rrHERVIEI4 WITH: MABEL NOBLE
Interviewer: Esther MacMillan
Place: Oral History Office, Institute of Texan Cultures
Date: July 9, 1981
M: t1abel has some covered wagon stories to tell today. Hhat we want to
do is ... she has several episodes in her family hi story of covered
wagon ventures and journeys. He'd like to start back with the very
earliest one that she has a record of. I think that's her qrandmother.
N: My grandmother was Martha Scarborough Rogers .. she had married Robert
Rogers at an early age. They lived in Arkansas; she had three small
children. When the youngest child was very small, she and her husband
decided to move to Texas. They got a man to come along with them to
assist them along the way. And they started to Texas where her husband
had relatives. Just as they got into East Texas, as I have been told,
he became very ill. Of course, in the day of no highways or any way of
helping along the way, he had no assistance whatsoever. He was very
ill; in f act, he died very soon without any doctor or anything. He
had to be buried by the side of the road. We do not know whether he
was buried, in a cemetery, or whether they just had to bury him.
Anyway, this young mother with three little children was so dis-traught
she did not know what to do. The man who had come with the~,
an older man, took them back to Arkansas where she had some friends.
Her own parents had died previous to that. When she got back to Arkansas
she lived with an elderly couple who had no children, the Ellisons . He
was a farmer, had farm equipment but was not able to do much work. So
they took in young Martha and her three children. The agreement was
that she could use his equipment; they also had some land that was not
Mabel Noble
N: being farmed and they allowed her to farm that land and make what­ever
crop she could - use their equipment. She also helped the old
lady in the home ... (kitchen and stuff like that I suppose).
2.
So she did that for two, three years. The first year she planted
cotton because that was the crop that everybody raised in that area and
she also hoed his crop; helped him with some of his work, you see. She
had good luck; a good crop; and picked herself three bales of cotton.
M: My word! She did it herself? She had no help?
N: No, she did it herself. Women in those days on the farms had to
work very hard. She did it herself. So she made the three bales of
cotton and she hauled it to the gin .. there was a gin not too far ... was
waiting for it to be ginned and the gin caught fire and burned all the
cotton that was stored there. So her three bales of cotton went up in
smoke and there she was with three little children and no income. She
really had a hard time.
It wasn't long after that when she met a young man, Jonathon Elijah
Crook, who became my grandfather. They were married in 1878. They
remained in Arkansas. In the meantime she ... he had homesteaded a place
and he had a farm. He had a son from his first marriage who was not
living with him at that time because he had gone back to Tennessee to
live with his own grandmother. Elijah and Martha were married in 1878.
Before they were married, there was a farm adjoining his that had been . ..
had started to be homesteaded and the people had dropped out or some­thing
... so he suggested that she homestead it in her name. And she did.
There was some building on it that filled the requirements for home­steading
at that time. So they got some that way. They lived in Arkansas
Mable Noble 3.
N: then until 1903 . The famil y moved.
In the meantime, my mother was the oldest of their eight children ...
Martha and Jonathon El ijah had eight childre n. My mother was the oldest
of the eight . .. Mary. They lived in Arkansas all those years. My mother
married in 1902.
M: This grandma and her first husband didn't come to Texas in a covered
wagon?
N: They came to Texas but they didn't get to the place where they were
headed because he died.
M: But I mean the second marriage.
N: I haven't come to the part where they started yet.
M: Oh, I see.
N: They continued to live in Arkansas.
M: Did you say this was northwest ... Arkansas?
N: Well, sort of southwest . It was in Montgomery County. Mena was one
of the towns that were close there. It was made popular in a radio series
way back yonder in the 20 's, 30's, something like that. Eve rybody knew
about it; in the Lum and Abner days. That area was very well known
during those radio days. On the Ouachita .. it ran through my grand­mother's
...
M: Of the second marriage, your mother was the oldest daughter.
N: The first child of eight children. You see, that made eleven children
that my grandmother had . . . this little grandmother whose husband died on
the way to .. in the covered wagon days .. to Texas.
Well, after my mother married, my mother and father moved to
Oklahoma. My father had rented a farm there. Thi s was their very first
Mable Noble 4.
N: farm and home. And that's where I was born .. in Oklahoma. The next
summer my mother's family, the Crook family, her parents and the brothers
and sisters who were still at home, unmarried, decided to come to Texas.
My grandfather had come the year of 1902. He had a brother in Texas
and he had come to Texas to look around . Through the years he had
planned to come to Texas sometime but circumstances in the family had
been such that he delayed and stayed where they were for a while and
kept on farming and all. But he still wanted to go to Texas.
While on this visit to his brother in 1902, he had arranged to buy
a farm. It is south of Ft. Worth and was part of the Davy Crockett
Survey. When Davy Crockett's widow was given all this land by the state
of Texas; it was quite a big spread of acreage up in that section. In
fact, she's buried up there. There's a little park up there in the
cemetery where she's buried. It's quite interesting .. that story.
A little southeast of Ft. Worth. About 25 miles. This was part of
it. In the meantime, after her death and everything, part of it had
been sold. A man named Shirley had bought part of it but it was still
called the Davy Crockett Survey. It had been given to his widow by the
state.
M: Davy or David?
N: Davy ... the old Davy, yes.
Mr. Shirley owned a great deal of it and he had sold ... I don't know
how many acres, but a nice little farm .. to my grandfather. He had his
own part that he farmed and then there was another little part that he
rented and that's where we came, when we came to Texas. My grandfather
bought this area from him. Had arranged then to come the next year.
t~able Noble
N: To move his family the next year, you see . He had visited it when
it was under cultivation by somebody else.
5.
In the summer of, in August , of 1903 ... the first of August my Aunt
te 11 s me .. they 1 eft ~10ntgomery County, Arkansas. They had two covered
wagons. One was pulled by two mules and she even told me the names of
the mules and the other was pulled by horses. They had with them some
livestock; they had a mare and two colts .. the mare was Old Sal .. who they
used to ride .. one of the chi ldren rode the mare to drive the livestock.
They had two milk cows; they had a year old heifer and they had two
young calves that these milk cows had. So you see they had several
animals to take care of. They drove them through.
