"James Noble Haile"
Part V
Ollie and Dud were breaking the wild horses to the saddle. Lizzie had sent the smaller children to the neighbors and Jim had gone to Fairy after Dr. Young. Jim was expecting to hear his latest offspring cry after Dr. Young spanked her bottom but that cry never came. "I'm sorry Jim, but your baby girl was dead when she was born," Dr. Young said. This date was July 2, 1898, and was a sad day at the Haile ranch.
The neighbors brought the smaller kids home that Sunday morning and Jim told them the sad news. The neighbors built a small wooden casket and covered it inside and out with velvet clothe. After the baby was placed in the wooden casket a bigger wooden box was built to put the little casket into.
The little girl was buried in Preachers cemetery, about a mile from the ranch, the same day she was born.
Saturday night was bath night for the girls. In the summer after it was dark the girls took a both out behind the house in a wooden barrel cut in half. They used lye soap mostly but later on they used hand soap that Jim had bought in town. The big girls bathed the little girls then bathed themselves changing water after every third girl. It kept one girl busy carrying water from the pump. The big girls washed their own hair and dried and braded it. Lizzie washed the little girls hair. "We never had make up," Alma remembers, "maybe we'd put a little corn starch on our face for powder."
The big boys would go to the creek on Sunday morning for their baths and Lizzie would bath the little boys in the barrel. "Those outside baths were alright in the summer time," Alma laughs, "but in the winter time we all took a sponge bath by the fireplace." "When we got ready to go someplace we just washed our face, neck and hands and that was it." "Everybody did that so I guess we all smelled alike so it didn't make much difference," she laughs.
"You bet, we all got whippings," Alma recalls. "Paw did all the whipping but we tried not to get punished cause Paw whipped us so hard and he used anything he could get his hands on. I've seen him whip Ada, Suc and Lola after they got grown just for going with somebody he didn't want them to go with. One time when Little Jim was about three years old he saw Burt Burney standing up in the buggy while it was going. Little Jim wanted me to pull him standing up in the wagon but I didn't want to cause I was afraid he'd fall out on the rocks and hurt himself. Finally I did and sure enough he fell out! Paw whipped me with a broom stick," Alma laughs, "he believed in kids minding and I guess it was a good thing, cause we sure minded him."
The Hailes attended church at Dry Fork Church during the early days, and Jim Haile was converted there and baptized in a creek. "Maw was a Methodist when she married Paw but then she got to reading the Bible and decided she wanted to be a Baptist," Alma recalls. "We went there all the time. We'd go at night and day time too during revivals and all us kids were converted and baptized except Ollie and Dud. They were converted but not baptized," Alma remembers. "We had conference services on Saturday morning and preaching on Sunday but the Saturday conference services were soon discontinued cause folks quit coming."
It had been some time since Jim had been back to Collin County to see his folks, so this summer of 1899, he decided it was time. "We didn't hear from them very much," Alma recalls, "Paw might have written a letter back home a few times, but about the only time he ever heard from them was when he went back there."
Jim decided to take Dud with him on this trip so they hitched up a team to the covered wagon and filled up the grub box and were on their way. Peter Haile, Jim's dad, was getting pretty feeble but his mother Sarah seemed to be doing pretty well. Jim and Dud also visited his sister Susan and brother-in-law J.E. Stienbaugh and family and brother Oliver and sister-in-law Susie Mae and their kids. Jim told them all about the little girl that was born dead a year ago and also that Lizzie was expecting again. Susan decided that she wanted to come back to Hamilton County with Jim and Dud and she also decided to bring her daughter with her. They stayed about a week and enjoyed seeing Lizzie and the kids for the first time. Jim took Susan and her daughter back to Hico to catch a train back to Collin County.
Mollie Haile was born September 29, 1899. She was not a healthy baby and cried almost all the time and had to be carried or rocked to keep her content. "Kate wasn't old enough to go to school then so she rocked Mollie all day," Alma recalls. "We couldn't lay her on the bed cause she cried so hard it scared us. When I got home from school Maw said, get your dress changed and come in here and get this baby cause Kate has been sitting here all day holding her, and I would," Alma recalls. "Everybody papered their walls with newspaper in those days and on Saturday it was my job to rock Mollie." "I'd sit there all day and rock her and read the walls," Alma laughs. "That's where I learned to spell pneumonia and rheumatism. I was just a little bitty thing and I couldn't reach the floor with my feet to rock so they would pull me up to the wall where I could kick the wall and rock. I'd read everything on that wall, then they'd turn me to the next wall and I'd read it."
