I finished High School in 1906, and in 1912, I married Lillian Webb, of Wichita Falls, but born in Alvord, Texas. We have one daughter, Phoebe, now Mrs. Jack Wilson, and she lives here in Wichita Falls. She has a son, Tim Wilson who is eighteen years old and attending Washington-Lee University in Virginia. Three of us, my daughter, grandson and I, all graduated from the Wichita Falls High School.

I came to Wichita Falls in 1891. We lived just across the street from the Kemps at 12th and Indiana Streets. The McCauleys lived right in front of us on Indiana. The Kemps were on the opposite side of 12th Street, and the Stones were a little closer to the railroad track, where Jerome was born.

I started to school where the Masonic Temple is now. Part of the building served as a school room, and there was a fire house in one end. They had a bell and a cart that they pulled by hand, and they had a bucket brigade. It started out as a school, but ended with a fire house in one side of the school.

Pearl Robertson went to school there and she is still living. Pearl’s stepfather, Jim Measles, had a wood-working shop across the street from the school. Their house was on the corner of Tenth and Scott, and the J. C. Ward family lived down on the next corner, Eleventh and Scott.

The kids ranged in age from a-b-c class to good-sized boys and girls, as there were not many teachers and there were sometimes two or three grades in a room. I then went to the brick building on Thirteenth and Bluff, and finished High School in 1906.

We kids played the usual games - baseball, football and "Stink Base", where we would choose sides and have a place marked off in the middle that we called Stink Base. Each side tried to get a man from the other side into the center space and when this was done, the men on his side had to get him out without being tagged by their opponents. Then we played another game, where everybody put his hat on the ground and a fellow dropped a ball in one of them and the owner of the hat that the ball fell into, had to touch the boy who dropped the ball before he got away, or pay a penalty.

The teachers I remember were Miss Virgie Withers, now Mrs. Eugene Sherrod, W. F. Jourdan, Principal, and Miss Lulu Hyatt, later Mrs. B. B. Morris, and then Mrs. P. P. Langford. Her father ran the old Hyatt Hotel, where the Wichita National Bank is now. Miss Bertha Taylor was one of my teachers, and Miss Jettie Donald was another. Miss Donald’s brother, Paul, was going to School here then, and he is now a lawyer at Bowie.

Dad had a cold storage fruit and meat business down on Indiana Avenue, in the 700 block. In those days, it a person kept anything cold, he had to take it to the ice house. Dad built a cold storage place and stored all kinds of fruits and vegetables for other people, and had a meat market in connection with it.

I used to ride around with a fellow who worked for Dad; his name was Fritz Hendricks. He is dead now, but we used go to all the farmers around here and buy cattle, then drive them down by the river, where they killed them.

Stearns and Elliott, next door to Dad’s place, also did their own butchering.

I used to ride around with Fritz a lot, when I was a kid and wanted something to do but, in the summer time, I had to work - was on the delivery wagon and delivered meat and groceries, etc., for my Dad.

I have seen ducks, geese and prairie chickens hanging out in front of the store until you couldn’t see the front of the store. I think a lot of it was brought in by the Indians, because we traded with the Indians a lot. We didn’t sell them stuff, but would trade for skins, pecans or game - a swapping deal more than a money deal.

I have seen a thousand or more Indians camped close to the Court House, going to a rodeo at Seymour. They were on their way from Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), across the river, and would come by here and set up camp for a day or so, and rest themselves, as well as their horses, as it was a long trip - about fifty miles - on to Seymour - and there they had bare-back races for the Indian men and women; also war dances, and such as that. They would stop here to kind of break the trip. At that time they couldn’t make many miles a day in a wagon, so they just camped here a night, or two, or three, and then went on to Seymour for the event. They camped mostly around or along the Riverside Cemetery, along the hills over there, as their supposition was that no tornado would strike in there among the hills. The reason I think they camped there was that it was close to the river and they could get water, and they had plenty of room to camp there as it was all vacant. They used to camp there, too, for the Fourth of July celebrations. They had so many tents put up there, it looked like just acres of tents. It was at that time they would brine their stuff in here - pecans, hides and game, and trade with the merchants here in town, and that was the way they made their living, and then they would put on their war dance at the rodeo.

When I was a kid, the Mollie Bailey Circus came to town, I didn’t carry water to the elephants, because they didn’t have elephants at that time, but I did carry water for the ponies, and also for two or three dozen wiry mules that had to pull the wagons. Eventually they got railroad cars, but when I first knew them, it was a horse and wagon show. They had no wild animals, but just trained Shetland ponies, and sometimes trained dogs. That was the Mollie Bailey Show. Her Sons were trapeze performers, and they had to double for clowns between acts. The only music they had was when her daughter played an old organ. They would give us kids passes for carrying water to the horses. There were only about six or eight people in the show, so they would have to double up on different roles, trapeze performers and clowns, etc. The Mother was a real old lady, but she would take over the organ at times, when the daughter did some act. When Mollie Bailey came to town, everybody went to the circus.

The Mollie Bailey show ground was across Indiana Avenue from where P.B.M. Store was. All across the Street there was vacant and it was a cotton yard in cotton season. It was about the 800 block on Indiana Avenue. I have flown kites and played marbles all over that ground down there - the east side of the street was used for a cotton yard in cotton season. Mollie Bailey always pitched her tents right down there.

