FAMILY ANECDOTES
Pearson
and Guice were close to Claud
and his family since Claud and Daisy really acted
more as parents than as brother and sister‑in‑law. Pearson was very fond of his niece Tressie whom he said was like a younger sister. He was also fond of Tressie's
brother Ervin, and of Ovid, but he had left their home by the time Thelma was
growing up and didn't know her as well.
Pearson
said that when he was about seven a carnival came nearby and the boys all
wanted to go. Thomas would not give
them any money for the carnival.
The boys took one of Thomas' pigs and dyed it with shoe polish. They then told their father that a
neighbor had given them the pig in payment for some work they had done for
him. Thomas bought the pig from them
and the boys used the money for the carnival. Soon the polish began to wear off and
Thomas realized he had bought his own pig.
Pearson said they got a whipping, but they didn't care because they had
already been to the carnival, spent the money, and had fun.
In
1895‑96 there was extreme weather in North Central Texas. According to Pearson, a record‑setting late, late snow storm on May 5 one
year killed a lot of cattle, especially calves, and ruined the crops. The remaining cattle had to be saved to sell
or build the herd and couldn't be used to feed the family. The swine also had to be sold to have
money for supplies. The only meat
for the next year was chicken‑‑every
day. According to Pearson, that
is why he hated chicken for the rest of his life!
The
year 1896 was filled with killer tornadoes which also killed a lot of stock as
well as people and wiped out a large portion of the nearby town of
Sherman. Pearson said anyone who
had been in the tornadoes he had seen would always be afraid of storms. Mattie Holsapple
Hall in her book A HISTORY OF GRAYSON COUNTY, TEXAS says
that the tornado on May 15, 1896, was the worst disaster in county or area
history, killing 73 people.
Jolene
Doering has in her possession a letter from James
Sanders' mother to Venice telling her about life on the Oklahoma range and
encouraging her to come to Oklahoma to homestead with James (see text of letter
under Venice's section). In 1899,
when Venice and her husband James Sanders moved to Greer County, Oklahoma,
Thomas Vestal also moved there.
Thomas lived in Louis, in Duke, helped found the township of Martin, and
lived in the county seat of Hollis.
When moving to that area of Oklahoma from Texas, most people crossed the
Red River by ferry at Quanah.
According to Paul Bible in his history of Hollis and Harmon County,
Thomas Vestal Johnson was the first man to bring Guernsey cows into Harmon
County.