Benfamin Franklin Yeates and Ama Regina Shetter Yeates
Cemetery List | Home Page | Table of Contents | E-Mail
The TXGenWeb Project
  Dickens County
  USGenWeb Project

Dickens County Biographies

In Remembrance of

B.F. and Regina Yeates
Frank and Regina Yeates
rose spray
separator bar

Service


Biography

Two outstanding citizens who largely contributed to the settlement of Dickens County were the late B.F. Yeates and wife Regina.

B.F. Yeates came to this territory in the year, 1882, as a young man. He was born in Mulberry, Tennessee, November 24, 1857. Frank Yeates, as he was called, moved to Texas with his parents, while still quite young, settling at Mansfield, Texas, near Fort Worth. A few years later he left Tarrant County and came to Haskell, Texas, in about 1882. Here he grazed horses from Haskell up to the community of Old Emma on the plains and around that part of the West.

While still single he lived in a half dug-out house somewhere around Old Emma and on the head of Grapevine Creek. Later he bought a two room house from C.M. Buchanan of Pansy, and moved it to his claim (the present home of Mr. and Mrs. Homer Hughes, north of Glenn). To this home he brought his bride, Regina, after he returned to Mansfield, Texas, for her. Regina Shetter was the daughter of John C. and Mary Jane Shetter. She was born August 25, 1875, at Tehuacana Hills, Texas in Limestone County.

They were married July 4, 1899, in Mansfield, Texas, by the Reverend French, a Presbyterian minister, in the home of Jim Yeates, B.F.'s brother.

They left at once for Dickens County. They came to West Texas in a covered wagon, arriving at the home of the Collette family, near what is now Roaring Springs, for their first night in the new country. From there they traveled on to their home, where they lived all the rest of their lives. Here all the Yeates children were born. To this couple seven children were born; five are still living. They include H.I. Yeates of Afton; Mrs. Belle Yeates Hinson of Afton; Mrs. Hortense Yeates Goodwin of Afton; Tom Yeates of Roaring Springs; Mrs. Eudelle Yeates Hughes of Roaring Springs.

The couple's first child, Virgel L., was born in 1900, and died at the age of about one year. One child died as an infant in 1918.

Regina Yeates passed away on March 4, 1918, leaving five small children for B.F. Yeates to rear all alone, a responsibility he proudly justified.

In 1920, B.F. Yeates built a new home, which is the present home of Mrs. Eudelle Yeates Hughes of the Duncan Flat community.

Some of my memories of my mother that stand out most in my mind are these: The way she always hustled and bustled around on early cold mornings; cooking breakfast on a woodburning stove; the sound of coffee being ground on the old coffee mill on the wall; the coming home from church with, perhaps, ten or fifteen and sometimes more people for dinner; the way she would rush to the meat house and in a few minutes, a grand dinner would be on the table; the trips to Dickens City in a buggy or hack, three or four times a year to buy our supplies for the year; the visits while there to the home of the late Bob Shields; my mother, taking care of the sick in the community and always helping with a new baby; sewing for and nursing us children when we were sick; visiting with her neighbors.

My mother had many friends; everyone loved her who knew her. My parents were strict in training on matters of right and wrong, in fact, they were typical pioneers, with a love for this new land. They were the original do-it-yourselfers with lots of patience, hard working, yet took time for fun. In this new country they carved their home and raised their family. I never appreciated my parents' sterling qualities, nor understood the dept of their feeling for their family until after they were gone, and I was grown with a family of my own.

B.F. Yeates accepted the challenge of this frontier and helped to make our country strong. He served the people as first Commissioner of Precinct One of Dickens County; was school trustee during the early days. B.F. Yeates died January 8, 1931. The above is a memory sketch of Mr. and Mrs. Yeates written by Mrs. Hortense Goodwin.

Following is a memory sketch of Mr. Yeates written by Duff

It must be kept in mind, that memory at the best is a fickle thing, and when extended beyond a half century or more it becomes quite unreliable as an accurate guide. But this, as any other report, must have a beginning or starting point, relating with my first meeting with Frank Yeates, who I chanced to meet in the summer of 1891, say July. The place of meeting was one of the few routes existing in those days, leading from the settlement lower down, on to the plains proper, called "The Llano Estacado" in 1891. The plains had few settlers, and it was looked upon as a sort of "No Man's Land."

Open, unfenced, and unsettled (and largely un-watered); a land that every one could graze, who cared to do so.

Frank Yeates was a man that raised horses and was headed for the free grass on the plains with his horses herd, possibly a hundred head or more in number. The route he was traveling came by way of Jayton, Texas, by what later became the town of Girard and Spur, or where they were built some twenty years later, where Dockum post office was located then on to the plains.

