The Crystal Lady

Genealolgy

Goolsby Family History
By James Z. Goolsby
©2003

Goolsby Family Life in New Mexico

Life in Northern New Mexico was hard and they fought all the elements, hail, drought, grasshoppers and many others. Totsie remembers her dad trading milk, eggs, horses and anything he possibly could to get by. She says her dad built a small blacksmith shop in the barn where he sharpened plow shares and did other repairs for the neighbors. She recalls that she stood on a bucket to turn the blower to keep the forge fire going for him.

J.Z. said he remembered taking a wagon trip to Springer, to get supplies for the family. He also recalled trips of the same nature to Clayton, Mills and all over. One particular time he was hauling drilling pipe for a man and the wagon broke a wheel going down the escarpment into the bottom of the Ute Creek. They didn't have any food and it was a day and a half before they found a sheepherder who gave them some "TORTILLAS", he said that was the best durn food he had ever eaten. While living in the Pasamonte area, J.Z. was able to finish the eighth grade, which was as high as the school taught.

Totsie remembers that about this time they had a Model-T truck, she thinks that J.Z. traded for it. Mama never drove and one day she went with Bud to get some fire wood, they came to a gate and Bud showed Mama how to drive through the gate. All went well and on the way back she decided to drive through the gate by herself, things started to happen! Mama accidentally hit the accelerator lever before getting under the steering wheel, needless to say the truck took off with Mama yelling. She got the steering wheel turned where the truck was just going in circles with her yelling for Bud to help. Bud was really laughing and jumped on the running board and got the truck stopped, this was the one and only time that Mama ever tried to drive.

Totsie remembers that one time grandpa and some friends went to Eagle Nest fishing and when they came back they had milk cans filled with salted down fish. The only time Totsie ever remembers her Daddy ever come close to swearing was one day he got mad at a horse and called him a "Son of a Peanut". She said there were worms that bit them and caused them to itch (Range Caterpillars). She had Scarlet Fever and one day Mama caught her out behind the barn with the back of her dress pulled up over her head. When her Mama asked what she was doing, she said she was "cooling her itches".

J.Z. wasn't contented at home so he and a friend, Buster Foster, left and headed for Abilene, Texas looking for work. On the way they stopped at the Charlie Goodnight Ranch and got a job punching cows, J.Z. was a good cowboy and did a lot of bronc busting. While there they were told to move a heard of Buffalo to a pasture a few miles away. J.Z. said that was the hardest darn herding job he had ever had and he and Buster soon moved on to Abilene to pick cotton. This must have been sometime around 1923 as Oreta said she was just two or three when he left home

 At the homestead things weren't going too well, Daddy had a stroke and wasn't able to work much more. On Sundays the family would go to church and Mama would put blankets in the bottom of the wagon so Daddy could lie down and listen to the service. After Daddy had the stroke Mama had to turn him from side to side with a blanket as he couldn't move himself. In those days when a doctor didn't know what to do with a patient they would tell them to move to a lower climate, so our parents were told to move from the homestead. Since his health was bad they decided to move back closer to his brother and sisters in Texas. Daddy and Mama let some people move into our house and they agreed to pay the Taxes for their rent.

So we packed up two wagons with two teams of horses each and headed back to Hawley. There was a chicken coop of game hens and a cow or two tied on the back of one wagon and extra horses tied to the other. Totsie said she was about 6 years old when they started to move back and she can remember Bill, Frances and her having to push the wagon to help get out of mud holes and washes. Oreta was only 3 but she remembers the wagons having to be unloaded and double teamed to get them out of ditches when they were stuck. It was a real long hard trip for all of us and people along the way would look out their windows like it was really a sight to see (and I guess it was). We would camp along the way to rest the horses and cook over buckets of sand mixed with kerosene, Daddy had fixed bars across the bucket tops. All we had to do was stir the sand a little and light a match to it and it would light right up. Oreta remembers camping beside a stream, which she and Totsie walked along. There they found some fossilized snails embedded in the stream bed walls and listened to the mourning doves coo, she said it was such a peaceful place. Daddy traded horses along the way and made a little money, which he used to buy groceries, we ate a lot of cheese and crackers on the trip.

