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Jot
Em Down by
Bob Bowman | |
Anyone
who listened to the radio in the l930s and 1940s remembers Lum and Abner,
the mythical storekeepers invented by Chet Lauck and Norris Goff.
From
their Jot 'Em Down Store in Pine Ridge, Arkansas, Lum and Abner evolved into one
of the nation's most popular radio series.
But if you ask old timers in
Delta County, Texas, they'll tell you with pride that they remember when the Jot
'Em Down Store was in East Texas.
Also known as Mohegan, Muddig Prairie
and Bagley, Jot 'Em Down was on the James H. Larabee Survey, which was occupied
by 1885 when the Bagley school opened.
In 1937, when Lela McDonnold,
the wife of pioneer farmer Pleasant T. McDonnold, had a heart attack, the doctor
said it was the result of doing the laundry by hand for her eight children down
through the years.
One of her sons, blind Dion McDonnold, decided that
he would build a washateria and a country store on his property to make it easier
for women in the community to do the laundry and, hopefully, extend their lives.
Dion and a brother, Doug, who lived in nearby Pecan Gap, called a meeting
of the people in the community to see if they would support a washateria. The
prospect of no longer having to fill a wash pot in the yard, boil out clothes,
rinse them in several tubs of fresh water, and then wring them out by hand was
understandably enthusiastic.
When Doug and Dion asked for suggestions
for the store's name, someone suggested "the Jot 'Em Down store," which was the
name of Lum and Abner's radio establishment. "And there," said a kibitzer, pointing
to Doug and Dion, "are our Lum and Abner."
The McDonnolds had a large pond
built to hold water for the washateria, terraced the land so it would funnel rain
water to the pond, and started construction of a combination store and laundry.
Unfortunately, Lela died before its completion.
The Jot 'Em Down Store
was an immediate success. Customers came from early in the morning until late
at night. Dion had to set up a lunch counter to accommodate customers.
When the Texas Highway Department started looking for the town's name to put on
maps, officials used Jot 'Em
Down, and the name stuck.
When Jot 'Em Down's farmers starting talking
about a cotton gin since the pond built by the McDonnolds could furnish sufficient
water for the gin's needs, the Jot 'Em Down Cooperative Gin Association was born.
During World War II, Jot 'Em Down began to change with other East Texas communities.
Most of the community's men marched off to war and its women moved to towns like
Dallas and Fort Worth to find jobs in defense industries.
And when rural
electrification came along and home washing machines and dryers became readily
available, there was no longer a need for the Jot 'Em Down Washateria. The store
also found it could not compete with larger grocery stores in neighboring towns
like Cooper and farmers carried their cotton to larger towns to be ginned.
Today, there is little left of old Jot
'Em Down on the wide-open blackland praiaries in far western Delta County.
The town's highway signs are stolen as quickly as they are placed on the roadside.
The
old radio series, The Lum and Abner Show, disappeared from the radio airwaves
decades ago. Chet Lauck and Norris Goff are also gone, but there is still a Jot
'Em Store and Lum and Abner Museum at Pine Ridge, a dozen or so miles east of
Mena, Arkansas. |
All
Things Historical >
October 1, 2006 Column
Published with permission
(Distributed by the East
Texas Historical Association. Bob Bowman of Lufkin is a fomer president of the
Association and the author of more then 30 books about East Texas.) |
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