THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Matt Pantalton, wife, and son, Bobby
DATE: June 20 , 1988
PLACE : Nacogdoches, Texas
I NTERVIEHERS : Joan and sid Ballard
JB: This is Joan and sid Ballard. We ' re talking with Matt
Panta l eon on the Nacogdoches
P :
v (
Ma tt Pantaleon.
JB: Pantaleon ... on the history of Nacogdoches . It's June
20. Matt, tell us about your early childhood and what it
was l ike here.
P: Well , it was j ust like old country , just about as old
as you could get , I reckon . People went horseback, wagons,
bugg i es , t hi ngs like that, you know , and most of the peopl e
went afoot . Didn't •.. wasn't able t o buy a wagon .. • and
own horses . So t hat ' s about as fur back as I can get with
' em . But anyways, we all ... everybody farmed ... wasn't no
such a thing as people not having t o work •.. womenfolks and
all, worked in the field. The few . . . very few people had
... were abl e t o let their wife , didn't have t o go t o the
fiel d with ' em . She didn 't ever have t o go to the fi eld
with me, only just maybe just to be •.• mostly to be going .
She helped me plant •.. plant cotton or somethi ng one time,
I believe. And she turned the planter over and she never
did want t o try anymore.
PANTALEON
WIFE: (can't understand)
P: Well, that's .•.
2
WIFE: Well, who could go to the fields wi~h five childre~~
JB: Yeah. You had your hands full.
WIFE: That's right.
P: Well, I raised my own mules ... horses.
all of 'em, but I raised my mules and horses.
I didn't raise
I don't know
where my mule pictures are ... I've got 'em somewhere, but I
can't couldn't find 'em now. I just don't know what to
tell you, tell you the truth about it. I sold cotton st a
pound though and I got a receipt in there where I sold some
f or 10 cents a pound, but I can't find t hat deposit slip.
And I tell my boy ... he s ays , "Daddy , I know when you sold
that bale of cotton. I was with you." He says he was with
me in Nacogdoches when I sold it. Five cent a pound. And
it's ... there's l ots of water under the bridge since all
that happened , you know, and you can't remember everything
like that.
JB: Oh, sure. But you're doing fine.
P: I like to do fine. I hope I can do fine and let you
know what I do ... what you wanted or what ..• I hope I can
tell you wha t you want to know. But I just don't ..• you
have to ask me a question. I can answer it, if you'd like
that.
JB: That's what we'll do as we go along.
How did you get your cotton to town?
P: With a wagon, just a road wagon. I got my wagon out
there yet. Hauled in back of wagon maybe two bales. At the
PANTALEON 3
P: gin that we ... cotton ... 540 was the standard weight
of a bale of cotton at the gin. 540. I didn't know that
'til I got in one of these little farm books that my friend,
was a farmer, brought these two little books. My boy did.
I said,"Douglas, you can get the history of a lot of stuff,
r tell you, in that ... these little old books here."
JB: How long did it take you to get into town with •.. ?
P: Oh, well, ..• around
like that.
JB: Is that all?
P: Yeah.
JB: As far as it was?
P: Right.
around 3 or 4 hours, something
JB: I was thinking it would take you longer.
P: I could go to Nacogdoches and back between suns. Just
go right on, but I had a fast-walking pair of mules, though,
that could walk.
JB: You had some good walking mules?
P: Yeah. That's it. And I had a saddle horse that •.. he
was a five-gaited saddle horse
eight miles an hour, just like
and he could foxtrot
just slick. Just a nice
foxtrot, you know. But he was a natural-born saddle horse.
I had one little fellow that ... I'm not going to talk
about ... just want to show you [photo) ••. he's the little
-man that owns so much land down here. And he had about ...
r forget how many renters at one time. And here's the old
family doctor, that we used for 30 some years. He died here
just a few years back.
PANTALEON 4
JB: How did ... that's a good thing. What about medicines
and did he come out in a horse and buggy and all?
P: Naw, he come to our house one time. We had to go to
his place ..• his office.
JB: You'd just go to his office?
P: It used to be like that, though. Shoot, yeah. They'd
come out ... when I first began knowin' about a doctor,
they'd come in a little old two-wheel cart, you know. The
two hickey we called it. And he had a big fine black horse
he drove, too. That thing could go just like a car. Heck,
he could travel through the woods faster than most anybody
could ride a horse through
JB: Through the woods?
OL Yeah. Not through the brush .. through the woods -
there was a road in the woods you know. That old horse
d idn't hit those trees or stump or nothing . •.. with his
two-wheel cart.
JB: What kind of medicines did he have?
P: Quinine and calomine and he didn't have no aspirin or
nothing like that. It was compound, cathartic pills and
quinine capsules. I don't know ... that's about all I can
remember. And for the flu, we had one of those ... we used
turpentine yeah, turpentine and soda. And he cured both
cases of ... that was during the war ..• during World War I
... II, I mean.
WIFE: No, One.
SB: One.
P: Yeah, that's right. When the flu was so bad.
PANTALEON
SB: Lost my father and my brother.
P: You d id?
SB: Seven days apart.
P: How much?
SB: Seven days apart, my father and brother died. They
died in '18 and '19. [1918, '19]
P: Yeah.
5
JB: What other ... you were saying quinine and all •.. what
other kind of medications or medicine, do you remember, that
they did?
P: I can't remember much about it, but I remember that
when the hospital built
WIFE: Castor oil?
P: Yeah, castor oi l. One fellow said that ... I'm gonna
tell this ... may not sound too good. But this was a new
doctor come in. His daddy was a doctor, you know, and the
young boy went ... his son, he made a doctor. They sent him
down around Etoil, down here to a patient that was sick,
down there. He went down there and told 'em to give him a
tablespoon full of castor oi l every two hours or somepin'
like that, ' cause he'd come back. And he said when he got
back .•. this ain't gonna sound nice to you , but it's a
fact, they said. Had him propped up on a board, you know,
and it was just like ash hopper. (laughter)
JB: It would, with castor oil.
P: That what I say. I forget how long •.• how many ...
and he come back and told his daddy what he'd done, and he
said,"If I pull that man through, I'm gonna buy me a barrel
PANTALEON 6
P: of castor oil." He said he was gonna buy him a barrel
of castor oil because he didn't use it ... gonna use it now
anyway, he said. But that'a a pretty ••. that's a true
story, what I'm telling you. But I can't tell another
conversation about it.
JB: What other crops did you grow besides cotton?
P: Well, we growed corn, peas and peanuts and sorghum and
ribbon cane we made our own syrup. We had everything.
He had hogs
SB: Your main money crop though ...
P: Has cot ton.
SB: Cotton.
P: Yeah. You take a main money crop, ... say a man like
myself, ... I made three ba l es of cotton, t ha t was about $75
at 10~ a pound. Naw, $60 .•. no, $150 for 10~ a pound for
cotton. Three bales would be $150. And we were supposed to
live on that a year.
JB: For the next year.
P: For the next year. I'd go to the bank and borrow money.
I could borrow $75 to make a crop on, and I bought mule feed
and fed ourselves and went right on, you know. And then
still we had a little bit of change that we'd spend ... just
be off and buy our lunch or something like that.
SB: Had milk cows?
P: Yeah. We had our own cows. I bought my first cow ... I
give a watch for her. And then the next one •• this old man
had two cows and calves .•. one of 'em was a big old
calf about as big as a Jersey cow ... and that cow's heifer
PANTALEON 7
P: ... she had a little old heifer calf, and he wanted $25
for all four of them.
SB: Shoot!
P: That's right. And you passed right by the house where
I bought that cow. Coming out here, I mean. And I told him
if he wanted $25 ... he said, "I'll take $13 for either one
of 'em, either pair, or $25 for all 4 cows." And I said,
"Well, I gonna take the young cow," and I give him $13 and a
nickel. And he says "What's this nickel for?" I says,
"It's bad luck •.. 13 is an unlucky number for me I want
to have luck with this cow." And you know, he teased me
every time he'd catch me anywhere. He looked about as old
as you do right now. That old man did. Yeah. But he would
tease me every time he'd catch me around people at a store
or something. He'd bring that up, about that $13.00 I paid
him. (laughter)
JB: Thirteen dollars and a nickel.
P: Yeah, thirteen dollars and a nickel I gave him for a
cow.
JB: Did you have good luck with her?
P: Yeah. Yeah. I paid for our home almost, with her
offspring from her. I paid a big part of it, anyhow.
JB: Did you sell the offsprings then, too?
P: I kept 'em till they accumulated, you know, and .•. Her
daddy died, and he left her she got some money, enough
..• more than enough to pay for the land, all right.
Because the land I bought •.. I bought 102 acres for $500,
less than $5 an acre. And so we kept that anyhow ... ah,
PANTALEON 8
P: Lord, 1 don't know ... 1 don't want to be a liar •.•
don't want t o start lying about nothing ..• 1 try to think.
But anyway , 1 forget just how much she got, but she bought
di fferent things, but she could tell where every dollar of
that money went that she got.
There's a c ar salesman, Henry Cade, 1 knew him well,
you saw me over in •.. and he'd corne out there ... 1 lived
at Martinville, and 1 just finally told him, 1 said, "You
didn't need t o corne." 1 told her if she wants t o spend •••
her brother got killed, in the service, you know. 1 told
her i f she wanted to ride around at a dead man's expense,
she could go , but 1 di dn't ... 1 wouldn't do it. And she
decided what she wanted. And Henry Cade kept corning out
there, wasn't any need him corning back out there ... waste
of time, 'cause wasn't gonna buy nO car from him.
