RSS 2.0 NEWS FEEDSMontague County
Posted 07.07.08 at 1:37 PMHere’s an interesting website to investigate: http://www.totty-families.org/diary/jun1876.html.
The great-great-great-granddaughter of Capt. F.M. (Frank) and Rhoda Totty has transcribed numerous years of the diaries that Rhoda kept from 1876-1881, and she has put them online. I am their great-great-granddaughter. John Harvill was their son-in-law, married to Anna, one of their several daughters. My Harvill heritage is long and rather colorful, and its roots are in Montague County, Texas. I return to this scenic county once or twice a year, and each time that I do, I feel it calling to me.
I spent much of my childhood on a big ranch that my father owned, most of it playing and riding horseback on over 900 acres. My dad, habitually a very cautious man where his family was concerned, just turned me loose on my horse, once he was convinced that I could start it, stop it, and turn it right or left.
I had great times on that ranch, usually by myself, riding on roads, across pastures, and even in the deep canyons that once marred the landscape. Now they are dammed up and provide bottomless pools of precious water. The canyons were magical worlds of their own, the banks towering above me, and the beds so wide, and often filled with dry sand that I could ride in them.
This past weekend I returned for our annual homecoming, and several of us made a pilgrimage to a nearby ranch property to see the old Bean Cemetery, where the Tottys are buried. (The Beans were their neighbors.) It’s overgrown with bull nettles and thorny briars and poison ivy, but I did see the two Totty graves, side by side. About a quarter mile from the cemetery, we found the Totty cabin site.
Comments: 1 | Article Continues ... Continue Reading & Comment »Home Front Letters: Lottie Thompson
Posted 07.02.08 at 3:45 PMI had an interesting letter from Lottie Thompson of Lewistown, Penn. Lottie remembers the ’40s quite well, but she wasn’t writing about the ’40s this time.
She was just telling her news and what she does in her routine, and something she said really caught my attention. I thought to myself: we’re on the way back to how it was in the ‘40s. Give a listen to this.
“... I’m making plans to move up around there to be closer to my girls. They tell me I will be sorry, but I still think I need to be near them. With the price of gas, I can’t expect them to come down to see me. Yes, my girl friend has a car. When pay day comes, she and her son and another friend of ours and me all go to the bank and the food stores together. We try to make one trip for us to the bank, food store, and the drug store to get our medicine in one trip.”
Here we are in the age of technology, and our retirees (and a lot of other folks, too) have to band together and share cars and split the cost of gasoline just to do the monthly chores. They did it that way when they were young working folks and gas was in short supply. I wonder if any of them feel a bit like they’ve been in this situation before? How funny. If it weren’t so sad, it’d be funny.
Comments: 0 | Read & Comment »PJC Housing in 1946
Posted 06.13.08 at 10:05 AMHow far we’ve come at Paris Junior College.
On Jan. 7, 1946, The Paris News printed this headline: “Housing Seen for PJC Vet Students.” Married veteran students were soon to be occupying three-room pre-fabricated houses on campus. Dr. J.R. McLemore, president of the college, had applied through the Federal Housing Authority at Fort Worth for 12 houses for the coming term and a total of 24 for next fall.
Married students were then occupying two trailer houses and one apartment. Unmarrieds would find plenty of room in the dormitories, he said, and the existing cafeteria could take care of “unlimited numbers.”
The proposed houses would be insulated, easily constructed, durable and adequate for the needs of a couple. They would contain a combination living room and bedroom, a kitchen, and a bath, and they would be ready for occupancy almost immediately because of the ease with which they were constructed.
Comments: 0 | Read & Comment »Home Front Letters: Shirley LaRosa
Posted 06.11.08 at 9:57 AMShirley writes, from Pahrump, Nev.:
Comments: 0 | Article Continues ... Continue Reading & Comment »It seems in the old days before the big grocery chains and supermarkets, a lot of food was sold individually. For example, there was a store that sold nothing but fresh fish. Outside this fish store, there was a man who, all day long, ground horseradish (on a grinder) to order. You bought the horseradish from him separately and got it fresh. I believe it was put in a paper container.
