MARION RUTH KIRKHAM

 The following bio was taken from page 270 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

 Transcribed by Shirley Koym

 Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Cemeteries of Texas

The most rewarding decision of my life was that of moving to East Texas in 1942 to accept a position as an English teach at Gaston High School in Joinerville.  Here I fell in love with both the people and the beautiful countryside.

 In the eighteen years I taught at Gaston, there emerged from this “oilfield boom” school students who achieved great heights.  Among them are doctors, lawyers, college professors, newspaper and magazine editors, bankers, ministers, oilfield drilling company owners, artists (one recognized internationally), business executives, and one Rhodes Scholar.

 Young people have been the center of my life, and it is such a joy to attend reunions of classes from my forty-three years of teaching.  I continue to correspond with students and teachers from the five Texas high schools in which I taught:  Murphy, Sanger, Electra, Gaston, and Longview.  At the last I served as Head of the English Department and had tremendous students with whom I still have very close ties despite the fact that I commuted from Henderson for fifteen years.  I always keep in mind that it was a beloved grade school teacher, Miss Mary Coleman, who inspired me to become a teacher.  I am also deeply grateful to my wonderful parents and other kinfolk who helped me obtain my education.

 I shall never forget my applying for my first teaching position.  It was during the Great Depression.  After I had graduated from Highland Park High School in Dallas and had completed my studies at Wesley Junior College in Greenville, Texas, I received a temporary teaching certificate.  The school where I applied was at Murphy, a small town near Plano.  I was a slip of a girl weighing less than ninety pounds.  There were one hundred applicants for one position!  The interviews began in the afternoon and continued until one o’clock the next morning.  I was a nervous wreck by the time the interviews were completed.  I was shocked to learn that I had been chosen.  I still have my first contract, which lists my salary at sixty dollars per month for eight months.  Unfortunately the funds were depleted by the end of the seventh month; however, for the benefit of the children, I agreed to teach without pay, even though I had to pay my room and board – all in a school with coal-burning stoves and outdoor toilets.

 Besides these hardships, I almost died of pneumonia even though I had Renner’s excellent country doctor, O.T. Mitchell, and was attended day and night by an R.N.  I made medical history at that time by surviving after a fever of over 107 degrees.  In addition, perhaps it was the dear notes and the clever gifts from my school children that kept me fighting for my life.

 Besides the cost of my illness, I had to pay a substitute teacher while I was absent.  Then I had to borrow money to continue my college education.  I had the satisfaction, however, of beginning the first newspaper at this little school and of writing and directing a play for the students.  My principal, Homer L. Adams, enjoyed teasing me.  Once when we went to the Book Deposit Building in Dallas, Mr. Adams pretended that I had never before ridden in an elevator and was frightened.  Little did I know that this building to which we had to make trips would play an important role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

 Then there were dates with the local young men and the slipping and sliding over black mud roads to see a movie in Plano on special nights when the fare was ten cents.  I remember, too, that everybody in town was excited and frightened when Bonnie and Clyde came into our area.

 I continued my college education during the summer months and received my Bachelor of Arts degree from North Texas State University and my Master of Arts degree from The University of Texas.  For my thesis at the latter, I wrote a book of poetry together with a discussion of the different types of poetry.

 My parents, Amye Elizabeth Peters and Murdie Carr Kirkham, had a unique courtship.  He was a depot agent and telegrapher at Renner, Texas where my mother lived with her family.  He strung a wire to her house, taught her the Morse code, and communicated with her by telegraph from the depot.  They make a striking couple when they married in her “parlor” June 3, 1908.  She was a petite blond of sixteen, and he was a handsome, six-foot-three, twenty four year old Tennessean with black hair and blue eyes.  I still have Mother’s wedding dress with “its yards and yards of lace and its eighteen-inch waist,” as well as the leather post cards which Daddy sent her.  The minister who performed the ceremony was Reverend Samuel Weaver of the Renner Methodist Church.  The newlyweds moved to his farm nearby at Parker.  Here their first child, M. C., Jr., was born.

