Part 1 (2/2)

When my father was born, the family lived in Bosque County, Texas, somewhere about Meridian They were ranchers and owned a bunch of cattle Some 20 years later we find the family in Concho County somewhere near Paint Rock or in between Paint Rock and where the little town of Melvin now stands

At least two of the boys, Joe and Will, worked for the Melvin brothers on their ranch I have heard Papa tell of breaking saddle horses for the brothers as well as trail driving near San Angelo

In the rass became scarce, and the Johnsons drove their cattle to Indian Territory, (Oklahorass in about the year of 1894-that is, all but Joe He stayed with his job in Texas

About a year after the fao with hion load of household goods They were gone about teeks

While the faht school two ter about 17 at the tio to school to a teacher as his older brother, so he saddled his horse and slipped away back to Melvin's ranch, to be with his brother Joe He said he got tired of riding but not nearly as tired as his horse The journey was about 300 hts and had to stop at tiot to the ranch, Joe wrote to the fa that Simpson ith hione but were not sure

My Gaddie grandparents reared five children, three boys and two girls Eer brother When my mother was born the faensville Their farm joined the Lincoln farm She and Abraham Lincoln dreater from the same well but not at the same time The Lincoln family had moved away some years before the Gaddies moved there The as on the fence roeen the two farms

When Emma was four years old her family moved to Dallas County, Texas Then they e seven When she was nine they ain, when she was 13, they e 16 the faht miles southeast of Duncan, Oklahoma

About the same time the Gaddie family moved to their far Texas where the weather turned dry and the grass became scarce and the Johnsons drove their cattle to Indian Territory looking for grass, and they found that grass near Duncan, Oklaho that tis other than sitting around watching cattle grow Andrew had irl nairl fro and cattle country near Duncan is where the Johnsonscowboy nahter na in love took place And this is where Will married Emma in the fall of 1896 She was 18, he was 22 They werein Oklaho for land to buy He found what he wanted and bought 1,000 acres of unimproved land in Jones County about three et the family

So by the time Grandpa Johnson was ready to start his journey back to Texas with his fahters-in-law and two grandchildren Will and Emhter, Ruth, only three weeks old So to h in wagons and drove their cattle That was in January of 1898

In later years Maht she would have frozen to death if it had not been for Frank in her lap to help keep her warm The trip took teeks in the dead of winter and it rained every day of the trip

Since there were no improvements on the Johnson land, they all rented other farms for a year or thile they made improvements Papa and Mama rented and farmed one year in Fisher County Much of the ater in that county tastes so strongly of gypsu water from the better wells So, the story is told that when they were driving their covered wagon to Fisher County, they stopped and asked a man, ”How far is it to Fisher County?”

The man said, ”You are still about ten et there?”

”You will see farons”

”Have they always had to haul water in Fisher County?”

”Yes, but during the World Flood they didn't have to haul it so far The flood water cauess Grandpa farmed at least one year in Fisher County They tell er boys, went to school in that county at White Pond one year

Grandpa had bought the l,000 acres for all the family Andrew and Will were the first ones to buy their portions of 100 acres each The raw land had cost 3 an acre Papa's farood carpenter and he did his part in helping build a two-story house on Grandpa's portion of the land The house is still in good shape and has a fa in it 77 years later

Andrew first lived in a dugout on his 100 acres They used the dugout for a kitchen and storm cellar many years after they built a house beside it

Papa's land was in the southeast corner of the 1,000 acre tract He built his house about a quarter- also Since that tiht and sold and swapped portions of the land But irls or their sons and daughters

After far in Fisher County in the year of 1898, Papa moved to a farm in Jones County, a mile northeast of Neinda, and farout, my sister, Susie, was born

Many years later as ould drive by the farm in our hack, on our way to church at Neinda, our parents would point out the old dugout and explain, ”There is where we used to live” Year after year as the old dugout deteriorated and began caving in, we still went by it on our way to church and there was always so about it to us kids as one orand say, ”There's where Ma the two years my parents farmed away fro back and forth, building a house, clearing so fences on their land And of course they had to have a well drilled and put up a windmill and water tank

At the end of that two years, they took their two children and moved into their new house on the first farm they had ever owned And Papa, with the aid of an efficient help barn and shelters for cows, hogs, horses, poultry, a hack, buggy, harness, and other things And the fahter in 1901 George lived 26 hter lived only teeks Earl was born in 1902 and Joel in 1904 This was the state of the family in 1906, the year Grandpa died in his home, and the year I was born Aunts, Uncles, and cousins lived on three sides of us, and Grand house a quarter- quite a collection of children by this time And it is not always easy to find family hand-me-down names for that many kids So by the tio outside the family for a name I don't kno far out they went but they caht was a ”far out” naar, and they pinned it on me I was born January 11, 1906, in Jones County, West Texas, in the ht years old when I was born, Susie was seven, Earl three, and Joel 16 months There were three others born later, Albert, Ollie Mae, and Williarew rich-if you count children as wealth There were ten of us, eight of whoth