 4, 1911. He married Lois Ash and had 2 children, Margaret and Mike.
BABY GRACE was born in 1913 and lived about 8 months.
EDWARD LEE (Rip) was born July 28, 1915. He married Doris Nanney on June 22, 1944. They had 3 children, Ronny, Craig and Vicki.
Andrew Jackson Adair was a carpenter. His two sons, James William Adair (Jim) and Edward Lee Adair (Ed) were both farmers. The two brothers lived in Buda, Hays County area after they married. When I can first remember, I suppose I was 4 or 5 years old. We lived on adjoining farms located 3 _ to 4 miles Southeast of Buda. (Ours was, and Uncle Jim’s joined ours on the east.) This was in what was called the Science Hall area.
Our family at one time lived in the hills west of Kyle and Buda, also in the Go forth area. It was in the Go forth area that I was born - as were Lola and her twin, Ella. There was a church South of Uncle Jim’s place - in the Go forth area - called the Martin Church. It was here that Luther, Dee and Roy accepted Christ into their hearts and joined the church. This old church still stands. They do not have services here now, but each year in the summer, they have a ‘Homecoming’ or reunion. There is also an old cemetery near the church.
There was a country school house in the Science Hall area located about _ mile from our house. It was here that we went to school at least through the 6th grade. Our mother usually boarded the teacher during the school year from Monday through Friday. The school house was also used for holding Sunday School on Sunday afternoons for many years. However, as early as I can remember, we also drove into Buda and attended Sunday School and church at the First Baptist Church. It was here that I accepted Christ as my Savior and joined the church. We had a two seated surrey with 2 horses hitched to it until we got our first automobile - a Model T Ford. We did not usually go back for the evening services, nor did we get to go if the weather was very cold or raining.
The Clevelands also lived in and around Buda. It was the joy and delight of the cousins when two or more families would spend the day together visiting. We had great times together - especially in the summer time. We would often make a big freezer of home-made ice cream and see who could eat the most.
We played games such as hide and seek, kick the bucket, jump the rope, base ball, all kinds of races, broad jump, high jump, marbles Red Rover, Flying Dutchman, drop the handkerchief. None of us had many ‘store bought’ Toys. We made our own kites, sling shots, ‘Nigger shooters’. Even our ball most likely was one that our mother had made for us out of string, and our bat might just be a board or stick of sone sort.
One of our favorite play-things was an old wheel with some sort of bar through it for an axle that we bend over and push. This has been the cause of many fusses and often was a good spanking from our Mother or Dad because we had to share it and when it came another’s turn, we did not always want to part with it. There’s no telling how many miles we have run behind that old wheel. We also rolled old tires and hoops, but nothing seemed to have the ‘charm’ that old wheel had for us.
We also climbed trees, rode horses and we did usually have a little red wagon. The older children usually had to keep a couple of the younger ones happy by pulling them around in this. There was a very large umbrella China Tree in our front yard. We played under this in the summer all day long , when we weren’t doing chores. We girls had our play-houses under this tree and played house - making ‘mud pies’ using the green china berries as though they were peas, or grapes - and we were busy little bodies and having fun. Each of us did usually have a doll, and Mother made clothes for them. We were always ‘playing like’, and we shortened it so that it sounded as if we were say ‘pli-ke’ (plike). As we became teen aggers, we attended ‘country parties’, and we had a lot of fun at these. We also had ‘42' parties and they were a lot of fun.
All of us had chores to do regularly - setting the table, washing and drying the dishes, cleaning up the dining room and kitchen after meals. We gathered eggs, picked up wood chips and cobs to help start the fire in the big wood-burning cook stove. In most cases, we began making biscuits and corn bread when we had to stand on a wooden box or in a chair to reach the table top or cabinet to mix it. This was also true of washing and drying the dishes.......the three older boys taking their turn at the dishes until we girls were old enough.
The boys chopped wood for the stove, shucked corn for the horses, mules and hogs, and milked the cows after they were big enough. However, I remember my parents saying that they had milked as many as 18 cows twice a day before any of us were big enough to help. We girls had to help them with the milking of the cows if they were busy in the fields as well as the shucking of the corn.