 Mother’s oldest sister, Sarah (Sallie) married Charles Hill.  Their first child, Malvin, died at the age of three.  Their second child, Catherine, was the person who did the research that has provided our family with information about our maternal ancestors.  Catherine received her degree from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.  In Europe she met her husband-to-be, Rhys Williams, of New York.  Their only child, Robert Evans, who later served in the army, now lives in Ft. Worth with his wife, Lousue Parker, and their daughters, Cathy and Karen.

 Mother’s other sister, Susan (Suzie), against her mother’s wishes, married Marion McCloskey, who had T. B.  He lived only a short time.  Later, in 1901, she married Albert Kirksey, formerly from Alto, Texas.  They had two daughters.  Bernice, in 1922, married Oliver Godfrey, a veteran of World War I.  Their two sons, Oliver, Jr. (Abe) (1923) and Albert Kirksey (1940), live in Carrollton.  Bernice was a good business manager and established two department stores, one in Carrollton and one in Lewisville.  Oliver, Sr., died in 1957, and in 1964 Bernice was killed in a car accident on her way to visit our ailing Aunt Sallie in Ft. Worth.  The other daughter, Frances Golden (1907), married Lester J. McCormick of Dallas, who died in 1963.

Mother, whose father died two months after her birth, was pampered by her two older sisters and a maiden aunt, Arista Parthena Peters.  It must have been very difficult for Mother to adjust to a new life of a great deal of hard work; however, she never waivered.  She proved then and later how strong, determined, and hard working she was.  Also she was not afraid “of the devil himself” and handled a rifle expertly.  Once I saw her shoot from one loft in the old barn and knock the head off a snake robbing hen’s eggs from a nest in the other loft across the way.  She truly became “the best cook in the world” and was especially noted for her pies, angel food cakes, and candied apples.

In 1911, Daddy moved his family to a farm he owned near Rolf, Oklahoma.  Here Daddy and Granddaddy Kirkham built a new house and a barn.  It was in this new home that I was born.  Mother, whom I later called “Mith,” said that the doctor who delivered me was “as drunk as a hooty owl.”  Now all my defects and shortcomings I laughingly blame on that doctor.

 On the farm we were self-sufficient because we raised “everything.”  Granddaddy, a most enterprising and industrious man with high moral principles, owned and operated a gristmill and a syrup mill.  M. C. and I loved to put apples into the syrup vats and leave them until they were candied just right!  At one time Granddaddy also had an undertaking business.  His daughter, Lena, often had dresses made from casket lining material.

 In 1914 our family moved to Alba, Texas, where Daddy became depot agent and telegrapher and also operated a movie at night.  M. C. and I loved the railroad and had many rides on the cabooses and handcars.  Here in Alba, when Mother was pregnant with my sister, our house caught fire and Mother and a neighbor boy put out the fire.  After the birth of her child, Alma Frances, (always known thereafter as Tince), April 10, 1916, Mother had uremia and for days lay at the point of death; in fact, the relatives had already decided (without consulting our father) who was going to take us three children.

 After Mother recovered, a Telegraphers Union strike began and Daddy accepted a job with Wells Fargo Express in El Paso, Texas.  Our family moved by train a thousand miles and never left the state.

 My brother, M. C., gives this account:  “Soon after Daddy got this job, Pancho Villa made a brief foray into town, which Daddy witnessed.  He said a group of about twenty on horseback raced up the street, shooting off their guns.  They just rode in, whooped it up, wheeled and went back across the river.  (Strangely enough on one of my trips to Mexico in 1970, I had my picture taken with Pancho Villa’s widow at their villa.)

 “The express office handled lots of shipments of gold then.  The smelter paid in gold coin and made regular trips to town in a wagon to pick up their shipments, with rifles and shotguns.  I can remember them as they came down our street.  Dad – if you can imagine it – carried a pistol at work.”