The way they did it: my aunt who was 16 years old, Aunt Hannah,
drove the horses because she had had quite a bit of practice driving
horses and using horses on the farm. My grandfather drove the wagon
with the mules.
N; There were two each?
N: Two horses; two mules. Another mare. So you see that was five
pulling animals. Two grown cows, a heifer and two little calves. So
there was quite a little livestock. They didn't bring any chickens or
anything like that. They just had the ones that could walk.
Grandfather drove one wagon, Aunt Hannah drove the other wagon,
every day, every bi t of the way.
t~: And all these kids!
N: There were four, I mean three other children. Aunt Susan was fifteen,
the boy was the next one, Uncle Wiley must have been about thirteen, and
Aunt Hulda, the youngest one, was, I guess, about eleven .
M: These were your mother's sisters?
Mable Noble 6.
N: These were my mother's brothers and sisters.
One of the three other children rode the horse, old Sal, the mare,
to help drive the animals. You see, the cows walk more slowly, they
travel more slowly than horses do so they had to be guided and they had
to be prodded and all. So one on foot went along to drive them and
that left one other child and she rode in the wagon with Grandma.
Grandma was in the head wagon with Grandpa.
There was one bed, 'a doilble bed, i'n 'each \'lagon. At night the1boy
and Grandma and Grandpa slept in one wagon. The three girls slept on
the bed in the other wagon. They rotated the riding of the mare and
the driving of the cattle and the riding in the wagon. There were three;
those were the arrangements. My Grandfather always was a stickler for
things being organized well in perfect fairness and everything. He
scheduled it in thirty minute periods.
One of them rode the mare thirty minutes; at the same time the
other one was walking, driving the cows and calves and seeing they
didn't stray too far. And the other one got to rest, ride in the wagon with
Grandma. At the end of thirty minutes, he would callout and they would
change. Another one would get on the horse; the one that had been walk-ing
would get in the wagon; the one on the horse walked. They rotated
every step of the way.
He 11, about the mi ddl e, maybe a vleek or two after they had 1 eft
Arkansas, they went by Oklahoma where Mary and Claude were living.
M: ~Jho are they now?
N: They are my parents.
M: Your mother and father.
N: This was before I was born.
Mable Noble
M: Your mother was the daughter, the eldest daughter of this Grandma
who was driving(?) the wagon?
7 .
N: Yes. No she wasn't driving the wagon; she was riding in the wagon.
M: With Grandpa.
N: Yeah. So they went by Wapanucka, which was the little town near
where my parents lived. That's a funny name; and it's still on the map.
An Indian name. It was located between the Cherokee and Choctaw nations
I believe. The Indians had been allotted certain areas in the Indian
territory. Wapanucka was located right between the two nations.
M: This was about 187 .... . ?
N: No, this was 1902. But you see Oklahoma was not a state yet.
M: Did they have any trouble with the Indians?
N: No. None at all. We had Indian neighbors when I was born.
Well, they stayed there two days visiting; it was a rest stop.
They did a lot of washing. They got there on a Friday. So they washed
everything; ironing, whatever they had to do ... on Saturday. Then they
rested on Sunday and then they started on their way Monday morning.
They got to Hood County in North Texas .. that's south of the county where
Ft. Worth is. To this farm of the Davy Crockett Survey property. They
got there on the 26th of August.
M; Hhen did they start? The first?
N: The third of August.
M: 26 days after they left; 24 days, actually, of traveling.
N: It was actually 23 days on the road. Somebody was walking every
step of the way. One of the three children walked every step of the
way.
Mable Noble 8.
M: I bet they didn't complain about it, either.
N: Well, Aunt Hannah said that Aunt Hulda who was the baby, kind of
thought it was not fair; that the others got to ride the horse more than
she did but they didn't. Grandpa saw to it that it rotated fairly.
Aunt Hannah didn't have to do any of the walking because she had to
drive the horses, the wagon. She had that all day long, every day.
She told a very interesting experience when they got to .. I believe
it was Dennison ... is that the Red River? Anyway, it was one of the
rivers up there. They went to cross the river and it was very hard to
make sure the horses knew where to step. I'm quoting now: (no this
was some creek, she didn't know) "We crossed some creek. One fellow who
had been riding along with them some time . . "went ahead of us and ran on
a rock that was hidden in the water. There had been a little rain and
the water was muddy and we had to prize his wagon over that rock. I was
in between them .. {between her father and this man who had gone ahead of
them). "I got over the rock, I knew to drive to the other side. (she
had been observant) "But when father went, he had forgotten which side.
He had a little trouble with getting the cows across. Of course they
had to drive the cows across, too. He went on the other side and got on
the edge of the rock and had to be pri zed out."
Well, she says, "Grandpa, he sort of praised me a little bit about
that. And you know that sent me to high Heaven! As I didn't get a lot
of praise and I hadn't had it yet ... but then that's all right too." So
when we got here, he gave me this ten dollar gold piece because I had
used good judgment in getting through. We'd stop, we'd milk the cows.
They had little muzzles that they carried and when they raised their
Mable Noble 9.
N: heads it,,'I'IOUl d drop down, over thei rI' no'ses, and put on 1; ke; a hit Her.
And then when they would lower their head, the muzzle would sling down,
this way you see, and they could graze."
M; For goodness sake!
N: "We'd not get too much milk because we would stop and let the kids
change during the day. But the next morning we'd get a right smart
little bit of milk. It would be cool and nice for dinner and then by
night it would be clabbered to make bread. So we got by that way and
that's just about all of that."
M: "The milk clabbered to make bread." Is she talking about biscuits?
N: Biscuits, yes. Biscuits was bread in those days. They didn't con­sider
other bread.
M: Not even corn bread?
N: Oh yes, on the farm.
M: Bread meant biscuits or cornbread?
N: Yes.
M: Not light bread; what we call yeast bread.
N: I wondered if you wanted to know something about their provisions
for eating along the way.
M: Ablolutely.
N: They had only two meals. They got up early in the morning of course
and they cooked a big breakfast. They cooked biscuits and meat ... they
had brought meat .. they had done, of course, all their own curing .. ham
and bacon and that. I asked her what they did for fresh meat and she
said they didn't have fresh meat along the way .
M: They didn't hunt then?