But we were turned round ... 1 was renting land at that
time and my landlord told me that "1 know you want to
buy some land." 1 had done rented from him for another
year , but me and him was going riding down through the
bottom of the field, and he told me ,"Matt, you want to find
you a piece of land you can buy, don't you let my and your
trade interfere with you because 1 know if you don 't spend
the money for land, some i s gonna slip through your fingers
and you won't get nuthin' either. Get nuthin' out of it.
And so his brother found this place 102 acres. And he
come and t o l d me about it. Buy 102 acres of land for $500,
so we bought it.
JB: What year was this?
PANTALEON 9
P: (someone enters) Corne in , corne in.
BP: I know I interrupted something , but I just wanted ...
I'm Bobby Pantaleon.
JB : Glad to meet you , Bobby .
SB: sid Ballard .
BP: Glad to meet yoou , Mr. Ballard.
P: He ' s our youngest .
BP: The youngest . I didn ' t want to mess you ' all up •••
P : He's the youngest ... he's grey headed .
JB : Grey haired?
BP: I've been since I was in the twenties.
JB : I'm with you. Mine ' s been ever since . ..
SB: Her hair's been snow white . She ' s been, since her
twenties, I guess.
JB: Since I was in my twenties.
P : You don ' t look that old ... you look , I don't know
how old you are, but you don ' t l ook old enough to have that
pretty hair, r'll say that.
conversation)
(can't understand - background
JB: We were starting to say .•. what year did you buy?
P : That was in '27.
JB: ' 27?
P: Yeah, 1927.
JB: 1927? And you've bee n here ever since?
P: No. I bought it down here on the mountain; we call it,
down there, but I bought this place here in ' 40 •.• in '50,
I believe it was . Naw . I leased this place, and there's a
soldier •.• ex- soldier , you know.
PANTALEON 10
P: And he got money through a government loan in some way,
and he borrowed money to buy this place with, you know. And
I leased it from him. I give him $100 a year for lease on
it. And there's 101 acres of land, so I worked most of it.
And he wanted to sell it to me; said "No." It was $22 .•.
what was, $22 •.. what we paid for this land when we bought
it?
BP: Right about $25 an acre.
P: No. It was $22.
BP: $22?
P: $22 and a quarter. It wasn't 23, I know. But anyhow,
and we paid that, and my boy bought it and then he sold me
25 acres here.
And t hen I give him 5 acres to build his house on , so
that's the way it turned out.
BP: And then we gradually ... I traded with ••. we bought
more over here and I traded him my half o f this place f or
his 76 acres ..•
P: That's his brother.
BP: lie all worked around him. Look, you can get, back
then , in the '50s ..• (noise on tape) from the '40s,
after World War II, you surely ought to remember ...
everything was in a slump ... all the way up even up to the
Korean War, there wasn't no money, back then. You never got
paid nothin', even in the military service. When I was in
there, only made $68 a month, and that was '58 through '60.
Then when I went overseas, I made $100. All right. Now the
boys .• the military ... you could stay in •.. you know, and
PANTALEON 11
BP: make a good living . Today you could make money. Now
they won't go, you understand. You don't get good people any­more
in the service. That's the reason they need to come
back with that draft •. take every boy that's 18, examine
him and put him in there for two years. And we'd have a good
army, and we'd have good people. (everyone talking at once)
P: I told Bobby here some time ago, I said, "If war was t o
break out now, we're whipped before they ever start. Every
dern soldier we got would be going up there drunk on the
front line and he'd get killed. And so that's exac tly what
I think about it.
BP: And there's been a few Mexican boys that work for me
and three of them, I went on and tried to help them get
their papers, 'cause they was good hands .. they was good
boys, you understand . But that's the only ones . When I was
in school, ••. watermelons, I worked a lot of different
boys. They can stand that heat •.. they'd come and go.
They'd make 'em enough money to move on further, and they'd
go . Now where they ended up, I don't know. But a l ot of
' em were good boys, you understand. You could tell. But,
man, I have worked some of 'em that was terrible. Now where
they went, I don't know.
Listen, we got to all get back t o something. You know.
We were immigrants, too . When you put yourself in front of
somebody, you're talking t o the o l d master up there now. He
might do something to you. When you say .. we ll,those people
aren't starving •. I don't know where they're gonna draw the
line.
PANTALEON 12
S8 : They're hurting . I don 't know where i t 's going t o end
up . They've got a country down there ...
(tape interrupted)
P: Right now. They're worki ng on that right now,
re-tiling . Right now , and he's the fifth generation t o tile
floors. Flores, I call him.
J8: Flores?
P: Flores. In Span ish.
J8: F-L-O-R-E-S?
P: Flores, I guess he'd call it. In Spanish we used t o
call him , Etoile Flores .
8 : And he lived right down under this hill.
P : Yeah , just right down there where he lived.
BP : A coupl e o f miles . His old daddy was .•• we farmed the
land one year where his old home place was.
P : Yeah , in '4 9 .
S8 : (can't hear) (everone ta l k i ng)
P: And her people, t hey came from Spain. Mine a l so came
from Spain , and the (Cordoway's) I was in the hospital in
Houston and the doctor was ... I introduced myself t o him
and he was from Spain. And he told me , said " Panta l eon?" I
said , "Yeah." "Well," he said, "You ain't go t nuthin' t o be
ashamed of ." Said , " He ll, I ain 't never been ashamed of
nuthin' ... no way." And 50, I didn't like that. I didn't
have nothing to be ashamed of . I t old him I didn't have
nothing t o be ashamed of . And I told him ... he said, "I
knew a Pantaleon, one of the best doctors in Spain ..•
amoung the best doc t ors ." 'Course he practical l y was
PANTALEON 13
P: a Spanish ... a Pantaleon doctor. And I told him, "My
wife, B arb Said, "I knew them, too." I said, "Well, I got ,./
one of them for my wife." And so ... he knew the Corderos.
Said my daughter got one of them for a husband. And so he
said, "Your're right on line." Said, "Can't find no better
people than what your relations." But I thought he could
have made a mistake somewhere.
PHONE RINGS.
P: That lawyer, Tucker Francis Tucker. He's one of
the best men I knew of. And the Tucker family, I remember
he had an uncle, a doctor there. But anyway, I had some
work done up there at his ..• this Tucker boy I'm talking
about, was a lawyer. He s a i d , "If you 'll tell me what I
want t o know, I won't charge you anything." I says, "Well,
what could it be?" He says, "I want you t o tell me what
Pantaleon was in here when Gil y'Barbo ... I said, "My
l ord , I wouldn't have the least i dea ." But he said Gil
y'Barbo got the credit f or it all. But, said, th a t Pantaleon
fellow, he was supposed to have got credit. He said ... I
told him I didn't know. But I could have told him now. I
got Pantaleon family's land ing here, coming across ... come
through .•. I don't know - but anyhow , they come from New
Orleans, and they come on in through Manny, Louis iana.
BP: Natchez, where they came. Sabine River.
P: Natchez, yeah. And my grandfather, he married a French
girl. And he married her in Louisiana, Natchez - somewhere
in there. Manny, I imagine it was. I mean •.. yeah ,
Natchez. Yeah, Natchez. So
PANTALEON 14
BP: You know how people ... whatever ... There was a
president of Texas in 1835. We've got the land grants, and
all, that he gave our great, great grand-daddy. Eusebio
Pantaleon. With his three kids, got right at 5,000 acres,
down here at the point where 94 runs through it going to
Groverton •.. upper end of Lake Livingston ... where the
White Rock Creek runs through it. All right. He had a
brother in •.• over close to Palestine in Anderson County,
had three children •.• and it 's a Pantaleon grant , you
understand; both of them are grants that they still
designate , just like the Flores grant and all like that.
And he got the same amount of land. Now where it all went
to, now, lumber companies have it and all like that. I
think it showed there on one of them where he traded some
off land maybe for a pair of oxen, or something like that.
Now Ross has got all of that, signed by . .. what was the
first president? In 1835 we had a president of Texas, and
his name is on this, wrote in Spanish ... this whole
document is And Ross has got it over there.
SB: DeZavala?
BP : I think you're right. All right . And then, you know,
in 1836, it was designated a state. All right. Whenever
the ••• after the Civil War , Jose Pan t aleon , our
great-grand-daddy, he went through the Civil War, and when
he came back, he never did go back. Now his place was up
95, north of here. That never was •.• my ... our people's
land never was sold, and we don't really know where it went
to, but we don't have it. You understand me? It was just
PANTALEON 15
BP : took over, and people, they moved ... in that country,
we wonde r what ever happened t o the o the rs . Maybe t hey died
out. We real l y don't know.
And we don't know anything about those o ther Pantaleons
in . ,. around Anderson County. But we know the re ' s
Pantaleons a round Nacitoches . We know that group . One of
them was named •.. Daddy's brother had t o be named after him
Tomas Pantaleon. He was killed by lightning in 1954, I
be li eve. '53 or '4, I be lieve ; Daddy's oldest brother.
Anyway , I'm just t e lling you this to give you a little
some t hing to talk t o him about. If you ask him t h ings ,
he'll t ell you, but now, a lot of it, if you don't bring
something up, he can 't .,. he knows the dates on a l ot of
this stuff and when the oi l peopl e come t hrough , they c ome
to him. He can tell them where the corners are , and knows
the old people that lived there. You know , whenever they
were farming al l down in this oil c o un try . And he knows
nearly all the older people in Nacogdoches , you know. But,
I want t o g i ve you just a few little pointers , and you ask
him those questions , the n he can .,. he can ... when you
s t art running tape and he can help you out .
JB : I'm runn ing it.
BP : We ll, that's good.
JB: You didn't know that, but it's already on there .
BP: Tha t's fine. But anyway , I didn 't wan t to come and
i nterrupt you .. I wanted just t o give you just a few little
pointers. And then I'm gonna go on about my work. And let
you al l visit because Daddy tells me t hat my stories are a
PANTALEON 16
BP: little ... maybe a little wrong. He corrects me at
times. I tell people about it.