I stopped and had what might be called a roadside meeting an acquaintance that lasted as long as Frank Yeates lived. Frank was moving his horses from Haskell County to a new range on the plains, but was originally from Tarrant County, Texas, at or around Mansfield, Texas. Frank was a Bachelor and possibly near thirty years of age. I don't recall that Frank settled in Dickens County in the beginning or where he had his camp or dug-out house. I don't think he was in the Spur or Matador pastures in the beginning; later on, in the Matador range, yes.

C.M. Buchanan, also a horse raiser, settled on the head of Grapevine Creek, just outside the Matador range and he and Frank sort of worked or handled their horses together, as branding the colts, etc. Later I think Frank sort of held his horses in the North Two Buckle pasture on Blanco Canyon, and in the spring of 1898 we went there and gathered the steer yearlings and Frank Yeates was cooking for the S.R. wagon at that time. He was still single then, but could have been living north of Glenn on his homestead and married shortly afterward.

My father was a surveyor, and uncovered two sections of land just north of where Glenn is, that had never been surveyed by the state or numbered. Those two sections became scrap land, subject to being preempted or homesteaded, so my father put eight families on them. W.J. Duncan, B.F. Yeates, J.M. Jones, and C.C. Reagan on the North Section. Clad Bradford, J.J. Davis, George Davis.

This country had a little dry spell in the early eighteen nineties when the early settlers had to turn their hands to most anything to butter their biscuits. So, B.F. Yeates, Old Jake Scott, Otho Hale, and in reality most everybody trapped quails by the thousands, hauled them to Quanah where they were sold for a dollar per dozen for blue quail and a dollar and ten cents per dozen for the Bobwhites.

Once upon a time in the long ago, on the Plains laying between Blanco Canyon and the head-waters of Pease River, occasionally a black Lobo Wolf was seen, in reality several different men tried to catch it, to no avail, then it was jumped by Frank Yeates, who was riding a young horse that was scarcely bridle-wise. At one time the wolf was almost out of sight, but there were no fences, so Frank kept on running his bronco horse, then he began to gain on it and in time, caught and killed the black Lobo, had the hide dressed and kept it a long while.

Just a bit of mention of Frank Yeates' "FY" brand of horses: They were small, wiry, tough, and so mean that they never lost the desire to make their riders pull leather when first saddled, yet just about the smartest thing that ever looked through a bridle. The Spur Ranch had a brown "FY" cutting horse that was really tops, and Forbis a couple of them that were just as good. It took the best of riders to stay up if they decided to show their wares. One of them I rode for three years without his ever pitching me. He was sold to the Spur outfit, got to pitching again, and threw half the Spur riders.

I knew Regina Yeates after her marriage, but never met any of her relations that I can recall.

That quail-trapping for a living lasted a year of two, but no man went on the Plains to trap quail. The quail were like the people; they stayed off the Plains because of no protection and little of anything else, yet plenty of room.

I met Frank Yeates on the road this side of Girard, just after he entered Dickens County, and I am quite sure I was the first person he met in the county. As I recall, they had a chuck-wagon and a man or two driving the horse herd. You will understand his horses were stock horses in the main, with needed saddle horses along. Lots of men raised horses, and sold saddle horses to the ranch men.

Frank Yeates was a fine man, a good pioneer citizen that came into or passed through Dickens County a few months after the county was organized. People were so few in the county, then it was almost like being alone. Ten years after the county was organized, Dickens County voted only 125 votes, and most of them were men that worked on the Matador, Spur, and Pitchfork Ranches. As far as I now know, Lymon Crabtree is the only man left alive in Dickens County that helped to vote in its organization election. You, of course, know that women didn't vote in those days.

DUFF GREEN.

My Recollection of B.F. Yeates by Emma Buchanan Russell - Written to Mrs. Hortense Goodwin

My first memory of Mr. Yeates was about 1893, when I was three years of age. This was one of the worst drouth years on record, and I was told that the fleas got so bad on the plains that the people had to move out of their dugouts.

Mr. Yeates had pre-empted a claim on top of the plains near where his friends, the Shive family kept the old Pansy post office.

About 1895 or 1896, the Shive family moved away, back to Comanche County (a better place to rear a family, they said, and more neighbors.) They had lived about six miles west of the C.M. Buchanan's, who, at that time had a two room plank house built in 1890 or 1891. Mr. Yeates came to live with the Buchanan's for a time, maybe a year or longer and he and C.M. Buchanan ran horses together all the way from the Matador fences, a few hundred yards north and south east of the Buchanan's, to Blanco Canyon, fifteen miles to the west.