Oreta recalls their first stop was in Texline and they stayed there for a short time. Totsie recalls going on to Moore County, North of Amarillo, where Daddy took a job as straw boss on a farm. We stayed about a year at the farm that belonged to a Mr. Farlow and picked the first cotton us kids had ever seen. We enrolled and went to school there as well as working in the fields. From there we moved to Amarillo where we stayed for awhile before moving on to Anson. where we stayed a couple of weeks with Uncle Oscar & Aunt  Cleavie  (Dad's sister), and their four children Elizabeth, Frances (Jim),  O.J., and Clyde and their big Airedale dogs. Oreta remembers Elizabeth kissing her dogs on the mouth, since we were not dog family we looked slightly down our noses at the act. We then went on to Hawley to what we called "The Ant Farm" because there were so many Big Red Ants on it. It was a weather beaten old house made from hit and miss boards, typical of houses from the early 1900's. While living here I  (Totsie) would go with daddy to fix fence, I would drive the wagon along and daddy would take posts out as we went. Here I saw my first scorpion, it was coming towards me and I called daddy for "Help"! He said what is it? and here he came a running. I said "It's a turn-up-tail", I didn't know what it was! He killed it and really had a good laugh at my expense.

Oreta said that one day she and her dad were pulling cotton beside each other, and she told him if he would sit down and rest she would give him a dollar bill. He laughed and said okay and sat down, she gave him a dollar bill which Totsie and her had found leaning against a cotton stalk where the wind had blown it. He was shocked because he didn't even think she knew what a dollar bill was. Some days us girls would make "Frog Houses" by packing wet sand around the front part of our feet.

Oreta remembers that they got their water from sink holes for drinking and household needs and Mama would put cactus leaves in it to settle the water. That summer Bill got some sort of blood disease, probably from contaminated water, and had boils all over him. Mama fed him raisins by the box full, she said they would purify his blood. We moved from there out to the Guitar farm at the edge of the Shinery (sand hills covered with oak brush and trees) where we lived for about a year. While living there Daddy, Bill, Frances & I would walk to church on Sundays, it was about two miles. We also walked to school every day which was about the same distance. Daddy heard about a little house in Hawley, so we moved into it and bought it, paying it out by the year. It was a dirty old house on 4 lots and there was no grass growing in the yard, so there was plenty of work to do.

Daddy was a very religious man and went to church every Sunday as long as he was able. He also liked to go fishing so we walked to the river (Clear Fork of the Brazos) and did a lot of fishing. Some days when we went to the creek fishing, Daddy was on crutches, the first thing he would do when we got there was to take off his shoes and soak his feet. Sometimes we would catch enough fish for our evening meal. Daddy was musically turned, he played the Fiddle (as he called it) and also played the organ (he had an organ when we lived in Pasamonte but traded it for a piano in 1921 so that Frances could learn how to play the piano). J.Z. said daddy could really tap dance too (as good as any darkie he ever saw). He would get out his fiddle & rosin his bow and would say Tom "Cut Squaw Will" and I (Totsie) would cut a jig while he played his fiddle.

He sat his watch-making tools up in the front window of Dr. Fatheree's  Drug Store in Hawley. Daddy was a watch maker in his Jack-of-all-trades and did pretty good at it. He would take care of the store and wait on customers when the doctor was out on calls or was real busy. I  (Totsie) would go down to the store with Daddy and Dr. Fatheree would always give me a soda, he really had me spoiled. Oreta also remembers going to the store with her Daddy, he was on crutches and she would skip along beside him. She said it seemed like it took them forever to get there but it really wasn't very far away, she was about five years old at the time. She went with her dad to the store, while the rest of the family went to the fields to work. Oreta tells that in the winter her dad would teach her to read and write. Though she wasn't able to go to school because of her age, she could read and write thanks to her dad's great help. Dr. Fatheree passed away about 1926 and Daddy moved his watch repair into our house.