N: Once in a while maybe they'd shoot a rabbit or something but they
Mable Noble 10.
N: didn't have much meat along the way except cured meat that they had
brought. I said what about vegetables; they didn't have very much
vegetables either. They had brought quite a supply of canned fruits
from the summer before, from the farm. Canned in glass jars, of course.
They didn't do much in canning vegetables in those days. Tomatoes
perhaps, but they had not learned to can successfully the others to
keep them from spoiling. So they didn't have a great deal of vegetables
but they had a lot of fruit along the way.
They cooked a big bunch of biscuits every morning and had a big
breakfast. I guess they'd get eggs along the way when they passed farms
or something like that .
She had told me one time, in one of my interviews with her, that
they had brought a great big iron wash pot, which my grandmother had had
from her first marriage) I think. In fact, it's way over 200 years
old now. They had packed a lot of things in it .. I suppose their cured
meat and stuff like that. They had used it to pack in and they never
unpacked it completely. They just used out of it.
M: Sort of a storage cupboard.
N: Yes, it was like a storage cupboard.
M: Bacon and ham.
N: It would keep you see because it had been cured.
M: And these people are traveling in August which is hot as the dickens
up there. So they'd have to worry about that ... about spoi ling. What
did they do about water?
N: I don't recall her ever saying whether or not they had a water
barrel. Most people did, I think in those times. But they would get
Mable Noble 11 .
N: water from ... when they came across streams. They would look for
clear-looking water. She didn't ever talk about them boiling it so I
don't know what they did. They didn't get sick.
M: Well, they're cooking a big breakfast now; what are they cooking it
on?
N: Over a camp fire. They built a camp fire. But they had these
cooking vessels of iron, cast iron, big skillet on legs, Dutch oven had
a cover .. that's what they cooked the bread in ... put the coals on top of
the lid .. it had a rim around it that held the coals. It was a large size
one. A tea kettle. I know this to be a fact because my mother, later
when they took their trip, brought to San Antonio her tea kettle ... cast
iron tea kettle.
M: The gentleman I interviewed a couple of weeks ago said they took a
stove with them.
N: I have something about that in my family; but I don't know about the
grandparents. They did not use a stove along the way. They used a camp
fire. It was in the summer time. They would eat a big breakfast and
they wouldn't eat any more. They would rest occasionally. I guess
Grandpa would be tired and needed a rest. When they came to a stream,
the animals would have to drink. They would rest some along the way.
But I imagine it must have been near sun-down when they would stop,
probably before dark, and make camp for that evening. And then they
would have another big meal.
M: But nothing in the middle of the day.
N: No.
M: I bet those kids were hungry.
Mab 1 e Noble 12.
N: Well, they probably had crackers; I'm sure they probably started out
with tea cakes. Very likely my mother gave them cookies and things when
they stopped by and visited them. They probably laid in some more
supplies when they visited my mother. Those two days in Oklahoma. They
probably picked up some fresher things.
M: But it wasn't any luxury trip by any means, was it?
N: flo, it certainly was not. And it was work; 24 hours a day.
M: They got to this Davy Crockett Survey farm they had bought .. . you
said about 23 days of travel.
N: 26th of August she says they arrived there.
fl: Allowing for the stops, it's a littl e more than three weeks they
were on the road. Did she ever speak of ... did they have to make their
own trails? Were there any trails or any roads?
N: There were trails; there were dirt roads. Because they came through
places where other people had come and crossed the river. In fact, my
father came wi th them from \~apanucka to the ... whatever the ri ver is be­tween
Oklahoma and Texas ... whatever the town was. I believe she mentioned
it being Dennison .. which is a town up near that crossing. Came that far
with them to help them with the crossing and then he went back. It
wasn't too far from where he lived.
M: Did anybody mention meeting other people moving West? Other wagons?
N: No, she didn't mention that. They had the two wagons. There were
six of them. Two adults and the four children .. and these animals.
M: You mentioned the man who got hung up on the rock; he had joined
them somewhere along the way.
Mable Noble 13.
N: He had evidently, as far as I can tell from her interview with her
grandson, he had been somebody who had chanced along the way . When they
came to fording places, they had to stop and wait; only one could go
across at one time. Or if it was a place where there was a ferry, you
had to wait your turn. So you naturally would meet other people .
M: There were ferries in some cases?
N: I'm sure there were because I've read in other things in history
where they were. For instance, in this exhibit (Texas Women) out here,
this woman up near Waco who built the bridge over the Trinity; her husband
ran a ferry. But that was a deep river. Where there was a deep river and
a town close by why naturally they would have to have ferries.
My family did not mention a ferry; they just found a low place in the
river and forded it.
M: Did they say anything about weather conditions? Did they run into
bad storms? Did they suffer from the heat?
N: This was in August and I imagine it was just .... Now she did mention
here something here, "had a little rain" ... "there had been a little rain" ..
I guess a shower and I guess things were kind of slick, mud roads, dirt
roads and everything. And the water was muddy . . she mentioned that but
there was nothing in the way of a storm or anything.
M: They didn't have anything like that to contend with. No complaints
"Oh we're so tired, we're so hot, we're so hungry?"
N: No, she didn't say so.
M: They were sturdy folk .
N: My family didn't tolerate a great deal of complaining. They just
grew up not complaining a lot.
Mable Noble 14.
M: This is the way it is.
N: Yeah. It was a very disciplined family. They didn't have much com­plaining.
M: Were you born when they stopped at your Mother and Father's?
N; No. That was before I was born.
M: Now these people got to their destination in something over three
weeks. Was there a building there waiting for them or did they have to ... ?
N: Yes, I asked them about that. There was a very small house, a two­room
house on the farm. They had to make do with that for a while,
while they were building their home. It had two rooms and I guess you'd
likely call it the dog-run between the storage place. She said they got
by pretty well.
Then the older son who had remained in Arkansas, came in January
when he finished his crops over in Arkansas and his school term was over.
He came, during the early winter, to Texas and he lived with them. Of
course he was a great deal of help because he was older than the others.
M: That makes seven people living in the house.
N: That's right.
M: Did they stay there or did they move on?
N: They stayed there. My grandfather died the next year.
M: This was in 1903 ... the summer of 1903?
