Memories of Myrtle Houston Golemon

A young man named John William Hardee came into the Hopewell community. He did all the right things, participating in church and community affairs. He was liked by all.

Ann Eliza Morrow, daughter of David and Euphemia Bryant Morrow (and our Grandmother) caught his eye. They did marry and moved to Texas. There two girls were born, Celona and Sina. What went wrong we never knew, but he wrote Uncle Henry Chaney, who was married to Aunt Martha, Grandmother’s sister. In the letter he asked Uncle Henry to come and pick up Ann and the two girls. He left and we never heard from him again.

Uncle Henryy went to Texas and brought back Grandmother, Mother, and Aunt Sina. They lived with Uncle Henry until Mother and Aunt Sina married and until Grandmother died.

Uncle Henry was a farmer and the girls, along with his children, worked in the house and in the fields. Mother said she did some plowing. I’m sure the their labor helped greatly in their upkeep

A group of families from Georgia were heading West. A story is told that the vehicle of one of the members broke down. Grandfather John Clark Houston Jr. who was a member of the group, decided to stay in Louisiana with this family. He homesteaded a farm in Allen Parish in about 1862. He and his wife, Emily Foster Houston, raised a family of seven boys and five girls. Daddy was one of the boys

A little about their ancestry. John Clark Houston, Sr. our Great Grandfather, was one of eight children of Samuel Houston (Major) and was the brother of Sam Houston, making our Grandfather a nephew of Sam Houston.

Mama and Daddy were both raised in the Hopewell community and knew each other. Daddy taught school before he married. In fact Mama was one of his pupils.

They married and moved to homestead what is now called the Houston Estate.

They moved into a one room house with a front porch. When the house was roofed and the yard and garden were fenced with pickets, Daddy rived all the boards for the roof and the pickets for the yard and garden fence.

At first Mama cooked on the fireplace. The one room house became Mama and Daddy’s bedroom as the place grew to accommodate the growing family. Mama never referred to that area as her bedroom. She always called it the “house”. If she wanted something that was in it, she would say, “it’s in the house”.

Daddy became a farmer and we all worked in the fields. Mama was a hard and steady worker. Grandmother Hardee teasingly told her one day that she wasn’t the one to take the children to work for she never got tired or rested and thought they should do the same. However, we all did take time to rest.

Mama did a lot of canning for Winter use and school lunches. Her quota for preserved figs was 100 quarts. She put the figs in a large pot and poured sugar on them until the crevices were filled. That’s how she measured the sugar. She cooked them until they were really preserves. With such a large family she needed many quarts. One quart was gone in one meal or in one fixing of all the lunches for so many school children. A biscuit stuffed with preserved figs tasted real good at school lunch time.

Another idea of hers had to do with canning corn. It was brought in from the field and immediately shucked and prepared for cooking. She did not allow the ears to lie around any length of time.

Daddy would come in from the field, eat dinner and lie down on the front porch with an upturned straight chair for his head with perhaps a use of a pillow. He would ask one of us kids to sit by him and pull grey hairs. I’ve often wondered why. Daddy was not a vain person. I suppose fooling with his head was almost like a massage and was relaxing.

The way Daddy wanted to correct us or get our attention was to thump us on the head. We got the message.

Mama was called on by nearly everyone in the community when they got sick, and she always went. Many a night, maybe near midnight, a friend would ride up and call out that someone was sick and wanted Aunt Lonnie, as she was called, to come and she got up and went. Once she was with a sick person when the doctor came. When he saw her he said something about her being there and he knew things were under control. She would sit up all night, come home and work all day, never taking time to sleep.

Mama was not only a good nurse for the community, but she also took care of her family. There was no nonsense when it came to giving medicine. When she approached us, say with Black Draugh and syrup mixed in a spoon and said “open your mouth”’ we opened our mouth. There was no “I don’t want it”. We just did it. If we were sick in bed and she brought us broth, soup, or soft food, etc. and said “eat it you can’t gain strength without food”. We could not use the excuse, “I’m not hungry”. We ate it.

We had scaffolds for the wood for the fireplace. Daddy would chop it up to size and the kids would haul it in along with some pine knots and fill the scaffold.

