RSS 2.0 NEWS FEEDSGarrett’s Bluff
Posted 06.20.06 at 10:22 AMI had a delightful encounter on June 10 at the annual Emberson School reunion held at the Pshigoda Center on Cherry Street in Paris, Texas. Eva Hall Brown presented a colorful handmade quilt to Aikin Regional Archives. It’s sewn with fabric-copied historic photographs and dates, names, and signatures of former students, including her own. She started school there in 1924.
Eva’s grandfather was Dr. Benjamin Franklin Hall, whose wife was Rebecca Elizabeth Buster Hall; Dr. Hall was an early day physician in the area. Eva’s parents were Charles and Florence Caviness Hall. Her younger sister, Billie Hall Engel, of Fairfield, Ohio, was at the reunion, also.
Eva presented a collection of historic papers and photographs to the archives, including a wonderful photograph of Maud Hall’s gin at Garrett’s Bluff.
According to A.W. Neville’s “Backward Glances” column of June 25, 1941, Dr. B.F. Hall was a surgeon in the Confederate Army, a Virginian who came to Texas after Lee’s surrender and settled at Center Springs (now Chicota). One of his sons, W.M., was known as Maud Hall. About 1898 he built a steam gin at Garrett’s Bluff.
Dr. Hall soon moved from Center Springs onto Caviness land and lived in a log house from which he practiced medicine and farmed the land. His cotton was ginned at Center Springs on a gin operated by horse or mule power which turned out maybe two bales a day. Such is progress.
Also in the collection is a wonderful picture of the old ferry at Garrett’s Bluff, one of a 1907 “fish fry,” and one of the “Emberson Gang.” Both sunbonnets and parasols were the fashion of the day, and the picnic was spread on the ground on big cloths. Folks dressed up for their social occasions in those days. It was a way of life of which the current generation knows but little.
I think I’ll add the second item to the Paris Junior College historic quilt collection. I recently bought a hand-stitched quilt top which I couldn’t resist. It’s in the bowtie pattern and is pieced with genuine flour sack prints. At first, I thought I’d hand quilt it myself, but being a naturally lazy person, I now think I’ll give it to the archives.
Comments: 0 | Read & Comment »Beaumont Part Two
Posted 06.12.06 at 3:43 PMBeaumont sojourn, Part Two: On the one day we had to “tour” before the big rain began, (“we” being my brother, J.B., and sister-in-law, Dianna,) we set out for Cameron, Louisiana, which is considered to be where the eye of Rita came ashore. We specifically went to Holly Beach, a resort area near Cameron nearly identical to Crystal Beach, on Bolivar Peninsula, where they own a beach cabin.
These beach areas consist of several streets that run parallel to the beach. The houses are on stilts to avoid high water, and the most coveted houses face the sandy beach itself. Also, this is not low-priced real estate. The houses have beautiful tropical plants and palm trees and green grass decorating the lawns.
There was simply nothing left - even the grass was gone - either covered up or (I suspect) blown out of the ground. Pilings tilted crazily where houses had been, and here and there we could see an upended septic tank or a lonely toilet mired in a puddle. Many vehicles lay abandoned, crushed into balls of scrap metal, only a tire or a steering wheel or inflated air bags to indicate what they had been.
Comments: 0 | Article Continues ... Continue Reading & Comment »Gator Hunting
Posted 06.08.06 at 2:47 PMSomeone said he’d heard I’d gone gator watching during my recent trip to Beaumont, but I only saw one from a boardwalk in a nature reserve. We meant to go out in an air boat, but unfortunately, the 15-inch rain commenced the next day. However, almost as good a sight was the huge barge dry docked alongside the highway out of Cameron, Louisiana. It was just beached beside the road, having floated there on the 15-20 foot tidal wave that swept the area after Rita struck. I guess no one’s had time to come and get it.
Last year was better for gators—I saw the biggest one I’ve ever seen lounging on the far side of a bar ditch down around Johnson’s Bayou, Louisiana. Like dopes, we got out of the car and took wonderful pictures, and it never moved a muscle except to hiss once in a while. I later read that when they gape their mouths open, they are really ingesting some kind of solar energy, instead of warning intruders to keep their distance.
Comments: 0 | Article Continues ... Continue Reading & Comment »Interim Message
Posted 06.08.06 at 8:18 AMHey, I’m back from two weeks in Rita-ravaged Beaumont and interesting points South, still digging out from hurricane damage, as we speak. It only rained abut 15 inches in the area while I was there—I’d almost forgotten what “real rain” looks like, but 15 inches refreshed my memory! More to come soon.
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Gleaned: News from Aug. 30, 1933
Posted 05.26.06 at 8:25 AMGleaned from The Dinner Horn (The Afternoon Edition of the Paris Morning News) on Aug. 30, 1933:
» Inmates of the Choctaw County jail Tuesday ended a bread and water diet imposed when authorities discovered five hacksaw blades allegedly smuggled into the prison last Friday by a woman trusty.
» The Lamar County Chamber of Commerce voted to contribute $100 to the expense of promoting the building of Red River dam above Denison.
» The Texas Pacific Railway was advertising roundtrip fares to the Chicago World’s Fair for $17.50, slightly higher in sleepers.
» 3 Beall Brothers on the southwest corner of the Plaza was having a sale: summer dresses 98 cents, men’s summer union suits 25 cents, men’s dress shirts in fast colors 59 cents, and new cotton tweed suiting 25 cents per yard. (Read it and weep.)
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