If you copy this information, please cite this as your source:

Betsy Mills and Ron Brothers. The Death and Cemetery Records of Lamar County, Texas, ReBroMa Press, 2008, http://www.lamarcountytx.org/cemetery. (12/15/2025)

Birmah’s Early Recollections
     I am the first born child of Martha Jane Maddox and Roy P. Brothers. My birthplace was in a two-room log cabin, located in what was at one time known as the community of Palestine, about 10 miles northeast of Paris, Lamar County Texas. On a cold and snowy day, my parents later told me, Dr. P. C. Bailey delivered me into the world with the help of Aunt Julie Ann Hays, who lived just a few hundred feet across the road. She boiled water to sterilize the doctor’s instruments and held an oil lamp so he could see. Dr. Bailey rode a buggy about 10 miles to deliver me and my father paid him a $10.00 gold piece for his services... and so it was....
     When I was two years old, we moved from that log cabin, which was bounded by my great grandfather Jacob Gardner Reed on the west, my grandfather Benjamin Stuart Maddox to the south, and my step great uncle and aunt, Nathan and Julie Hays, to the east south east. From there we moved to a slab house, which had three rooms, about two miles southwest. There my sister was born, Gwendolyn Mignon Brothers. She was paid for with a Model T Ford.
     Our next home was in Tarrant County. The country was in an economic depression so Daddy went to Ft. Worth and found a job with my Uncle (Arthur) Roy Embree [husband of his sister Lou Helen Brothers]. After a while, he came back to Lamar County and moved us into a duplex in Ft. Worth. The other side of the duplex was occupied by a family named Kimberly. Mother and Mrs. Kimberly became good friends and it was here, Duane and Dorothy Jean Brothers were born. We lived near the airport and heard one day that Charles Lindburg was coming to town. We walked over to the airport, but there was such a crowd I couldn’t see him, so Daddy lifted me on his shoulders and I got to see the famous flyer and his ‘Spirit of St. Louis’ airplane.
     While in Ft. Worth, we had door to door bread and milk deliveries. The milk delivery men came by mornings, in what looked like a covered buggy drawn by a horse. The bread men came by at a different time. Milk sold for a nickel a quart and bread for a nickel a loaf. The bread was wrapped in white paper with red and blue polka dots, and was the forerunner of Wonder Bread. The delivery man would sometimes give Gwen and I two miniature loaves for no charge. Also, in the large loaves we would find a red and blue balloon. This was a big thrill for us. The wagons had little bells on them and the delivery man would ring them as they came down the street. Also, the women would go out to the side walk and wait for the bread wagon. Without the bells, the milk wagon was noisy because you could hear the rattling of the glass bottles for a block or more away. Milk was always left on the front porch. At the end of the week the milk man would collect his money for the milk.
     One day, unaware of their absence to Mother, Duane and Dorothy Jean, the twins, decided to take a stroll of Ft. Worth. They were about three years old at the time. A strange woman to the family saw them and brought them back home.
     Daddy was transferred to Dallas about a year later and we moved to Sharon St., on the west side of the city. Aunt Helen, Uncle Roy and Katherine Embree lived in Dallas near the Marsalis Zoo. Uncle Roy and Daddy worked for the city putting in water lines. On one occasion, Gwen and I spent the night with Katherine, where we slept on pallets on their screened in porch. That night we heard noises in the back yard but paid little attention to it as we were tired from playing all day. The next day, we heard that a bear had broken loose from the zoo and had gone through the back yard. We later found the foot prints. That really scared us.
     Work played out in Dallas and times got harder so we moved back to Lamar County with Grandpa (Ben) Maddox. Times were pleasant at Grandpa’s. He was so kind and gentle. He used to crack and pick out hickory nuts for us. I can just see him now sitting on the front porch cracking those nuts. He was also a nature lover. He made Blue Bird boxes and put them on the fence post. We would watch the Blue Birds build their nests in the boxes and then in a few weeks, out would come the little Blue Birds.