P: Yeah , he tells people something ... I tell you ... he's
that a way.
JB: It's not that way?
P: Not that way.
(everyone talking at once. can't understand conversation.)
BP: And another t hing . This land even went to the Gulf.
Because there was some of them that was even down where the
White's ranch , and all, in that area. On the Anahuac
Highway , coming through from Winnie . And it was so bad,
mosquitos were so bad down in there, th a t run the people
out. You understand. There was Indians that could stand
it. They had a grease and a oil that they would put on 'em
that smelled so bad that it would keep the mosquitos off of
them. They knew how. But the Spanish settlers there
couldn't stay.
But now, look at the country, I mean , that's all where
your rice land, oil, whatever, all through that country.
Beaumont also. That was where they ... they tried to live
there. But, see, they went d own the Sabine River, you
understand, when they come on over . But , listen ,
Nacogdoches is the one that's got the history, now.
SB: Nacogdoches and then there was Nacitoches ... There was
two
BP : Nacitoches and Nacogdoches.
P: San Augustine.
SB: They were two Indians
PANTALEON 17
BP: Yeah, they were twin Indian boys.
P: And Nacitoches was the one in Louisiana and Nacogdoches
came here. And his father told him he was on half-way
ground. And he told them •.. Nacitoches go east, and
Nacogdoches , come west. Said, "Wherever night catches you,
stop right there. And settle there." (during this last
paragraph, others are talking ... cannot transcribe both
conversations)
P: Did you understand?
JB: Yes, I understood what you were saying. Were you •..
were the Indians still here when you were ... ?
P: Naw. There were just a .•. they said they could smell
the Indian's tracks leading out. I can remember. That's
just a saying. Folks said. Anyway they went on out. My
uncle knew about them. But anyway, now Nacogdoches ... talk
about the history of how old Nacogdoches was and how poor it
was. It was just a mud hole allover that street,
everywhere. You see them rings on the sidewalk rings,
you see big ole rings ••. that big and they was built in
that concrete, you know. Where people tied their horse t o .
Drive up, you tie your wagon horse. What ever you had
rode in there.
And I've seen that so much ... big horse ... big
footed, they called it dray horse. What you call it? Yeah,
big. Tracks that big. And they'd stomp mud as high as that
window there, on them show windows in front. And mud all
over the sidewalk. Just be muddy, you know. From them
streets being so muddy.
PANTALEON 18
BP: Well, they had a boardwalk then .
P: Yeah, had a boardwalk from the Stone Fort Bank over to
used to call it Swift Brothers. Right on the corner
there. But that
(background talk I can't understand)
P: That Swift Brothers, tore it down, built a commercial
bank on the corner there. Swift Brothers had a drug store,
way back, fur as I can remember nearbout. And that store, I
think it was a contract or something. I heard them say they
never was gonna sell that store, couldn't never change the
name of that store. And it was jest changed here a short
while ago.
JB: Just changed a short while ago.
P: Yeah . I had my picture ... I didn't have it done
they just caught me on the corner ... me and her first
cousin. But the f e llow across the street at Stone Fort
Bank, he was making a picture of t ha t Swift Brothers before
they tore it down. And I was standing there talking to her
cousin.
JB: How did you meet your wife?
P: Aw, she growed up right in these woods.
WIFE: We knew one another all our lives.
P: I say we just come out of the woods and knew each
other.
Naw. She lived up there on the mountain, 'bout 4, 5
miles from here. And I lived back here a piece.
WIFE : He's always lived right around in here.
JB: Well, didn't you?
PANTALEON
WIFE: No. It was about 5 miles down there where I was
raised.
P: Bobby owned Bobby, he owns •..
WIFE: Our daddy had his farm there.
(women talking; can't understand)
19
P: I tell everybody, you know where I live. I tell 'em,
the first house, comin' out of the woods.
Me and Baker Denman, he was a professor at the high
school and college and everything, he was a really smart
fellow, and I wasn't. But they had a meeting from Swift
[Texas] up here in San Antonio [F.F.] ..• had a board met up
there from Swift. Had Baker from Nacogdoches. And I •..
there was a bunch of men around there talking .,. talking
about where we from ... I said, "Yeah, Baker
Swift. I don't deny where I'm from. But he
I'm from
he's from
Nacogdoches .,. he lives 13 or 14 miles out at his house
the last one comin' out of the woods, really." And they
laughed.
BP: That's true.
P: I mean it is. He's just way back there, but that's
what he wants. And that's what I want, too. I'm happy out
here.
BP: But there's another interesting ... go ahead.
JB: No, that's all right ..• you gonna tell another story.
I was just gonna ask about their courtship.
BP: Go ahead then. I have one more subject for him to tell
you about.
P: Well, I'll tell you what. I walked about ... it
PANTALEON 20
P: wasn't a mile •.. maybe a quarter of a mile she and
I walked that fur together. I never did have no car ... no
buggy ... keep her out till 12 or 1 o'clock at night like
they have these cars today. And so we never did even think
.•. I didn't think a thing like that could be possible,
where you'd keep a girl out that long.
but it's a fact, I didn't think it but
I hate to say it,
WIFE: Well, we was raised up without a mother. We didn't
have ••. there was three sets of children, you see. We was
the last ones , me and my two sisters. Well, we was at home
every night. Daddy , he didn't allow us to go much , you
know, without he was with us. So that's the reason why me
and him never was together much .
P: I just asked her , "Hould she?" and she said , "Yes."
And I said, "Well, that's all right." (laughter)
WIFE: We was always together at a dance . That was our
sport.
P: That's where we went all the time.
WIFE: Country dances.
JB: Country dances.
P: And it was good of him. He'd carry the girls, but he
wouldn't let nobody go with them.
JB: Well, as long as he brought them in, that worked . You
got to meet her anyway.
P: Well, that's what I say. He brought his gals to the
dance where we'd be together , and so .. , he had two more
girls. He done .•. was her age .. she was the middle one of
the last family.
PANTALEON 21
BP: Daddy said at the wedding, his good friend, that Mr.
Grissom, he didn't bring no whiskey. Said, "I just got some
of this old buck out here." Said" ... tell 'em 'bout it."
P: Well, anyhow, he was asked. I believe he got there
that just after we was married, that's the way it was. And
he called me out to the barn and said ... And I called her
daddy to go with us. I didn 't want t o leave him out there.
'Fraid he'd get mad at me, sure 'nuff. But anyhow, he told
me, "I got some buck he re ." That's beer, made whiskey out
of it, you know . 'Cause he made it, and I helped make it,
too, I'll say that. And so he told me, says, "This all I
got, just a quart of beer." ... buck , he called it. And
that's what we had to drink. It was drank on Christmas Day,
it was, too. Yeah, you'd athought that people would have
had their whiskey and everything, but there was plenty of it
had been just before Christmas. And it had been
all gone, and Christmas Day there wasn't none. So I don't
guess - I didn 't never see none.
WIFE: We went home on a buggy. He come after me. I
married at home.
JB: Got married at home? When was this?
P: In '21. December 25th in '21.
BP:
P:
May.
BP:
Well,Dewitt must of just come out of the service then.
He hadn't been out too long. And then he got killed in
DeWitt did. He was one of my best friends, I'd say.
I'll tell you what. Daddy will go ahead and let me
finish the story. This .•. this DeWitt Grissom's nephew had
an argument at a baseball game with these negroes, ain't
that right?
PANTALEON 22
P : Yeah.
BP: And then they cussed him ..• cussed the boy, or roughed
him up or something .. . and he went that night .. ,
P : We l l , he went and told DeWitt about it ... told his
uncle that.
BP : Which he shouldn ' t have done. And he went on t hat
night and it was raining , and said , when he went in the
front door
couple did
they knew he was coming •.. t ha t nigger
she was setting up in the bed wi th a pistol
and he shot her hand off , and when he breached the gun, the
shell had swole in it , and they scrubbed that nigger.
P: Yeah . His gun hung • . . automatic shotgun hung ••. after
he had shot that nigger woman •• the gun out of her hand . •.
I saw .. . I was up there when the law went up there . She
had that • •• just part of that little two fingers there ,
holding that gun .• . was just in splinters, the gun stock
was .
BP : He was a bird hunter . And Daddy said he was
P : He was a shot if there ever has been one
BP : Daddy said he'd shoot from the hip , you know.
P : Yeah , when he opened that door , he seen that woman
there. I don't i magine he had his gun in his hand, but he
just automatically just done it that quick , and that nigger ,
he had his gun up over the door , and DeWitt's gun was hung
up , swelled from shedding the rain up there . •• and they got
his gun and shot him with the pistol . He died in the house.
He was lying by t he fireplace there . It was bad , b a d , I ' ll
say.
PANTALEON 23
BP: And didn't they do nothing t o him. That nigger left.
They seen out through the plowed ground where he left, and I
don't know whether he ever come back or not. But they never
did go because, see, he was wrong by going in that house,
you know.
P: His brother t old the sheriff, I heard him t el l the
sheriff, he said, "I ain't gonna say a word, but the only
thing, I don't never want to see that nigger no more."
Said, "I don't never want t o see him" he said, "but I ain't
gonna try t o turn h im in because he just committed suicide
by going i n there." But I don 't know what he 'd done if he'd
ever seen him.
BP: Well, d idn't you say he was such a shot, y'all was
together t here ...
P: We was h un ting cows there •..
BP: This old dog would set them birds
P: It was them old blackjacks. And they grow .. they're
just about as high as a man on a horse, and there this
there wasn't no leaves on them, and we was hunting his
Daddy's cows, and he carried his bird dog, and his shot
automatic shotgun, and he killed 14 birds just us hunting
cows. Tha t beat all I ever saw ... a man shooting.
