Kittie Lanham Oakes
16 July 1894 -




SUMMER AT GRANDPA AND GRANDMA'S HOUSE

Sister and I found it very pleasant to visit here.  There was lots of room for us to play, and shady oaks for coolness.  Grandpa had a good rope swing in one of them.  Back home, in the middle of that pasture, there were no shade trees in sight.  In our yard, there was one small scrubby cedar set near the front porch.
Best of all, there were other children near that we could play with.  And across the street an old lady had a bright green parrot, which we enjoyed.  Her cage was usually hung on the wide veranda.  Polly amused us when she whistled up a pack of dogs.  She called and whistled until there
might be about a dozen dogs on the lawn.  She knew each boy's special whistle and could imitate it perfectly.  The dogs ran around bewildered, each trying to find his master.  Then she would scream "Git out!  Go home, you curs!"  And the poor deluded pups would slink off, knowing they had been fooled again.  We never could understand how Polly could repeat that performance so often without those dogs catching on to the trick, but it never failed to amuse us.
While at Grandpa's we learned to watch for the tamale man.  A Mexican with a small pushcart came by each afternoon selling "Hot tamales!"  He was regular as ice cream vendors are now.  But Mama and Grandmother thought the highly spiced tamales were not good for children and rarely let us buy.
The Mexican had used considerable ingenuity in making his little pushcart. He set a big lard can in the box rigged up on two discarded bicycle wheels. The big lard can was packed all around with newspapers and partly filled with hot water.  A smaller can filled with the tamales was set in the hot water and had a tightly fitting lid placed over that.  The tamales came out steaming when he forked them out on the plate we brought when we were allowed to buy them.
Though she could not have known, Grandmother's colored girl told us that those tamales were made from dog meat and that all Mexicans were dirty.  I knew it wasn't true for Uncle Mat had taken me for a ride once and we had passed this Mexican's house.  There was no other Mexican family in the vicinity and while the place was shabby and run-down, it was clean.  Ella May just did not like Gonzales but if we bought his tamales, I noticed she did not refuse to eat some of our purchases. 
Ella May did not like the quaint old Chinaman who passed almost every afternoon, either.  He was strange, she said, and ate rats.  He was always dressed the same, long black shirt and no other man wore the tail out at that time.  His black cotton pants were short enough that his white socks showed.  The only change in his appearance was in his headgear.  Sometimes, he wore a tiny black pillbox cap with his long gray queue dangling down behind, but if he wore his odd straw hat, he coiled his queue out of sight.  A few small boys sometimes followed him chanting in a nasal singsong, "Ching-ching-Chinaman, eats dead rats!"  But he always ignored them, walking along in quiet dignity. These two were the only foreigners I knew as a child.  That they were different I understood.  But both Grandmother and Mama always pointed out that a lady worthy of the name should treat every person with courtesy. Nice manners were the mark of a lady, and that theme was drilled into me most thoroughly from infancy.  Courtesy and consideration!  The two most important words of all.
Grandpa Weems served in the Confederate Army and was captured at the fall of Vicksburg.  As I remember his comment on that, the soldiers he was with were heavily outnumbered and when they started to retreat, found a regiment of blacks behind them so they turned and ran back to surrender to the whites.
He was imprisoned on an island, Number 10, and many of the guards were black, and the prisoners were so starved that some caught and ate rats.  The Yanks stripped most of the state of food and even before capture he said much of  the time all he had to eat was ears of corn right from fields as they marched.
After he was freed, Grandpa went back home, but Reconstruction times in Mississippi were bad. The whole section where he had lived was in ruins, no money, no supplies, no horses or mules to work the land or even seeds to plant it, impossible taxes, debts, etc.  Indescribable.  On some of the land the freed slaves stayed and they and both my grandfathers tried to get along.  Since all white men were disenfranchised, only carpetbaggers and ignorant blacks were running the government, and much of the land had been confiscated; it was time to move to Texas.
I remember one of them said that if war could have been postponed for as few as ten years, it never would have happened, both because of the economic conditions and because of the invention of the cotton gin.  
The other  grandfather said he had to work so hard to make his farm pay even before the war that he was not sure if he owned the place and the slaves or if they owned him.
Then they heard of cheap virgin land in Texas.  So they went in 1870.  It was raw virgin land and it meant long hard labor, so as soon as a log house was livable they sent for their families.  I do not how Grandmother Lanham went to Texas, but I assume she went by boat with her two small sons and essential household goods to Galveston, then by freight wagons to Sherman.
I know that Grandmother Weems made the trip by boat down the Mississippi River and across the gulf where Grandpa met her and his family. 
Grandmother Weems' maiden name was Martha Catherine Red.  A cousin of mine, Inez Bosewell Biggerstaff traced her line to Josiah McGaw, a soldier in the Revolutionary War who fought with the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion's men in the army near Charleston, South Carolina.  At one time, her people were quite well to do and lived on a large plantation, but both her parents died of malaria when she was about seven.  He uncle, Dr. Red, raised her along with his own three daughters.  They had a French governess and she was given the customary education for gentle-women of that period.  She was taught some French, a little music, polite social manners and beautiful convent type sewing, nothing very practical for a pioneer's wife. 

