"AND THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS" AT BROYLES CHAPEL *************************************************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm Transcribed by Nancy Crain Submitted by Scott Fitzgerald - scottfitzgerald@tyler.net East Texas Genealogical Society, 1st Vice-President 2 October 2006 *************************************************************************** Originally published in The Tracings, Volume 4, No. 1, Winter 1985, Pages 1-15 by the Anderson County Genealogical Society, copyright assigned to the East Texas Genealogical Society. "AND THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS" AT BROYLES CHAPEL It's hard now to imagine life without T.V., picture shows, radios, automobiles, airplanes, discos, and all the other things that have come into being in the last eighty years, but those who lived in the days before we had them managed to live and be happy. I grew up in the neighborhood of Broyles Chapel five miles west of Palestine, Texas. I had a sister, Imogene, who was my companion through it all, so it's "We." We did have telephones. It was a very localized system. The switchboard was in some neighbor's home. The last place I remember was that of Mr. Joe Lewis. The phone was a big brown box on the wall, with a side crank to call out. Each subscriber had an assigned code. Our ring was two longs and a short. Eavesdropping was a well-known, but never admitted, form of entertainment, especially when there was a widow romancing. The social life of any rural community is very strongly influenced by the seasons. The reason, of course, being that the season determines the amount of leisure time and energy left for "getting' together." So I shall first follow around the calendar with the Big Days of my life. Sundays We had Sunday School every Sunday and church or "singing" every Sunday night. And then, the Sunday was the visiting for children. Some of my friends went home with me every Sunday from Sunday School and stayed till "night services," or else I went home with them. My sister did the same with her girl chums. If for any reason we were at home on Sunday afternoon without company then we felt lonesome. The wind just blew differently around the chimney - or if it were a hot summer day the dirt dauber whined out a more melancholy strumming as he plastered his mud house behind the window facing or up in the "loft." Because Sunday was just different from a week day. Some of these afternoons were made bright spots in our early memories by Mother's reading to us from our Sunday School paper. I remember a most thrilling story that ran for months, called "Boo Bear and Club Foot." And what a story! I wish I could read a copy today. The School Concert The first truly social event of the new year in which children had a hand was the school concert. The school year was never more than eight months long, usually six - sometimes five - but whatever its length there must be proper "breaking up" exercises. The thing really filled the place of the "Little Theatre" for us. It took in all the available talent in the neighborhood. Grownups, old folks, and babies. The one teacher and some of the "big girls" did the directing. The practice went on for weeks. School children during school time, and outsiders meeting at the school house at night. The "Concert" was always given at night. People came in wagons, buggies, horseback for five, ten, fifteen miles. The scope of the program was wide. It included speeches, dialogues, black face minstrelsy, flag or flower drills, singing - and the indispensable tableau. In this favorite child of the production, the figures held themselves statue-like in some much- cherished scene while somebody touched off a lid of some kind of powder that boomed and puffed out a blurry, smoky colored light which lasted for a minute or so. That, to us, was thrillingly spectacular! With all the delay in changing scenes and getting the powder to burn for the "tableau" the entertainment was usually not over till after eleven o'clock. Easter Egg Hunts Easter egg hunts were "events" to us. Some women of the church would collect eggs from all the mothers and dye them. There would be hundreds of eggs. We would meet at the church on Saturday afternoon and go inside while the eggs were being hidden. When the word was given, we were turned loose to find what we could. There was