 Ethel, Then and Now
RECOLLECTIONS OF GROWING UP IN ETHEL by Ronald Davidson One of my first recollections was a combination of sight, sounds and smells that made up one of my fondest memories of growing up at Ethel. There was the sight of green leaves, blue skies and sunlight. The rustle of leaves, a rhythmic snapping, an intermittent scraping along the ground and a voice humming a hymn made up the sounds. Filling out this setting was the unforgettable scent of blackland dirt and cotton. Anyone else who has experienced this will recognize the memory of laying on their back on their Mother's cottonsack. During the 1940s and 1950s, when I was growing up, there was a lot of cotton grown at Ethel. Most of my time in the cotton field was spent not riding on a sack, but pulling bolls. I always thought how great it would be not to ever have to pull another boll, but years later, whenever I pass a field of cotton, I have this urge to sneak out and pull a few bolls. 1953 was one of the best cotton crops. There were a lot of 1953 model cars in Ethel. If you think washing a car will cause it to rain, try living on a dirt road. Before we had gravel roads, it seemed like it rained every day. I spent a lot of time walking thru the pasture to catch a bus on a gravel road. If it rained while we were gone somewhere, we just left the car alongside the graveled road and walked home. When it dried up, we went to get it. Many times after a rain, we went to Range creek and fished. You had to hurry and get there while the water was coming up. As long as the water was rising, you could catch all the mudcat you wanted. The minute the water started going down, they quit biting. Mudcat were name right; they tasted exactly like mud. The Ethel cotton gin was about a mile from our house. We took off about a bale of cotton a week during cotton season. This was the highlight of the week to me. I loved to watch them gin cotton. I got to ride on the cotton going to the gin and ride on the cotton seed coming home. When we left the gin, we went to the Ethel store and bought some bologna and soda pops. This was a real treat. By this time of the year, we were burnt out on tenderloin, sausage and beef. There wasn't a need to buy a lot of food except staples. Most everyone had cows, chickens and hogs along with a garden and fruit trees. If you couldn't eat it then, you canned it and ate it later. Along about the first cold snap we killed hogs. That meat was usually salted down or ground up into sausage and canned. Killing hogs was an all day affair. Sargent, our dog, probably worked harder than anybody. All the throw-away parts from dressing the hogs were thrown on the ground; the dog ate what he could to start with and then started burying everything in the field. By the end of the day, his tongue was hanging out. Weeks later, after a rain, you could look out across the bare ground of the field and see hogs feet stocking out of the ground upside down. I suppose he ate some of what he buried, although I never saw him do it. Sargeant was a farm dog who pulled his own weight by catching varmints. As far as I remember he never ate a can of dog food or ever came into the house. His favorite relaxation was hunting and chasing cars. Since not many cars passed our house, he really savored the ones he did get to chase. He liked to ride in the trunk of our car when we went to the store or our grandparents. Once we forgot to let him out for about three hours and he never went near the car again. There were three churches at Ethel in the 1940s. They were the Baptist, Church of Christ and Cumberland Presbyterian. We went to the Presbyterian Church, but I remember visiting the other churches during revival time. After the crops were laid by each summer, churches would have a revival which would last anywhere from a week to two weeks. Since there was no air conditioning then, they would sometimes move some of the pews outside for night services; the morning service was inside. The buildings had high ceilings and it was still bearably cool in the morning. After the morning service, everyone went home with whatever family was feeding everybody that day. For Sunday dinner there was usually a dinner on the ground at the church. Not too many chickens survived revival season. The dinners always reminded me of feeding the five thousand. It always looked like there was more food left than when we started. There was usually a visiting preacher holding the revival. He usually stayed at the home of a church member. During a night service at one of the churches, the preacher was going at it hot and heave and his false teeth flew out on the ground. A little girl picked them up in a handkerchief and handed them back to him. He put them back in and picked right back up preaching again. About a hundred yards north of the Presbyterian Church was the Ethel school house. It was torn down in the 1940s but a school had stood at that spot for many years. Mother taught there for a while. There is still a lot of people in the area that went to Ethel school. The Baptist Church was the home of many weekly singings in the 1940s. It was a fairly large church and was filled up many times, and more people were standing outside. Singers came from miles around. There were no microphones, but there was no need for them due to the high ceiling and all wood interior. On a warm night, with the church windows open, you could hear a good distance down the road. Myrtle Scoggin was usually the local piano player although other singers sometimes brought their own piano players. Myrtle played for the Ethel Quartet which consisted of various local singers at different times over the years. The members of the group which I remember were Charlie Walsh, Lee Scoggin, Lorena McGehee and Clifton Davidson. It is both ironic and sad that the quartet sang for hundreds of funerals during their time together but this tradition was passe when they passed away. Daddy said that someone once gave the quartet five dollars for singing at a funeral. As far as I know, this was the only dollar they ever received. Hopefully they have been paid in full now. Happiness was going to the Ethel store and buying a coke and a box of peanuts and then finding a nickel inside the peanut box. Sometimes, but very seldom, someone would find a dime or quarter. I always wondered what happened to those peanuts. The Ethel store was more than a store. It was an informal meeting place for the local people to visit, leave messages, play dominoes, catch the school bus, etc. There was an old man who used to come to the store to play dominoes. He had a mode A car, I believe. When he parked, people would go outside and move their cars as far away from his as they could. He just backed up as far as he needed or until he hit something and then went on his way. Someone wedged a piece of wood under his gas pedal to slow him down. After that he complained that his car never ran right. One day a salesman, or drummer as they were called in those days, came by the store and wanted to play dominoes with someone. Wayne Jenkins played him and beat him a couple of quick games. The drummer was complaining about losing and Wayne told him to wait until he went home and got his Mother. The drummer wanted to know why and Wayne told him that she couldn't play either and he might be able to beat her. Going to Lake Texoma was a favorite pastime for many people in the community. After the crops were laid by, a lot of people went fishing. We would go to the lake and spend two or three days. Sometimes it seemed like half the people from Ethel were at the lake. Nobody locked up when they left unless it was to latch a screen door to keep it from blowing open. Neighbors would feed each others cows or chickens. The Ethel Cemetery was the site of many "cemetery working" days where people would do upkeep and share dinner on the ground. Probably 90% of the graves at Ethel were dug by hand. I remember many times when Daddy was called on to help dig someone's grave. A big part of the time it was cold and/or raining. Although the people that dug the graves would probably have appreciated having a backhoe to do the work, it at least seemed more personal then. Ethel History Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson CountyTXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |