Tripping Down Memory Lane

On our way from Canton to Graham

 

 Courthouse in Weatherford

 Mineral Wells

Where my brother Don went to high school
And the largest nearby town to where we lived in Oran

 

 Mineral Wells was known for it's mineral springs and this hotel was 

where people stayed when they came to take the baths.
It's now abandoned.

We shopped here when I was 9 to 12.
At a nearby Kress's or Woolworth's, I was probably still buying the same Christmas present every year for my older siblings.
Paint set for Stan
Rubber ball for Don
Jacks or Pick Up Sticks for Lanora

 On to Oran, where Dad pastored a small Baptist church.

 

   I went to elementary school in Graford

There had been a school in Oran when my dad was young

By the time we lived there, the school was used for community events.

Once a month on Friday nights, The Oran Musical was held.

Gospel,  bluegrass, county music, and recitations; any and everyone could participate.

There were lots of good fiddle players as I recall.

 The next to last house we lived in before moving to California

At the top of that hill is a cattle tank.

We could not swim there because

water moccasins were in it. 

I got my first bicycle when we lived

here and I could ride it all over the countryside, that is until I was caught riding with my feet up

on the handlebars and someone told my parents.
I'm just recalling that we didn't call mother and daddy our parents;
they were our "folks".

 This is another house we lived in.

It had a roof when we lived there

And an outhouse.

I recall having to go cut my own switch off one

of these trees to be switched with.
Aw, memories.

 Oran Baptist Church and post office

This was the post office and gas station when we lived

here in the 1950's.

 About 1955 we all helped Dad put up this asbestos siding.
 It seems to be holding up nicely.
Dad built the steeple.
We were told this is a thriving church now.
They've added a Sunday School rooms wing and
indoor plumbing since I was last here.
The church was heated with a wood stove right

inside those front doors.
It was so shocking when we first went

there, as the men would stand around the wood stove in the back

of the church and smoke. I'm guessing if women smoked, they didn't do it in public.
This is in north Texas and it gets

very cold in the winter, so it was too cold to smoke outside and in those

days, smoking was practically required.
Oran was the

first place I'd ever seen unpainted houses, which I exclaimed

something loudly about when someone local was driving us around town... and again, I was in trouble. 

  Way back when we would have
"dinner on the grounds"...

potluck on the lawn after church and then an afternoon of singing.
We did have tables for the food to be placed on.
Everyone brought their best dishes

Corn
Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans
Red Beans
Chow Chow
Sliced Tomatoes
Sliced Onions

Fried Chicken
Ham
All kinds of pies
Sweet Tea

 Road in front of church

 The house next door to post office, home of the postmaster and gas pump attendant, Kearby Yell and his sister.

The sister was never seen.
Everyone either went to the Methodist Church or the Baptist Church.
Period

Except the Yell's.
They went to no church and had their own cemetery next to the Oran Cemetery.  

Big deal in a very small town.

 The house next to the barn with the rusted roof was where dad lived as a boy

and then we lived there in the 1950's.  It also had an outhouse and chicken coops.

Yikes, I don't miss either of those.
We had no running water and had to pump water

from a well for everything.
We had a quilt frame permanently installed in the living room of this house.
The women in the neighborhood would come over, we'd let down the quilt from
the ceiling and all the women and girls would work on it.
Everyone worked
collectively on everyone's quilt.
We'd moved from Corpus Christi, which has tropical weather,
so all the quilts made for some time were for our family.  We needed them to
just try to keep warm.  Our only heat source was the kitchen stove. 

 While Stan and I were looking at the church,
a car drove up.

We figured they were checking out the strangers in town.

It turned out to be a guy my sister, Lanora had gone to high school with.
He'd married Lanora's good friend, Jeanette in 1956. 
Jeanette was the granddaughter of our next door neighbors, the Nunley's.

 A chance meeting.

 It was fun to catch up.
It had been 56 years since I'd seen him.

 Nunley's house has been torn down, but this is the barn that was behind their house.

 This was the grocery store.
Mr. and Mrs. Jennings ran the store and lived next door.
Mr. Conley owned the store.
The garage part wasn't there when we shopped here.

The Davidson's lived here.
There weren't street names when we lived in Oran.
There were only about 20 to 30 houses in town, inhabited by
 Sweeney's, Smith's, Davidson's,
Nunley's, Yell's, Hudson's, Cornelius's, Jennings, Kincaid's,  and Claybrook's.
Most people lived on their farms outside of town.

Yell's Cemetery across the lane from Oran Cemetery

That "locked away" sister lived a long time

One of the very few new house built in Oran in the last 75 years can be seen in the background here.

 Also at the cemetery(s)...a dead truck

On to Graham