HISTORY OF DRAYDEN VANBUREN MARSHALL

The past is History. It has been lived and cannot be rerun.

No Man's past is always smooth.

I cannot trace my ancestry very far back. I would believe, knowing what I know, that they were a mixture of Irish, Scotch and English, for I have seen a readiness to fight for the things they thought right, a desire to hold on to what they possess. Staid, let it be said of the English.

My father was the son of John Smith Marshall, out of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana. Farmer and Slave Owner. A Confederate Veteran. His wife, my grandmother, was Elizabeth Marshall, some degree a cousin. They had eight sons, Hamp, the oldest, was killed in an accident when he was young. Edmond, killed in a logging accident,Joseph, died at six months of age. The others, Henry, Jacob Matthew, Charles Fedrick, Daniel Cirtis and Calvin made it to Texas. They also had four daughters, Louisa, Abidah, Julia Ann and Alice Gray.

My dad, Calvin was the youngest. He married my mother, Mattie Platt, daughter of Monroe and Louise Durham Platt.

Grandpa Marshall settled in Tyler County, Texas, near Colmesneil. He was a farmer and all his sons followed in his footsteps. My grandfather's land was in the Old Bethany Community, about four miles from Colmesneil. He sold a portion of it to Uncle Fed (Charles Fedrick).

Grandpa died in 1882. My Dad and Mother were married on Sept. 23, 1894. Grandpa was buried in the Old Egypt Cemetery near Colmesneil. Dad and Mother lived in the house with Grandmother. Four sons were born to them in Tyler County. Chester, Louis, Drayden, and Arthur. Henry was born in Angelina County. A baby girl was born to them, Mother took malaria and was unable to nurse the baby. She died at the age of 6 months. They named her Selma.

For some reason, maybe because three of my uncles and aunts already lived up there, my father decided to move to Angelina County. Uncle Dan owned a little house down below the Little Hope Church, near where Uncle Matt lived. My Dad put his family on the train, and he and, I think, Uncle Dan loaded up the furniture and drove through. We were met at the depot by Uncle Matt and spent our first night at his house. Uncle Matt's wife, Aunt Julie, was a Durham and Mother's aunt. The house was a two room one. There were many of that kind in those days.

My Dad was a tie-hacker when he wasn't working the crops. I remember he once cut a place on his leg and he came in with it coated with fresh pine resin.

After they got the crops laid by they decided to move out onto the hill. We moved to an old house behind the Little Hope Church House. While living there, Dad was driving the wagon one day and Chester was leading a mule. The mule reared back and jerked Chester out of the wagon and broke his arm. The doctor there, Doctor Stewart, told Dad to whittle out a piece of white pine and splint the arm with it.

Chester and Louis were going to school. They had been going to school in Tyler County.

Sometime later we moved to another house closer to the field. Then Mr. Sandford, one of Mr. Donnell's renters, moved and we moved again. The house was high off the ground. We kid's could walk under it.

I started school. Miss Bird Russell was my teacher. I could already read, as my grandmother had been teaching me all my life. The house where I started to school is still being used for Church Services. It is the Little Hope Primitive Baptist Church.

We had lots of neighbors. The Jesse Russell's, the Fred and Gene Kimmey's, the Wylie Barron's and the Edward Clark's. They all lived on the three farms that comprised the Lee Donnell and Seb Cowart places. Mr. Donnell also lived there.

When the women worked in the field there was a big pin-oak which was the nursery. Three or four quilts were spread out. The ones who were too little to work were baby sitters. As a new one was born into our rank (Henry Smith Marshall) I was one of that group.

When Grandma wasn't living with us she would visit the other kid's, but our house was home to her.

That year when Dad had his tie-making time he would take old Kate over to Alco to work. He had a friend, a Mr. Roy Haliburton, who was also a tie-maker. Mr. Haliburton liked to imbibe on his Saturday night's. He got into a fracas and was stabbed. He lived for a few days and my Dad would go over there and sit up with him.

As usual, the corn was gathered, the cotton picked, time to move. Dad rented a place on the Odell Road, about a mile from Huntington. He was an avid squirrel hunter. He had a double-barreled twelve gage shotgun and a twenty-two rifle. He prefered the rifle and was a crack shot with it. He let Chester and Louis go hunting with him sometimes. I never got ot go but once, just a while before he died. Chester and Louis also went to the field with him but I was just eight, so I played.

Suddenly life changed. Dad took sick on Friday. They had Doctor Stewart out to the house. He did not get better and by Sunday he was in a comatose state. He died Monday morning. Children do not really know what grief is. He was buried in the Huntington Cemetery.

I would not say that life just went on as usual. There was an upsurge. My Mother was left with the responsibility of a family of five boys ages two to twelve. But she was equal to it. My Dad had all the crop up. The cotton was plowed, ready to chop. A boy who had never hoed a row was introduced to a No. 1 Scovil. Just chop it out hoe width and a half and leave two stalks in a hill.

Mr. Josh Herrington took up a collection among the folk in Huntington. The sum of money was used wisely. The neighbors over at Little Hope came and in one day chopped out the cotton. Mother hired Oscar Marshall, Uncle Matt's son to plow for her for a week or two.

At that time Chester became a man, at twelve years of age. He never went through all the stages the rest of us did.

There was a small patch of sugar cane. Mr. Woodcock had sold his crop to Mr. Walker, who had a big bunch of boys. A Mr. Wolf came and helped strip and cut the cane. Mr. Walker cooked it. Mother just had to insist that Mr. Wolf take at least one gallon of syrup. Mr Walker would't charge anything for cooking it.

When we gathered our corn we just hauled it down to Little Hope to a place that Uncle Matt had rented for us. It was on the hill toward Linsen Creek. We went back to school at Little Hope. The Neighborhood had changed some. Mr. Tom Arnold lived in the high house. Uncle John Durham had bought Mr. Cowart out. He had a grown son and daughter, Andrew and Solie.

We planted a crop that spring and the first of April, the corn being knee high, we went visiting one of Dad's nephews, Little Matt, as we called him. He lived on the edge of Shawnee Prairie. We had a pet squirrel that we took along in a cage. The next morning when we got up there was a heavy frost. Our squirrel was dead, or so we thought. So they laid him on a fence post and we went home. He came alive when the sun warmed him up.

When we got home that beautiful corn looked bad. Mother and Chester decided to plant a row in the middle. By the time that came up the old corn had come out and they just plowed up the new. We worked hard. Mother went to the field but she never had to plow, Louis and Chester did the plowing.

Mother had ask Uncle Dan, who was a great horse trader to trade off the old iron-gray mule because he was so mean. He traded for a sorrel horse, which we named Sol. He was gentle to ride, so was Kate, the other mule.

We moved to Mr. Jimmie Roberts Place on the Odell Creek Road. We was on a mail route, a first for Huntington. Mr. George Tompson was the Carrier. He rode a horse part of the time but mostly he had a buggy or a gig.

We made a good crop at Mr. Roberts. He was a good man. He had a big family. When we moved to Mr. Roberts our school teacher was Mr. Johny Robinson, Uncle Matt's son-in-law. Most of the time we were at Odell we were taught by Mr. Earl Burns.

We traded old Sol off and got a little yellow mule. Very gentle.

Crop gathered. Winter coming. Time to move again. Normal for renters. Oscar Marshall said if we would rent half of it he would rent the other half and we could get the Horn Place, which belonged to Mr. Horn, whose wife Jane was Dad's first cousin. We moved into the house, made of what is now called board and batten. There were two big rooms with a ten foot hall or Dog Trot, with a front and back porch. The kitchen was built separately. It became home like no other place we ever lived. Oscar's house was of the same order except his walls were of split logs, with the kitchen taking one-half of the back porch. Oscar had two boys and two girls and another boy was born while we lived there.

