Three of the Stribling “girls” (my
grandmother and her sisters Myrtle and Maud) married Acton farmers (Oscar
Grammer, Dick Rash, and Ben Clifton).
·
Aunt Myrtle’s and Uncle Dick’s four children (Elsie,
Jesse Lynn, Emma Mae, and Billy) were first cousins of my mother, but the two
youngest were in my age bracket; Emma was three years older than I, and Billy
was three years younger than Twila.
Twila and I always looked forward with high anticipation toward “going
to see” Emma and Billy, or to their visits at the Grammer place, but one of the
latter wasn’t enjoyable for Emma, whose legs were covered with small blisters
from an allergic reaction to poison ivy; she had come in contact with the
offending plants during an April 1 school outing (we had classes until noon on
April 1, then had a picnic along Walnut Creek).
Emma’s poison ivy was no “April’s Fool” joke; she was very uncomfortable
for days. (When I asked some time ago
if she remembered that event, she answered affirmatively, and said she often
suffered allergic reactions to poison ivy when she was a child.)
·
Aunt Maud’s and Uncle Ben’s children didn’t stay at
Acton after they grew up, so Twila and I didn’t know the Clifton cousins
well. [One of the Clifton
granddaughters, Mary Ruth, who was about my age, contracted “sleeping sickness” as a child. Relatives were all concerned about her; fortunately, she
recovered. (Years later I learned that “encephalitis” is the medical name for her illness.)]
Uncle
Ben had an unmarried brother (Jim) who lived with him and Aunt Maud. Uncle Ben and Mr. Jim worked the farm; Aunt
Maud ran the household. The three of
them seemed to live in perfect harmony.
Aunt Ethel, the other female Stribling sibling,
married Boneau (pronounced Ben’-o) Hall and had two children, Zena and
Harris (Boneau Harris Hall, Jr.); both were younger than my mother, their
older cousin, who remembered their childhoods and told stories about them to
Twila and me:
·
One of my mother’s Grammer cousins (Louis) teased Harris by asking, “What’s your name?”
To the proud reply, “Harris Boneau Hall, Jr.,” Louis rejoined, “Harris
bit his toe in June?” Rising to the bait, Harris vociferously
protested Louis’ “error.”
I don’t
know how Harris managed to reverse his names (from Boneau Harris to Harris Boneau),
but in doing so he set himself up for the teasing by the “cousin of his cousin” (Louis and Harris were both first
cousins of my mother, but weren’t related to each other – one was a Grammer
descendant, the other a Stribling descendant).
·
Zena, though four years older than Harris, received similar
treatment from Louis. When asked to
tell her name, she proudly replied, “Zena Madora Hall.” Louis then asked, “Zena wore overalls?” Zena would react much as Harris did to
“name-teasing.”
She was
one of the three “Zena” cousins who were granddaughters of Zena Taylor
Stribling. My mother was the eldest of
the three, Zena Hall was several years younger, and Zena Stribling (Uncle
PeeDee’s daughter) was about forty years younger.
I didn’t see Harris very often (the Halls lived in Granbury when we moved to Acton,
then later moved to Stephenville), but he paid attention to Twila and me when
he came to visit at the Grammer farm, so I stuck close by him, although he was
eleven years older than I. Mother
feared my admiration for him would lead me to emulate his cigarette habit, but
I’ve never smoked – although I watched with interest as he took a “Golden
Grain” tobacco sack from a shirt pocket, removed a cigarette paper, poured the
tobacco, rolled his cigarette, and lit up.
Twila says she and I rolled cigarettes for Harris (using a mechanical roller).
Although I don’t remember rolling cigarettes for him, I recall
mechanically rolling them a few years later for Nebron Shaver, an older Tolar
teenager, using free tobacco samples at the Goforth & Grammer store.
Mother was fond of her younger cousin, in spite of his
smoking. Her feelings about him showed
it is possible to love someone without liking everything about him; “Love me,
love my dog!” is not a reasonable expectation.
