THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Eudora Coleman Hodges
DATE: October 23, 1990
PLACE: Marshall, Texas
INTERVIEWER: Marilyn Pistel
P: We'll pass this to you, Eudora, and I would like to
first of all ask you when you were born and a little bit
about your parents and your family.
H: First of all, it's going to be hard to condense to a
little bit. But, anyway, I'll try.
I was born October the 8th of 19 and 8 in the old
family home that my great grandfather built in 1847. He
came from Kentucky and it is still in the family; occupied
by the family. And is, as far as I know - well, I know it
is, it's the only old home in eastern Harrison County that
is still owned and operated and lived in by the descendants,
which I think is right nice.
And the name of that place is "Locust Grove." I don't
think my great grandfather named it. I think that really
was his son, but we don't know.
P: And the family name was?
H: The one who built the home was Wright. A.B. Wright and
they came from Kentucky. He originally was from Virginia
and his wife was from Tennessee - I mean, from North
Carolina, but her family had moved to Tennessee which was
adjoining Kentucky. And then they settled in Kentucky. All
of them ended in Kentucky. Then they came - the Wrights
HODGES 2
H: came - they had a large family and they came in 1847 in
wagon trains drawn by oxen. I don't know how many.
We have the old ox yoke but I don't know where it is.
We think we know where it is, buried under a bunch of old
debris, but anyway, we had it for a long time. We always
wanted to resurrect it and hang it somewhere.
But anyway, he started building the house immediately.
His wife selected a beautiful spot that was right down in a
slough and he didn't want to put it there because of bad
drainage. He wanted it up here, but, no, Lucy wanted it in
that beautiful spot so that's where they put it. And she
brought some magnolia seed with her which I think she got in
Tennessee because Kentucky - where they lived, Trenton,
Kentucky, has no magnolia trees and never has had.
So she planted those trees and they're there now in
front of the house. That was in 1847. And they're still
beautiful. And the storms come and tear big hunks out of
them, they grow back and ••.
P: What brought them here from Kentucky?
H: Well, everybody was coming here to Texas about that
time. That's the main thing. And another thing, he had
been in the quarry business. Now this is just what they
told in the family. He had been in the quarry business.
There's a lot of stone of some kind up there in Kentucky, in
Todd County, and it was a partnership, some member of the
partnership absconded with the money. And Adea, the other
partner, was responsible for it because it was a partnership
but he would have paid it anyway.
HODGES 3
H: So he was then selling a lot of his slaves, you know,
to pay back all of the money. And that may have been the
reason, but I don't think it was the whole reason. I think
they wanted to come to Texas.
Now, Mrs. Wright, she was a Taylor. And she had
relatives in Harrison County and they liked it and I think
perhaps that may have influenced them.
And her mother had come here - an old lady had come
with her daughter. They settled in Athens, Texas. But some
of her family, Taylors, had already come in.
I think that it was more of less the move to Texas that
motivated them.
P: Uh huh. It enticed a lot of people.
H: And they had one child born at Locust Grove after they
got to Texas. All of the others had been born in Kentucky.
And - do you need more? Oh, he bought land from this
cousin of his wife. And he didn't build on it. I mean he
didn't get the deed until about 5 years after the house was
built. So I think it must have been a gentleman's agreement
which they had in those days. I've seen one or two of them.
I didn't find one recorded. But knowing how people were in
those days, I think it was just a handshake.
NOw, do you need anything more?
P: How many children were in the family - the first family
that came ••.
H: Oh, off hand I can't tell you. I'll have to count them
up but there were, oh, like six - seven - children.
P: How far back in you ancestry would that be?
HODGES 4
H: Well, they came in 1847 and all of the children had
been born and were alive, you know, some of them were almost
grown - well, the oldest was almost 16. She married a few
months later, when she was 16, married one of her pidgen (?)
kinfolks that they had bought the property from. But the
last daughter, Florence, was born in Texas about a year -
about 2 years, I think, after they got here. But it was a
large family. There was only one boy and he was about in
the middle. Now that was my mother's father.
P: That was your mother's father?
H: Yes, his name was Robert Ross Wright. And now Robert
Ross Wright has a great, great, great grandson who is named
for him.
And Robert Ross, the son, went to old Baylor University
when it was just a boys' school at Independence. He went
there a while and then he went - no, he didn't go to Texas
A & M. He went just to Baylor. And then he was educated as
a dentist in a school of dentistry in Philadelphia.
I never could get the records but we know that he did
and he left just a few months before graduation to join the
Confederate Army.
P: This was your grandfather?
H: My grandfather. So he could never practice medicine, I
mean, dentistry, but he did all the work for the family and
the slaves and the negroes on the place. And he left this
beautiful mahogany - had this beautiful mahogany dental
chest - table-top type with his monogram on it. And I gave
it to the great, great, great grandson who is named for him.
HODGES 5
H: And I was so pleased I asked him. I was going to have
the nameplate put on it and I asked him if he wanted his
initials or Robert Ross'. I had Robert Ross - a copy of
Robert Ross' - beautiful handwriting. He thought awhile and
he said, "Aunty, I think I'd rather have his. It was his
chest." So he's so proud of that. We're just absolutely
nuts on old things and family.
You asked something about my growing up and my
childhood. Well, It just has to be the most wonderful in
the world.
We didn't have any money but my Mother said you either
think poor or you are poor. If you think poor, you're poor.
And so I grew up under that philosophy. We were never
hungry, we were never cold, we had - and my uncles started
collecting antiques eventually in that beautiful old home so
I didn't know I was poor!
P: How did your mother and father have their livelihood?
Were they farmers?
H: They were farmers. Now my father and his family - his
parents - owned a farm over close to Leed, Texas. His
mother was a Hinton, one of an old North Carolina line and
then into Alabama. And she married a cousin of hers who was
a Perry. They were awfully mixed up. And then he died, and
her little Perry child died, and she married Thomas
Jefferson Coleman right after the Civil War.
All of the Coleman's had come en masse, the entire
family, about 8 or 9 males, from Hancock County, Georgia, in
1854. And he had been married and his wife had died and the
HODGES 6
H: little girl had died. And he married the widow Perry
and they had children, including my father who was the
oldest living one of the Coleman children and there are 2
boys left and 2 girls.
And then after the Colemans died, not too far apart,
and they were in debt after the Perry husband died. He left
provisions in his will for the place to be operated so many
years. Well then, the Civil War came and they lost all the
slaves and everything and his wife simply could not do it;
it was impossible. So they lost a lot of their property.
