MY FIRST EIGHTY FIVE YEARS

By

AMANDA MEREDITH "MAMMY" HILL

(Amanda Meredith Evans Hill wrote this autobiography in 1941)

In the beginning I want everyone who reads this autobiography to understand that it is written only for my family and those close friends who love me and who know that I'm not writing it from any feeling of pride or importance. My children who seem to have more than the average mother-love have insisted so long that I set down the little common everyday things of my life so that they and their children may look back through my eyes at the people and events of my life.

I have lived a very full and busy life and had very little time for romance, sentimentalities and the spectacular things of life, consequently I feel that the events of my life could be of interest only to those who are interested in me and in the places and times in which I live. During the span of my life, which has extended over four wars, a great many important changes have occurred in the history of the Nation, in the styles, customs and conveniences of the people - some for better and some for worse - but all the changes are interesting and inevitable. You can't make time stand still and while it is pleasant to look back through the years at your friends and loved ones, I have always been so busy looking forward at the necessities of the present and the possibilities of the future that I have had only time enough to make few reflections on the past. There have always been a lot of good and kind people and there always will be if you show yourself worthy of kindness by being kind and helpful yourself. People have been happy or sad under all the changes and conditions of life, depending upon their own attitude toward others.

It has been my lot to be poor in money all my life and to have to work hard since childhood but I have never felt sorry for myself, and have always been rich in family, love, and friends.

In writing this history a great deal of it will be about relatives and friends whom I will try to describe as I go along, so as to make you see them as they appeared to me. In order that you will see the family correctly I give a family tree of both my father's and mother's side, of the house and Mr. Hill's paternal family tree:

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At the time of my birth 1856, just before the War between the States in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, life was considerably less complicated than it is today. People didn't cover so much territory in their everyday life although they did frequently move for great distances in covered wagons over unpaved and unimproved dirt roads, where they had to ford streams or cross rivers on ferry boats. People of those days had to produce in their own communities nearly all the necessities of life. We had to clip the wool, raise the flax, card, spin, and weave the same into linsey, jeans and other rough cloth; then sew them into garments. The first sewing machine in our community was a Common Sense they were caviled. We owned it and many were the yards of stitching I did free gratis. It was operated by a hand crank rather than by foot pedal as they later were operated. People thought they were fixed when they got that crude machine - they never imagined an electric machine that flies so fast through the cloth now. My grandfather, Martin Meredith, died before I can remember and was buried in the old cemetery at Sparta. The only stockings we had were thick yarn, hand-knitted stockings, and most of the shoes and boots were hand-made, with brass toe-plates to prevent kicking them out on the limestone rocks. The people of the mountains of East Tennessee lived in a little more primative style than the general average over the country. Their homes were principally of split logs and they usually had large families, plenty to eat and lots of dogs. Those who lived in the coves and river valleys were usually more prosperous, some having two-story log houses, a few slaves and lots of fat horses and a lot of good live stock.

My father's people were of the mountain stock: and my mother's people were valley stock. My father was Elisha Meredith and my mother was Lee Ann Scott, the daughter of Amanda Lowery and James Scott. I was the first of ten children. In those days there were no hospitals and very few doctors, it was customary for a young mother to go to her mother's house where servants and mid-wife were available. That is why I happened to have been born at Crossville, Cumberland County, Tennessee. My grandfather was at that time a well-to-do merchant there. Later and during the War between the States he lived in a big white house and barn across the road about two miles East of Sparta, in White County, Tennessee, on the "big road" between Sparta and Points East. This road is now the U. S. Highway No. 70 from Texas, Arkansas and Memphis to Washington, D. C. You can now drive from Sparta to Crossville by auto, on the paved highway, in thirty minutes. It used to take all day on horseback for the roads were so bad that you had difficulty in making it even in a wagon.

I was born October 27th, 1856, at Crossville, Cumberland County, Tennessee, on top of the Cumberland Mountain Plateau near the headwaters of the Caney Pork River. This River and the mountain people were made famous by Opie Reed, the novelist, in his book entitled "The Waters of Caney Fork." This plateau country has produced many famous men like Andrew Jackson, Bob and Alt Taylor, and during the World War, Sergeant Alvin York, the greatest private soldier and individual hero of the World War. There is something about the climate and nature of the terrain of this rough mountain country that breeds and builds into the inhabitants a spirit of independence and self-reliance that makes leaders. This beautiful rugged country inspires men while at the same time its difficult surface forces him to put forth his hardest physical labor in order to bring forth a living from its stoney hill-sides. This country has sent forth so many soldiers and emigrants that it gave Tennessee the name of the "Volunteer State." I recall a story which some of our ancestors told about a Tennessean who was going on horseback to Texas, during the days of the Texas Republic, to fight with Sam Houston's Army. Someone asked him where he was going and he replied, "I'm going to Texas to fight for my rights," although he had never heard about Texas until a few weeks before that.

I was born at the home of my grandfather, James Scott, and was named for my grandmother, Amanda Lowery Scott. That name was shortened into "Mandy" and as one of the family Negro slaves had named her little girl, about my age, for the "Ole Miss," they distinguished us by calling me "Miss Mandy, " and the negro girl just plain "Mandy." Of course, I have no recollection of my first three years, but have

been told I was a curly haired, firey tempered little girl.

My first recollection of my grandfather Scott was during the- Civil War. He was short and rather wide in make-up, and short spoken. In time his health began to fail. In Nashville, Tennessee, was a very noted surgeon. When the people from our mountain country wanted advice on health they went there. He went there and the surgeon,

Dr. Paul Eve, told him he had heart trouble, but if he would be careful, not get excited, as he lived on a farm not to run cows or pigs and above all things not to get mad, he

would live to be an old man. My grandfather said, "You have told me what to do, now tell me how to do it." He said, "Damn if I know, I have had two fights this morning." My grandfather lived several years after that and was accidentally killed in 1880.

My first recollection was when I was three years old and we were in a covered wagon pulling out for Texas. I can recall the deep cut red clay banks and the chinquepin bushes along the road.

My father had decided to move to Waxahachie, Texas, in Ellis County, where his brother Joe Meredith had gone a few years previous. Another family, the Ed Austins,

decided to go along with us and I recall how disgusted my father became with them. They would change their minds every few days and start back home, then in a day or two

one of them on horseback would catch up and we would have to wait a day or two until the wagon caught up with ours. I also remember very vividly the crossing of the Mississippi River at Memphis. I recall how scared I was when we drove down to the sandy banks of the water and drove the wagon aboard the flat uncovered ferry boat and some men "poled" the ferry across by shoving long poles down to the bottom and pushing the boat along. I don't recall the season of the year, but it must have been summer and the river low in order for them to have done this.

About the only other things I remember on this trip was that mother washed our clothes in the Mississippi River while we were camped for the night. We carried with

us a boy about sixteen years old, named Brazelton, and had a little negro girl which Grandmother Scott had given us. When we arrived in Ellis County Uncle Joe Meredith rode out to meet us and soon had us located on a farm on what they called the "bald" prairie. I guess they called it bald because there were no trees. The house we lived in was a one- room affair with a lean to kitchen of rough hewn lumber and hand-made shingles. One time I remember the kitchen caught fire and as we didn't have much water and the spring was a long way from the house. Mother put the fire out with milk. We did have plenty of milk. Another time I recall that we kept missing our small chickens and finally discovered that some large snakes were killing and swallowing them. My mother discovered a nest of them and sailed into them with a hoe and started chopping them to pieces. I saw a big one on the low roof of the house and thought it was fixing to jump off on me. I was certainly scared, but my mother was not. She was a brave woman and I never saw her show any fear of man or beast in my whole life. She had iron determination, and a will that was as strong when she died at ninety as when she was in her prime. I always felt safe when she was around during my childhood and in after

years.

There were few springs and little running water, like we had been used to in Tennessee, and I remember my mother considered it a pretty hard life. She had reason to do so because during our first year the boy who came with us died of typhoid fever and my father was ill from it for several months and was unconscious for several months. During his delirium he told my mother he had seen her sister Sallye of whom he was very fond. She was a very pretty woman, and I afterwards named my fourth daughter for her. A few days after my father claimed to have seen

her sister Sallye in his delirium. Uncle Joe Martin wrote us that she had died that very day.

My grandmother Scott upon learning of our hardships in Texas, and considering Texas a wild and wooly land, began to plead with my father to move back to Tennessee and after another year of pleading and hearing talk of a War between the North and the South, we started back by wagon in the fall of 1860.

Our family then consisted of our parents, who were about thirty and thirty-two years old, the negro girl about my age, the same one named Ann for my Mother, Lee Ann Meredith, and three children, my brother Edd having been born during our stay in Texas. (Edd, born on a prairie, was destined to spend the most of his life on the open prairie, he afterwards lived many years near Aspermont before there was a railroad there, then in the Greer County part of' Oklahoma) .

When we went back to Tennessee we left our small amount of hand-made furniture with Uncle Joe Meredith to sell. He sold it afterwards to a family named Harper who came there from Illinois; sixty years later when my son, Joe M. Hill, married Lola McFarland, her mother discovered his full name was Joe Meredith Hill and told him they had the little bureau or chest of drawers which Lola's grandfather had bought from Joe Meredith at Waxahachie. It was then discovered that the piece of furniture was made by my son's grandfather and sold to Lola's grandfather. Joe and Lola have that same piece of

furniture yet and it will probably stay in the family from now on. People put more store by antique furniture now than they did then. You could not take much furniture in a cov-ered wagon. People had to travel light, about one feather mattress was all you could get in a wagon which also had to hold cooking utensils, farm implements, a trunk and several

people. The plow was fastened to the side of the wagon, the ax to the end gate, the lantern swung under the rear axle, or to the front of the wagon tongue, if travelling at night, which we seldom did. We usually camped on some creek so as to have

water for stock, for washing the clothes, and for cooking the food. I don't know how my mother managed to do all that work and care for three children. It takes a nurse maid, cook and laundry maid now if a woman has as much as one baby.

My brother Jim who was then about twelve years old wanted to take a "Texas Mustang" pony back to Tennessee with him and started out riding it, but after we had been on the road about two weeks Jim was taken down with a fever and had to ride flat on his back in the wagon. There was nothing left to do but for the negro girl and me to ride the pony, which we did with great glee. Sometimes we would loiter along a good ways behind the covered wagon and I recall a thrilling experience resulting from that loitering. We were crossing

a toll bridge somewhere in Arkansas and there was a long descending timber which lifted to let the wagon through. We were so far behind the operator of the toll gate they did not consider us a part of my father's party and started lowering the toll gate. The little negro girl, thinking we were about to be separated from our party, put her heels into the Mustang pony's ribs and we scooted under the de-scending toll gate as it scraped our backs. Those outstanding occurrences made their impressions on my childish mind. Traveling in those days was not such a luxury as it is today. My granddaughter of Sparta, Tennessee, recently drove from Sparta to Dallas via automobile in one day. We did well to make twenty miles per day with one or two days per week out for washing, doctoring, shoeing the horses or repairing the wagon. The roads were not straight and direct then, as are the wide concrete highways, and bridges today. Sometimes we would drive fifty miles out of the route to find a bridge, ferry or a ford to cross a stream. The country was sparsely settled and there were few sign boards to tell you the directions. There is a story told on the inhabitants of Arkansas, who used to be very backward in educational facilities, to the effect that they were those who started for Texas, because they couldn't read the road signs, stopped in Arkansas.

On our way back to Tennessee not only my brother Jim got sick, but my father and mother both got so sick they had to go to bed, and were both unconscious at Camden, Tennessee, about 100 miles west of Nashville, Tennessee. Some good folks took us in, looked after my father and mother, and wrote to my Uncle Jim Meredith and Grandfather Scott, who came and drove the wagon in and sent us on the train from there. Yes, we had railroads in Tennessee then, they had just been built - the Nashville Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway it was. At this time the trains only went as far as McMinville. They still have one of the engines used then; it is called "The General" because it was in use during the War between the States. I little thought then thatI would have a relative who would be president of that Railroad. "Little" Jim Hill, first cousin of my husband, W. R. Hill, was President of that Road for many years, after having risen from telegraph operator at Doyle Station, Tennessee.

He is now President of the Louisville & Nashville Road. "Little" Jim, as we always called him to distinguish him from his father, James A. Hill, was about the age of my girls, Annie and Bessie, and used to visit with us when he was telegraph operator at Sparta, and we lived in Evans Cove. After Jimmy got to be a big man he looked up the

family tree of the Hills and the one in this biography is largely the result of his research back in North Carolina, where most of the Hills throughout the South came from. There were so many of them in Guilford County, North Carolina, that Jimmy could never trace our branch out of there, although he did authentically find a revolutionary ancestor, Thomas Hill, who served with General Green. Jimmy would not allow a professional bureau to trace his ancestors; he said “they could make you kin to the Queen of Sheba if you paid them $10.00 for it.

But I've gotten several generations ahead of my story. When my father and mother got sick, en route from Texas to Tennessee, and some good folks took us in, I re-call a vivid recollection of the lady who took us children in hand, trying to comb my matted curly hair so she could take me to Sunday School. I raised so much sand, kicked, clawed and cried so she could take me to Sunday School, she took me on without combing my hair. I can still remember how that comb pulled my hair and hurt. It was years before I got so I liked Sunday School, because every time I thought of Sunday School I thought of that painful hair pulling. I remember while staying at this lady's house my father had to take the wagon and go out in the country to buy some corn for the stock. He was gone so long that the lady thought he had died or had been killed, and that we had been left on her hands. But he came back safe and sound. When we boarded the train they left me sitting in the depot and had to stop the train and get me. I remember crossing the Calf Killer River through a covered wooden bridge, at Simpson's Mills.