All was not work. We rambled the woods eating wild grapes and muscadine. Haws of every kind. Many old abandoned house places had plum orchards. We made all of them. We would gather hickory nuts by the bushel. A bunch of boys when left to entertain themselves will find something to do. We played the game of Fox and Geese when we had to stay inside.

What did we eat? Mostly what we raised. We usually killed some hogs. We had a milk cow. We had bushels of sweet potatoes. We always had a good garden. We had a cane patch, so we had syrup. Mother put up in jars berries and garden produce. She would put the dried peas and beans in a pan and heat them to kill the weevils. We took our corn up to Mr. Harvill's Grist Mill. Mr. Harvill ground it. He usually took so much of the corn for doing this for people but when Louis asked him why he didn't toll ours he said he had never made his living off of widow women. Mother was no fancy cook. Just plain cooking, but it was alright with us boys when she cooked up a batch of syrup cookies.

We boys lived at home while we lived at the Horn Place. I remember eating only two meals at our neighbors house and a few times at Oscar's. The neighbor boys liked my mother's cooking.

We had a cousin Ruby Marshall who would come to see us on her vacation and stay a week. She sent us a box of books, which hit me just right, for I have always read everything I could get my hands on and the only paper we took was the semi-weekly farm news.

Our Religious upbringing. We went to church and behaved ourselves. We went to the Little Hope Church. In those days it was just townfolk who had church every Sunday. Little Hope had it on the Third Sunday and Odell on the First Sunday. Bro. J. C. Dias was the pastor when we went to Odell. He lived at Clawson and rode a mule to his appointments. He didn't get much money because there wasn't much money around.

Chester accepted Christ and united with the church while we lived on the Horn Place. Mother didn't ding dong religion at us, she just lived it. If there was a need she was ready to fill it. I remember when she would sit up with sick folk for weeks at a time. We lived in a time when everybody feared God to a certain degree.

Well, two years on the Horn Place. Abundant crop. A little money. Chester getting old enough so he thought he had to have a saddle horse. So Him and Mother bought a horse, one of those singlefooters. A real nice looker. A deep roan. But he didn't care whether he pulled his share of the load or not.

Uncle John Durham had a place over at Little Hope he offered to sell, for so much down. We had been paying third and fourth rent all along. Mother and Chester bought it. The house we had lived in once before. Was just two rooms. We had two beds in the living room and one in the far end of the kitchen.

We made several years without bed springs. We had two or three feather beds. You had to have something under them. Every year we would empty the bottom ticks that were filled with grass and go down to the old watermelon row and pull a fresh supply of grass. You could sleep warm and comfortable with that combination.

Grandmother sat and pieced quilts. Some were really string quilts. She did it all. They would put up a quilt frame in a place where there was no room for a quilt frame.

We had two wooden bedsteads and as there was no Raid or Hotshot every so often they took them down and used hot soap suds. The rest of the time they used coal-oil, which didn't smell like perfume.

We scrubbed our floor with white sand and ever so ofter we scrubbed our chairs with soap and sand.

We made one good crop and had a happy year. After we got through gathering the crop Chester decided to get married. He was courting Laura Scarborough, who lived down Oak Flat way. I don't know how they did it but they raked up enough stuff to start housekeeping. First in a little shack, then he rented land from Mr. Ben Nerren, across Linsen Creek.

We worked and it rained. We didn't make so good a crop the second year so Mother let it go back to Uncle John. Somehow she found and rented a part of the Wilson Farm. During that time she married Weed Wilson, who became head of the house. They had one son, Pascal Reading. Mr. Wilson was a good farmer but drank to excess. He couldn't get along very well with others. After the crop was laid by Louis left home. Arthur, Henry and I hung on. Weed got to drinking more. Not seeing any benefits ahead Arthur and I decided to leave home. We talked to Mother, she said there didn't seem to be any thing for us there so it was o.k. with her. We made a little bundle of our clothes and walked off. It wasn't but seven miles to where Chester lived, he had landed back on the Horn Place. Meanwhile Mother had given Louis money to buy a horse. He and Chester were farming together.

