THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Helen Youngblood and Lora MCKinley
DATE: 15 May 1987
PLACE: pearsall, Texas
INTERVIEWERS: Janie and Walter Sargeant
Vera Barnhardt
JS: Helen, have you lived in this area all your life?
Y: I was born here, here in Pearsall.
JS: Do you mind saying when?
Y: April 26, 1897.
JS: You'll be 90 years old this year then.
Y: I had a real birthday not long ago.
JS: Have your folks lived here?
~~ -
Y: Yes, my daddy moved to Pearsall from San Migue l just
about a year before I was born.
JS: And what was he in, ranching?
Y: No, he was a carpenter and well-driller.
JS: Did you live out of town?
Y: We lived here in town; the house is still there.
JS: Right in Pearsall. And that's where you went to
school, of course.
Y: Uh huh. I started here and finished here; 1915, I
finished.
JS: How many children were in you family?
Y: Nine.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 2
JS: Your brothers and sisters.
Y: There were ten of them but they just raised eight. My
daddy did. My mother died when I was seven.
JS: You had to help with the other chilren?
Y: left four little girls and my oldest (sister)
raised us: Mrs. Bennett.
JS: How old were you when you started to school?
Y: I was past seven.
JS: That's about the age that they started?
Y: ... they used to.
WS: Didn't have any what they call kindergarten then, did
you?
Y: No .
WS: Did you go through 11 years of school or 12?
Y: There weren't but ten when I
JS: When you finished up. About how many were in the
school at that time?
Y: I don't know. There were 8 in our graduation class,
when we graduated in 1915. I don't remember how many
children were in school.
JS: It wasn't a one-room school?
Y: Oh no. It was a big building and had all ten grades in
it. All went to the same school.
JS: That is kind of unusual back in those days, wasn't it?
You hear so much of one-room schools.
M: Was that the school that was over where the garage is?
Y: Yeah, that old school, where the garage thing is. Had
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 3
Y: a big cistern at the back of it. We all drank out of a
dipper.
JS: Did you have a lot of colds in the winter time? Did
diseases go around?
Y: No, there weren't diseases then like there are now.
Each room had a stove in it to keep it warm.
WS: How many rooms were there did you have some grades
together or were they all separate grades?
Y: Every grade was separate, I think. Unless there was a
first and second together. I don't remember that. That
school was two-story and it had lots of rooms.
JS: What was the school day then? What hours did you go?
Do you remember?
Y: 9 to 4.
JS: That's a long school day isn't it?
Can you think of any thing particularly in your school
years that you'd like to tell about? Anything that stands
out in your memory?
Y: No.
WS: Were you an honor student?
Y: NO. (laughter)
I was just an average •.• I was good in math is all.
JS: You didn't know what was going on, you had your head in
the
What was the social life for young people?
Y: Well, they used to have theaters in Pearsall. We used
to go to those. And the picture shows. Picture show up on
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 4
Y: top of a building downtown; on top of what is A and C
Hardware Store now.
JS: What's the difference between a picture show and a
theater? Was the theater live actors?
Y: No. I don't know what the difference is.
JS: I've heard .•• did they have opera companies come in?
Y: Yes, we had operas at times. Chautauqua.
WS: We stopped in Waxahachie where they have a Chautauqua
something; it originated there I believe. I may be wrong.
Y: I remember something about 'em. School, we had the
theater and Chautauqua, and things like that, upstairs of
that new school. The school, you know where it was?
M: Yeah, I went to school there.
Y: I moved over there when I was in the 6th grade.
M: Didn't they have an opera house up over the Nath Arnold
store? (same as A & C Hardware in 1987)
Y: Well, that was the picture show. I think we had the
opera house there at one time.
And then when we built the Annex - you know we built it
for a place to have •..
M: When the Chautauquas come to town, they usually brought
a tent.
JS: They were mostly in tents, \qeren't they?
Let's see, I guess the two of you were the ones that
had the relation that helped start what is now the Travis
Methodist Church.
Y: My grandfather.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 5
M: Her grandfather and my great grandfather.
Y: Circuit rider they called him. And I think it was 400
miles, his full tour, whenever he made it. He built the Oak
Island Church ... you know where that is •.. it's about 15
miles kind of east of San Antonio. We have two celebrations
every year there. The 30th of May and the 11th of November
or the closest Sunday to it. All the relatives meet there.
My daddy built the church. My daddy built the pews. And
they're still in there.
WS: Oak Island, did you say?
Y: Oak Island.
WS: Where is it, toward Seguin?
Y: NO, it's closer to Poteet, isn't it? Toward Poteet.
It's down that way.
M: 16 miles out of San Antonio.
M: Grandpa helped start Westmoreland School; it's Trinity
now. And the school in Georgetown ••. what's the name of
it?
Y: Southwestern .
M: Southwestern. I think he had some kind of a rock
quarry.
JS: Was he originally from Pearsall?
M: Where did they come from? Oak Island is where they
lived but I don't know where he came •..
Y: They came from Ohio didn't they?
M: Ohio.
JS: Now you said his circuit was 400 miles.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 6
M: He rode a horse, rain or shine. That's one thing that
killed him was his church to church. He'd get wet and just
keep a-goin'.
WS: Did he stay a week or two or just a
M: I don't know how long it took him.
WS: I wonder if he'd go like Pearsall for a week and then
go somewhere else.
M: No. He'd preach one day and go on. Keep a-goin' around
I think. Grandma had to raise all the children.
JS: I was going to ask you if she went with him.
M: No. No. She stayed home with eight kids.
JS: Can you remember any stories that he told?
M: Grandpa. I never heard him, he died long before I was
born. I knew Grandma. I was ten when she died.
They used to plant tomatoes. That's one thing that
gets me. When Aunt Priscilla would tell about it, plant in'
tomatoes for the beauty of them. Like we do flowers. They
didn't know to eat them.
JS: Didn't eat them.
M: Uh uh.
JS: I wonder if they had the problems raising them like we
have now.
M: I don't know. But I've heard her tell about them.
That they finally learned to eat tomatoes.
WS: I read somewhere that initially tomatoes were thought
to be poison.
M: I imagine they did ••• They are pretty, if you look at
YOUNGBLOOD I MCKINLEY 7
N: 'em. I have two growing in pots now. They make a real
pretty vine.
