by Don Boyett, Seminole Co. Editor for the Orlando Sentinel newspaper
Wednesday, March 9, 1988
Lawrence Egbert Family (of KY)
Stories,
Photos, & Information
He
also brought his slaves with him. They made the trip in covered wagons
and part of the trip was made on rafts on the Ohio and
Mississippi
Rivers.
He
bought 97 acres of uncleared land. With the help of the slaves the land
was cleared one or two acres at a time. The trees were cut, timber
cut
inot logs and used to build the original cabin. Slave quarters were
also
built. The original cabin was built on a small stream at the back
of
the
present farm. The cabin was located there so the water could be used
for
washing clothes. Drinking water was rain water, caught in barrels.
They
raised the vegetables as needed, had livestock, and caught fish for
additional
food. As more land was cleared they would raise about
two acres of
wheat
each year—reaping, bundling, threshing—by hand. Later other crops were
grown as more land was cleared.
At
that time there were no roads – only pathways, or narrow, rutted roads,
which were not maintained by the county. Later when the county built
a
road the cabin was taken down with each log being numbered then moved
to
the present site and rebuilt. This was in about 1860 and was
still done
with the help of slaves. The original cabin had a roof of hand-hewn
shingles
and was not finished inside and out. When rebuilt at the
present site a
new roof was added, plus one room upstairs. Also at this time
weatherboard
was added to the outside, and the walls were “sealed”
on the inside. A
well was dug for the water supply.
The house and farm was later owned by son James Leroy Egbert where he raised his family of four boys and three girls.
The
last member of the Egbert family to own the farm was Price. He sold two
acres to the owner of an adjacent farm in the 1930’s
and in 1949 sold
the
remaining 57 acres.
In
Early Days, Price
Egbert, 100, Was a Genuine Texas Cowboy
by
Virginia Jewell (newspaper unknown)
(condensed
from an article written by Susan Loden,
writer
for the Evening Herald, Sanford, FL)
When Price Egbert was nine years old, his father, then sheriff of Hickman County, took him to see Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Egbert, who lives in Florida and will mark his 100th birthday on April 30, said, “I shook hands with Buffalo Bill. I remember him riding around in a circle on a white horse. An Indian rode along with him and threw white ball into the air and he’d bust them with a rifle.” Egbert was impressed with the Indians and their paraphernalia which he said, “gave me ideas.” He went west to Texas in 1910 where as a cowboy he roped and branded cattle. He was in the saddle from daylight to dark, he said.While there he saw Halley’s Comet as it skimmed over the flat Texas plains. “It was an immense thing. I could see that ball of fire streaking through the sky for miles. This was in the Great Stake Plains. For miles and miles it was just level ground. People going across the Plains had to drive stakes to find their way back,” he said.
After a year he returned to Hickman County and in 1916 met his future wife, Mora, who came from west Tennessee to work for a ‘peavine’ phone company. “Peavine,” according to the couple, “meant that a lot of customers were connected to a single phone line – like pods on a peavine.”
Egbert became a deputy sheriff after they married – sometimes riding horseback through rain and mud without pay to break up moonshine stills which produced illegal whiskey. The task was a dangerous business “because you never knew what they would do to you.” He explained that some of the whiskey would ‘put you blind.” It was poisonous if cooked in galvanized sheet metal, but all right if cooked in copper. Lawmen always saved samples of the better booze as “evidence.” he laughed.
Later Egbert was an inspector for Packard Motor Company in Detroit and Mrs. Egbert worked in a bank. In 1964 they retired to Florida, living for two years in Casselberry and in Fern Park for the past 21 years.
Egbert’s father, James Leroy Egbert, served in the Civil War after the Battle of Belmont was fought in 1861 near Columbus. “Dad said at the time the battle took place that they could hear the cannons from about nine miles away and that my grandmother would say, ‘h my, my. There go many more poor boys,’ when he cannons thundered.” Price Egbert has been told that he’s the only Florida man who is the surviving son of a Confederate veteran.
During the war when his grandmother was left to fend for herself, the Rebels came through and took her horse. She went to the Confederate commander and demanded her horse, telling him that she was a widow with a bunch of children to feed and that the horse was the only way she had to make a crop. “He let her bring the horse home,” Egbert said.
The Egberts live at Fern Park, Florida 32730, P.O. Box 713.
Eighty years ago Price Egbert cast his vote for William Jennings Bryan. Tuesday it was for Al Gore. His first favorite lost – to William Howard Taft – and he doesn’t give his current choice a chance. “But he’s young. I’ll vote for him again in four years, or eight years.” In six weeks, Egbert will be 101, and he has voted in every presidential election since he turned 21.
Though he wears a hearing aid and uses a walking stick, Egbert is active and alert. He reads his newspaper every morning, walks a mile each day. He finally settled on Gore after candidate profiles and election analysis in Sunday’s Sentinel confirmed earlier beliefs. He also likes Gore because he’s a Southerner; and he remains impressed by the senior Gore’s Senate service.
Mike Dukakis, Egbert thinks, will be the party winner. How well he does in November will depend on the ticket balance. Jesse Jackson would be a good draw, though Egbert doesn’t much like him; didn’t support Walter Mondale as he should have four years ago. Not much for Dukakis, either. Whoever it is though, he’ll vote the ticket. “No,” he answers with a chuckle, he’s not a yellow-dog Democrat. He once voted Republican, once. That was in 1946 for John Sherman Cooper, who went on to a distinguished career, lasing until 1973, as the senator from Kentucky. Cooper, he recalls, was “a good Chrisian man;” his opponent was, well, he liked his bottle too much to suit Egbert.
In 1949 Pricey, as friends know him, and Moria moved to Fern Park, a long block up from Prarie Lake. They’ll have their 10th anniversary in June. Come November, depending on the weather, he’ll probably walk down Lakeview to the Legion hall in the next block and vote. Democratic, of course.
Love
keeps couple together for 70 years
by
Don Boyett, Seminole County Editor, Orlando Sentinel newspaper
June,
1988
Marion “Pricie” Egbert was in no hurry for marriage. He had cowboyed a year in West Texas. There was the year in Arizona as a smelter worker. For eight years between those adventures he farmed wheat, soybeans, tobacco and cotton on his place outside Clinton, KY. He enjoyed the carefree bachelor’s life.Then along came that cute Mora Weeks out of Tennessee to work as an operator at his cousin’s telephone company. Got to where he hung out there all the time, except for that year in Arizona; and then he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
He was 31 when he returned to Clinton and popped the question, she just 18. Within days they were standing before a preacher at the boarding house where Mora lived. That was 70 years ago Thursday. They reckon it was a marriage made in heaven. And what was the glue that has held them together so long? “Love,” responds Mora simply and without hesitation.
