LEATHA TAYLOR PEPPER FREEMAN

The following bio was taken from pages 203-204 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited by Rusk County Historical Commission

Transcribed by Gloria Riley

Submitted by Gloria B. Mayfield, Rusk Co. CC

 I, Leatha Taylor Pepper Freeman, was born July 21, 1898, to James Arthur and Ida Ferguson Pepper. My grandparents were John Wilson and Martha Taylor Yates Pepper and Wiley Anderson and Leathayan Matilda Harris Ferguson, all of Chalk Hill, Rusk County, Texas. My great-grandparents were William and Elizabeth Pepper (Georgia and Alabama) and James and Teresa M. Winslett Yates (Alabama); and David Garrison Duranda Barnet Harris (South Carolina and Georgia) and Wiley W. and (?) Ferguson (Georgia). On a farm between Stewart and Dirgin near what is known as Dry Creek, I was born in a log cabin with a dirt floor. A year later we moved to a farm near Smokey Lane, commonly called the Will Woodard place. My brother, George Henry, was born there. Our neighbors were the Jim Garner and Crog Prior families. My dad rented farms and we lived in many places around Stewart and Chalk Hill. Later he bought land, some of it from Grandpa Ferguson (which in Grandpa’s will was left note free and clear to Papa and Mama). We finally settled near where the Community Church now sits in Chalk Hill. My dad put in a gin, a sawmill, and a shingle mill there, and most of the homes in Chalk Hill were built from lumber and shingles from his mills. He donated the lumber and shingles to build the Community Church in 1921. My mother worked very hard for her family. She and Papa raised nine children to adulthood. A girl. Annie Mary Etta, died as a baby. Other children were: Johnny Anderson, Essie Mae, I, George Henry, Ross Vail, James Claude, Ethel Pearl, Clifford Sherman, and Wylie Garland. When the children were small, I was the babysitter while the older children helped out in the fields. I was never as strong physically as the others. When I was about thirteen years of age my future husband, William Mumford Freeman, came to board in our home and work for Papa. He told Papa he was going to wait until I grew up and marry me. We were married January 13, 1918. I was nineteen and he was twenty-nine. We were married in a car in the snow in the Elderville Community by Brother Alton Livsey. In the back seat of the car were our witnesses, George Pepper and Mary Strong. Willie was a good musician. Mr. Lem Adams taught him to play the violin. I played the organ and piano. Later I also learned to play the violin. We played for parties, musicals, and dances in homes. We square danced and music was our entertainment. Farming was our occupation. We went to church all our lives. Chalk Hill Church was really a lively place around Christmas. Mr. Henry Wilson would play Santa. All the community came and brought gifts. I am of Primitive Baptist faith and love my church and my Lord. My hobbies are music, fishing, club work, sewing, and reading. When I was about seventeen, Papa took me on the train to Dallas for an appendectomy. There were no hospitals nearer. Before I married I worked in Papa’s store, called a commissary, where he sold everything. World War I took in several Chalk Hill boys. Willie went into the Army. We moved to Waco, Texas, where he was stationed, and lived in a rooming house. Basil Lloyd was my first born on August 21, 1919. There was a typhoid epidemic. I had the disease and Basil was born with it and almost died. Later in his life at age fifty-three he died of a heart attach March 29, 1972. Ida Mae was born September 4, 1921, and Virginia Dare three years later, December 12, 1924. Basil left a wife and four living children: Alvin Lloyd, Barbara Ann Freeman Nelson, Jimmy Lloyd, and Judy Carol. Kathryn Belle was killed in a car wreck at the age of sixteen. Ida Mae and her husband, James Elbert Berry, have two girls, Mary Charlotte Berry Reed and Beverly Sue Berry Fogarty. She, Ida Mae, and her husband, James Crawford Black, have a daughter, Jhetta Lea Black Hayes. Virginia and her husband, Altis Langhorn Gibson, had three boys and a girl: Michael DeWayne, who died at birth; Danny Durwood; Sharon Gayle (twin of Sherman Dale), who died at birth; and Sherman dale. Virginia and her husband, James Charles Selman, have on son, Charles Dwain. I have ten grandchildren living and three dead, twenty-two great-grandchildren living and one dead, and three great-great-grandchildren. Willie, my husband, died of a hear attach May 25, 1962 and is buried at Stewart Cemetery, Rusk County. I live alone with the help of my children and grandchildren, still at Chalk Hill. I am eight-three and still of sound mind if not so sound in body. Submitted by Leatha T. Pepper Freeman