SHERMAN DEMOCRAT
May 18, 1920 "Mr. Vaden (Frank C.) was for many years prominently identified with the Texas Cattle Raiser's Association. He was always at the forefront of any activity designed for the up building and development of the county generally and for the welfare of her citizens. His character was molded after a staunch, upright pattern of honest, conscientious endeavor, and wherever the name of Frank Vaden was known it stood as a synonym for those qualities. In his passing, the entire county has sustained a loss. To the members of the bereaved family and circle of intimate friends, the sincerest sympathy of all will be extended."  Papa was evidently named Frank for his maternal Grandmother, Frances Rusk Jackson. The Campbell was for a friend who turned out to be a Yankee in the War between the States. Grandfather Vaden said that should be a lesson to everyone not to name a child for a man still living! With his brother, Henry, Frank attended a school during the War in the Odd Fellows Hall in Sherman. It was a 2-story frame building, one room above used by the Odd Fellows and one room below used as a school room during the week and alternately by the Methodists, Baptists and Christians as a meeting place on Sunday. The seats were of split logs and a shelf of split log along the wall was used as a table upon which to write. There attended this school: Cal Eubank, a boy named Graves, Jim and Betty Sacra, William and Missouri Bullock (Wm. Bullock was first boy born in Sherman), and Mollie Fitch who later married Jim Vaden. As a young man, Frank was very popular with the young men as well as the young ladies. He won 2 silver cups, one for riding and one for roping, and those were the most popular sport in that day.    of Col. T.D. Taliaferro of Virginia, who is a distant relative of President Monroe. Mrs. Vaden's mother, Eliza Madison, was a great-niece of President Madison. Papa told me that he never met a woman he wanted to marry until he met our mother (Janie) and he knew then that she was the one for him. He was 29 when they married and she was 19. The couple are the parents of 3 children - Frank, Myrtle and Dorsey.  Mr. Vaden takes a just pride in his stock-raising business, which he has for many years carried on extensively. He has one of the finest farms in Texas of which 225 acres are under cultivation, while 600 acres are devoted to pasture. His own skill, enterprise and industry have brought him a full measure of success in worldly affairs. Mr. Vaden is a member of the Farmer's Alliance and of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. His affiliation with the former denotes his regard for the interests of the guild of which he is an honored member, while in the latter his consistent walk in life betokens the sincerity of his professions and the depth of his convictions. A man of Mr. Vaden's character and marked individuality is, of necessity, a leader of his community. He is among the first and foremost in all public enterprise, while in his business affairs he is everywhere esteemed as an upright and conscientious man. His private life is irreproachable and in all his relations he bears an enviable reputation. It was there his and Janie's other 6 children were born. She died of gall stone trouble July 2, 1894, leaving him with 5 small children. Two of the babies had died.   The
beautiful rolling place was known as the Vaden Ranch and Papa was
primarily a cattleman, buying hundreds of steers in the fall, feeding
and fattening them during the winter, then shipping them to Kansas City
in the spring. He sold off "the Kersey pasture" to pay a debt,
but I can remember when he would lease the 500 acre "Carpenter pasture"
west of us in
the "Flats" and feed steers. Six years after Janie's death, in 1900, he brought his second bride, Berta, to the beautiful rolling farm or ranch and she gave it the name of "Meadowside Farm" and that suited Papa, for early in the 1900s he "imported" 5 fine registered Hereford cows from Missouri to Meadowside and it became a breeding farm for Herefords. On his stationery the heading was "Meadowside Hereford Farm". This is said to have been among the first, if not the first, registered Herefords to be brought to Texas. From this beginning he raised a herd which he kept at around 400 head, selling off yearling bulls each year. He had buyers from as far away as Argentina. There was always a stream of guests at Meadowside; relatives who were made welcome, cattle-buyers who came for a day but liked it so well they frequently stayed 2 or 3 days, and always one or two "hired hands" who ate at the white-linen-covered table with the rest of us where the food was bountiful. Frank C. and Janie M. Vaden resided in this home. The house was sold to a group of doctors who used it for a clinic.  Frank C. Vaden was a man whose word was as good as his bond. He was outspoken and you always knew where he stood. He was a charter member of the Texas Cattle Raisers Association and active in that organization. He always attended the Ft. Worth Fat Stock Show in the spring and showed his best cattle there, winning many blue ribbons. He was active in "local option", a "dry", who helped rid Sherman of saloons. He was one of the first in the State to advocate good roads, calling "good roads" meetings in Pecan Grove School house. The Pecan community built a quarter mile of grave road, using gravel from the Lee Wilson pit, extending from the Charlie Tate farm in front of the Lee Wilson farm, which was the first "good road" in Grayson County - a sample for all to see. How the horses used to perk up and trot, pulling the buggy or surrey with such ease when they reached that smooth graveled stretch! Later, when the county took it up and started building gravel roads, one of the first was to the Pecan community for 6 miles, but lacking 1/2 mile reaching the Vaden place! Frank and Berta were active in supporting Pecan Grove Methodist Church, helping build a new church in about 1906 and an attractive new parsonage, so we could have a full time pastor. After the good road was built and we would spend the winters in a house in Sherman which Berta bought, Frank served for many years as a steward of Travis St. Methodist Church. Our home was not only open to relatives and friends, but during Janie's life time she and Frank kept an orphan boy, J. Murphy, who was killed by a horse and is buried on the Vaden plot in West Hill Cemetery. Among the relatives made welcome for lengthy stays were Blanche Lucas, younger sister of Berta, who died of tuberculosis in 1906, then after Berta's father, Payne Lucas, died in Lee County, Mississippi, she and her brother Will Lucas of Sherman brought the little half-sister, Faye, and the little half-brother, Tom Lucas, to Texas. At first Faye stayed at Meadowside and Tom at Will Lucas' in Sherman, but then they decided it would be more suitable for a girl to grow up in town and a boy in the country, so they swapped, and Tom lived with us, helping with the work at Meadowside and attending school in Sherman, like the Vaden children. A cousin who was made welcome was Clay Vaden, youngest of Uncle Jim Vaden's family, who had a nervous breakdown and had no home to go to since his mother had died. One time after a church meeting of women at C.I.A. (now Texas Woman's University), Denton, Texas, Berta brought home a college girl, at the request of a college official, who had had a nervous breakdown and had no home to which she could go. As a young man, Frank was very popular with the young men as well as the young ladies. He won 2 silver cups, one for riding and one for roping, and those were the most popular sport in that day. Fay writes me on Saturday, June 3, 1967, "You may have heard that Mrs. Mattingly was in love with him. Pauline Mattingly visited in Ft. Worth several years ago and I sat by her at a luncheon that was given for her, and she asked me if I knew that we came near being sisters. And when I taught in Purcell (Oklahoma) I taught the daughter of a lovely woman, a Sacra. She asked me if I knew she came near being my mother. Papa told me that he never met a woman he wanted to marry until he met our mother (Janie) and he knew then that she was the one for him. He was 29 when they married and she was 19.
