The following episode contains a reference to a family photo of three families preparing to leave Arkansas for a new home and, hopefully, a better, more prosperous future in Central Texas. The photo was made in Harrison, not far from the community of Kingston, where the family had been living on a farm on Madewell Mountain. The families were distantly related, and close friends, and the picture can be seen in the DNA section of the website.

Winters, Texas, was named in honor of John N. Winters, a rancher and land agent, not the season, but the winters were typically mild. The summers, on the other hand were hot and humid. This could be a hardship on a family of five, getting by, living in a tent. Macie had plenty of Pioneer spirit, but Providence would intervene and she would not have to endure the hardship for too long, nor would we, on our next two “stops” in West Texas.

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Texas-Two-"Stop"
Finding Family Roots & Grandma’s Sister

West Central Texas found a place in our family history early on. We have a photo of three covered wagons leaving Arkansas for Texas in 1908. One of them is driven by a young William Thomas “Tom” Smith, with his pretty school-teacher bride, the former Amasa Alice Price, and their son, Earl, daughters, Carmen and Verneice, born ‘06, ‘07, and ‘08 respectively. These are my dad’s parents and three oldest siblings. Grandpa Smith was a farmer by tradition and a harness maker by trade. According to stories in our family lore, the set of harness he made for himself for his team always drew admiring glances and complimentary remarks wherever and whenever a group of teamsters had gathered. He went to Winters, in Runnels County, forty one miles south of Abilene, and was employed by a harness shop, and lived in a tent for the duration of their stay there. Winters incorporated in 1909, the same year that the Abilene and Southern Railway built an extension from Abilene to Winters. Land values in the city jumped to $7.00 per acre, which may be the reason Grandpa decided not to stay.

So here we are again in the West! Welcome to Albany, the county seat of Shackelford County, TX. It had been an  important hub in the  history of the settlement of the area. The first sheriff, William Cruger named the town for his former home, Albany, Georgia. One of the town's Bicentennial projects was a rock fountain dedicated to the memory of the Georgia volunteers killed in the Goliad Massacre during the Texas Revolution. The town became the county seat in November, 1874. By August,1875; a general store was established. Cattle drivers going up the Western Trail to Dodge City soon began to use the town as a supply point. Upon arrival of the Texas Central Railroad in 1881, Albany became a shipping point for cattle.

With the emergence of the oil industry in the twentieth century, discovery of the Cook oilfield in 1926, and later discoveries, made Albany an oil drilling, producing, and supply center. The presence of the oil-bearing sands was now well known, but what was not known, to the companies holding leases in the area, was the most probable, and profitable, spot to sink another hole. That is exactly what brought us to Albany.

It did not take long to conduct the surveys and supply the client with the data that they  required to satisfy their needs. It would probably take much longer for their geologists and geophysicists to pore over the maps and reports, and decide where next to spend their money. The search for housing in this community had not been the most productive, and the results were only minimally satisfactory, so the idea of moving on down the road was more of a relief than a regret. Our move would be a short one, across the county line to the west, in Jones County.

I think my most vivid memory of our stay in Albany was of Dad making toys for my brother and me: he built us a pair of kaleidoscopes! He used cardboard mailing tube material cut to length, and a glass cutter to cut window glass into strips, and broken pieces of colored glass, a shattered tail light lens, a few marbles and tiny stones to place inside. A flashlight lenses in one end and a peep hole in the other, completed the assembly of the toys for us. We were fascinated by them and would spend many quiet moments watching the patterns change as we rotated the tube in our hands. Then we would go to the vacant  lot adjacent to the apartment property and search for potential “jewels” for future assemblies. The kids we played with in the neighborhood were standing in line for their turn to “see the magic”.

Our stay in Jones County would have more to offer. In Stamford, on the border with Haskell County, we found a nice single-family two bedroom house on a pleasant, quiet street in a well-kept  neighborhood. My favorite room was the kitchen, as usual, but this one had a large window on my side of the breakfast table, making our mornings especially bright and sunny. There were tall, clipped hedges separating the properties, visible through the window, and I had seen horned toads scampering over the bare ground beneath them, looking about the ant hill for a meal. This afforded me a diversion, an activity to pass the time as I waited my turn, and my second  segment of a waffle; our waffle iron was four-sectioned, but small and old, barely adequate for a family of four. Mom made her batter from scratch, colored her own oleo, and boiled her own imitation maple syrup. It was worth the wait! 