always a prize for the winner, the child who found the most eggs. Usually the prize was an egg painted silver or gold. We had no candy eggs. Our fun did not stop with the one day's joy. My sister and I took our eggs home and put them all together. Then we took turns hiding and looking for them for weeks - well, until there was hardly any of the colored shell left on them. And the smell of honeysuckle still reminds me of hiding those Easter eggs in the front yard at home in the huge clumps of honeysuckle vine. Children's Day The Second Sunday in June was always "Children's Day." As this was a church program it was, of course, sacred in its content. We always had literature put out by the Church Publishing Company, but this was only a nucleus for our "productions." Aunt Mag Broyles, who was then an old lady, had been in school and church work all her life. She had trunks of old books, pamphlets and newspapers full of "recitations," acrostics, songs and what-nots, that had been saved from the old days in Texas and Alabama. Her store was supplemented by many others. And the name was a "catch" too. We had everyone who went to Sunday School, and would, to take part. Boys with long trousers and beards. Girls with tuck knots and corsets - all were in our Children's Day Program. But the getting ready was heaps of fun. We walked about a mile through hot sun, sand and grass burrs for two afternoons a week for several weeks to practice. Some of the men of the Church always "took out" and scraped together enough lumber of some kind to make a stage adjoining the church house on the front. A stage curtain was made, usually of bed sheets. Gasoline torch lamps furnished the lights. It was the season for Cape jasmine to bloom. Most every family had jasmine bushes in the yard so these flowers were used in profusion to decorate the Church, the stage, and the curtains. Every girl wore one pinned on her dress and one tied in her hair ribbon. So the sweet, waxy-white flower of the Cape jasmine is inseparably blended with Children's Day nights! We never expected to get our new spring slippers till the second Sunday in June. When we did get them a Sunday or two early, we would not think of wearing them till "Children's Day." They had to be brand new - shiny and squeaky - for that night of nights! Of course, we had to have a white dress! Always white lawn with cotton lace - usually a colored ribbon sash to match our hair ribbon - and long white, ribbed cotton stockings. We had a 50-cent sailor hat with ribbon trailer and elastic band under our chin. But we didn't wear the hats on this night. Everyone had pigtail curls. Mother would scrub our heads clean on Friday and do our hair up in rags on corn shucks, so tight we couldn't shut our mouths. But we considered two nights' misery a small price to pay for the alluring loveliness of curls! The Ice Cream Supper The summer months brought out the ice cream freezers. Of course there were private parties for the "young folks," private for all who heard about them and cared to go! My sisters, Zee and Naomi, tell of one such party where the hostess had baked seventeen cakes! With ice cream served twice to everyone. They went by couples and stood around the dining table to eat. These ice cream parties were filled in with playing party games, such as: "Rare back chicken," "Little Brown Jug," "Let's Go to Boston," or if the hosts were more pious just "snap parties." You can readily see why surplus children were not appreciated at these parties, so we never got to go, but there was an ice cream supper that was for everyone. The Church Ice Cream Supper To this double purpose party - giving a good time and making money for the church - children and all who had nickels to spend were invited. All the cakes and the ingredients for the ice cream were donated by the church members. Several of the young men would "lay off" and go around about a week ahead to take subscriptions. Usually the supper was on Friday night. So on Friday morning two young men went around in a wagon to collect the donated milk, eggs, sugar, etc., and ice cream freezers. These were taken to the Church where some of the women and boys were gathered. Some one had gone to town in the meantime to get several hundred pounds of ice. This they brought back packed in sawdust in big gunny sacks. He hauled out the cases of soda water, too. Soon the mixing and freezing