They did not lose the homestead then. They did eventually
but then my father and his - after he married he bought the
house site, about 300 acres I believe, he bought back. And
they got the house back.
But, anyway, he - beginning now how I got started - we
were talking about the connection through the Colemans and
the Wrights. Well, he and my mother knew each other well.
They went to school together, the little community school -
knew each other. As he - as my father got older, he'd go
over and go hunting with the Wright boys who were my
mother's brothers. And spend the night over there as they
used to do, you know . .••.. travel, they'd just spend the
night over there. And then my father's sisters and my
mother, of course, were friends so they were all friends and
5th cousins through the Perry connection.
And then my father, after his parents died, he and his
brother lived in the big old house - it was a big old
southern house just like a lot of them had. The magnolias
HODGES 7
H: are still there.
But eventually the house burned and then there was a
little dependency house there where my mother and father
lived for awhile after they married. My father had some
land that he and his brother worked for awhile but my father
went to work in a store - a big store - the Blocker's Store
down at what is now known as Leeds. Lee wasn't even born
then but it was called Blocker and he worked in that store.
He was working there when he and my mother married. But
eventually my father came to Marshall and worked in the
shops for awhile. They rented a house from Dr. Hargrove who
was another cousin of my father's. And he and mother lived
there when their first child, a little boy, was a toddler.
He had been born down in Harrison County - out in the
country.
Then my uncle and his widowed mother, my grandmother
Wright, were living in the old Wright home. And my uncle
wanted to go to Anderson County. It seemed to have been
quite a pattern of migration over in that area down there.
Crockett and Palestine and Elkhart. He wanted to go there.
He wasn't doing too much on that farm anyway. It was so
big. But grandmother ran that place for awhile after her
husband died - Robert Ross died fairly young. And she had
all that property and I don't know how on earth she held it
together, but she did. And then her oldest son at home, the
oldest son was off working in Ft. Worth in the insurance
business.
And then when Grandmother died at my mother and
HODGES 8
H: father's home here in Marshall, my uncle bought out -
divided the property - and then my uncle - he never married,
the oldest one. He was living in Ft. Worth and in insurance
business. And he bought out all of his heirs. Of course,
they couldn't crop "the place." They all had homes and they
wanted the money so they sold it to him. And he asked my
mother and father if they wanted to come and run the place.
He and Dad would work out some arrangements. And, of
course, they both jumped at the chance because it was a -
Dad loved farming. He did good work at the shop and kind of
enjoyed it but he did - he was really a farmer at heart.
Mother wanted to get back to her old home.
So they and their little boy came to Locust Grove and
he and my uncle had a gentlemen's agreement on that. There
was not one piece of paper about who was to do what but
never - and they were as different as daylight and dark
there was never one single bit of problem between them about
what was to be done or how it was to be done.
And we knew that Uncle Earl owned the place but we
owned it too in our minds, I mean, it was home so it didn't
matter. So that went on until my uncle's death and the
property was divided among his living siblings and then my
mother and father bought out the siblings. So that's how it
all ended in my mother's name, you know. After Dad's death/
then it was all hers. And so now, after my father died in -
then when Dad died we ...
P: Did that leave just you and your little brother, or did
you have other brothers and sisters?
HODGES 9
H: No, I have an old - 2 brothers, both grown - and my
younger brother who was in-between. He was the second
child. He was about 20 and he was working in the oilfields
down in Louisiana which my mother and father both just
hated. They didn't want him down there. But he was making
a living in the oilfields. So mother asked him to come home
and he did. And he took it over and, as I say he wasn't
quite 21, but he took that place over and see those notes
had not been paid. They'd been paying on them.
So he got a federal land bank loan for my mother so
that's who •••• to pay that.
Now I remember when we gave her the deed.
P: It was a big responsibility for a young man.
H: Oh, it was and he did a wonderful job. And he and I
had the same type of closeness that my mother and her oldest
brother, Earl, the one who originally owned it had, just the
exactly same thing. We never had a thing in the world in
writing between us, but he looked after my interest down
there and I was off in Dallas working
P: Oh, you went off to Dallas?
...
H: Yes, I lived in Dallas since the 40s, I mean 1940.
P: Where did you attend high school?
H: I went to high school here. I went one year in a
little country school down in Jonesville, which wasn't a
very good school. And my aunt, who lived here, my father's
only sister, Mrs. Parchman, she lived here in Marshall and
she came down one Sunday and she said, "I don't want you to
go to that school. I want you to come to Marshall and stay
HODGES 10
H: with me and go to a good school, Marshall High." It's
always had a good school system. The high school is
terrific and so I came over and stayed with Aunt Claude and
go home most of the time, on weekends they'd corne and get me
and I'd go horne.
P: Where did she live?
H: She lived on East ... , the old house is still standing
there, a beautiful old horne.
You knew virginia, didn't you - Virginia Dye, she's my
first cousin. Well, this aunt I'm talking about, Aunt
Claude Parchman, was her mother. And that was a second home
to all of us. And so I lived with her and went to high
school. I finished in January '26. I lost most of my
credits from that inferior school down at Jonesville. So I
had to graduate in January.
But that class of '26 is the one that's having the
reunion real soon. That's considered the A-one class. It
was a huge class for one thing and I don't know, there was
something about that class of '26. And the faculty at that
time was always special. I can't say enough good about
Marshall High School. I loved it!
P: Who were some of the teachers?
H: Ann Yardley and Ann Woodall and Bess Crouch, who was
Miss Sullivan, and Lucille Crouch who married, oh, you know,
Dr. - somebody. Anyway, Lucille. And Lucille Justice and
then Marth Lannam, who married Paul Whaley and I've
forgotten who - I had a commercial law teacher that I liked
so much. I can't remember who he was and Coach willis was
HODGES 11
H: the coach. He was one of the most famous football
coaches. He married Miss Ward, who was one of the teachers.
I mentioned Ann Yardley, I think, and Louise Steele was
the Latin teacher.
P: You have a wonderful memory to remember all those
names.
H: Well, I loved them. I was just crazy about - I was
just crazy about school. Some people thought I was crazy.
P: Did you go on to college?
H: Yes, then I went one year to College of Marshal which
was - it was a college then. It was an excellent school but
I couldn't stand the Dean of Women. She drove me up the
wall. So I headed out for Baylor.
When I was in high school old Laura McGee was one of my
English teachers . And Addie Nelson was another one that I
remembered some more.
