Ox Wagon Travel in 80's by Mrs. Eva Hayley, Coke County, TX

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Submitted by Jo Collier - jomar@wcc.net
11 Oct 2001
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The Robert Lee Observer, Robert Lee, TX - June 27, 1963

	From 1886 Mrs. Eva Hayley Has Known Robert Lee
	Since Town was Started, Writes of Ox Wagon
	Travel in 80's

	(We invited Mrs. Eva Hayley, who passed her 84th birthday on
June 10, to write her experience in Coke County.  The following
is her story.-Editor)

		BY MRS. EVA HAYLEY

	My father, J. J. Vestal, came to Abilene, Texas, in 1886,
from Sarixia, Missouri.  We lived in Abilene three months, and
Father worked in the shop.  He was a blacksmith.
	We moved to Indian Creek and lived near what is the Jim
McCutchen ranch now.  Mother did not like Texas.  She cried most
of the time and begged to go back to Missouri.
	So one time Father came in and said, "Mary, if I could sell
one of my nice horses and buy two oxen, would you be willing to
go back to Missouri?"
	Mother said, "Oh, John, if you can fix a way for you and the
children, I would gladly walk.  I could walk as fast as the oxen."
	"No use to walk," he answered.
	       
			To Missouri By Ox-Wagon

	This was 1887, the year of the awful drouth - little calves
running and trying to find their mothers who had died for want of
water and grass.
	Father fixed the wagon and loaded it with bedding and what
we had to have.  On August 12, in the dry, hot weather, we started
for Missouri.  One nice horse was led behind the wagon.
	When we got to Red River, the water was running and Father
drove into the water and the oxen swam across and pulled the wagon.
It just floated along.
	We were six long weeks on the road-sometimes no water for
two or three days.  We went through the Cherokee Nation and saw lots
of Indians.  Sometimes we would beg for water and they would not let
us have it.  Lots of times they could not spare it.
	One time we went three days and no water.  The oxen had their
tongues out, panting.  We crossed a dry creek - did not look like there
was any water.  But when we got up the bank, the oxen whirled and
ran along the bank.  Father jumped out and took his big, awful look-
ing whip and ran in front of the oxen.  He made them stop, then let
the wagon tongue down and took the oxen loose from the wagon.
	They ran on down a cow trail to a hole of water.  You never saw
anything so thirsty.  When they had drunk all that Father could let
them, he popped his whip and hollered and finally got them back to
the wagon.  By then all of the children were crying for water.
			
			Water from Indians

	Then Father saw an Indian shack and stopped and went to ask for
a bucket of water.  An Indian woman brought out a bucket of water.
But when she saw our little dog she would not let us have a drink
until she gave the dog a drink, and we could hardly wait.
	One day a wagon came up behind us and pulled around us, and at
nearly sundown we caught up with them.  They didn't tell us they had
whooping cough.  And we camped close together.  The people in each
wagon were glad to see white people.
	Next day we found they had one child very near dead with whooping
cough.  And Mother lost her darling baby with whooping cough.  
	When we got to Monett, Mo., we swapped the oxen for a nice horse,
and we trotted on to Father's mother's house.  We were as happy as any
of you are now, or could be with a big car.  We all sang and cried, too,
and got to dear Grandmother's house for supper.
	Then Grandmother got sick and died.  She had been exposed to the
measles, and died in two weeks, and we were all so heartbroken.
	Father stayed until the beautiful home was sold, with all the
beautiful roses and all kinds of flowers and fruit trees.

			By Train to Texas

	When he got everything taken care of, we got on the train and 
came back to Texas, to Hayrick, in 1889.  Father put up a shop and
worked for lots of people.
	We came here to what is now Robert Lee in '91.  Mother died in
'92 and left two babies, one 24 months and one two weeks.  The little
baby just lived three months.  Then Father sent us three little girls
back to Missouri.  We went to school - were with Father's sister and
Mother's brother.  No one on earth could ever be as good and under-
standing as they were.
	We were there three years, and Father sent us the money to come
home on.  We went up there on the train and came home on the train.
	
	This ends the story as Mrs. Hayley has written it.  She has
lived in and near Robert Lee since the town was built except for those
three years in Missouri.
	She drives her own car, goes where she pleases, does her own
work.  In the past twelve months she canned 48 half gallon jars of 
apricots that grew on her trees at her home in the north part of
Robert Lee, not far west from the County Park.


Permission granted by Observer/Enterprise for publication in the
Coke County TXGenWeb Archives