Pioneers of Ellis County
William Coates Morrison (1881-1971)
Contributed by his granddaughter, Betty Clingman
About the author: William Coates Morrison, the fifth child of Abram Mitchell Morrison and Lucie Ella Coates, was born December 13, 1881 in the family home at the corner of Knox and Clay Streets, Ennis, Ellis County, Texas. He spent his formative years in Ennis. In 1903, he married Reita Ruth Fisher, daughter of Kennan Snyder Fisher and Alice Elizabeth King, who also grew up in Ennis. William moved his family to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1919 where he remained until his death in 1971 and where many of his descendants still are residing. Both of William's parents, Abram M. and Lucie Ella (Coates) Morrison are buried in Myrtle Cemetery, Ennis, as are three of his siblings, Sue Morrison, Gertrude (Morrison) VanDelden and Walter Stuart Morrison, and William's grandmother, Amanda (Suggett) Coates.
Texas in Review
Written in 1946 by William Coates Morrison
Early Days in Ennis, Ellis County, Texas
Sixty years ago, life was primitive in the little Central Texas town of Ennis, the place of my birth. Indeed the changes that have taken place in those sixty years are many. Our town of about two thousand souls was in the midst of the prairie country. Look as far as the eyes could see in any direction and only an occasional mesquite tree or perhaps a prairie fire burning in the distance broke your view. Now that was an especially fantastic sight if it was burning after dark.
Most of the houses had been built as pioneer homes, starting with two or three rooms with additional rooms being added as the family grew. They were mostly one-story, rambling affairs built high on bois d'arc blocks or brick piers. The streets were wide and the lots were spacious and all were enclosed with high picket fences, and for good reason---to keep the children in and the cattle out.
The majority of the cattle in those days were driven to market, where now they are shipped by rail. It was a common occurrence for our mother to call us to come quickly and then carefully check to see that none of us were outside the fence, for here came a herd of cattle. We always stood on the front porch to watch, for, though it happened often, it was always a spectacular sight. A herd frequently consisted of several thousand bawling cattle packed like sardines from fence to fence. Two cowboys would be stationed at each street intersection. They would be on their cow ponies, popping their long whips and yelling as only a cowboy could yell. If a steer broke from the herd, there was a hot race to bring it back.
No, people never tried to beautify the sidewalks or plant trees along the streets for that would surely have been energy lost. After a herd of cattle had passed, hardly a weed or a blade of grass remained in the entire street. Nothing remained but pulverized earth with thousands of hoof prints showing.
Everything was primitive in those days. We had no water system, sewerage system, electric lights or telephones. Even the music was primitive. Alas, it seemed to me that there were only two kinds of music, one that was lowly and the other sublime. In the evenings, the people sat on their porches to visit and rest. Across the street and a bit to the rear of our house, a family lived in a cabin. Soon after dusk, the man of the family would get out his accordion and play the most doleful tunes. His music gave me the creeps, for it would seem to me like the world was actually coming to an end.
The darkies lived on the outskirts of our town and would pass our house going to and from town. On summer nights, our windows would be raised and children in bed, when faintly and far away, we would hear the notes of a French harp being played by one of the darkie on his way home. The notes would gradually grow louder and louder until he passed our house and then they would as gradually fade away. I remember now how I used to try to strain my ears to catch the last dying notes. That was music from the soul, as truly as the songs of the birds, and to our young ears, it was like the beautiful tones of a mother's lullaby.
Horses and ponies, as well as feed, were cheap in those days. Most of the men had saddle horses and the boys naturally learned to ride early, first behind their father or older brother, and soon to ride alone. Where the boys now have bicycles, then they had their own ponies and saddles. Nearly every family had a milk cow and one way the boys had of making money was to drive their neighbors' cows to the pasture. A farmer usually would charge one dollar and fifty cents a month for a cow to graze on his pasture and the boys usually were paid a dollar a month per cow to take them to the pasture. An enterprising young fellow would often have ten or twelve cows to drive. We would go to our farthest customer and get his cow and continue on toward the pasture until we had our herd complete, and then late in the evening, we would go to the pasture and get them and deliver them back home to our customers. One of our main feats was to open and close all the gates without getting off our pony. In fact, we thought we were cowboys ourselves.
Folks were very strict in observing Sunday in those days. We could not sew on a button or use the scissors for any purpose. You could take a sharp pocketknife and plenty of soft white pine and whittle until you were covered up with shavings, and it was all right, but to use the scissors was a sin—while going to a show or a ball game on Sunday was unheard of.
I imagine some of the biggest changes have taken place in the way groceries are handled. Then, the grocery stores were unscreened and most everything came in bulk, molasses in barrels of about fifty gallons and vinegar and coal oil were in barrels, too. The barrels of molasses would be put on a wooden rack with a spigot in the ends. Most people bought it by the gallon and would carry a jug to put it in. The grocer would tear off several pieces of brown wrapping paper, turn the spigot and let a little molasses run onto the paper for the customer to taste to see which kind he wanted. Everybody was supposed to carry his own jug, but in case you failed to have one, the groceryman always had some extra ones. There was a good chance its last contents had been something besides molasses though, so the wise course was to always have your own jug.
