Written by:
Dr. J. W. Torbett, Sr.,
M.D.
Dr. J. W. Torbett, Sr., M. D.
Family History
My Ancestors came from the town of Torbert,
on the left bank of the Shannon River in Ireland, and settled down in Maryland.
From there they spread to Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and finally, to
Texas and Oklahoma. Our name is not common, but there are a few in most of the
larger cities in the United States who spell their name as we do ours.
I had a patient recently - a Mrs. Simpson
from San Antonio -- who said when I told her my ancestors came from Ireland,
"And well do I know it, for I once lived near the town of Torbert in Ireland."
Her rich Irish brogue was something to remember. "I knew many of the Torberts
and fine folks they were, to be sure. You have nothing to be ashamed of there.
You should change the spelling of your name back to Torbert."
An old man came to our house when I was a
child and said he knew some of the Torbetts in Tennessee. He wanted to impress
upon us one fact: that there were no criminals or jailbirds in our family, and
that although none of those he knew had accomplished any marvelous things, all
of them were honorable citizens.
My father's grandmother was named Howard,
and from that side of the family comes the recurring Howard given- name in the
Torbett pedigree. Being English, they found colonial Virginia a congenial abode,
and the Howards were well known in that state. Recently, a moving picture gave
an interpretation of the really American achievements of the Howard branch of
our clan.
My mother's people were named McCauley.
Like Torbett, that name had suffered a sea-change when transplanted to America
from England, where it was known as Macaulay. There are traits in my own nature
that it pleases me to believe are derived from the branch of the family which,
according to tradition, produced the great essayist Thomas Babington Macaulay,
knighted by Queen Victoria in 1857
in recognition of his
literary achievements. Baron Macaulay, besides being a master of expression,
possessed a most phenomenal memory, and was deeply interested in philanthropic
undertakings. I, too, possessed at one time an unusually excellent memory, and
like Baron Macaulay have always had a deep sympathy and compassion for orphaned
children.
The love of poetry which has enriched my
life, and my facility with rhyme and meter, are heritages from my mother, whose
niece, Olive Barrett of Detroit, now deceased, was well known as a writer of
verse. It was my mother, too, who fostered in me a love for flowers, and as a
child I always helped her with her flower garden. It was not easy in those days,
without running water, to have flowers at any season, but she managed it. I
often think of her flower pit. She had about seventy potted plants that she kept
in this pit, which was equipped with a glass top. The cover had to be raised for
sushine when we had bright days in the winter time. She watered her flower
garden and tended it with loving care. Hence this little poem:
MY MOTHER'S GARDEN
I love the little flowers
My mother used to grow-
The phlox, so bright and cheerful,
All standing in a row,
So simple and so dainty
With all their brilliant hues,
Just like a group of children
A-listening to the news!
They looked so clean and happy
A-nodding in the breeze,
A-throwing kisses at me,
So anxious they might please;
And when the day is ended
I sit and dream and think,
And get a thrill a-watching them-
Some purple, red and pink.
They take me back to childhood
And joys I used to know,
A-wearing little phlox bouquets
My Mother used to grow.
The children of my parents, John Cornelius
and Mary Elizabeth Torbett, were: Ellen, James, John Walter (myself), Oscar,
Frank, Ada, and Bert.
My stature, or general make-up, is from my
father, and I have the gift of gab that he possessed. He, too, would have been a
doctor if the Civil War had not intervened. He was a soldier in that war and was
twice wounded, once in the shoulder and again in the ankle, at the Battle of
Gettysburg, where he was captured, he used to explain, because he "couldn't run
fast enough to get out of the way of the Yankees !" For years Father led the
music at camp-meetings and other public gatherings over much of Coryell and Bell
Counties. He passed away in 1919.
I thank God for the precepts and examples
of my Father and Mother, who were devoutly religious. They taught us children to
love and serve God and our fellowmen; to be honest, dependable, truthful, kind,
prompt; to avoid gossip, hate and selfishness. It was an heritage to be prized
more highly than wealth.
"Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy
days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
MY GARDEN OF MEMORIES
I treasure here my Family
Whose souls from earth are gone,
Held fast in sacred memory
As we still follow on.
JOHN CORNELIUS TORBETT
1840 - 1919
A loyal Christian Soldier.
MARY ELIZABETH TORBETT
1846 -1929
She lives in the minds and hearts of those she loved.
JAMES S. TORBETT
1868 -1940
He sang his way to Heaven.
OSCAR LEE ASHBY TORBETT
1875 - 1935
Kind, courteous and dependable.
