TX BIOS:  Hogan Reeves
   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.
   
   00011
   
   Folkstuff - Life sketch - Relics of Pioneer days
   
   FOLKWAYS
   
   William V. [Irvin, P. W.?]
   
   Glen Rose, Somorvell County
   
   District # 8 reported
   
   No. of words [?]
   
   File [?]
   
   Page 1 R
   
   Reference
   
   Consultant - Hogan Reeves, Glen Rose, Texas Dr. J. H. Reeves. In 1869
   Dr. J. H. Reeves, grandfather of Hogan Reeves, came to what is now
   Somervell County from Fannin County, Texas; where he had originally
   come from Tennessee. He settled near the Brazos River a few miles from
   Barnard's Mill, which is now the town of Glen Rose, county seat of
   Somervell County. The first public road leading from Glen Rose to
   [Clabourne?] on the east passed just in front of the home Dr. Reeves
   built and crossed the river nearby. For a number of years Wm. Reeves,
   a brother of Dr. Reeves, operated a ferry at the crossing.
   
   Dr. Reeves enjoyed a considerable medical practice for so sparsely
   settled a section, and had patients in Claburne. He also farmed on his
   place near the Brazos.
   
   The doctor and his wife came to this section of the country in a
   [one-seated?], two -wheeled, one-horse cart which the doctor himself
   made. The wheels and axle of the cart are still at his home place, now
   owned by his grandsons. The workmanship and materials of the wheels
   and axle are excellent, and they have the appearance almost of having
   been made by a professional vehicle manufacturer. These remaining
   parts of the old cart are now nearing the century mark in age.
   
     NOTE: C12 2/11/41 Texas
     
   0002The old house built by Dr. Reeves still stands and is where his
   grandsons now live. It is reached by a winding road through the rocky
   hills and dense cedar brakes which after penetrating a thicket of oak
   trees comes into an open lonely, hidden spot where the old house
   stands with the dark woods along the banks of the turbid and
   treacherous river looming not far off, the locality seeming a fit
   hideout for desperadoes rather than the home of law-abiding,
   hospitable citizens such as the Reeves brothers.
   
   There are still about the place a number of articles the doctor made
   and used including an armchair of skillful design and workmanship. It
   has an arm broadened at the outer end for writing, a small brass lamp
   fitted to a wooden holder which in turn is fitted to a slot in the
   chair arm which made the chair a convenient writing place at night.
   There was also another trim, well-made chair which the doctor had
   constructed.
   
   [A tow-sack?] of large, delicious pecans was brought out by one of the
   brothers for the visitors' refreshment. Then presently another such
   sack with a similar subdued [clatter?] and rattle to that of the
   pecans was placed nearby. The visitors, having even bigger pecans in
   mind, investigated. Not pecans, bones, human bones! A skeleton had
   been unearthed on the farm and no one seemed to know whose it had
   been. Of course some ill-disposed person might say it was one of the
   good doctor's mistakes he had buried. 0003The object that would
   perhaps stimulate the observer's imagination the most violently was
   the old-fashioned toothpuller intended to be operated by home talent.
   It looked like a [persuader?] right out of a medieval torture chamber.
   A hook, claw-like and curved in the shape of the letter C, is attached
   hinge-fashion to a small, round rod five or six inches long with a
   bulge where the hook is. A handle placed crosswise on the end of the
   rod opposite the end, where the hook is fastened, enabled the operator
   after the hook was caught on the tooth, to turn the rod until -- but
   it is hardly necessary to go into the horrific details. This
   vicious-looking instrument when in use must have caused some grand
   home-talent yelling.

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