John Fondren was born June 14, 1873 in Forest City, Arkansas. He died June 19, 1944 in his home at Estacado. His father died leaving his mother, Mary Jane, with four little boys, Jim, John, Jack and Charlie. His father is buried in the Fondren family cemetery in Forest City. His mother moved to Huckabay in Erath County, Texas where her brother, Charlie Gilbert, helped her raise the boys. Later she married a Methodist minister, George F. Clark. When he passed away, she lived in Ft. Worth with her step son, Dr. Dolph F. Clark until 1925 when she came to live with John and his family at Estacado. She died in the winter of 1925 and is buried in the Lorenzo Cemetery with Jack, John and wife Della. Della passed away October, 1957.
John married Della Fincher in Huckabay, Texas, February 20, 1898, where she was born May 8, 1877. They lived in Erath County until 1920. Their children were Tom, Lolah, Leslie, Troy, Dale, Janeeva, and Faye.
We moved to Seymour in 1920 by train. Our livestock and household furniture was all in the same boxcar. Leslie married Burrell S. Lee in 1921 and still lives in Seymour.
We moved from Seymour to Lamesa in 1922. Papa, Lolah, Janeeva, Dale and I made the move in two covered wagons. Tom, Troy and Mamma went to Dora, New Mexico in the summer, for Tom and Troy to work in the wheat harvest and Mamma to visit Papa's brother Jack. Troy took typhoid fever while there and they were not able to join us in Lamesa until just before Christmas. We lived nine miles south of town on the Stanton Road in the Five Community for three years. On day, it came a bad sandstorm and blew all our chickens away and Papa decided it was time to move again.
Papa bought the shely Farm, one mile south of Estacado. Pap, Mamma, Troy, Janeeva and I arrived there about dark January 7, 1925. We moved in a borrowed ruck and our Model T Ford car. Mr. Henry Hooks saw us and came down to see what he could o to help. I went home with him and borrowed a lamp. Tom and Jack Lee came in two wagons filled with cotton seed and brought the livestock. They slept in the wagons and covered themselves with the cotton seed.
I went to school in the old two-story house that term and that landmark was torn down in the summer of 1925. Mrs. Jessie James was my teacher. We were in the only upstairs room used as a classroom. I and Ulmer Lee Bryant. Mrs. A.C. Johnson was superintendent. Mr. and Mrs. O.L. Saunders were also teaching there.
Tom married Gladys Hooks in 1928. Tom passed away in 1983 and is buried in the Lorenzo Cemetery. Gladys and their son, Tommie, live in Lorenzo.
Lolah and her children moved to Dunsmuir, California in the early 1940's. Janeeva and Lolah both worked for the railroad. Lolah died in 1976 and is buried in Mt. Shasta, California. Janeeva quit the railroad and taught school for a number of years. She is now retired and lives in Santa Rosa, California with her husband, Paul Mosseau.
Troy went back to Huckabay and lived with his Grandmother Fincher, farmed and sang with Mamma's two brothers, Ben and Jim Fincher. He married Opal Harrison in Huckabay, Texas. They moved to Los Angeles, California in the early 1940's and worked for a tool company until he retired. He and Opal are now at home in Downey, California.
I married Ralph Harmon July 16, 1939. We farmed in the Idalou area until he retired. We live in Idalou now and have two sons, Mack and Rodney. They both live in Idalou and farm.
Written by Faye Fondren HarmonEstacado Cradle of Culture and Civilization on the Staked Plains of Texas ©1986 by John Cooper Jenkins
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