Martha Catherine Red Weems

Sherman, Texas Dec. 6th, 1880  My Dear Mattie I expect you are looking for a reply to your last letter so I will try and write a few lines tonight if my eyes do not fail me.  I have been so busy and it has been so cold and wet that I thought I would wait until I got through with my work before writing.  I have quilted five comforts this winter and am almost through with my winter sewing.  We are all very well at present.  My health has been better for the last few months.  Well, Mattie I know that you will be very much surprised when I tell you that we will move next Monday to the Poor Farm.  Jimmie is appointed superintendent of the farm.  They pay him four hundred and sixty ($460) dollars and feed the family.  We will have a very nice and comfortable home to live in.  Jimmie will not have to work.  The boys can go to school all year.  This is why I consented to go.  I do not like the idea of going at all but-as Jimmie thinks it best, I will try it this year.  I will not have any thing  to do in the affairs there.  Jimmie is trying to get through with his corn this week - will make over thirteen hundred (1300) bushels, he has not finished his cotton yet.  We have had a month of bad weather.  This is why Jimmie is not done gathering  his crop.  We had rented this place for another year.  Are you through with your crop, how many bales of cotton did you make?  I hope you realized a good price.  I am glad that you have nice hogs to kill.  Will you keep the young man that you now have another year?  Tell Herman Aunty thinks he is a very smart boy to pick so much cotton.  He must be a good boy and take the place of his Papa as near as he can, Mattie.  You must-try and cheer up.  Think of your dear little ones, it is hard to become reconciled to the loss of our dear ones.  When I think of my dear brother as he was when here and then think that I can never see or hear him again, oh! my heart almost breaks.  But Mattie we all have to die soon or late let us try and meet him beyond the skies where there is no parting.  I wish that I could spend Christmas with you and the children.  I know it will be a sad time for you ALL ALONE.  Poor children Papa will not be there to enjoy it with them-but. You wished to know all our ages.  Pa was born Apr 27th 1817 died July 23rd 1849.  Ma was born May 25th 1821 and died 1855 Nov 26 -- I think.  Bud was born June 10th 1844.  I was born May 26th 1846.  Sue was born Aug 1st 1849 and died Nov 6th 1860 -- Bud lived to be four years older than Pa.  Ours has been a short-lived family.  All gone but me, Oh Mattie think how lonely I must feel.  I do not expect to live much longer.  My eyes have become exhausted and I will have to close.  Kiss the children all for Aunty and tell them to be good children.  Write soon, I am always so glad to get a letter from you. Your Affectionate Sister Kittie