Harris wore classy wingtip dress shoes, so I wanted a pair
badly. We consulted Sears and Wards
catalogs, but size 3 was the smallest available in shoes of that style. I waited several years for my first
wingtips, for I was probably twelve or older before my feet grew to those
dimensions.
Harris reached adulthood while we lived at Acton. He worked for an Odessa supermarket a year
or two, another year or two for Tom’s Toasted Peanuts, then with my uncle
Walter (or Bud, as we all, including Harris, called him) in the cotton-buying
business. However, while still a
relatively young man (and shortly after he’d been rejected for WWII military
service because of a heart murmur) he was thrown from his horse, landed on his
head, was partially paralyzed, and was crippled the rest of his life. Fortunately, he married a loving, caring
lady a few years after the accident, and was able to live an apparently
enjoyable life in spite of his handicap.
◊◊◊
None of Mama Grammer’s
brothers (Jesse/Fred/Warren/James Oran) stayed at Acton, so we saw little of
their families, except on cemetery-working weekend each year. (Actually, I don’t remember ever having seen
Uncle Jesse or Uncle Fred.) Uncle
Warren and Uncle “PeeDee” (James Oran) were the youngest of the Stribling
siblings; their children, although first cousins of my mother, ranged from a
bit older than I to several years younger:
·
Uncle Warren and
Aunt Elizabeth had two children, Baldwin and Mary Elizabeth; both were older
than I – Baldwin by about three years, Mary Elizabeth by about one. They resided in Oklahoma most of the years of
my childhood; I remember them primarily from the 1942/43 school-year, when
Uncle Warren’s family and our family all lived in Fort Worth’s Polytechnic
area. [Baldwin was a chaplain’s
assistant during WWII, became a Presbyterian minister, and served in various
pastorates, including one in Canyon, Texas.]
·
Uncle PeeDee and
Aunt Evelyn had two boys (James Paul and Gilbert) close to the ages of Twila
and me, then, years later, had a daughter, Zena. They lived at Shamrock, in the Texas Panhandle, where Uncle
PeeDee managed the J.C. Penney store for many years. James Paul and Gilbert sometimes spent a week or two with Mama
Grammer during the summers; Twila and I enjoyed playing with them, so their
visits were major highlights of our Acton years.
I
didn’t learn the origin of Uncle PeeDee’s nickname while
anyone who might have known was still alive, but Twila thinks it may have been
associated with a river in South Carolina, from which state their parents
migrated to Texas (although the PeeDee River isn’t very near the Striblings’
South Carolina place of origin).
◊◊◊
Cousin Anna Blasingame (an elderly relative from Cleburne) came to see Mama
Grammer occasionally, usually staying a week or two, during which time they did
needlework and visited friends around Acton.
Visiting friends required driving an automobile, a skill my grandmother
never acquired, so Cousin Anna was Mama Grammer’s “designated driver” when she
came to Acton. They ordinarily traveled
around the community in Cousin Anna’s Essex coupe, but I recall one occasion
when my grandmother suggested they go in her 1940 Chevrolet instead; Cousin
Anna insisted they go in her Essex, for she said she would be unable to drive a
car with its gearshift on the steering column, claiming, “You can’t teach an
old dog new tricks!” I was a teenager
then, living away from Acton, but happened to be there at the time of Cousin
Anna’s visit, so heard her remark (the first time I’d ever heard that
expression). I tried to tell her the
gearshift pattern on the Chevrolet’s steering column was the same as that of
her Essex’ floorboard shift, but she couldn’t be convinced.
◊◊◊
Some of Mama Grammer’s friends dipped snuff. Mrs. Cora Head typified the dippers. She often had an appliance she called a
“toothbrush” dangling from her lips; made from a twig, it swelled with use and
became soft at the “business end,” thus was handy for transferring snuff from
its container to her mouth.