We raised as much of our food as possible, so we always had chickens, sometimes turkeys, and hogs for butchering in the winter months. Papa also raised hogs to sell, as well as cream or butter, eggs, and chickens at one time or another. We also had a Spring and a Fall garden and grew all the vegetables we could. We loved to pull a nice ripe tomato and eat it ‘right off the vine’. Or pull a turnip or carrot and peel it and eat it right there. It was quite a day back in the ‘wagon and mules day’ when Papa would go into Austin with a load of hogs to sell. He would have to leave very early in the morning around 3 or 4 o’clock and it would be ll or 12 at night when he returned.
The churning of the butter was done in a churn that had an upright dasher in it, and it was a long, tedious job that most of us children lathed. However, when Grandpa Cleveland was there, he was real good to do the churning - and did not even seem to mind it. Mother had a wooden one pound rectangular mold that she used to mold the butter. She then wrapped it in waxed paper, and Papa would deliver it to San Marcos once a week. Buda was about half-way between Austin and San Marcos. They sold butter to the San Marcos Baptist Academy for many years.
Hog-killing time was a big thing on the farm in the winter time. It had to be done on a cold day, and everyone was up bright and early. Papa and the older boys - and we usually had Mexican help living on the place, too - did the killing with a 22 rifle. They had a big wash pot of very hot water in which they scalded the pig, then scraped the hair off with sharp knives - somewhat like shaving with a razor. Then they cut the head off, cut him open down the middle of the tummy and cleaned him out good. And washed it good with buckets of clean water. They often hung him by his hind legs on the limb of a tree for this. They saved the heart and liver - Mother cooked these, and we ate them. Mother usually cleaned all the fat from around the entrails, and later this was used with fat from other parts of the body for making lard. They cleaned the big wash pot and washed it real good to render the lard in.
Papa was the one who cut the meat up, or if he had anyone to help, he did the supervising, and every part was used. Sometimes the head might be given to the Mexican helpers to make tamales, but other times Mother made a good ‘hogs head cheese’ from it. Even the feet were cleaned and pickled - and they were good. We had a big smoke house in the back yard where the hams and bacon were hung and smoked, then later packed in salt in a large wooden box there in the smoke house for use as they were needed. This was called ‘cured’ meat. We might do this several times during the winter, and it would last on into spring and maybe even into summer. Enough lard was also made for many months.
Papa was also the one who usually ground and seasoned the sausage - though Mother and the older boys also helped - and he really made good sausage. The sausage was usually stuffed into cloth bags which Mother sewed on the sewing machine - from unbleached domestic. These bags were generally about 18 inches to 24 inches long and about 3 inches in diameter. When we wanted to cook it, the ‘sack’ was pulled back, the sausage sliced and fried. The sausage was also hung in the smokehouse - from the rafters and used as needed. Sometimes the large intestines were cleaned very good and washed thoroughly and used for stuffing the sausage.
Much of the soap we used for dishwashing and for the laundry was also made at home. This was made with grease and lye in that same big iron wash pot and was called ‘lye soap’. We did the laundry in wash tubs with a rubbing board and boiled the white ones in that same big iron pot. We never did have to go to the creek to wash our clothes that I can remember, as some people did. After the clothes were scrubbed, they were then boiled and then rinsed good through two rinse waters at least. A little ‘bluing’ was added to the last rinse water to make them pretty and white. While they were in the pot boiling, they were punched down good in the water a couple of times - the handle of an old broom was usually used for the punching. Also for getting them out of the pot. They were then hung on a clothes line to dry. I can never remember having to dry the clothes by spreading them around on bushes or shrubs.
About 1910 or 1911, the families began to spread out more. Tom and Will Cleveland went to Austwell about this time, being the first families to pioneer in this area. Later Dave also joined them there.
The Jim Adairs’ moved to San Marcos in 1913. He sold his farm there by us and bought some land near Beeville, but bought a home in San Marcos so his children could have better educational advantages. The two older girls attended normal school there in what later became Southwest Texas Teachers College, and is now Southwest Texas State University. (This is the same college Lyndon Johnson attended.) The girls became teachers. Albert attended the San Marcos Baptist Academy. Then in 1917 they moved from San Marcos to the farm near Beeville, and in 1919 they too moved to Austwell. Irene and Mary taught school in Skidmore while they were in Beeville, and Mary taught in Austwell after they moved there.