But anyway, In Miss McGee's class we had Browning one
day. His - slave ...• and I just went into orbit. I had
been brought up on books and literature. I was reading my
Primer before I ever went to school ... because I had all
these adults around there teaching me that stuff, you see.
So I just went into orbit about Browning because I had these
adults around there teaching me that stuff, you know. So I
just went into orbit about Browning and she asked me if I
knew about Dr.Armstrong at Baylor university. And I had
never heard of him.
And - but she told me about him and he was one of the
leading Browning scholars of the world. Have you ever heard
HODGES
H: about Dr. Armstrong?
P: No.
12
H: Well, he was one of the leading Browning scholars of
the world. And he started the Browning Library at Baylor,
which, of course, is growing and growing and it's absolutely
magnificient.
They have a building just for the Browning Library.
But, anyway, I had to go and I went down to study with old
gruff Dr.Armstrong. I loved Baylor, just crazy about it.
liked the college; I just didn't like the Dean of Women.
But I must tell you one thing about it because I think
it's so funny now. She thought that all the girls in the
dormitory were just, you know, they were just on the wrong
track. She was that type person and that's what I didn't
like because I never had been treated that way. She was so
suspicious and
P: Negative?
I
H: Oh, negative and believe me, I'm telling you the truth,
she had barbed wire wrapped around that fire escape.
P: She was gonna make sure.
H: Oh, we nearly starved to death, the boys would bring
food for us and leave it down on the fire escape and I can
remember going down with a flashlight, down under all that
barbed wire and getting that food at night. Well, she found
out what we were doing and she was just going to throw - you
know, that was very wicked, we were "fallen women," so to
speak.
So we called the fire department and guess who called
HODGES
H: the fire department?
P: Oh-h-h!
13
H: Well, they came up there and they made her take that
down.
We thought that was more fun! But anyway, she had been
at Baylor. She was a wonderful English teacher. She was my
English teacher, but she certainly didn't know much about
girls.
And they didn't do that at Baylor. You wouldn't. You
were treated like a responsible person. You were expected
to be that way, and we were.
But anyway, what do I need to get back to?
P: Well, tell me - you went on to Baylor and went to
college and then what did .,.
H: And I majored - double majored in English and history
and minored in social science and speech, of all things.
And then I taught school my first year. One of my
classmates there called me from some - Liberty, Texas, and
offered me a job in the 3rd grade and I didn't know beans
about teaching elementary school - and to educate the high
school.
He had the idea that everybody should start teaching in
the grades. I wasn't very good at that. My father got very
ill and had a hernia operation and was so ill, so I just
quit and stayed home in the middle of the year.
And then the next two years I taught up in Rawling,
Arkansas. I had an uncle and aunt up there. I got this job
HODGES
H: up there. There was a vacancy up there and I heard
about it and I got that and taught there 2 years.
14
There were extremely underpriviliged children there but
those were 2 of the most rewarding years because they were
so open and the people - this was around a depressed area of
Arkansas and the parents thought that whatever the teachers
wanted was supposed to be done. You know, you got that kind
of cooperation.
Those children, they didn't even have a library and
half of my books were ruined because I put them in a
library. You have to have books, you know. You can't live
without books. And I enjoyed teaching those little kids,
enjoyed them.
Then the next 5 years I taught in Washburn, Texas, •••
P: In the elementary school?
H: No, I taught in high school and a few electives. I
taught Latin and one elective but up in Arkansas they needed
some electives, guess what I selected?
P: Right.
H: I selected mythology as one and the other one was
psychology and I loved the psychology. I thought it was so
weird because they didn't know that there was anything about
learning about how people act and react. And they really
liked it. The girls liked the mythology. The boys thought
it was silly. They couldn't quite believe that that was a
religion.
But, anyway, I taught that 5 years and 5 years in
Waskon. I loved teaching, it took a lot out of me because
HODGES 15
H: I put a lot into it, but I loved te a ching. But I
wasn't going to starve to death. I didn't want that. So I
studied shorthand and typing on the side and I went to work
for Arley Justive for, I think it was seven dollars a week.
And took speed writing with his wife. I'd walk out there
every morning and take a lesson from her and then come on
down to work with Arley. I worked with him awhile.
And then I went to work for Dr. Herish, the eye and
nose and throat clinic over in Longview. He was kin to
Arley. He got that job for me. I worked there a year.
Then I came back here and went to work for the government,
the Farmer's Home Administration. It, uh, well, at first it
was Farm Security Administration and then it changed name
and then I went to the provisional office in Dallas and -
the next year. And I spent the rest of my time in government
but not always in that department.
They moved to st. Louis. My husband and I didn't want
to move. I had married in the meantime. And I didn't want
to go to St. Louis and he didn't either.
So, he went to work for somebody with General Services
in Ft. Worth and I went to work for Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, which at that time was a branch of the Treasury
Department . And I worked for them until I retired.
So - that's my career.
P: What do you do now that you are retired?
H: I work on family history and history.
P: Oh, you're tracing your •..
H: Oh , I'm interested in all that sutfE.
HODGES 16
H: Now back to my childhood and what conditioned me for
all of this.
We we re always family minded and there was an old lady
that lived with us, who was my father's aunt by marriage.
And her family, her son, had moved to - was moving to Canada
and she didn't want to go. She lived in an old home down
below our place. And she had been just like a mother to my
father after his parents died. See, she was his mother's
sister- in-law. And they were very close. He said, "You
don't have to go, come and live with us." She decided to
and they took off in the wagon - they took her trunk and her
rocking chair and that's all she brought. And I have both
of them.
Her rocking chair, it was a wicker - I had it redone.
You know it was pretty bad. But she taught me to add by
playing cards and adding the score. She taught me to read.
Well, Mother taught some, too, but Aunt Beck just almost
just - she was the grandmother I never knew. And I was
brought up with books and Uncle Earl loved books and we had
this huge wall of books upstairs. I never knew anything but
books. I never got lonesome.
And I'd climb a tree - there was a nice little seat
arrangment the way 2 limbs were growing. I'd take a pillow
up there and sit up there and read my books. And I played
with Tim. I was a tomboy when I was a child. I lost that
when I got older but as a child I was so tomboyish. And my
brother - one brother - was only 2 years older than I so we
rambled allover the place. He'd swear I couldn't go with
HODGES 17
H: him but he'd always let me climb up on the horse and
here we'd go.
P: Did you have other kids that you were close to?