     Gwen and I started our educations at the same school that Mother had attended. It was about two miles from Grandpa’s and we walked through sand, in the summer and fall and mud in the winter and spring. We used to cut through Uncle Nath and Aunt Julie Hays’ place where we had to cross a swollen creek sometimes. There, Daddy had put a log between the high banks and we walked on the log during high water. After crossing that we walked down a graded sandy road.
     Auntie (Etta Mae Maddox Bramlett) was my first teacher. One day, I was chewing gum in class that the Watkins man had given to me the day before. A chew of gum was something to have in those days. Anyway, Auntie saw me chewing it and told me to go to the door and spit it out. I went to the door and pretended I did, but put it under my tongue and went back to my seat. I forgot and started chewing it again and got caught. This time I spit it out and she made me go to the black board where she drew a circle with chalk. There I had to put my nose in it and stand for a few minutes, which to me seemed an hour, and that taught me never to chew gum again in school. Outside the school house there was a water well. We drew water from the well with a bucket tied to a rope. There was a dipper there and all the kids drank from the same dipper. We took our lunch to school in brown paper bags and if weather permitted, we sat under a tree to eat during lunch period. One day a whirl wind came up, picked up my lunch sack and carried it away across the school grounds. Feeling sorry for me, Calvin Conder shared his lunch with me. A few weeks later he left his lunch under the tree while he played ball with the other boys. A big red pig came up and grabbed it and ran away, so I shared my lunch with him. This sounds untrue, but I swear it is the truth.
     After a couple of years at Grandpa’s, Daddy moved us to what we all called the ‘Green Top House’, in Powderly. Here, Buddy (Bennie Royce) and Emma Lois were born. Dr. Bailey, who delivered them, came into the room where Gwen and I were waiting, and handed a baby to me. He told me it was a boy and it was my job to take care of him. Then he returned and told Gwen that she had to take care of the little girl. That made me wonder if there were still others in there.
     At this time Daddy had built a peanut thrasher with his own two hands. Prior to that, he had helped Grandpa (James Bennett) Brothers with his thrasher. But the economy was picking up, and more people were planting more peanuts than Grandpa Brothers could thrash.
     The old green top house had many good and bad memories, but mostly good. It was enjoyable to hear the cowboys driving their herd of cattle to Oklahoma City, to market. We could hear them coming a mile down the highway. Model A’s and Model T’s were the going thing then, but when a herd of cattle came down the highway, the cars stopped still. To prevent a stampede, the cowboys always sang songs. You could hear the shrill whistle urging their herd on and the popping of their rawhide whips, cracking as they were hurled over the cowboys heads. There was a certain rhythm to the cows hoofs on the pavement that we weren’t accustomed to. When we lived with Grandpa Maddox the road was not paved and clouds of dust could be seen in the sky a few miles before the herd approached. As they passed, we ate dust, and always the cowboys sang. ‘Get along little doggies’, if not that, some other songs that I can’t remember or recall now.
     Tramps constantly walked the highway in front of the house. They were known to sleep under bridges, in barns or anywhere else they could find shelter. It was not uncommon for one to stop at our house and ask for food. Usually, Mother had some left over biscuits she would give them, but there were times she did not and had to turn some away. I remember one so vividly, early one morning a man stopped and asked for food, Mother gave him biscuits and coffee. He was so hungry, he dipped his biscuits in his coffee and seemed to really enjoy it. He thanked Mom and went on his way. The next morning I tried the same thing and it tasted pretty good.
     Gypsies also traveled the highways. It was not uncommon to see two or more covered wagon loads pass our house. Neighbors would usually go house to house, warning each other of their presence. Gypsies were known to steal clothing off the lines hanging in back yards. They would also steal chickens or anything else they could beg, borrow or steal. They are also known to be fortune tellers.
     Behind the green top house was the railroad track. Those big black engines were so big they scared me. Hoboes sometimes traveled on the trains and box cars. It wasn’t uncommon to see one lying on top or sitting in an open box car door, even hiding between the cars. Some would also be seen walking the tracks with clothes on their back being their only possessions, while others would have what few items they possessed tied in a shirt, the shirt tied to the end of a stick and the stick carried over a shoulder. If the conductor caught them bumming a ride, they were put off the train.