JS: What about Pearsall that has changed so much? Has much
been changed?
M: Oh, yes. There were just three houses between our
house and town, when we first ... I guess when I was big
enough to go to town. There was just one meat market.
WS: How far out of town were you then? At that time.?
M: I guess about a half a mile. We had to walk down
there. Nobody had cars except .•• first car I ever rode in,
I was ten years old. I went to spend the day, my sister and
I, went to spend the day with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. They
were our cousins and that's when they were building the
Beaver home out there then.
JS: Quite an experience, wasn't it?
M: Yes, it was. And we were expecting a big dinner; we
were riding in a car, went 10 miles an hour; didn't even
have a top on it. We were expecting a big lunch and had
sweet potatoes and roast. And we were so disappointed we
didn't know what to do. I don't know what we thought they
was going to have.
JS: That would sound pretty good nowadays.
WS: Did you have a flat tire on the way?
M: No.
WS: I remember the first car my father got, we had ... if
we tried to go over ten miles, we had ••.
Y: That's true. At home, my daddy had a lot at the end of
, YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 8
Y: where we lived and he told my sister, Bess, and I,
said, "If you-all sell that lot, I'll buy you a car. Sell
it for $500, I'll buy you a car .•. " the rest of the money
he would donate.
Well, it didn't take us but a week to sell it. We sold
it to Mr. and Mrs. Orin Smith. So he bought us the car and
I want to tell you, the tires were no count; we had a flat
every time we turned around. They were about paper thin.
JS: What kind of car was it?
Y: Ford. Tires about that big around. And had to crank
it.
WS: Did you crank it?
Y: Sure. We all cranked it.
JS: Sometimes it would take all of you, too, wouldn't it?
Y: Seems like they weren't hard to crank then. They were
built so thin anyway.
It had some curtains slide •.• cloth curtains. But the
one that I first rode in, it didn't have any top even. It
had four seats in it. You just sit up there.
JS: Where did you buy it from? Was there someone in town
that sold them?
Y: I think it was the Ford Company. I don't reemember.
My dad had to put $250 more with it, it cost $750.
JS: He must have built a lot of houses in town.
M: He built lots of 'em. Churches, too. He built the
Christian Church. He didn't help on the Methodist Church
because he didn't like the cement blocks they were building
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 9
M: it out of. And sure enough, it didn't last. He said
he knew they weren't any account.
My daddy would never contract anything. He worked by
the day. He thought it was wrong to contract anything. A
very religious man.
JS: What religion was he?
M: Methodist.
JS: Did you have a Methodist church here then?
M: Yes. The first church I joined, the first church we
had, when I was seven years old.
JS: Was it the first Methodist Church they had here?
M: Uh huh. Just a little bitty one-room outfit. Have a
picture of it.
?: Where was it?
M: Well, where was it? About along there, it wasn't where
this
?: Not where this church is; more where the Annex is
?
M: Seems like it's on another block. But it burned down
and then they built one on this block where we have it now.
We've had about four or five different churches. The one
before this one was built in 1907.
JS: Was your grandfather pastor of that church?
M: Un uh. He started, I guess, in Oak Island, didn't he?
Where did he start, grandpa, where did he start?
Y: He was a circuit rider and he was preaching allover
the country.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 10
M: I know, but where was the family living •.. San Miguel
?
Y: I imagine they started at Oak Island.
JS: HOW many members did you have in that little Methodist
church?
M: HOW many members then? I don't know. There weren't
too many.
JS: Couldn't have been with just one room.
M: No, there weren't too many.
WS: What did you have,you have a Catholic church and a •. ?
M: Yeah. We have a Catholic church.
WS: Did you back then, too?
M: Well, I don't know whether they did or not. Catholics
were all across the railroad in those days. There wasn't
any .•• well, the Catholic church is still across the
railroad, in the Mexican town ••.
WS: How about other churches? What other churches did you
have?
M: Well, we had the Episcopalean, now they don't have
Episcopalean, and they have the presbyterian; presbyterian
is the oldest church now. And the Methodists and Baptists.
Y: Church of Christ.
M: I don't •••
Y: Well, they used to have a Campbellite church. I know
it was pretty close to the school there. Just a big room.
?: That's the Christian church. They called it Campbellite
then.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 11
Y: My daddy built the Christian church that's here now.
JS: You said your grandfather helped to start the Trinity
Methodist Church or the Trinity Baptist?
Y: NO, the Westermoreland College.
VB: westmoreland College.
Y: I don't think it was westmoreland then, I think it was
something else.
It was the San Antonio Female College. Then they
changed it to Westmoreland and now it's Trinity University.
JS: I didn't realize that. Was he a teacher there, too?
Y: My grandpa? NO, I don't think he was a teacher; he
didn't have time.
(refers back to church) And the members at first, they
were Mexicans, negroes and white people. Had a bell; hung
it up in a tree. Bought a lot. Something happened in the
lot.
Y: It didn't have a proper deed. I think he bought three
lots and lost 'em.
M: Lost two of 'em I know; I don't know about the third
one.
JS: Before they could get a church established?
M: That's around where LaVillita is.
WS: I was wondering about the fire companies. A lady this
morning said something about •.• initially they had the old
hand pump. DO you remember those at all?
M: Fire trucks? I don't remember. Didn't have much of a
fire truck at first. If you caught on fire, you better try
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 12
M: and get it out yourself.
JS: After you left home, you married a man who lived here?
He was native of this area?
Y: Uh huh. He was born in San Miguel.
JS: What sort of work was he in?
Y: My husband? He was ••. his daddy died when he was 13
years old and he had to stop and go to work to make a living
for his mother. They moved to Laredo first and he delivered
telegrams on a bicycle for several years. Then Mr. E.A.
Lilly, merchant here in town, had bought a store out from
Mr. Cowley and he gave Earnest a job; 17 years old. And
Earnest worked as manager of that job until they closed it
out, when Mr. Lilly died. And I kept books. And that's
where we did our courtship.
Y: Then he was '" went into the bee business.
M: Yeah.
JS: What hours did you work?
Y: From nine to nine. Nine until six. And I mean
Saturday you worked 'til late.
WS: I was going to ask you what was the big night.
Saturday night was, wasn't it?
Y: Oh, it was a big night. Yes. You had to get ready for
it. You had to get ready all week. And now you go downtown
on Saturday and very few are there.