A Church of Christ preacher who had recently moved into the community had to be gone much of the time so he hired me to stay with his folk. Not much work to it.

Arthur worked wherever he could find something to do. Louis moved to what we refered to as the Old Maid Lynn's Place to make a crop.

The Preacher Wilhite had a wife and three daughters and one son. The kids ranged in age from about fifteen down. They were scared to stay by themselves, scared of thunder. They liked to go to church even though it was a Baptist Church. Preacher Wilhite moved his family to a little farm so we had a garden and raised a few acres of corn and cotton.

It was wartimes. Louis had to register, but the war ended before they got to him.

I guess I got restless, I decided to move. Arthur took my place, and helped gather the crop. I got a letter from a cousin of mine who had left home and was down at Woodville. He said if I would come down we would go to Beaumont to hunt a job. I wrote and told him to meet the train with his ticket and we landed in Beaumont.

Without any idea of how to hunt a job, just a couple of greehhorns, we started out. We took a job on a rice farm a few miles out of Fannett. After we got out there and spent the night he put me to driving a pair of balky horses. I couldn't get them to pull so I just told him if that was all he had for me to do I wouldn't do it. About dinner time it came a hard rain. It doesn't take a hard rain to wet a rice farm. Lane and I told him we were quitting. He pulled out a check book and wrote us a check. We went to town, which was just a whistle stop and presented our checks to the owner of the store, where he said we could get it cashed. The clerk was kind-of dubious but the owner of the store came in and said it was o.k.

It wasn't long until the train came in and we were bound for Galveston. We fooled aroung the next day and went out on the beach. The next morning we went down to the Employment Office. It was not open so we were just standing around waiting when here came one of those big policemen. He ask us who we were and what we were doing, so we told him. He said "everybody works in Galveston". He took us to the Employment Office and ask if they could fix us up with a job. They said o.k. so the next thing we knew we were on a motor boat going down the intercoastal canal to Freeport, where we went to work on a dredger in the canal. It was a wet. mosquito ridden job. When we got our first months pay we went over to Freeport and caught a train to Houston.

Lane was homesick by then but I hadn't gotten all of Galveston I wanted so I went back and got a job in a wholesale grocery business. I worked there about three weeks and then caught a train for home.

The Wilhites had moved to Lufkin. I got a job at the box factory and boarded with them. Along toward spring Louis wanted me to go in with him and rent the Lynn Place. It rained, it overflowed, then it rained some more. On the l9th of June I told him he could have my part. He had married Lucile Wilhite and was living in the Henry Lynn house.

I went to Houston and joined the Navy. After a short stint I got a discharge and returned to Huntington. Worked for Weed and Chester free gratis. They were both in a tight.

Sniped on the Cottonbelt and T & NO Railroads. Louis had moved to Electra. I caught a train to Jacksonville, (I don't know why). Stayed all night and caught the T & NO for Dallas, another night, then caught the Ft. Worth and Denver Train for Electra. Louis was working in a confectionary. I went out to the wheat farms and worked until the thrashing crews were ready to move off. I got a job digging a basement under a high school building. Feet got to itching so I caught a train to Ft. Worth. Went to Waxahachie. Met a fellow in Waxahacie who hired me to go down to Ennis. Helped to put down a gas system. After a little while I met a man who lived about ten miles from Ennis who needed a cotton picker. After a couple weeks of that I caught a train for home. Arriving at the train station I met Arthur, Russell Robertson and Ben Gandy headed for the West Texas cotton fields. Mother was living in Huntington so I went to her house, told her howdy and goodby and headed for Taylor in Williamson County. We got a job with some of those German people. The boys weren't satisfied after a few days so we moved on to Youngs Port, a little country town. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. On the banks of the Lampasas River. If we were only farther west. So to Brownwood, to Sweetwater. Russell had started having chills about every other day. He thought he would get better if we went farther west but it didn't do him any good so when we got to Sweetwater Arthur and I pitched in and gave Russell money for a ticket and put him on the train for home. Ben had left us at Brownwood. A while later Arthur headed for Electra and I for home.