N: No, he died the summer of 1907. That comes out in the story of my
family.
M: Four years he .... then I suppose the older brother kind of took over
the family.
Mable Noble 15.
N: My grandmother continued to live there as long as the children ... the
last daughter was married.
M: She did!
N: Then she sold the farm to the oldest son. He had married in the mean­time
and he took the home place.
M: Do you know how many acres; how big a farm?
N: No, I don't.
M: It's interesting it was the Davy Crockett Survey ..
N: I thought that was interesting from a history standpoint. I did not
know that until I was looking over some of these ...
M: Is Wapanucka in . . it's in Oklahoma?
N: Yes. It's not too far north of the Texas line. South eastern
Oklahoma.
M: Now we've got that family moved in a covered wagon. They remained;
in fact some of them are still living in that area?
N: They are. They did sell my grandfather's home place; they sold it
many years ago.
M: Have you ever seen it?
N: Oh, yes. We visited there when I was a child.
M: When did your family decide .... which is the next trek?
N: The next trek is Mary Noble - Claude Noble, my mother and father.
M: She was a Crook?
N: She was a Crook. My father always said he married a Crook but he
made a Noble woman out of her. So we always had that little joke .
The next summer after the Crook family came to Texas, my father
decided he wanted to come to Texas. No, not the next year either . He
Mable Noble 16.
N: was still living there, I take it back. I was born the next year.
Then my mother had this little second baby, it was a boy. We were still
in Oklahoma. I don't know whether we were on the same farm, the same
place, or not because I didn't quite remember that far back.
M: You were the first-born?
N: I'm the first-born of my mother's family. Then the second one was
the little brother. When he was about 18 months old, 18, 19, in the
winter, my father decided .. this was the winter of 1906 .. my father decided
to move to Texas. The Crook family were enjoying it so much; they were
having good crops and everything.
M: Where were they?
M: They were in Hood County. So my father in Oklahoma decided he
wanted to come down there.
M: It sounded good.
M: So, he had arrangements, my aunt thinks that maybe my grandfather
made the arrangements for it. There was this acreage on this same big
Crockett Survey property which now belonged to Mr. Shirley, that he was
renting. So my father was going to rent it and see how he liked Texas.
So we came in the fall, around Christmas time, to Texas. I was 3 years
old.
M: Do you remember anything about it?
N: I think I do. I think I remember them lifting me up into the wagon
when we were leaving Oklahoma. There was a very dear old couple who
were almost like kin folks that my family was very fond of and she was
very fond of me, spoiled me and everything. I kind of have a faint
Mable Noble
N: memory of them lifting me up and she gave me sonething ... ] don't
remember what it was, ] think it was a doll.
17.
The little brother was, as ] have said, about 18 months old. ] do
remember this: that we stopped along the way ... and this is true of many
people traveling by covered wagon, when they would come through a town,
an established community, there would be what they call wagon yards,
which is the equivalent of a trailer park. And the people traveling in
wagons would camp there, one night, two nights, however long they needed
to stop in this wagon yard .
Well, there was one in Ft. Worth. And so we stopped there. ]
faintly remember something about being in the wagon at that time. We
had a puppy named Toby .. ] don't know what kind of a little dog . . but any­way
we were very fond of him. And he disappeared while we were at that
wagon yard. They always felt that somebody stole him. ] remember that
as something that happened then.
] do not remember things that happened in the wagon along the way.
After all] was only just barely three years old.
We got to Hood County and the little farm. ]t had a very small
primitive sort of house that we lived in but it gave enough shelter for
my mother and father and the two little children. See ... that was around
Christmas time. ]n March the little brother became very ill on day and
in some way one foot was affected. ] don't know what ... anyway he died
within about two or three days. Nobody knows what caused it. We've
wondered if it could have been polio or something that happened inasmuch
as one little leg was affected. Anyway, he died very suddenly. That was
in March. He was 22 months old. My mother by then was carrying her
Mable Noble 18.
N: third child. That was in March of 1907. In the summer of 1907, around
July, my grandfather became ill.
M: This was grandfather Crook now?
N: Grandfather Crook ... the only grandfather I ever had. He became ill
and he died within five or six days. He died ten days after my second
brother was born. My mother had given birth to her third child. She was
still in bed when her father took sick and died suddenly. In fact she was
not able to go to his funeral. That was in the summer.
M: How old was he when he died .. do you remember?
N: My grandfather? Around sixty I think. He was not considered an old
man.
M: I was wondering, because these people led rugged lives ..
N: Very rugged. He was not a large man. He was of a slight build ...
very hard worker. Muscular sort of man but not ... he was sturdy and had
no history of illnesses or anything.
M: You wonder about those lives that they lived: outdoors, physical
labor that they advise all of us now to do ... did they live longer than
we're living? No, they didn't in most cases, did they? I suppose lack
of medical care?
N: I think my father is an exception to that rule, though. I'll tell
you when we come to him.
That was a summer of trauma for my mother.
M: It sure was. Mercy!
N: She lost a child; she lost her father; and then two months later when
my father was beginning to harvest his fall crop ... my father was a work­aholic
.. he never knew when to stop; he just taxed his strength. He
was a very strong man and very hard worker .. This was just a small farm.
Mable Nob le 19.
N: a one man farm and he did all the work himself. He began to cough
terribly. We didn't know what the trouble was and he got worse and
finally began to spit up blood and he went to the doctor. The doctor
told him that it was consumption . . that' s what they called T.B ...... at that
time. As a matter of fact, T.B. had run in his family; his mother had
died of tuberculosis and some other members of his family. The doctor
sa i d then, "Thi s c 1 i ma te is not good for you and you have got to get allay.
I want you to sell most of your things and pack up in a covered wagon and
travel ... you need to go south in a hi gher, drier climate. I want you to
go to Uvalde, Texa s. "
M: He mentioned the town!
M: He mentioned i t: Uvalde. He said, "That's good, high, dry cl imate
and I want you to go there. I don't want you to just hop on the train and
go" (because the trains were running through there at that time.) He says,
"Fit up a wagon and travel through by land and sleep outside, every night. "
Of course he gave him some medication. My aunt tell s me about it. This
was a terrible shock. My grandmother was still grieving for her .. my
gra ndfather's death and her children were still at home, unmarried then,
though the son and older daughter were thinking about marriage. They
advertised for somebody ... my father was so ill he just co ughed all the
time. They thought he was going to explode .. So they tried to get some­body
... they advertised, they phoned around .. they did have a telephone by
that time ...
