The Jim Haile family had a very busy fall after their trip to Collin County. The cotton was picked, the corn gathered, the hogs killed and the calf crop driven to Ft. Worth. Of course Carl and Lola and Ollie and Dora were involved in the harvest too. However, Dora wasn't involved with the gathering as much as the others because she was expecting her first baby. Her Christmas present to the Hailes was to present them with the first grandchild. William Noble Haile was born December 30, 1904.
Mrs. Mattie Carson and daughter Arien didn't like living in the country. Arien didn't like living away from her fiends in Hico and she was very anxious to move back to town. Doc Carson decided that he would sell his 400 acres of land after the cotton crop of 1904 was picked. He sold the land for $10 an acre and moved his family back to Hico in December of 1904. Then Carl and Lola made a deal to rent some of the land from the new owner and moved from the little gray house on the Haile ranch to the larger plank house just across the road where his dad and mother had lived.
John Carson, Doc's brother, then made a deal to rent some of the 400 acres and he and Carl Carson were farming all the land. Since John Carson had a large family, it was decided that in January 1905 Carl and Lola would move to the little log cabin where the Carson had lived when they moved out from Hico 3 years before. Then John Carson and his family moved into the larger plank house.
I went to school with John Carson's kids. There was Mollie, Kate, Ray, Curtis, and Edith. Mrs. John Carson had epileptic fits and could not be left alone cause she might have a seizure and fall into the fire or hurt her self in some way.
Carl and Lola had been living in the little log cabin about two months when Lola went into labor with her first child. Carl had gotten a doctor from Hico, and Lola's mother Lizzie and Dora's mother, Mrs. Laing were there. The second grandchild, Oran Haile Carson was born March 11, 1905. Lola wouldn't have lived if we hadn't had a good doctor. Carl was heard to say some years later.
On May 25, 1905, Jim bought 15.25 acres of land for $100 that was a part of the A. Payne survey. This land was adjacent to 120 acres of land, about 350 acres of which was in cultivation. He raised cotton, corn, oats, and a little wheat. He had Probably 300 head of cattle and 75 head of horses. Paw wouldn't raise hay to feed his stock. He said it was like feeding them the north wind. Paw kept about 15 or 20 horses on the home place and about 50 or 60 head over in the Chitwood pasture about a mile away. He had cattle in several different pastures, most of which was his, but he also leased lots of pasture too.
Jim Haile owned several disc plows to break his land, a cotton and corn planter, an oat binder, a drill and several cultivators. He hired a neighbor who owned a threshing machine to thresh his oats and wheat each summer. Us girls took turns following behind Ollie and Dud when they cultivated to uncover any of the cotton and corn that they covered up, even if we had to stay out of school to do it.
Paw got all his schooling in Collin County. He could read and write good and was pretty good with figures, too. I don't know how much schooling Maw got, but I don't imagine she finished the eighth grade. I am not sure about Ollie and Dud but the rest of us went through the eighth grade at Gum Branch School. We weren't graded then, we didn't have report cards until later. I went to school 16 years cause I liked school but the last 3 or 4 years we studied the same books cause they were all we had.
Every time Jim Haile saw a paint mare he wanted her, but what really took his eye was a paint colt stallion that belonged to a horse trader. The colt was probably a year old and his markings and color were beautiful and Jim wanted him. Jim bought the colt and took him home to the ranch. I think it was the summer of 1905 that Paw bought Mango. He was a pretty thing just prancing and dancing like he owned the whole ranch. I don't know where Paw got the name 'Mango' probably he heard it some place while he was traveling around and liked it.
It had been a dry spring and the cotton and corn was beginning to show the effects. The creeks were beginning to dry up and the grass was almost gone. We were pumping water from the well for the stock on the home place. We watered lots of stock from that well and we didn't have a windmill to pump it either, it was all done by hand. The well would run dry about every thirty minutes and we would take turns pumping and Paw would get up about every half hour all night long and pump so the stock wouldn't run our of water.
The creeks went dry in the other pastures and Paw began to try to sell his steers. He had over a hundred steers that he couldn't sell and he was singing the blues. I can remember him sitting on the porch with the blues so bad he could hardly stand it. One day a man named Mr. Hugo rode up and asked Paw if he had any steers to sell. Paw was the happiest feller you ever saw, cause the man bought all the steers at $20 a head and drove them to Brownsville. That sure cured Paw's blues.
This called for a swallow from the whiskey bottle Jim always kept in the house. Paw nor his boys ever drank or smoked, but most all Texas men took one swallow of whiskey every day. They called it a dram drink cause they figured one swallow a day was good for them.