Daddy loved clabber milk and treated it special with an ample supply of syrup. I found it hard to understand how he could eat it. Mama liked fat meat, preferred it to lean and she also liked lots of black pepper on her food.

Mama and Daddy worked together preparing breakfast long before us kids got up. I’m not sure of the procedure but I believe Daddy fried the bacon and sweet potatoes while Mama ground the coffee beans and made coffee. She also made a pan of fifty or more biscuits. They also made a flour gravy. They browned the flour in the bacon grease, then added water. It was called possum gravy. Why? I don’t know. Of course we always had cane syrup and most of the time we had plenty of fresh milk and butter. Our breakfast was a hardy one.

Daddy planted and raised crops of corn, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, peanuts, peas, sugar cane, water melon, canteloupes, and at least a quarter of an acre or more broadcast in turnip and mustard. Once I know he had a field of oats and cut them for the animals in the winter. I remember the man he hired to mow them ran into a hen that had stolen her nest off and was setting on the eggs. Of course that was an end for her.

Another way Daddy provided food for the animals was with the tops of corn stalks. When the kernels on the ears of corn began to swivel getting too hard for eating but not ready to harvest, Daddy would cut the tops out and gather some of the blades. This was stored in the barn for winter feeding. The ears of corn continued to mature and ripen for harvest.

He raised sorgum for syrup once, but we didn’t like the syrup. Earlier there was a peach orchard as well as several fig trees.

Mama always had a garden. Before she planted it, Daddy would haul wagon loads of barn yard fertilizer and scatter it in the garden. He then would plow it under. Mama would plant lots of different vegetables and work them with a hoe. She was able to put up many different vegetables for winter use.

Daddy’s peddling in Elizabeth helped take in money for clothes, sugar, coffee, etc. that we needed. In cold weather he would have hot bricks or stone to keep his feet warm. And of course he had money crops as cotton, potatoes as well as cattle to sell.

They made a bed the length of the garden and about three feet wide with some kind of support on each side and ends. They laid it full of sweet potatoes and covered them slightly. These produced the sprouts or “draws” used to plant the sweet potato crop. When these produced vines, some of these were cut and punched down in the new rows. I was told that the vines made better potatoes than the “draws.”

As much as possible Daddy and Mama saved seed from the current crop for planting next year. He would pick out ears of corn he deemed good for seed, removing the kernels on the tip of the ear and discarding them. Water melons were selected as good seed melons or if a delicious melon was eaten, the seed were saved. Dried peas were kept for next year and when the time came to use them, they were winnowed to remove the husks. Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes were selected for keeping, especially the sweet potatoes for the bed of “draws”. If I remember correctly, they kept selected stalks of sugar cane for planting. I’m sure Mama kept seed for beans, okra, squash, tomatoes, and any other seed that formed in the garden. Of course, there were lots of different seed they had to buy come planting time.

Mother would take some of us kids and go down in the branch swamp where young dogwoods grew in abundance and cut a good size bunch for her running beans until she had enough for the beans she had planted. She also cut some to make brush brooms to sweep the yard. We had no grass, but the leaves, etc. had to be swept up.

f the girls saw a picture of a dress they wanted one like, they showed the picture to Mama. She would cut out her own pattern and make the dress as they wanted it. Since she made our clothes, she had pieces of cloth left over. She pieced many tops for quilts. At first she carded the cotton for the filling, but later she was able to buy the cotton filler. She stitched many quilts. At that time some men would roll their cigarettes. Among the tobacco available was one called Bull Durham. It was in a little draw string cloth bag, small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. Being an adventurous person, for the heck of it, she collected Bull Durham tobacco sacks, un-sewed them and dyed them and made a quilt. She also made a quilt with Uncle Bud White’s old ties. Other patterns she used were Nine Patch, String, Empty Spool, Bow Tie, Fan, Sunshine and Shadow, Maple Leaf, Rolling Star.