JB: When did the sawmills start c oming in ... ?
P: They was here when I remember. The fir s t one I knew
anything about, we was just a little piece from it. It was
a cotton gin and grist mill. Cotton gin and the grist mill
and a sawmill. All right there together. Off the same
boi ler •.. steam from the same boiler run it. And that was
PANTALEON 24
P: just ... just right this side of that little store you
come by over here on the highway, you know. Not right here
close, going back down just this side of that, back that
away, on the right there.
And talk about sawmill. There was one back over here
that I used to fire the thing for a fellow owned it ...
this fellow named Stripling owned it. And I was 'bout 18,
19 year old, I reckon. And I kept the water hot. I fired
the thing for it. And had a •.• sawdust would fall right
on, right up over, the boiler that had a what you call
it ... furnace built like, up there, and had a square hole
'bout that big, you just rake that dust in there. And I set
up on a stool they had there, and just rake that dust, going
like that.
BP: That's what you'd call firing the boiler?
P: Yeah. That's what I made - steam.
BP: Didn't you tell me one night was cold and you held that
thing and went to sleep.
P: He had to get a load of lumber out in the next day or
two, and he wanted to fire it day and night, you know, and
it snowed .. the ice was allover everwhere that evening,
just about dark. And he give me this money to go over to
this lady's to eat supper, there •.. this neighbor right
there ... and I went up there, offered her money, and she
wouldn't take it, and so I went on back and told him. He
had a bunch of slabs to put on that fire, and I had a
overcoat. I wrapped my head up in that overcoat and I got
in that dry field of smoke and just •. boy, it was plenty of
PANTALEON 25
P: it .•. and you know, it just made a l og heap fire then.
I wouldn't do it for a thousand ... you couldn't pay me to
do that now, but I just didn't think about it, you know. I
knew I could stay in there and keep warm. And I slept all
night.
SB: Good thing you didn't do like they had .•. (voice faint
can't understand) .•• had an oil rig going out , west of
Raymondv ille, and this little Frenchman was firing this
boiler. He had an Express boiler on there, one of those
water cool jobs, you know - fire circulation - around the
small tubes. Boy, that thing would get up steam, just like
that, and he kept watching the glass there for the water
P: Yeah, the gauge?
SB: Gauge there, you know, and he went to sleep and he woke
up, you know, and he went over and looked and the doggone
water was ou t of the gauge. Oh, lord.
P: I know.
SB: Before you knew what he was doing he went over, and he
hit the ejector , you know, and forced that cold water ..•
P: And blowed that boiler up.
SB: Doggone boiler took off a quarter o f a mile, right
through the mesquite ... just knocking mesquite down, just
like that.
P: Well, you know, that same thing happed to me. I didn't
blow the boiler up. They just had this fellow, Kountz, he
was just raised around machinery, and he jumped off that
thing and come down there and opened the flue doors
PANTALEON 26
P: ope ned the doors and cut the water plumb off, and he
said, "If you put a gallon of water in that boiler, it would
blow up." And I said, I asked him, "What you doing?" And I
didn't know. I was just a kid. I didn't know about firing
steam and things like that. And he t old about what it would
do . And I watched from then on. But it'd kick off .•• that
pump would kick off, you know, and it would blow the water
back into the well.
SB: I used to get a piece of soap and put in my water
glass, and that would keep that glass f rom foaming or
anything like that. I could always tell where my water
was.
P: Yeah.
BP: All right. Along in 'about, what, 1930s when the
Carter Lumber Company come through here ..• or in the '20s
... built the tram all the way to? You and Uncle Tom cut
logs on it, didn' you?
P: Yeah. We went on down there •.• we was just ..• I was
just a boy ... I was about
WIFE: That was 'bout '18, 19, along in there.
BP: You mean 1919?
WIFE: We married in '21.
P: Somepin' like that.
WIFE: And it had already ... it was allover then.
P: Yeah.
BP: See, they'd just go out and run those cables out in the
woods, and bring this ... drag the logs onto the rail, and
just carry enough timber ..• but it was a fine ••. Daddy
PANTALEON 27
BP: said that virgin timer was •.• you could ride •.. drive
cattle through the woods and just see wherever you wanted t o
then.
P: Oh, my lord, yes.
BP: (both talking at once.) You know it had to be
beautiful.
P: Now you can't even go through the woods hardly.
(conversation in background) And anyway, talk about that
l og cuttin', me and my older brother, the oldest brother, we
were cuttin' logs and it corne the derndest freeze, and it
was cold, and we cut one l og and I got scars there can't
hardly see 'ern ... why, I reckon ice from under the saw, you
know, and touched that saw and cut my thumb righ t there.
And I was just ableedin' like a stuck hog, and so we went on
down to the edge of a marsh, and it was boy, it was a big
•.. trees that big •.. big, huge trees, and it •.. we
trenched it ... wanted to throw it out from the marsh, you
know. But the water was about that deep in that marsh. And
that derned tree cut back o n us and fell right out in the
marsh •.. in that marsh. And, brother he was out there
digging chunks up, you know. I wasn't doing a thing. I
wasn't about to get in that water ... out there. He had a
family, and I didn't have nobody but me, you know. And I've
hated that ever since. But I asked Tom •.. "What you gonna
do?" He says, "I guess we're gonna cut this log up." I
said, "You can't do it." I says, "I done quit." "well,"
he says, "If you quit, I'm gonna have to quit." So we
started on ... two bodies so cold ... I got a scar right
PANTALEON 28
P: there on my knee where that saw I dropped the saw
and it hung on my knee right there. And I didn't stop
didn't never feel it. I just seen it hung there. I put it
on my shoulder again and went on. I told Tom, said, "My
foot ••. shoe is wet is something leaking or something?"
He says, "The devil! It's full of blood," he said, where it
bled out of my knee. See, I didn't even know I'd cut it.
It was just that cold.
JB: That cold.
P: That's right. And that's what we used to do. We'd
cut, and we'd sell the timber for a dollar a thousand here.
There's a place right down here just this side of the
store, down here, on the right, that we lived on the place.
When they sold that land ..• that timber for $10 for a
dollar a acre and had 10 years option to keep it
it 10 year for a dollar a acre.
JB: A dollar an acre.
to keep
P: Yeah, you could have bought the land for ... for about
3 or 4 dollars a acre. I'm sure at that time.
BP: Weren't there some of the people that you said •. told
'em they wanted to ... wanted to sell the timber and the
land too , and
P: This old lady ... (conversaion interrupts •.• two
people talking)
BP: They didn't want the land ...
SB: Didn't want the land ... didn't want to take the stumps
out.
P: This lady that lived out here at Swift still got part
PANTALEON 29
P: of the land. But this fellow from Louisiana came over
here and he was gonna buy ..• he heard about this timber
bein' over here .. , and he bought that .•• he went to this
old lady's house and told her what he'd give her for the
timber. He looked it over and she told him to give her
aw, maybe 700 dollars, I believe it was. And she said,
"Well , I'll sell you the whole place ... all the land and
all f o r $700." (laughter) He said, "Naw ," told her, "NO,
Ma'am, I don't want your l and ." Said, "All I wan t's your
timber." She sold no tellin' how many acres of land ... of
timber ..• for $700. And that $700, that's the most money
she'd ever heard of or she thought she •. . last her two
or three lifetimes, you know. But, just t hings like that, I
think of what this good friend of mine ... he's dead now ...
he told me about that.
BP: You know, there's a legend here that .•. that .•. of
this staff business, you know, and when Father Margi l •..
we got his shrine there at the church ... where it was .• he
was a missionary priest. He came in to be with the Indians,
and there was no water. And that's when he took his staff,
and they said he stayed in prayer for like maybe a day and a
night, and he went down on this rock and just took his staff
and the water started flowing. And the y 've got it right
here now .. in this (interrupted by P) ..• where LaNana
Creek was.
P: I'll take charge - right now. Russi?, you know?
BP: Yeah.
PANTALEON 30
P: His daddy was •• was ..• helped build that university
building up there. But now he says that his ... that the
priest went down there ... there was just a slip of water.
He took his staff and punched in the rock down there, and
this old man's son told me that he was ... I worked with him
•.. and he said, "I can take you down there and show you
that •.. where he punched that rock." And he said, "Water's
still arunnin' the re. " And that's on the creek ••. LaNa na
is what they ... LaNana Creek, but it's La Nana, you know.
That's what the Spanish people called it. And the creek on
the other side ... I remember when we used to ford that
creek ... They called it the Banito, they called it. But
the name of it's Banito. That's where they'd go take their
baths, you know.
SB: Little Banito.
P : Yeah . Banito. But it ... the bridge ... it was up above
where the bridge is now that goes west to Nacogdoches there.
Where it crossed that ..• right just at the edge of the
clearing, I' d say .. where that old f ord ..• it still shows
... the old ford still shows there. And I've waded in that
creek barefooted . When we'd go to town on Easter Sunday •..
t o go to church ... we'd camp right there where the farmer's
market is now ... there was a wagon yard there. And that
was our thrill ... to get to go to Nacogdoches ••. we didn't
go for the benefit of the church ..• we just went t o go to
town. ( laughter)
END OF SIDE 1, 45 MINUTES.
PANTALEON 31
TAPE I, SIDE 2.
BP: Got out of his wagon, went in there emptied his pipe
(?), got back in the wagon, went on home.
P: Yeah. He was from Georgia •.. this old man was .•. I'd
forgot 'bout that
BP: He brought the recipe down here to make that good
whiskey
P: Yeah , he brought it ..• he's the one brought it .,. he
made it in Georgia, you know ... made whiskey in Georgia .
