Happy Birthday to My Sweetie!

Mark Gresham, 1948, La Armada, Corpus Christi, Texas

© Amanda Pape - 2021 - e-mail me!

Location of Live Oak School and Rufus Hagood Land

The map above summarizes my conclusions.  Read on to find out how I got there.

Back in January 2021, when my husband’s first COVID shot was scheduled up on the 820 Loop around Fort Worth at the Azle exit, we decided to do a little exploring after the shot.  We wanted to see if we could find the area where his mother was born.

There were some clues in my mother-in-law Jewel Moore Gresham's reminisces. which were in my last post:

- The log cabin was on Silver Creek.  Her older sister Ivis thought it was on Little Silver Creek, which emptied into Big Silver Creek.  These two creeks join each other in Parker County, just west of its boundary with Tarrant County, Texas.  [Big] Silver Creek continues eastward and empties into what is now Lake Worth, a reservoir on the West Fork of the Trinity River built in 1914.

- The cabin was on land owned by Rufus B. Hagood, and I had enough information on his children from Jewel's memories to definitively find the family in historic records.

- The Hagoods had a larger house, which had a decent-sized hill behind it, across the creek from the Moores' log cabin.  The Moores lived in these homes from about 1909 through 1918.

- Both houses were fairly close to the Live Oak School, which was apparently close to a Live Oak Creek.

This actually resulted in a pretty large area to look at:

You can click on the image of the map to make it larger.  I marked Little Silver Creek and [Big] Silver Creek on the upper left of the map, and the red box shows the area where they join together.  I also marked labels further downstream for Silver Creek, as well as Live Oak Creek at the bottom right of the map.  You can see where they empty into Lake Worth on the right.

On our first drive-around in January, we took a look at an area further upstream (east, off the above map) on Little Silver Creek, near its headwaters in Parker County, that was a land grant to an R. K. Hagood (Richard Kenneth, older brother of Rufus).  We also looked at the area near where Little Silver emptied into [Big] Silver - interestingly, part of a land grant to a John H. Moore, no relation.  

We also checked out an area closer to Live Oak Creek, specifically a land grant to J. O. (James O., another older brother to Rufus) and R. B. (Rufus) Hagood.  This piece of property did not seem likely for the cabins - it was only 41.65 acres (Jewel's father rented 80 acres), not on the water itself, nor was it good farmland.

Obviously, I needed to do more research before returning for the second COVID shot three weeks later.  It turns out the J. O. and R. B. Hagood grant was very close to the location of the old Live Oak School.

I did another Google search on "live oak school" "fort worth" and there was a new result since my original blog post about the school in March 2013.  Sometime after 2015, Wes Culwell, a Master Arborist, donated his files to the Tarrant County Archives.  They included a number of City of Fort Worth Heritage Tree nominations - including one for the Live Oak School Post Oak.

I contacted the archives and was sent a copy of this September 2013 nomination, as well as a page about the tree in a book Culwell co-wrote.  The school was located at the northwest corner of what is now the intersection of Silver Creek Road and Western Oaks Road.   According to the nomination,

Live Oak School was part of the Tannahill School District and was open from about 1888 to 1922.  The enrollment in 1920 was 27 students and in 1921 there were 20 students enrolled.

The School Law of 1884 divided Tarrant County into 80 common school districts outside of the Fort Worth Independent School District.  The Tannahill School became District No. 38.  The original school was a couple miles west of the Live Oak School near the Tannahill Family Cemetery.¹

Mr. J. M. Orrick owned the land where the new Live Oak School was to be opened and he built a one room schoolhouse there in 1895.  He received three payments for the school totaling $191.41.  He signed a donation deed on April 8, 1895.

....The Live Oak School closed in 1922 and consolidated with the nearby White Settlement School District No. 37....In 1938, the Live Oak Schoolhouse was on record as the oldest standing school building in Tarrant County, though not in use.  In the same year the building was auctioned off for scrap for $78.

The nomination form included a photograph of the old school steps, as well as of a metal school piece of an old-style school desk found on the property.  A house was built there sometime in the previous two+ years, so I’m not sure if the old school steps that were there in September 2013 are still there.  The school itself was torn down and sold for scrap in 1938.

So, now knowing where the Live Oak School was for the 1908-1918 period when the Moore children would have attended it, I decided to look for maps from its 1895 to 1938 life - and hit the jackpot.

