TX BIOS:  Mrs. Frank Mitchell
   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   0001
   
   White Pioneer
   
   Interview with Mrs. Frank Mitchell, 409 Forest , March 25, 1938.
   
   Mrs. Mitchell, who come to Old Tascosa as a very young girl, in 1884,
   knew Frank Valley, Fred Chilton, and Ed King, three cowboys who
   figured in the fatal shooting of March 21, 1886. She remembers them as
   nice young cowboys who treated her as considerately as any of the
   others and who acted as gentlemanly. [Frank?] Valley was tall, dark,
   and handsome, object of admiration of all the young girls, but
   considerably older than she. [DEL: was :DEL] She, though very young,
   because of the scarcity of young girls, was permitted to go to dances
   as long as her father was about the place. Jesse Sheets, the fourth of
   the men who died with their boots on on the night of March 21, 1886,
   was a restaurant keeper who stuck his head out of the door to see what
   the shooting was all about and [DEL: [??] :DEL] was accidentally shot.
   She saw the four in the street the next morning, with their hats
   tipped over their faces.
   
   Mrs Mitchell also knew Frenchy McCormick well. She remembers her
   especailly for her goodness and kindness in carrying water to her
   folks when they had typhoid fever and [at?] other times because she
   had good well water and the other [family?] did not. Every time she
   went [pas?] the [other?] girl's homestead, she brought a bucket of the
   good water. Frenchy, as she was [known?]; went to her husband's dance
   and gambling hall, but did not become one of the red light girls. When
   her husband died after the decline of Old Tascosa, the Catholic
   organizations offered her a good job and home at St. Anthony's
   Hospital. She refused and they offered her a permanent home at the
   Sisters of Charity [ [DEL: ? :DEL] ] a Catholic institution in Fort
   Worth , but she again refused , preferring to be near the grave of her
   husband.
   
   Rooking Chair Emma, a notorious figure in Old Tascosa, was a fat
   brunette young woman who ran one of the red light houses, called
   Rocking Chair Emma because she was so lazy she sat and rocked all the
   time. Sally [Emory?] was another woman who ran a red [[?]light house.
   
   Mrs. Mitchell lived on the [?], the Matador, and the Frying Pan
   ranches, often keeping books for her husband, learning to type so that
   
     NOTE: [???]
     
   00022she could help him more efficiently. He objected to the telephone
   when it first came in , and she had one put in her home while he was
   away, paying for it a year in advance. He came to enjoy its service
   very much, using it often.
   
   When her nephew [asked?] her one time what she wanted for Christmas,
   Mrs. Mitchell told him that she wanted electric lights more than any
   thing else. She had served her time cleaning [DEL: lamps :DEL] lamp
   chimneys and filling kerosene lamps. [DEL: [?] :DEL] The first night
   the lights [were?] [DEL: [?] :DEL] in , she turned them all on [DEL:
   that first night :DEL] and went outside the house and walked around
   and around it, admiring the sight and enjoying the thought of
   [emancipation?] from the years of semi-darkness and lamp-cleaning.
   
   Again, when cars were advertised in the St. Louis paper, which
   everyone took , Mr. Mitchell remarked that they would never be used
   generally out in the Panhandle.
   
   Recalling the tons of coal ash and the fires of cow chips, Mrs.
   Mitchell calls gas the most convenient modern improvement in the home.
   Mrs. Mitchell is the first of the old-timers interviewed to say she
   would not live it all over again, remembering the bitter that spoiled
   the sweet for her.
   
   Mrs. Mitchell recalls the real Spanish people who [were?] at Old
   Tascosa, who were white as any American was. One of these old Spanish
   families, who pride themselves on their pure Spanish blood, unmixed
   with Indian and Negro like the "greaser" Mexicans, was old Don
   Casimero, whose family were all blue-eyed and fair. Another family,
   that of old Casimero Romero, consisted of his wife and two foster
   children, Piedad and her supposed brother. Piedad was beautiful,
   entirely different in characteristics [from?] the foster brother, and
   many thought they were not related. He became a [ne'er-do-well?]. She
   later married an American named Thompson and lived in Kansas City and
   at Lubbock.
   
   Mrs. Mitchell has not seen any of the old barbed wire on Western
   Avenue, but has specimens which she and her husband found on the
   00033[Matador?] range recently. Some of this [[?]wire, with other
   valuable historical objects have been placed by Mrs. Mitchell in the
   museum at Canyon. The barbed wire is broad and flat with barbes at
   intervals.
   
   Mr. Mitchell was the first customer of Mr. Sewald, the first jeweler
   in [DEL: [?] :DEL] Panhandle , at Old Tascosa, [DEL: latr :DEL] later
   becoming the first one in [DEL: Amarillo :DEL] Amarillo, also. The
   piece of jewelry that Mr. Mitchell bought was a fine [watch], which is
   at present in a safety deposit box in the bank. Mr. Sewald, when he
   later sold out to the late E. E. Finklea, accosted Mr. Mitchell on the
   street one day and [DEL: tld :DEL] told him that he wanted him [since
   he had been the first customer,?] to be the [last?] person [DEL: [?]
   :DEL] to buy a piece of jewelry from him , Mr. Mitchell selected a
   beautiful ring, which he bought at a [nominal?] cost. The ring was
   given at his death to a newphew who had expressed a wish for it.
   
   Mrs. Mitchell [DEL: [?] :DEL] [unlike?] other old-timers [interviews?]
   , that sandstorms were not a common thing in the Panhandle before the
   settlers came with ploughs, except along the sandy wastes of the
   Canadian River.

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