M: They did?
N: Yes, my grandfather had a rural telephone. My grandfather was a
rather progressive man. They could not find anybody. I guess people ...
Mable Noble 20.
N: they wanted somebody to go and drive the team. My mother couldn't
drive the team and besides she had me and then she had this five month
old baby. She couldn't do it. So they couldn't find anybody to drive and
go along with us . My aunt, Aunt Hannah, who was the one who had driven
the Crook family in the wagon ... she sa i d to her mother, "I don't see amy
other way but for me to go. I've just got to go. Somebody has got to
go and help Mary and Claude. I'll just have to do it. "
M: She was in her 20's by then, wasn't she?
N: Yes, she was in her 20's, probably about 21, I think by that time.
And so she did. She drove . My father was not able to begin driving .
But she says that he bagan to get better as soon as they got on the road.
I guess not working so hard helped a little bit. The fresh air and
everything. The doctor had told him to sleep out every night so he slept
on the ground ... I guess in blankets and quilts and things . . She says at
night he took a tent pole .. they had taken a small tent ... though they
did not use it hardly any along the way.
M: Slept under the stars?
N: They didn ' t set up the tent all the time. It was a small one. My
mother and the two chil dren and my aunt slept in the bed in the wagon .
But my fa t her took a tent pole and poked it through the spokes of the
wheel of the wagon and then he took a wagon sheet, he had an extra wagon
sheet because you know that's what they called the top that went over
the covered wagon. He usually had two of them which made it better pro­tection.
And so he would take that wagon sheet and spread it over the
little make-shift tent and he'd sleep down on the ground.
M: Under the wagon sort of.
Mable Noble 21.
N: Sort of under the wagon at night. Aunt Hannah says she remembers
several times, this was December, they left the thirteenth of December
from Hood County, Texas.
M: 190 ... ?
N: 7. 1907.
M: Going to Uvalde.
N: Goi ng to Uva 1 de. It was cold. She remembers severa 1 times the next
morning she would wake up, get up, before ... he would still be asleep. He
was a young man with black hair, and she can remember there would be frost
on his hair.
M: My word!
N: It would be so cold during the night. Of course, they had a lot of
blankets and they wore heavy clothing.
M: Isn't that interesting.
N: But she said he b~gan to improve immediately after they got started
on the trip and it wasn't but a few days until he was able to help drive.
M: Really? That soon.
N: Yes, that soon.
M: Did she tell you anything about what they took with them?
N: Yes. If you know how wagons were in those days .. the bed of the
wagon had a wall around it something like 18, 20, 24 inches deep .. not a
very high wall. But there were provisions for putting another little
wall on to that higher .. it had stakes that went down into ... Well, anyway
they had the deep wall in it and then the wagon bed itself was just ap­proximately
the width of a double bed spring. So they had a double bed
spring set up on this kind of frame ri ght back of the driver's seat.
Mable Noble 22.
M: Longwise or crosswise?
N: It was longwise like the wagon bed. Then they had the mattress on
top of that which made it just as comfortable as a regular bed. They
had feather beds; and they had blankets; and lots of quilts.
M: Warm clothes, I suppose.
N: Yes and they wore warm clothes. They also had taken a cook stove
which they set up in the wagon but it did not prove to be practical be­cause
the winter wind blew the smoke too much around them so it just
didn't seem to be practical and they had enough cover to keep warm. So
they didn't try using the stove. When they stopped to camp, or to cook
meals, which, by the way, they did just as the Crook family had done ...
they had two meals a day. A big breakfast in the morning and then an
evening meal. Morning meal and an evening meal. My mother made biscuits.
I don't know what she used for milk. They may have stopped and picked
up milk at different places. They had no animals with them.
M: Did they have canned milk by then, do you think?
N: I don't think so. I don't remember my family using canned milk un­til
I was about grown. I doubt if they did.
M: Well, there were villages, and barns and ...
N: That's right. You were wondering about roads ... the highways were not
really marked as they are now of course, or paved or anything like that
but there were established roads.
Our first stop was at Hico, which is some twenty or something miles
southeast of Granbury . Granbury is the county seat of Hood County, which
is, of course, the county where the Crook and Noble family had moved.
They stopped long enough .. I don't know if they stayed over night or not,
Mable Noble 23.
N: probably did .. . to visit these relatives in Hico. And then they came
on down thr:ough central Texas. I asked my aunt if they came by way of
Waco and Austin and all that and she said she didn't remember. She
thought they came through Waco.
I remember Austin.
M: Do you?
N: Yes. You see I wa s a little past four years old. I had had my
fourth birthday. I remember when we got near Austin we could see in the
distance light in the sky. Austin at that time was a very advanced city
with street lights!
M: My goodness!
N: If you have lived long enough, or visited in Austin long time ago,
you remember the type of street li ghts they had. They were very, very
hi gh up in the air .. some kind of electric lights ... and they were on little
steel frame poles .. and they went way up into the sky. They didn't give
a great deal of illumination to the ground below but you could see them
from far off anyway. I can remember, we'd never seen anything like that ..
I can remember seeing those and we remarked about them. Those li ghts
stayed in Austin for many, many years . Other times when I had been back
through Austin many, many ti mes I can remember seeing th ose street lights.
I don't know whether they have eliminated all of them; it seems to me
they preserved a few of them when they changed the lighting system. But
that was interesting .. I remembered Austin.
All right, we came on down through central Texas and Austin and I
don't remember any other place but I remember we got to San Antonio on
New Year 's Day of 1908. And guess where we came? In the covered wagon
Mable Noble
N: we parked, Daddy parked, the wagon on Houston Street where Frost
National Bank Tower is now.
M: Really! For goodness sakes!
24.
N: Really. He knew that he had an uncle, his mother's older brother,
who was a practicing physician in San Antonio. He did not know where
he lived; he knew his nlame but he didn't know where he lived. So he
parked the wagon and left my mother and the children and my aunt in the
wagon and he goes and finds a city directory. Looks up and finds Uncle
Lee's name and telephones him.