In December 1920, we sold the farm at Buda and moved 4 miles West of Bishop where Papa had bought a farm. I was a Junior in High School at this time and I stayed on in Buda with Uncle Tom and Aunt Josie and finished out the school year. Aunt Lillie had died in 1914, and Tom had moved back to Buda and later married Mrs. Josie Prumley. They had Marguerite and were expecting another child. I was to help with the household chores for my room and board. I was the only one in our family in High School at this time. Luther had graduated and was in Baylor University, Dee had joined the Army, and Roy had ‘Dropped out’ of school in the 9th grade. Lula, Lorene, and Elmer attended an elementary school just a mile from the farm in Bishop. I joined the family in Bishop as soon as school closed in May.
Farming was still done with mules at this time. We did have a car, but there were no paved roads out in the country. I learned to drive in 1918 when I was 13 year=s old. During my senior year in Bishop High School, I drove and all of us attended school in town. Edward was just entering (The nickname ‘Rip’ came later.) On rainy days Papa or one of the boys would ride a horse into town and drive us home - leading the horse behind the car. This was one of the happiest years of my school life. There were 12 others in the senior class, and we developed a very close relationship which has lasted through the years.
Two of us girls in the class were planning to be teachers. We had no buses at this time - nor any paid substitute teachers. Whenever a teacher was ill and had to be absent from school, the superintendent called upon one of us two girls to ‘fill in’ for her. I taught for a third grade teacher at one time that year for 3 weeks. We had to keep up with our own studies - write themes, hand in geometry assignment, make up our lab reports in chemistry, take tests, the whole bit - as well as fill in the best we could for the absent teacher (without pay too.) However, at the end of the school year, the Superintendent did call the two of us in and thank us for helping out as we had. He also told us that if he was still in the school profession when we got ready to teach to call upon him and he would give us our first teaching position.
We had a real bad hail storm just 2 weeks before graduation that just about ruined our crops that year. It broke nearly every window on the west side of our school building out, and we had to have our gradation exercises in the old Methodist Church.
Written By
Opal Adair Harvey
My Great-Great-Grandfather and Great-Great-Grandmother Adair were:
JAMES ADAIR born on June 8, l790. He Died on March 22, 1851
ANN SMITH ADAIR was born on May 17, 1789. She Died on October 16, l852
JAMES ADAIR AND ANN SMITH were married on February 11, 1814
JOHN SMITH ADAIR born on May 21, 1822
ANDREW JACKSON ADAIR born on May 13, 1831
My Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother Adair were:
ANDREW JACKSON ADAIR born May 13, 1831 -Died July 18, 1911 at Buda, Texas
FRANCES GAUNT ADAIR born October 28, 1839 - Died November 2, 1882 in Tate County, Mississippi
ANDREW JACKSON ADAIR married FRANCES GAUNT ADAIR in Marshall County, Mississippi on October 1, 1857 at the residence of W. M. Gaunt, the brother of Frances Gaunt, by Elder James S. Power.
Their 8 children were:
LAURA ADELINE ADAIR born 1858 — married William I. Hargis, December 20, 1876– Died on August 17, 1948. William I. Hargis died September 6, 1925. They lived in Oxford, Mississippi and never lived in Texas.
CORDELIA PARALEE (Dilley), we called her Aunt Dee, born June 28, 1861. She married Charles M. Harris January 24, 1883.. Cordelia died January 19, 1944. Charles M. Harris died May 12, 1945. They lived in Georgetown, Texas.
JAMES WILLIAM was born February 15, 1866. He married Mattie Howe, November 6, 1894 and died March 30, 1923. They lived in Buda, San Marcos and Austwell, Texas.
EDWARD LEE was born July 14, 1868. He married Margaret Frances Cleveland on November 11, 1896. He died February 4, 1947. Margaret Frances died December 6, 1959. Both died at Bi9shop, Texas and are buried there.
MARGARET PEARL was born November 27, 1871. She married Joseph Johnson Franks on November 9, 1893. She died April 9, 1951 and lived in Muleshoe, Texas.
