Today is Monday, January 30, 2012. Birthdays for the week are: Jan. 30: James W. Forbes, Carl Hofmeister Jr., Alice Joy Livingston, Louise Dalby and Joyce Dockins. It was the birthday of Ione Middleton, Maye Satterwhite, Virgie Duke Taylor and Melvin Miller.
Jan. 31: June Steiner and Bob Fairchild. It was the birthday of Thelma Ellington. It is the wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Hagler.
Feb. 1: Montie Jones, Holly Hutto, Sara Cruse, Linda Gaddis, Penny Warr and Kenneth Warr. It was the birthday of Durusha Thomas.
Feb.2: Barbara Byrd Sanderson, Lisa Windham, Penny Harrison, Nelda Jacobs Laird, Dr. Robert Pate and Berry Mooseberg. It was the birthday of Vada Lout.
Feb. 3: Carolyn Sue Smith, Joy Allen and Walker Jackson, It was the 106th birthday of Ray Kimbro. It was the birthday of Katherine Watts Prince, Bob Mills and Max Brown.
Feb. 4: Pat Tucker, Janet Belrose, Bernadette Dodd. It was the 103rd birthday of my husband L.L. (Pete) Dellinger, and the birthdays of Mrs. Winston Smith and Ruth Lee.
Feb. 5: Sammy Rhodes. It was the birthday of Eugene Webb, Florene Samford Garrett, Ada Bullard and Ruth Smith Kindle, born 1909.
Feb. 6: David Chadwick, Wendall Johnson, Buddy Hancock, Paul David Duncan, John Doggett and Gilbert Wheeler. It was the birthday of Dan Liem and Jane Ellon Jones.
••••••• In the 1920s, that I remember so well, the women and girls did a lot of embroidery. We used hoops to hold the piece of cloth while we did finger stitching on the design. We had patterns which we traced with carbon paper onto the pillow slips or cloth.
Perry Brothers had an entire counter for that kind of art. There were stamped dresser scarfs, table runners, cup towels, skeins of embroidery thread for 10-cents or three for 25-cents, plus envelopes of patterns.
Mamie Lou Woods, if you remember, was crippled due to polio but was the popular art instructor. She taught the neighborhood girls and others how to crochet, knit, tat, embroidery and oil paint. I learned all those skills from her when I was a child and teenager.
Sheets were embroidered for bed spreads and a popular design was a peacock. Mamie Lou had this pattern, and it was shared to many to trace onto a bed sheet and embroidered with colorful thread.
Later, when the broiler business came into our world, we got lots of white feed sacks. We sewed and embroidered on them. The sacks were soft white material and we made pillow slips with our handiwork and even put crochet lace on them.
Some of the feed sacks came in colors and if you could get three alike, then you could make a dress. It was fun to sew using feed sacks!
••••••• I’ve been thinking of an old popular song of the 1920s, “Hand me down my walking stick.” It was used on the Grand Ole Opry many times.
Pete and I with our two children hardly ever missed going to the picture show every Saturday night after we closed the grocery store. Pete liked the westerns and the kids like the cartoons. I liked the popcorn and cold drink best.
Then after we returned home, we turned on the Grand Ole Opry on our one radio. Those were the days of Minnie Pearl. I can’t think of the others. Some of those popular songs were “Pistol Packing Mama,” “Hand me down my walking stick,” and “15 tons of coal.”
••••••• I pulled a little book off my book shelf to find something to write about. It is a history of our Center First Christian Church with pictures of the beautiful wood building on the corner of Porter and Cora Streets.
The parsonage was further away on the same lot. So, the members sold the lot where the church was to the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company for $5,000, thus, enabling them to have the church moved to its present location. Brick veneer was placed over the wooden church and a 2 story Sunday School space was added. Aubie Gene McSwain is now the pastor of the church. He is interested in collecting history of the church and pictures.
••••••• We were taught to say the “bad place,” and the “bad man” when we were little instead of saying “hell” and “devil.” I still say the bad place. I just don’t feel right using the “H” word.
••••••• Jimmy Matthews called me to talk and see how I am doing. He served as the Center Police Chief for many years. Jimmy is now 71 which I think is a very young age.
However, he is not able to get outside anymore and stays confined to home like I do. His lungs and heart are ok as he quit smoking over 25 years ago and played golf quite a bit. I’m sure that was good exercise. Put Jimmy on your list to call and send cards to. He is listed in the phone directory, but his mailing address is 527 Fannin Street, Center, TX 75935. His phone is 936-598-5504. He is a Willie Nelson fan and met Willie when Willie first visited me at KDET.
••••••• I continue to get calls from Willie Nelson and his daughter Susie. They called again last week. Willie autographed a new picture of himself and mailed it by Federal Express.
Willie is at his home on his golf estate for the next two weeks.
••••••• I received two more arrangements from Watson’s florist Wednesday January 25 from my good friends Tom Steele and his wife Mary Jean. They are good friends concerned about me, as so many others are. I appreciate all the concern, please continue it as I love it!
••••••• A.J. Procell is planning to set out 100 fig trees the first week in March on his Joaquin fruit farm which is dominated by his many mayhaw trees.
I talked with him January 24, and he said his mayhaw and fruit trees were looking good and that with the help of David Whitton he had been trimming and pruning the trees.
He said that the weather did not hurt the trees and that he lost only three or four of the mayhaw trees.
Just think in a few years if A.J.’s 100 fig trees live and produce, there will be plenty of figs for everybody to make fig preserves along with mayhaw jelly.
A.J. is real optimistic about the future of his trees.
••••••• I received a letter January 25 from Karen Kimbro Butler, Kate’s oldest grandchild who lives in Livingston. I will quote part of her letter as she tells it better than I could rewrite it.
Karen wrote: “After the Saturday service for grandmother, we all headed for home in different directions, all but Joan, her husband T.J. and their three grandchildren ages 4,7, and 9. They remained in Center Saturday night.
Sunday morning, they went to town and bought three balloons. They let the children write notes to their grandmother Kate and put in the balloons, then they filled them with helium and went to grandmother’s grave site at Fairview.
Once there, they said a little prayer and let go of the balloons. Do you know- instead of the balloons taking off and heading over roof tops, they headed straight up? Joan told me it was the most amazing thing. She said the sky was the bluest blue you have ever seen at that time. All three of the balloons stayed together as they ascended upward. They took pictures of the event, and they stood together as a family as they watched the balloons keep going straight up and out of sight. Then the youngest grandchild exclaimed with glee, ‘Our notes made it to Heaven and Granny Kate got our notes!’” Those balloons landed somewhere and if they are found with those children’s writing, I’d be pleased to know about it as I’d love to have one of the balloons. The three balloons represented Curtis, Bill and Joan.
– Mattie