COLD WEATHER, ONDEE, LEON SCHOOL

                    
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COLD WEATHER, ONDEE, LEON SCHOOL

 

02/19/1981

 

Across the Fence

By Arvord Abernethy

 

 

What do you talk about when you have nothing to talk about? You talk about the weather. What do you write a column about when you have nothing to write about? You write about the weather.

 

Well, here goes. After that rip-snorter roared in here early in the week, weather is about all you could hear people talking about; some of it about the present spell and some about the past ones. We have had a mild winter so far, but this spell made us recall some tough ones of the past. I think one of the coldest winters I have seen in Hamilton County was that one of 1948-49, if my memory serves me right. The main thing that I remember about it was that it stayed cold long enough for the Leon River to freeze solid enough for me to walk completely across it.  I wanted to have something to tell my grandchildren when they started to complain about the cold.

 

The coldest winter I have gone through was the one of 1929-30. I was working in a store in the Texas Panhandle and it had a fifty foot glass front that faced the north. Moisture from the gas stoves condensed and froze on the windows in the most beautiful designs of ferns and leaves. For about two weeks we were unable to get it warm enough to melt the ice off the windows, even in the daytime.  The water mains, which were about two feet deep, froze and burst, so we were out of water for over a month. On two different nights about a week apart, the temperature dropped to about 15 degrees below zero. Now you tell your story.

 

Spurlin Freeman was telling that several years ago Hamilton County had gone through a drought like we are having and a group of men were standing around talking of how the country might solve its water problem. One fellow suggested that we take the salt out of the ocean water and use it. Then Owen Dogget spoke up, “Yeh, but what are the ships going to have to run on.” See, there were people concerned about balanced ecology years ago.

 

 

Congratulations to the Challenge Team of Terri Wilson, Neal Walton, Larry Anglin and Bobby Lindsey and their sponsor, Beth Abernethy, for their decisive victory and championship.

 

 

I was in Wilson Electric the other day and Jessie was showing me some things that had belonged to her sister-in-law, Irene Carter Sims. One thing was a neat little souvenir card that the teacher, Miss Acie Brown, had given to each of her pupils. It was a nice, professional looking card that read: Souvenir-Leon School-District number 38-Ondee, Texas-1897-98. Presented by Acie Brown, teacher-Directors, A. L. Shipman, A. P. White, A. F. Rainwater. On the second card were the names of the 59 pupils that she had taught in the one room school. Among the names are those of many that the oldtimers would remember.

 

The name of Alva Shipman was there and I knew that he was a brother of Mrs. Elmer Grant, so I had a nice telephone visit with her. She had attended the school, but was too young to be going when the card was printed. The school was located a short distance north of the Leon River , between the old Highway 281 and the new 281. I wonderer why it said Ondee , Texas and she said there was a post office there for a number of years. It was located where the Sam Seale house is now. This new Hamilton County History Book list the Ondee post office with Mrs. Belle Couch as postmistress at this time. She could have been the mother of Ted Couch and the six other Couch children listed. Mrs. Grant and I wondered why it was called Leon School on the card as we had never heard it called that.

 

Shared by Roy Ables

ACROSS THE FENCE 

 
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by Elreeta Crain Weathers, B.A., M.Ed.,  
(also Mrs.,  Mom, and Ph. T.)

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