Mrs. Kate Buchanan has told of times when they were trying to tie down an unusually wild pony finally in a barely audible whisper, Yeates said "Hold him, Buch" but they never had a hard word and remained good friends until death parted them. Yeates went first in 1931; Buchanan in 1941.

It was well known and conceded that "Yeates sat a horse light"; could ride a horse longer than any other man.

Though lax in his personal appearance in the West, he made periodical trips back East to Mansfield, near fort Worth, where report came that he dressed in fashion with top and carried a cane.

Yeates was a proud man and proud of his family heritage. His forebearers came to Texas from Tennessee, as did Buchanan's. And, Yeates always said the families were related.

In about 1895 or 1896, Yeates moved to a place in Cottonwood Community, neighbor to J.M. Jones and Duncan, and grubbed out a patch to cultivate, built a horse pasture fence and a very nice two room house.

In 1899, he went back to Mansfield and returned with his bride, Regina Shetter Yeates, daughter of Mary and John Shetter. Their first child, Virgel L., born in 1900, died at the age of one year, while visiting his grandmother

All his life Mr. Yeates was a Primitive Baptist by belief, an honest debt-paying, God-fearing man; a true friend and high-minded and a good citizen.

OUR FIRST CAR by Mrs. Belle Yeates Hinson

The salesman brought this car out on a Saturday morning. As my daddy knew nothing about driving anything but a team of horses, he had to have someone drive the salesman back to his home, which was in Spur. As Uncle Bill Austin had previously bought a car, and being a friend of my dad who knew how to drive; he was the one that did the driving.

I remember going along as they took the salesman back to Spur; the part I played I don't remember, just went for the ride I guess.

The next day being Sunday, the Austin family came back to our house. My mother had fixed a picnic lunch and we all got into this new car, which was a Ford and I believe the year was 1913. We went up above the caprock. Mr. Austin was to teach my dad how to drive. There were very few fences an lots of cow trails for roads; yet, as the day went on, Dad decided he couldn't learn to drive with an audience and that he would find an easier way.

So, he put the car in the garage and there it stayed for a month or two while he studied the instruction book. At last, on a Saturday, he decided he could master this new vehicle; so he does his first driving around home taking down a gate or two. The following day the entire family loaded in and went to Gravel Hill to Church, which was the Primitive Baptist meeting place. This trip was made without any mishaps, but several buggies with fast stepping horses passed us, which was a hurt to my pride. Yet, finally he mastered the driving technique and we made several trips to Fort Worth and Dallas, which would take us about three to four days to make the trip; whereas, now we can make the same trip in only a few hours.

Source: History of Dickens County; Ranches and Rolling Plains, Fred Arrington, ©1971

Others Researching This Family


Burial Site


Headstone Photo, Inscription & Sentiments

Tombstone photo

Additional Information & Documentation

Name: Ama Regina SHETTER 
Sex: F  
Birth: 25 AUG 1875 in Texas  
Death: 4 MAR 1918 in Dickens County, Texas  
Burial: Afton Cemetery, Dickens County, Texas  

Father: John Christopher SHETTER b: ABT 1830 in Morgan County, Arkansas 
Mother: Mary Jemima NORWOOD b: 10 FEB 1836 in Alabama

Married: 3 JUL 1899 in Johnson County, Texas  
Marriage 1 Benjamin Franklin YEATES b: 24 NOV 1857 in Lincoln County, Tennessee
Sex: M  
Birth: 24 NOV 1857 in Lincoln County, Tennessee  
Death: 8 JAN 1931 in Afton Dickens, Tennessee 

Children
 Virgil L. YEATES b: 16 JUN 1900
 Henrietta Iverson YEATES b: 18 MAR 1902 in Afton, Dickens, Texas
 Jewel Belle YEATES (Hinson) b: 27 SEP 1903 in Afton, Dickens, Texas; d. 2 APR 1992
 Anna Hortense YEATES b: 4 NOV 1905 in Afton, Dickens, Texas
 Thomas Buchanan YEATES
 Lois Eudelle YEATES
 'Baby' YEATES b: 21 JAN 1918 in Afton, Dickens, Texas
 

Photos

Obituary

None submitted to date

Home Page | Cemetery List | Table of Contents | Helping with this Project

USGenWeb Project
Dickens County TXGenWeb Project
Webmaster Linda Fox Hughes
© Dickens County Historical Commission 1997-2022


This site may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without consent.
The information on these pages is meant for personal genealogical
research only and is not for commercial use of ANY type.