 We three Kirkham children had both enjoyable and unhappy experiences in El Paso.  Near our home there was an empty concrete reservoir, which made a wonderful playground, and once we saw it rain small fishes.  Here also we learned how to make chewing gum from chicle.  One day, without Mother’s knowledge, I joined a picnic group in one of the canyons.  M. C. had his problems also.  On his return home from school each afternoon, he was waylaid by Mexican children and “beaten up.”  The last straw came when Tince, the baby, toddled off down the streetcar tracks.  A few days later we packed up and moved to the farm home at Renner where Mother had spent her own childhood.

 In Renner the youngest of the four children, William Richard, was born December 22, 1920, a very nice Christmas gift.

 Daddy was an ingenious person who definitely believed in progress.  Here at our home in Renner, he made the first radio in Colin County, Texas – a crystal “Cat-whisker” with coils of wire wound around an oatmeal box.  We children thrilled at taking turns listening with earphones.  Daddy loved music, particularly violin, and surprised us one day by brining home an Edison Phonograph.  How we kids giggled over “The Preacher and the Bear” and “Uncle Josh and Aunt Nancy Putting Up the Kitchen Stove.”  Another exciting time was the arrival of our new Dodge car.

 Daddy also installed a Delco battery system so that we could discard our oil lamps and enjoy electric lights.  He wired practically every house in Renner so that people could have electricity.  Another thing he did was trade some hams for a washing machine to make things easier for Mother.

Father helped our community by serving on the school board for many years, by acting as a steward in the Renner Methodist Church, and by teaching farmers how to measure their land.  Mother certainly did her part also.  She loved the Missionary Society and assisted in community affairs.  Before her death, the big two-story wooden schoolhouse where she attended as a girl was moved into Old City Park in Dallas to become the school of a complete village representative of those before the turn of the century.  Each of us Kirkham children received a wooden foundation block from the old school.  Mine now serves as a base for a potted fern in one of my flowerbeds.  All of us children make repeated trips to Old City Park and wander through Mother’s school and imagine her sitting at one of the desks.

 It is unusual that each of us Kirkham children was born in a different town, graduated from a different high school, and attended a different college.  All of us, however, live in Texas, in towns not far apart.

 M. C. married Erline Mayes of Plano, May 23, 1937 and they have always lived in Carrollton.  M. C. owned a filling station but had to sell it when he was drafted into the army during World War II.  Later he was one of the original employees of Inca Metal Products, serving as head of the shipping department.  The company will not permit him to retire completely.  He and Erline enjoy vegetable and flower gardening, and M. C. has a hot house, a vast stamp collection, and a rock collection.  He also does beautiful woodwork.

 Alma Frances (Tince) married Otis Clay Butler of Farmers Branch, January 7, 1938, and Dallas became their permanent home.  Otis is a fine, industrious person, an ideal husband, and a perfect brother-in-law.   Tince is the “guardian angel” of our family and of her friends and neighbors.  Otis sold his filling station business, and now in their retirement the Butlers are in the ceramics business.

 The Butlers have two children.  Joseph David, born June 5, 1941, married Betsy Gallagher, August 10, 1963.  They now live in Houston and are both employed by Thrust Hydraulics, a division of Otis Engineering.  Joe was president of the company; however, after having suffered a heart attack, he asked to be given a less stressful position, Corporate Sales Manager.  Both Joe and Betsy are quite talented, and Joe is a near-genius.  He could read fluently when he was three years of age and could intelligently discuss sermons with the minister.

 The Butlers’ daughter, Amye Ann, born October 29, 1944 is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches and taught school for several years before she married John Kelsey (July 23, 1966), also a graduate of SFA.  They have two children, Thomas (September 4, 1975) and Emily (August 28, 1977).  The Kelsey’s live near historic Jefferson, Texas, where John has his own business, restoring antique pianos and organs and selling these.  John and Amye designed and built their two-story log house in a beautiful wooded area outside Jefferson.  Their son Thomas was the first great-grandchild in our family; therefore, we were especially excited over him.  Mother was near death in the hospital, but Amye, who was named for Mother, was determined, that Mother was going to see the baby.  She “smuggled” Thomas into the hospital room and placed him in his great-grandmother’s arms.

