Fairplay Community
by Virgil Mordie Holland, M.D., submitted by Marylee KnightI have typed off a little booklet that Dr. Holland wrote in 1970 in which he detailed his recollections of growing up in the Fairplay area. A copy of it was shared with me by Mrs. Casie Lee Hines. She was given the copy by Dr. Holland himself as she is mentioned by name, although her name is misspelled. On the front page Dr. Holland stated, "This tract maybe reproduced or duplicated in any manner if the author is given proper credit."
Virgil Mordie Holland, M.D.
Born 03-04-1918
Died 10-30-1990
Buried Bethlehem Cemetery, Snap Community, Panola County TX
The following information was composed by Virgil Mordie Holland in 1970. He was a prominent Panola County physician and a life long collector of local history. His particular talent was that he could examine an old photograph and, judging by the clothing and hair styles, give a close estimate of the year in which the picture was made.
He was a son of David Mordie Holland and Lois Elizabeth Allison who was the daughter of Gustavus Allison (a son of Elizabeth Shaw and Thomas G. Allison) and Minnie Sharp (a daughter of Richard Vastine Sharp and Eliza Hodge).
The first page of the booklet contains the statement: "This tract may be reproduced or duplicated in any manner if the author is given proper credit." We do, indeed, give Dr. Holland a tremendous amount of credit for recording the valuable information about earlier times in the Fairplay Community.
We also thank Mrs. Casie Lee Owens-Hines for generously sharing her personal copy of the booklet in order to preserve the information it contained.
Neighbors
Fairplay 1920-1930
We watched this project daily and collected huge stores of the gravel being hauled for the concrete for the culverts to shoot in "negro shooters", and occasionally fitched a piece or two of the reinforcement steel. It was amazing how many fire pokers were made of this. Andrew Abernathy, a blacksmith, made dozens of them for 25 cents apiece, if you furnished the rod.The dirt for the bed of the road was all moved with a Fresno pulled by a team of three mules. Sections of the road were contracted. Harrison Parker had the contract for the section from the Rusk County line to Fairplay. The work on all sections was going on at the same time. Most of the dirt work was done one summer and fall and, when it rained that winter, we really had a muddy road.
At the worst points, people with teams stationed themselves and would pull cars through at 25 cents each. The next year it was graveled, or maybe it was two years before the iron ore gravel was on. At any rate, it was not paved with asphalt until about 1932.
Directly in front of our house, across J.R. Harris' field lived Mack Hunter, colored, with two daughters, Mary and Dilsey, and two sons, William and Jack. Mary had a daughter about four years old. Before Mack moved here, Bertus Walton Hill and James Hill had lived here one year.
Mack was near the bottom of the economic ladder. He owned one gray horse on which he kept a cow bell at all time it was loose in the pasture or field. I don't think he was ever a "half and half", but was allowed to work a garden and patches for peas, potatoes, etc. He worked by the day at farm work for whoever needed him, and his children worked wherever they could in the field or house work.
Mack could take the oldest, smelliest billy goat he could find, cut its throat with his razor, and, after barbecuing it by his recipe, turn it into a tasty morsel of meat. He did this frequently selling barbecue sandwiches for ten cents apiece after passing the word that he was having a barbecue to his colored brethren. What was not sold was eaten by Mack's family, usually the next day.
Mary sometimes made a dead fall to catch blackbirds to feed her daughters. This time of the year they most frequently are thickened gravy made with flour, hog lard and cracklins, when they could get them. They made the gravy in a small dishpan and all sat around and sopped the gravy with biscuits. Frequently, the girls helped people kill hogs and brought home backbones, livers and other perishable cuts of meat. They cleaned chitlings on the halves. They also canvassed the neighborhood for collards and turnip greens which most people grew in the winter in amounts that exceeded their needs. This was their only source of Vitamin C during the winter. The children eventually moved to Carthage where they fared little better.