JS: probably had their big sales then.
Y: Well, they didn't have too many sales in those days. I
tell you, the stores gave credit; they ran people for years
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 13
Y: so many of them. Mr. Lilly ... people . The store had
everything in it. Everything you could think of.
MY: General merchandise.
Y: General merchandise. Sold everything. Even bought
cotton. Some days he'd buy a hundred bales of cotton.
Quite a bit of bookkeeping.
JS: I bet it was. What did he do with the cotton? Sell it
to ... ?
Y: Ship it to different companies. There were a lot of
people in the cotton business here.
JS: He just did that as a side business from his mercantile
?
Y: Well, it all went in together some way or other. He
was treasurer of the Methodist church for a long time. That
went in, too.
JS: You had to keep track of that, too?
Y: Uh huh.
JS: You did have a lot to do.
Y: I was treasurer for a while, not too long, just from
the time he died until we had a conference.
WS: HOW about credit back in those days? Did a lot of
people have •.. ?
Y: Oh, they did lots of credit. Yeah, they run 'em you
see and then when the cotton came in and was sold, then
they'd pay their accounts off. If they had any money left,
they got it; if they didn't, carried it 'til next year.
Kep' 'em on another year.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY
JS: Isn't that something. Cotton was a big thing then.
The crop that grew around here.
Y: Yes. Big thing. And they had quite a few
watermelons.
JS: How about ranching: cattle?
Y: Well, they had cattle, too. I never was associated
with the cattle business much.
14
JS: That's sort of different. Were there other stores in
town?
Y: Oh, yes. Sanders was right across the street from us.
Then the Mercantile over on this side, that is about a block
from it. And then we had some other little stores around.
M: Meat market.
Y: Yes, one meat market. My daddy loved meat and lots of
times we'd run downtown before breakfast and buy meat for
breakfast. I was raised on meat and potatoes.
WS: Did you raise your own potatoes?
Y: Not much.
WS: Bought them at the store.
Y: Uh huh. Very few people had gardens in that day.
WS: Is that right?
Y: One thing, they didn't have the water. You see, you
depended on the windmill.
JS: This was before they had town wells.
Y: Oh, yes. Cattle just run everywhere. The town well
was drilled over there where they have some kind of a club
now. What do they call that club where they dance? That's
where the water well was drilled.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 15
VB: A pavilion?
Y: No. Some kind of club; don't know what they call it.
VB: Is that where the ice plant is?
Y: Yeah. They used to make ice in big tubs like; I mean
long places. You remember that, don't you?
MY: Oh, yes. Every Sunday everybody went over there to get
ice to make ice cream.
Y: I can remember when you couldn't buy a bit of ice
unless you were sick.
JS: Is that right? It was so scarce?
Y: It was so scarce. They didn't keep it except the meat
market. And if you were sick, you might be able to get a
piece of ice. Otherwise, you couldn't.
JS: It must have been hard to keep things like milk.
Y: Yes, it was. Then they had a man that delivered it
every morning. You had an ice box, you know, and put it in
the ice box.
JS: And your butter ..•
Y: Well, the butter was in ••• what do you call those
things where they put cloth up here - bucket of water and
cloth all around it and it come down and caught at the
bottom and you kept the milk on the inside there on the
shelves? ~ee drawin~
JS: It kept it cool.
Y: Made good butter, too.
WS: Somebody must have had a dairy farm around close by
then.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY
Y: Everybody had their own cow.
WS: Your own cow, eh?
JS: You mean in town?
Y: You used to let 'em loose; let 'em run wild.
JS: Would they come up when they wanted to milk them?
U: Yes, they'd come up at night to get the feed.
JS: That's true.
16
WS: We were talking to somebody over in Nederland and
they'd say, "You'd better go down to the movie house to get
the cows out of the lawn in front of it" and I guess some of
them went right in, half way in to the movie house.
Y: Most people around here that farmed had a fence around
it. I know my brothers farmed, watermelons, and they had a
fence around the place to keep the cows out.
JS: They'd have to. Can you remember back - any disasters
that came to Pearsall?
Y: Oh, there's lots of 'em. The worst one, it always
seemed to me, was the time the three boys got killed. They
were out riding and three young boys, about 16 to 18,
weren't they? Something like that. They all three got
killed at one time.
JS: It was an automobile accident?
Y: Uh huh.
JS: I was thinking like a tornado or something like that.
Y: Once in a while, I remember a few people getting struck
by lightning. But killed by tornadoes, Lora and them had a
big tornado. She can tell you about that. I wasn't there.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 17
Y: My husband died the day - two days after they had the
tornado.
WS: Who is she talking about?
JS: Lora MCKinley.
M: Well, it happened in about, I think was it '73? Yeah,
1973. And it was Palm Sunday in the afternoon. And it was
cloudy, a little raining maybe. I don't remember just now.
I was up at my house by myself. I lived four miles out in
the country. And all of a sudden I heard this funny noise
and although I live on the railroad track, and trucks coming
by all the time, and airplanes landing ••• we have an
airport right there by the house •.• And so I heard lots of
noise but anyway, this was something different. And I ran
out and looked, the weather was lookin' terrible. I had
just talked to my grandson down there, so all of a sudden
before I could say "scat," it hit the house. And it was so
bad, I just ran and got into .•• I have a hall in the center
of the house and a walk-in closet there •.• and I'd run in
that closet, then I couldn't stand it and I'd run out and
look. I couldn't see a thing. It was just solid dirt and
debris and stuff. I guess it lasted five minutes but it
seemed like it was hours. When finally it went over, I
looked out and my grandson's house ••• I'd just talked to
him on the phone ••. just laying down; it was those cement
blocks. And he and his wife were in there; I knew it.
Well, I tell, you, I was scared to death.
There was a boat under my garage and the boat had flown
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 18
M: in through my dining room windows •• the two windows
across the sofa in my dining room. but luckily, the rack
that this boat was on had kept the garage up off of my car.
And I ran out and jumped in my car and started to go down to
see about my grandson and about that time, the preacher from
our church came running up the road from down at my son's
house and they had gone by going to Cotulla and everything
was fine. And as they came back, they saw the telephone
lines allover and this terrible devastation. It was about
a half a mile wide and 16 miles long where it hit the
ground.