I found Sam Street's December 1895 Map of Tarrant County, Texas, on the Portal to Texas History (two other versions of it there, too).  And right there on the map - the names Hagood and Orick [sic], the latter right where I expected it to be.  Click on the image to make it larger.

The legend, in the upper right corner of the map, is quite helpful:

Note that churches and schools are indicated by a dark circle with a cross on top.  Rectangles indicate houses occupied by owners, triangles houses occupied by renters.  The names of the original patentees of the land [grant]s are in all caps, while the present resident owners are in upper- and lower-case script.  The hatched lines (/////) are wagon roads.

So the large red box in the 1895 map image is just around the Hagood names and is not meant to indicate the extent of their property.  The 1900 Census shows Rufus B. Hagood and his family in this area, with his older, never-married, childless brothers James O. and Robert L. Hagood living with him.  Inside that larger box is a smaller red box around a rectangle that indicates the Hagood's home.  Across Silver Creek is a triangle indicating a rental home, possibly the one the Moores lived in later.  

Closer to the bottom of the map, another small red box surrounds the circle with cross on top indicating a church or school - in this case, the Live Oak School.  Below that is a red box around the name of the landowner - J. M. Orick [sic].  Today's Silver Creek Road follows the wagon road on the 1895 map almost perfectly.

Although this map was made in 1895, based on Jewel’s descriptions, I suspect the main Hagood house and the rental house in were still in roughly the same place when the Moores moved there around 1908-1909.

The next step was to try to verify that the Hagood family actually owned this land around 1895 to 1918.  For this, I combed extensively through Tarrant County deed records, mostly working backwards.  Unfortunately, there is little online prior to 1920.  

Luckily, even though the Rufus Hagood family moved away from the land (they were in the city of Fort Worth on the 1920 Census), they continued to own it - and it was apparently quite a lot.  In a deed recorded (volume 1935, pp. 440-442, document #D147037213) on September 4, 1947, after the death of Rufus, his wife Sallie gave their three children a half-interest in the 726 acres she inherited.

That land was described in the deed, and between that, a lease recorded April 27, 1949 (volume  2083, pp. 61-65, document #D149014340) with this description:

and numerous other documents, I was able to map the Hagood Ranch at its peak, as well as the adjacent Wyatt Hedrick (the architect) and Thomas B. Ellison ranches:

In the map above (click on the image for a larger view), the red dots indicate the approximate locations of the houses the Moores and Hagoods may have lived in, and the small yellow square on the lower right is the Live Oak School two acres.  The larger yellow vertical rectangle west of it is the original (pre-1895) Tannahill/Live Oak School site, which also contains the Isbell Cemetery.  This twelve acres is still owned by the White Settlement Independent School District.

With a tool available online, I superimposed the 1895 Sam Street map over a topo map from the Texas General Land Office Land and Lease Viewer, and was able to make the map at the beginning of this post. It shows the rough locations of the houses, school, and old wagon road (which is today’s Silver Creek Road).  The two houses are across Silver Creek from each other, with a slightly steeper hill behind the Hagood house, as Jewel described.

I think Jewel's older sister Ivis was remembering the junction between Mill Creek and [Big] Silver Creek, which was apparently close to the cabin and "big house," and not [Big] Silver and Little Silver Creeks, the intersection of which would have been much too far (seven miles one way) for the children to walk to Live Oak School.  As it was, they would have walked about two miles one-way just to get to Live Oak School from the Hagood farm.

On our trip back to the area for Mark’s second shot, in early February 2021, we tried to drive as close as we could to the locations of the Hagood and rental houses.  Unfortunately, while road maps indicate that might be fairly easy, we discovered that the roads to get into the area were now part of a gated community called La Cantera Estates.  Pieces of the Hagood Ranch got sold off and divided among kids and grandkids, but it looks like much the original farm/ranch land is still intact, based on this satellite image.

NOTES:

1.  The original Tannahill / Live Oak School was on a 12-acre vertical rectangular plot in the southeast corner of the George Isbell land grant, which also included the Isbell Cemetery in the northeast corner of the plot.  The Tannahill Cemetery is nearby.

© Amanda Pape - 2021 - e-mail me!