When we got constipated we had to take liver regulator I think another name for it is Black Draught. It was the awfullest tasting stuff I ever tasted. It looked like tea that was ground up real fine. Maw would boil that stuff and make us drink the juice. We got the itch one time from a kid that was helping during threshing season. He slept with the boys and got it on the bedclothes and then before it was over we all got it. Maw rubbed sulfur and grease on us and it took us almost all winter to get rid of it.
Paw went to town almost every week to get groceries and supplies but when I was growing up the whole family went to town only twice a year, spring and fall. It was the first of October 1905 and time for another trip to town for the whole family. Maw made out her list and we started to town. There was Paw, Maw, Ada, Dud, Suc, Tug, Kate, Little Jim, Millie, Cubbie, and Ella who was about 1½ years old. Every girl had to have a hat or she wasn't dressed and when we crossed the Bosque River we all held on to our hats cause we didn't want to let them fly off and fall into the river.
Paw took us to Petty's store and that's where we all stayed. We weren't allowed to get out on the street cause we were afraid a booger would get us. Paw took the corn to get it ground into meal while Maw bought her supplies. She bought sugar, flour, potatoes, salt, spices, a barrel full of apples, ducking for cotton sacks, a blot of red flannel, a bolt of cotton check, 3 gallons of coal oil, several spools of thread, some sewing needles for her singer sewing machine and a spare belt. Some wicks and chimneys for the lamps, a variety of canned goods, some shoes and stockings for the kids, some powder, wadding, lead shots and a bullet mould to remelt the lead and make bullets for his muzzle loading shotgun. Some cloth to make sacks for the sausage, some fence steeples, a small roll of leather and some rivets to repair harness, Sloan's liniment for aches and pains for man and animal, some Black Draught, castor oil, axle grease and 4 extra hoes for use next spring during cotton chopping time.
We weren't allowed to leave the store, but when we heard the train coming we all ran to the front of the store and looked out at the train as it passed. Before we started home we ate the lunch that we had fixed before we left home, down under the big shade trees on the Bosque River. Before we started home Paw said he had better go back to the drug store and get some of that good red drinking whiskey that he kept the year round for his once a day swallow.
We all loved ribbon cane syrup too, and every year Paw and Mr. Gafan, a neighbor, would order a barrel a piece from Mr. Fagan's folks in east Texas. It would turn to sugar along towards the last of the barrel and we'd have to warm it up on the stove but it was still good.
Even though they had had a dry summer, the cotton and corn crop were fair, Jim had a few more calves to sell, they had killed 14 hogs and had the meat smoking in the smoke house, they had their winter supply of food bought, the wood had been cut and hauled to the house, Lizzie and the girls had quilted several quilts for the winter and life in general was good for the Hailes.
Thanksgiving of 1905 was a joyous occasion as were all Thanksgivings. We always raised 4 or 5 turkeys just for special occasions. All the kids were there, as well as the two new grandsons, Noble, who was almost a year old and Oran, about 9 months. Yes, the Haile's were truly thankful for all their good things.
Jim Haile always had extra hired help from time to time. One young man that worked for him was Fred Gordon. The Hailes had several community parties each year at the ranch for the young people and it was at one of these parties that Fred Gordon began to notice Ada Mae, and it wasn't long before they were going together.
It was the day before Christmas in 1905 that Fred Gordon and Ada Mae Haile, who was 22 years old, were married. All the young people in the community came to the wedding at the Haile ranch. After the wedding there was a big celebration dinner and a religious service at Olin Baptist Church. Jim Haile gave Fred and Ada a horse, a cow, and two pigs, as was his custom.
They moved over on the Gordon place with Fred's brother and Mr. and Mrs. Gordon. Mr. Gordon was partly insane but was not dangerous. They made one crop there then moved to the Fagan place where their three daughters were born. Edna Mae was born December 11, 1907, Irene was born April 17, 1909 and Lena was born April 27, 1911.
In the meantime Mrs. Gordon had died and Fred's brother moved out of the house so Fred and Ada had to go back to the Gordon place and take care of Mr. Gordon. Ada took care of him for 19 years. He walked and talked and waved his arms and we always thought he might have been hurt in the war. We were having a quilting party there one day and he kept talking about a red headed woman that died her hair black as he walked back and forth in the room where we were quilting. A friend of mine that was there at the quilting party had real black hair and Mr. Gordon thought she was the woman who died her hair black. It made her so nervous that she moved around to the other side of the table where she could watch him.
The Jim Haile family had a very busy fall after their trip to Collin County. The cotton was picked, the corn gathered, the hogs killed and the calf crop driven to Ft. Worth. Of course Carl and Lola and Ollie and Dora were involved in the harvest too. However, Dora wasn't involved with the gathering as much as the others because she was expecting her first baby. Her Christmas present to the Hailes was to present them with the first grandchild. William Noble Haile was born December 30, 1904.