A Japanese man came along and he said, "I've seen lots
of tornadoes and I've never seen one that wide and that long
That stayed on the ground that long." And Murray , my
grandson, was in a car and I was crying and he was crying.
I said "Where is Diane?", his wife. He said, "She's all
right; she's all right." I couldn't believe she was all
right because that house was down. He said, "I got her in
the bathroom under the lavatory and got over her. And every
bit of that house fell except that one little bathroom in
the center. And he looked back and this wall was comin'
down and said, "I just moved my leg in time." That wall
would have hit his leg and broken it.
And so they came down and there were two fliers. They
were out dusting. And if they had gone into the office,
garage, they'd have been perfectly safe. But they thought
they'd outrun the tornado. They got in their pick-up and
ran down the field and got out and laid down in the ditch
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 19
M: and that hail came down 'til it looked like, they was
just completely pocked, it looked just like they had chicken
pox or something from the hail and one of 'em had 17 ribs
broken in 17 places. And they were bruised. Where if
they'd just gone in that little house, they'd have been all
right. You never know do you?
JS: NO, you don't.
M: And the next morning when .•. that was 5 o'clock in the
afternoon you see. Well, it rained and it rained. It blew
my patio clear across my house and tore the roof off of my
house. And it rained and rained and all that water comin'
in. My granddaughter came up and helped me. It was
terrible.
The next day neighbors came in and we swept and swept
and carried out rugs and everything. I said as much as we
always wanted rain , that's one time I didn't want rain. But
it rained and it rained . Murray went down to his house the
next morning and there in the front was a big old fish. And
we lived miles from any place where there are fish.
Diane had a cedar chest with a lot of her grandmother's
things in it. We never found one piece of that cedar chest.
And a china pitcher, (I think Mrs. Nixon had given them for
a wedding present) was sittin' on a chest of drawers by the
bed and that pitcher went over on to that bed and wasn't
even hurt. And yet everything in their kitchen the only
appliance that was saved was their dishwasher. They had a
brand new refrigerator, was full of frozen food, it was
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 20
M: gone. The stove was gone. Everything was gone. They
could use the diswasher afterward. Things were gone and
then things saved that you wouldn't. You just never know
what a tornado is going to do.
They had two cats and they disappeared. And finally,
two weeks later, they found one of those cats down in a pile
of pipe, nearly dead. Took her to the vet and spent a lot
of money on her and she's all right. She's still livin', 15
years old!
But it was a terrible disaster. It tore my house up.
My son ..• Murray's house and the people that live across
there in one of our rent houses and then the Henly's across
the road, tore their house up. Some appliance hit the
little girl's foot and they thought they were going to
amputate it but they didn't. It was a terrible disaster.
Hope we never have another. We do lots of prayin' when the
weather looks bad.
VB: This time of the year?
M: Yeah, this time of the year. It was Palm Sunday, April
the 15th.
WS: What year was that in?
M: I think it was '73.
Y: Earnest died the 18th; broke his leg and just lived
three days.
JS: How far did you live from them?
Y: I lived up here four miles from town. I wasn't even in
Pearsall when the storm hit us. We had taken my husband to
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY
Y: San Antonio.
JS: I see. That's why it didn't hurt.
Y: No.
JS: You were about four miles away.
21
M: It also went through Melon. They teased us. Used to
be a town named Melon down there. My husband's father named
it Melon. They wanted to name it MCKinley after him and he
said he didn't want a town named after him. They shipped
lots of watermelons down there so he named it Melon,
M-e-l-o-n. Still is a switch down there, Melon switch, and
the trains switch back and forth all night. The wet-backs
come in. We call 'em wet-back specials. Sometimes there'll
be 150 of 'em come in on one train . They come allover our
places. They're pitiful. I feel so sorry for them.
JS: Now, was it your husband who was a bee keeper?
M: No, it was her husband.
Y: BOY, they're taking off the honey right now.
JS: Is that right?
Y: Have four trucks full stacked up there •••
JS: Four trucks?
Y: Right now, full of supers.
JS: What is a super? a hive?
Y: It's boxes. The hives, you leave them out there with
the bees. Just take the honey off.
JS: You can see I don't know anything about honey.
WS: What blossoms did they eat on years ago?
Y: Guajillo is the main thing. And mesquite. And
YOUNGBLOOD / l1CKINLEY 22
Y: horsemint. They're making horsemint honey right now by
the bushel.
JS: Did you say guajillo?
Y: That's a brush. Makes good honey.
M: They used to make a good deal of clover honey. Nobody
plants. The other day one man planted about four, five
acres out there and Elbert has a bee yard out there. And
Todd said that was just covered, that clover. Said, "I'm
going to have some clover honey."
WS: Horsemint, does that have a mint flavor to it or not?
Y: It has a terrible honey taste, I'll tell you that.
Well, no it isn't mint. This that I was telling you about
has a mint flavor.
WS: This .•• thistle you're speaking of.
JS: Is that something new, this thistle?
Y: Yes. It never did amount to much but Elbert says it's
everywhere this year. Says the bees like it better than the
guaj i110.
VB: What kind of thistle is that?
Y: A little round thistle about that big.
VB: Purple?
Y: Kind of purple looking and it grows up about this
high.
WS: I saw one out here and they look like - I told my
wife - what we used to call the Canadian thistle. I'm from
New York state.
Y: There are millions of 'em down on our place.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 23
JS: I wonder why there are so many of them this year.
Y: Because it rained so much in the fall. And the wind
has blown them.
JS: Would your husband sell honey to the store; resale? Or
how did he ..• ?
Y: Well, they sell it wholesale to stores in San Antonio.
HEB buys lots of it. HEB's been making some ice cream with
honey and stawberries and our honey. They call it quajillo
honey or mesquite honey. Been sellin' a lot of it to 'em.
M: Very expensive, too.
JS: I can imagine.
Y: Yes, it's expensive ice cream but it's sure good. They
buy Pearsall pecans and Poteet strawberrries. They call it
Poteet strawberry honey, I mean strawberry ice cream. Have
you eaten any of it?
M: Sure is good.
Y: Awful rich.
WS: You have some pecan groves around here then?
Y: We had lots of pecan trees.
WS: I notice she has a couple here but I didn't know they
had
Y: Everybody has one or two nearly.
M: Some years we make good pecans.
JS: How did he get started in this honey business?