 Richard suffered the most traumatic experience of all of us children.  He was in the submarine division of the Navy and went through the horrors of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, which began World War II.  Later he also underwent depth bombings and the continual blackouts and dangers on Midway Island.  Our family were panic-stricken because we were so long in learning that Richard had survived.

 Richard lived on what was the home place at Renner until Dallas “gobbled” up everything in the area and virtually destroyed his property.  For many years he has been employed by what is now called the Texas A&M Research Center, Dallas.  He married Shirley Fidler, a home economics teacher in Richardson High School, August 15, 1960.  They have two teen-age sons, Scott (October 28, 1963) and Stuart (September 26, 1965).  The family has sold the home place and now owns a beautiful home not too far from the original farm.  In the new housing development on our family’s original land, one of the streets is Kirkham Avenue.

 The Kirkham children and their spouses and offspring get together four times a year, at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and June 5.  At Christmas we go to my sister’s where we hang up our stockings as we did when we were children.  “Back Home” one of the foods we always had for our Christmas breakfast was candied apples.  Since Mother “cooked by ear,” we didn’t know how to prepare the apples.  My brother-in-law, Otis, worked out the recipe and surprised us with this special dish.  At our breakfast we also have in the center or the table our family candle, now forty years old.  Each of us lights his small individual candle from the old candle and makes a wish for the coming new year. 

Both my maternal and my paternal roots are in the British Isles.  On a tour of the British Isles in 1976.  I visited some of the places associated with the McClary clans.  And of course there were many evidences of the O’Neals in Ireland and of the Peters in England.  In England there is the town of Kirkham which has a street, a highway and a lake bearing my father’s middle name, Carr.

 My maternal great-great-great-grandfather of Pennsylvania was Andrew McClary (1757-1833), who served in the American Revolution under Colonel Lythe, whose command was under General Greene, and helped capture three British officers.  Andrew’s wife was Elizabeth Lynch of Tennessee (1757-?).  My maternal great great grandparents were Robert Wythe McClary (1793-1866) of North Carolina, and Mary Polly Carnes (1801-1883) of Tennessee.  Robert McClary served in the 5^th Tennessee Cavalry (January, 1862) at Knoxville.  He surrendered in North Carolina after being  chased out of Tennessee by Sherman’s troops.

 My maternal great grandparents were Pryor Lee McClary (1833-1874) and Sarah Abagail O’Neal (1833-1874).  My maternal grandparents were Jasper Marion Peters (1848-1891), for whom I am named, and Polly McClary (1859-1963) of Benton, Tennessee, the seventh of seventeen children.  Jasper Marion was called upon to make a trip to England concerning property owned there; however, he failed to go because, as he said, he feared going “across the great waters.”  My maternal great grandfather, Samuel Allen Peters, (June 6, 1816) was the youngest of six children.  He married Susan Winters (born December 13, 1813) on November 28, 1840.  Their six children were:  Amye (1842-1889), Timothy (1844-1863), Emily (1846-?), Jasper Marion (1848-1891), Joseph Melborne (1850-1853), and Arista Parthena (1854-1908).

 On the land off Preston Road there were built three of our family homes, the first, a wooden structure built by Samuel A. Peters on the banks of Spanky Branch, so called because a family up the creek were constantly spanking their children.  There was an everlasting spring with steps going down to it from the house.  The spring served both as a source of water and as a “refrigerator” for milk and butter.  A portion of the house still remained when I was a child.  The second house, with its large two-loft barn, built by my grandparents, was first their home and later the home of my family.  The third home on the family property was a large red brick built and shared jointly by my parents and my younger brother Richard.  It was here in 1958 that we Kirkham children, relatives, and friends celebrated the Golden Wedding Anniversary of our parents.