BERT TORBETT
1883 - 1916
He loved and served his fellowman.
DONNELL PARK TORBETT
1936 - 1945
Our Angel Boy.
Early Life
MY MISSION
I am part of all I meet,
Of all I do and say;
The thoughts I think, the friends I greet,
The prayers to God I pray;
They all unite to weave in me
The pattern of my destiny.
-J.W.T.
I was born on the 12th day of July, 1871,
by Gum Creek, near Jacksonville, Texas. Anyone who has heard me say "Dad gum it
!" will get the connection. That expletive is, and always has been, my most
profane utterance.
When I was nearly two years of age-too
young to re- member my birthplace clearly-my parents moved to Coryell County,
located about two and a half miles west of a little town called "The Grove,"
where there was a good school, even in that faraway section. My father bought a
farm of 160 acres, and he had one old mare, Fly, that he used to help make the
crops.
Father first built a log house, which was
later used as a kitchen, and it was in this little log house that my brother
Oscar was born. Soon after that, a frame house was built, and the family
continued to increase.
We lived near a little stream
called Flint Creek, and I was brought up on cornbread, buttermilk, eggs, flint
rocks and turnip greens, with molasses-rather a substantial and hard diet. But I
managed to get by on it. We could see Owl Creek Mountain from our home, looking
large and beautiful in the distance. On Owl Creek grew the biggest owls in the
country, and they could hoot the loudest.
That section of Coryell County was taken
over during the War, and on that terrain thousands of soldiers were trained to
fight. Later in World War II strange dusts mixed with the dust of old Coryell on
the boots of these men when they dispersed for foreign service. Because of the
rough timbered hills and many streams and valleys desirable for
training soldiers in
strenuous exercises and maneuvers, Coryell County makes a splendid permanent
camp.
As a boy I seined and fished in Cow House
Creek; looked with wonder on Sugar Loaf Mountain, and tried to figure out its
geologic formation. I gazed on Owl Creek Mountain, with its evergreens in
winter, and waxed poetically eloquent. I tramped through the woods and over
hills and dales in the magic Springtime, enjoying thrills of ecstasy as I gazed
on Nature's beauty of the dogwood, redbud and black- haw, and the wild flowers
in bloom everywhere. I dreamed of manhood, when I would be a great doctor and
teach my patients to live in health and happiness, following the laws laid down
by Moses, and the eternal truth that "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
In these same surroundings, General Bruce
dreamed, planned, tried out and perfected his tank destroyer unit that had so
great a part in the successful conduct of the war. And then, as now, even in the
midst of warlike preparations:
The sun kissed the rain-washed blushing skies;
The stars peeped through like angels' eyes;
The plaintive cry of the whipporwill
And the shivering screech-owl haunt me still;
But I change from them to the mockingbird,
Whose rollicking songs are gladly heard.
-J.W.T.
It was a wooded, wild country in the days
of my youth. Well do I remember one of the first near-tragedies of my life. I
was about five or six years of age, and was sent with a can to our nearest
neighbors, the Gillespies, to borrow a coal of fire. In those days, matches were
not common, and the "kindling coal" was guarded on the hearth, lest the fire die
out and we be without a way to rekindle it.
Can in hand, and hurrying on my errand, I
was about half way down the wooded path when just in front of me I saw a huge
bear lumbering across my path. I was terrified-so terrified that I stopped in my
tracks and waited without a sound or movement until the bear had passed out of
sight. Then I ran on my errand, got the fire, and hurried with the speed of
the wind.
It was a fright that I never forgot, but it
taught me to stop and think in an emergency, which is the right thing to do in
most cases.
A short distance across Flint Creek my
father and some of the neighbors built a rough plank church called The Methodist
Church, or Pope's Chapel. It was also used for a Sunday School, and for a public
school in the winter.
I always went to Sunday School on Sunday
morning, studied some in the afternoon, then got out with the other boys and
chased rabbits, twisting them out of hollow trees with sticks, and throwing
rocks at wasp-nests. We frequently were stung on the face by the infuriated
wasps, but we went back to school next day as heroes, getting much sympathy and
attention from the girls.
My school life began when I was six years
old, and my first teacher was Mr. Cross-a kind and good man in spite of his
name. He taught boys and girls alike the virtues of cleanliness and personal
hygiene, and coached us all in etiquette according to the old Southern regime.
I well remember the ancient Blue Back
Speller, and my joy when I reached "baker" and could spell all the words in that
lesson.