When our family got back to Tennessee we lived awhile with Grandfather and Grandmother Scott in a big white house set back a good distance from the road and a big barn across the road. This place was about one mile East of Sparta. That place was later bought and occupied by General George Dibrell, and then his son Frank Dibrell, and later by W. R. Lee, whose son now lives there. After a short time my father and grandfather bought some land about a half mile East of that place - the place where Seevers now live.

My mother and father lived at that place for several years, and until they moved back to Texas in the '80's. The old family graveyard is there and Amanda Scott, my grandmother, is buried there. Soon after we got settled in Tennessee, War broke out. My father, Elisha Meredith, my Grandfather, James Scott, my Uncle Jonathan Scott, my husband's brothers, Jim and Edd, and John Meredith all joined the Confederacy. Most of them were in General Dibrell's Brigade, 13th Tennessee Cavalry, which was a part of General Nathan Bedford Forest's command. All of them served the entire four years. Uncle Jonathan Scott was killed. Uncle John Meredith was lost and never identified, and for years Grandmother Meredith watched for his return. Uncle Edd Meredith was captured and escaped from the prison boat by jumping overboard in the Mississippi River and swimming ashore. He always suffered from rheumatism the rest of his life from exposure he underwent.

Tennessee became a battle-ground toward the middle of the War, but no very big battles were fought right in White County, though we did have a lot of skirmishes. In one of these toward the latter part of the War, Uncle Jonathan Scott was killed. I remember it well. At that time the Confederacy was on the wane, they had "worn themselves out whipping the Yankees." The country was overrun with Union troops. One night while some of the Confederates were having a dance at the old Bailey Place near East Sparta

(the children well remember we lived there in 1896-7), and a bunch of Yankee soldiers raided the dance. The Confederates had to hide under beds, jump out of windows, and such to escape. They were greatly outnumbered and were surprised. Nevertheless a great deal of joking was done about the undignified way the Confederates took leave of the dance.

Lieutenant Jim Revis was Company Commander of the small detachment of Confederates. He had sought refuge under the high four poster bed and was particularly humiliated by the joking handed out the next day. I remember when the little Company of Confederates passed Grandfather Scott's house. He was home and tried to tell young Lieutenant Revis that he didn't have enough men to attack the Yankees. I remember hearing Grandfather say, "Jim, there must be at least 500 Yankees camped at the foot of the mountain on the Lowrey farm. You can't fight them with less than 100 men." I also remember Lieutenant Revis' hot reply, "I'd fight them if they had 1,000 men." They met in battle about a half mile or mile from our house .and I could hear the firing. In about one hour Mr. Jim Hill, a brother of Capt. W. R. Hill, whom I later married, came up with

Uncle Jonathan Scott across the front of his saddle. Uncle Jonathan was dead. Uncle Jonathan had ridden a big yellow horse that he had trained to run when he saw a blue

uniform. They had escaped so many Yankee forays after harrassing the. Yanks that his horse became excited when he saw blue, just as a bull does when he sees red. I remember one time looking out through a crack in the log house when Uncle Jonathan and my father were at home, and warning them that the "Yankees are coming," and of seeing them escape by the speed of their horses. Well, to get back to the battle in which Uncle Jonathan was killed, when they went into battle his horse stampeded and ran right into the Yankee ranks with Uncle Jonathan aboard, and of course he was killed. After he fired all the shots from his pistol he used it for a club. That was the first of a series of

violent deaths in my grandmother Scott's life. During the next ten years of her life she lost her son, her husband, her son-in-law, her sister's son, her grandson-in-law, all

by violent deaths. Not all in the War by any means, some of them after the War, when men were quick on the trigger, but more of that later.

I remember the latter part of the War and afterwards how hard up the country was for food and livestock. The soldiers both Confederates and Yankees would take anything

they wanted without paying for it. One day I saw a troop of Yankee Cavalry coming down the road. I had a basket full of apples. I was afraid of them so tried to climb

the fence with the basket. Just as I got on top of the fence they passed one by one and rode over and took my apples. How I did hate them for that. I recall they came one night and stole our kitchen utensils and food, but the next day brought back the utensils. Now I can scarcely blame them. They were so cold and hungry. During the War I was always interested in the canning and farm work on the farm. Grandmother would blow the horn for dinner, which we had in the middle of the day. The sound of hooves the jingling of harness chains, and the shrill careless laughter of negro voices, all of this has been a pleasant remembrance. I have always liked farming.

By the time the War was over the South was "milked dry" and the years following were hard years. The Negroes were all free, the stock nearly all gone, many of the men

killed or crippled. Grandfather Scott's negroes were all very loyal and we never had any trouble with them, but some of the others got mighty "uppity" when they got to vote.

The North tried to humiliate the South by giving Negroes who could not read the names on the ballots the right to vote and hold office and denied that right to all the Confederate soldiers. General Forrest organized the Ku Klux Klan in a cave at Pulaski, Tennessee. They wore sheets for gowns and pillow cases for caps. They did this to scare

the negroes and keep them in their places. It did the negroes lots of good for awhile, but eventually after a few years irresponsible people got to doing a lot of violence under the cover, of the Ku Klux hood and General Forrest disbanded his part of the organization.

When we were small children, right: after the War, we used to get in fights with negro children who would sing "We will hang Jeff Davis to a sweet apple tree as we

go marching on." Also, "We would hang Abe Lincoln on a sour apple tree." people of the South, who had suffered so much from Sherman’s march through Georgia, hated the

song. Most of our men were in Dibrell’s Cavalry, which was part of General Joe Wheeler's and General Forrest’s commands, which opposed Sherman’s march to the sea from Atlanta.

Some of the specific hardships I recall were, we made coffee from parched oats, and used molasses or "long sweetening" for coffee; we dug up the dirt floor of the

smokehouse, and boiled the salt out of it because none could be bought and our Confederate money was worthless if there had been supplies for sale. Every piece of clothing was hand-made, from clipping the wool, washing it, carding it, spinning the thread, dyeing the thread, weaving the cloth, cutting, tailoring and sewing every stitch

by hand. When a man had a suit of brown jeans in this manner or when a woman made her linsey dress in this manner it was duly appreciated. We also made cloth out of

flax, or tow, as we called it. It was very light of color and made a linen cloth which, we used for towels. I suppose that is how tow-els got the name. Also, if a child had real white hair he was called tow-head. The toe was hackled. They would stand a plank about six feet high, put the toe on it and then beat it until it became flax threads and was ready for weaving on a hand loom with a hand shuttle. We kept one of those old hand looms until 1901, after my second husband, W. R. Hill, died and we moved to Texas and left it along with a lot of antiques, spinning wheels, four poster mahogany beds, corner cupboards and things my grandchildren are now so anxious to have for house furniture and decoration.