A Mother-in-Law's Early Memories, ABT 1917-1919

Jewel Moore Gresham, ABT 1932

Sometime before she died in 1994, my mother-in-law, Jewel Moore Gresham, either wrote down or dictated some memories.  Here are the earliest ones, from the years the family lived near Silver Creek northwest of Fort Worth, Texas, south of Azle and north of White Settlement:

I was born October 4, 1914 in a log cabin that was located on a creek by the name of "Live Oak"  [actually Silver Creek¹].  This was part of a farm owned by Rufus B. Hagood.²  Mr. Hagood, with his wife,³ his two sons, Orval⁴  and ?,⁵ and a daughter, Annie B.,⁶ lived across the creek in the "big house."  

I think that Mabel,⁷ Audie,⁸ and I were the only ones born in the log cabin.  Papa⁹ and the Hagoods worked the land together.  I don't know what kind of arrangement they had.¹⁰  Mr. Hagood liked Papa.  He said he was the most honest man he had ever known. (Years later, when he came to see us in Oklahoma, he told me this).  He gave him the nickname "Square."  The Hagood boys were older than any of the children in our family.  Annie B. was about the same age as Mabel.

The log cabin had one big room with a fireplace which served as Mama¹¹ and Papa's bedroom.  A shed room on the side was the kitchen.  It had a huge wood cookstove, table, chairs and a long bench.  (The table was still with us when I left home in 1939.)  There was a "safe" where the dishes and the leftover food was stored (this piece was still with us when I left home.)  Out the front door of the cabin was a deck, on the other side of the deck was a big bedroom where we slept.  

I don't have many vivid memories of our life at that point in time.  I do have memory of a Christmas morning.  I must have been small enough that I was still sleeping with Mama and Papa.  I remember waking up and Papa had built a fire in the fireplace and lit the lamp, and that is when I saw all the stockings filled with goodies and presents.  I guess we were poor, but when Christmas came around, Papa and Mama made it special, and we were happy.

Another memory was about the mirror in that old oak dresser we had.  It was low, and I could see myself in it.  I couldn't figure it out, and I wanted Ivis¹² to take me to that other place.  Somehow, it looked like a better place.  The dresser was placed "catty-cornered" in the room.  So Ivis put a blindfold over my eyes, and after a few maneuvers, she told me I could take off the blindfold.  I guess that was my very first disappointment.  She had put me in the corner behind the dresser.

I don't know exactly how long we lived here, but judging from the events that were happening at the time, it must have been in 1917.  Orval Hagood had been drafted in the army.¹³ ... I remember going with Mama to see Mrs. Hagood.  We found her sitting at the kitchen table, and she was crying.

The Hagoods moved into Fort Worth, and we moved into the big house.  This house had two huge rooms.  The fireplaces, one in each room, were joined into one chimney.  A small shed room on the side was where I slept.  Also, a kitchen, pantry, and back porch.  There was a huge front porch that stretched across the entire house.  The house was evidently built on a slope, because there were a lot of steps leading up to the porch.

That is where I first saw and smelled a geranium.  Even now when I smell a geranium, I think of that porch.  Everyone was going to school¹⁴ except me.  

At some time, I had diphtheria.¹⁵  By that time, they had the vaccine, and I remember the doctor coming, and Papa gave me a nickel if I wouldn't cry when the doctor gave me the shot.  I just remember the one shot, so I guess it was pretty powerful stuff.  I had a lot of croup, and I guess a lot of "snotty noses."  Mama would make cough syrup out of mullein and horehound. ... At four, I knew what mullein looked like.  Now, I don't think I could recognize mullein growing in the wild.  I remember going down a path and I was singing, "horehound and mullein, horehound and mullein."  All of a sudden a huge dog rose out of the weeds and started barking at me.  I threw my bucket away, and went screaming towards the house.  Of course, Mama came running to see what was the matter.

One winter, one of the sows had a litter of pigs.  She wasn't a very good mother, so Papa took the little piglets into the house.  He made a nest on the hearth of the fireplace.  He left me with instructions to watch the piglets, and not let them run into the fire.  So I sat and watched and watched and watched, and then I decide things were not going so good, so I went to the porch and started screaming and jumping up and down.  Papa, in the meantime, had gone back to the barn.  When he heard me screaming, he jumped over all the fences and when he came into the room, he found all the piglets fast asleep.  "What was the trouble?" he said.  I said, "One of them wiggled his ear."