     On the other side of the track was a government forest. We kids often would go into the forest to look for wild turkey nests. The turkey would gobble at us and walk in the opposite direction of their nest in hopes of leading us away from their eggs. Sometimes we were able to see a turkey hen with little ones. In a clearing near this area there was a large stone about two feet tall and about three feet wide. Around this rock we found Indian arrow heads. This is where the Indians hammered out their arrows. Grandpa (James Bennett) Brothers had moved just across this clearing into the piney woods in a log cabin that had no floor except for the earth. Now we could walk to see him. Most of the time however, we walked down the highway (271) to his cabin.
     There was a small store that sold gas and a few groceries that we passed on the way to Grandpa Brothers’ house. One day I was passing the store and Cecil Musgrove was sitting on the porch and hollered at me and said, ‘Girl, did you know you had garments on you?’ I thought he was making fun of me, and I told him, ’no I haven’t, and you shut up!’
     From the green top house we moved into a house near Lamar Lake Club House. The house had 4 rooms with no ceiling and a tin roof. It was so hot we couldn’t stay inside during the day. Mom was pregnant with Barbara Ann at the time. Sometimes we cooked our food over an open fire and ate outside because of the heat of the house. Also, all the washing was done outside on a rub board. We weren’t there long until we moved about two miles north into a house that belonged to Jim Jenkins.
     This house also had four rooms and a back porch. We carried our drinking water from a spring a mile away. Sometimes we carried water to wash clothes. Daddy was in Terrell, Texas hauling pipe for a gas line. When he had a day off and came home, he hauled water in a barrel for us to use for washing clothes.
     Gwen and I were big girls then, but we still liked playing house. We built our play house under a clump of trees in the front of the house. Some neighbor boys would come over and tear it up sometimes. So one day we got it all straight again, crawled up the tree above it and waited until the boys came again. They came along and started tearing it up and we let go and wet on them below. We never had any trouble keeping our house after that.
     Oh no, we got word that Mother was going to have her baby or babies, and she sent us to our neighbors to stay, and to call Dr. P.C. Bailey. Mrs. Albright went to Mother and got her ready for the delivery. After what seemed like hours, the neighbors came back and told us we had a baby sister. More dirty diapers.... After a few months, Daddy came back home for good. He moved us across the highway (271) to where he leased and later bought a forty acre farm. Here he went back to peanut thrashing when he wasn’t farming. Grandpa (Benjamin Stuart) Maddox gave him his two mules, Kit and Jude, to plow the fields with. Elvis Coy Maddox, Mother’s brother, had nicknamed them Hog and Gas. When he used to plow with them, he would get to the end of a row and holler ‘Hawg-Gass’. Duane, Tommy and Daddy would plow up the ground and we planted our garden on a hill behind our house. Also, we raised tomatoes for the market, but the main source of our living came from the old peanut thrasher. We planted and raised the tomatoes in early spring and Daddy took them to the tomato shed in Powderly where they were graded, packed in boxes and loaded on railroad box cars and shipped to market.
     Life was fun in this house on the forty acre farm. We had four rooms and a front porch that ran the length of the house. We had fruit and black walnut trees, a barn for the cow and mules, a pig pen, and a storm house. The storm house had shelves in it where we stored our canned fruit, potatoes and cabbage kraut, cured in a churn. We had a cow-dog named Rags. When Mother wanted to milk the cow late in the afternoon and in the early morning she would tell Rags to go get the cow. He would head straight for the top of the storm cellar, look all around the fields until he saw the cow, which we called Peggy, and then take out running to bring her home. He was named ‘Rags’ because Duane used to tease him with a rag. If the dog got the rag from Duane, he would run away, shaking it and tease Duane with it. One day a sow had her pigs and Tommy picked one out for a pet. From then on if we missed Tommy, we would always look under the house. Sure enough he would be asleep under there, and his little pig also.
