MAMIE ADAMS,
When we moved here in 1938, we lived for some time with
Mrs. Durham up there on East Henry where the Cochrans now live. Right
down the street at a neat, white home lived the Adams. Mamie Adams still
lives there and keeps the place as neat as a pin. Don't you think that
such an accomplishment should be recognized?
Mr. and Mrs. Bob Adams married in Coryell County, but
soon moved on to Hamilton County and bought the farm where Wesley Jones
now lives. It was here that their seven children were born. They were
Ellie, Carrie, Clay or Buck as we all knew him, then Doll, Mamie,
Johnnie and Lawrence.
Mamie has a lot of pleasant memories of their life there
on the farm.
That was before ice had been invented so they would let
their milk down into the well and how they would enjoy that good, cold
milk. I was talking with Wesley about the well and he said that it
deteriorated so much he had to fill it up but has left the curb there.
Another thing she remembers was how her parents, who were
faithful Methodists, would take them to the revivals there at the Lanham
Methodist Church. She described how the mothers would take quilts along
to make down pallets for the children to sleep on during the long
services. She named many of the families who lived out there in that
community, one of them being the Chapmans and their young son Ned was
one of the children on the pallets.
Mamie also recalled when they loaded up the wagon and
drove to Hico for a three-day stay at the Old Settlers Reunion. Those
good watermelons they got there left a vivid impression on her young
mind.
Mamie made me promise that I wouldn't ask her age, and I
didn't, but someone who went to school at Lanham for sometime before
they moved into Hamilton in 1909 or 1910, said they must be old enough
to draw social security.
When the Adams moved to town, they brought their milk
cow, the chickens and a team to draw their white-topped hack which took
them to church and to other occasions. The children went to East Ward
School and later the West Ward and High School on the west hill. They
would walk to school in the morning, then down the hill, across the
square, up the hill to home for dinner then retrace their tracks to
school. Maybe that is why she has had such a long healthful life. She
remembered a few times stumbling on those caliche rocks the square was
paved with and skinning her knees.
Mr. Adams continued to operate his farm after they moved
to town and he aslo bought and dealt with cattle. He later was elected
as a county commissioner and was serving there when he passed away in
1925.
Buck worked at the John Spurlin store some and John would
often let Buck drive one up home for dinner, as Mamie said it was to get
them wanting one, and it must have worked as they did buy a car before
Mr. Adams passed away.
Mamie spent 49 years as secretary for the Hamilton County
School superintendent and never lost a day on account of illness. Her
first work was for Geneva Sills and she remembers how they would have to
carry coal up to their office on the second floor for their stove.
Others she served under were; O. R. Williams, Bert Patterson, Forest
Harper, W. R. McPherson Jr., and Herman Walton. Mamie had praise for each
of these people and told what a pleasure it was to work for them. She
expressed several times how good the Lord had been to her.
Mamie is the last of the seven children. The others that
I remember best were Buck, Johnnie Lane and Doll. Doll was not her real
name. It seems that when she was a baby, Buck said she looked like a
doll so that name stayed with her. Doll worked at the county treasurer's
office some, then at the Herald-News office. Amber Turner, the grand
niece of Mamie, stays with her quite a bit.
The remarkable thing about Mamie is how neat she keeps
everything around the home, both inside and out. You should make a
special effort to drive slowly by her home there at 620 E. Henry and
notice how spic and span everything is. The gleaming white house is like
one you might expect to find in Vermont or some New England village.
Notice the neatly trimmed lawn that runs past the white picket fence all
the way to the back of the lot. The well kept flower bed around the
house is past the stage to show you the pretty daisies that were there a
little earlier. Her garden has also done it's due, but is ablaze with
bachelor buttons. I started to tease her for planting bachelor buttons
to keep her company, but she was quick to say that they came up
volunteer. Mamie does all the work except she now gets a boy to mow the
grass.
You have heard how the ladies in Holland keep the streets
swept clean; take a look at the curb in front of Mamie's and see how
clean she keeps it swept. After seeing her yard and curb, I came home,
got out my grubbing hoe and dug out that little row of grass that often
grows between the curb and the pavement.