And he wasn't no outlaw by any means. If you wanted it you
could drink; if you didn't want it, don't drink it. So
but anyhow there was ... his boy's the one told that
that old man havin' a fight in the old Stone Fort Saloon
there, and said that the old man told him "Bud. Bud," he
said, "You hold the lines. I'm goin' in, help those fellows
out in there." He didn 't even know nobody. IIIlrn goin) in
there and hel p 'em out." He was just that tough, yeah.
Really.
JB: Well, did you make the whiskey here, too?
P: Yeah , I ain't gonna lie about it. I have.
SB: Everybody did.
P: Had to put bags on it, to keep from selling , trying to
sell it t o each other.
BP: Daddy said they'd trade it, you know, for medical
purposes •.. The doctor here that .••
P: Yeah, my oldest boy got it ... his collar bone was
broke, you know, and how come it got broke, I brought a
little dog in the house , and he leant over to look at it,
PANTALEON 32
P: and had him in a straight chair, and he just tumbled on
over and broke his collar bone. And so I got a friend of
mine to call the doctor, and he come out •.• and I asked him
what I owe him. And Ed told him my friend told him,
"Hell, just pay him in whiskey. If you got any, he'll take
that."
And he drove to Nacogdoches over all them old dirt
roads; I mean, I don't know how he got through there. But I
gave him ... Ed gave him ... I told Ed, "You know where it's
at. Go out there." Said, well, he give him two gallons of
whiskey, for comin' out there. But anyhow, I wouldn't be
atalking' ' bout that, 'cause I don't have nothin' to do with
it .. don't want t o. I don't like people t o talk about it
even. But now that's where we managed .•. to get by.
JB: Well, that's the way you lived, and that's something
you won't read in history books.
P: Wel l, anyhow, •.
BP: All right. When I was born ...
P: In'35 ..•
BP: In '35. That's whenever they was killin' the cattle,
you know .• wasn't it, long 'bout then
P: Yeah, yeah.
BP: Anyway, this doctor t old Eddie for you'all to pickle
him a calf.
P: Just wait. Let me •.• that's good you thought of that.
When he was born, I had a good white main calf that I
paid $3 for it now, for that calf. He said, "Man, if
you'll dress that calf for me. Pickle him like ... wasn't
PANTALEON 33
P: anybody else could do it but me and 'nother friend of
mine that died ••• and he said, "If you'll pickle that calf
for me, I'll square off even with you." And he charged $10
for deliverin' a baby. And so I sold my I pickled that
calf and I told him to come and get •.. I had little
barrrels, pork barrels, I put it in. And I told Dr. Baker,
IIDr. Mast," I says, "What we ... "
JB: Mast?
P: Dr. Mast, yeah. I said, "Dr. Mast, I got your beef
ready." "Aw, well, just go ahead ..• it'll be all right for
a while. I'll pick it up sometime." You know, he never did
come and get his beef. So I got a baby delivered; didn't
cost me anything.
(eve r ybody talks at once ... can't understand)
JB: ... didn't cost you anything.
P: Didn't cost me anything.
JB: How did you pickle the calf? I've never heard •. ,
P: I can't hardly tell you now. but it was
with saltpeter and maybe alum. I can't remember.
I'd say
wish to
God I could remember now, but I can't. I didn't make no
recipe of it. This old boy, he .. , he had .,. he knew how
... he's in the army, World War I, and I guess he learnt some
in the army, 'cause I don't know where he ever got it at.
JB: Well, were all the children born here at home, or '"
WIFE: Yeah, they was all borned at home.
JB: All five of them, huh?
WIFE: Uh huh.
P: But, each one of 'em born in a different home. My
PANTALEON 34
P: brother •.. I didn't know what he meant one time, my
brother asked me, said, "Matt," when he was born, "Matt,
where you gonna move to now? " And so I said, "I don't know
what you mean." Well, he said, "Ever time you have a baby
born to you, you move, and so I thought you was gonna move
again." And that was when he was born.
JB: But you didn't move, so you didn't have anymore
children
WIFE: No.
JB: You should ha ve moved.
SB: (can't hear him) who he reminds me of? Dallas ..
JB: Ray Krebs on Dallas?
SB: You know who we 're talking about?
BP: Oh, yeah .
JB: Well, what was your home like •.• each one of your
homes? What did you have in it?
P: Well, we had ...
WIFE: Didn't have nothing much.
P: We just livin' on a farm, and I was plowing when I was
8 years old . And by time I was 10 10 year old .•. heck,
I was .,. I thought I's done a man. I c ould do any •.• plow
anything. And I didn't get out of third grade in school. I
didn't think you had to have an education to plow ... learn
to plow. I alrady knew how. So I didn't think you had to
have an education.
JB: Did you use mules, or .•• ?
P: Yeah, mules.
JB: You used mules?
PANTALEON
P: Yeah, when we •..
JS: You weren't much bigger than the mule, were you?
P: Sigger than the mule?
JS: Were you as tall as he was?
35
P: No, I wasn't ... yeah, I was a little bit taller'n mule
he was just about that tall, one of the mules we bought.
We paid $75 for that mule ... bought it from a fellow who
run a store at Swift. And we lived back in the creek
bottom. And my brother left home ••• that was 1912, I'll
say, '12 or '13, somewhere along there. And he'd left home
and I was the oldest one left there. And I broke that wild
mule, and I done everything with it you know. And I've
saved(?) hay by myself. A little old reap hook ••• just
'bout that long .it was fixed on a crooked stick, and it
was bolted down good, so I cut my hay, and I raked it up
with a gee-whiz harrow.
JS: What's that?
P: It's just a harrow with about 5 teeth on it.
SP: Like a little scratcher.
P: Like a scratcher.
SP: Scratched. You'd get right up next to it.
P: And now they ...
SP: And they'd scratch the middle too.
P: And I made me a big slide. I didn't have no wagon. So
I made me a slide. Worked that young mule with that slide,
and I hauled enought hay to •.. cut and hauled •.. and
raked with that gee-whiz harrow, to feed two cows and two
horses.
PANTALEON 36
BP: Dad, tell 'em 'bout the time that you went up to Ken
Pruitt's Dad .•. Grand-daddy ... to get that wild mule and
had him .•. had him in a stall .. .
P: That was one of the derned little mules I'm talkin'
about.
BP: Was it?
P: You know, that red mule, I was thinkin' 'bout him the
other day. You know, there's ... he was shy of holes in the
ground, you know, and a bridge, man!, you couldn't get that
thing 'cross a bridge that had a hole in it. But anyway,
I'd mowed that meadow before, and he stepped in that hole,
and you can believe it or not, next year I was mowing that
field ..• same meadow ... and he was on the right-hand side,
got up there and he knew where that hole was, g ood as I did.
And I couldn't get him nowhere around 'at hole. And he was
just an unbroke mule when I got him. But ..• and
him. And old .•. I mean, an old mare I had there
I swapped
only
horse I had when we married ... one horse, all I had. And
so I swapped with Mr. Pruitt, up there, and you know he was
a ... oh, he was a wealthy man ... he owned lots of land,
and his boys is wealthy yet. One of 'em died here the other
day short while ago, I mean.
But anyway, he ... I saw him 'bout a year after that.
He was talking 'bout, 'bout that mule ... asked me was I
satisfied. Was I satisfied with that mule I swapped to him?
He said •.• I said, "Yeah." And I told somebody 'bout him
askin' me that. "Well, you know what he asked you that
for?" Said, "'Cause he was just that good." He was for the
PANTALEON 37
P: pore people, you know. He said that if you felt that
he owed him ..• he crooked him a little bit, he'd just paid
me the difference a year after we traded. That's what that
fellow told me •.. he's just that kind of man.
BP: The way that Daddy said they'd done ••. they had a
gentle mule to that wagon and he just hooked this other mule
up with that other one , and they started down the road with
it. And that other mule would keep him from running. By
the time they got home, why, he was already working. You
know, he knew to drag. Well, they knew how to tie him up to
the ? You know, they tied that other mule close to him.
But now, getting in that stall and harnessing him with that
mule
P: That darn mule kicked me twice. Ever' time in the
stall, I'd go in and feed the little devil .. he was a
little ole hips wasn't that wide •. but he was a dandy
pulling mule. He would work. And he kicked me. But I'd be
right up at him with his leg . His hoof didn't hit me, but
his leg went across my legs right in front of me, and I ••.
I had to watch that rascal.
BP: I's goin' to Louis iana a lot, back in the '60s, and
back then, they had quit using them mules, you understand,
down around Lafayette and Abbeyville at the sales I was
goin' to. And I was buyin' 'ern. Well, I'd bring 'ern up
here and everybody wanted garden mules around, you
understand, and they still would. In the '60s they liked
mules, you understand, 'cause we'd quit raisin' 'em in this
country. I'd bring the mules here ..• we had a little
PANTALEON 38
BP: slide, or whatever, you know, and we'd work ... Eddie
would .•. and then we'd carry 'em to the sale barn and I'd
guarantee 'em to work.
I'd say, "Daddy works 'em, I know good and well you
can, you know." One time I brought one mule in, and he had
a mane on him like a horse 'at's broke , you know. Had this
.• his tail hadn't been sheared, and I knew that but he had
a bad rascal. He had a rope around his neck and a knot on
that ole well rope, that's just wore slick, you understand
it been on there so long. So I unload him •.•
P: He's outlaw mule, that's all he was.