There were no sidewalks, but where people walked it would be nice end smooth, and a good place for us to shoot marbles. We didn’t have to dodge cars or anything like that. There were no picture shows to go to - we had to work out our own games and entertainment. We had to study at night, and then work on Saturdays.

I had my picture taken when I was a kid, surrounded by game. We borrowed a gun, or 22 rifle, so I could have the picture taken, and my Mother had it up to the time she died. I had game all around me - turkeys, prairie chickens, quail, geese, ducks and deer; killed the deer in Oklahoma and brought it here.

Stearns & Elliott, right next door, would have about a half dozen deer hanging there some time. Stearns was the biggest men I ever saw - he must have weighed 350 pounds. He had a spring buggy, with a horse hitched to it, and when he would get in it, it would sink down and I thought sure it would break.

The meat dealers bought any kind of cattle that were fat - all different colors. The farmers raised their own feed in those days and got the cattle in pretty good shape. The feed they raised was bundle stuff like maize, and other heavy head grain, to fatten them up. They didn’t buy cattle and try to fatten them after they bought them, but just raised them and fattened them.

I got my spending money driving cows to pasture. Eli Morgan did too; we were competitors. I picked up my first cow at Mrs. McCarty’s place. She lived about where the Wichita National Bank Drive-In is now located. She had a boy, Arthur, and a girl, Clara. Then I picked up two cows at Old Man Hyatt’s place. We drove them to Huff’s pasture, near where Alma Street is and extending beyond Harrison Street. I was paid $2.00 a month per head for driving the cows, and I paid $1.00 of it to Mr. Huff for pasture, and I got $1.00 for driving the cows. I had about fifteen or eighteen cows, and Eli had about the same number.

Crescent Lake was down near the Court House. It started in back of Riverside Cemetery and made a curve, and went pretty close to where the jail is now. It was a horseshoe shaped lake and went down Lamar Ave. The houses facing East on Lamar had the lake at the beck of their lots. The lake started back of the Cemetery, made a bend, and came in pretty close to where Sixth Street is now - came on down toward the jail and made another bend, and back toward the river. The houses facing Lamar backed to the lake.

A man named "Fatty" Carter had a barber shop, and he built a little narrow bridge so he could walk across the lake. It just had one banister. One day I was crossing the bridge on my bicycle - had on my very first pair of long trousers, brand new. I got to about the middle of the bridge and a girl by the name of Frankie Lee let out a squeal, gave me a push, and I went down into the lake, bicycle and all. I went back home - I don’t know what kind of material was in those new trousers, but, by the time I got home, they had shrunk and drawn up so much, I think the folks had to rip them off of me. She married and moved away from here, and I believe she now lives in Lubbock. I believe, though, if I ever see her again - even now - at this time - I will do something to her for ruining my first pair of long trousers.

BANK ROBBERY

Father went to the hanging of the bank robbers, and I started to follow him. There had been a fire down about Scott and Seventh. John Fore had a livery stable and, in the tower, was a fire bell that was always rung in case of fire. Then I heard the bell, I thought there was a fire and wanted to go, but Dad knew it was for the hanging and when I started to follow him, he picked up a board and told me to go home. The next morning when I got up, Dad said: "Would you like to see a couple of dead bank robbers?" Of course I would, so he add: "Get on your bicycle and go to the undertaking parlor". It was down where the North Texas Furniture Company used to be on Scott and Ninth Streets.

It was the J. Seelinger Undertaking Parlor. I used to play with Albert Seelinger. We would run around and chase each other among the caskets and have a good time. Well, I went down there and on the porch were the two dead bank robbers. They had on their clothes and boots, and were just lying there on the porch. I took a look and then went on to school.

Dad would never tell me about the hanging, even after I was grown; but they went to the jail, I think, and a man by the name of Hardesty was shot, and the bullet hit his watch and saved his life. But, they evidently didn’t try to stop them when they went to the jail.

The day of the robbery, some of us kids who were in the school at Scott and Tenth were playing close to a hitching rack by the old Baptist Church on Indiana, and we heard the shots but thought nothing of it, as the cowboys often shot off their guns.

The robbers shot Dr. Kendall, a physician, but struck his thermometer case and knocked him down, and he had sense enough to stay down. At that time, we lived next door to him.

FOOD SHIPPED IN

Fruit and vegetables were shipped in, as they didn’t raise much stuff around here then. There was one attempt made to raise cantaloupes when I was a kid, but it soon blew up. They thought they might be able to raise them on the irrigated land. The first irrigated land was east of town, between the Henrietta and Petrolia Roads, and it got its first water from Lake Wichita. The section became the garden spot of Wichita Falls. Mr. M. L. (Luther) Thompson raised all kinds of fruit and vegetables, and shipped it out of here. He had a fine peach orchard.

Other people in that neighborhood raised garden truck and fruit. A man named Kidd lived out there a long time. After Mr. Thompson’s death, Kidd worked some of his land and Thompson Orchard was then known as Kidd Orchard. Mr. Kidd made money for over twenty years. He raised not only truck end fruit, but could produce forty bales of cotton on forty acres.

Then the water supply in Lake Wichita got so low that the water was cut off for irrigation and Lake Kemp water was turned in, but it was so much salt and mineral content that it ruined the land and killed the produce. The City was sued because the truck growers were supposed to have permanent water rights to Lake Wichita water, but they were not successful. Mr. Kidd has a store on Lamar Avenue, near Maskat Temple.

I am a member of The First Baptist Church, and I went to the little brick Church on Indiana Avenue.