Schools in those days lasted only a few weeks, as there was little to pay the teachers and the boys and girls had to work in the fields during all pretty weather. My first school was at Bear Cove, right where the little one room school house is today located, only then it was a log house and the seats were backless benches made from

split logs with pegs driven in them for legs. Blue-back spellers, Davis arithmetic, McGuffey's readers and a slate to write and cipher on was full school equipment. We played in the surrounding woods - large moss-covered rocks served as "ladies parlors" and dolls made from a bunch of twigs were enough when combined with happy hearts and vivid imagination. One of the games we used to play was "Old Sister

Phoebe (Feeby)." The couples would march around and sing this song:

"Old Sister Feeby sat under a Juniper tree

Hi 0 Hi 0.

The night she sat under a Juniper tree

Hi 0 Hi 0.

We put this hat on your head

To keep your head warm.

Take a. sweet kiss will do you no harm

And a dozen will kill you I know.

Now rise you up Feeby, and

Go choose you a one.

Choose you a fair one or else choose none.

The girl playing Sister Peeby would then rise up and

choose a boy then join in the march.

We had kissing games then the same as the youngsters

have them today - one was called "Snap Up"; a boy and girl would hold hands and march around the circle together. When the girl snapped her fingers at another boy that boy

could kiss her unless the, one with which she was holding hands did so first. In either event, the girl got kissed, which was not so slow for your grandmother - don't you think so?

There were lots of happy times for children; one of them was molasses making time, when the sorghum cane was ground by circular horse-power press. The sweet cane was as good to us as any candy today is to the youngster. Maple sugar making was another grand occasion, as were all harvesting, hog killing and corn husking events.

After we got bigger we went to school in town - Sparta, Tennessee. There were two schools, one run by the Methodists, taught by Mr. Marquis and one by the Church of Christ or Campbellites. General George Dibrell was a staunch Methodist and he swore that no Campbellite would ever teach in the public schools, but finally the religious prejudice was overcome and Campbell Games, a Christian Elder, taught in the Christian School, and then in one which afterwards became Dibrell Normal, and later became the Sparta High School. Some of my other teachers were Joe Carnes, who was the only person who ever correctly called me "Amanda." He was an uncle of Dr. Alva Carnes who recently died in Dallas County, Texas, where he had for a long time practiced medicine near Hutchins, Texas. Dr. Alva Carnes was a son of Campbell Carnes, and a brother of Joe Carnes. Another one of my favorite teachers was a Mr. Stevens, who later became Judge Stevens at Fort Worth, Texas. He is still living at Fort Worth, and although at an advanced age of ninety, is still active physically and mentally.

One of the songs we sang at Mr. Marquis' School was the famous poem "Try Try Again." It made a strong impression on me and I always remembered it in my difficulties. It ran:

"If at first you don't succeed,

Try, Try Again

This is a lesson you should heed,

Try, Try Again.

All that other folks can do

Why with patience cannot you,

Only keep this rule in view,

Try, Try Again."

Another, story from McGuffey's Reader that left a lasting impression on me was the fable of the "bundle of sticks” taken from Aesop's Fables. An old man called to him his eight sons and told them to bring him eight sticks which he tied into a bundle. He then asked them to try to break the bundle of sticks, but they could not. He then separated the sticks and broke them easily, one at a time. Thus he illustrated the necessity of families sticking together and of presenting a united strength to difficulties that break individuals when separated. I think my family has always done that; coming to one another's assistance when trouble or disaster strikes. Family loyalty and loyalty among friends is a fine thing, and adds much richness to life.

My first beau was Jeff Dibrell - at that time a big barefooted boy and they teased me about his coming to see me barefooted. Children went barefooted longer in those days than now. Jeff was the son of General George Dibrell, our Congressman for many years, and Jeff afterwards became a prominent man, but at that time he was a big awkward country boy. He had several brothers, Wayman, Will, prank, Jim and Stanton Dibrell, all of whom were prominent men, and their children and families were close friends of ours. Frank Dibrell was both a personal and political friend of my husband, W. R. Hill. His daughter, Kate, was a member of the same social set as my girls, Annie and Bessie. I'll say more of that later. Wayman was a Confederate soldier and lived to be an old man and was always a great friend of our family. He has a son, Eugene Dibrell, who lives In Dallas, Texas, Stanton Dibrell and his wife Narr had a summer home out on the Cumberland mountains, and used to entertain the young folks out there at the fine mineral springs at Clarktown. Their oldest son, John Thomas Dibrell, was , lifetime friend of my son. They went to the Army from Muskogee, Oklahoma, during the World War. They served in the same Officers Training Camp and John stayed In the regular army after the War. He died recently and was buried at San Antonio, Texas, where he lived so long.

When I was fifteen I joined the Church of Christ, known then as "Campbellite" Church for its founder, Alexander Campbell. Elder Kidwell baptised me in the Calf Killer River . That Church believes in the Bible as the only rule and guide and subscribes to no man-made creeds, its motto Is "Where the Bible speaks, we speak, and where the Bible is silent we are silent." They hoped to combine all the denominations into this simple creed, but alas that dream has not yet come true. However, it is gaining some momentum today. That was sixty-six years ago that I joined the Church, and although my work raising my family has kept me from being much of a Church worker, my regard for and faith in my religion has been a great comfort to me and has sustained me in many difficult hours.

When I joined the Church at fifteen I had to quit dancing, and I dearly loved to dance at the old square dances, to the tune of a fiddle or banjo with apple cider to drink and young folks and dashing young men who had been soldiers of the Confederacy.

Soon after I joined the Church I met Sevier Evans; his father had been one of the large slave-holders and they owned a great deal of land, including about three hundred acres known as Evans Cove where I was to live for many years, and where all of my children were born. Sevier Evans got his first name from his grandfather who was named for the first Governor of Tennessee, John Sevier, known in history as "Nolachucky Jack." John Sevier was a colorful character of early Tennessee history and at one time tried to start an independent Government known as "Franklin" which composed the territory that afterwards became Tennessee. Sevier Evans came from a spirited and proud family and I fell in love with him on short acquaintance and married him at the age of l8. I was a bride, a mother and-widow within one year. When my baby was only six weeks old my husband died, leaving a little girl six weeks old. Sevier Evans was a self-raised boy, very brave, very honorable; his father died when he was quite young; his mother who was Mary McManus, a sister to Capt. Sam McManus, who at the time of his death was living near Sparta. His only relative on his father's side was his aunt, Eleza Snodgrass who was the mother of some noted boys. Judge Dave, Supreme

Judge (Ed as many Sparta folks knew him) held court there many years; other boys were doctors, lawyers and other prominent men. Sevier was not a guest of the wild party which was in a way responsible for his death. A friend and kinsman was a guest of the party, got a blue eye and came to our house which was near the place of the party; Sevier went with him the next day to adjust matters.

About a year after my husband's death I got a job teaching school at Pleasant Hill School, about two miles South of Evans Cove. My brother Edd, and my sisters, Sally and Betty, and Net lived with me and went to school to me. Jeff Webster, a large farm boy, drove us to school in one horse Jersey wagon, drawn by a big roan horse, which had such a hard mouth Jeff could not hold him and we used to go tearing down through the field by Cousin Lou Carrick's at such a rate they thought we were having a run-away. We used to carry a big lunch in the wagon, consisting of a jug of buttermilk, a bucket of cabbage, corn pone, and molasses.