Y: My husband started it. I mean he and another man in
the business together and then when he got to where he
couldn't work, he gave all the bees to my oldest son. And
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 24
Y: he's been in it since then. And he has two, three boys
in with him and my great grandchild.
JS: Do they do it as a full-time job?
Y: Yes. They make a livin' from it.
JS: Is that right? He must have a lot of hives then.
Y: They do.
WS: Do they have the insect problems back • • .
Y: For bees? About a month. They use some kind of poison
to kill out insects. I don't know what kind it is.
WS: How about in the old days, do you remember?
Y: My daddy always had two, three stands of bees. Lots of
people used to, just for their own use. They never bothered
to sell it or anything.
WS: I was talking to a lady this morning and she was
telling me there are a lot more birds
Y: Oh, there's birds this year.
WS: Back in the older days, were there more birds then or
?
Y: I don't know. Seems like I've never seen as many birds
and different kinds. And I planted a garden and they just
went down and where they knew where those corn seeds were, I
don't know. But they went down and got those things. I
don't have half of a garden but it sure is pretty. I've got
beans and squash right now.
JS: You're eating squash, did you say?
Y: Yeah. Yellow. I planted yellow squash but some of it
is white. The seed must have been mixed.
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 25
JS: Lora, have you lived in Pearsall all of your life?
M: I was born seven miles out in the country. I was a
little country kid. I went to one of those one-teacher
schools you were talking about for ten years and then I
taught school when I was seventeen about 12 miles from my
home. Then I came back and was principal of the two-teacher
school where I've been all my life.
So I taught children who had been in school with me two
years before; three years before. Then I'd go to San Marcos
in the summer time to school. The first year I taught, I
was 17 the day when school started. But the first day of
November, I turned 18. And I had six grades and nine
pupils. And those kids learned because they can't
wool-gather with the teacher lookin' right at two kids or
three kids. Or one.
They were real smart children. I'd take 'em to
Pearsall. I had a little ole Ford with those little tires
about so big we were talking about that have lots of flats
and get stuck in the sand. You'd have to get out and push.
I piled ••• I'd have 17 kids piled allover that thing.
Sometimes all the children and the neighbors; go up to town
and we'd go in to ••. we'd have athletic meets, you know ...
and they could just compete real well against those children
in Pearsall. I was real proud. And I never had discipline
problems.
Years ago, that was the big problem in school. I
remember when we were pretty little kids in that one-teacher
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 26
M: school, one o f the big boys got real ugly with the
teacher and she reprimanded some way and the next morning
his mother came down to the school with a butcher knife.
She was going to get that teacher for punishin' her little
darling. And he needed beatin'. She really didn't do much
to him.
But I never had a problem with discipline. The
children were all real good. I was real pleased for 'em
because they were
Y: What was the name of that school?
M: The first one was Shallow Well and the other
two-teacher school I was principal, was Buckhorn School.
You know it's seven miles out the road to Tilden. The
cemetery, my father gave the land for that cemetery. There
was a church and a cemetery on one side of the public road,
the Tilden Road, and on the other side was the school.
We had a cistern. First, before we had a cistern, we
had to walk about half a mile up there through the sand,
barefooted, to carry buckets of water down there and like
Helen said, drink out of a dipper. Finally they found out
that was germs and they brought us some folding cups. So we
had to drink out of folding cups.
I always remember the time somebody came and brought
tooth brushes and tooth paste; told us we needed to brush
our teeth. And so the Mexican children ate the tooth paste.
(laughter) That sort of tasted good.
I remember the county judge, S.T. Dowe, would come
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 27
M: around. He was the school superintendent. I learned,
when I was about the second grade, I learned things about
grammar that stuck with me all my life. It really gets me
when I hear these speakers on television, different places,
using I for me. I said he really put that over to us good
when we were little kids. And I never did forget it.
He said, "If you say I by myself then you'd say John
and I; but if you say me by myself, you'd say John and me.
And then he'd give us an example. "John and I went to town
and the man gave John and me some candy." Well, that was so
simple and it sticks with you if you're a little kid. He
wasn't even talking to me; he was talking to the older kids.
There are advantages to a small school.
JS: I can see that there would be.
M: Because the little ones learn from the big ones. Of
course, learn some meanness too some time but .•.
VB: Who was county judge then?
M: Judge Dowe and Miz Nina Betz was our teacher, Eunice
Shelton's mother. She was the finest Christian woman I
think I ever knew but she wasn't a very, I'm sorry to say,
she really wasn't a very good teacher when it came to math.
She'd take her algebra book home with her and work and work
on it, find out how to work that problem. But she couldn't
tell us how to do it.
So then the next year, my sister Bernice, taught out
there. And I said, "Sister get me back on the ground floor
with the algebra. I don't know beans about it." And she
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 28
M: did and after that math was the prettiest subject to
me. And when I went to San Marcos, I made straight As in
Algebra and geometry, any mathematical things. I loved 'em.
And in language. But I wasn't very good in history and
geography. Never have been.
JS: I guess we all have our areas where we're better in one
than another.
M: Probably so. I had two girls, sisters, that went to
school to me and one of 'em was just a whiz at math and the
other poor girl just couldn't master math at all and she
never turned in a paper on history or English that wasn't
perfect. She was just perfect at everything else but she
couldn't learn math.
JS: And you said you were 17 and you would go to San Marcos
summers.
M: Yeah. Well, I went one year after I finished out at
Buckhorn. I went a year and a summer. And then I taught
school back here. Then I went the next summer. And by
then, I fell in love. So then I was going to go back and
get my degree but my boy friend talked me out of it.
(laughter) So then I got my degree being a Ma. Four boys.
I used to say, "When my children get in school, I'm
going back to school." And so one time, my youngest son, (I
had four sons) I think he just barely started to school.
He'd hear me say "I'm going back to school" and he'd say,
"Now, mother, I've decided I'll got to college but I sure
don't want you taggin' along." I said, "Well, if I go to
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 29
N: school, I'll go to a different school than you go to."
But I never did get back. I took an extension course
here in Pearsall one time that I really enjoyed. Just
didn't live long enough to get that other schooling in.
JS: Did you board in someone's home?
M: The first year I did. We walked two miles to school.
There were four little children that went to school with me.
