Dallas Co TX - Mrs. Ann Ramby Submitted By: Sadie Kennedy ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitted, and contact the listed USGENWEB archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGENWEB Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** Dallas Morning News 18 Sept 1891 page 4 PIONEER SKETCH Lancaster Herald. Mrs. Ann Ramby - To a herald reporter she said: " I have very little to give you that would be of interest to my pioneer friends. The ground has been pretty much covered by others who have given sketches for the Herald, hence I shall be brief. I was born in Illinois in 1832. I came with my parents to Lamar county in 1845. We, hearing that the garden spot of the world was just south of the Trinity, came to this community in the spring of 1846. My father bought out the headright of Pleasant Taylor in addition to his own headright. My parents remained at the old home place near Lancaster as long as they lived. Coming to Texas when a girl in my teens I was delightfully impressed with the appearance of the country. In the springtime the whole surface was covered with a carpet of grass and prairie flowers. I came to Texas favorable impressed and while I have long since passed from my teens, I still regard Texas as a grand state. I received the larger part of my "schooling" in Texas at the Pleasant Run school house. I can think of no hardships that we encountered while growing up. Could time roll back in its flight I would like to live all those days over again, and could I now find some country just like Texas was then, I would like to sell out and move there now. "I was first married in 1853. I have lived in the neighborhood of Lancaster since my arrival in the state. When a girl I thought it a small undertaking to go ten miles to an entertainment. I, in company with a party of young ladies and young gentlemen, went once upon a time to Navarro county to a barbecue near Corsicana. We rode horseback, buggies being almost unknown in Texas at that time. The ball room was under an arbor in the grove. I was at Capt. Perry's barbecue July 4, 1846, which was the first if I mistake not in the county. It closed with a dance which lasted all night. The dances in those days were more refined than the latter day dances. They were 'more square' and less round.' I have stood in my father's front door many a day and watched droves of deer pass by. At one time the women of the neighborhood 'forted' at my father's house while the men went out to drive back the supposed Indian invaders. It was a hoax. We were never troubled by the red men in the community. Here ends my epistle."