My next teacher, a few months later, was
Mr. Battle. I was engaged in a "battle" with him nearly every day. He kept a
little dogwood switch within reach and had me sit close to him. Every time I
would laugh or giggle he would give me a switching with that little dogwood,
until I would move out of his reach; but he never, at any time, had energy
enough to follow me.
During the summer that I was seven years of
age, I went to The Grove to school. We walked two and a half miles and I
remember many incidents that occurred during those walks. One of these was
indelibly impressed upon my mind. That was a total eclipse of the sun. It was
some time in August, as we were on our way from school-about five o'clock
in the afternoon. It became so dark the chickens went to roost. Some people were
dreadfully frightened, many of them thinking the world was coming to an end.
Mr. Nelson Robinson was a teacher who came
to conduct our school at Pope's Chapel when I was ten or eleven years old. He
was about forty-five years of age and had had varied experiences in life. He had
not had much opportunity for an education, but he was a big-hearted,
common-sense, practical fellow and he gave me great encouragement to go ahead
and become an educated man. "Don't do as I do, but as I say you should do," he
admonished me.
He taught us that habits formed in youth
stay with one. "So don't form habits that are harmful, mean or debasing.
Cultivate habits of promptness, dependability, honesty, fair- dealing and
regularity while you are young and they will stay with you through life." He
often warned us, "Don't chew or smoke; don't curse or drink. Those vices are
costly and damaging to your character. I formed such habits when I was a boy,
and they are hard to quit."
I had heard a man swear, and I thought it
was manly and up-to-date, so I tried it for just a little while-not with much
enthusiasm, however. But on the advice of my teacher I quit, and have never
cussed since-unless you count "dad gum it !" Mr. Nelson Robinson passed on, but
God bless him, his precepts, and not his example, have been my inspiration and
guide.
At eleven years, I was able to solve all
the problems in Ray's Arithmetic, in Davies' and Sanford's Arithmetics, and to
spell most of the words in the Blue Back Speller. I could read all the lessons
in the old McGuffey's series of readers, many of which carried moral and
religious ideas. Text books of today do not have so many religious or ethical
lessons in them.
Nor shall I forget my sweethearts of those
days. My first was Miss Lillie Cary. I was then a little past six, in my first
school, and she was about sixteen or seventeen years of age. Her name, Lillie,
brought to my childish mind the beauty of the lilies. She always praised me and
encouraged me to do my best. She had a beautiful face. When I talked of her at
home, my mother told me about the Gary sisters and read to me a poem by Phoebe
Cary. I memorized the verses with a thrill in my boyish heart. And I had no
difficulty in committing to memory these beautiful words from the Scriptures:
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Miss Lillie!
Pause for reflection, you male readers, and
everyone of you will recall "That Old Sweetheart of Mine." Perhaps it was your
grade teacher, a high school teacher, or perhaps your Sunday School teacher who
left her imprint on your mind and heart as a formative factor to influence you
through the years.
A later sweetheart was a dashing blue-eyed
girl who rode horseback over the country, always riding at a gallop. She stirred
my youthful fancy and fired my imagination. I had a jingle I used to repeat
during this interval:
My girl's name is Lula ;
Her mare's name is Beulah;
My girl is so smart
That no one can fool her.
But she fooled me. One day I kissed her,
and it made me sick for half an hour, for in that kiss I made a discovery! She
dipped snuff! And I was allergic to all forms of tobacco. I had tried it once
and it made me very sick. So I became allergic to her, too.
With my natural propensity for rhyming, I
used to write Valentine verses for twenty or thirty of the school boys and
girls. I couldn't be sweetheart to all the girls, but my facile pen was ready to
express the ardor of all the boys. The little silly rhymes in this book are
remnants of youth bubbling out again in song, laughter and rhyme. (My wife is
English, and reserved. She thinks these jingles should be left out. I am
Scotch-Irish, and I cannot repress them).
One of the greatest of all gifts vouchsafed
to man is the sense of humor. It adds to the joy of life, minimizes sorrow, and
mitigates the strain of penance or peril. A sense of humor is more than the
ability or the tendency to pass wise- cracks at the expense of others-that is a
drawback to personality and not an aid. A sense of humor is really a sense of
proportion, and its highest development is the ability to see your own
weaknesses as jokes subject to correction.