Uncle John Durham wanted to hire me as a farm hand. He offered me thirty dollars a month and agreed to pay me fifteen dollars a month pay and the rest when five months was up. He then decided not to make a crop so he traded his deal with Dow Nerren. Which I okayed. When the time was up he begged me to stay two more weeks, then he paid me off.

I worked for Jimmie Walters gathering his crop and for Uncle Matt grubbing stumps on the right of way for the road below Little Hope. With a few dollars in my pocket and a girl who I had been inlove with for a long time, and the consent of her parents, on Saturday, the fourteenth of January we were married, while sitting in a Model T Ford, by a Bro. Bagley, Pastor at Odell.

Louis, Arthur and I had bought the Henry Lynn Place once when Mother had left Weed. She went back. It was empty. We didn't have a honeymoon. We went to Mr. Colliers and spent the night. The next day I borrowed a wagon and went to Mother's and to Lufkin to buy dishes. Mother had given us a table and a mattress. Chester had given me an old stove. Mrs. Collier gave Dora a feather bed and a bedstead. When I got back from Lufkin I drove the wagon under the wagonshed and it snowed that night.

As quick as we could Dora's brother, Bud, and I went down there, unloaded, and got some wood. The next day we started housekeeping, (At the Henry Lynn Place.)

Henderson had put up a sawmill on the old field down the road a couple of miles. Arthur wanted to stay with us while he worked. Then Dora's uncle Lee Nerren wanted to stay with us. It was o.k. Uncle Lee was a logger for the mill. I worked a couple of days at the mill. They hauled the lumber to a planer at Huntington. Arthur got a job driving a team for Uncle Dan and Lee's brother moved close to the mill so Uncle Lee moved in with them.

I didn' make any bumper crops, but I didn't do bad. I helped Tom and Bud gather their corn and they helped me gather mine.

After a couple of years, seeing that we were not making enough to pay off the notes we got just a little out of it and Jimmy Walters took up the notes.

Chester had built a rent house on his place he had bought at Shawnee Prairie. Henry came down and wanted to work with me. So we made a good crop together that year.

Dora wasn't satisfied. She was pretty much of a mother's girl, though she would go with me whereever I went. Tom wanted me to come and help work the place as Bud was getting married, so we moved again. We made some good crops and some failures. We always had hogs to kill and cows to milk and chickens running around.

In 1928 Louis moved up close to Grapeland. We went to visit Him. We decided to move up there. We took his team and wagon and came back home and bought a little black mule. We loaded things we had to have and headed back up there. We went by Dora's Uncle's ,Mr. John Colliers, near Ratcliff and spent the night and went on the next day. The little mule I bought wouldn't lead behind the wagon, so I had to work him and lead the horse. He gave out before we got there so we just spent the night in the wagon, and went on the next day.

Before we got the crop laid by the preacher had moved to San Augustine and Lucile thought she had to move down there. I finished the crop and made the summer. The Wilhites came by and took Dora to see her folks.

I liked that country with the spring branches, but Dora wanted to move back home, and they wanted us too, so when I got the crop gathered I sold the mule and a bunch of nice chickens, and caught a bus. (We had raised the corn.) We had to go up to Palestine and come down by Rusk. Mr. Woodrom took a truck and got our furniture.

I didn't move any more until 1941.

In 1929 a son was born. We named him Calvin Sherrill.

We just farmed and then the depression set in and I worked at anything that came along.

A daughter, born in 1933, we named Virginia Ruth.