H: Well, quite a good number of neighbors. I had a little
girl friend who lived down the road about a mile. We went
to school together when her mother was teaching. And I'd go
to see her and she would see me and she - she was kind of a
mama's baby and she never would spend the night with me.
And I'd go down there and stay and then I had some friends,
some of the Aiken children who lived , oh, there were about 2
miles across the field. It was easy to get to. I was always
either over there or Lucy was over to my house, staying.
And they were my main playmates, my little girl
friends.
P: Did you go by horse? Did you ride, or •.•
H: Yes, I didn't ride alone much. I never was much for
that but I did go to school on horseback, holding on to my
brother, around his waist. We would - I would ride some,
but I never was crazy about riding. But I liked to ramble,
always did.
And our parents would tell us about all of these old
people and all the kinfolks. Aunt Beck knew everyone of
them. And so many of the people in eastern Harrison County
came from Franklin County in North Carolina and Aunt Beck,
this old lady who lived with us, came from Franklin County.
She had been to school with some of them at the Franklin
Academy which is now still in existence, but a college now.
And she knew all these people, knew all of these homes and ,
HODGES 18
H: you know, that gave the plantations a name, a lot of
these people did.
P: Yes, that's what I've heard.
H: Well, Aunt Beck had been in everyone. She gave me,
when I was young, I was pre-teen, she named all of these
plantations. Oh, twelve or thirteen of them. And I had
sense enough to write it down. And I found it years later
in my mother's big humpback trunk where she had all of the
goodies, you know. And I've added to that list. Of course,
Inez has all of that other bailiwick now. Of course, I have
dug out a few of them myself.
P: What were some of the names?
H: Well, our place was Locust Grove, and the Blocker place
was China Grove. The Webster place was Mimosa Hall. That's
the one that Virginia owns, you know. And the, let me see I
can't think who the man was who first built the T.J.Taylor
house. Well, I won't take time to think of his name. I
can't remember it. But he was the one who owned it - built
the red brick hosue. It used to be red brick. And it was
never given a name except the Brick House.
And, let's see if I can think ... oh, the Hargrove -
old man Hargrove, the first - the father of the flock that
came, his was called, oh, goodness, why would you ask me
that when I can't think of it. (laughter) And his son -
his son Hargrove named his The Cedars.
P: Why were they all named after trees?
H: Well, so many came from North Carolina and have you
ever been up in North Carolina? It has some of the most
HODGES 19
H: gorgeous forests I've ever seen.
P: ••. remind them, then of their
H: I think so. And every variety of treesl The trees in
North Carolina that I never saw anywhere else. And I can't
name them, but I've been up there - I used to go up there
every year.
P: ...
H: Oh, it's the most beautiful place in the worldl I love
it! It's much prettier than Virginia. Now, the Shenandoah
Valley in Virginia is just absolutely gorgeous.
P: Did you go with your family, or •••
H: No, my husband and I'd go. We'd take vacations. He'd
play golf and I'd go to the archives and stayed with some of
my kinfolks up there and I worked on family history.
I went up - I never will forget that when I went up
there to start my genealogy work. I had the Taylors, the
Hendersons, and the Terry's. Now the Terry's, there was 7
brothers. I wasn't content with my two. Dad was from one
and Mother was from one - I'd do all seven of them. And the
Taylors were enormous and all of them were named either John
or William. And some were kin and some were not. And then
the Hendersons weren't quite so large but they started with
3 brothers who came from England by way of Virginia. They
settled on the coast and then they came inland. Well, I'm
from one of them but I had to do - I did the other 2 just
down through their children, but I took ours all the way.
And I hooked on to history of the Hendersons. That had been
done by somebody else. It goes back to .,. Hendersons over
HODGES 20
H: in England. But I can't claim credit for that.
But I did get pictures - a cousin of mine was ~ing in
London at the time and she went to the cemetery where some
are buried and she took pictures of the tombs and she - she
did rubbings. And I had those rubbings framed. And one is
one of my line ancestors. The others were just kinfolks,
you know.
P: I've seen Locust Grove and it's beautiful.
H: Oh, you have?
P: I drove by there ••• drove me by there.
H: Well, we think it's beautiful. It's home I And there
isn't - there really is an aura about Locust Grove. It's
not as pretentious as some of them, it's not as elaborate,
and it certainly isn't in as good a condition inside. I've
kept it up outside. I finally ended with that - my mother
gave me that house and 15 acres before her death.
P: And you still own the 15 acres out there?
H: I still own it. And it's still in the family.
P: It's still in the family.
H: It's still in the family. And my sister-in-law who is
a widow lives there with her son. But it's still home. And
some of the cousins like in Houston and around, they still
say, "Let's go up home."
Up home. They never lived there but they'd spend
summers there, you know.
P: You have strong, enormous family ties .,.
H: Oh , I know, and you know it's going on down the
generations.
HODGES 21
P: They're picking it up as they go, the younger ones.
H: They are. And my nephew won a prize one time in his
English class when he went to Washburn, he went to Washburn
High School, he wrote on Locust Grove. Now I helped him. I
gave him - I talked to him, he wrote down notes and "old
ex-teacher" I made him - I jumbled up all those notes and
made him outline, you know, make up his outline and get
everything in the right little slots and he drew a little
chart, he got it a little bit off, but not really seriously
and he got first prize on his theme. And then later his
little niece wrote one on them. I don't know if she got a
prize or not. Anyway, she loves the old place.
P: ...
H: All the children do.
have grandchildren now.
Now, see my nieces and nephews
Some of them have grandchildren.
And all of them love Locust Grove.
But speaking of the aura of Locust Grove, I think the
keynote to that is when A.D.Wright built that house, they
built a room in back between the frontroom, which was
originally a bedroom, and the backroom which was my
grandparents' room. And it was called the lodging room.
And that was for people who traveled through and didn't have
a place to stay. And it's still called the lodging room
half the time. My nieces and nephews mostly call it Uncle
Billy's room because Uncle Billy lived there. And there was
this old lady who lived with - he was her son. He was a
Hinton, my father's first cousin, about 10 years older than
Dad but they were very, very close. And when he retired
HODGES 22
H: from work in the stores down in Jonesville, he came to
live up there with us. And he always called it home.
P: I wonder why he made that decision to have a floor plan
like that. Did he bring that with him from somewhere?