began. By night there was a bustling busy ice cream counter, made by driving pegs and nailing planks on their tops to form a ten or twelve foot square. In this enclosure the women who were serving and the "Martha's" who washed the dishes worked. Each woman had brought a load of bowls, saucers, and spoons. No one had seen paper plates and spoons in those days. Well, for the children it was a matter of spending your nickels and getting a fill of ice cream. But for the "young folks" it was a matter of adjudging one's popularity. The number of times a young lady got invited to the table indicated her desirability. The girls would eat only a taste of each serving so as to be able to hold out. My sisters tell of one girl whose boast was that she had "been to the table" twenty-six times at one of these ice cream suppers! Another feature of this party was the auctioning of a cake. It was always an especially pretty cake - decorated with colored candies and cedar sprays. It was an honor for a matron to be asked to make this cake. The bidding was done by buying votes for the girl of your choice. A penny a vote was the standard value. And more honor for the girl who won the cake through this high-test medium. After the two most promising girls were nominated either by a lover or a "schemer," each girl's bidding friends rallied to her support. The bidding went up and up until the "church fathers" decided the rivalry was becoming too animated for a church party, and so called a truce, and affected a compromise of some kind. Even so, sometimes the cake brought twenty-five or thirty dollars. The Protracted Meeting This is what the name implies - a protracted church service - but we never heard it called a "Revival," in fact, in home talk it was always "The Tract." There was church in the morning and church at night every day for a week and sometimes two weeks. This date, of course, had to be set for a time between the "laying by" the corn and cotton crops and time for pulling the fodder and topping the corn. So it usually came in early July. Some country churches built a brush arbor and moved the benches, organ and pulpit outside for the protracted meeting. Broyles Chapel stayed inside and fought the heat with hand fans. The fans were advertising souvenirs from lumber yards, grocery stores, undertakers, etc. A young lady's beau was kept busy trying to keep her cool. The sermons might not have been theological gems, the singing not all harmony, but when your father and people whom you knew as "good" were devout in its proceedings it was touching to a child. This was another good time of visiting from morning service till night. The meetings I remember best were after I was older, but still not old enough to have dates with the boys. Four or five girls and some of the boys would go to the same house for dinner and stay all the afternoon. We would talk and sing and eat watermelon and peaches. The Barbecue Picnic Each summer brought several of these all-day picnics. The election year was especially fruitful. For about ten days preceding the "Primary" there was a barbecue and all-day speaking in some community of the county each day. These were always held in a grove of trees, usually around the church or school house, so there would be water. There was always a platform built for the speakers and the notables who made longer speeches introducing them. But with no "mike" and the competition of the soda water man's ballyhooing, the fretting of hot, restless babies, and the uneasy movement of groups visiting with each other, the speaker had a job to make himself heard by the voters who really cared to hear. A lot of the voting strength was "parked" around under the shade trees in their new rubber-tired stick-back buggies with tasseled whips, and canopy fringed parasols, courtin' the best girl. They had likely ridden ten or fifteen miles in the buggy to the picnic and had that distance to go back, but they had no time to lose! The women, who had no vote, but "used their influence," were sitting around on the wagons, from which the teams were unhitched and being fed from the back ends, talking with friends about gardens, chickens, "hard times," and what not. When the "campaign friend" managers were ready to serve the meal, someone directed through a bull horn that everyone go to the tables. There was no delay! The long table was built of boards supported