However soon after that he got real sick and Mama took him to Abilene to Aunt Clyde's (Daddy's sister) house so he could be close to the doctor. Mama and Oreta went with him and Frances, Bill and Totsie stayed home to go to school. When dad took real ill someone went for the children, Frances left two large tubs of dirty clothes wash water in the kitchen. Daddy died in Abilene on April 18, 1927. When we got back home after the funeral, we found someone had broken into our house and slept in our beds. The first thing Mama said was get that dirty water out of the house! They started to move the tubs and they were "too heavy", it was then we discovered that the thieves had cooked our food and put the dishes in the dirty clothes wash water. They also stole some of Daddy's watch tools and some watches he had been working on for other people. Oreta said, "Daddy spoiled me rotten and Mama never could get me out of it". He was my very best friend and I missed him greatly. Totsie remembers this part much different, she said her sister Frances was keeping house and didn't like washing dishes so she put them in the tubs. She also said Frances had left the beds unmade and there wasn't any food in the house for the thieves to cook, so this part differs between Totsie and Oreta. Our Daddy always said he was a Jack-of-All-Trades and not worth a "Plugged Nickel" at any of them.

After J.Z. moved away from home and Daddy died there was just Mama, Frances, Bill, Totsie and Oreta left to keep the home fires burning. Oreta says she knows now what her mother's purpose in life was after dad died. It was to raise us children to the best of her ability and try to urge us to get the very best education possible. Life was hard and there sure wasn't very much money, Mama and us kids did a little of everything to get by. We all picked cotton, chopped cotton, headed maize, pulled corn and did other farm work for our neighbors. Bill and I (Totsie) would stack peanuts each fall so they could be trashed. We always took a 100 pound sack of peanuts for part of our pay. Mama also took in washing, our well went dry and we carried the wash water from our neighbors to wash the clothes and our bodies. She also did ironing for extra money. We had a vegetable garden and cellar in the back yard so Mama did a lot of vegetable canning and filled the cellar with canned goods. When Totsie was older she worked at the Library and made a little bit of money for us kids school supplies. We also cleaned houses for the school teachers in the area, just about anything for a nickel or two.

One day when Oreta came home her Mama was mad "As an Old Wet Hen", (as she was always saying). When asked what was the matter she said "An Old No Account Married Man Came by the garden and Propositioned Me"! Oreta asked her Mama what she did and she said "I Hit Him with a Hoe!!” Oreta said, sometimes when I think of Mama's poor feet and the bunions growing on them, and I wonder how she ever managed the miles she had to walk. Sometimes wearing discarded men's shoes that were sizes too large for her.

We were poor but we always got new shoes when school started. When the soles wore out Mama would get some sole leather cut new out new soles and put the shoes on the lasts and nail the new ones on. One of our relatives said they heard we went to school barefooted, we said no but that we did share our shoes with pages from Sears Roebuck. We weren't the only kids who were poor, but we thought that any kid who had a father Was Rich.

When we were young we sat outside on warm summer evenings. There were few electric lights to compete with the stars in the sky, so we could easily see the Big and Little Dippers and the Milky Way. We were also privileged to see meteor showers as the bits and pieces fell towards Earth. When we sometimes saw a shooting star, we would yell "Money, Money, Money" until we couldn't see it fall any more. For saying the word "Money" while the star was falling was supposed to bring us good fortune. The more times we could say "Money" the larger our fortune was sure to be.

We also chased fireflies around the yard. We were fascinated by the way they turned their tail lights on and off while they flew through the night air. They seemed to rise and dip without a care, always seeming to know where they wanted to go.

Us kids all attended and graduated from Hawley High School, after graduating Bill went to stay with J.Z. and Lillie in Raymondville. Bill came home for awhile and wanted me to go back to Bud's with him, so I (Totsie) spent three months of my tenth grade there. Life wasn't all work as we participated in sports, Totsie was even chosen to the basketball ALL STAR team one year. She played baseball, basketball and tennis and won ribbons and school letters in all sports, (Totsie says I was pretty good even if I do say so). Bill played basketball for the high school and was quite good too. We had our school parties that we attended and dances at different homes to go to, but if there was any church doings we went to them first. Mama was a strong church person and we all got our religion.

We used to get together in a group and go down to Abilene where there were several dance halls. We did a lot of dancing and it was at one of these dance halls, "The Blankenship", that Totsie first met Melvin Montgomery, and Bill met Beth Stokes. Oreta met Jesse e at a dance at the American Legion Hall after she had graduated from High School and left home.

Oreta went to the Rio Grande Valley to visit J.Z. and Lillie only once and upon returning found her Mama had gotten a letter saying the homestead in Pasamonte was being auctioned off for back taxes. It seems the renters never bothered to pay the taxes as they promised to do. By the time we could get up there the property was already gone. Oreta says she never had traveled a great deal and couldn't know what her future life would bring.