H: No, actually the house is pretty much like all of those
houses. The porches were all the way across. And now, it
wasn't strictly a dogtrot. It has a front hall that you
entered. Then the house originally had an open
square-bottomed nUn court in the back with a little covered
gallery, railed-in, covered gallery railed and covered
gallery that ran all the way around and you could go in each
room from that gallery - the dining room and everything, you
know. And that lodging room was down the middle. Now it's
been used for years and nobody remembers the family - it was
Bill's room for awhile. But it was called the Lodging Room.
And kinfolks have lived there. That home has been a home to
a lot of people. We even had a friend of the family back in
my older brother's generation, and his later years were very
unhappy and sad. He was quite down and out. And he wanted
to come there and live with us. So he must have felt that
that was a warm place.
And Aunt Beck, of course, lived with us. But we never
thought of them as not being the immediate family. They
were immediate family to us. So I do have strong family
ties. I'm so glad that that feeling has gone on down with
the present generation.
P: When you talk about your family background, there
must have been a lot of memories that come back of special
HODGES 23
P: days like Christmas, and the holidays when people - you
must have had a houseful.
H: We had big Christmases. My uncle owned this. But
Mother and Dad and the children did live there. And Aunt
Beck. And Uncle Earl, whenever he could, would spend
Christmas with us. He was living in New Orleans. Later he
went from Ft. Worth to Dallas and then from Dallas to New
Orleans with an insurance company. He was - he worked •••.
and Company. He had an excellent position with •.• and
Cochran which was a big insurance company. They started in
Dallas •••
H: what's the name of it?
H: Trezvandp, I think.
P:
H: Yes, I think it's spelled the same way.
P: ...
H: Now they were Dallas people and so were the Cochran's
who were in it. And there are descendants of the Cochran's
still in Dallas.
Well, Uncle Earl took over their New Orleans office.
And he would always come up for Christmas. He brought these
beautiful Christmas decorations. I never will forget them.
The tree - and he'd get a big tree off the place. And I
remember the last - the last tree that I remember almost
touched the ceiling. Uncle Earl had to stretch on a ladder
to get that angel stuck up there. And he would trim the
t ree and there was a big deal when he did that and we had to
use candles then. And, of course, that was pretty dangerous
HODGES 24
H: so he would light the candles and we would all look at
the tree and then admire it and then he would put out all
the candles.
We hung up stockings but we'd have our little gifts -
wrapped gifts - around the tree, you know. That has always
been our custom, even though the tree size has diminished.
But we would - he would have Christmas there and
usually when he was there my aunt, who lived near us, she
was Mrs. Aiken, she had 5 girls, and she and the girls would
come over and have Christmas because her brother was there,
you know. And we would all hang up stockings and Uncle
Walter would have Christmas with his mother and his brothers
who lived near there.
But, anyway, Christmas was a big deal. Now,
Thanksgiving, we made some show of Thanksgiving, but
Christmas was our big holiday.
P: The turkey, the whole thing. What was some of the
special kind •••
H: Well, we always had the turkey, of course. Mother made
2 kinds of dressing because my father liked pecan dressing,
Uncle Louis like oyster dressing. So mother had both and we
would have cranberry jelly. She would make the jelly.
Well, she made the cranberrry - she left the whole berries
in, but it would jell and we would always have - I'm trying
to think what else we would have. In those days, they would
always have chicken salad with Christmas dinner.
P: You did?
H: Yes, always had chicken salad. But as I got older I
HODGES 25
H: said, "Mother, why do you have turkey and chicken
salad?" She said, "Why, honey, I guess we don't need to."
So we quit having the chicken salad. We switched over to
fruit salad - Waldorf salad, Mother loved Waldorf salad.
And we always had a coconut cake and we always had a
black walnut cake, which my aunt made for Uncle Earl to take
back home, plus one to eat. Mother made hickory - no, yes,
Mother made the hickory nut cake for him.
P: Did you have hickory nuts in your yard?
H: Yes, we had wild ones out in the grove.
P: Is that what you used?
H: Yes, we used those and the black walnuts, too.
P: Oh, black walnuts, too?
H: Yes, we didn't have to buy nuts. We bought pecans but
Uncle Earl planted pecan trees and they bore for awhile but,
you know, you just can't take care of them. They're just
too much trouble. You really have to concentrate on pecans
to make them do anything.
Let me see, what else we had. We would have
vegetables, but I don't know ... oh, I know one of Mother's
favorite Christmas vegetables. She stewed small onions,
little boiling onions, lots of butter, stewed them down
slowly, lots of butter, lots of black pepper and a little
touch of sugar and they were the best things!
P: That sounds wonderful.
H: It makes them carmelize - you don't put enough to make
them real sugary. But it makes them carmelize just a little
bit. And sugar is good with onions anyway. And that was
HODGES 26
H: one of her dishes.
And we always had ambrosia. And our ambrosia was simply
oranges and coconut. We didn't have all that other stuff in
it. Mother said, "That's not ambrosia! That's fruit
salad."
P: Oh, wonderful.
H: Now let me see what else. I think those were the main
things. Of course, all the pickles. She always had water­melon
pickles which was a great favorite. And peach pickles.
very fat peach pickles. I remember one time she made all
kinds of preserves and Mother used to make muffins and she
would put a spoonful of some kind of preserves in the center
of them and then put the lid on them, you know - pour some
more batter on top. And one year they had some of the chil­dren
from the Bucknell Orphan Home in Dallas who were brought
out by our little church in Jonesville and spent the night in
different homes, you know. We had, oh, 4 or 5 of them.
And the little children were so cute and sweet. And
mother had rice. We always had rice on our table. We had rice
more than Irish potatoes. We had potatoes, but not creamed
potatoes. We had the rice. That had cream in it and that had
butter in it and that was wonderful - very fattening.
But a little boy just couldn't get over how there was as
many muffins and butter and preserves as he wanted - he just
couldn't get over it.
P: Where did everybody sleep when you had all these people?
HODGES 27
H: Well, we had - 1, 2 - at that time we at that time
that child was there, we had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - 5 bedrooms.
And we put down pallets if necessary. We had an extra bed
out in this big - oh, I forgot to tell you that open court I
told you about? In 19 and 08, the year I was born, Uncle
Earl had the house restored. It was in bad shape and he had
it restored. And Mother turned me over to Aunt Beck and she
got out of bed and started cooking for those capenters.
Because you know they lived in in those days while they were
working. And he had that closed into a big hall - great
hall and took the door from the middle which orginally was
the door to that back part of the building and put it down
at the end of the hall and a big heavy drape put in the
middle. I have the rod now that that drape used to be on.