"One night after supper Mollie just cried and cried and Maw said to get Tug, she can get her to sleep. They pushed me up to the wall in the rocker with Mollie in my lap," Alma remembers. "I'd rock just as hard as I could but Mollie kept on crying. Paw said sing to her Tug, sing to her! Well I didn't want to sing cause we were boarding a schoolteacher, Mr. Hitt, and I was afraid he'd laugh at me. They kept saying, sing to her, sing to her! Well finally I commenced singing, and I could sing louder than Mollie could yell and soon I got her to sleep."
The cotton and corn was picked and gathered. In a good year the Hailes picked 50 or 60 bales of cotton and sold it for $20 or $30 a bale. Jim Haile was kept busy hauling the cotton to the gin in Hico while Ollie who was 19, Ada 16, Dud 14, Lola 12, Allie 10, Alma 8, Kate 6 and Little Jim who was 4 picked it. Five hundred bushels of corn was not an unusual yield from the corn crop. Ollie handled the team while the other kids took a row a piece and gathered the corn and threw it into the wagon that had one high side which served as a throw board. Jim Haile had five or six corncribs that would hold a hundred bushels each. The kids would take a hatchet and a chopping block and chop the ears of corn into small slices to feed to the 10 or 12 milk cows and other cattle on the home ranch. Cottonseed was also fed to the cattle.
"Maw stayed home and did the cooking while the rest of us went to the field," Alma recalls. "One time Ada wanted to stay home and sew cause us kids had to go to school after we got the cotton and corn picked and gathered. Maw had a Singer sewing machine that Paw had bought for her several years before from Petty's store in Hico and Ada could use the sewing machine real good. Paw wouldn't let her stay home and this made Ada cry but then it rained and Paw and the boys went coon hunting and Ada got caught up on all the sewing."
"Ever since I can remember Ada would get up and cook breakfast," Alma recalls. "When she got married then the next oldest girl would cook the breakfast. But you see, Lola married before Ada did so Lola never learned to cook before she left home. While Ada was cooking breakfast, us other kids milked the cows, fed the hogs and horses, and got ready to go to the field. Then Ada would quit working in the fields a little early each day and go home and milk the cows and feed the horses."
Jim Haile kept 25 or 30 head of horses on the home ranch at all times for saddle and work stock. These horses were fed twice a day during the winter. The kids chopped the bundles of oats into short pieces with a manually operated chopping knife. Also they shucked the corn and fed the whole ears to the horses. Also water had to be pumped daily to the stock on the home place. The ranch was a busy place.
Jim and Ollie hauled corn for the horses and cottonseed for the cattle in the other pastures. In wet wintertime it was almost impossible to get to the Chitwood pasture because they had to cross Gum Branch. "I'll bet there has been a hundred loads of rock hauled to make a road across Gum Branch," Alma remembers. "Sometimes Paw would get his wagon stuck trying to cross it. That's why they called it Gum Branch, cause it was so boggy like gum," she said.
"Paw had corn shellers," Alma laughs. "He had all us kids who shelled it by hand. Paw went to Hico for groceries and supplies once or twice a month and he always took about 200 pounds of shelled corn to have it ground into meal. He had to give the miller a portion of the corn to pay for the grinding," Alma recalls.
"Maw always cooked us a good dinner and supper. She would usually boil beans and potatoes and have maybe fried chicken or hog meat. For supper, if she had anything left from dinner she'd serve that along with some bacon or ham, biscuits or cornbread with gravy. Anything we had left we fed to the hounds or hogs," Alma remembers.
"Every spring Maw would hatch off about 60 chickens and Paw would say you better quit hatching cause we might not have enough feed to feed them. But we could have eaten 600 chickens," Alma laughs, "cause there was so many of us. We only raised 4 or 5 turkeys, just enough for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We'd raise these chickens and turkeys in a little house that leaked real bad and when it rained we'd have to run and bring them into the house and dry them out by the fireplace. We had a terrible time with the wharf rats too. When we heard the chickens making a racket we'd run out there and get after those rats," Alma laughs. "We'd raise maybe 20 ducks and we picked them and made each kid a feather bed. I've still got Ella's out at our house that is on the old Chitwood pasture. We didn't eat duck eggs cause they tasted slick but Maw would use them in making biscuits, cornbread and cakes," Alma recalls.Part V
Ollie and Dud were breaking the wild horses to the saddle. Lizzie had sent the smaller children to the neighbors and Jim had gone to Fairy after Dr. Young. Jim was expecting to hear his latest offspring cry after Dr. Young spanked her bottom but that cry never came. "I'm sorry Jim, but your baby girl was dead when she was born," Dr. Young said. This date was July 2, 1898, and was a sad day at the Haile ranch.
The neighbors brought the smaller kids home that Sunday morning and Jim told them the sad news. The neighbors built a small wooden casket and covered it inside and out with velvet clothe. After the baby was placed in the wooden casket a bigger wooden box was built to put the little casket into.
The little girl was buried in Preachers cemetery, about a mile from the ranch, the same day she was born.
Saturday night was bath night for the girls. In the summer after it was dark the girls took a both out behind the house in a wooden barrel cut in half. They used lye soap mostly but later on they used hand soap that Jim had bought in town. The big girls bathed the little girls then bathed themselves changing water after every third girl. It kept one girl busy carrying water from the pump. The big girls washed their own hair and dried and braded it. Lizzie washed the little girls hair. "We never had make up," Alma remembers, "maybe we'd put a little corn starch on our face for powder."
The big boys would go to the creek on Sunday morning for their baths and Lizzie would bath the little boys in the barrel. "Those outside baths were alright in the summer time," Alma laughs, "but in the winter time we all took a sponge bath by the fireplace." "When we got ready to go someplace we just washed our face, neck and hands and that was it." "Everybody did that so I guess we all smelled alike so it didn't make much difference," she laughs.
"You bet, we all got whippings," Alma recalls. "Paw did all the whipping but we tried not to get punished cause Paw whipped us so hard and he used anything he could get his hands on. I've seen him whip Ada, Suc and Lola after they got grown just for going with somebody he didn't want them to go with. One time when Little Jim was about three years old he saw Burt Burney standing up in the buggy while it was going. Little Jim wanted me to pull him standing up in the wagon but I didn't want to cause I was afraid he'd fall out on the rocks and hurt himself. Finally I did and sure enough he fell out! Paw whipped me with a broom stick," Alma laughs, "he believed in kids minding and I guess it was a good thing, cause we sure minded him."
The Hailes attended church at Dry Fork Church during the early days, and Jim Haile was converted there and baptized in a creek. "Maw was a Methodist when she married Paw but then she got to reading the Bible and decided she wanted to be a Baptist," Alma recalls. "We went there all the time. We'd go at night and day time too during revivals and all us kids were converted and baptized except Ollie and Dud. They were converted but not baptized," Alma remembers. "We had conference services on Saturday morning and preaching on Sunday but the Saturday conference services were soon discontinued cause folks quit coming."
It had been some time since Jim had been back to Collin County to see his folks, so this summer of 1899, he decided it was time. "We didn't hear from them very much," Alma recalls, "Paw might have written a letter back home a few times, but about the only time he ever heard from them was when he went back there."
Jim decided to take Dud with him on this trip so they hitched up a team to the covered wagon and filled up the grub box and were on their way. Peter Haile, Jim's dad, was getting pretty feeble but his mother Sarah seemed to be doing pretty well. Jim and Dud also visited his sister Susan and brother-in-law J.E. Stienbaugh and family and brother Oliver and sister-in-law Susie Mae and their kids. Jim told them all about the little girl that was born dead a year ago and also that Lizzie was expecting again. Susan decided that she wanted to come back to Hamilton County with Jim and Dud and she also decided to bring her daughter with her. They stayed about a week and enjoyed seeing Lizzie and the kids for the first time. Jim took Susan and her daughter back to Hico to catch a train back to Collin County.
Mollie Haile was born September 29, 1899. She was not a healthy baby and cried almost all the time and had to be carried or rocked to keep her content. "Kate wasn't old enough to go to school then so she rocked Mollie all day," Alma recalls. "We couldn't lay her on the bed cause she cried so hard it scared us. When I got home from school Maw said, get your dress changed and come in here and get this baby cause Kate has been sitting here all day holding her, and I would," Alma recalls. "Everybody papered their walls with newspaper in those days and on Saturday it was my job to rock Mollie." "I'd sit there all day and rock her and read the walls," Alma laughs. "That's where I learned to spell pneumonia and rheumatism. I was just a little bitty thing and I couldn't reach the floor with my feet to rock so they would pull me up to the wall where I could kick the wall and rock. I'd read everything on that wall, then they'd turn me to the next wall and I'd read it."
"One night after supper Mollie just cried and cried and Maw said to get Tug, she can get her to sleep. They pushed me up to the wall in the rocker with Mollie in my lap," Alma remembers. "I'd rock just as hard as I could but Mollie kept on crying. Paw said sing to her Tug, sing to her! Well I didn't want to sing cause we were boarding a schoolteacher, Mr. Hitt, and I was afraid he'd laugh at me. They kept saying, sing to her, sing to her! Well finally I commenced singing, and I could sing louder than Mollie could yell and soon I got her to sleep."
The cotton and corn was picked and gathered. In a good year the Hailes picked 50 or 60 bales of cotton and sold it for $20 or $30 a bale. Jim Haile was kept busy hauling the cotton to the gin in Hico while Ollie who was 19, Ada 16, Dud 14, Lola 12, Allie 10, Alma 8, Kate 6 and Little Jim who was 4 picked it. Five hundred bushels of corn was not an unusual yield from the corn crop. Ollie handled the team while the other kids took a row a piece and gathered the corn and threw it into the wagon that had one high side which served as a throw board. Jim Haile had five or six corncribs that would hold a hundred bushels each. The kids would take a hatchet and a chopping block and chop the ears of corn into small slices to feed to the 10 or 12 milk cows and other cattle on the home ranch. Cottonseed was also fed to the cattle.
"Maw stayed home and did the cooking while the rest of us went to the field," Alma recalls. "One time Ada wanted to stay home and sew cause us kids had to go to school after we got the cotton and corn picked and gathered. Maw had a Singer sewing machine that Paw had bought for her several years before from Petty's store in Hico and Ada could use the sewing machine real good. Paw wouldn't let her stay home and this made Ada cry but then it rained and Paw and the boys went coon hunting and Ada got caught up on all the sewing."
"Ever since I can remember Ada would get up and cook breakfast," Alma recalls. "When she got married then the next oldest girl would cook the breakfast. But you see, Lola married before Ada did so Lola never learned to cook before she left home. While Ada was cooking breakfast, us other kids milked the cows, fed the hogs and horses, and got ready to go to the field. Then Ada would quit working in the fields a little early each day and go home and milk the cows and feed the horses."
Jim Haile kept 25 or 30 head of horses on the home ranch at all times for saddle and work stock. These horses were fed twice a day during the winter. The kids chopped the bundles of oats into short pieces with a manually operated chopping knife. Also they shucked the corn and fed the whole ears to the horses. Also water had to be pumped daily to the stock on the home place. The ranch was a busy place.
Jim and Ollie hauled corn for the horses and cottonseed for the cattle in the other pastures. In wet wintertime it was almost impossible to get to the Chitwood pasture because they had to cross Gum Branch. "I'll bet there has been a hundred loads of rock hauled to make a road across Gum Branch," Alma remembers. "Sometimes Paw would get his wagon stuck trying to cross it. That's why they called it Gum Branch, cause it was so boggy like gum," she said.
"Paw had corn shellers," Alma laughs. "He had all us kids who shelled it by hand. Paw went to Hico for groceries and supplies once or twice a month and he always took about 200 pounds of shelled corn to have it ground into meal. He had to give the miller a portion of the corn to pay for the grinding," Alma recalls.
"Maw always cooked us a good dinner and supper. She would usually boil beans and potatoes and have maybe fried chicken or hog meat. For supper, if she had anything left from dinner she'd serve that along with some bacon or ham, biscuits or cornbread with gravy. Anything we had left we fed to the hounds or hogs," Alma remembers.
"Every spring Maw would hatch off about 60 chickens and Paw would say you better quit hatching cause we might not have enough feed to feed them. But we could have eaten 600 chickens," Alma laughs, "cause there was so many of us. We only raised 4 or 5 turkeys, just enough for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We'd raise these chickens and turkeys in a little house that leaked real bad and when it rained we'd have to run and bring them into the house and dry them out by the fireplace. We had a terrible time with the wharf rats too. When we heard the chickens making a racket we'd run out there and get after those rats," Alma laughs. "We'd raise maybe 20 ducks and we picked them and made each kid a feather bed. I've still got Ella's out at our house that is on the old Chitwood pasture. We didn't eat duck eggs cause they tasted slick but Maw would use them in making biscuits, cornbread and cakes," Alma recalls.
