Musings

Cemetery Ridge

I knew my immediate families were pioneers in Oklahoma being homesteaders before 1907 statehood as early as 1899 and had put down permanent roots with homes and multiple farming operations by 1904. What has interested me is the family’s role in settling Texas. And by that I mean founding communities, churches and schools. I know the migration path of one line of the family back to the 1600s, but am coming along slower on the others. The photo above and to the left is a welded, homemade gravestone of I.T. Briscoe in the Hess Cemetery. Born in 1865 in Parker County Texas, he died in 1914. Please click on images to enlarge them.

The Briscoe part of my family has been in Texas since 1845. This is only becoming real to me in the past year. I had to first explore the family’s roots in Oklahoma. That journey takes us to Cemetery Ridge and the Hess Cemetery. No, you won’t find it on most maps. It’s an unincorporated farming community. It also for a period was part of Greer County, Texas. That’s another story.

I’m sure at one point or another I visited Hess some 20 miles from where I grew up . . . but I have no memory of it. And nothing prepared me for its grandeur and the imposing ridge and mesa it occupies. The pictures on findagrave.com don’t prepare you as it looks like normal flat land, but I did know that we had at least 42 ancestors in the Hess Cemetery before we entered.

Never being ones to waste farm land, the Hess cemetery is located on a mesa-- those flat “table top” mountains prevalent in the Southwest US. Wow, the colors of the steep ridge of pinks and reds. It was really beautiful to stand on the ridge and look onto the farmland and Wichita Mountains in the distance.

 This is the land of the Apache, Comanche and Kiowa Indians—Plains Indians. The far southwestern corner of Oklahoma was their land that was opened to white settlers with preserves for open hunting and fishing during the land runs and various lotteries in Oklahoma.  My father had memories (and pictures still exist) of Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, in full headdress, leading the Frederick, Oklahoma, band on Sunday afternoons 100 years ago. And yes, my great grandparents were married in Parker County Texas, where Quanah Parker’s mother, Cynthia lived, before my great grandparents homesteaded near Hess. So all these threads intrigue and addict to learn more.

So Uncle Loyd, cousin Cindy, her 14 year old granddaughter Abigail, and I had quite an adventure going to Hess, ancestor hunting and just getting the immediate family lines straight. Abigail got to be quite a grave finder. Getting the family lines straight, cataloging pictures and telling stories kept us late into the night when we weren’t playing checkers. On the right above, gravestone of Minnie Alice and William J. Atkison in Frederick, Ok. Cemetery with their children's names on back of stone. If you look carefully you'll see a reflection of Janice Scanlan taking the photo as well as their Great,Great Granddaughther Abigail.

Getting a picture of the North Fork of the Red River that my grandmother, Minnie Alice Briscoe Holden Atkison, forded in 1904 to move to a new homestead after living in a dugout on Great Uncle Andy’s homestead at Hess showed the gumption pioneers possessed. Despite the drought, the river had a good bit of water, plenty of quicksand and steep banks.

Last Sunday at the Dew House Photo Contest, there was a 1931 picture of Mason Briscoe with the Dews in their permanent collection.  I had known about the Briscoe Cemetery in Fort Bend, but that photo put seeing if there’s a connection higher on my bucket list that doesn’t seem to end. 

North Fork Red River with its steep banks, water and quicksand (darker sand). My grandmother forded this river in a buggy in January 1904. She had a 3 week old infant and a 2 and a 4 year old with her for this 20 mile journey. My grandfather and his brother had taken the cattle the previous day and had a warm fire waiting in the new home he had built. They "proved" the land and purchased it in 1911.

Illustrated from Musings column in the 10/12/2011 Fort Bend Independent.

Big

If you read “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry or watched the mini-series adaptation of it, you’re familiar with the characters who formed the first full service cattle drives including the chuck wagon, scouting,  guiding  and moving.

The main characters of “Lonesome Dove” were inspired by Charles Goodnight, Oliver Loving and Bose Ikard of Weatherford, Texas.  These men were big in every way.  Pioneers. Brave.  Tough, but not mean—they were generous of spirit, but did not demure of doing something tough when it was required. They didn’t throw it off to someone else.  They had a code of right and wrong—and you did “right” even when it was personally hard.

Thanks to the Fort Bend library, I listened as I drove to Oklahoma recently to McMurtry’s first book “Horseman, Pass By” on audio disk.  You may remember it as the movie “Hud.” So I not only found the abandoned cemetery of some of my ancestors in Weatherford, but also discovered many connections of how this entire part of the country fits together in my family’s past.  

Goodnight, Loving and Ikard made big footprints on Weatherford, Texas.  It was rodeo week and the memory of these men is prominently featured in town history and establishments.

About mid-way between Weatherford and my home town in Oklahoma is McMurtry’s home town, Archer City, Texas. I always enjoy seeing how many more buildings McMurtry has taken over for his antiquarian book business . . . it’s now four, with number four being on the same block as The Royal—the movie theater in “The Last Picture Show. “

The Royal is no more than a front now like on a movie set. Most of the building has collapsed, and it’s painted red, white and blue.

“The Last Picture Show” played in Archer City, July 1, courtesy of Texas Monthly and Alamo Drafthouse Movie Theaters. According to the Wichita Falls Times Record, McMurtry spoke about the book and film.  John and I attended the movie shortly after we moved to Houston in the early 70’s. He had never seen me so emotional at a movie. I was re-naming the characters as individuals I knew-- many of them moving through life much like the tumbleweeds blowing down the desolate, cold streets in winter. Lonely, no purpose.  