P: That gave you more enclosed space.
H: Yes, it did.
P: It wasn't the same as the Lodging Room though?
H: No, the Lodging Room opened into the - the hall opened
into the Lodging Room now instead of the open porch.
P: Okay.
H: And I used to have dances. We'd have 20 and 30 couples
and never touch each other, that's how - you just come and
go through. Just don't look at the faded wallpaper.
P: Let me ask you something, did you go to Caddo Lake as a
child?
H: Yes. My brother had a clubhouse with some friends of
his and we would go down there on weekends sometimes and
Mother would chaperone us. She loved to go to the lake. And
"
HODGES 2B
H: we loved for her to go, because she'd let us go out in
the boat as long as we didn't act silly, you know kids
didn't act silly in those days. If you told them not to do
some thing, they didn't do it. And she would let us get out,
and - but still where she could see us. And I know if we'd
get out kind of late, we'd take a flashlight so we'd do it
like that every now and then. She'd know we were safe. And
if we wanted to sit up all night, she said, "If you're silly
enough to sit up all night, you can do it." (laughter) And
she would make the coffee. But she'd take most of the food,
you know, but she'd make coffee out of that old muddy water
- best coffee in the world.
And one time we had to take somebody else as chaperone.
We didn't like her 'cause she wouldn't let us do anything.
She wouldn't let us sit up all night, she wouldn't let us
sit on the beds. She wouldn't let us get in the boats, so
we didn't take her anymore as a chaperone. (laughter)
P: ••• Landing ••• later?
H: Yes, • ••
P: Do you think that's where your ••.
H: No. Where this little lodge was at Long point. I
didn't g e t to Swanson's Landing. I'd heard about it. I
didn't get to it until I was older and got involved in all
this his t ory.
P: Long Point was more popular?
H: Well, Long Point had a lot of little fishing lodges.
People would spend the weekend there. But you know, back
HODGES 29
H: in the early days, in old letters and diaries I would
read - I've read where the men would go down and spend a
week at the lake and I know in one case, my Aunt's husband
did that and she was just furious with him because he took
the boys out of school, I know, to wait on him. She was so
mad with him she didn't know what to do. ( laughter) Of
course, she thought the education was more important.
But they did, they'd go down and hunt and fish. And
the whole families would go. I have an old, old newspaper
from Marshall. It was a - oh, I don't know what it was, it
was some kind of commemorative thing and I have it. It's
very fragile but it's still intact. And it has a huge
picture of the perry's and I know that most of them was a -
Uncle Joe - Old Uncle Joe Perry's family and that was
Solomon Ruffin Perry, the sheriff's father, and I know it
was Solomon Ruffin and his brothers. Uncle Joe was dead, I
think, about that time. But it was the wives and the babies.
And they would go down and the women would participate, too.
And would like to go.
And they went hunting a lot. They went deer hunting
and fox hunting. My grandfather was a big fox hunter and
deer hunter. They loved~it. Fox hunting, yes, and deer
hunting. Just any kind of hunting. And they also, the men,
had gamecocks. Game fighting was a big deal.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE I - 45 MINUTES.
SIDE 2.
H: Yes '" It was a dog's life.
P: Would they let you go?
HODGES 30
H: I wouldn't go if they let me - my brother Bill, usually
- "You don't have any business going to a cock fight."
P: It was legal in those days?
H: Yes, it was legal
P: There was nothing illegal about it.
H: No. But you know Jonesville is now in its third
location. You didn't? Well, that's another thing I've got
to get to. I've finally got it all solved and I've got to
write it up.
P: What's that?
H: Jonesville. The little town of Jonesville, which is so
historic. It's in the 3rd location. And I finally located
the first location. I know that the second one was about a
mile and a half away and I know that it had to be south of
the first location because that would have put it closer to
where it is now, which was a short move.
P: Where was the first one?
H: The first location - do you have the time for me to
haul the map out and show you?
P: ...
H: It won't show on that map. I finally ...
P: It's a map of the county.
H: No, it's not a county map, honey. It's the railroad
map. I finally dug this out in Austin. I didn't dig it out
but I kept nagging them until they opened a box that had
that in it. It had been sent over from the land office but
HODGES 31
H: had never - I think the contents had never been taken
into the archives. But they sent me the manifest and by one
box - one carton number, it said in the margin - maps. And
I knew that was it! I knew there was ..•
P: Railroad map.
H: And I wrote to them the most pitiful letter! And I
said, "Please open that box. I know that's the map I want."
It is. They sent me 2 copies and didn't charge me a nickel.
P: Oh, wonderful!
H: Well, that was by correspondence. I didn't do that
myself. They just kept digging until they found it for me.
Now this - now that's Martha, I need to fold up a
little bit to get over here. Let me get my glasses on
I can't see a thing ••. I hope this is the one I've marked.
Now this was a blowup •••
P:
H: 1860, he was the President. Now this is a blowup of -
not a blowup, but this is a copy of the Tobin Map that shows
all the headright surveys. Now that's what I worked with,
was Tobin Maps.
But it's really just a copy. What I did - by the shape
of each one I said - and using the Tobin Map I could tell
what they were. But do you know what they did? They left
,/ ,
// one out right up here close to Swanson's Landing, but I
could tell by the shape of them what they were. That's the
railroad that came •.•
P:
HODGES 32
H: ••. It was in the Sarah - it was in the Orriford -
L.P.Orriford right. Now the present Jonesville store is
right here, so you can see it wasn't ..• Now it moved from
there, I think about a mile - yeah, a mile and a half I
believe the records say, so that put it down about here.
Then it moved right up here into the M.W.Coleman headright
which is the present location. And now this was the
railroad line from Swanson's Landing.
P: Now is this how people came to Marshall?
H: Yes, when they got the railroad from ...
P: From the railroad - when they got the railroad in 1870
something - three?
H: Well, they got the railroad before that.
P: Before that?
H: Oh, yes. You see, the railroad - the first ••.
P: Was it before the War?
M: Yes. The railroad was, I've forgotten the date - I've
forgotten the date that they opened it. They had the - when
the first company went off from the Leigh area - Texas Hunt
- yes, Texas Hunter's went off, they left from Jonesville.
And that was this Jonesville, the first location. That's
where they had the meeting. And this train from Swanson's
Landing would go back and forth between Marshall and bring
the people free. They didn't charge them. I'm sure that
was the largest gathering that's ever been had •.•
P: Now, what people were those?