Daddy and Mama believed in education and they saw we rarely ever missed school. One rainy day Daddy took us in the wagon. We covered with old quilts, tarpaulin, and maybe a parasol. He came for us in the afternoon. They saw we all finished high school. Eight of us received college education and became teachers. Elbert went to college several terms, but his heart was in farming. He married a teacher and settled down to cattle raising and farming. I credit our education to the vision and efforts of our parents. Often when we were in college they would sell a bale of cotton and send us money for the next semester. As the older ones began teaching, they helped out.

Daddy was not an avid hunter, but I remember as a small child that he came home from a hunt and to my childish eyes it looked like he had wild ducks all over him. I guess he tied them together and hung them over his shoulder.

Mama could also shoot a gun real well. When she heard a commotion among the chickens, she went out with her gun and sometimes she found it necessary to use it.

I was told Mama liked practical jokes and in her younger days she did her share of them.

Daddy used to resole our shoes. He placed them on a shoe rack or stand and used leather from old shoes (we never threw them away) or leather from other sources. He cut a piece to fit the sole and tacked it on the sole of the shoe using special tacks, being careful to brad all tacks coming inside the shoe. Then if the sole need more trimming to fit the shoe, he trimmed it to fit the shoe. We now had a shoe that lasted several more months. I can’t recall if he ever graduated to bought soles or not. Maybe someone else will remember that.

There was never a question as to whether we were going to church. It was taken for granted, if there was church, we would go. Somehow our parents always managed to get us up and dressed in time for church. I’m sure Mama laid our clothes out the night before and washed us good so all we had to do was to get into our clothes. They lived there faith.

If Daddy and Mama decided they wanted fresh pork or if the hog was killed in too warm weather to cure and smoke, they would cut up the meat in small pieces and fry it. Then they would place it in a large crock by layer, pouring over each layer hot grease until the entire batch was put down in grease. Then when they wanted meat, they would dig out what was needed and reheat it. The extra grease always came in handy for other uses. We did not have deep freezers then.

They sometimes would can the meat, especially if it were beef. I don’t remember the exact procedure they did to accomplish this.

I remember that one of our dogs for some reason bit Elbert on the ear. Daddy felt the dog was not safe to have around us children, so he killed it.

If there was a death in the community, Daddy would not work in the field the day of the funeral out of respect for the dead. I do not know where this practice originated, but he respectfully observed it.

On wash day Daddy would draw tubs of water before he went to work in the field. Mama would wash clothes according to color and use, boil and rinse them. If the clothes line would not hold all the wash, she would hang the rest on the yard or garden fence. She starched the ones that needed it with starch made from flour and later with bought starch. On ironing day she would sprinkle and roll the garments, then wrap them in a pillow case or an old sheet. The irons were flat ones and heated at the fireplace or on the stove. She used twigs from Cedar trees to clean the irons. Later she graduated to better irons and then to electric ones.

I remember Mama moving everything out of a room. Beds were taken apart, mattresses put out to sun and beat, bed boards scalded, etc. She would take buckets of hot soapy water and with a large dipper this upon the walls and sweep them down. Windows were cleaned, curtains washed, starched, and ironed. The floor scrubbed with a shuck scrub broom. Then everything had to be thoroughly rinsed. The water the broom did not sweep out was gone over with an old dress or trousers shuffled along under the feet. WORK!! But what a sweet smelling room to sleep in that night on a sunned and beat mattress.

When we painted the walls and stained the floor in the hall, Mama was heard to say, “I’ll never be able to clean it again with hot water”. That, of course, was the reason for painting and staining--to do away with so much labor.

I spoke of Mama cooking on the fireplace when she first married. As time passed a small four eye wood burning stove was used, followed later with a large Home Comfort. The use of this lasted for years. They also became owners of a nice oil stove. Mama used this mostly to make coffee at ten o’clock and in the afternoon. Coffee was a must at these times. Using the oil stove kept her from building a fire in the wood stove. Late a butane gas stove was bought.

Mama was very selective in getting the Christmas tree. There were lots of Cedar trees growing in the nearby woods. She investigated them early and selected the tree she wanted. It was so big it covered one fourth of the living room and touched the ceiling. Even with the men helping, I don’t know how they managed to get it brought to the house without damaging it. She then decorated it and she always had little gifts for everyone.