 We children loved building tunnels of the bales of hay in the loft, daringly swooping across Spanky Branch astride a jump swing, fishing for crawdads, discovering a buzzard’s nest and learning for the first time that buzzard babies are snow-white, finding the first Johnny-jump-up of the season, picking mustang grapes and wild plums along the creek, and joining hands and daringly crossing Spanky when she was on a flooding rampage.  Not all was play, however.  On the place we had chickens, geese, sheep, cows, and Percheron horses.  One of our biggest laughs came when a swarm of bees tried to make their hive in the pith helmet Daddy was wearing while he was chopping cotton.  Our reward for our hard work was a trip to the State Fair of Texas in Dallas.

 For $12.00 per acre, Samuel bought a strip of school lands extending from Preston Road, known as the Preston Cattle Trail (now in Dallas), to the Plano Road.  He provided a portion of land for the Cotton Belt Railroad that passes through Renner.

 I have Samuel Peters’ leather billfold, which contains a number of interesting items.  One is a document dated September 22, 1871, declaring that “Samuel A. Peters was this day registered as a qualified elector of Dallas County, as a native citizen of the United States, and residing in Precinct NO. 4 of the County of Dallas.”  Another paper is a receipt from B. F. Martin for these goods brought by Samuel A. Peters”  1 grindstone - $6.10; 1 file and 2 gimlets - $.50; 1 pair suspenders - $.40; 1 box Cooks Pills - $.25; 1 fine comb - $.15; and drinks - $.85 – Total; $8.25.  There is also a note dated January 6, 1844 from the Flagstaff Baptist Church of Christ:  “This is to certify that our beloved Sister Susannah Peters is a member in good standing and is recommended to the fellowship of any other church of the Same Faith and Order wherever her lot may be cast. – William B. Woolsey, Clerk.”  And more puzzling are two locks of hair, one plaited and tied with a blue ribbon.

 Parthena, as well as the three Peters sisters (including my mother), my father, and Pryor Lee McClary are buried in Frankford Cemetery (now in the Dallas City limits).  Both the cemetery and the church there have Texas Historical Markers.

My paternal great grandparents were Granville Kirkham (1832-1906), who is buried in the Maxwell Cemetery in Murphy, Texas, and Mary C. Gant (1833-1895), both of Gallatin, Tennessee.  My paternal grandparents were John William Kirkham (1864-1943) of Gallatin, Tennessee and Cala Dona Gant (1863-1915) of Corinth, Tennessee.  They had four children:  my father, Murdie Carr (1884-1964); Lena (1888-1938); Abram Tracy (1896-1924); and an infant who died at birth.  The children were all quite “good looking.”  Lena married Doda Lewis in 1908, and both of them were great fun for us children.  Doda died tragically in 1924 from a stove fire.  Tracy served in World War I, was married twice, had a son, A. T., by his first wife, and by his second wife, a son, Donald, who died as a tiny tot.  A. T. married Polly Whitaker.  Their first daughter, Donice, born February 1, 1939, is married to Major Lewis Johnson, and they and their two sons, Allen and Stephen Kirkham, live in Springfield, Virginia.  Their second daughter, Edna Earl (Eddie), born July 15, 1945 is married to Otto Lee Osborne, and they and their daughter, Carrie, live near Mrs. Kirkham in Everman, Texas.  A. T. died of a heart attack in Oklahoma City, September 20, 1978 and is buried in East Hill Cemetery, Rolf, Oklahoma.

 Aunt Lena moved to Renner to be with her father.  When Aunt Lena, and later Granddaddy Kirkham, became ill, they went to live with my parents.  Mother, bless her, took care of both of them until their deaths, Lena in 1938 and Granddaddy in 1943.  They and Doda are buried in the old Plano Cemetery.