M: They've got telephones now?
N: Oh yes .. you see this was San Antonio.
M: Was that a wagon yard or just a ...
N: No, we didn't stay in a wagon yard in San Antonio because he knew
when he got to San Antonio he was going to try to find this uncle.
M: I see.
N: He'd heard about him. Another uncle had reared him; my father was
an orphan; so he knew about this uncle that lived here. He'd never met
him but he knew his name.
So he found his name in the directory and phoned him and Uncle Lee
was as thrilled as Daddy was. You see, Daddy was feeling pretty well
by this time. He'd been on the road around two weeks, I guess. He
was feeling very much better. But he was still coughing a lot but he
wasn't coughing nearly as bad as he was. Aunt Hannah said it was just
remarkable how quickly he began to improve when he once got started on
the trip.
The uncle lived on San Pedro Avenue, the 800 block of San Pedro
Avenue, which is just about a mile, mile and a half .. something like that ...
Mable Noble 25.
N: north of Houston Street. It's south of San Pedro Park. So we drove
out to Uncle Lee's house and we stayed there a couple of days. My aunt
tells in one of the interviews I had with her, the next day after we got
there ... Uncle Lee and Aunt Emma were so glad to see us and they just
went all out to entertain us .. They wanted us to see San Antonio, sight­see,
so Uncle hired a hack I think is what they called 'em in those days.
Two seater or something ...
M: A predecessor of the taxi.
N: Yeah .. that's right, it really was. It had enough space for several
people. We went touring the city.
M: Do you remember anything about it?
N: No, I don't remember the trip at all. I don't remember that. I
remember on the next visit, back to San Antonio, my uncle had an electric
automobile and I remember riding in that.
You want a silly story?
M: Sure.
N: All right. On this trip, the first morning after we'd spent the
night with them Aunt Emma was fixing breakfast and she said, "Now I
want to fix eggs for you, boiled eggs or fried eggs, whatever kind ... How
many should I fix, Mary?" Mama said, "I'll have one; Claude will have
two; you don't need to fix one for Mabel because she won't eat eggs."
She fixed all the eggs that mama had suggested and maybe one or two extra,
I don't know. Anyway they were serving the eggs; I asked for an egg.
Of course, Mama was embarrassed to tears. I got the egg and I liked it
so much that I asked for another one ... I don't know what the result was.
Mable Noble 26.
N: My mother was so embarrassed she nearly died. But you see I was a
kind of nuisance on the trip all the way.
M: You started to tell me when this tape ran out about being a nuisance
and were s upposed to sit on the bed:
N: When we first started out, I was supposed to sit in the back on the
bed with my mother and every time Aunt Hannah would say, "Oh, look at
that" at something in the scenery along the way or "Look at the horses,"
I wanted to see it, too, so I would jump ... push up .. there was a little
sort of a side railing on the wagon, little wall around it and I'd
climb over that to get into the seat with them so I could see it. And
I just worried the life out of them. This must have been the first day.
So they told me if I would stay back in there on the bed with my mother,
as soon as they got to a town they'd buy me a new doll. So all right I
did. When they got to the town, they bought me the new doll. But after
I had the doll, I still wanted to see everything. I continued to be a
nuisance because I was a very wiry, screwball of a child.
M: And you were full of curiosity and you were bright, I bet.
You talked about the wagon sheet. I didn't know about that term.
Your father used two because it was sturdier and gave better protection.
The wagon sheet is coming over the hoops here to form this cover; was
there a space between the high wall that you spoke of on the sides .. was
there a space for air to get in, to look out or did it come ri ght down
to the wall?
N: I think the wagon sheet came down to the wall. But they often raised
it.
M: There was a way to do that?
Mable Noble 27.
N: There was a way to do that. I don't know but it evidently had some­thing
to do with those hooks .. they could tie it with a string or roll it
up.
M: I was thinking they could have let you look under that instead of
having to get up on the seat.
N: Remember this was December.
M: It was cold weather.
N: Now Aunt Hannah does not mention any storms or rains along the way.
She did mention frost. You know during the middle of December usually
we have pretty good ... well, not in recent years, we have so much wet
weather, I don't know what it was like then. She never did mention them
being caught in storms or rains.
M: If it had been a bad one, she would have remembered it. You said that
your father started recovering so quickly that he was helping her with
the driving. Was that horses that time?
N: Yes, horses.
M: Not mules, no animals.
N: No, we had no animals. We didn't even have a dog then.
M: Going back to the stove, I gather from what you said that actually
they took a stove to heat the wagon not to cook on ... was that the point?
N: I think so. I imagine they took it to have it when they got there
to use for cooking on. I don't think they intended to cook on it in the
wagon but I think they thought they might use it for heating.
M: For warmth.
N: They got along real well without it, she said. The smoke problem
was too much.
Mable Noble 28.
M: What did you do after you left Aunt Emma?
N: After two days or so, we started on to Uvalde. We just went on.
] don't have any details. ] don't remember any particular happenings.
When we got to Uvalde ... the actual place where we went was called
Sansom, it was two miles from Uvalde. When they built the railroad
through there, which they had done] think probably around the turn of
the century .. ] don't know the exact dates on that .. they had missed
Uvalde, which is the county seat of Uvalde County. The railroad was
two miles out from the courthouse.
M: ] wonder why?
N: ] don't know why .. whether it was the right-of-way acquiring, or
what. But anyway it did not go through the town. They built a little
station at this little place and they called it Sansom. Later it was
called North Uvalde. ] remember when it was called North Uvalde. Of
course, during the progress of time it has now been incorporated within
the city limits of Uvalde. At that time it was not.
Uvalde was known as a growing center; the new railroad through there;
it was ranching country; it never was industrial or anything like that
but it was a center. There was nothing but a lot of space around, you
know. But it was also known for health reasons. There were a number of
people who came there for lung trouble.
M: When your family set out because of your Dad's health, did you have
a definite goal? Did you have a specific piece of land?
N: No. I asked my aunt about that and on one of these tape interviews
she tells me that. He did not know; he just knew he was going ... He was
so sick when they left Hood County. ]n fact, the doctor told my grand-
Mable Noble 29.
