Bend, Texas
Chapter 8 - Moore Reunion

by Harland Moore

‹ Page 7

In the summer of 1935 we had a Moore reunion on the Lampasas side of the river near the Bend bridge. It was a big reunion . My grandfather and four of his brothers were there and one of his sisters. Many of their children and grand children were there. I have an enlarged photo of the group.

In the fall of 1935, Mary started to school. Her first teacher was Miss Ethel Roberts. We walked two miles to school and back every school day, Mary was awful little and couldn't walk very fast. I would get into plenty of trouble if I got home late so I was always urging her to hurry up. I used to tell that I carried her piggy back and run with her. Mary said that she believed that happened only once when she had a sore foot. Any way, it makes a good story.

By spring of 1936 we had moved to a place called Puddin' Valley. The place belonged to Uncle Frank Moore and joined his home place across the slough. The place was made up of deep sandy soil. Part of the place was in cultivation but part was covered with tall post oak trees. It was from these tall trees that Uncle Frank and his son, Martin had built a log house. It had two large rooms with a hall between them with a dining area and a kitchen at the back end of the hall. The house was finished inside with plywood panels. It wasn't too old when we moved in it and it was about the nicest house we lived in. There was a hand dug well in the back yard. I guess it was twenty five feet deep. We drew water from the well with a rope and a bucket. We kept a water bucket on a shelf in the kitchen. As often as I filled it up, it was always empty, but the biggest task was drawing wash water. I had to fill the wash pot and two tubs just to start the washing.

That spring and summer I worked a lot for Uncle Frank. He was Grandpa Silas Moore's brother and was seven years older than Grandpa. He was born in Tennessee and came to Texas as an infant with his parents Seth Martin Moore and Demarius Frances Alexander Moore. He grew up on the Texas frontier, helped his father build a ferry boat across the Colorado River and as a youngster he carried the mail horseback from near Lometa to Bend. Then while very young he went to work as a cowboy and drove cows up the ChisholmTrail. He was gone nine months on that trail drive. I used to listen to him with my mouth open in awe as he told of things that happened on the trail. Daddy and Uncle Frank taught me how to bud pecan trees. We budded paper shell pecans onto lots of large trees in the central Texas area. We also budded a lot of small seedlings in Uncle Frank' nursery. He paid me a dollar and a half a day for pecan work. I also did a lot of labor or farm work, such as plowing with a Georgia stock or breaking land with a one-horse turning plow. I also helped him gather corn into a wagon and put it in the barn. I earned six bits a day for this. He later raised my wages to a dollar a day for labor and two dollars for pecan work. I was still 13 years old, but a lot of grown men would have been glad to have any kind of job that paid a dollar a day. I remember that Uncle Frank had a long snap top purse that he carried in his side pocket. It was stuffed full of greenbacks and he would pay me in cash. His wife, Aunt Mame, used to tell him that he carried too much money and that somebody would slug him and take it all. He said, "I had my money in that Lometa bank when it went broke and I lost it without a Chineman's chance, If I have it on me I at least have a fighting chance."

That summer the boys around Bend went swimming in the river or Cherokee Creek. I never heard it called "skinny dipping" at that time but we just peeled off and hit the water. It was usually after some one had yelled, "The last one in is a rotten egg!" When I used to ask Mother if I could go swimming, she would say "Well, alright, but if you drown, young man, I am going to wear you out."

It was about time for the summer church meeting at Bend. The men got together and repaired the old brush arbor and added some additional cedar brush on top of the old brush. They cleaned out the weeds and set the benches in order. Most church meetings were held under arbors because it was too hot in the building in the summer. The church building at Bend was erected shortly after an acre and a half of land was purchased from D. F. Moore [Uncle Frank] in June of 1911. The deed was made to E.Doss [Grandpa Edward], L.E. Doss [his oldest son Uncle Licurgus] and to H.W. Alexander [Great Uncle Woodson] Before that time the church met across the river in the Marley or Alexander home. In 1936 some things seemed a little different. That is some of the men actually knelt on their knees during the prayer. We did not have separate class rooms, so the different classes met in different corners of the building. I also remember that we did not have individual communion cups in a tray, but we took the fruit of the vine from two snuff glasses. It should be noted that the worship was exactly the same as now. We studied and preached from the bible. We prayed, had communion services, gave of our means and sang and made melody in our hearts without instrumental music. I can still remember Uncle Will Alexander as he got up to lead singing. He had white mustache and he would have a folded handkerchief in his hand. He would wipe his mustache with the handkerchief and clear his throat twice, "Ahem--Ahem". Then he would start singing while keeping time with the hand with the handkerchief in it. They taught water baptism for the remission of sins. The Gospel meeting always lasted ten days or two weeks. That year Damon Smith Led singing and Clem Hoover did the preaching. I made the most important decision of my life and was baptized in Cherokee Creek.

That fall I had planned to celebrate my birthday with a picnic on the island in the Colorado River just above the bridge. About that time heavy rains fell up around Colorado City and on Brady Creek and the San Saba River. All that water came down in one great flood and on my birthday, September 20, that island was covered in about thirty feet of water. And so was a large area around Bend. Uncle Jess and Aunt Marie lived in a house near the end of the bridge. I remember helping Uncle Jess move some of their things out in a boat. Farther up on the slough water had surrounded Uncle Frank's house. I don't remember what Daddy and Uncle Frank were doing but I was assigned to take the row boat and go after Aunt Mame. I had to paddle for about a quarter of a mile from Puddin' Valley to get to Aunt Mame's house. Their house was built high off the ground. It seems to me that the flood water was almost to the floor level when I rowed the boat up to the door and Aunt Mame got aboard. I recall that I had a little trouble getting the boat through her clothes lines in the back yard. Lucky for us the water was not swift there but it was back water from the river up into the slough. Aunt Mame spent a night or two with us. When the water receded Daddy and I spent a lot of time helping them clean up. The water had completely flooded Uncle Frank's Barn and all his corn was soaked. Daddy and I helped him to shuck all that corn and spread it out to dry. The corn would have been completely ruined and lost if we had not done this.

Mary was in the second grade at Bend that fall and Mrs. Ledbetter was her teacher. We walked across country from Puddin' Valley, across the old Bend bridge, right through down town Bend and up that steep hill to the school house. Mr. Billy Ledbetter was my teacher and basket ball coach. We have a picture of him and the entire basketball team of five players and one substitute. Members of the team were: Foy Gibson, Harland Moore, Milford Marley, Clyde Sims, J.M. Bearden and Osborn Lewis. We did all our training and playing on an outdoor court made of gravel and adobe dirt that had been graded and packed. The first time I ever played in a gym was in a tournament at the Howard Payne Gym in Brownwood. We played San Saba and Dean Bagley the football great was on their team.. We barely got beat but the gym floor was sure hard and slick.

That was the last year that they had High School at Bend. Daddy moved us to Comanche County and I went to High School at De Leon where I graduated in 1940.

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