BP: Daddy was here, and Daddy came out there when I was
unloading him. And Daddy said •.. So I cut him off t o
hisself, and I was gonna catch him, and we was gonna shear
him. And I's gonna bridle him. So he just, boy, after I
start toward him he'd wheel and kick. So Daddy went and got
the whip, and he said, "I want you to whip that mule till he
looks at you." And I laid it on him. ' bout two or three
licks, and he turned around and he just laid his head toward
me. And he let me catch that rope, and when he did, he
whirled, and he carried me around about three rounds, and I
was trying t o hold on , 'cause I knew when he throwed me
l oose , he was gonna kick at me. Look , he slung me away from
him and he just •.• he never did kick me .•• and Daddy will
tell you, too ...
P: Bobby told me in the house, he said, "Daddy, I'll give
you $5 to shear him." I said, "I'm gonna make that $5. I'm
gonna shear that mule."
PANTALEON 39
BP: So , anyway, we got him in there, with a twist on his
nose, and we sheared him and made him look good. Well, I
carried him to the sale, with the other mules, you
understand. And we didn't represent him at all. That mule
was back every Friday for about 3 or 4 weeks. They didn 't
they couldn't nobody ...
P: The Spanish boy bought him first time. I don't know
who .. where he ever wound up at. But this Spanish boy
bought him ... bought that mul e .,. and his mother said
she didn't know I was a Panta l eon or she ' d know my boy sold
him the mule • . she said, "Them Pantaleon boys got the worst
horses I ever heard of in my life," she said . And I knew
who what it was. (laughter)
BP Oh, lord. But those things had .. they were set in
their ways. Daddy had a team one time, he was about the
only one could catch 'em. They had their way . They worked
on the right side, one of ' em did, and one on the left. You
didn 't hook 'em no other way, you know unless you worked
'em single. But you got ready to catch ' em in the morning,
they had their ways to do it. Daddy knew how. A stranger
couldn 't even .• they'd act like mule colts, and they were
probably 20 years old •.. if you walked out in that lot with
'em •.. a stranger, you know. But now that just goes to
show you. They're different from horses. Now there's no
comparison.
SB: Mules can be harder than anything. I rode bull, I rode
JB: Coming out, we came past a pine knoll over there that' s
PANTALEON 40
JB: got a bunch of trees on it ..•
BP: That's the Muckleroy place, Daddy, where they had the
race track.
P: Yeah. These generations around that ..• my great-aunt
my grand-daddy's sister told me this. She told me
herself. That that was the grandstand up there on that
hill.
JB: Oh, it was the grandstand ...
P: Yeah. Like you'all go there to watch horses ... run
races on the horses ••. and she said that's where they'd
gather up t o have races. And that ...
JB: Horse races or .•.
P: Horse races. Yeah.
BP: They called that Prairie Grove.
P: Yeah. Prairie Grove.
WIFE: That used to be beautiful, but now it's growed up.
P: That used to be called the Cordaway Prairie in there.
The Cordaway .•• one Cordaway .••
JB: Co rdaway?
P: Yeah. They call it Cordova now. But it used to be
called Cordaway Prairie, is all we ever knew of. But the
Cordaway of Spain give this one Cordaway man all the
land between Tusco(sso) Creek and Carrizo 5 miles this side
of Nacogdoches, I believe I'll say. And on from where it
started. I d o n't know where that darned creek ... Garrison.
No, that's Attoyac starts up there. But I'm talking about
Tusco(sso). It's starts up there around Clarence Layton's I
believe it was. But anyway, it was no tellin' how many
PANTALEON 41
P: acres that was .,. between two creeks, and they come
together down here at Woden and that .,. old Cordaway had
that .•. and there's whole families of 'em, I guess, lived
up there. I know my cows used t o run out up there on that
.•. in them woods up there behind my house, and I'd come
across old houses, you know, pieces of dishes ..• piece of
old stove, things like that. I found plenty at a place like
that. And there was a graveyard up there that we never did
know who was buried there. Some of 'em says the Indians
some of 'em says the Mexicans. So I don't know. But I
never did stay around to find out ... out there in them big
woods.
BP: We used to play out ... found a l ot of Indian
arrowheads in that place over there, as kids, you know. I
mean, Dad and I did.
This whole country was Indians, you know, when they
came in, and
SB : Caddo's were there ...
BP: They stayed ..• they stayed at .. people, like in
Nacogdoches , would go over in San Augustine County when the
Indians would get kinda stirred up and cause problems, you
know, and then they would tell ' em not to .•• They didn 't
want ' em to sell the Indians the whiskey 'cause it ... kinda
get 'em stirred up. That's l egends to me, you understand,
but Daddy could probably hear the o lder folks talking about
it, you know, whenever he was a kid.
P: Well, I'm gonna tell you 'bout my grand-daddy. And he
was in the Civil War, and it was in full battle, right up
PANTALEON 42
P: here at Ma nsfield just across t he river where my great
his sister could ... livin ' there at Martinv ill e . And
she could hear the cannons . Her husband was in the battle
over there . Her .•• well , I' ll say my aunt's husband was in
battle with his brother-in-law . And that was my
grand- daddy .
And he heard about his best friend being in jail up
here at Nacogdoches , and this is one of them bugger stories
I'm tellin ' now .. . He .. . he deserted the Army and ...
when it was in battle over there .. deserted the Army and
came to Nacogdoches , and his . . • his best ... one of his
good fri end ' s in jail, and he managed t o get that key, and
he pessed it between two bars .. . two l ong bars of yellow
soap. I remember the soap that we used to have here .• .
SB : O. K. Soap .
P: •• . and .. • and he pressed . .. he got that jailhouse
key and pressed it ' tween two bars . • . them bars of soap.
Put it in his saddle bag, got on his horse and rode to
Shreveport , right at a hundred miles over there , and had
that key built . Come back. Slipped in there and let that
friend ou t of jail. Unlocked his friend, and he kept the
key . And I've got it. It ' s mine and it ' s gonna be his.
But it's up there in the old Stone Fort now. You should go
see it , while you ' re up there.
BP : You can put .. .
P: It ' s that long that key is. Th a t ' s the biggest key
I ' ve ever heard of. And so, I don't know h ow come ...
BP: I suppose they dropped his charges, didn ' t they? You
PANTALEON 43
BP: understand, when he ...
P: Yeah, when he carried that volunteer back. He went ...
he had a volunteer, you know, and he would, a thief, that's
all he was, but he carried him back and put him in the
Army.
BP: Listen, we've got his pay vouchers from Washington.
And two or three different times, he was absent without
leave, wasn't he?
P: Yeah.
BP: And you know, during the war , you understand, and then
he would be ." like, Little Rock ... and he was some other
place when he was paid . Listen, they were just roaming
around during the Civil War.
once)
P: I had an old .•.
BP: ? outfit ...
P: Milton Mast.
(both Pantaleons talking at
BP Yeah. He was the captain ..•
P: Get that book in there. Paper's on the bed in there.
BP: Anyway, now you know and I know, they couldn't have
rode no horses or whatever ... they walked wherever they
whenever the war was over , I guess they walked horne.
P: Just bring 'ern books on that bed in the re . But anyhow,
this here .• What was I gonna say?
WIFE: Mast?
P: Mast, yeah. He's in there. Let me see if I can find
my grand-daddy in here.
BP: Anyway, that was kinda interesting to think about ...
PANTALEON
BP: their pay vouchers. You understand?
JB: Pay vouchers?
BP: Yeah. He was a rascal ...
44
P: You can see him here. photo ] You can l ook at him and
tell there's something wrong with him. And you know what
he'd do when he got out .. when the war was over? He was
the greatest gambler. My •.. had an old friend who was 96
years old when he was telling me this. His daddy soldiered
with him and he said he would •.. they'd lock him up with
chains in a cell .. they'd lock him up in a cell, and he
would get out and go gamble with them boys till 5 o'clock in
the morning, and he'd corne back and lock hisself up, likely
he'd had a key . And you can do that .. it's in the Bible
someplace, they tell me ... I don't know . Did you ever hear
of that? In the Bible where there's a place you can read
that? You know that verse •.. you can do that.
BP: We ll, Uncle Pete must have known it ' cause
P: He could stop blood.
BP: He could stop blood, and this old guy that Daddy'll
tell you about him
P: Let me look at that. If I can find it.
BP: And that Captain Mast is in there.
P: Yeah. Captain.
[book/photo]
BP: And they were in the ••. I guess, the 36th Infantry, or
whatever, still ... you know, is still the same outfit that
we have now, you know. They were in it during the Civil
War.
5B: My great grandfather was a Major ... Doctor •.. in the
PANTALEON 45
BP: Civil War ... he was Southern. He didn't come back .
He must have been killed.
JB: How d id you stay busy?
WIFE: You know you got your hands full 'round a home. But
then everything was t he hard way. We didn't have no conven­iences
what ever when we s ta r t ed out. We had coal oi l lamps ..
P : [ph oto] That one on the right, here, was his captain.
And that one on the l eft was his .. they're brothers , t hem
two men are . But that one on this side is my grand-daddy's
captain , and they was both Masons. And they's court
martialing my uncle ... he was 'sposed to be shot , I guess
... court- martialed . And Milton Mast , he was ... I don't
know where he was at, but he wen t and asked f or him and
tried t o get h im. And they said ... he told them that he
would be responsible for anything he done ..• anything he
done , he' d be responsibl e .. . this captain told them he'd be
responsi ble ... t ha t they could hold him responsib l e f or
anything they done. And so they l et him have him •
WIFE: .. people canned, you know. Everybody canned. And you
had your chickens .. had your garden . It was always some-thing
to do . You did n't sit around home. and had
children. (too many talking at o nce .. can't distinguish
conversations)
P: One of ' em was Lancervi lle, he died in '28 ... or
s omewhere along in there. But the other ' un. I don 't know
what year he died in. But he was a captain. -
WIFE : Clothes. Boiled in~wash pot •.• rubbed ' em on a
board. That was the way I done . Kids were all gone then.