We'd start out rain or shine, walk that four miles to
school. When I taught at home, I had this old car that I'd
drive to school. But when I was a kid and going to school ,
we walked that mile from our home across there. The men
would plow the fields, plow around, and we'd start to school
that morning and here'd be a lot of planting and we'd make
this little path and then we'd come back that afternoon and
they'd plowed some more. So we'd have to make another
little path. We kept that up 'til finally we'd have a path
all the way across the plowed ground.
We'd walk to school that way and walk back. As Helen
said, from 9 to 4. We had a little Mexican woman that lived
on the place. She'd hear us coming down the hill chattering
and she'd come rushin' down there to our house with a basket
of tortillas, good, hot flour tortillas. We'd put butter on
'em and oh, that tasted good. My mother had died when I was
six years old and so Papa had to hire someone to stay there
and take care of us.
WS: Were the schools integrated then or not?
N: Oh, yes. We had ••• there were not any colored people
YOUNGBLOOD / MCKINLEY 30
M: out there but we had lots of Mexican people out there.
A lot o f them went to school to me. They were very
courteous and respectful. Easy to •.• and smart. And they
were the neatest children I had. They were always neat as a
pin.
JS: How about the language? Did they speak English?
M: Well, they spoke English some. They spoke Spanish.
Later I did some substitute teaching here in Pearsall and
they had a rule here that they were not to speak Spanish on
the playground. And the teachers monitored the playgrounds
and told them they could not speak Spanish on the
playground. But now they want to put in bilingual but the
children are the ones that pay for it. If they speak
nothing but English, they learn a lot more than if they try
to teach them some Spanish and some English. All of us,
even the people that are not Spaniards, need to learn two
languages. I think everybody in this country ought to learn
to talk Spanish.
But as far as having it in the school, we're English
speaking people. We need to have that in English and then
have the Spanish; the other languages. There are other
languages besides Spanish and you can't have them all . I
think the Spanish language is beautiful and I love •••
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 1, 45 MINUTES.
SIDE 2
M: On the Fourth of July, they'd have a big picnic at the
courthouse. And all the politicians would come. And they
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 31
M: would get up there and talk. And I was so impressed.
I was a little old country kid and come here and these men
talked those big words. Oh, I just thought it was
wonderful.
The funny thing, everybody came in the very best
clothes they had to a picnic. Imagine! We'd just really
have a big time.
And then when the circus came to town, everybody had to
go to the circus. And about the other enterainment, in the
summer they'd have picnics and they'd go down the Frio River
or somewhere and have a picnic. There was not a lot of
entertainment.
JS: Were these family picnics?
M: The whole community. I remember one time, I was too
little to go then, but a lot of the family had gone down to
the Frio River to a picnic and came a big rain and they all
had their Sunday finest clothes on and they got all wet.
The went in buggies. They had little buggies pulled by one
or two horses. The surries with the fringe on top.
JS: What days would they usually have these picnics?
M: I don't know what days did they have 'em. I guess on
Saturdays •••
Y: Didn't have to be on Saturday ••• they'd just take a
notion to have one once in a while, about once a year.
JS: You wouldn't think it would be on a Sunday?
M: No. Everybody went to church. That was our main
social activity. Nobody thought of missing church and
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 32
M: Sunday School because that's where you got to smile at
the boys!
JS: Were the length of the services about the same as they
are now?
M: probably.
Y: A little more religion in them than there is now.
M: After church, people would go home with each other and
have •.• I have a friend that said, "I remember we'd go to
your house after church." We didn't have a mother so we'd
all be at church and we'd come home and bring a lot of
company. One of us would run out in the yard and grab us a
chicken, pull it's head off, pick it and put it in the
frying pan. And one would make a pie; one would do
something else. And in a little while, we'd have a good
dinner on the table. I'd kind of forgotten it but that was
what my friend was telling me. It was just natural for me;
I didn't think any more about it.
JS: They were probably visiting back and forth while you
were getting it ready.
M: Oh, yes. Havin' a good time. Of course, you didn't
buy bread; we were way out in the country. Papa would go to
town once a week; bring what he could. We didn't have
refrigeration, we had that little water cooler like Helen
said that would keep the milk fresh for breakfast, until
dinner. By night we'd have more fresh milk to use. We had
our own cow, we'd have fresh milk.
You got up and made your own bicsuits in the morning.
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 33
M: When I was 12 years old, my brother was teaching out at
that school that I taught, Shallow Wells School, and he'd
ride five miles from our house to that school. And I'd
get up and make biscuits and fix his lunch. And then my
little brother and I would walk to this other school and I'd
fix our lunches. We'd walk to school and be there all day.
I didn't think a thing about it.
And then I sewed my own clothes. You didn't go buy
clothes then. They didn't have 'em; they just didn't have
clothes. I remember a man used to come around in a hack,
before Mama died. He'd sell Mama overcoats and shoes and
things for the kids because they didn't have places like
that in town. You could buy the material to make things out
of. I must have been making my own clothes from the hide
out when I was 13 or 14.
JS: With all the other work that you were doing. How about
your weather, was it about like it is now?
M: I imagine. But you know when you're a kid, you don't
feel it.
JS: That's true. You don't think much about it.
M: I fussed about it being too hot. My grandson will say,
"Well, I didn't feel it then like I do now." Everybody had
fans palmetto fans; we used to call 'em palmetto. They
were kind of round things. The funeral homes would put 'em
in the churches with advertisements on 'em. 'If you want to
die, come to my home.' (laughter)
I can remember when we didn't have screens. We had long
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 34
M: pieces of brush, piece of limb and two of 'em, one on
each side of table while we were eating to keep the flies
off.
I don't want no more of those old days.
JS: You're happy with tOday.
You mean would somebody take those fans, one of the
children would collect them.
M: Every child had to wait. The grown people ate first.
When I got married, my children were not a-going to wait.
They never have and they're 60 years old now.
WS: I was going to ask you something about these wells. I
understand you still have some •.• grandson or somebody in
the well business?
M: Well, yes. My husband started well drilling, when we
were first married. And he built a rig of his own, a little
tool rig, and then he soon went to a rotary and he built
that. And then after his sons came along, two of the sons
went in business with him and they built a bigger rig.
And so now my number 3 son, I have 4 sons, my number 3
son and his two sons have well drilling equipment and every
thing and they drill wells allover the country. This last
week, they finished one at Tilden and it's the deepest water
well in Texas. probably anywhere in the country. 4,262
feet deep.