McMurtry has thankfully captured many of the stories about the West I heard as a child and made them live through memorable characters.

As I was driving west out of Archer City, “Horseman, Pass By” is nearing the end, with protagonist Homer Bannon’s funeral. It speaks of the big sky and the big horsemen that made the West  including Charles Goodnight, their code disappearing to the likes of Hud and the unscrupulous.

And there before me was the cloudless big sky stretching as far as I could see in this stark and unforgiving country. It was 110 with little shade, dry as a bone.

I felt very small, insignificant, and soft compared with the accomplishments settling this “wild territory” that was home land to the Kiowa, Apache and Comanche Indians. Toward the end of his life, Charles Goodnight saved one of the last herds of buffalo, which slaughtered indiscriminately for sport alone, had gone from millions and sustaining a way of life, to almost extinct.

Like I said, Charles Goodnight was a big man in many ways.

Illustrated from Musings column in Fort Bend Independent  07/06/2011 edition by Janice Scanlan.

. . . More stuff . . . .

Who's the Western Artist who created the "iron work mural" in the picture above? I don't know, but the work is the left "rail" on the entry to The Iron Trail, a retail store in Archer City pictured to the left. They had stepped out or I would have gone inside.

 

And here's the "right railing panel.

PS. I listened to McMurtry's "All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers" on the way home. But don't be a stranger, let me know what you think.

 

Please click on pictures if you wish to enlarge the view.

Past, present and future

I’ve been ancestor hunting, but you never know what such an exploration will find. Happily, I found pleasure in the past, the present, and saw relevance for the future.

Before I met my other 3 relatives who are 87, 64 and 14 in Frederick, Oklahoma, I stopped in Weatherford, Texas, to see if I could find the grave of my Grandmother’s great grandfather, who was born in 1832 and settled in Parker County (which Weatherford is the County seat) in 1855. 

Isaac Jefferson Briscoe (Jeff) was a founder of the Harmony Community just outside of Weatherford. There were still Indian conflicts and the family often had to flee to Fort Worth when they got particularly nasty. It seems adventure ran in the bones of this part of my family that is traced back to 1600’s England and a gentrified manor complete with its own railroad station.   Who would think one of its descendents, my Grandmother, would live in a dugout in Oklahoma Indian Territory in 1900? It seems that when things started to get a little more settled, my family would move to a new adventure. Actually new generations were following where land was available, well water was present, and where railroads would be located.

I found the abandoned Harmony Cemetery. To look for graves, I will need more expertise than was available this trip, but I know who owns the land and that likely archaeology will be involved to find graves.

Weatherford was the pleasant surprise. With rural Texas declining at a rapid pace, seeing a thriving community that has experienced population growth during the past ten years made me change my plans from going to Clark Gardens to exploring Weatherford itself. What was a city of 25,000+ and a county of 80,000+ doing right to thrive and exude energy? The commute to Fort Worth is 25+ miles before you get to suburbs.

In the geographic center of Parker County on a high hill is the beautiful Parker County Courthouse. Completed in 1866, the Second Empire style courthouse is one of the most beautiful in Texas (or anywhere for that matter). It has been delicately restored and has pulled renovation of the historic district that includes the old Santa Fe Railroad station, which now houses the Weatherford Chamber of Commerce and a museum. 

My most fun find was the Farmer’s and Public Market between the Courthouse and Railroad station museum.

I have to say I at first envied what appeared to be using two old train depots—come to find out they were clever stucco facades on metal warehouse type buildings that had many garage doors and were open air, merchandized beautifully and open daily. The fresh peaches were divine.

 

Keeping customers and bringing new customers is the “First Monday Trade Fair” which is actually held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the first Monday of the month, monthly. Using a public, private formula, this was an active and attractive community magnet . . . and all kinds of other businesses were drawn by the traffic.

There are many more pieces to what makes Weatherford thrive and work, but the main formula is bringing together its past, relevance for the present, and continuously building and renovating for the future—using existing assets in clever, resourceful ways that fit the communities’ means. They have found common interests (like fresh food) to bring people with many interests together.

Illustrated from Musings column in Fort Bend Independent 06/29/2011 edition by Janice Scanlan.

. . . More Stuff . . .

The Downtown Weatheford Cafe above is one of those, plate lunch "chicken fried steak" places. I had an amazing blackened chicken on rice which was one of it's specials. . .with great sides of vegetables. It sits across from the Courthouse and has a wonderful primitive painting of "The Square" that just happened to be my view from my table. But it's not just the past.

The next photo will show you how Weatherford is thinking to the future. Like I said, all the pieces have to click whether it's the already realized park, pool and recreation area "just down the way" or the visions for the future depicted below. Lots of pieces to making a community exude energy and vibrance like Weatherford. No, we don't all have a square and beautiful courthouse like Weatherford. It's not trying to do a "me too." It's figuring out each community's unique assets . . . and then how to enhance and capitalize on them--and both the past and future visions are some of those assets. It's how you share them so people of varied interests feel they "fit into to them and dream about them" so the will to keep building continues.

It took Oklahoma City 40 years to realize Bricktown by cleaning up 40 square blocks of skid row and taxing herself to do so. That's the will part. Having enough people willing for more taxes is the varied interests part. You can't be a one or two trick pony. Many people have to feel included and excited.

Please click on pictures if you wish to enlarge the view.