Then there was a shop that only sold chickens. The fowls were slaughtered and hung up on hooks until all of the blood drained out. What a sight to see when you walked into that shop. The smell was horrendous, too.
For fresh fruits and vegetables, a truck would come around the neighborhood, and the ladies of the houses would go down to meet him and buy off his truck.
The one store that always fascinated me was actually in a dark basement. The two men who owned this business were brothers, and they worked all day long “candling eggs.” They held up one egg at a time to a light bulb to see that there were no baby chicks inside to surprise the cook when she cracked it open. At least, that’s what I thought then, as a kid. I remember how excited the brothers got when they saw two yolks in an egg. Can you imagine testing eggs that way, one by one, for sale? They were also able to detect if an egg was rotten, and these were thrown out on the sidewalk for the cats.
Today, you can go into a Wal-Mart and buy a complete outfit from shoes and socks to a sweater and ski cap. Back then, they had specialty shops. One such store sold ladies’ undergarments. You were fitted for your bra and girdle, pinned to your measurements. The clerk would then go to the back of the store, and, on a sewing machine back there, she would stitch up the garment to fit you.
World War Two Archives Exhibit
Posted 06.10.08 at 11:02 AMWhen you’re in the Sudent Center at Paris Junior College, check out the Archives exhibit by the north doors into the ballroom. Derald Bulls, our new director of institutional advancement and alumnae affairs, has given the archives 48 World War II photos, which soldiers who had rented rooms from his mother and father, Jo and Derald Bulls, left behind during the war.
Bulls told the story of the photos:
Mom and Dad moved to Paris from Commerce in 1943,” Bulls said. “Dad went to work with Ayres Department Store (north plaza), and Mom secured employment at Camp Maxey working for one of the commanding officers.
During this time, Mom befriended many a soldier and his family. I say family because many sent their rations (flour, sugar, etc.) to their soldiers stationed here. Mom and Dad’s home on North Main Street became somewhat of a weekend headquarters for many soldiers and families who came to visit them. Mom would take their rations and make pies, cakes, etc. for the young men.
As a result of these friendships, some soldiers would leave personal items at their home for safe keeping. This is how the 40-50 World War II photographs came into our possession. The photos were in the top of my dad’s closet for years and years. During my Paris High School days, I carried them to history class, but back into the closet they went when I got home, and there they stayed until we broke up housekeeping on 19th Street SE in the late 80s. Because the photos were detailed with descriptions of where they were taken, i.e. Iwo Jima, Normandy, etc., I couldn’t let them go. For the past 20-plus years I’ve kept them and shared them with my children during school times, but WWII didn’t have the same attraction to them as it did to me!
I wish I knew the names of the soldiers, sailors, marines, etc. who came through our home and left the photos, but I don’t. Maybe this feature on the archives website will create a greater interest.
To this day, even though both parents are deceased, I still maintain communications with the daughters of the late Jim Peel, who referred to my parents as Uncle Derald and Aunt Jo, and a special soldier, Pat Carbone, still trades Christmas cards with me each year. In fact, my parents so liked Pat and his late wife, Jean, that after leaving the clothing field for a few years and beginning a 13-year career in a full-service Humble Oil station, Dad sponsored Pat through the Humble Oil training program. Pat ended up with one of the top producing full-service stations in Dallas for over 40 years! Mom and Dad cared for members of the military services from the four corners of the U.S.
The photographs are very moving. Studying them quietly, I begin feeling something of the significance and impact of these action scenes and of the fates of the men who were involved in them. In the middle of the case are pictures of Derald and Jo, depicting the Home Front, which was so meaningful to the young soldiers who resided for a time in their loving home in Paris, Texas. The photographs are all being mounted for display and will be rotated periodically.
Comments: 0 | Read & Comment »