The water came out so hot that the steam, it fogs up
the picture so you can't even see the picture very well.
They said they had to put on heavy rubber gloves up to their
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 35
M: elbows to put the cap on that well. It was a flowing
well, see, and they had to cap it. They're going down there
today. I guess they're pumpin' it or something. But they
have all kinds of heavy equipment and everything. They
really do work.
JS: Now is this a private well or was it .•. ?
M: No, it's for the city ... for McMullen County. But
it's there in the city of Tilden.
WS: Originally here, did your husband drill wells for
farmers?
M: Oh, yes ••• irrigation wells.
Y: My daddy drilled the first one that flowed on the Jack
Ward place, five or six miles out here. My daddy drilled
one that flowed. Then when they drilled one here in town,
he told 'em it wouldn't flow, that they couldn't get the
flowin' water. They wanted to know why. He says on account
of the elevtion.
WS: How deep did they go to get a flowing well?
M: Well, around here, they're around 1300 feet or
something like that.
WS: They're all flowing wells?
M: No, no. There are very few flowing wells. The first
flowing well that Clyde drilled was an artesian well
someplace; somewhere down there. But the deeper they are
the warmer the water is. It will be real hot. And the
deeper they are the more likely to flow. I would think the
shallow ones would flow and the other ones wouldn't but it's
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY
M: the other way around.
WS: I didn't know that.
36
M: It's interesting, the work and all that goes in with it
but it's lots of work.
WS: Did they drill for oil?
M: No, they never did drill for oil. We built our house
in the little town of Melon. And then later they kept
widening that highway 'til they were taking up, going to put
it across our front porch. So we moved down on to the farm.
We had a farm down about a mile south of there. So we moved
down there and was going to drill us a water well. And it
came in one day and he said, "I think I'm going to get oil
before I get water." And I said, "Don't you dare get oil.
You get me some water and then if you want to fool with oil,
O.K. (laughter) But I want water." So he got me some
water. But later they did find oil on the place. And I
think there are about 10 oil wells down there now. They're
not doing so well since oil got cheap. They were nice for a
while.
Y: That oil business ruined Pearsall.
WS: How about roads? Did you have paved roads in here?
Y: Years ago we didn't. We just had plain old dirt roads.
Then they put clay on 'em, a kind of caliche stuff, and
they'd be messy, but now we have paved roads pretty well
everywhere.
WS: Approximately when did they get their first paved road
through Persall? You have any idea?
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 37
Y: I haven't any idea. I imagine, I think they had a
paved road out toward Buckhorn about .•• oh, it was a long
time after I was teachin' out there.
M: The first one went from Pearsall to San Antonio, didn't
it?
WS: Is that the way you went to Laredo, too, down through
Pearsall?
Y: From San Antonio to Laredo, that, of course, was paved
a good while ago.
M: That's where the railroad went, too.
WS: What was the number of that road that went down .•• ?
Y: Well, it's 81 now. Then they built 35 over there. My
house is on 81, 4 1/2 miles south of Pearsall. But then
right across the railroad tracks is 35. And they built that
just a few years ago. So most of the traffic goes on 35 but
we still have a good deal of traffic on 81. Pearsall is
just about 100 miles from Laredo.
WS: You're not quite half way from San Antonio.
M: 53 miles from San Antonio. 100 miles from Laredo.
JS: Did your husband ever have any accidents with his well
drilling?
M: Well, sometimes they'd drop everything in the hole when
they were drill in' a well. Nobody ever got hurt. Sometimes
one would get a finger mashed and have to take him in to the
doctor but nothing bad.
But he was drilling a well, they were going to have a
windmill in Melon, and he was dilling a well and there was a
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 38
M: fellow over there that had been a World War I veteran,
I think. And he was very hot tempered. And he was there
watching Clyde and them drill and one day something broke
and the whole pipe and everything fell in that hole and that
man came over there at my house and he said, "Your husband
is the craziest thing I ever saw. All that stuff in that
hole and he just stood there and laughed." And I said,
"Well, he got it out, didn't he?" And he said, "Yes, but
I'd a been a cussin' and rarin'." And I said, "DO you think
it'd done any good?" And he said, "I guess not."
Clyde was so easy gain'; he'd just laugh and go ahead
and
WS: Did you ever hear of a water witch? One of these guys
that ••• ?
M: Oh, yes. We had a negro man one time came down there
to Melon. We were going to drill a little shallow well by
our house in Melon and this negro man said he would witch us
a water well. And so he went out there and said, "I'm gain'
to witch it close to the kitchen door so the missus won't
have to carry water too far." He d idn' t know I wouldn't
have carried it anyway, it would be running in there with a
pipe.
He witched it and they drilled there and it was
terrible water. So then they went further out and drilled
deeper and got some good water. They told him that water
wasn't good. He says, "I wasn't feeling too well that
day."
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 39
WS: Is there any truth to that? Can they find water that
way?
M: I don't think so, but people believe in it.
WS: A lot of people •.•
M: They have to have something to be superstitious about.
JS: You said your husband did a lot of irrigation, for the
irrigation ditches.
M: He did the water wells and then the people did the
irrigation. He just drilled he wells for them. I don't
know how many he's drilled allover the country.
JS: When did they start doing that, do you know?
M: I think the first rig was in 1928, when he first
started drilling. I'm not sure. But I think that's right.
He did it by himself. That was before the boys were big
enough. When my oldest son Pat, was about 12 years old, I
remember he had a little rotary rig. I had been teachin'
Pat to drive down on the farm. And Clyde would say "Oh, you
oughtn't to teach him to drive yet, he's too young." I
said, "That's all right, I'll just let him drive on the
farm. n
Then one hot summer day, Clyde came in and said, "I
want to send Pat with that rig across the Frio River to the
Gilman place." I said, "The idea, he's too young." "Oh, he
can do it." And he sent him over there and that poor little
12 year old kid started out with that rig and got over there
and had a flat and went to the Gilman house and phoned home,
had a flat, that hot weather. Clyde went over and fixed it
and he's still kickin' around so it didn't hurt him. Good
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 40
M: thing kids have daddies and not just mamas.
WS: You'd see a lot more windmills in the old days.
M: Everybody had a windmill; now they have pumps on 'em.
WS: Have an electric pump on 'em.