About a quarter of a mile west on the left side of the Henderson road was a road that ran in a general southerly direction for about a mile, then made a large square at the southeast corner of which was a road than ran east for a spell, then turned south, crossed Irons Bayou, ran by the Bethel Colored Cemetery and church, and then to Clayton. This was a well traveled road at the time and Clayton was an active trade center. Along a spring branch that wandered off to the right, behind the church, was one of the areas in which chinquapin trees grew.
The first house on this road was a small house just about two hundred yards on the right. This house had been built by a saw mill that put a miller nearby. Later this mill was bought by Colbert Holland, Bob Harris and Warner Thompson, who married Gettis Harris, daughter of James Robert Harris, and who lived in the house and fired the boiler of the saw mill for the year or two that the mill was in operation.
The next house was a frame house in the shape of an "L". This was built by James T. Allison and, at one time, Gus Allison had lived here. Bonnie Shaw Robb inherited the land and this house from James R. Allison. She sold her part to Richmond Shaw. Shortly after Richmond bought the land, Sandy Maines and family: Sidney, Irene, Ludie B., Buck and Helen moved into this house.
The next house on the northwest corner of the square was a rent house owned by Matthew Holland. When I first remember, Bro. Burns and wife lived here. Bro. Burns farmed and was a Methodist supply preacher. His wife was prone to shout. A long series of tenants lived in this house over the next several years.
Down the road a hundred yards, was a large frame house once owned by Lum Bailey, who was a brother of Mrs. Ophelia Wills and was a son of John Monroe Bailey. Matthew Holland bought this house and land when Lum Bailey moved.
Romie Holland and Beulah Melton moved to Panola County for the second time about 1920. They had previously been here for one year in 1907. Beulah's father was David Putnam Melton, her mother was a Pafford. We visited there frequently, and we were always ready to go as they had Hurley, Norman and Eugene that were close to our age. When we were there, we kids wandered all over the surrounding territory, down in the pasture, up to the Wills and over to Uncle Matthews. Frequently we came for Sunday dinner and, more often than not, there were about six other people to eat.
Aunt Beulah usually had chicken and dumplings as this was the best way to make one or two chickens go the farthest. Even on the days when there were lots of dumplings and sparse chicken, her chicken and dumplings were always good. The decimation of her flock every Sunday kept her stock of chickens down to the point that they never had enough eggs to have eggs for breakfast for even one time. Their thing for breakfast every morning was cream coffee. At this time Wadford, Opal, Donald, Hurley, Norman and Eugene were at home. Nelene, Dan and Betty Sue were to be born later.
Romie had once been a blacksmith in Benton County Tennessee as had his father before him. He was also a good carpenter and farmer. In spite of his skills, they always seemed to be on the cutting edge of poverty. They did not own any "Sunday clothes", tight shoes and stiff suits, things I most envied at the time.
About 50 yards down the road was a large dog run house that was never painted and remnants still stand. William O. Wills and wife, Ophelia Bailey, lived here. William "Buddy" was the son of John J. Wills who, with his family, moved to Panola County about 1859 and settled north of Fairplay towards Beckville. Buddy had many siblings, none of which remained in the area.
Buddy was an excellent farmer and relatively prosperous. He had an orchard of fruit trees and all the subsidiary buildings of a complete farm - carriage house, barn, smoke house, chicken house and cow barn.
A sister of Ophelia's who married a Searcy, died of hydrophobia when she dressed the dog bites of the two boys when they were bitten by a mad dog. The boys were sent to Austin for the vaccine. Vickie had not even thought that she was exposed. She later developed hydrophobia. Her sons, Cecil and P.J., were taken to raise by the Wills. At this time, they had Ruth and Verna of their own children at home.