In 1940 Dora underwent an operation. It was another one of those wet years. I owed a couple of Doctors and the Groceryman. I planted a field in June. It was knee deep in water before dark. I told them I was going to Houston to see if I could find work. The depression was still on. Finally I found work on a construction job. It played out and I found a job pretty close to home (Alamo Iron Works). Pascal and I had rented a house together. My Mother wasn't satisfied so they moved out. Dora was sick most of the time we were in Houston. We would come to Huntington in the summer and we all made it home for Christmas.

Dora's Mother fell and broke her hip. She died in 1946. Tom and Zack wanted us to come back, so I moved again.

Tom and I spent our winters trapping. We made more clear money trapping than we did farming.

Zack was working at Brown's Filling Station. He bought a little Belsaw sawmill and we sawed enough lumber to build a house. We had to pay to get it planed. We built a six room house with one bath and bought a washing machine, a stove and a refrigerator and moved in.

My Mother died in 1953. My brother Chester died in 1969. Henry died 1/16/76, Louis in 1983, Arthur in 1988.

We had our 50th Wedding Anniverary in 1972. Dora died the last day of 1974.

The kids had gotten married. Calvin to Effie Richardson. Virginia to James Ivy. Each one has a son and a daughter. Calvin lost a 2 year old son with polio. I have seven great-grandchildren, three girls and four boys. Growing like weeds.

In 1970 I had a Duodenal Ulcer Operation. I had a blockage in my intestine. Another operation in 1980. Made it okay there cooking for Zack and myself until I had another attack. Back in the hospital. This time Virginia moved me over to her house in the Salem Community at Huntington. Then they moved to Etoile on lake Sam Rayburn and I have been a star boarder ever since. Here I am not so bad off, can get out and walk a mile or so. I know I have left out some of the joys and sorrows but they were of yesterday.

Found later in Daddy's writing:

They had a bunch of Bird Dog puppies. Jeff Davis told my Dad he would give him a pup if he would take and train one of them for him. He brought them down, a red speckeled and a liver colored one. He gave my Dad the liver colored one, which we named Jeff. So he became the companion we boys needed.

As Grandmother had come to live with us, she was already pretty old, but she could watch after the ones not big enough to work and when there was anything to boil for dinner. I remember that in the fall of the year Mother would pick a mess of peas and shell them that night. As it was getting cool they built a fire for Grandma. She would put the peas in a cast iron pot. She would rake some coals out onto the hearth and set the pot on them, then she would sit in her rocking chair and when we came in for dinner they would be ready. They were old speckled field peas and I still think they were the best peas I ever ate.

I promised you a letter when it (his birthday) was over. I don’t think anything is ever over. I have found a lot of people think that 99 is a big number. Since I had my birthday it’s not so big, just a number. I don’t have any Marshall news although I spent Christmas with part of them. I will just tell you a few things nobody else remembers. First, every Marshall was a character. Uncle Matt (Dawn’s great-great grandfather) for instance was the most gentle of men. But don’t step on him. Like when a man made some remarks about Bertha. One day Uncle Matt heard about a wagon traveling the road in front of his house with the man sitting flat on the floor. Uncle stopped the wagon, climbed up on it and caught the man by the collar and said, "Carl I am going to beat hell out of you." Arthur stopped it. Or uncle Dan sitting on a bench at Chester Davis' filling station with Mr. Bodie Davis said Fuller/Fulton brought that mule in here, got a bet up, all the candy he could eat if he went right. Made himself sick. I don’t know much about my Dad. My hard luck, but when he went squirrel hunting he carried a .22 rifle. They knew better than give him the first shot. I was eight years when he died but I still love him. My dad never lived to see what his future would bring about. His children never got to be popular until one of them made 99. Isn’t that something. The Marshall boys tended to their own business, answered the call to war if it was right or if it was wrong. I guess you won’t care about this scribbling. That’s all I know. So long. Virginia and I love you. Drayden Marshall