     Getting everyone ready for school each year was an expensive task. During the year we saved our printed flour sacks. Daddy brought flour in 50lb. bags. The bags had printed flowers on them. After the flour was used up we opened the sack, washed and ironed it, then saved it. Then Daddy would go to the store and try to get the same print on the new sack as the one we had just done up. Then Mother would make us girls a school dress out of them. Usually it took two or three sacks for a dress. If we didn’t have enough flour sacks to make each girl two dresses, Daddy would take Mother to town or to the General Store and buy more material. Material at the stores would cost about 10 cents per yard in those days, and it usually took two yards per dress. We girls started out with two dresses for school every year, and we would wear a dress for a week. When we came home from school we changed our clothes so we could keep our school clothes clean. We got one pair of shoes a year.
     We saved the scraps from the material we made the clothing from. In the winter the quilt frames went up in front of the fire place. Daddy bought cotton and we would ‘card’ it. To card cotton you placed the cotton lint, still with seeds, between two special brushes. You then brushed the cotton until you had removed the seed and flattened out the cotton. Feed sacks were saved and washed and then they were sown together and placed on the quilt frame. On top of the sacks was placed the carded cotton and then on top of the cotton was placed the pieced together material, saved from the clothing. Then all three layers were quilted and sewn together. This was our cover for the winter. We made quilts of many different designs. Mom used to say, whoever sleeps under the quilt first and dreams, that dream would come true. So dream a good dream. In the summer time the house got so hot that we couldn’t sleep in comfort. So about dark, we built fires in the yard with cow chips to keep out the mosquitoes. Then some of us would put pallets out on the porch and sleep there during the night. The smoke from the fires kept the mosquitoes away all night.
     No matter who visited at our house or who came as we ate our meals, Mother and Daddy always invited them to eat. Most of the time they would. I think that many times some of the kids we had as friends made a point to be at our house just for a meal. As one of my friends told me once, ‘To eat at your house was like going to a picnic.’ Daddy had built a long bench that reached the length of the table and it would seat four in comfort, three chairs on the opposite side and a chair on each end. On occasion, when we had company, if some of us kids didn’t have to wait, because of lack of space at the table, we sat our plates on the corner to eat our meal.
     I was growing up now, I was all of about 15 years old and felt I should be able to date boys like most of the girls of my age. Most of my dating, or I considered it dating, was getting to walk home from church with a boy, arm in arm. Even then, Gwen, Katherine, Elizabeth Jordon, and most of the time the twins, Duane and Dorothy Jean, had to be with me. At times Gwen and I could go together with our boy friends, but never alone.
     One Saturday night, Mother and I were on the porch peeling pears, getting them ready to make preserves, and Elmo Howard, the boy I was in love with at the time, came to see me. I had to keep on with my work, so he started showing off by seeing how far he could jump into the yard from the porch. The last time he jumped, he late a big one go. He got very embarrassed and went home almost immediately.
     Storms were real scary to us, but we had a storm cellar fixed up with a lantern, water and other supplies, like axes, in case a tree or debris fell on the door, we could chop our way out. Once a storm came up in the night and Daddy woke us all and told us to get in the storm house. It was so dark and crowded in there, that we didn’t know that Duane was still in the house until the storm was over and we went back in and found him fast asleep on his bed.
     Daddy was traveling all over Lamar County thrashing peanuts in the fall. We were always so happy to see him come home from work. We would run to meet him and his old thrasher. The chickens were also glad to see him as they ran right behind us. They were after the leftover peanuts that were lodged in different areas on the thrasher. They hoped on the thrasher like a cat on a mouse, after us kids got all the peanuts we wanted.
     Winters were cold in this old house. We did all we could to keep warm by chinking up the cracks in the walls. Daddy would cut wood in the fall for the fire place and the cook stove in the kitchen. He usually was the first one out of bed in the morning and built a fire. Then Mother was up to feed Barb and start breakfast. I hated to get up, as the bedroom where the kids slept, was not heated. So we changed clothes in a cold room before we went to the kitchen to eat good old breakfast Mother had cooked. She usually cooked two dozen biscuits, scrambled eggs, if we had them, syrup, home cured bacon, water or milk, if the old cow wasn’t dry.