(From the Files of the Sherman Daily Register, June 22, 1900) "Yesterday
afternoon at 7 o'clock at the Willow Street Methodist Church, Miss
Berta Lucas and Mr. F.C. Vaden were united in holy matrimony, Bishop
Joseph S. Key officiating. The ceremony was according to the
simple but deeply impressive ritual of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South.
"Though it was a church wedding, there was not a detail about it intended to display or show. No invitations had been issued. The church was used simply because the friends of the parties were so numerous that more room was needed for them than could be found at any private house. The church had been beautifully but simply decorated with flowers by the hands of intimate friends. The bride wore a simple white dress, without veil or gloves. Her flowers were daisies, sent her by a friend at Asheville, North Carolina. A simpler, yet sweeter face or figure it would be hard to find at any bridal altar. "One feature of the service was the presence of a large number of little children, all of whom had been taught by the bride d during her service as teacher of the first grade in one of the city schools. The affectionate interest of these little tots in the lady from whom they had received their first lessons in learning was a bridal benediction worth having. We may sometimes question the protestations of older people, but happy indeed should one be when the little children of a city rise up and call her blessed. The place in the city schools filled for some years by the bride will not be easily filled again. "The groom is a prosperous and substantial citizen of Grayson County. He has the esteem of all who know him and is today congratulated by a host of friends, not only from all over Grayson County, but from all over the state as well. "For some days Mr. and Mrs. Vaden will be at their home 6 miles west of town. On June 29, they will leave for an extended wedding tour. They expect to visit St. Louis, Chicago and Niagara Falls. On July 7 they expect to sail for Europe, where they will attend the Paris Exposition. They expect to be at home about September 1. "The presents were numerous and appropriate." (her home town), Bonham, Texas and Sherman, Texas where she was Principal of the Franklin School at the time of her marriage. She also attended Texas State College for Women (now Texas Women's University), Denton; Texas A&M College; and Scarritt Bible and Training School, Kansas City, Missouri, the first winter after her husband's death. In 1915 she became Grayson County's first Home Demonstration Agent as her World War I work. After "Mr. Vaden's" (as she always called him) death in 1920, she served as Home Demonstration Agent in Armstrong County in order to put Tennie through college. Later she served in the same capacity in Everglades County and Putnam County, Florida. She was Farm Rehabilitation Worker for the Sherman area from 1935 to 1937. For many years she was Corresponding Secretary of the North Texas Conference of the Methodist Women's Missionary Society and so a member of the Women's Council of the church which met annually in such southern cities as Richmond, Virginia; Memphis, Tennessee; and San Antonio, Texas to which Tennie sometimes accompanied her. Her outstanding characteristic was love of people. She enjoyed helping people, as evidenced in the work she did.When Frank and my mother, Berta, married in 1900, he was 48 and she 30. They went to Europe on their honeymoon, crossing on the "Rotterdam". On board ship was a Mr. Pratt, a distinguished music teacher from New York, and there was also a party of some of his pupils. Frank asked Mr. Pratt to be their guide in Europe since he had crossed the Atlantic several times and knew England and the Continent well. At first Mr. Pratt demurred on the grounds that he couldn't afford for his wealthy pupils to know he was acting as guide to a Texan and his bride, but Frank and Berta promised complete secrecy, so he accepted and they had a wonderful time. When they returned to the U.S., they went to Texas via Miss Sara Weaver's home, "Ramblehurst", Weaverville, North Carolina, an art teacher friend of Berta's. We children were reared on the latest world new from "The Dallas Morning News", hilarious and interesting tales about Europe, which probably contributed to our wanting to go there, and other convivial conversation at the dining table. Never any gossip. In the evenings in the summer we sat in rockers on the front porch or front walk, listening to the hunting, ranching, or Civil War tales of Frank, Jim Vaden, or whoever happened to be visiting at the time. One couldn't have been bored at Meadowside.  Biographical Souvenir Illustrated. Chicago: F.A. Battey & Co., c1889. Donohue & Henneberry, Printers "Genealogy of the Vaden and Related Families" By Tennie E.Vaden Winn, 1969  Biography Index Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |
