Carol C Taylor Blog

Hattie, her husband Jimmy, and their grandson Pete Coley, my father on a road trip to Ft. Payne, Alabama, in the 1930s.

My father Irvin Stewart (Pete) Coley was born May 22, 1921 at his grandparents’ farm in Bryson, Texas. In case you are unfamiliar with Bryson, it is a small community in the western part of Jack County. His grandmother, Nancie Hazentine Sampley Coley (Hattie) was a talented seamstress, played a concertina, wrote poetry and grew wonderful flowers and vegetables.

On the day he born Hattie picked a ripe, juicy tomato, the first of the season, even though May 22 is very early for tomatoes to ripen in North Texas. Every year thereafter, someone in the family tried to duplicate the agricultural feat. In 2012 I did it! But it was a bittersweet accomplishment. As I shared that first tomato with my dad, an Early Girl believe it or not, I realized that my dad’s days were numbered. I tried hard to smile through my tears.

My dad passed away on June 29, 2012. He lived a full life, was a WWII veteran, a mail carrier, Boy Scout leader, fisherman, and a good human being. We often talked about his childhood in Jacksboro, the county seat about fifteen miles east of Bryson. I also grew up there and we actually had several of the same teachers.
He taught my brother and me how to fish, how to shoot a rifle and then showed us how dangerous a weapon could be by shooting a sapling to demonstrate the devastation one bullet could cause. We learned to eat frog legs, to grow tomatoes and roses, and not to lay a thermometer on the driveway on a 100+ degree summer day.

This year would have been his ninety-fourth birthday. I decided it was time for me to celebrate his birthday by doing some of the things we enjoyed together. Even though the date fell on a Friday, I was able to adjust my schedule to dedicate some time for memories of Pete Coley.

I started out late as I had another event to attend that morning. But as soon as I got my jeans and boots on, I was ready to go. My first stop was CBs. My dad loved their cheeseburgers and so do I. I’m so glad they are still in business.

Then I went to the Merit Cemetery where he is buried. The cemetery sits on top of a hill that slopes slightly down on the east side, where our family plot is. I left the car at the tabernacle and walked down to his grave, glad I had worn boots. Water was standing in even the shallowest low spots. My dad’s tombstone is a military one. But the bottom part looked as if water had stood about a foot deep recently. I had to chuckle.

My dad experienced at least three droughts. His memory of the Dust Bowl was of his mother trying to keep the house clean and everything dusted. The drought of the 1950s ended his dream of being a farmer. In 2011 I drove him around Possum Kingdom Lake to see the destruction caused by wild fires, results of the drought. But he didn’t really like rainy days. He often told me it rained too much in Greenville.

After the cemetery I went by another of our favorite places, Dairy Queen for a Mint Oreo Blizzard. We often went for that special treat later in his life. When I returned home I had to check the garden and the flowerbeds. While I have quite a few green tomatoes, there’s not a single ripe one yet. You know what? I don’t know that I ever want to win that family competition again.

Texas Soldiers in the Civil War

In the village of Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, a small bell rang four times during the afternoon of April 9, 2015. It marked General Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Virginia to Union General U. S. Grant. The bell was a treasured possession of a former slave in the village. Each time the bell rang; it reminded bystanders the event marked the end of the American Civil War, one of the most tragic events in our national history. By 3:15 that afternoon, bells were ringing throughout the country.

It would take until late May 1865 for all Confederate units to surrender and wend their way home. Union soldiers marched or rode trains to Washington, D. C., for a two-day long parade celebrating victory and the freedom of former slaves. But Confederates trudged homeward, in groups of three to five men. They had no food, any clothing or sturdy boots, and the path was generally unknown to them.

As the Confederate men walked, they had time to think about the loss of the war. The vast majority was desolated. Four years of war, hunger, and loneliness only to return to homes and fields destroyed by the enemy. Texas Confederates had the longest trek and must have really worked themselves up by they time they left Louisiana. As they crossed into Texas, they had no intention of acknowledging defeat or becoming reconstructed. As a result they created an environment of hate, destruction, and terror for all former slaves, Union supporters, Freedmen’s Bureau agents, and Union soldiers, especially throughout North Texas.

Even as early as March 1865 roving bands of guerillas infested Red River County and plundered Clarksville. As summer approached, newspapers commented on the rapid increase of crime, with accounts of robberies, murders, and wholesale arson. The Galveston Daily News reported that men of “all grades seem to have entered on a career of crime and doubtless found it profitable since they committed their deeds without impunity.” There was no civil law. Sheriffs and judges were helpless while murderers came and went at will.

Conditions remained the same or worsened over the next four years. The 6th U. S. Cavalry originally sent to Texas to protect settlers on the frontier, was ordered to Northeast Texas to serve in the occupation of the region and to defuse the violence. Finally General J. J. Reynolds of the U. S. Army placed a $1,000 reward on the heads of Ben Bickerstaff, Bob Lee, and Cullen Montgomery Baker, the three leaders of what became known as the War of Reconstruction. As the November elections neared in 1868, Bickerstaff and Lee led a group estimated to number between 200 and 500 men to surround Sulphur Springs. Two more companies of Union soldiers saved the town at the last minute.

Suddenly in early 1869 Baker was killed by his brother-in-law, Lee was killed by supporters of his arch-enemy Louis Peacock, and Bickerstaff was eliminated by irate storekeepers in Alvarado. The violence receded. Those unreconstructed Confederates moved farther west. Miraculously, women and children who had been confined to their homes after dark by fear found they were now free. Life was good!

President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the drought stricken Texas Panhandle in July 1938. Here he listens as an unidentified farmer explains the crisis. Ironically as FDR rode toward an Amarillo park for a speech, the sky opened and the rains came! (Photo courtesy of www.history.com.)

I vividly remember the spring of 1957. We lived in Jacksboro at the time. I was just a little kid, but it was one of those once in a lifetime experiences for me. For four or five years everyone had suffered through a devastating drought with stringent water rationing, little water or grass for cattle, dust storms that left a dirty, dusty taste in the mouth, absolutely nothing pleasant! Suddenly the rains began, slowly at first but more and more each week.

People started carrying umbrellas. I had never seen that before. Streets filled with water; another new experience for me. I remember standing at the window watching the rain in awe. I thought it was absolutely wonderful. Everyone was so happy; smiles beamed on the crustiest old cowboy’s faces. Then I happened to hear the television weatherman say we were approaching forty days of rain. Forty days of rain? That was how long Noah floated on his ark with all those animals. My dad reassured me it would take much more than forty days to flood Jacksboro and the surrounding area.

Fast forward to 1980 when our son was born in April. That night I think Greenville had its last cold front and spring storm for a long time. That was the year the temperature reached 113 degrees on two or three days. A record number of hundred plus degree-days plagued North Texas. Obviously with those high temperatures, we had no rain. In late September or early October a rain cloud came up. I bundled Matthew up and took him out on the front porch. I talked to him about rain and how precious it was. I even took his little hand and let the raindrops fall on it. I doubt if he remembers, but he surely appreciates the need for water conservation as an adult.

As I’ve done several research projects I learned that Texas and the rest of the South suffered a severe drought from 1860 until the summer of 1865. As former Confederate soldiers made their ways home, they encountered rising creeks and rivers. Some foolishly plunged their horses into the roiling water and lost their lives so very close to home. The drought had taken a toll on women alone on the frontier. Many were on the brink of starvation when their husbands or sons returned. But when the rains began, the drought eased into a horrible memory.

One time I read a lot about the Dust Bowl in the Texas Panhandle, caused by a devastating drought and poor farming techniques. I’m sure you have seen the photographs. At some point, President Franklin Roosevelt arrived in Amarillo to see for himself the ravages of weather. As soon as he got in his car for the parade through town, it started to rain. Not a gentle shower, but a real gully-washer. That was the beginning of the end of that drought.

As long as we live in Texas we will have to deal with weather, including droughts. But as I have watched the rain this spring, I am so excited that the end of this drought may be just down the road. The pond in my yard caught some water, the tulips I planted in December are absolutely beautiful, and the cows have an abundance of water and grass. What more could one ask for in Texas?