M: You see, you can't depend on the wind. There are times
when it's so hot and you need the water, well, then the wind
doesn't blow. So they had to put electric •.•
WS: ..• the windmill was a big factor. You think it was
because the wind doesn't blow.
M: You couldn't depend on the wind.
Have you been down to the Frio County musuem down
here?
WS: No.
M: There's a windmill there just for looks. My
granddaughter was livin' out on the old family farm there
where I was born, still belongs to my youngest son, and she
was just dyin' for a windmill.
Papa used windmills always; had two or three on the
place but hadn't been one there in a long time. And she
wanted a windmill so bad ••• they're expensive as can be
I said, "Well, they have that little windmill there, you'll
just have to go by and look at it." It is interesting, I
think.
JS: What happened when they used to be dependent on the
windmills? Did they have enough water. Those cisterns you
said
M: Most of 'em had a cistern and most of 'em caught rain
water.
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY
JS: Do you still have to be very careful with drinking
water?
M: Now? Not nowdays.
JS: I mean then.
41
M: Oh, then, yes. They didn't have many gardens much. It
didn't rain for a long time and sometimes the cisterns got
pretty low.
JS: The water, it seems it would get pretty stagnant
standing
M: The best water you ever tasted, it was just so cold.
When it comes out of the cistern. We had one of these
pumps, to pump it up. When you wanted real cold water you
go pump a while.
JS: But you didn't waste any of it.
M: Had to be very careful. My oldest brother took typhoid
fever one time. We thought it was from our cistern because
the water had gotten low. So we boiled every drop of water
we drank for the longest time. And there's nothing in the
world as nasty as boiled wter.
JS: Especially after you've had good water.
Well, can either of you think of anything else you'd
like to say?
WS: How about electricity?
M: Well, we didn't have electicity for a long time . Where
we lived, before we moved our house, we finally moved our
house farther down, but we had butane •.• well, first it was
something else, they called it ... acetyline, had acetyline
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 42
M: lights and we cooked with gasoline. And then finally
they said they were going to bring electricity down, they
wanted to know if they could pass over our place. They had
to have 8 poles on our land. I told 'em yes. They said
you'll want electricity some day. Then they got the line
built and we said, "Where's our electricity?" nOh, you
can't get electricity, that's our line." And there was a
little Hexican man over at, oh, some place out from San
Antonio, can't think of the name of it, and they had put
three poles on his place and he said, "You can go across my
place if you'll guarantee giving me electricity free for one
year." And they did. I said that man was smart, he got
electricity and here we let 'em put 8 poles on and we like
to never have gotten electricty. We finally did and it's
wonderful.
Y: I had a time getting electricity at my house. They
wanted $200, I think, to bring to my house just from up a
little ways. And that's when they were running another
electric line, (Medina Coop - Rural Electric - you remember
when they run it out this direction). Anyway, I saw the man
that worked for the Central Power Light Company. I went in
there and I said, "Still not going to give me electricity?"
"NO, it's $200 Mrs. Youngblood." About that time another,
somebody come in here that was on this thing. I said, "You
know I'm just going to go down in the other direction and
get on the other line of electricity because they're not
going to do very much to get it." And SO the next day a man
called me from the Central Power and Light Company and said,
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 43
Y: "We'll put that electricity in for you for $5.001" I
sa id, "0. K. Come on. II
WS: Roosevelt brought that in didn't he, more or less, this
rural electrification program?
Y: Did a lot of nice things and got a lot of cussin' for
it.
JS: What is this area, mostly? Democratic?
Y: I think .• well, it always has been but right now quite
a few people are kind of flipping. But I think some of 'em
are wishin' they hadn't.
M: It takes two parties to make things go.
Y: I'm a Democrat, she's a Republican.
M: I'm not a Republican, I'm for the man. Good man.
Y: Anyway, we're pretty good friends.
JS: Can you remember any political things that happened
back when you were growing up?
Y: I was too far out in the country and too busy with kids
to know what was happening.
JS: I don't think you heard that much about it then. Now
with television.
Y: Whatever they did, we thought that was fine. Never did
run the other one down and that makes me mad. I don't want
to vote for them.
JS: And then we didn't have welfare back then, of course.
Y: No, oh, no.
JS: What happened? Did the churches kind of get together
and help with the poor?
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY 44
Y: Well, it seems like everybody got along all right; we
didn't have so many of 'em then. Everybody dug around;
nobody had too much. Everybody was kind of in the same boat.
I'm sure people did help other people. But you know when
you're out in the country, you don't see like when you're in
town.
M: Where we lived, it was on the trail, not too far from
the railroad. And a long time ago tramps used to come
walking, walk, walk. They had our house marked. And every
day or two, here would come a tramp. Well, if we didn't
have anyth ing cooked, our daddy would say, "Go in there and
cook this man something. He's hungry." So we went in and
cooked something. Usually scrambled eggs, we had to cook
some bread if we didn't have any. But never a one of 'em
went from our house hungry. Never.
JS: But you never worried about him stealing anything.
M: No. They never bothered anything. I know several
times, there were two men that had TB or something and my
daddy put 'em down there on a piece of land right back of us
and build a tent and then we'd feed 'em until they got
better. They used to do lots of helping other people.
WS: When I was growing up, of course, I grew up in the
East, there was a lot of unpainted buildings, a lot of wood
colored •.• they didn't have the money to paint and all.
Was that true down here as well?
Y: We did well to get the house built and didn't think
about painting it.
YOUNGBLOOD/MCKINLEY
WS: Barns the same way. Now out there ..•
Y: They never wasted paint on the barn.
WS: Now they paint 'em up; save money in the long run.
Where did you get your wood for your fire?
45
Y: We just cut it in the pasture. There was a lot of
pasture out there. But when I was a little kid, there was
just a little mesquite and brush on our place. Now it's
just solid with mesquite trees.
WS: What brought this about?
Why did this change come about.?
Y: Well, if they don't break up the land and use it for
planting, well, then the mesquites take over. That ranch
out there now just has so much. I'm always so afraid if it
ever catches on fire, it would burn the whole place up.
WS: I know you ride from here to Laredo, it seems all you
see is mesquite and brush.
I wonder if it was that way 150 years ago?
Y: NO, it was just kind of a prairie land, when Papa
bought the place out there, many years ago.
JS: This has been very interesting. We appreciate your
taking the time to come up and talk with us.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 2, ABOUT 23 MINUTES.