And of course she had cake galore. When she made her fruit cake, she must have mixed it a dish pan for she baked several cakes of different sizes. I remember her cooking a fresh pork ham. She must have removed the skin for she dotted it with spots of black pepper.

When Sherwood was a baby, work had slowed down and Millard was temporarily out of work. We moved back to the farm with Daddy and Mama. Mama took over the care of Sherwood. She placed his baby bed by her bed in the fireplace room. This room was warmer than any other room. They developed a strong bond between them. When Millard began working in Lake Charles, we would go home for a visit. When we got ready to leave, Sherwood would cling to Mama and cry to stay with her. She would get in the car and ride down the road. Then with his attention on other things, she would slip out of the car and walk back to the house as we traveled on the way. As time passed, the bond still held and people would say Sherwood was her favorite, but she loved all her grandchildren.

Another thing I remember about Mama was her appreciation of new and appropriate shoes. She said no matter how nice and expensive one was dressed, if the shoes were not nice the entire outfit was ruined. After she recovered from a broken hip, she went right back to wearing nice high heel shoes.

Daddy became ill and although he saw several doctors, his condition did not improve. He lingered for a long time, but the Lord finally took him home. He was born October 15, 1869 and died June 13, 1946. We grieved to see him go. He is remembered for his love for his family and the many steadfast things he did to support and care for them. He was a Christian and lived his faith and was ready to meet his God. We say, “Thank you, Daddy, for your life and what you meant to us. We will ever be grateful for your efforts and for the home you raised us in.”

After Daddy died and since all the children were married, Mama was by herself. Delbert had built adjacent to the Old Place. A buzzer was placed at the head of her bed that when pressed would buzz at Delberts if she needed help. I don’t know if she ever had to use it.

Mama lived twenty years after Daddy died and she remained in her home. On an occasion when she was visiting me, she had a spell of not being able to breath. We rushed her to the emergency room at Memorial Hospital. She was attended to and soon put in a private room. When Dr. DeLaureal came in to see her, she was her normal self. His remark was “There must have been a lot of praying for most people don’t survive such an attack.” There had been prayers and in the emergency room I heard Mama softly saying Psalm 23. She was diagnosed with an asthmatic heart condition. She remained in Lake Charles for a long time and survived several trips to the hospital. Finally after a long battle, she was taken home to be with the Lord. It’s a comfort to know she was a Christian and was ready to die. She was born September 12, 1880 and died July 12, 1966. Her much labor, sacrifice, and deeds of love are remembered by all her children, grandchildren, and friends. The quote given at her funeral well describes her “She is not a memory, she is a living presence.”

Thank you, Mama, for your sacrificial love and caring for us. We will ever be grateful for your efforts and for the home you raised us in.

Although Daddy spent his life farming and providing for his family, as I look back on it, I feel he was not cut out to be a farmer. He would have looked at home in a school room. He was especially good in math and helped us children many times in our homework.

He was laid back whereas Mama was aggressive. They started from a homestead and a one room house and carved out a rather large farm, by cutting trees and burning out stumps, farming with only a horse and a plow.

The one room house grew as the family grew until it had three porches, eight rooms and had many comforts. Among these were a telephone, electricity, lights, hot and cold running water, sink and cabinets in the kitchen, a pantry, a refrigerator, a gas stove, and a bathroom.

Yes, I would classify my parents as capable and industrious pioneers, living a hard but pleasant life, starting with very little, but with a vision for the future. Step by step with the love of God and His help they attained a goal to be proud of.

Together they had eleven children, two dying at birth. In my opinion we were an harmonious family. I’m not saying there were no differences or problems, there were, but nothing serious. Of course with that many family members I’m sure there was quibbling among the siblings who perhaps had different ideas and opinions among themselves. Any differences were strictly family affairs and never discussed when company was present. However, the fact is that after our parents deaths, the family has met at the Old Place for a reunion ever Easter, with over one hundred attending, and all is conducted in perfect harmony and peace. To me this means that seeds of this were firmly planted by our parents.

Myrtle Golemon