Their only son, Sam Houston, had married Myrtie Birdwell, whose mother and stepfather lived about a mile east of the Wills place on land owned by Luther Henigan. They first lived in a shot gun house behind the Wills. Later they moved to a little house just across the road in front of Houston's parents. Ophelia liked this better as she could keep closer check on her grandson Wilbert, who was prone to take pneumonia. She kept him swaddled with a "granny rag" on his chest and the house sweltering the whole winter.
In August of 1927, Buddy went to the store late in the afternoon. He did not return home and had not returned home well after dark. The whole community was finally out looking for him and there were hints that he might have been the victim of foul play. Just before daylight they found him dead, apparently the victim of a heart attack.
At the southeast corner of the square Matthew Gilbert Holland and Mary Ida Warmack lived. Matthew was the son of Mary Francis Brigham and Gilbert Holland of Benton County, Tennessee. Mary Ida was the granddaughter of Mary Allison, a daughter of John Allison through which the land had been inherited.
Matthew was an excellent carpenter and mechanic, as well as a good farmer. He bought various surrounding tracts of land and, by the time he died, he had increased his holdings to at least twice what he started with. He was a Methodist and, for years, the Sunday School Superintendent at the Allison Chapel Methodist Church. At one time he had a saw mill, a shingle mill, a grist mill and a peanut thrasher. All but the first of these were run with a huge one cylinder gasoline motor that was rated as ten horsepower and was mounted on a steel wheeled farm wagon so that is could be moved from site to site with a team of mules.
Matthew developed diabetes in his later years, nearly a decade before insulin was available. This was a death sentence at the time. At this time Colbert had married Lucy Harris, a daughter of Samuel Sidney Harris and Ophelia Amos. Ethel, Vivian, Broxie, Cayce, Talmadge and Mabel were at home. Matthew owned a Victrola, one of the first that I remember seeing, that played the cylindrical records. He had boxed of these which I remember as being chiefly march music and humorous sketches by Josh Billing and others. In a few years, the flat disc records became "the thing" and everybody had a record player.
Directly east from Matthew's lived Almus "Nat" Cartwright and Mittie Warmack, who was a sister of Mary Ida's. They too had married in Benton County, Tennessee, and the two couples had moved together to Panola County. They came by train with their household effects and a part of their livestock. The men had to ride with the livestock to take care of them. Somewhere this car got switched to the wrong train and they ended up somewhere in Oklahoma. Their families disembarked in Beckville and, in time, they were all united. Nat had a number of horses which he had raised. They were said to have been beautiful animals. Nat and Mittie had three daughters: Benthal, Eva and Thelris. Benthal had married John Gaston and they lived in a little house down the road from Nat and Mittie.
As the road turned south and before it crossed Irons Bayou, there was a house owned by Andrew Reed. Emory Allison farmed and helped Andrew work his cattle. He had a beautiful roan horse which he rode in a fast fox trot everywhere he went. Parthena milked a number of cows from which she sold cream. Each Saturday Emory took this cream in cans to Pinehill to be sold. This was a common practice on the farms at this time. Emory kept a number of hounds. I do not know whether he hunter coon or fox with these. I remember that during the depression when the government was buying cows and killing them, while everyone else was cutting out choice cuts to eat, Emory wa laying in a stock of meat to cook in a wash pot to feed his hounds.
On the southwest corner of the square was the house in which Colbert and Lucy lived. I remember the tragedy when their two year old son fell into the fire and sustained burns which were fatal.
West from the northwest corner of the square was the home of James T. Allison and his wife Louisa Shaw. James was the eldest son of Thomas G. Allison and Louisa was a daughter of Daniel Shaw and Elizabeth Morgan. Louisa died in 1920 and Jimmy died in 1921. I can barely remember Jimmy and cannot remember Louisa.
Malcolm Shaw, nephew of Louisa, who the two had raised as well as his sister, Bonnie, inherited this house and the south half of Jimmy's land. It seemed that no one lived in this house for a year or so after Jimmy died, then Ebb Maines and Odessa Abernathy rented the place.
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