PANTALEON 46
P: In that book, you got there. I was just readin' 'bout
it a while ago. That was the doggonedest tale 'bout them
Masts .. , they were the r ichest people around here, almost.
The biggest land owners . His offsprings were. At one time
I remember him saying they owned 90 somepin' acres 90
thousand acres of land in the county here.
BP: Well, you were talking about ... mother was talkin'
about washin' and ..• at the creek and whatever. Listen,
that was a casual thing because ever'body done it. Dad said
you could be walkin' down the road and meet your best
friend, know in' he didn't have no money in his pocket
either. So what difference did it make.
P: I was up there one mornin', and one of my friends, he'd
gone to Louisiana , and he asked me , said, "Matt, you got a
dime you could let me have?" Said, "I'm headed for
Louisiana." And he didn 't have a penny in the world. He
sai d , "I want to get me a bowl of chil i."
got a dime."
I said, "Yeah , I
And I went on down the street, and this was a
land-owner that sold, (Cleve? Piree), you know. He owned
no tellin' how much land he owned. And he'd got drunk
and they put him in jail that night , and he got out of jail
that morning, and I met him on the street. "Matt, give me
15 cents to go get me a cup of coffee and a bowl of chili,
or somepin', I don't remember what it was. You could get a
meal for fifteen cents. And I let him .•. and then they
didn't pay me back. They didn't nobody have money.
PANTALEON 47
P: Do you know, I remember particular that I just thought
to myself ... I was walkin' just away from the house '" how
l ong it's been since I'd had a nickel in my pocket ..• about
six months. But I didn't have t o have no money. I could go
to Martinville and buy all the groceries I needed
everything I needed. That's just like goin ' to a bank.
WIFE: You know then the groceries were so cheap, you could
get a big bag of coffee for a dollar.
P: Let me see that book ••. here it is right here. Naw, I
BP : But let me tell you something, though, you were workin'
for 25 to 50 cents a day. Can you imagine how much you paid
for that pound of coffee? My God, it was a whole day's work
for half a pound of coffee. Now there's something to think
about now. They just wasn't any money. See, that's where
the ..• we still had ... the south hadn't got over that
Civil War , even then. They were hurting right on still.
Look , if you don't think that the Yankee people are still
felt hard of ..• you understand, by the older folks
Daddy will tell you that our •.. that his ancestors would go
in the smoke house, dig up the dirt, and boil it to get
enough salt to go in their food. They didn't even have
salt.
P: To go in their bread.
BP: To go in their bread.
P: & BP: (talking at once; can't transcribe)
P: can't do this and you can't do that.
just people had to do it, that's all.
Don't have to
PANTALEON
SB: I could steal salt, because we had the •.•
P: Salt mines?
48
SB: Sal Del Rey, west of Raymondville, about 15 miles, a
whole lake of it. Sal de Rey ... king's salt but there
was plenty of it. You could get big slabs of it.
BP: I want to tell you someth ing. Those ... those
northerners, when they came down t hrough here, they done the
people rough; they treated them rough.
(tape recorder making noise)
JB: [reading from book] I lived here , I gave $10 to
boot ... one half money and one half fare. One sateen
shirt, $l? (noise) one pair suspenders, 25f, one pair
John's (?) pants, $2.50, total $4.80 Half bushel meal, 25f,
one bottle of snuff, 20f, and cash $5.00. In all, $10.25.
P: And now she bought her a bottle of snuff ••• she won't
tell you she dips snuff
WIFE: You didn't have to bring that up ... (laughter)
P: But she told she went in the house, and I l ooked at
the price that stuff, $3.40 ..• or $3.45, someth ing like
that. Now, they tell me hard times. It 's the people that
cause hard times. I thank God, I didn't have nothing to do
with it, runnin' stuff up. But that's just all there is to
it. There's plenty of place in there where you get a bushel
of corn ••. I mean, work a day for a bushel of potatoes, you
know ... where you picked up potatoes. And .••
WIFE: I know one time we bought peanut butter for l8f a
quart.
P: Yeah. A quart for 18f. Went on just out of town,
PANTALEON 49
P: comin' up the hill there ... that first street, turn to
the right, just as you start up the hill, used to be a store
right on the corner there. And I bought ... went in there
and they had the middlin' ••• side of meat, they called it
.. we always called it a middlin', 'cause it come out of
right in the middle of the hog, you know. And that thing
was that thick, and I asked this Mr . Williams, says, "What
you gettin' on this meat?" He says, "Five cents a pound ."
So I said, "I'll just take all of it ... whole piece ." And
I got ... bought that midd lin' of meat and quart of peanut
butter for 18~ a pound and beef for Sf a pound . And now
that's the way we managed . And I bought a pair of pants . ..
dress pants ... one time for 40f.
JB: I was thinkinq ... this was high for a pair of pants,
in 1894.
SB: That was before Levi's, Joan. You see, Levi's brought
the price of pants down, ' cause they started making them by
machine. See, before that, you had to go through your loom,
and you had to card your wool ...
P : Cotton , everything.
till my ankles went
I've turned that spinning wheel
couldn't stand up. And spin that
wheel for my aunt to make sox and everything . And I wanted
to say something. Can't think now what it was. But anyway ,
BP: Well, look, in 1938 ... 1 told you about seeing this
ledger book at the store .•. got in there ..•
P: Yeah, yeah .
BP: Mark Fuller's store . •. . charged the stuff there. He'd
PANTALEON 50
BP: charged a pair of overalls for $1.50, and I remember
one thing Bill had charged a pack of Bull Durham •.• a
nickel. I thought to myself ... Bill never even had a
nickel. That boy went on went in the service, long about
in that time, and we was startin' into World War II. And he
went all the way through that stuff in Europe ...
P : Well, let's talk 'bout somepin' 'bout Nacogdoches. I
remember when it was just a mudhole. I told you everything
..• you got that . But anyway, they put wooden blocks in
there , just to pave the .•. keep it from bein' so muddy, you
know
JB: The streets?
P: Just a brick side of a brick. And it was creosoted and
when it went to rainin', and it went all of ' em like that •.
the stores ... (noise on recorder) ... gonna have to brick
his own f ront , you know, and some of them tightwads .. they
wouldn ' t .•. they wouldn ' t put none there. And there would
be just a puddle of water ... just a slough of water in
front . . . 'cause it rained during them times, and ...
(someone talking in background; can't understand) Yeah ...
creosote blocks and them things would soon ... rain
swelled 'em up, you know, and them things would pop up
there, and the people just scattered 'em ... throwed 'em in
the wagon ... haul 'em off , you know. Hell, the dernedest
mess you ever seen up there on that main street ... on Main
Street. and it finally went on .•. it got so bad they had
to take all that up and put brick in there. And that ain't
been too many years ago that that brick was put there.
PANTALEON
WIFE: And another thing that ws cheap was bar soap, you
know ... that you buy to wash with •.• wash clothes with
it was five cent a bar.
SB: Uh huh. Yeah, I can remember that.
51
JB: You used to make a lot of your own soap, didn't you?
WIFE: Yeah, .••
P: Yeah, she made ... she made more'n we ever bought.
you know they used to make the ash hoppers, you know.
talking at once, can't understand)
And
( all
JB: What foods did you make back in that time? Your food
was ..• you raised almost all your own food and everything
P: We had the best food ... a lot bettern' 'n you can get
now.
WIFE: We had everything in the garden, you know.
P: We had everything except coffee and sugar and
things like that you know.
WIFE: And we canned everything. I've canned cabbage. We
had a cooker, you know, with steam pressure.
P: And we'd butcher our own calves, seal 'em up and have a
I ha d a we bought a cooker and a sealer and
everything, and I helped the neighbors around t o save their
meat ... beef and things like that
WIFE: Then we used a lotta cans.
P: In '33, it was, when we killed calves •.. killed cows
out here. You kill 'em all where you was at, do you
remember? And I had a good friend that, his wife wrote that
book that ... where that little man is. Her brother •.. her
PANTALEON 52
P: husband, I mean, was the inspector of the cow business
at that time •. during that time .•. and he was a good
f riend of mine.
... in the lot
I had two good calves •. milk-fed calves
in the wagon, and I said, "Paschal,"
said, "I ain't gonna throw ... I can't unload these calves
over there in them woods." Somepin' like that. "Well ," he
said, "Just carry 'em on home with you." And he wasn't
'sposed to told me that, but I did carry 'em on home, and I
had that recipe f or curing that meat, you know, and shoot,
we had enough meat t o last us, no tellin' how long it
lasted. But, I would give anything for that recipe.
WIFE: You know somepin' else we used to do to keep our milk
fresh? We would hang it down in a well.
SB : Sure .
JB: Uh huh. Hang it down in the well.
BP: Another thing that Mother and them ••• Mother would do
is, like when we butchered hogs, she'd fry up a lot of the
sausage and put a l ayer of sausage and then the grease and
then sausage and then she'd put ' em in a churn, see. When
she wanted 'em, she'd just go dip out whatever she wanted
'cause they were already cured ... they were already cooked,
she 'd just heat 'em.
WIFE: They're already cooked.
BP: And then she would put sausage in sacks, and you'd just
go out in the smokehouse and cut off what part you thought
you'd need that morning. Or you'd do .,. you'd do bacon the
same way. And it hung right there until .. • Dad and 'em
will tell you •.• till it would get rancid. That's when it
PANTALEON 53
BP: really tasted good in the peas.
P: In the peas. Oh, that's what flavored them peas.
BP: That would put such a flavor in there. And we had a ...
Daddy had a friend down here, Mr. Manuel Herrera, that •• he
kept meat in his smokehouse year-round, I guess, didn't he,
Daddy?
P: I guess he did.