RIDING A HORSE FOR THE FIRST TIME

MY LOVE OF READING

So far, I have had only a little to say about Papa.  At a very early age it was brought home to me that he was terribly disappointed that I was a girl instead of the son he had hoped for.  Most of the time, he ignored me completely.  I do remember that on rare occasions, I have overheard him boast that I learned to read before I was four years old.  However, that feat was started on my own initiative. Both Papa and Mama loved reading and they frequently read aloud by turns to each other.  If they buried themselves in separate books, I was left to my own resources.  Then
I would get my Mother Goose Rhymes or a primer and 
pull my little rocking chair between them, as close as possible.  If any one would listen, I could repeat any of these books from memory but if I tried to read them, I sometimes faltered over a single word.  Then I insisted on being told what that word was.  If either parent ignored my question, "What's this word?" I simply sat and repeated over and over "B, d, b, d," until it become so monotonous that one of them would finally stop reading long enough to tell me the word I wanted to know.  I cannot remember learning at all.  According to school standards, my self-education was not exactly balanced.  I read well and understood what I read.  I knew many words and their meanings, but I was not a good speller.  I had little interest in numbers and had never been taught any arithmetic, but I could count and make change. 
I loved reading and by the time I was seven, when other Texas children were just starting to school in the primer, I was reading and enjoying the old "Youth's Companion."  I read every text in reading that Papa had in his library, and since he was frequently given complimentary copies of sets for all the grade in school, that was quite a lot of reading for a child who had not gone to school at all.  I could and read some newspapers but since that was before comics reached their present popularity, I found little to interest me.
Papa did not want me to be too far advanced in school and held me back by putting me in the second grade at the start of my schooling.  And he never would allow me to be promoted or advanced except at the end of the year.  I never understood why he deliberately held me back.  I really
do not believe it is best for children to be pushed too fast, either, but it is hardly fair to force them to work below their capacity.

PAPA AS SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS

The first year I started to school was the year Papa got a larger school and we moved to the county seat where he was superintendent of three schools.  This town was about twenty or more miles from where we had previously lived and in another county.  Papa rented a house just across the street from the high school where he would have his classes, which made it very convenient for him.  There was a smaller grade school in one corner of the big campus ant that is where I started to school.  Only the three first grades were in that building.
Our house was not large but it was very comfortable and it was set in a fenced yard heavily sodded with Bermuda grass.  Papa had a colored man who came to keep it nicely cut and it made a wonderful place for romping games, with some of the neighbors' children, and there were usually several of them around.
The house had four huge rooms, but the room we used most was the cozy dining room, for we loved the big, old stone fireplace, and the round dining table served for games as well as for meals.  By that time, Sister and I could play Flinch, Old Maid and other similar games, but actual playing cards were not permitted.  Sometimes Mama and Papa had their friends, most often other teachers, in for Flinch.
That fireplace was where we gathered on cold winter evenings.  Sometimes, we shook a wire popper over glowing coals and listened for the snappy pops of the corn.  Sometimes, we roasted apples and sweet potatoes in the hot ashes, and once in a while, when it was very cold, Mama hung an iron pot of beans or stew over the fire to simmer for our supper.  On rare occasions, she even made corn pones in a heavy iron spider.  Oh, we loved that fireplace!
We lived in this place two years, and it was there that I had my first regular schooling and I admit I was much more interested in the other children than in my books, which were far too easy to demand my undivided attention.  Many times, I begged to carry my lunch to school because most of the other children did and I wanted to be like the other small girls I knew.  I was sure having my lunch on the school grounds would be a picnic and I wanted the whole noon hour for play.  But Mama insisted that I come home for my lunch and I can remember only once that she relented.
Our playground had none of the modern equipment that small folks find as a matter of course on their playgrounds now.  Never having seen slides, 
acrobatic bars, and such, we did not miss them but improvised our own amusements by laying heavy boards across fire-wood logs hauled into the yard for fuel.  Those were our teeter-totters.  And when those same logs had been sawed into stove lengths, we dragged and piled them in place to build walls for our play-houses.  Maybe we appreciated more what we had to make ourselves than little ones who are given everything ready-made.  I don't know but I think we got double the fun.
When I was promoted to the third grade, I had my first love affair.  Not an unmixed blessing!  The little boy who sat behind me, dipped my pigtails into his ink well and whenever he wanted my attention, he yanked them, too.  But he also gave me presents.  He shared his gingerbread with me at recess sometimes; he gave me some of his favorite marbles to play jacks with; and he brought me my first gift of flowers.  That was a huge arm full of lilac blossoms, and some way that happens to be my favorite perfume, to this day.
Another gift that I received while we lived here was the first and only gift my father ever gave me personally.  It was a small child's book of Eskimo stories.  I have never understood why he happened to bring it back to me after one of his trips, nor why he never gave me any other present. I have always believed he rather ignored my presence because he never overcame his disappointment that I was not the son he wanted.  Sister was his favorite and he frequently gave her little things.  Possibly, this was because she looked so much like him, partly, I think, because she was named for his mother, and partly, also, because she was gayer than I and she did not draw back into a shell as I did whenever I sensed his snubs.  Shortly before we moved from this town, the whole family received a shock that I shall never forget.  Sometime very late at night we were awakened by pounding steps on our front walk.  A man's voice was calling Papa urgently.  He said he had a wired message from Papa's father asking Papa to come immediately, that Grandpapa had shot Papa's brother.  We were horrified and could not believe what we heard.  While Papa dressed, Mama phoned to find out when the next train left.  Then Papa thought to phone the telegraph office and have the message read to him.  It was not true, of course, but what had happened was bad enough.  The message actually said that Grandpapa had killed a man, and that Papa was to let Uncle Wiley know, and both sons were asked to come at once.