MARY CORAL was born December 16, 1874. She married James Robert Stewart, November 22, 1893 and died December 29, 1950. J..R. . Stewart died January 18, 1946.. They lived in Dilley, Texas
ARTHUR IVERSON WAS BORN October 11, 1877. He died October 26, 1892 at the age of 15 years. He is buried in Kyle Cemetery, Kyle, Texas.
LULA JUDSON was born September 25, l882. She married Buckner Harris Rylander, November 15, 1903. They lived in Buda, Texas.
The A.J. Adair family moved from Mississippi to Texas in 1886 and settled near Kyle, in Hays County, Texas.
(NOTE: David and Sarah Cleveland moved their family from Dalton, Georgia to Knoxville, Arkansas in 1889 and from Knoxville, Arkansas to near Kyle, Texas in 1901.)
My parents were:
EDWARD LEE ADAIR was born July 14, 1868 and died February 4, 1947.
MARGARET FRANCES CLEVELAND was born October 18, 1876 and died December 6, 1959. They were married November 11, 1896 in Kyle, Texas.
The children of Edward Lee and Margaret Adair were:
EARL and PEARL, twins born 1897 - born stillborn.
LUTHER born March 24, l899 - Married Roxie Olivia Griffin on June 7, 1926. They had one daughter, Nell Rose.
DEE was born July 21, 1901. He married Nettie Davenport of Elgin, December 22, 1922. They had one son, Charles Edward. Dee Died in May, 1942.
ROY was born February 12, 1903. He married Amelia Hunt. They had one son, Billy Roy and later divorced.
He later married June (Billie) Goerick of Corpus Christi. They had one son Eddie. Roy died February 1, 1962 and Billie died October 1962.
OPAL was born December 27, 1905. She married Earl T. Harvey, March 11, 1928. They had two sons, David Lee and John Baker. Earl died January 19, 1958.
LULA and EULA were twins born October 25, 1907. Eula died at the age of 9 months. Lula married Norman Mork of Kingsville. They had no chi8ldren and were divorced. She later married Cecil Witt, and adopted two girls Judy and Brenda (Bing. Cecil died December 2, 1951.
LORENE was born December 5, 1909. She married Durwood Miller on October 11, 1933. They had 2 sons, Don and Dwain. Durwood died February 11, 1964
ELMER was born on November 4, 1911. He married Lois Ash and had 2 children, Margaret and Mike.
BABY GRACE was born in 1913 and lived about 8 months.
EDWARD LEE (Rip) was born July 28, 1915. He married Doris Nanney on June 22, 1944. They had 3 children, Ronny, Craig and Vicki.
Andrew Jackson Adair was a carpenter. His two sons, James William Adair (Jim) and Edward Lee Adair (Ed) were both farmers. The two brothers lived in Buda, Hays County area after they married. When I can first remember, I suppose I was 4 or 5 years old. We lived on adjoining farms located 3 _ to 4 miles Southeast of Buda. (Ours was, and Uncle Jim’s joined ours on the east.) This was in what was called the Science Hall area.
Our family at one time lived in the hills west of Kyle and Buda, also in the Go forth area. It was in the Go forth area that I was born - as were Lola and her twin, Ella. There was a church South of Uncle Jim’s place - in the Go forth area - called the Martin Church. It was here that Luther, Dee and Roy accepted Christ into their hearts and joined the church. This old church still stands. They do not have services here now, but each year in the summer, they have a ‘Homecoming’ or reunion. There is also an old cemetery near the church.
There was a country school house in the Science Hall area located about _ mile from our house. It was here that we went to school at least through the 6th grade. Our mother usually boarded the teacher during the school year from Monday through Friday. The school house was also used for holding Sunday School on Sunday afternoons for many years. However, as early as I can remember, we also drove into Buda and attended Sunday School and church at the First Baptist Church. It was here that I accepted Christ as my Savior and joined the church. We had a two seated surrey with 2 horses hitched to it until we got our first automobile - a Model T Ford. We did not usually go back for the evening services, nor did we get to go if the weather was very cold or raining.
The Clevelands also lived in and around Buda. It was the joy and delight of the cousins when two or more families would spend the day together visiting. We had great times together - especially in the summer time. We would often make a big freezer of home-made ice cream and see who could eat the most.