When I was first given this School they thought I was too young to handle some of the big rough boys. I had about sixty pupils, and I got along with the boys fine, because I got out and played town ball with them, and if anyone of them got unruly the other boys would tend to him. I taught school there about four years, during which time I was courted by Wm. R. (Billy) Hill, who was one of the School Trustees. He was a handsome soldierly young widower, who had been a Lieutenant and Captain in General George Dibrell's 13th Tennessee Cavalry, where many of my relatives had served the Confederacy. Mr. Hill's first wife, Mary Anderson, had died, leaving him with a son Matt, and two daughters, Hallie and Helen. We were married in l879. We lived one year at his place near Anderson's Mill, west of Sparta, then he sold it, gave the money to his first wife's children, for it was her inheritance, and we moved to Evans Cove, where we continued to live until his death in 1901. We soon had several children of our own:

Annie, born October 8, l880

Bess, born March 30, l882

Sallye, born March 5, l884

Mag, born August 11, 1886

Joe Meredith, born Sept. 21, l888

Mert, born Sept. 17, l891

Edna, born Jan. 10, l893

making eleven children in all.

Mr. Hill used to laugh and say that we could illustrate the story of the woman who called to her husband, "Come here, John, my children and your children are fighting our children," but truly the children got along as if they were full brothers and sisters, and Mr. Hill's son, Matt, and his daughters, Hallie and Helen, have always been as near to me and as good to me as my own children, and my daughter Mollie Evans was known as much by the name of Mollie Hill as Evans. She eventually married R. L. Hill (no relative) and did truly become a Hill.

We lived in a two-story log house in Evans Cove. It was built of two large two-story rooms, with a porch between and a lean-to kitchen was later added. We had a large smokehouse in the rear where we cured the meat from some twenty or twenty-five hogs each year. We used meat for money to hire farm hands. There was a deep dug spring house where the canned fruit, berries and apples were kept, and an ash-hopper near the smokehouse where the ashes were emptied all fall, and water poured over them to make lye with which to make soap at hog-killing time. We always had plenty of ashes for we had a big fireplace, wide enough to take what we now call four foot cordwood. We would put a big green hickory back-log in that which would take two men to carry; it would last two or three days. The fireplace was wide enough to have a swing iron hook on which to hang a pot and you could bake bread in a covered oven in the ashes. The earthen crockery churn sat near the fireplace to sour the milk in the winter. We always had plenty of chestnuts, to roast in the ashes during the winter; also hickory nuts, black walnuts, maple sugar and things like that to eat. We had a large garden about two acres with a grape arbor running through the center of it. We raised plenty of vegetables and usually buried in straw several bushels of sweet and Irish potatoes and turnips. We raised our own corn and wheat which we had milled at a toll water mill called Simpson's Mill, on the Calf Killer River, where a covered wooden bridge crossed. That was a place for social gatherings and the playing of ring-men marbles while the men and boys awaited their turn. We were never short on food and had plenty of company. We never thought of allowing anyone to pass near mealtime without insisting on their staying for a meal, or overnight. If a man rode up, the greeting was "Light and look at your saddle," or "Light and set awhile."

Our children grew up fast and. when they got big enough to go to Sparta to school they would bring young folks home with them for the weekend. They were always glad to come for there was always plenty to eat and do. They would pick berries, if summer; if in the winter, nuts; slide down straw-stacks; swim the pools, or carve their names in the smooth bark of the birch trees, and sometimes a heart with an arrow through it with their initials underneath.

Matt was a great hand to make all the square dances where sometimes there was drinking and fighting and his father didn't like for him to be out so late, for it was a life-time habit of Mr. Hill to get up at 4:00 A.M. whether there was anything to do or not. Matt used to slip off to those dances by leaving his shoes outside and then tip-toeing out in his sock feet to keep us from hearing him after we went to bed. One night I found his shoes and hid them, and thought I had kept him at home that night. I found out years later that he had taken his father’s boots and gone anyway, but got blisters on his heels.

In l884 my mother and father moved back to Texas and located at Alvarado, then the terminal of the MK & T Railroad. My father was brooding over having lost his land in a lawsuit and shot himself and died at Alvarado in 1888. My mother and her daughters, Betty, Net and Kitty, and my youngest brother, Tom, later moved with the Railroad terminal to Hillsboro, where my mother lived until her death in 1925, at the age of ninety-three. She continued to be the same courageous woman she had been when she crossed the rivers, and plains twice in a covered wagon, and battled the chicken snakes and typhoid. She had the same inflammable temper and independent spirit so evident in many of her grandchildren. Courage was her middle name and she never felt sorry for herself. Her girls, Net, Bet and Kit, all married Railroad men and Tom Meredith became a railroad train man, but later went into the grocery business and continued in it till his death in 1937. Brother Edd went west and ranched for many years near Aspermont, Texas. He kept our Uncle Ed and his wife, Betty, for years and Aunt Bet could regale you for hours with stories of prairie dogs, rattle snakes and buckskin ponies. My brother, Edd, is now living in Hillsboro; my Uncle Ed died in Tennessee. He and Aunt Bet lived back there with us for a few years before we came to Texas in 1901.

In 1889 Matt Hill came to Texas; went to Hillsboro to my mother's and got a job as an MK & T trainman. He was always a jolly good-natured boy with a quick repartee. When he left home someone said, "Matt, I'll bet you will be writing for money to come home on soon." Matt said, "No, I won't; I'm taking it with me." He still had his money from his mother's estate. But he didn't write for money and didn't come back, even on a visit for ten years. He became a passenger conductor on the MK & T. My daughter, Mollie, came out and lived with my mother at Hillsboro for a year or two about the time of the first World Fair in Chicago, in 1893. She and my sister, Kitty, and my brother, Tom, were all near the same age, and were great chums. They used to call the MK & T Railroad the Mollie, Kit and Tom Railroad. They went to the World Fair together at Chicago.

About 1896 I visited my mother and folks at Hillsboro, when my youngest daughter, Edna, was just learning to talk. Matt Hill, and my brother, Tom, treated me very nice and I left my baby with Mother while Matt, Tom and I were going places. I recall a funny story they told me about little Edna objecting strenuously to them trying to get her to eat molasses on cornbread. She was such a tiny tot they were quite surprised to hear her say "Who the devil could eat cornbread and molasses."

The children had varied experiences while I was away in Texas for some three months. Mollie being the oldest had charge of the others and had quite a time keeping them in order. She one day tried to make Joe quit crying and put her hand over his mouth until he lost his breath and the others, thinking she had hurt him, all jumped on her but Joe came to and all was well. Aunt Bet Meredith came with Uncle Ed to stay with the children and the house got full of fleas and they gathered pennyroyal and put under the bed to rid them of fleas. Mr. Hill was glad to see me come home and when he got the letter telling him I would be there the next day, the children could tell by the way he set his hat back on his head and smiled that I was coming home. Aunt Bet would always want to please everybody about cooking so she would make three kinds of cornbread because "Mr. Billy liked pone bread, Mandy liked egg bread and Ed liked scalded bread."