H: The people to see the company off. To - presented the
flag.
HODGES
P: Oh.
H: And my grandmother presented the flag and made the
speech. And-
P: That was your grandmother - Grandmother wright?
33
H: My Grandmother Wright. She was Eudora Perry then.
That was before her marriage. She married right soon after
the war ended. But she was Eudora and I have a copy of her
speech.
P: You do?
H: The speech is in the museum and the remnants of the
flag, but I have a copy of it. I have a newspaper picture
of the participants - grandmother and Robert Ross, he was
her secret fiancee. She couldn't tell it because her father
had not given his -
P: Permission.
H: His permission. So he .••
P: Back then, you wouldn't do that!
What museum is that in?
H: It's in this museum.
P: This one here at the
H: The old flag is just in shreds.
NOw, my cousins, the Aiken girls, they had that. And
the original speech which is a notebook kind of thing. I
have a copy of the speech.
But anyway, that's what ... and I need to write this
up. But honey, I'm so busy writing so many things and
trying to do family history
P: Look how long it took you - 4 years to figure that out.
HODGES 34
P: You are writing - you are writing about everything in
your genealogy and everything that you discover, you are
putting ...
H: I have done quite a bit. I don't publish much. I
don't have time to do that.
P: Well, you're just keeping private writing then?
H: But I have published a few things in some of the
genealogy magazines in Ft. Worth organization - I think they
call it Footprints. It's the Ft. worth Historical and
Genealogical Society. I did one on the old amusement, you
know, that - ways to entertainment. I gave Inez a copy of
that. And I did one - you know they always said that - now
who was that Quantrell, you know, who he was during the
Civil War? He was really a . . .
P: Raiders?
H: He was a Raider really, but he pretended to be helping
the Confederacy. But really the Confederacy was a little
bit ashamed of him.
But he would raid places, you know. And they said that
he had never hit Harrison County. He did, because he hit
Aunt Beck's place, the old lady who lived with us, 'cause
she told me. And I wrote it up and she said they came to
the door. That was on an old statecoach road - that old
road in front of our house is the old stagecoach road.
P: Does that old - it runs right in front of the house?
H: Uh huh. It runs from Shreveport to Marshall. Now up
beyond Karnack - around Karnack, I think, there's a branch
close to Karnack - would really be below Karnack where that
HODGES 35
H: road comes out on the Marshall road from Leigh, you
know, what they call the Leigh to Marshall road? I think
there's a - oh, I think there •••
P: Sort of a spur?
H: A spur where it could go to Jimson, but I'm not sure,
because there were other stagecoach lines to ••• so I may be
wrong about that. But it did go to Marshall. It came in on
the west side of Marshall, and followed that old road.
P: What did Aunt Beck say when you •••
H: Well, anyway, she said she went to the door and there
he was and he told her who he was and he said, "We want your
corn." And she said, "It's in the crib."
She had these 3 little baby children. And the oldest
little boy was about 6 or 7 years old. So they went out
there and they took it. You know how they used to store it
up in the crib? And they took the door off and ran the
wagons on there and loaded them up and they put the door
back and came back and thanked her. And asked how they
could water their horses. And she said, "The spring is
right down this road." And so they watered their horses at
the head of the spring.
P: They weren't harmed or anything, he just took what he
wanted and went.
H: No. She didn't protest, she just let him have it.
But it was so strange to me that he hit that - now that
wasn't nearly as large as the Wright place, or pretentious.
They have a pretty little home but it wasn't, you know, a
mansion. But he hit that first, you see. And the Wright
HODGES
H: place was about half a mile up the road.
P: And did he ever go to the Wright place?
H: No.
P: He had what he needed, probably.
36
H: And I wrote that up for Inez. She said that she had
said that she had no record - always been said that he never
hit Harrison County.
P: You mentioned amusements. Can you tell us something
about the type of .,.
H: Oh, yes.
P: I'd like to hear that.
H: Well, now this was before my time. I'll bring it up to
date. Anyway, I picked this up from diaries. I have 3 of
my great grandmother's diaries. Oh, they're treasure
troves! And I have - how many letter collections. I have
three letter collections. And I have some church
collections, you know, that ••• just have all kinds of
stuff.
But, anyway, they used to have what they called
tableaux and charades. They would put these performances on
in schools to raise money for this, that, and the other.
And during the war they would put them on to raise money to
buy things for the soldiers which, you know, they had to
send them everything - clothing and they'd send food to them
by wagonloads. Did you know that? Yes! One of the Blocker
men led one wagon. Oh, they had several wagonloads full
that he led down to Portrance, Mississippi, ah, Campaign, a
lot of the Harrison County soldiers were in that campaign.
HODGES
H: And they took all of these supplies down to them.
There was warm clothing, socks, medicine, food, just
everything you can think of.
P: Done by some of the home folks, then?
37
H: Oh, they would have these performances sometimes for
amusement, you know. Or to raise money. And they'd have
them in schools, or churches, or any old house they could
find.
They would have dances. Now, they had some parties and
charades and things other at the Levin Perry place which had
a huge hall, even larger than ours.
P: Where was that?
H: Now, that's down close to the lake. It's now owned by a
Saunders family.
P:
H: Yes, it was called Spring Hill; yes, Spring Hill. And
they were kin, too.
P: Oh, were they?
H: Yes. (laughter)
And they had dances.
He was a cousin of my line, ancestor.
Now the Methodist didn't dance. The
Baptists did. Now that was a ...
P: That's strange.
H: Wasn't that strange? Because one of the Levin perry
daughters was writing in one of her letters. She said that
they had this big party there. And said there was some
dancing but - no, it was the Methodists, but she said there
we re so many Methodists there that there wasn't much dancing
going on.
HODGES 38
H: But Levin Perry was pretty lenient. He had a big
family and he wanted his children to enjoy life. He wasn't
a stiff and proper parent. And neither was my great
grandfather.
And they had - they did a lot of hunting. All the men
loved nature and the outdoors and hunting and fishing.
They played musical instruments. One of my great
uncles played the banjo a lot. He was one of the Perry
boys. All the girls performed. All girls of families of
any means at all had music lessons. They learned to sing
and to play and they would have dances.
And let me see what else did they do? The men, they'd
go hunting and fishing and all of that.
Church was high in their social order. You went to
church and if the Baptist would have any services and the
Methodist weren't, you went to the Baptist Church. They
didn't - they had their own churches but they'd - they
would - they had their favorite ministers that they would
ask to marry them whether he was their denomination or not.