N: mother ... "I don't think you'll have long to wait; I think your daughter
will be back before long; I don't think he's going to make it."
M: Really?
N: Oh yes. His condition was very serious. But he fooled 'em. He
began to improve.
M: You say Uvalde was known for health purposes. So this doctor .. he
didn't just pull a name out of a hat, did he?
N: I don't know how he knew; but he knew it. He definitely told him,
"Go there." He had made no prior arrangement for a job, for living
quarters or anything. He (the doctor) told him he wanted him to live in
a tent. Now that may be why .. I did not know until just recently that
they had taken a tent with them. It evidently was a small tent. I'm
sure it was not a very elite one.
When we got there, Aunt Hannah said that we lived in one tent for
a while. She didn't stay with them long because she was needed back
in Hood County with her mother and besides she had plans to be married
the next spring or something. She needed to get back home. So she
just got us settled and by that time, Daddy was feeling much better.
As I said, he was a workaholic so he began to look around to see what
he could find that he could do.
They lived in one tent for a while but it was a tent with a wooden
floor and a wall built up two or three feet high and then the top part
of it and walls were tent. There again, Daddy was smart enough to get
an extra cover on top: a tent fly, they often called it. They used two
tarps .. tarp was what it was ... stretched over the tent and it gave it
extra protection from wind, rain, what have you. Soon he got another
Mable Noble 30.
N: one. It was like two rooms then, you see. We had the beds in one
and the kitchen, cooking arrangements, in the other.
M: You're getting real stylish by this time!
N: On, yes. There were a lot of other people living in tents at that
time. In fact that area was growing; a lot of people were moving in.
was growing by leaps and bounds. There were houses under construction
at the time. People coming in to settle and live there.
It
We had neighbors whom I do remember the name .. they were named Hale,
H-a-l-e. They had several children; they were a lot older than my brother
and I were. I believe he was a railroad man; he worked on the railroad
there, I think. They were making that their home. They had a nice frame
home which they had just built. They were very good neighbors to us;
they seemed to like us very much. They were crazy about my baby brother.
And very good to my mother. We stayed there a year and a half.
M: I was going to ask you, you never intended to make this a permanent ...
N: No, I don't think we did. The doctor had told Daddy when he left
Hood County that he should never think of farming again.
M: He did?
N: He said, "That is not good work for you. That is too hard. You
mustn't go back to do farming work." But my father, being of farm stock
and loving the earth, decided - he got to feeling better so quickly and
got a job right soon ...
M: Doing what?
N: Well, he did several things. I remember one thing .. this is before
he disposed of his wagon and team .. he sold it pretty soon. But ... we
didn't need it. He didn't have a barn, a place to keep it. Anyway, he
contracted with some body who needed to move a big tank." It wacs, (l, steam
Mable Noble 31.
N: boiler .. a big container for steam tank ... it needed to be moved to
another location, another town somewhere, quite a little distance away.
Daddy contracted with him to take it. It was so large, it just barely
would go on the wagon. He loaded it up and he was gone I don't know how
long, I can't remember. I faintly I remember him being gone. And my
mother felt very much alone with these two little children there with him
gone. And he was gone, I don't know whether it was a week or more than
a week ... but it was some days.
Then he worked for some meat packing company; I guess it was. He
was a good judge of beef, beef cattle. That is sort of a center of a
large cattle area. He would go out and buy the cattle because he could
look at an animal and judge how much beef that animal would cut out. He
did that ... did a real good job at it. And he helped with the butchering
and the cutting of the beef. Delivered it to wherever they wanted it to
go.
M: During this time he 's steadily improving in his health, I take it.
N: Yes, very much.
M: Did he ever get cured?
N: Oh yes .
M: He did!
N: He lived to be 75 years old.
M: You said you stayed in Uvalde a year and a half.
N: We stayed in Uvalde till 1909.
M: He sold the wagon.
N: Yes. I don't know when he sold the wagon. I do remember we went on a
fishing trip on the Nueces Ri ver when I was still very, very tiny .. it
Mable Noble 32.
N: was during that year and a half we lived there. We went with some
other friends in a wagon way down the river somewhere and stayed several
days on a fishing trip.
In 1909, in the summer of 1909, he got farm fever again.
M: He did?
N: He'd heard of some property in Arkansas I think and he decided maybe
he'd go there. So he wanted to go see about it. We'd been away from
Hood County, my grandmother, for two years so he bundled up my mother and
the two of us children and we went by train up to Hood County where my
Grandmother lived .. out from Granbury. He was going at the same time up
to investigate this property business. So he bundled up our belongings,
our furnishings which were very, very meager, living in two tents. I
don't know where he shipped them, where he had them stored, but anyway
they were going to be shipped by train.
He had to stop off, of course, in San Antonio. He vi sited this
uncle again, Uncle Lee, and told Uncle Lee about it. Well, Uncle Lee
like to have had a fit. He said, "You're not going to the farm. You know
that's just not the thing for you to do. Daddy said, "Well, I've got to.
I've got to make a living." He says, "Look, if I can find you a job here
in San Antonio, would you stay in San Antonio?" Daddy said, "Well, I
guess I would."
So Uncle Lee got busy. He went to I don't know how many different
places but he happened . .. they lived on San Pedro Avenue which was not
too far from San Pedro Park, and across the street from the Park was the
Transit Company for street cars; electric street cars were running in
San Antonio at that time. Uncle Lee knew the superintendent I think, of
Mable Noble 33.
N: the Transit company so he went to see him and told him that he had
this nephew who needed a job and this and that and the other and he
needed an outdoor job because the doctor had told him that he should not
take indoor work. Stay outside as much as possible. Anyway, he landed
up with a job ... as a street car motorman, driving a street car.
M: And that's how you came to San Antonio.
N: That's how we came to San Antonio.
M: And you stayed here?
N: We stayed here. Daddy worked for the Transit Company for 33 years.
M: And his lungs all cleared up?
M: San Antonio used to be famous as a health resort, too.
N: However, the last year of his life, my father had some difficulty
and needed some surgery and they found, it was not malignant but there
was scar tissue, it was tuberculous tissue. At his death the next year,
we had an autopsy because we did not know what exactly had caused his
death, and they discovered a lot of tuberculous scar tissue in various
organs.