It took time to sack and jug all the grocery orders, which left little time for cleaning. The groceryman would spill a little sugar on the floor, then drop a cracker, a few raisins, a little molasses and coal oil, all to be walked on. It soon made an accumulation of a half-inch or so on the floor, still to be added to, and it was there to stay. There was no such thing as a sanitary or health inspector. If a man had come into the store and told the merchant he was a sanitary inspector, the merchant wouldn't have known what he was talking about. In fact, everyone was pretty much on his own to live or die.
Children didn't start to school so early then, but it was now time for me to begin. It seemed school had a special horror for me. Our superintendent was a tall, rawboned man with a long red beard and wore a long frock coat. At recess, he roamed around the school grounds, usually on the boys' side. He always carried in his hand an elm switch, five or six feet long. I never once saw the man smile; in fact I wouldn't have been that close to him unless he had accidentally slipped up on me. He was always a lonely figure on the school grounds. Certainly no pupils ever hovered around him. It seemed even the teachers were uneasy in his presence and always gave him a wide berth.
To me, an education was all right in its place, but I didn't want to go to school to get one. My idea of a perfect seat in school was the last desk on the outside row next to the window. From there I could get a good view of the landscape outside, watch the mocking birds and scissortails flitting amongst the mesquite trees, and from there I could dream of freedom. My father, in his work, used to often pass our school building on horseback and how I used to envy him and wished I, too, was a man out of school and free from all the cares and responsibilities. However my father did have one little responsibility that I overlooked then but realize now—there were seven of us at home that he was doing his mightiest to make a living for.
About this time, our aunt came to live with us. She was a schoolteacher and a good and kind aunt. The only objection I had to her, she was a literary type and wanted me to go to school and actually study; while I wanted to be on my pony, riding over the prairie. I remember as if it were yesterday how earnestly she talked to me and how she stressed the importance of getting an education. She said without an education I could neither read nor write and could not even talk except to the most simple-minded people. In fact, she told me I wouldn't even be able to make change. She told me how everybody would take advantage of me. For instance, I would go to work for a man for a dollar a day, an amount she seemed to consider a generous estimate of my earning capacity, then in the evening he would pay me only ninety cents, or I would buy something in a store for ten cents and give the merchant a fifty-cent piece and he would give me only thirty cents back and I would never know the difference. She really painted a bleak picture of my days to come. I was to be extremely poor from being shortchanged, but I would never know how I got that way. Indeed, without an education, my future seemed anything but promising.
By 1893, our little town had grown to about three thousand people and we were beginning to take on city refinements. The city council had passed an ordinance that no cattle could run loose in the streets, and the city bought a street sprinkler. By now, more cattle were being shipped by rail and the few herds coming through our town were routed more through the suburbs. Now we also had a little volunteer fire department. In case anyone saw a fire there was one, and only one, proper thing to do. That was to begin hollering, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" as loudly as you could and, at the same time, start running.
It seemed like my oldest sister was always the first one around our house to sense fire. On the night I have in mind, she came running down the hall screaming "Fire! Fire! Fire! William, why don't you holler," Fire! Fire! Fire!'?" I was twelve years old by this time and a boy that age doesn't any too much like to have his sleep disturbed, but when I finally got my eyes open, senses collected, and realized what was on fire, my efforts to wake up were fully repaid. It was our school building! The whole town turned out. Our little volunteer fire department fought valiantly to save the building, but their effort were all in vain for it burned clear to the ground, leaving only the brick piers standing. I will never forget what anxiety I felt as I looked on. I knew the firemen didn't have a chance in the world of saving that building, I just feared some trick of nature might play into their hands and parts of it might tragically be saved.
Over a half century has passed since that old school building burned down, but it has remained in my mind as being one of the happiest days of my life. I well remember how I strolled around amongst the grown folks and tried to have a sad and serious look on my face like they did, but with such joy in my heart, I doubt if I fooled anybody but myself. I, childlike, thought my school days were over and that I would never have to go so much as one more day. However those sweet dreams were of short duration.
This was a big event in our town, in fact business almost stopped. The grownups had a big meeting and the churches came forward and offered their buildings for classrooms. My recollection now is that we were back in classes the second morning after the fire. This seemed to me like a rather short grieving time after we had suffered such a terrible loss.
My grade was sent to an old church building that had recently been moved and was about three feet off the ground on bois d'arc blocks. It was now getting late in the fall and how the wind did whistle around and through that old frame building! In fact, we never did get warm all winter.
But even in those darkest hours, there was one bright spot. That old church was right next to our little city hall. The city had recently installed a calaboose and had also bought a fire wagon along with two horses to pull it. Once in awhile, we would see the firemen make a run to a fire or see somebody put into the calaboose, which actually was a cubbyhole on a level with the sidewalk. At recess we would visit with the old darkie the city had hired to drive the fire wagon and maybe visit through the bars with the poor guy in the calaboose.
About that time, an old man who lived in our town opened a dancing school. The folks said the old man used to be a ship's captain. Anyway, I guess our father must have been given a wholesale rate for he subscribed for all five of us children to take lessons, my older brother, two older sister, my younger brother and myself. The dance hall was an old abandoned grocery store and the lighting consisted of about twelve candles placed around the building at strategic points. I felt about taking dancing lessons much like I did about school I had no serious objection to having grace and poise, but I didn't want to go to dancing school to acquire them.
The town now had a little local evening newspaper and I carried one of the routes on my pony. On dancing lesson evenings, I would be just as late getting home as safety permitted, hoping I would be too late to go, but our father and mother would hurry me off so I wouldn't miss anything. My younger brother, Walter, and I were the two youngest in the class and the old professor always paired us off together. My brother was ten and short for his age and I was thirteen and tall for my age. I have often thought what a stately couple we must have made gliding over that grocery store floor.
These times, like other dark times, also had a bright spot. I kept a sack full of cracked pecans at home and just before going to dancing lessons I would always fill my pocket. Just as soon as the occasion presented itself, I would ease my way out of the dancing picture and find a dark corner—there to eat pecans until the lesson was over.
By the end of 1895, our town had grown to about four thousand people. We had been made a division point on the railroad and a machine shop and roundhouse had been built. In those days, each engineer was assigned his own engine. Usually when a train was coming in or going out, as soon as we heard the whistle, we knew what engine and engineer was pulling the train. Where now the boy's stories are woven around airplanes and every boy wants to be an airplane pilot, then the stories were about railroads and trains and all young boys dreamed of becoming engineers or conductors. Every pretty Sunday afternoon, we felt kind of duty bound to walk up to the roundhouse to see what was going on and to talk to anybody who would talk to us. But there was one thing ever more urgent that this and that was to be down at the passenger depot to see the five o'clock train come in. On Sunday afternoons, if you were looking for someone, you need look but one place and that was down at the depot for that was where everybody congregated—old and young, rich and poor, all dressed in their best Sunday clothes—to watch the train come in. There they would stay until the engines were changed and the train had left on its northward journey.
I was about fourteen years old by now and our father had been made Postmaster at our little town. This naturally placed our family in the midst, or maybe I should say in the forefront, of news happenings. Whenever anything of special interest came to town, we were among the first to know of its arrival. The special event this time was the arrival of an old man who claimed to be a phrenologist. Our parents talked it over and, in order to be prepared to meet life's battles, it was deemed advisable that the male children, at least, should have their heads gone over to find their strong points. The old man's regular rate was fifty cents per head, but he gave our father a group rate and took us three boys for one dollar. He came in the back of the post office and had us sit on a box, first my older brother, then myself and then our younger brother. While Father looked on with admiration and wonderment, the old man went over our heads minutely. He assured Father we all had unusually fine heads and that we were destined to go far in this world. According the phrenologist, we would all be of at least Congressional or Senatorial caliber and, with a little extra effort on our part and with maybe a bit of good fortune, then one of us might well become Chief Justice or even President of these United States. Poor Mother and Dad! Maybe it's best they can't see us now.
The old man told us many things, but the thing he told us that made the most vivid impression on my mind was the statement that we all had unusually fine reasoning power and that we could reason from cause to effect. I did not know then, nor do I know to this day, what he was talking about; however, that was only fifty-one years ago so maybe, if I only give it time, it will yet come clear to my mind.
During those years everything moved forward. Even this writer made steady progress for I had advanced from my cow-herding position to the ranks of a newspaperman. However I still rode my pony in order to cover my three routes. I delivered the "Dallas Morning News" from the six o'clock morning freight train and the "St. Louis Globe Democrat" from the eleven o'clock passenger train and I delivered our small local paper in the evening.
For several years, my older brother, Val, had worked for a large company and had finally worked his way up to where he was making forty dollars a month. And I, too, soon advanced one more rung on the ladder of success and had a position in a grocery store making thirty dollars a month. My brother and I were now "made men" and our parents could devote all their energies to helping our younger brother along the road to his success.
Today, in the year 1946, Ennis has grown to be a beautiful little city with a population of eight thousand people. It has all the modern conveniences and all the fences along the main street have been taken down. It has pretty lawns and shade trees with broad and level paved streets, and I am indeed proud to claim it as the place of my birth. At the present time, we are living in a rather large city that has a beautiful Union Station where the fine streamliners come and go. Our station is modern, though not so modern as to have restraints that keep all visitors away from the trains except those with tickets. If our station ever takes on ideas like that, I hope we can move again, for still, after all these sixty-plus years, one of my favorite Sunday afternoon diversions is to get some of my little grandchildren and go down and watch the trains come in.
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