     The old house had only one clothes closet. It was in the room where the fire place was and this room is where Mother and Daddy slept. In the closet was a ladder nailed to the wall that led to the attic. The kids were afraid to climb up the ladder. The older kids told them there was an animal up there with red eyes. When Mother and Daddy had to go to town, Gwen and I were left to care for the younger ones. If they didn’t mind us we would tell them we were going to open the closet door and let old red eyes out. Eventually curiosity got their cat, and they wanted to see old red eyes. Buddy was standing in the closet looking up and didn’t want the door shut so he could run if he had to. I jumped and yelled, ‘here he comes!’ and Buddy let out a blood curdling yell. It scared the other kids and they were all standing in the room screaming. When they were finally convinced that there wasn’t a boogger in the attic, I think they were a little disappointed, as they would continue to go to the closet and imagine red eyes was there, and try to talk to him. Bud would say, ‘all right red eyes, come and get me,’ all the time holding a weapon of some sort, like a stick or a rock, before he opened the door.
     Buddy was one who liked to show his talents off to the family, like walking on stilts or popping a whip. Once he was showing Grandpa Maddox how good he could pop a whip. This time he made a mis-que and popped himself across the back. It made a big whelp and Grandpa got a big laugh.
     Saturdays were always busy days for us. We washed our clothes on a rub board with lye soap that we had made in the wash pot after butchering hogs in the winter. The uneatable fat from the hogs was boiled in the wash pot. Then the fat left, after all the grease was boiled out, was thrown away. Lye and ashes, left from the fires, were added to the grease. This then was boiled down and left to cool. The soap was ready to cut in blocks and used in various ways for washing and cleaning. We had no rug or carpet, so our floors were scrubbed with a broom, then buckets of clear water pored over the floor to rinse the soap away. Most of the water soaked between the cracks in the floor so we didn’t have a hard time mopping up the excess water.
     Our baths were taken in a ‘number two’ wash tub. The tub was filled early in the morning and sat in the sun to warm on the south side of the house. This side was more suitable and private to take our baths outside. On wash day some of the smaller kids were bathed in the rinse water after we finished washing clothes. Buddy would always tell that he was the last one to bathe, and that the water was so dirty by the time he got in it, that he had to go to the pool behind the barn to rinse off.
     We were a happy family and loved going to church. Daddy became a deacon and we all took part in church activities. On Sunday morning we would get up early and cook breakfast and immediately start our Sunday dinner. We had already made dessert on Saturday and it was in the pie safe. While our Sunday dinner was cooking, we were all getting cleaned up. Ready to go, Mom and Daddy sat in the cab of the old flat bed truck. Usually, Barb was with them, while the rest of us sat, lined up around the bed of the truck with our feet hanging off. Everyone in the country could hear us coming, as we loved to sing in the back of that old truck. Usually we had friends that spent the night with us and they would come along also. On the way, we’d pick up other kids walking to church. Our family usually filled a couple of pews. One Sunday Gwen wore new patent leather slippers. She swore for years it was those slippers that squeaked that day, but as I sat next to her, I got tickled. Then Daddy got tickled. The preacher noticed and stopped preaching, looking over towards us he said, ‘when you all get through laughing, I will continue.’ After church, we couldn’t wait to get back home to the fried chicken, cream potatoes, gravy, red beans and biscuits. If it were spring, we always had plenty of sliced tomatoes and onions. After dinner, the old pie safe was opened and we had chocolate or pineapple pie, those having been made on Saturday, after we had finished washing.