M: It had spread from the lungs ..
N: Yes. And the doctor told me at that time that that was not unusual.
Many people had it and when it healed up it left scars and attacked other
organs beside the lungs. But he never had a recurrence of tuberculosis.
M: Wasn't that wonderful.
N: And he was the picture of health. He grew to be kind of heavy .. he
was rather slender when he was young. He walked a great deal; he always
walked to work in the morning ... one or two miles to work.
M: Have we covered all the covered wagon material now?
Mable Noble
N: Yes, I think so.
M: This is so interesting! Is there anything you want to add?
N: No, I don't think so.
34 .
M: Did anybody ever talk about the discomfort of bunping along for mile
on mile on a covered wagon? On rather poor roads?
N: No and I don't recall that my aunt ever brought that out in the
interviews I had with her. People were not ... they were so accustomed
to discomfort .. they didn't expect everything that we expect.
M: You know what keeps occurring to me as you have been talking? Is
the strength and importance of the family. In those days.
N: That's right and I wanted to tell you a little bit about my grand­mother.
There she was a young woman with three children and she became
entirely self-supporting. She had very little education; she was always
self-conscious about not having had education. My grandfather had not
had a lot of formal education .. he didn't go to a so-called college but
he was a well educated man. She always felt inferior because she had
not ... but she was a very resourceful woman. Very strong person: she
had 11 children . . . reared 11 children .. one of them died when he was quite
young.
M: Think of bringing up all those kids in a frontier situation!
N: And the things they have told me: I have some tapes of reminiscences
on family life . .. their games, their chores, how they did things for each
other and what their daily life consisted of. It's remarkable. My
grandfather started them out working when they were five years old, they
began to pick cotton.
M: Five years old! Did they get paid?
Mable Noble 35.
N: The first year they didn't get paid. They picked their cotton under
his supervis ion and they put it in his basket. But the next year theirs
was kept separate and he paid them, same way he would have paid anybody
that came to work for them.
M: He did! By this time they would be six years old.
Do you remember anything about the games they played?
N: Yes. ] have on one of my tapes, I have quite a bit about that. They
played outdoor games; they had very few organized games like we have now.
They didn't know what cards and dominoes were; they did not have those.
But they had a croquet set in Arkansas, when they moved to Texas. They
played that; and they played ball games, outdoor ball games, similar to
soft ball but they used a stick. ] think they ca ll ed it Town Ballor
something like that. They played various forms of it as they grew up,
had bases and ... they did that at school; they did it at home. They
played hide and seek and a lot of those active kind of games.
M: ] remember a thing ca lled Run Sheep Run . And Red Light, Green Light.
N: Yes.
M: Hiding games and running games.
N: Very active games. Of course, they didn't really need the activity
too much because they were busy working.
When they went to school .. they on ly went three months ... ] have a
whole tape on the one room school house that my aunt told me about.
M: You've got some marve lous tapes. What are you going to do with them?
N: Anything that] feel that would be interesting to my family, of
course.
M: We mustn't lose them.
Mable Noble 36.
N: I did the school house one to help me with the committee that Bonnie
is working with.
M: So they made use of that. I just don't want us to lose anything.
The more interviews I do, the more I am aware that social history, which
used to be laughed at, is becoming a very vital part of historical re­search.
N: It is and especially the family. It was a community unit, is what
it really was. My family was kind of interesting because it was three
separate divisions . My grandfather had .. his first wife had died and
two children had died and left him with one son. This son was quite a
bit older than his later family.
My grandmother's first marriage had three children which were, of
course, older. When she and my grandfather married and they had 8 child­ren
... those other two segments all lived together part of the time.
My mother and my aunts have both told me they never felt any dif­ference
between the half brothers, one half sister, and their own eight
children. They never knew which was which. Except the three of them
were Rogers and the others were all Crook.
M: Isn't it interesting that they all helped each other. You thought
nothing of going to visit cousins so and so, when you were on this trek ..
stayed two or three days.
N: They didn't even know you were coming. A strange thing happened in
the 30's I think it was: I was going to go on a trip with some people
and I was coming back through Ft. Worth and I wrote my youngest aunt who
was living near Ft . Worth at that time, to tell her that I was going to
be there and I would like to visit her if it were convenient, I would
Mable Noble 37.
N: stop off and leave them in Ft . Worth as they came back and I would
come out to vi s it her. She wrote me a scathi ng 1 etter: "The idea of
my own sister's daughter asking if it would be con venient to visit me!"
She j ust thought it was terrible. "Of course, I want you to come."
N: I said, "Aunt Hulda, it's not like that in the city."
M: Not any more!
N: I said it isn't and there are many times when it would not be con­venient
for people to come visit. And I wanted to be sure .. But you see,
their concept of relatives is so different.
M: So different now. It gives you kind of a warm feeling to think about,
doesn't it?
N: Especially in these l arge families. I think that is one of the nice
things about large families. Last fall, last October, we had a little
reunion of my generation . I called it the Cousins Reunion. I organized
it and we had it up at Granbury. I th i nk there were 15 of us .. of my
generation.
M: You had kept track of them all this time.
N: Un huh. There were two, three Rogers and the rest were Crook cousins ...
first cousins ... just that generation. Well, we had the two aunts, too,
who are still living. And oh, it was so wonderful. We had the best ...
there were about 30 of us .. and we got together and had such a nice time.
M: Weren't you smart to do that.
N: Because I don't think we could do it amy more.
End of Tape 1, side 2. of about 25 minutes
NOBLE, MABEL
Covered wagon series
Trip 1 (1903),1,5-13 (Montgomery
County, Arkansas; Wapanucka, Okla­homa
; Hood County)
Trip 2 (1906), 15-17 (Oklahoma, Hood
County, Granbury)
Trip 3 (1907-08) 19-30 (Hico, Austin,
San Antonio, Sansom, Uvalde)
INDEX
Biog r aphi cal (Crooks, Nob les),
1-4, 14-19, 23-30
Davy Crockett Survey, 4, 7, 12, 15
The main thrust of this interview is traveling by covered wagon in
the early part of the twentieth century, involving Arkansas, Oklahoma,
and Texas.
The life of that time is interestingly revealed in the history of
the two families.