on posts between trees. There was barbeque, bread and pickles, with soda water. No potato chips - and no beer. One such picnic as this I remember well because I had my first automobile ride that day. It was at Tucker, ten miles west of Palestine. Sister Zee took her kids, Ardath and Horace, Imogene and me on the train. Jonas Kizer was the man who invited all of us kids to have a ride in his two-seated, one-door open-top car. What a thrill! Going to the Lake There was usually one rip a year to the lake. Now this was the lakes of the Trinity River west of Palestine. We usually went to Big Lake, sometimes Cedar, but it was all going to the lake to us. And when I came to hear about the Great Lakes in Geography, I never dreamed they could be any bigger than these bodies of water looked to me. Sometimes our trip was in the summer as a fishing trip; sometimes in the late August to get a little wild plum called "hog plum" to make jelly and preserves of; and sometimes in the fall to get pecans. But the trip was virtually the same for all. Several wagons would be needed to carry about twenty-five or thirty people, with food, bedding, cooking utensils. We always got up early, before daylight, to get an early start. We children sat flat on quilts and bounced and giggled and commented upon everything we passed until we were soon ready for some of the teacakes that Mother had taken along in a flour sack for that purpose. When we got to the lake and the camp site had been chosen, we children started to gather Spanish moss from the trees for beds; the men began gathering wood for fire, putting out "trot-line," getting out grub boxes so the women could cook the supper. After the dishes were washed we made a big campfire and we all sat around while someone played a French harp, or perhaps tum-tummed on an old guitar and sang - love songs dripping with pathos and fervor! This, with a harvest moon's reflection on the water was melodramatic. The Christmas Tree Christmas, to us, was so much bigger than any other day in the year that it didn't even compare! We counted the days from along in the fall. It was a hallowed time because of the vividness of the First Christmas which we had heard our Daddy read from St. Luke's in worshipful adoration each year. It was a happy time, for our Mother and Father made it us. It was an expectant time for they strained a point to give us the "foolish things" that make Christmas to a child. We really preferred to hang our stockings beside the mantel - Imogene on the left, and I on the right, with a chair each to catch the overflow. For our Santa Claus really put things in our stockings. When the first stir finally was made next morning after a night of fitful tossing and wondering if he'd come - out of bed we popped! No waiting for fires to warm up the house, or anything else. We poked our hands down in and brought out maybe an orange, next a horn, then some nuts, a bag of candy, a cocoanut and so forth. Between "Oh's and Ah's" we nibbled a bit of this and a bite of that till our stomachs were upset for the rest of the day. Our dolls, doll beds, doll dishes, story books, would be in our chairs. But some years we did compromise with Santa and let him leave our things at the church tree. This church tree was, to us, breath-taking in its dazzling splendor! It was a big holly or cedar that reached almost to the ceiling. It was lighted with real tallow candles clipped to the branches. The fact that the gifts were sometimes smoke-stained and grease-dripped did not dim our joy. The presents were really on this tree, not under it. There were dolls, drums, horns, towels, pictures, gloves, hose, handkerchiefs, and down the list - actually tied to the branches of this big tree. I remember with especial joy the tree that held the beautiful white woolen beret with red pompom and gloves trimmed with red that our brother Lester had bought for Imogene and me with some of the first money he made when he went to work for the I. and G. N. Railroad in 1905. The sight was stupendous when the curtain which had hidden the tree was drawn back and we beheld its glory. We sat spellbound while the announcer called out names as they started to clear the tree. You wanted him to call your name, yet you wanted to keep the beautiful surprise in store! But soon the magic thing had gone - and the bare tree stood there before you. But no one could take