Mom had found this house very easy to clean and make habitable. We were enjoying our stay. Daddy felt almost as if he was putting down roots. He even had a phone put in, the first time we had one since leaving Tulsa; normally the office phone was adequate for keeping in touch. Our own phone made it more like “home”.  Also, related in the “roots” department,  a sister of my grandmother lived on a farm near Hamlin, in the far northwest corner of the county. As soon as she found out we were in the area, she invited, and almost insisted, that we come every Sunday for dinner. I was very much in favor of the idea. The physical resemblance of the two ladies was striking. The meal preparation was carbon-copy, wood-burning stove and all. Their voices and smile were very similar. Everyone called her “Effie”, my grandmother’s Amasa was shortened to “Macie”. Her house was always brimming with Dad’s cousins, some of whom he had not seen for years, but every visit they were able to roll back the years and the clock. The last time I was in Hamlin was the winter of ’60 to take Grandma and two other of her sisters to Aunt Effie’s memorial service. My dad couldn’t make the trip but he sent my brother and me in his brand new Impala so the ladies would have a comfortable trip.

Please indulge me by allowing an out-of-sequence sidebar that expands upon this Texas connection. For a while, during summer breaks from high school and college, I followed in my father’s footsteps, because it paid better than anything else I knew how to do at the time. The summer I turned fifteen, in central Oregon, I was allowed to “ride along”, pro bono, and get some Jeep-driving experience with our “meter operator”, Bobby Jones, who instructed me in all the finer points of the job as a “meter operator“. When we were on forest logging roads, I would drive. This sped up the routine and increased production. When we were on paved public highways, we would trade places, he would drive and I would take over the meter. When we needed to expand our range, we would establish a “base”  for calibration purposes, with a ground point in a protected spot that would not be likely to be disturbed. This had to be documented by a blue-printable description so it could be located by subsequent surveys. These became my responsibility. By the end of the summer, I was fully qualified to operate the North American gravitimeter and keep the data notebooks properly. All I needed to be hired was a full-fledged drivers’ license. Later I learned to operate the Worden meter. Each year, between school terms, I would  go to a crew and be the “meter man”.  One summer, I was sent to Texas, to a little town north of Sweetwater where the work was along the Brazos River. My resume was greatly enhanced  by wading the river at least twice a day, swatting thick hoards of mosquitoes in the mesquite thickets, and sending diamondback rattlers to meet their maker on an “as required” basis. I then went on a circuitous assignment east to Abilene, then north, seven counties in all, including Shackleford and Jones, my dad’s old stomping grounds. I worked off of some of the “calibration bases” set by the crews back in ‘46.

One of Dad’s cousins owned a hardware store in Stamford, so if we needed light bulbs or fuses we would go there to get whatever was on our list, Daddy would visit with his cousin, Mom would browse through the appliances, while my brother and I checked out the toy department. He had a Yokum family Dogpatch Band toy, a wind-up piano with Mammy sitting on top, Daisy Mae playing, Pappy with a snare drum, and Li’l Abner tap-dancing. He offered to demonstrate it for us and of course, we all thought it was hilarious. Dad wound up buying it for us, and we enjoyed having it around, but it wound up being stored at Grandma’s. That preserved it past our childhood and the thing wound up being highly collectable. Should have bought a pair of them!

The city is home to the Texas Cowboy Reunion. It was established as a tribute to the Texas cowboy, to preserve their traditions, and to counteract the depression-era morale. Will Rogers made one of his last public appearances at the Texas Cowboy Reunion in 1935, less than two months before he died. It is billed as the "World's Largest Amateur Rodeo", and is held for four days each year around July 4. We would be gone from Stamford by then, but Dad had promised us a rodeo and there was one held about every weekend, so we made plans to take one in. If you read Chapter VII, paragraph five, you know how that turned out! 

All of our Oklahoma relatives were glad to hear we were now living in Texas, because it borders Oklahoma. That means it has to be closer to Locust Grove than Southern  
Mississippi, right? Some folks just never learned how big the state of Texas is, and how long it takes to drive across it! And then diagonally across Oklahoma at about the longest point, is no walk in the park. We were closer, alright, but it was still 347 miles, only fifty-eight miles closer. One thing for sure, it is closer than our next stop, Worland, Wyoming!

My family came from Yelleville, Arkansas, Ron. It's also near Harrison. My mom car pooled to work there in a khaki uniform factory.

My parents worked at a garment factory in Tahlequah, Okla. during WW II. they were making Army Uniforms,, fatigues, My Father was Floor  Manager and my Mother was in charge of all the ladies doing the sewing.  Occasionally a woman would sew the needle through her finger and Mom would have to free her from the machine. They made thousands of uniforms for our men in uniform. 

A.J., Yelleville is where the Movie True Grit story started; I used to go through there twice per year in the early 70s---nice country!

Frank, thanks for posting, it is interesting to find out how everyone was involved with the war effort. I used to talk to your mom two or three times a week; I have that picture of her standing by your '40 Ford sedan in my archives.