Behind the house was a hill.  I'm sure it wasn't too high, but to me, it seemed awful tall.  One summer day, for some reason, we all climbed to the top of the hill.  It was the first time I had ever seen the horizon.  It had a tremendous effect on me.  I did not know the world was so big.  It left an indelible imprint on my mind.  Even now, when I am on a mountain  top, I still get a diminished feeling, but fascinated by the vastness.

We had neighbors.  One family, a German family (Hallman), had many children.  We used to visit each other on Sunday.  Another family named Pierce had kids our age.  The Hagoods would come to visit with little Annie B.  Annie B. had a very lively imagination.  She was always seeing monsters in the weeds.  One day, I remember she had us in the outhouse, and she wouldn't let us out because she could see a monster's foot in the weeds.  I never did see that monster's foot, and I felt cheated.

It was at this time that Papa bought Mama a new Singer sewing machine -- the very machine sitting in the bedroom (that Ivis now has).  Mama made all our clothes.  She never had a pattern.  I don't know how she did it.

I guess it was in 1918 that the boll weevil ate up the cotton crop in Texas, and families began to migrate.  The Hallmans went to Nebraska, and the Pierces went to Oklahoma - Marlow.  He wrote back how great the crops were there.  I can't remember exactly when we moved.  Papa went ahead and took the horses, cows, pigs and plows in a boxcar.  I think he stayed in the boxcar with the animals.  Of course, it was only 150 miles from Fort Worth to Marlow, so the trip wasn't too long.  I remember being on a train.  I couldn't breathe, and Mama got some passenger to open the window so I could get some fresh air.  It must have been in late winter, because when we got to Marlow, there was snow on the ground.

The war was over November 11, 1918, so I am guessing that when we got to Marlow, it was in the early months of 1919.

A few months ago, I decided I wanted to try to locate the land the Moore family lived on from about 1909 to 1919.  My next post will be about where it is located and how I determined that.

NOTES  

1.  Live Oak was the name of their school, and the creek it was near.  The creek the cabin was on was Silver Creek.  This was in an area on the northwest side of Fort Worth in the area north of White Settlement and south of Azle - now about where Loop 820 circles the city.

2.  Rufus B[unyon] Hagood, 1854-1944. Hagood is pronounced Hay-good, and was spelled Haygood in the transcription of  Jewel's memories.

3.   Sallie Bear Winter Hagood, 1866-1961

4.   Roy Orveal "Orval" Hagood, 1893-1970

5.   Robert Bunyon "Bun" Hagood, 1890-1978

6.   Annie Bea Hagood Estes, 1910-1992

7.  Mabel is Jewel's older sister, Beulah Mabel "Mabel" Moore, 1910-1932

8.  Audie is Jewel's older sister, Audie Ruth Moore Cook, 1911-1969

9.  Papa is Jewel's father, Tandy Clayton "Clayton" Moore, 1878-1964

10.  According to page 84 of Heroic Lives of Ordinary People, by Tom Moore, his grandson, Clayton rented an 80-acre plot with a cabin, supposedly former slave quarters, from Hagood.

11.  Mama is Jewel's mother, Nancy "Nannie" Flora Jones Moore, 1882-1969

12.  Ivis is Jewel's oldest sister, Ivis Moore Mew, 1905-2004

13.  Orval Hagood served in the Army from July 3, 1918, to April 11, 1919.  His older brother Bun was not eligible to serve because by June 5, 1917, he was missing an eye.

14.  Jewel's older sisters, Ivis, Ruby (Clayton Moore Albillar, 1908-1967), Mabel, and Audie, and her big brother Thomas Gurth Moore (1902-1935) attended the Live Oak School, about two miles away.

15.  Jewel's oldest sister, Velma E. Moore (1903-1908), had died of diphtheria.  However, a diphtheria vaccine was not developed until 1926, so this is either a much later memory for Jewel, or she might have received the pertussis (whooping cough, vaccine developed in 1914) or smallpox vaccine.

© Amanda Pape - 2021 - e-mail me!

Happy Birthday to My Brother Mark!

My brother Mark at a roadside park in Texas, during a stop for a picnic lunch on our way to or from New Mexico in the summer of 1966.

© Amanda Pape - 2021 - e-mail me!