In 1896-7 Tennessee held its Centennial Celebration at Nashville, Tennessee, and many of our folks from Texas came back for it. Mr. Hill and I had moved into Sparta so the children would get the benefit of nine months school in town. My daughter, Mollie, was teaching and we kept the school principal. Prof. Garrett, at our house. He was a dap-per well-dressed little fellow who wore a frock-tailed coat. The boys all liked to torment him and on one Friday afternoon, when they were having the semi-monthly elocution speeches, compulsory, Davis Nowlin, one of the more daring boys, recited this speech:

"Professor Garrett is a pretty man,

. Miss Mollie's a blossom,

If you want to get your finger bit,

Stick it at a possum."

During the Centennial at Nashville I recall that Ex- Governor Bob Taylor made a speech every day greeting the different delegations. He was a very eloquent and humorous orator, and was the idol of East Tennessee with his "Fiddle & Bow." He had often been in our community, in our home, and I recall on one occasion when they had a big picnic for Bob Taylor and Steve Hickman killed himself eating. Steve was always an embarrassment with his big eating.

In 1896 Mr. Hill ran for Tax Assessor against Cousin Van Carrick and was elected. They had a very spirited campaign. Vance was a likeable fellow but drank very heavily and during the campaign would tell how his children were at home eating "beans and sow belly" while "Billy" Hill's children were having "ham and eggs." But Mr. Hill was a temperate, well-liked man and a Confederate soldier which still cut quite a figure even at that late date. While he was Tax Assessor they built a new Court House in White County, the one they now have there. We thought it a mighty fine one then, and when the cornerstone was laid they had a big Confederate Reunion and Parade. Henry Snodgrass, a famous criminal lawyer afterwards Congressman from that District, made the cornerstone speech. He put a "Bible, a dirk knife and a bottle-of liquor" in the cornerstone and said it was typical of East Tennessee mountaineers, "hard praying, hard drinking, hard fighting" people.

I know they were hard drinking and hard fighting people for they used to kill somebody every time a circus or parade was held, and Henry Snodgrass usually defended or specially prosecuted these cases, depending on who got to him first. We had a fearless City Marshall named Bill Passons. He would walk right into a blazing gun and seemed to bear a charmed life; on one occasion a mountain boy, crazed with drink, shot Mr. Passons with three different pistols. As soon as they took one away from him he would pull another one and blaze away. One shot hit Mr. Passons' big silver belt buckle, the other two were just flesh wounds. But Passons was later killed in a gun battle. He has a son, W. B. Passons, in Dallas, Texas, now in the real estate business.

The liquor and firearms then were almost as fatal as liquor and autos are today. In those days folks rode horseback and if a man was too drunk to drive, his horse took him home. I can still remember them yelling and shooting as they galloped up the road. I remember one fellow saying, "I saw a fellow buying a sack of flour when I'll bet he hasn't got a quart of liquor in the house."

In 1898 we moved back to the farm. The Spanish-American War came along. Rousseau Hudson, a relative of Mr. Hill's, served both in Cuba and the Philippines as an officer with distinction; when he returned to Sparta we met him at the train with a band and he made a big speech about his battle experiences. He was very helpful to us after my husband became ill in 1900 and 1901.

When we moved back to the farm our girls, Mollie, Annie and Bessie, were quite young ladies. Mollie married Robert L. (Bob) Hill, son of Richard Hill. They lived in Blue Spring Cove, the old Officer homestead. That place was then and is today one of the most beautiful farms in America. A clear cold spring, big enough to be called a river and so deep as to appear to be blue, flows right up out of the valley and flows off in a gurgling brook about 15 feet wide down through meadows of clover. Such a stream in Texas would be a Seventh Wonder, and the water supply for a city.

My girls, Annie and Bessie, were part of a social high school organization, calling themselves the "Big Eight." Besides my girls the others were Kate Dibrell (now Mrs. Kelly Porter of McMinnville), Mattie Doolittle (now Mrs. Dr. S. Marchbanks of Chattanooga), Lula Jarvis, deceased; Lula Tubb (now Mrs. Karl White of Dallas, Texas), Mary Kate Casey, deceased, and Danny Young.

Bessie and Lula Jarvis, a niece of the Rousseau's, went to Nashville to see the first Tennessee regiment come home. Governor McMillan was then in office and Mark Clark was Comptroller, and they stayed at their Louse and had the pleasure of going to the Ball and dancing with Ex-Governor Bob Taylor. They met many soldier boys and claim to be cousins of them all. They also went to an opera and saw East Lynn while in Nashville and that trip was quite a trip for them for it was the first trip to a city, having been reared in the small town of Sparta. Annie spent much time at Lula Jarvis' home and they had their beaus together and were lasting friends until Lula passed away in 1935.

Lula Jarvis is the one who sang to Will, her beau.

They had many parties at our home on the farm over the weekend, and many of the boys would come out to see them. We had a big square piano. Kate Dibrell could play and sing beautifully; Mattie Doolittle could play a French; Harp and jig like a darky boy, though she was a Yankee by birth. She was a favorite with Uncle Ed Meredith, an Ex-Confederate, because she could play "Dixie" on the mouth organ and jig at the same time. Mattie was quite a comedian and on one occasion, when her beau got mad at her and left, she played and sang a then popular tune entitled, "I don't Care If You Never Come Back." But he did and finally married her. During the summer of 1898 Matt Hill visited us rather unexpectedly after our not having heard from him for a long time and we thought he had gone to War and had been killed. Also, Eli Lowery, my sister Mag's son, visited us and he and Matt caused lots of excitement and jealousy in the Big Eight and their beaux.

One New Year's Eve they had a dance at Mrs. Marchbanks and danced until 12:00 o'clock, to the tune of "Hot Time in Old Town Tonight," and "Daisies Won't Tell," and they went to celebrate. They shot firecrackers until they gave out and then some of the boys had pistols and began to fire them as we were tolling the Methodist Church bell, and they shot a hole in the floor of the Church and did some damage up town, such as pulling a wagon on top of an awning of one of the stores and so somebody turned them into the Grand Jury and had the boys up and threatened to have the girls come before them, Ann and Bess were so scared they would have to tell on their boyfriends. One day the Sheriff rode up to our house and Bess thought he had come after her and she ran off the back way through the woods over to Mrs. White and spent the week, but the Sheriff had only stopped for a drink, of water out of our deep well, which was noted for being fine cool water, and to talk to Mr. Hill. The scare was soon over and the boys let loose without fines, with promise not to celebrate with guns again, but the scare served to keep the girls at home and not go to town for sometime; but that winter was so cold when they went to dances they had to go horseback and Bess wouldn't go one night because she had to ride behind a boy on horseback.