 In my retirement I am quite busy with various organizations and projects.  I am a member of the Rusk County Retired Teachers Association, which  I have served as president and vice-president.  For the past five years, I have been the secretary of the Thomas J. Rusk Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.  I also belong to the Rusk County Heritage Association, to Professional Journalists, Inc., and to Kappa Delta Pi.  I served on the committee that planned and equipped the Children’s Discovery Center (attached to the Depot Museum), the only center of its kind in Texas.  I have assisted in several volunteer services, such as tutoring, collecting for the cancer fund, and helping with tours and catering services at the Howard-Dickinson House.  My greatest pleasure is traveling.  One of my chief hobbies is writing poetry.  I have won several poetry awards and have had my poems published in six anthologies.  I also collect miniature vases, music boxes, rare books, and seashells.

 I think it is quite fitting that I conclude my account with anecdotes about “the” character in my family, Grandma Polly, whom I have already mentioned.  She was five years old when the Civil War started and vividly remembered the raids by soldiers and how her family hid their belongings “any place we could find.”  Our family always delighted in hearing her tales.  She had an incredible memory.  One afternoon on June 7, when she and I were sitting on the front porch at Renner, she mused, “Seventy-five years ago today we were harvesting grain when it began to snow.”  I stifled a laugh.  Shortly, the newspaper was delivered, and there in bold headlines were these words:  “Seventy-five years Ago it Snowed On this Date.”

 Grandma also had a knack for saying the funniest things.  As we were leaving for a visit one day, she picked up her knitting bag, saying, “I’ll be like the woman who took her knitting material to the hanging of her husband and said, ‘I’ll knit while the crowd gathers’.”  She told another tale about a friend who said, “I know I’ve run out of money in the bank because I don’t have any more checks in my book.”

 Upon one occasion when she was in her nineties and was staying with her oldest daughter, Grandma told me when others were out of hearing, “Ruth, this morning I looked out the window and saw this thing in the yard.  For the life of me, I couldn’t think of the name of it.  I got the Sears-Roebuck Catalogue and turned through it until I found a picture of the thing.  Guess what it was?  A wheelbarrow.”  I silently prayed, “Lord, in my old age, please help me to be this ingenious.’

 Grandma had the curious habit of counting every piece of clothing, even each sock, on the clothesline.  She also ruined many a pot of dumplings because she couldn’t resist lifting the lid and peeping in.  She couldn’t keep a secret either.  When she found out the family was planning a surprise birthday for my older brother, she telephoned him while we were away and “spilled the beans” and ended with, Now, M. C., you act surprised.”

 One of Grandma’s obsessions was that every woman should marry.  Period.  She constantly preached this belief to my cousin, Frances Kirksey, and me.  There was a big celebration on Grandma’s one-hundredth birthday.  A reporter from the “Dallas Morning News” asked Grandma why she didn’t marry again, and she replied, “Well, if he’s a bad man, I’d get him too soon; if he’s a good man, he’s worth waiting for.”  Who could argue this point?  When the newsman asked her what Dallas was like long ago, she told of her traveling there by horse and buggy with her children and their eating cheese and apples on the way back home.  She concluded with, “Dallas was nothing then.”

 The health rules which Grandma followed religiously seemed rather foolish to her family.  I never did understand her insistence that the head of her bed be in line with the magnetic pole.  In later years, however, I found myself following her rule of drinking a glass of warm water upon rising each morning.  Today health experts advocate most of Grandma’s health rules.  Grandma said to a “Dallas Morning News” reporter who queried her about her longevity, “I don’t know the remedy for reaching one hundred years, but I always breathed deeply, ate everything put before me, and stayed right with God.”

 I was alone with Grandma Polly the night she died just short of reaching the age of one hundred and four.  One of the last things she said to me was, “Ruth, I want to live to help people.’  I bowed my head, remembering one of her favorite Bible passages in her last years:  “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

 Submitted by Ruth Kirkham