We played games such as hide and seek, kick the bucket, jump the rope, base ball, all kinds of races, broad jump, high jump, marbles Red Rover, Flying Dutchman, drop the handkerchief. None of us had many ‘store bought’ Toys. We made our own kites, sling shots, ‘Nigger shooters’. Even our ball most likely was one that our mother had made for us out of string, and our bat might just be a board or stick of sone sort.
One of our favorite play-things was an old wheel with some sort of bar through it for an axle that we bend over and push. This has been the cause of many fusses and often was a good spanking from our Mother or Dad because we had to share it and when it came another’s turn, we did not always want to part with it. There’s no telling how many miles we have run behind that old wheel. We also rolled old tires and hoops, but nothing seemed to have the ‘charm’ that old wheel had for us.
We also climbed trees, rode horses and we did usually have a little red wagon. The older children usually had to keep a couple of the younger ones happy by pulling them around in this. There was a very large umbrella China Tree in our front yard. We played under this in the summer all day long , when we weren’t doing chores. We girls had our play-houses under this tree and played house - making ‘mud pies’ using the green china berries as though they were peas, or grapes - and we were busy little bodies and having fun. Each of us did usually have a doll, and Mother made clothes for them. We were always ‘playing like’, and we shortened it so that it sounded as if we were say ‘pli-ke’ (plike). As we became teen aggers, we attended ‘country parties’, and we had a lot of fun at these. We also had ‘42' parties and they were a lot of fun.
All of us had chores to do regularly - setting the table, washing and drying the dishes, cleaning up the dining room and kitchen after meals. We gathered eggs, picked up wood chips and cobs to help start the fire in the big wood-burning cook stove. In most cases, we began making biscuits and corn bread when we had to stand on a wooden box or in a chair to reach the table top or cabinet to mix it. This was also true of washing and drying the dishes.......the three older boys taking their turn at the dishes until we girls were old enough.
The boys chopped wood for the stove, shucked corn for the horses, mules and hogs, and milked the cows after they were big enough. However, I remember my parents saying that they had milked as many as 18 cows twice a day before any of us were big enough to help. We girls had to help them with the milking of the cows if they were busy in the fields as well as the shucking of the corn.
We raised as much of our food as possible, so we always had chickens, sometimes turkeys, and hogs for butchering in the winter months. Papa also raised hogs to sell, as well as cream or butter, eggs, and chickens at one time or another. We also had a Spring and a Fall garden and grew all the vegetables we could. We loved to pull a nice ripe tomato and eat it ‘right off the vine’. Or pull a turnip or carrot and peel it and eat it right there. It was quite a day back in the ‘wagon and mules day’ when Papa would go into Austin with a load of hogs to sell. He would have to leave very early in the morning around 3 or 4 o’clock and it would be ll or 12 at night when he returned.
The churning of the butter was done in a churn that had an upright dasher in it, and it was a long, tedious job that most of us children lathed. However, when Grandpa Cleveland was there, he was real good to do the churning - and did not even seem to mind it. Mother had a wooden one pound rectangular mold that she used to mold the butter. She then wrapped it in waxed paper, and Papa would deliver it to San Marcos once a week. Buda was about half-way between Austin and San Marcos. They sold butter to the San Marcos Baptist Academy for many years.
Hog-killing time was a big thing on the farm in the winter time. It had to be done on a cold day, and everyone was up bright and early. Papa and the older boys - and we usually had Mexican help living on the place, too - did the killing with a 22 rifle. They had a big wash pot of very hot water in which they scalded the pig, then scraped the hair off with sharp knives - somewhat like shaving with a razor. Then they cut the head off, cut him open down the middle of the tummy and cleaned him out good. And washed it good with buckets of clean water. They often hung him by his hind legs on the limb of a tree for this. They saved the heart and liver - Mother cooked these, and we ate them. Mother usually cleaned all the fat from around the entrails, and later this was used with fat from other parts of the body for making lard. They cleaned the big wash pot and washed it real good to render the lard in.
Papa was the one who cut the meat up, or if he had anyone to help, he did the supervising, and every part was used. Sometimes the head might be given to the Mexican helpers to make tamales, but other times Mother made a good ‘hogs head cheese’ from it. Even the feet were cleaned and pickled - and they were good. We had a big smoke house in the back yard where the hams and bacon were hung and smoked, then later packed in salt in a large wooden box there in the smoke house for use as they were needed. This was called ‘cured’ meat. We might do this several times during the winter, and it would last on into spring and maybe even into summer. Enough lard was also made for many months.