“Cousin Louie,” a distant relative who
visited Mama Grammer occasionally, also dipped snuff, but I don’t remember her
using a “toothbrush” in connection with her habit. She may not have used toothbrushes of any kind for any purpose,
for she was different from most folks.
She had no permanent home, but visited from relative to relative, coming
afoot and unannounced, staying with each as long as she felt welcome; that
welcome could wear thin during warmer months, for she didn’t bathe as we did –
she only took “spit baths,” using a moistened wash
cloth, removing little of her distinctive fragrance.
◊◊◊
Virgil Goforth, my aunt Ruth’s husband, was one of seven
children. I never knew their mother,
for she died before Virgil married Ruth; their dad, in spite of the loss of one
hand in an accident as a younger man, kept house and farmed his land even after
his children left home – until old age impairments forced him to live with one
of his daughters.
I
often saw Mr. Goforth sitting on his front porch reading a newspaper. He wasn’t well-educated, so sometimes
mispronounced words he learned from his reading (e.g., he called the governor’s
residence in Austin “the execu’tive mansion,” simply adding the “ive”
sound to “execute,” without changing the accented syllable.)
Virgil’s siblings were grown and away from Acton by the time our family
moved there, but I met them all at one time or another. The oldest, Earl, who spent most of his
adult life in Oregon and California, was the last I met – in Carpenteria,
California in 1970, when he was well past seventy.
Ralph, the youngest Goforth sibling, taught
himself to read when he was only three years old and loved to write poetry, but
reportedly didn’t do well in school, probably because he was out of phase with
kids his age.
I saw Ralph only a few times, and never knew him well,
because he (1) was about fifteen years older than I and (2) left home for
extended periods of time as a teenager and young adult (truly living his
surname, “Goforth”). I saw him a time
or two when he returned to Acton from his wanderings, but most of what I know
about him has come from stories told by my elders.
His departures and returns usually went
unannounced. He sometimes wrote home
while he was gone; other times he might not be heard from until he appeared
again at his dad’s doorstep.
One venture led Ralph to Lordsburg, New Mexico,
where he found work with a rancher. The
rancher and his wife liked him and asked him to reside with them permanently,
but he stayed only a few months before wanderlust again struck, and he left
without notice. He corresponded with
the couple, but wouldn’t accept their generous offer.
When
home between wanderings Ralph sometimes worked for Acton farmers, and often
entertained them with poetry he created.
I remember hearing him recite poems as he rested during breaks on days
he helped my dad hoe crops.
The going rate for day work during those depression years was as low as
fifty cents, plus lunch; the rate reached a dollar per day before we left the
farm in 1937. Perhaps, considering the
hard economic times, it wasn’t surprising that Ralph sought greener pastures
(although he would never have gone hungry on his dad’s farm); I suspect his
real motivation was a desire for independence.
Ralph’s early short-term ventures between Acton
and points west were followed by a twenty-five year absence, during which none
of his relatives knew where he was.
When he finally returned to Hood County for a short visit, Ralph said
his travels had taken him to California, where he worked many years for the
Salvation Army. While back Ralph asked
Ruth, Virgil, and my parents if they remembered a certain long poem he had
written as a young man. They not only
recalled it, but Virgil had his original manuscript, so they followed along as
he recited his “epic” from memory.
When leaving after that visit, Ralph told Virgil
he would return to California, but was going to move to Mexico, and they
wouldn’t hear from him again. That has
indeed been the case.
Some might say Ralph’s life was wasted, considering the potential he
exhibited early on. Had he grown up
during more prosperous times and been exposed to programs for gifted children,
he might have been directed toward a career in literature, and spent his life
as a writer or teacher. As an amateur
psychologist, I can only suggest that Ralph may well have been happier as a
wanderer than he could ever have been in Academe. He came and went as he pleased, and probably did much good for
others while working with the Salvation Army.