BP: I mean .. and they always had
WIFE: And you know , you could take and keep hams that way t oo .
P: Boy, I'm t el lin' you, them was good hams. Because I
believe they do something to this meat this day and time •. ,
it ain't good . It ain't good. (everybody talking at once )
WIFE: We'd fix steak and fry it and pack it in cans and then
pour gravy on it and seal it up. And that was really nice.
We'd use them b ig cans, you know. (two conversations going at
once)
JB: Now which •.• were these the glass jars or ..•
WIFE: No. Tin cans.
JB: Tin cans. How did you seal those?
P: It was just like a salmon can.
WIFE: We got a sealer. We still got one. We still got the
sealer. And we got a steam pressure cooker. But I've got to
where I can't handle it, you know, and we don't have a garden
anymore, so we don't have t oo much to can, you know. I make my
own jam.
P: Don't have too much to eat anymore either.
WIFE: What'd he say?
BP: Said you didn't have much to eat anymore.
PANTALEON
WIFE: Well, you can't eat much noway .
P: Well, at any rate, we're making it.
WIFE: We raised our beans and everything like that. We
canned corn.
54
JB: Now what year was this when you had metal cans, 'cause
I don't remember those, you know .
P: Aluminum cooker .• heavy aluminum.
JB: But the metal cans, though ..•
WIFE: When did we have those cans?
P: I don't know when it was .
WIFE: I don't either, but it's been a good while.
BP: You can still buy some cans. ' Course they buy 'em for
syrup, you know.
WIFE: I don't know where they go to buy none for their
pressure cooker now.
BP: You had to definitely know wha t you were doing when you
canned in those cans. Like the tomatoes and stuff like
that, Mother would put like a spoonful of salt, whatever in
' em when she got ready ... and she sealed it, put it in
maybe the wash pot, and she'd boil those cans in the wash
pot for a certain length of time ... she knew what t o do ...
and then she took 'em out and they were ready , you
understand, and go and put 'em up.
JB: Well, see, that's why I was asking because now that's
the first time I've heard of the metal cans •.. aluminum
cans .. because everyone else
P: Well, I'm gonna tell you now I have to interrupt while
I'm thinking about it. She was canning tomatoes , you know,
PANTALEON 55
P : she had bought that thing, and she bought that out of
that money her daddy left her, you know. She bought that
canner and cooker, and I can imagine and went over to my
neighbor and bought tomatoes for her, and I got 25~ for a
tub full wash tub •.• full, and so I went •• • the last
time ... she told that's all she wanted of 'em, so I went
and I paid him for that last bushel I got ... two bush -
tubs full. He said, "Them the bush - the tubs you been
getting full of tomatoes? " I said, "Yeah." "Well," he
said , "You go you don't owe me noth ing . I thought you
was getting a tub full. I thought you had some tubs to get
them things in." And he wouldn't take no pay for that last.
Well , anyhow , he was just that good . He's just a good man.
And here's another one of the magazines .•. Texas and one of
'em Tyler.
SB : Yeah , we take this.
JB: Find out
SB: We take this.
JB: TEXAS HIGHWAYS, we've taken that a long time.
P: Well , I didn't find anything about it. And my boy, he
seen ... he lived down at Hardin, and he called me and told
me his picture was in the magazine. Had I seen it? Naw, I
didn't even know anything about it. And so he sent it to
me.
BP: I got to go on out and do my work. Just wanted to come
by. I didn't wanta interrupt you'all.
JB : I think it's wonderful that you joined us.
P: I'm proud you come out .
PANTALEON 56
WIFE: We had our own gardens and everything that grew in
that garden we'd can it. English peas and green beans,
everything.
JB: Did you make a lot of your own clothes and all?
WIFE: Yeah. I've made me ma~y a dress •..
P: I'm gonna show you how we built a church. A Catholic
Church ... how we ..•
WIFE: I've made clothes for my little girl out of good
flour sacks, you know, printed .. ,
JB: Print flowers on it? Uh huh.
at once)
(two conversations going
P: This was the people that donated. I was one of the .,.
what do you call it collector ... treasurer or something
that they wanted me to
JB: Is this the Sacred Heart that's up there .now?
P: Naw, it's down here at Chireno. Down here.
JB: Down here? April 1, 1926.
P: Yeah. He started that church in '25. But I just corne
across that's what .•. still didn't have no money, by
George, ( l oud noise) to give, and we just worked ••. man
give us timber fo r ••. to a sawmill man, and he cut it, just
for enough to pay his hands ... t hat's all he charged us.
WIFE: And you know something else we done? We raised
ribbon cane. We had our own syrup made. We milked cows. I
raised chickens, you know, out in the yard. That's the kind
of life we lived.
P: Yeah, there's a bunch of old barbs in there.
WIFE: I enjoyed it. That's all I ever knew, was the
PANTALEON 57
WIFE: country, you know. We made it. We had tough times
and good ones.
JB: What did you do in the evenings for entertainment?
WIFE: Nothing. We didn't have no radio. Nothing like that
when the kids were little.
P: Here's my two granddaughters. That's Bobby's daughters
there. This is Leon Hale here where he made a picture of me
up there on the mountains on her grand-daddy's farm. That's
where that was at. Where he used to live ...
JB: What time what year was it when they were holding
those races up there?
P: Oh , Lord knows. That was 'way back. I wouldn't want
to say how long it's been, but now I as born in April 1898
just like when I remember things. I can remember so fresh
if hearing them talk about it. But I couldn't .• wouldn't
have any idea.
JB: When were you born, Matt?
P: April 4, 1898 .
JB: And how about you, ?
WIFE: 1906.
JB: 1906?
P: Yeah, I was 8 years older .
WIFE: I was born the 19th of February.
P: And you know I had a birthday here last April, and had
a friend from Houston. And I don't know where that thing
is at, but she made a ..• you know what I'm trying to tell
you before I tell you, just to tell you. Buy anyhow she got
my age and day I was born .•• on Monday ... 1 was born on
PANTALEON 58
P: Monday and so right on up everything that's happened to
amount to anything since then. She got it •.. it's here
somewhere. Don't know where it's at but it's ... I'm proud
of it.
JB: It's your life.
P: That's r i ght. It's my life. But anyhow , it's ., . I
have seen a whole lot lots of things I've seen.
WIFE: You know, used to, all the country people were
neighbors t o you, you know. All out in the country, we was
all neighbors.
JB: Did you do any house-raising or barn raising, where
everybody got together ••. ?
P: Yeah. They're just talking about my brother •. my
oldest brother ... talking about him yesterday ... last
night or this morning ... Bobby talked about going cotton
choppin', chop all the cotton all out, then he'd give a
cotton picking and a dance that night. So he made his crop
and people .•. neighbors come in and made his crop f or him.
And together picked his cotton.
Yeah , this is the history of the mountain road. I
named that road. This hyer fellah, he's takin' this
picture, and wasn't the lawyer, that lawyer, Tupper. Bobby
bought the land, and he had to have the name of that road.
And he had to have something .•• "what's this road ...
what's it called, this road?" I says, "I never did hear no
name for it." "Well," he says, "You got t o name it." I
says, "Well," I says, " just call it Mountain Road, that's
all." And here it is in the paper where it's Mountain Road.
PANTALEON 59
P: And he says, "Well, you named the road." He said ...
lawyer told me •.. said , "Well, you named that road. From
now on ...• " he says.
JB: From now on.
P: Yeah. That's what he said. From now on, he said,
always be Mountain Road.
I don't want to tell these old ghost stories, but looks
like I'll have to tell them sometimes. One of 'em that
happened right •.• just a little piece from where those
places are . My uncle .. he lived .. his home was in Fort
Worth, and he came during Christmas to visit us. And we
lived down there on the mountain, we called it. And this
Manuel Herrera that we had met ... met him two or three
t imes .. but my uncle went up to visit him that night 'cause
he was going to Nacogdoches next morning early, and my uncle
wanted to catch a train going back to Fort Worth . And
Manuel, my neighbor, he left out about 3 or 4 ••• 'bout 4 or
5 o'clock in the morning , drive a team to Nacogdoches . And
so I went up there and stayed with 'em till about 11
o 'clock. "Say. will you'al l drink some coffee?"
JB: No.
P: "Don't mind making it for you if you'll drink it." And
so I was foxtrotting right on down the road, and seen this
object coming through the woods ..• moon shinin' just like
day ... it was during the Christmas week. And I seen this
object coming this lady , I'm gonna say looked like a
lady, anyhow. She had a black veil and a white dress ..• or
a white dress black dress and a white veil. One way or
PANTALEON 60
P: the other. But it was there. I seen it. And I got as
c l ose as here to the door. I ' d say closer to her feet to
it . And there was a big post oak tree ... about that big
and when I when she got to that tree, disappeared on
me , and I never did see no more of her. And somebody asked
me .• s ome of my friends asked me ..• "What did you say to
he r? " I says, "Hell, she was gone when I got there. She
done gone."
WIFE: Listen, I'll fix some coffee if you'all will drink
some. You want to drink some coffee?
P : Yeah. Don't l ook at each other. Say yes .
WIFE: You got time?
JB: Not really.
SB: It's already 3 o'clock .
JB: It's 3, and we're supposed to see Ab Abernathy next
P: My god, you interview him? Whew .. He ' s a pistol.
He's been out here b i rd huntin' and done everything around
here. He's a bosom friend of ours.
WIFE: They made music at the church one time.
P: One time ••. he's the one that went ... they went to
Nacogdoches ... San Antonio . . . both times I went .. he was
with us. Yeah, he was ... and here's a bunch of pictures.
I don ' t know if you'd be interested seeing any of them or
not .
JB: I'm just watching to see I don't run out of tape.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 2, 45 MINUTES.