     Christmas was a wonderful time of our life. We were poor, but Daddy always left on the day before Christmas to shop. When he came back I could smell oranges but couldn’t see any. Then on Christmas morning we always woke up early. Most of the time we had to be threatened to get out of bed, but not this day. We really looked forward to this day. A few days before we had gone into the woods and cut a cedar tree. We popped corn and strung it on a string, cut out chains from construction paper, picked red berries and strung them on the tree. That was all the decorations we had on a Christmas tree, and it was beautiful to us. On Christmas morning there was an orange, apple, candy stick, a pair of socks and, if lucky, a bottle of finger nail polish for the girls. The youngest usually got a little doll. The older ones got pop out dolls. The boys got a knife, marbles or a ball. No one got more than one toy or fruit item, but we were happy to get those. Most of the time someone would visit us on this day and Grandpa Maddox would always come and eat Christmas dinner with us. We’d have chicken and corn bread dressing, green beans, that we had canned in half gallon jars in the spring, and sweet potatoes, that we had stored in the storm cellar. We also baked several pies the day before and had cake also. Mom made fruit salad and topped it with real whipped cream.
     Most of our toys were innovations of our own. The boys made telephones by punching holes in the bottom of tin cans, then tying string to the bottom and stretching the string tight. They would holler into the can and their voices were supposed to carry through one can to the other can on the other side. Actually, I don’t think their voices carried through the string, because if they were unable to hear what the other said, they would holler back and say, ‘talk louder, I can’t hear you.’ They used tin cans for other things also. One of the things they did with tin cans was to punch two holes into the bottom of the can and tie string through the can. Then the string was tied over their feet. The can would make an impression in the dirt and they would challenge each other to see how far they could walk before falling.
     Dorothy Jean took care of Barbara Ann a great deal, they were very close. Barb was bashful a lot but with Dorothy Jean she was not. So they became pretty good buddies. Emma Lois and Dorothy Jean use to love to play ‘annie over’. They would chose up sides between the kids at home. One side would take the front yard and the other would take the back yard. One would try to guess where their opponent was located in the yard and would try to throw a ball so he or she couldn’t catch it. The ball wasn’t suppose to touch the ground. The side that caught the ball the most, won the game. When you were ready to throw the ball you yell ’annie over!’, and the other side would yell, ’let it come over!’
     My high school days ended and my womanhood began because of a volleyball game. I was on the school team and we were about to play Chicota. Our teacher, Myrtle Smith, told us that Chicota couldn’t play as well as we could and that we should not be very rough on them. She wanted us to let them score. I didn’t think much of that, they shouldn’t be playing if they weren’t able to, I thought. The first time I had the ball, I punched it hard, down and over the net. Mrs. Smith called me over to the side and got angry with me for not minding her and then told me that she would see that I would not pass school because of my insolence toward her. I didn’t see much of a chance of graduating after that so I quit school. Aaron Parker, the principal, came to our house to talk to Daddy afterwards because he had heard about the incident and wanted me to return to school. I saw him coming and told Daddy that I would not go back and to tell Mr. Parker that I was going to marry Elmo Howard. That was the end of my school days.
     At the age of 17, I decided to join the National Youth Association (NYA), with Purnie Saffle, my good friend who had lived in our home for a long time. My school days were over because of Myrtle Smith and I wasn’t quite ready to marry Elmo. You had to be from a poor family to be approved to get into the program. Considering all things, I was approved by the government agency and Daddy took me to Paris to join Purnie. My first morning, I woke up and saw Elmo Howard delivering milk. It was icy that morning and the streets were glazed over with ice. He saw me in the window and waved and about the same time the horses pulling his wagon slipped on the ice and fell down. That was so funny, he couldn’t pay anymore attention to me because he had to get the team up.
     I was assigned to cafeteria work at Paris Junior College. My first morning I reported there and about noon I began to feel feverish and my leg began to hurt, but I continued to work. By quitting time my legs felt like they couldn’t carry me far, but I walked from PJC back to the home, which was located were St. Joseph’s Hospital is now. By the time I got there I was nauseated, but I sat at the table and ate with the rest of the girls. The home had a party planned for us that evening but I was too ill to go down stairs. After the party, Purnie returned to our room and I was getting worse and asked her to get someone. The head lady came up and talked to me and told me that I would feel better in the morning and that she would start training me to be a nurse at St. Joseph’s.
Continued at http://lamarcountytx.org/cemetery_2/continued/BirmahBeanNagreen.txt