After school, in those early days, there
were always the chores to do at home-cutting wood, feeding cattle and pigs, and
milking the cows. I never did like to feed and milk the cows, and always got it
over with as soon as possible. My mind was as busy as my hands, trying to think
of some way to shorten the work. Finally I invented a cowmilker which I thought
would lighten the task. It was made of soft white pine board, and was designed
to have fingers of pliant rubber that would feel like human fingers. I never got
far enough along with the experiment to supply the rubber fingers, but I made
what I thought was a workable model and tried it on Old Spot. She resented it
actively! With one flirt of her muscular leg she kicked me over, got rid of my
labor-saving device, and ran away. After that, she was allergic to me-we called
it "sensitive" in those days-but anyhow, Old Spot very definitely severed
diplomatic relations with me. After the milker incident, whenever she saw me she
would take to her heels like a mad thing, and kick and run if I tried to come
close to her. However, the invention did save me labor, for one of the other
boys milked her after that.
By the time I was eleven years old, I could
hoe cotton as any of the grown folks. I was large and strong at that age, and
proud of my skill with the hoe. The cotton we hoed in 1882 yielded a bale to the
acre, and we did not finish picking until March of 1883.
About that time, I looked after the
orchard, too, and would plant new trees when the old ones had "played out." We
did not know enough about fruit trees and their care to combat their enemies,
and the borers killed many that might have been saved. All we knew then was that
the trees would die after four or five years of fruitfulness and we must have
new trees ready to plant when the old ones became diseased and had to be cut
down.
Along with other duties, I tended the bees
and the honey. One morning I took out some fresh honey from the hives, and ate
too much. It made me very sick, and I became allergic to honey. I couldn't even
stand being called "Honey." But finally I began eating a small amount of honey
at a time, to build up my tolerance for it, and gradually grew to like it again.
"What's one man's food is another man's poison," commented my Mother.
Between school hours and chores I had
little time of my own, and much of that was used in dreaming of the future. "The
thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts" indeed. I gazed far along down the
years as I planned for manhood and preparation for a useful career. I remember
how I used to climb up on an old flat stump-too big to be burned out in the
newly plowed field-and imitate different preachers I had heard. My fondness for
this pastime gave my family reason to believe I was going to be a preacher.
But from the time I was seven years of age
I had known what my profession was going to be. As soon as I could read them I
began to study almanacs, hoping to get some understanding of the basic
principles necessary for a medical education. David D. Jayne's Almanac contained
interesting facts about the human body, with pictures of the various organs, as
well as detailed accounts of the miracles wrought on these organs by the
panaceas the almanac advertised.
My first cousin, the late Dr. Howard O.
Smith, and I agreed together that we would be doctors, and our childhood motto
was:
When I am a man, I will be a doctor,
If I can-and I can.
My powders and pills
Will be so very sweet;
And you shall have as many
As you can eat.
Among those who probably were influenced by
my choice of the medical profession were several boy friends from The Grove who
since have gone out into the world as doctors: my youngest brother, Bert M.
Torbett, who died just after graduating from Vanderbilt University; my brother,
Dr. Oscar Torbett, who was here in Marlin with me for thirty years, and the two
Whigham boys, Jim and Will, now well known in their profession. Also, David
Homan and F. C. Green, all of whom went to school to me when I was teaching at
Leon Junction and studying medicine. My nearest neighbor of those early days,
Leigh Gillespie, is now a practicing physician in Oklahoma.
S. A. Watts, who then lived on my father's
place in Coryell County, became a doctor and was on our staff at Marlin for
twenty years. He was honest, efficient and dependable, and always my friend.
Thus, in choosing our "way of life," we are inevitably influenced by our
associations.
Anyone who thinks that life in a country
community is tame and uneventful cannot have lived in one during his
impressionable years. The miracles of life and death loom large.
Well do I remember the first person I saw
die. It was our neighbor, Mr. Ben Gillespie. He had cirrhosis of the liver and
had been tapped many times by the doctor, but finally came to the place where he
no longer could be helped. One Sunday afternoon we were told that Brother
Gillespie was dying-that he had but a few hours to live. The neighbors gathered
at his to give what comfort they could to the sorrowing family. I stood by
and watched our old friend as he passed into the Great Beyond. It had a profound
effect upon me to see his breathing slow down, then cease altogether as his eyes
closed and the pallor of death crossed his face. It was a great consolation to
all of us who had loved him to know that he was divinely sustained in his hour
of departure by the Christian faith that had guided his life.
My Father said to me later, "Son, now that
Brother Ben is gone, I'll have to take his place and lead the music in the
church. When you are old enough, I'll train you to sing bass in my place." I did
begin such training as soon as my voice had matured, and I still sing bass at
church.