My children and Cousin Vance and Lou Carrick's children were very close to one another and neighbors, and they passed many nights together giving concerts and being the actors themselves, using sheets for stage curtains.

The boys from Sparta used to come out frequently over the weekend and court the girls and hunt squirrels in the mountains or hunt fox with flop-eared hounds. It was beautiful to listen to a well-matched pack of fox hounds bay as they loped along after a fox on a clear night in the Fall. There is no prettier music.

On one occasion two boys. Crock and Quill Brown, spent a week with us while the Grand Jury was in session. They did not want to go before the Grand Jury and tell on some of the other boys for pistol toting and gambling. Rhea Dibrell, Stanton and Will Marchbanks, Charley Hutchinson, Kelly Potter, the Jarvis boys were some of the ones who visited with us. Dan Meredith, a cousin of mine and Rousseau Hudson, a cousin of Mr. Hill’s, both of them lawyers, would spend many evenings with Mr. Hill, discussing politics after Mr. Hill became sick.

Mr. Hill had a heart stroke in the Spring of 1900 after putting in a. field of wheat with a walking drill. He never recovered from it. He used to have failing spells at night and we would have to send Joe, who was just eleven years old, to town for a doctor at night, as there were no phones out there then. It was a lonely long ride across the mountain for such a little boy, especially after having worked in the brickyard all day, ten hours for $.50. But Joe did not seem to mind - he was so glad to ride his pony "Toby" which we had raised from a most disreputable boney old sorrel mare for which I had traded an old family buggy horse. This old boney mare was spirited though and ran away with Joe in the buggy as he was returning from taking Annie to her shool, where she taught at Finley’s Chapel.

Bessie was teaching at Bear Cove. These girls were 18 and l6 respectively, but it was necessary for us all to work after Mr. Hill became disabled. All the children went to Bear Cove to school to Bessie just to show them that "Billy" Hill's children were not too good to go to a country school. They had to walk a mile and one-half but that was good for them. I was glad that they got to go to the first school that I attended during the Civil War, and play on the same mossy rocks, but I was glad that there were no Yankee sol- diers to run from. The children being so near Bessie's age, and having never gone to a school in the country, nearly demoralized her school, and Mr. Hill took Sally and Mag out and sent them to town, but Joe kept on going. Bessie was only l6 years old, and was quite severe in her discipline, and had Sally and Mag sit on the stage with a dunce cap on for laughing at the other pupils for their funny drawl talking.

It was a Primitive Baptist community so in the Fall they used the school house for a Church and they held a meeting, having long services, washing feet and shouting and one of the girls, came around to Sallie one day and asked her to hold her fan while she shouted. Bessie closed the school for two weeks so the children could stop to pull fodder and in November when her school was out she went to Texas to visit Helen Whitley, then living in Wolfe City, Texas.

Mr. Hill died from what we then called dropsy, on June 3, 1901. He just fell over out of his chair. He was buried at Bethlehem Church; between Sparta and Doyle, where a lot of his relatives were buried. His grave is near Big Jim Hill's, Little Jimmy ' s father.

After Mr. Hill died, I realized I could not farm with six girls and an eleven year old boy. My step-daughter, Helen, who had married Frank Whitley of Doyle and moved to Hunt County, Texas, about 1891, had gotten one of my girls, Bessie, a school out there, so we decided to move to Texas. We sold some cattle we had for $250.00, and took the train for Texas, carrying all the odds and ends along - one useless piece of baggage was an old guitar someone had given one of the girls - they made Joe carry it. He got even by eaves-dropping on some of their farewells. He reported that Maggie's tongue-tied beau, Zolly Steakley, had put a ring on her finger and said "When ‘oo geth to Arkansas tate this off and think of me." Just as soon as we got to Texarkana Joe bought a wild west book to read up on Texas. He didn't know it was a lot less wild than some of the mountains of Tennessee .

We got off the Cotton Belt train at Commerce at 2:00 A.M. to take the Sherman Branch train to Wolfe City and found that the train didn't depart until 2:00 P.M. We waited till daylight, and looked up the phone office and phoned Frank Whitley, who ran the livery stable, to send a surrey after us. He did and we rolled into Wolfe City at noon October 15, 1901 as funny and back-woodsy an outfit as I'm sure ever came out of Tennessee, but we didn't know it and like all Tennessee hillbillies we thought one man was as good as another, if not a little bit better.

On arriving in Wolfe City, we rented the biggest house in town, which happened to have been the old Wolfe Home, where the founder of the town, Wolfe Mill, lived dur- ing his life. Two of his sons. Lee P. Wolfe. and Manson H. Wolfe, lived on either side of us and two finer neighbors I never had, especially Mr. Manson Wolfe and his wife, who lived there longer, and with whom I've since had frequent associations in Dallas. "Miss Annie" Wolfe was most kind to us in those early days and has remained just as loyal and true through "richer or poorer," through sickness and health. She gave me much encouragement to keep going and 1 love her and Mr. Manson dearly. They always called me "Mammy" Hill and their girls always seemed to love me from the time Gladys and Lizzie Mae came to my daughter's kindergarten to the present time. If there ever were a Christian family, M. H. Wolfe and family are.

Many fine folks were kind to me at Wolfe City and that is why I've come back here to spend my sunshine years; it brings back the memories of those early years. I'm sad though that so many of my friends met with reverses during the depression - but enough of that.

One of our first and valued friends in Wolfe City was Dr. Will Cantrel and wife; about the time we came there Dr. Cantrel began his work as a surgeon. He had a room in my house prepared and did his first operating there. With success he did his first kidney operation about that time. I was present and thought at that time he would lose the case, but the patient got well and is his head nurse and has been for several years.

Mr. Jacobs offered me credit at the grocery store and said he had never lost any money on a widow woman yet. I was very grateful for we were strangers to him. Mrs. Jacobs now lives in Dallas.

Another good friend and good man was Mr. Jim. Shelton. He died several years ago, leaving two sons and two daughters. I believe he was the truest Christian and best friend I ever had and his family are still thoughtful of me on my birthday.

Mr. Clayton Clark, Mr. Albert Lacy, my son-in-law, Frank Whitley, and his partner, Mr. Gentry, all helped me to get some furniture and equipment and get started keeping boarders. Mr. Joe To Osborne, the Station Agent for the Cotton Belt Railroad and Louis Henderson, Manager of the Telephone Company, were my first and for a long time my

only boarders. We charged the magnificent sum of $15.00 per month for room and board, so you can see not very much profit could be made. However, one of the girls was teach- ing, one worked at the Telephone Office, and soon Joe was working at the Depot as telegraph messenger boy, and later as night telephone operator, while going to school in the daytime. Annie taught a kindergarten and we managed to get along. We got to feeding our boarders better. We got a good cow, and had thick cream. Chickens were cheap and we had friend chicken and whipped cream and hot biscuits even for breakfast. Our first winter there I recall a medicine show coming to town and getting snowed in for several days with us. They had two black-faced comedians, one a Mr. Hunter Gassoway, who went rabbit hunting and killed so many rabbits that we had rabbit stew and rabbit fried - and as they made up a song, "and rabbit until I almost died." But eventually good food began to become a part of the Hill Cottage, and we sold our Tennessee Farm, bought the Wolfe House, remodeled it and started a hotel called the "Hill Cottage," with the slogan "Once a guest - always a friend," and we tried our best" to make the slogan true.