And the Rev. Steele, who was an Episcopal minister, he
founded the first - I think, the first church in
Houston-Harrison County. It was a mission church - called
Old Border and everybody loved the Rev. Steele and he would
just marry Baptists, Methodists, presbyterians, or whatever.
And then when he moved to Shreveport he'd still come over
and see his friends and relatives. He was related to the
Websters. And he'd come over and see friends and relatives
and stay with them for awhile and perform wedding ceremony
HODGES 39
H: or a funeral service, or whatever.
And you know in those days they didn't always have a
funeral service immediately.
they couldn't keep bodies out.
They would bury them because
They would just - the family
might - and friends, might just bury the body and then have
someone preach the sermon, which, of course, was a, you
know how they used to - didn't - sermons of praise to the
person who was dead. He would come and preach the sermon
later. I've read that in some of the old diaries and
things, too.
P: You were talking about music. Did you all have a
piano?
H: Yes, we had a - my aunt, Virginia's - Big virginia's
mother, gave me a piano when I was a little girl. And I
took music lessons. My grandmother's piano was there.
Uncle Lowell had got that. My grandmother's big square
piano. It wasn't a baby-grand - a big square piano.
And it was so big we had it out in the hall, that big
back hall.
P: There's a big oblong piano over in the Museum and they
told us that the reason that it was built like a big, big,
oblong was because it sits in the beds of the wagons and
that's the way they moved them. Then they put the legs back
on when they took the piano off.
H: I hadn't heard that, but I ...
P: Pretty ugly thing.
H: It makes sense.
P: A great big - like a dining room table. A square thing.
HODGES 40
H: One famous piano was at Levin perry's. His - he had a
music teacher from North Carolina whom they had known back
there. She was from a prominent family up there. And they
knew her in Franklin County. And she married a Hargrove
whose mother was a - Levin Perry's sister. And she was
staying at the Levin Perry home and I think was a music
teacher for his daughters when she married this Hargrove
man. And I think they married in the Levin Perry house, but
I'm not sure. But anyway, her piano cost five thousand
dollars. It was rosewood and it had ivory trim on it. And
I'm not sure, I think I've heard - I don't know whether
Levin Perry gave it to her. I think not, because after all
this was just his nephew. But anyway, somebody gave her
that piano. It came from - they brought it up from New
Orleans, up to Swanson's Landing.
P: Was Swanson's Landing - a pier, or a ... ?
H: It was a regular landing. A complete landing. The
boats would come right up. And when they had - the first
train, the track was laid right down to the water's edge and
the engine was brought up on one of the boats and it would
just scoot right off onto the track. And it hooked on to -
it had to make a loop or something in order to hitch on to
the two little cars. And they made its first run to
Marshall.
But, now, the Aiken family, you've probably heard of
those, Berta and Sidney and - there were 3 Aikens. Sisters;
they're my first cousins. Their grandfather, it was - yes,
their grandfather came by boat to Swanson's Landing.
HODGES 41
H: I'm pretty sure it was Swanson now or ••. Swanson's
Landing. He came by boat . So many of them came overland,
you know . And he came by boat because they told me that.
P: So .•. the Landing there was a settlement, though,
where people lived?
H: Yes, there was a settlement, but it wasn't a settlement
like Port Caddo. It wasn't a residential settlement. Now,
the first Swanson house was a 2-story log house built right
at the Landing. It was kind of uphill from the Landing.
But then Pete Swanson built the big house which I think was
also log, but I'm not sure. It was the Winston's that told
me, but I can't remember. But it was a big house, about a
mile beyond that which was to the south of the Landing. And
the tale goes that Mrs. Swanson wouldn't stay in the big
house after they built it. Now, I don't know whether that's
true or not.
But anyway it did have - and at one time I knew about
where that house was, but I've never been to the house -
Robert Winston was going to take me. His health failed and
we just never did make the trip.
But Port Caddo was really the first Fort. Fort Caddo
was the first town in eastern Harrison County. And it goes
way back, oh, I think - ••• I think Fort Caddo goes back as
far as '39. Something like that. Well, anyway, Mr. Hackney
- Vivian Hackney wrote the story of Fort Caddo and that
would tell you about that. But it was a regular town and
they sold lots there, you know. You bought shares and
depending on how much - how many shares - you got a certain
HODGES 42
H: number of lots. And houses were built there. And it
was a regular village. They had stores and everything you
could think of.
P: Is Port Caddo still there now?
H: No. But I know where it is. It's on a road that goes
to what they call Big Lake which is the big bayou - Big
Cypress Bayou. And there's a restaurant there called Big
Pines Restaurant. And I think it's on - Rhoda, do you know
the road Big Pine - is that 49 - 43 or 59?
R' ?
H: Well anyway, I'm going to guess - it's the road that
goes right to Big Pine Lodge. Just as you make the curve t o
go to the parking lot at Big Pine, over to the left there's
a water purification system - some kind of gadget there that
is, I think it's in connection with ••. or something which
put up. But anyway, that is where Port Caddo was.
P: That was Port Caddo.
Voice: That was Port Caddo.
H: That was Port Caddo.
Voice: Why is there nothing •• , there then •••
H: It should be marked.
Voice: It's not marked at all. I never knew where it was.
P: I've heard so many people talk about Port Caddo and
that's unusual.
H: Now the shoreline, of course, has changed. It's not
anything like it was at first. But they had everything.
They had mills of all kinds. I'm sure they had a gristmill
and a, what's the other kind of mill - a sawmill. I'm sure
HODGES 43
H: they did. They had everything. Stores, And ...
P: Well, there's another job for you
Well, it's a quarter to five ..•
H: And a lot more to do. It would take you 15 years to
cover Harrison county.
P: I'm s ure.
H: You want to know my favorite county in Texas?
P: Right.
H: Harrison! (laughter)
P: That's not a surprise to me. Would you like to say
anything to wrap this interview up - or any closing
remarks?
H: I don't know what to say, except that I haven't
finished. (laughter)
P: Well, we know you love Harrisonburg, or Harrison -
H: Harrison County. And this famous sheriff, Solomon
Ruffin Perry, his brother Boast Perry said, "It's the most
wonderful country - county - that God ever made." Now those
are his own words.
P: That sounds like a good closing remark.
Thank you so much. It's a quarter to five and this
concludes the interview. Thank you. It certainly was
nice.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 2, ABOUT 30 MINUTES.