Papa was also the one who usually ground and seasoned the sausage - though Mother and the older boys also helped - and he really made good sausage. The sausage was usually stuffed into cloth bags which Mother sewed on the sewing machine - from unbleached domestic. These bags were generally about 18 inches to 24 inches long and about 3 inches in diameter. When we wanted to cook it, the ‘sack’ was pulled back, the sausage sliced and fried. The sausage was also hung in the smokehouse - from the rafters and used as needed. Sometimes the large intestines were cleaned very good and washed thoroughly and used for stuffing the sausage.
Much of the soap we used for dishwashing and for the laundry was also made at home. This was made with grease and lye in that same big iron wash pot and was called ‘lye soap’. We did the laundry in wash tubs with a rubbing board and boiled the white ones in that same big iron pot. We never did have to go to the creek to wash our clothes that I can remember, as some people did. After the clothes were scrubbed, they were then boiled and then rinsed good through two rinse waters at least. A little ‘bluing’ was added to the last rinse water to make them pretty and white. While they were in the pot boiling, they were punched down good in the water a couple of times - the handle of an old broom was usually used for the punching. Also for getting them out of the pot. They were then hung on a clothes line to dry. I can never remember having to dry the clothes by spreading them around on bushes or shrubs.
About 1910 or 1911, the families began to spread out more. Tom and Will Cleveland went to Austwell about this time, being the first families to pioneer in this area. Later Dave also joined them there.
The Jim Adairs’ moved to San Marcos in 1913. He sold his farm there by us and bought some land near Beeville, but bought a home in San Marcos so his children could have better educational advantages. The two older girls attended normal school there in what later became Southwest Texas Teachers College, and is now Southwest Texas State University. (This is the same college Lyndon Johnson attended.) The girls became teachers. Albert attended the San Marcos Baptist Academy. Then in 1917 they moved from San Marcos to the farm near Beeville, and in 1919 they too moved to Austwell. Irene and Mary taught school in Skidmore while they were in Beeville, and Mary taught in Austwell after they moved there.
In December 1920, we sold the farm at Buda and moved 4 miles West of Bishop where Papa had bought a farm. I was a Junior in High School at this time and I stayed on in Buda with Uncle Tom and Aunt Josie and finished out the school year. Aunt Lillie had died in 1914, and Tom had moved back to Buda and later married Mrs. Josie Prumley. They had Marguerite and were expecting another child. I was to help with the household chores for my room and board. I was the only one in our family in High School at this time. Luther had graduated and was in Baylor University, Dee had joined the Army, and Roy had ‘Dropped out’ of school in the 9th grade. Lula, Lorene, and Elmer attended an elementary school just a mile from the farm in Bishop. I joined the family in Bishop as soon as school closed in May.
Farming was still done with mules at this time. We did have a car, but there were no paved roads out in the country. I learned to drive in 1918 when I was 13 year=s old. During my senior year in Bishop High School, I drove and all of us attended school in town. Edward was just entering (The nickname ‘Rip’ came later.) On rainy days Papa or one of the boys would ride a horse into town and drive us home - leading the horse behind the car. This was one of the happiest years of my school life. There were 12 others in the senior class, and we developed a very close relationship which has lasted through the years.
Two of us girls in the class were planning to be teachers. We had no buses at this time - nor any paid substitute teachers. Whenever a teacher was ill and had to be absent from school, the superintendent called upon one of us two girls to ‘fill in’ for her. I taught for a third grade teacher at one time that year for 3 weeks. We had to keep up with our own studies - write themes, hand in geometry assignment, make up our lab reports in chemistry, take tests, the whole bit - as well as fill in the best we could for the absent teacher (without pay too.) However, at the end of the school year, the Superintendent did call the two of us in and thank us for helping out as we had. He also told us that if he was still in the school profession when we got ready to teach to call upon him and he would give us our first teaching position.
We had a real bad hail storm just 2 weeks before graduation that just about ruined our crops that year. It broke nearly every window on the west side of our school building out, and we had to have our gradation exercises in the old Methodist Church.