GRANDPA'S GROCERY STORE

Grandpapa owned and operated a small grocery store with a large wagon yard in connection at the edge of town.  Country people coming in to trade frequently drove long distances, too far for their wagons to make the round trip in one day.  They would park their rigs in Grandpapa's enclosure, stable their teams in his sheds, and buy supplies for several months ahead. A few men brought their wives and when they did a bed usually was made up in the back of their wagons for the family to sleep over night unless they had relatives to visit.  Other men came alone and these had their choice of sleeping in their wagons or taking a bunk for 25 cents in the bunkhouse. 
If purchases in Grandpapa's store amounted to a considerable outlay, there was no charge for these facilities.
Usually everything about the yard was quite orderly, but occasionally some rough men would come in on a Saturday night and cause a disturbance.  On this particular Saturday night, Grandpapa was alone in the place when a big, drunken bully came in and began cursing Grandpapa for some fancied wrong.  The abuse started at the front end of the long store.  Grandpapa tried to pacify the man but as he talked quietly to him, he was backing away from him.  A few plain chairs were set out down the center aisle for the convenience of customers, and this man picked up one and was menacing Grandpapa with it.  He carried the chair raised high over his head, threatening to strike Grandpapa down.  Grandpapa continued to walk slowly backward, still trying to reason with the man.  He even appealed to the two other men who had entered the store behind this dangerous ruffian.  They refused to have any part of it, knowing how quarrelsome drinking made this man. Grandpapa had backed almost the full length of the store until he was in reach of a desk where he kept his books and accounts, with the man still following and becoming more abusive.  When he reached the desk, Grandpapa pulled open a drawer where he kept his pistol.  By this time the man was so close, he could reach Grandpapa with a heavy blow from the chair. "Put that chair down!" Grandpapa ordered crisply, as he brought the pistol into plain view at his side. The man swore foully as he lunged forward to bring the chair down with all his strength.  Grandpapa sidestepped and shot from the hip.
Grandpapa was a quiet, mild-mannered, little man with wavy gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard and he looked very much as many another Confederate veteran of those times did.  He must have been in his middle sixties at the time. It still seemed strange to any one who knew him that even a drunken man could be so foolish, to try to intimidate one of General Lee's officers, especially one who had served four years with his staff and was still with Lee at Appomattox.
There was no formal trial after this killing.  Grandpapa, with his two sons, reported to the sheriff the next morning, and answered a few questions.  The man who was killed was notoriously quarrelsome and dangerous especially when drinking and even his companions under oath stated that Grandpapa had ample justification.  Though the wild Saturday nights in some Texas towns were less frequent than they had been previously and the custom of shooting a town up never had the prevalence that movies and TV programs would have you believe, there were plenty of times when such violent incidents did occur.  All the wildness was not yet gone.

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