away that picture that is more beautiful than any Allegro's "tree of light" that can be arranged for eyes that are no longer a child's. Pleasant Grove School (Non-accredited) Taught grades 1 through 10 These teachers taught me: Mr. Jim Rose Mr. Joe Moore Miss Naomi Harper Mr. Hill Walters Mr. Tom Rhodes Miss Leta Lawrence Mrs. Patrick Mr. B. B. Alexander Mr. Roy Thompson Mr. Clint Wylie Broyles Chapel Methodist Church These preachers I can recall. This list is solely from my memory. I am not sure of the order in which they came: Brother Horner Brother Weatherby Brother Wells Brother Murray Brother Smith Brother McGaughey Brother Bass Brother Wright Preface to Index The following names of people are those I remember after these many years. They were not all on the stage at the same time, but each one is a part of my childhood memories. Adams, Mr. and Mrs. Alver, Hoyt, Grady and Mae Broyles, Will (a bachelor) Broyles, George Mitchell and Lelia Willie, Grafton, Lucille, Georgie and Mary (They had Imogene and Thomas Mitchell after they moved to Cherokee, Texas) Broyles, Miss Annie and her brothers: Frank, Dan, George, Walter, Boyd, and their aunt Miss Maggie Lester Broyles, Ben and Elvira Son Graham and his wife Eleanor Broyles, Daniel (bachelor) Miss Mollie, Miss Mag, Miss Lizzie (sisters) Boyd, Lee and Marion, Essie Barnhart, Joe and Ella Bentley, Joella, Clif Bullard, Phelan and Mary John (Phelan's bachelor brother) Cretsinger, Mr. and Mrs. Earl, Anise Day, Carroll and Sadie C. L., Howard, ________ Dixon (a widower) (Came to church every Sunday and went home with us for dinner) Elskes, Laurence Mother, Mrs. Bond Eubanks, Jack and Sallie Ethel, Charley Farris, Mr. and Mrs. Viola, Homer, Nina, Lena French, Joe and ________ Georgie, Bertie, Alice, Josie, Joe Gage, Mr. and Mrs. Luther, Alma Goad, Will and Tennie Alvis, Eldora, Ianthe Goodin, Mr. and Mrs. Costella, Ola Mae Gordon, Will and Ida Harper, Terry and Mattie Lynn Maurice Harper, Will and Annie Lavelle, Mildred, Juanita Harper, Tillman and Mollie Zee, Lester, Naomi, Imogene, Troy Harper, Edward and Virginia Vera, Ollie Mae, Blanche Harper, John D. and Henrietta Huldah, Willie, Pearl, Cleavland, Terry Hancock, Mr. and Mrs. Eula, Mack, Allie, Jewel Higginbotham, Mr. and Mrs. Irene Henry, Whit and ________ Dan, Rob, charley, Nellie, Jack Henry, Jim and ________ Sam, Bennie Honea, Mr. and Mrs. Jim, Elva Hughes, George and Mae Ruth, Ernest, Barney, Clayton, Verna, Mary Handorf, Mr. and Mrs. Ida, Addie Glenn, Wilhelmina Johnston, Jim and Ella Faye Johnson, Frank and Della Roy, Erna Mae, Dan Johnson, John and Emma Purdom, Inez, Belton Knight, Jack and Dessie Dorothy Kluth, ________ and ________ Julius Lewis, Elmer and Willie Clint, Audrey Lewis, Walter and Inez Earnest (Boots), Mary, Inez Lewis, Joe and ________ Walter, Elmer, Lydia, Mattie Mash, Alf and Ida Ruth Maynard, Mr. and Mrs. Tilson, Percival McCutcheon, Mr. and Mrs. Will, Ed Perry, Mr. and Mrs. Stella, Tempe Perry, Deucalion and Mrs. Haile, Mozelle, Harvey Pierce, Billy and ________ Dora, Eula, Edna Poole, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert, Marion, Nannie, Dessie Porter, Mr. and Mrs. A. T. and Buford Ramsey, Rev. and Mrs. John, Florence, Marvin Reese, George and Annie Edgar, George, "Sister," Guy Redd, Mr. and Mrs. Casey, Vie, Maude, Hobson, Bessie Stanaland, Ned and Beulah Neddie, Ozella Stanaland, Hugh (a bachelor) Stanaland, Stonewall and Emily Royal, Raymond Still, George and Mrs. (Confederate Veteran - house painter) Taylor, Jeames and Betty Perry, Zada Taylor, Willis and Johnnie Ira, Irene, Willard Taylor, Ben and Ida Mary, Thelma Thompson, Bob and Rosie Elmer, Rufus, Otto Valentine, Charlie and Nannie Howard, Cleo, Horace Valentine, Joseph and ________ Jim, Frank, Kate, Link, Annie Wilburn, Mr. and Mrs. Tee, Jim, Grace, Kate Wallace, Joe and Betty Rosy, George, Gertrude, Joe, Frances Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. Doris, Raymond, Lena Mae Zachary, Fess (a bachelor) Submitted by: Troy Harper Reynolds Houston, TX Editors Note: Special THANKS to Mrs. Harper for this very well written and very interesting reminiscence of bygone days. This was all very interesting to me because I presently live at Broyles Chapel. A copy of a listing of Broyles Chapel Cemetery can be found at Palestine Carnegie Library. Regretfully it could not be published along with this article in this issue. LFG