A tragedy in our community about that time
had an abiding influence on my life. Old Mr. Ferguson, who lived in our
community, was a very good neighbor, but he went on periodical drunks. At those
times he would not know what he was doing. One night, when he was drunk, he went
to the of a neighbor and tried to break into his house. Mr. Hobdy, the
owner, called out to him, but the prowler did not answer. He was too far gone to
sense the situation. The owner of the called out again, and when he still
received no reply, he shot at the introducer and killed him.
My Father took this occasion to warn me,
saying, "Son, Mr. Ferguson was naturally a harmless old man, and it is a shock
to Mr. Hobdy that he killed him. But it is done and cannot be helped now. Let
this be a lesson to you, my boy; don't ever touch intoxicating liquor. It does
nobody any good, and it does much harm in the world. Promise me, Son, that you
will never touch it." And so I promised. It was a pledge that did much in
helping to form my character.
Another tragedy occurred in our midst that
I will never forget. Gene Graham, a likeable youngster, was overly proud of his
biceps development. He was always boxing or fighting. Whenever I had a stye on
my eye-which was quite often when I was ten or twelve years old-he would
invariably call me a fighting name. We'd fall to and pommel each other for
twenty or thirty minutes-a painful experience to me, combined with the stye! But
I was determined to defend my personal dignity and believed in "fighting for my
rights."
Well, Gene came to a tragic end. One day he
called a much smaller boy a bad name. The infuriated youngster jumped at him
with a knife, stabbing him to the heart. It was all so sudden and the
circumstances were so familiar to me, that I was impressed. Then and there I
decided never to make a disagreement worse by fighting, but to defend myself
with verbal resistance and argument, if possible; otherwise to keep silent.
So much for Pope's Chapel and its
"Schoolhouse by the Road." Mr. Nelson Robinson continued to encourage me, and
when the term was ended he advised me to go to his brother, Tom Robinson, about
two and a half miles farther up the creek. Here was a little school-house called
Flint Creek School or "Hide-Out School," because it was hidden in the woods. I
went there for two sessions, with my old- time friend, Tom Morgan. We rode
horseback and the books we carried were text-books on Algebra, Geometry,
Astronomy, Physiology and Hygiene. They opened a broader vista before me.
I took my examination at the end of that
term and was given a second-grade certificate, though only fifteen years of age.
At the close of this school term, in the
spring of 1887, previous to the State prohibition election in August, a well-
attended debate on the prohibition question was held in the old Flint Creek
school-house, with Tom Morgan (afterward a lawyer in Marlow, Oklahoma) and
myself on the affirmative side. Our teacher, Nelson Robinson, and a Methodist
preacher named Art Williams, took the negative. Tom and I won the decision with
such uproarious pedal applause that some of the planks in the floor gave way. In
denouncing the licensing of liquor, I closed with these lines, in my most
dramatic style:
Licensed the poor man's to sell;
Licensed to fill this world with woe;
Licensed to make this earth a hell,
And fit men's souls for hell below.
I frequently went to church services just
to hear the preachers, some of them being rather outstanding. One, a very
eloquent speaker, was Stump Ashby, who once had been a clown in a circus. After
a spectacular conversion, he finally fell from grace and eventually quit
preaching to become a leader in the Populist party. Later, he became one of the
leading Anti speakers in the prohibition election of 1887. I remember that on
one occasion he imbibed too much of the liquor under discussion. He was debating
with Rev. H. A. Boaz, later elected to bishop, who was then a very eloquent
young orator on the Pro side. Stump had been drinking, and when he got up to
speak he became nauseated. He felt that an explanation was in order, so he said
with a slight hiccough, "My fellow citizens, the arguments of my opponent always
make me sick at the stomach."
We were all encouraged to adopt teaching as
a career, and a number of students in that little school out in the woods did
decide on teaching as a profession and spread themselves out over the State to
help train the rising generation. In the summer, I taught my first school, which
was at Eagle Springs, the boyhood of Pat M. Neff, later Governor of Texas.
It was then that I became acquainted with him and also with his mother, a
wonderful woman who gave me encouragement toward high ideals and worthy
ambitions - the kind of advice that had been such a help to her own son.
"Mother Neff" was very kind to all aspiring
young men, and adopted me as one of her boys, in whom she was greatly
interested. Her sterling character, her counsel and kindness, were ever an
inspiration to me. When I left to go to Medical College, Mother Neff laid her
hands on my head and gave me her blessing.
Note: J. W. Torbett was son of John Cornelius 1840 - 1919 & Mary Elizabeth 1846 - 1929 Torbett. kc
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