Bessie taught her first school in Texas at New Bazel, just two miles from Wolfe City, Frank Whitley having obtained it for her; she rode in a buggy, hired at the livery

stable and Joe drove her to and from before and after school. Joe being the only man in the family many chores fell to his lot. He had all the wood to saw and cut for we heated a large house with wood stoves - and the girls all grown, having beaus kept the parlor stove going pretty regularly. One Christmas the girls were all telling each other what their beaus were going to give them for Christmas presents, and Joe spoke up and said "You tell them they can send me a cord of wood and it sawed." Bess, after the first year, obtained a position as teacher in the town school and taught for four years in Wolfe City schools until she married J. P. Copeland in 1904.

The neighbors and their children used to like to congregate at our house for much fun was always taking place, especially Bernice Parrott. She tells of the time when all the girls were dressing in one room, for we had all the rooms but one rented out, Ann was dressing and having difficulty getting on her corset for she was stout - Joe who was a small boy was there too, and he said "Ann, you needn't try to squeeze - fat is like murder, it will out."

My daughter Ann married W. R. Reynolds, who started traveling; my son-in-law, Frank Whitley, was on the road; my daughter, Maggie, had married King Hopkins, a druggist - all of them tried to help me drum up trade. Sallye was office manager, my son, Joe and Clark Wortham, colored porter, met the trains, carried grips and did everything from chop wood to milking the cow. The merchants sent drummer to us until we eventually had all the trade and the Smith Hotel, our competitor, closed up and I bought it and ran it till my girls were all married and my boy out of the University of Texas. Jenny, the finest and most loyal negro servant I ever knew, made it possible for me to give meals that would cause drummers to drive an extra ten miles by horse and buggy to eat at our table. Whipped cream and fried chicken for breakfast made Wolfe City a mecca for hungry drummers.

There are so many things I want to say about our days at Wolfe City that I hope I don't forget them. The Tom Kelleys and the Gladneys who ran the Medlin Milling Company, were my boarders and friends. The school teachers. Miss Piner, Miss Clara Barlow, Miss Gray, Miss Sue Newby, I would like to see them all again. And Bob Williams, R. T. Paynor, George Derden, Louis Henderson - I wonder where they are?

When we first moved to Wolfe City there was no Christian Church. I remember someone saying, "It is a shame such a fine woman as Mrs. Hill is a Campbellite." Brother Jacks came and held a meeting; Brother Cephus Shelburne and others got a little tabernacle started, and later a Church. I recall one amusing incident in connection with that tabernacle. Maggie's little boy, Meredith, when about four years old, came in all scratched up from a fight. His mother jumped on him about fighting and he told her he had been fighting with some boys who had been "rocking" his Mother's Church. She told him that he shouldn't fight, even for her Church. Meredith was a very conscientious and thinking child for his age, and after thinking the proposition over, said, "Mother, I believe you are right, I don't think that Church will ever amount to much anyway." Meredith was always a cute little boy and when he was only two years old and so small he could stand under the kitchen table, he could "cut the pidgeon wing" like a negro. I used to get him to dance for cookies. He and Jeff Copeland were about the same size and were always inseparable companions. They would fight each other like cats and dogs, but would al- ways gang up on other boys.

We had quite a few famous guests at our little country hotel; Carrie Nation, the great hatchet wielding temperance crusader, once stopped with us, and I remember how aggressively she asked my boy if he smoked. Fortunately he could then answer in the negative. Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey was a guest during his height of glory about 1906. He was a very helpful man and when he learned my boy had no money to go to the University, appointed him to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. He did not get to take advantage of the splendid offer, however, for he became over 18 before he could pass the entrance examination. Governor Thomas S. Campbell, Senator (then Congressman) Morris Shepherd, and many other statesmen stopped with us when making the then famous Wolfe City picnic. That section was also famous for its great baseball team and many afterward famous ball players stopped with us; "Tris" Speaker, the Leslie Boys, the Fenners, Covington and Naylors played there and ate with us. I didn't pay much attention to baseball then, for I was too busy cooking, but my boy did. He knew all their batting averages.

There were many traveling men who stopped with us and got to be good friends and who have remained friends through the years.

Those were busy hard-working but happy days because I felt I was doing something worthwhile, raising and educating my family. Mr. Stone was telling me recently how he used to pass here going home from the drug store, at 11:00 o'clock at night, and he could hear my sewing machine going, and when he came back before daylight I would be up cooking. As I said, I had some good help from my children, and loyal servant, Clark Worsham and Jenny. Jenny even went to Austin, Texas, with my son and helped him to run the fraternity house and make his way through Texas University. She still laughs about "When me and Mr. Joe was in the University."

I was able by sewing to keep my girls well-dressed and- by cooking to keep us all well-fed, and I'm very thankful that I was physically able to work long hours. I do think one explanation: for my good health was that I didn't have time to be sick or to pet my aches and pains. Keeping busy is one of the best tonics in the world. It keeps off the worst disease, self-pity.

After I quit running the Hotel I have visited around with my children; my daughter, Mollie, Mrs. R.L. Hill at Sparta; Annie, Mrs. W. R. Reynolds, at Long Mont, Colorado; Bessie, Mrs. J. P. Copeland, of Houston, Sallye, Mrs. W. C. Frost, San Antonio; Mert, Mrs. R. L. Hazlewood, Ft. Worth; Edna Mrs. R. J., Spradling; Oklahoma City; and Maggie, Mrs. K. W. Hopkins and my son, Joe M. Hill, at Dallas, Texas.

My children are all married and all have children, all honest, respected and healthful; that is something to be thankful for in this day of crime, divorce and strife. Makes me feel as if I did succeed in some measure. I used to wish I had an opportunity to do something big - such as write a poem, when I wanted to express the beauty of the flowers, woods and birds singing back in Tennessee, but looking back over it I'm convinced the best contribution to leave behind is a fine Christian man or woman. I feel that my children are trying to do a good job of living and I like to think they got some of their inspiration and character from me.

I have lived in a very interesting time, in a very interesting part of the world. There has been a great change during my lifetime, but I would like to see what is going to happen in the next' eighty-five years. My life span has extended over four of our Nation's wars. It started in one and may end in another. We always think that when a war starts that we will never recover from it, but we always have and I believe we always will. Of course, wars are bad and always involve a lot of useless destruction the worst part of which is the destruction of human character. However, nothing is ever lost. Civilization, like human life, must be born in pain and developed on hardships.