FHWC: Where Grandma came from

Grandma's parents were married in Hillsboro, Tx in the summer of 1894. George and Rebecca probably met in Johnson County after her father, John M. Joplin, moved his second wife and children there from Tennessee sometime before 1900. George's parents and maternal grandparents had been living in Johnson County by 1880, having previously made a go of it in Lamar County after his parents married.

George and Rebecca had both grown up on farms, and they continued with what they knew. Along with George's parents Ben and Mattie, older brother John R.'s family, and little sister Bettie Frances, George and Rebecca headed about 100 miles west to rent a farm in Comanche County.

The economy in Comanche County was booming for farmers and ranchers between 1890 and 1900, and the rapid population growth reflected that. Cotton farming in the area increased dramatically from a single bale produced in 1860, to over 24,000 commercial bales in 1900. Comanche County was the place to be.

George and Rebecca Nowell

The Nowells established a cotton farm, worked hard, and raised their family. I can't say for sure whether their first two children, Della and John Benjamin, were born before or after they arrived in Comanche County. Della was born 2 Jun 1895, and John B. was born 6 Nov 1897. But they were definitely living on a Comanche County farm by 1900, where the rest of their children were certainly born.

George Columbus "Kit" Nowell came along on the 26th of January, 1901, followed by Grandma Zula Irene on November 11, 1903. Maggie Lorraine and Dora were born in 1906 and 1911, respectively.

George's father's health was declining by then. Joseph Benton Nowell was receiving a small pension for his service in the civil war, but he was no longer able to work. On the 5th of July, 1913, Ben Nowell passed away at the age of 69 or 70 (born 1842 or 1843), when Grandma was 9 years old.

George and Rebecca had two more children, Tommie born August 13, 1914, and J.D. born on the 30th of August in 1916. However, things weren't going as well as they had hoped.

The Nowell's, like most of the cotton farmers in Comanche County, were struggling. Cotton crops were being destroyed by an infestation of boll weevils, leaving farmers in the area with nothing to show for their hard work. As Grandma would say, they didn't have a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out of.

It was time to get out of Comanche County and try their luck elsewhere.

Sources:

• "Texas, Marriages, 1837-1973," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FXQ7-BYC : accessed 03 Feb 2013), George Nowell and Rebecca Joplin, 05 Jul 1894;


• Grandma's bible


• "United States Census, 1880," images, HeritageQuest Online (http://0-www.heritagequestonline.com.catalog.houstonlibrary.org/dvimage/genealogy/stage/dvimage?filename=/heritage/vault/hqc23/T9/1313/1/366B.tif&invert=0&scale=2&mimeType=application/pdf
  ), George Nowell, 5-PCT, Johnson, Texas, United States; Series T9, Roll 1313, Page 366.


• "United States Census, 1900," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M3LW-M48 : accessed 03 Feb 2013), George Nowell, ED 26 Justice Precinct 1 (west half), Comanche, Texas, United States; citing sheet 11B, family 198, NARA microfilm publication T623, FHL microfilm 1241622.


• "United States Census, 1900," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M3L7-XGY : accessed 03 Feb 2013), Joseph B Nowell, ED 27 Justice Precinct 1 (east half), Comanche, Texas, United States; citing sheet 18A, family 322, NARA microfilm publication T623, FHL microfilm 1241622.


• "United States Census, 1900," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M3L7-LCR : accessed 03 Feb 2013), John R Nowell, ED 26 Justice Precinct 1 (west half), Comanche, Texas, United States; citing sheet 11A, family 194, NARA microfilm publication T623, FHL microfilm 1241622.


• "United States Census, 1910," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MK15-83L : accessed 03 Feb 2013), George N Nowell, Justice Precinct 2, Comanche, Texas; citing sheet 15B, family 299, NARA microfilm publication T624, FHL microfilm 1375554.


• "United States Census, 1910," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MK15-VRG : accessed 03 Feb 2013), Ben Nowell, Comanche, Comanche, Texas; citing sheet 8A, family 123, NARA microfilm publication T624, FHL microfilm 1375554.


• "United States Census, 1910," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MK1P-PMS : accessed 03 Feb 2013), John R Nowell, Comanche, Comanche, Texas; citing sheet 19A, family 331, NARA microfilm publication T624, FHL microfilm 1375554.


• "United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MD7F-CCG : accessed 03 Feb 2013), J. M. Joplin, District 8, Henderson, Tennessee, United States; citing sheet 289B, family 0, NARA microfilm publication T9-1262.


• "United States Census, 1900," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M3PS-5MK : accessed 03 Feb 2013), John M Joplin, ED 54 Justice Precinct 1 (southeast part), Johnson, Texas, United States; citing sheet 20B, family 350, NARA microfilm publication T623, FHL microfilm 1241649.


• TSHA - Comanche County http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcc20

FHWC: Grandma was a witch

Jack and Zula Parmer - 1924

Zula Irene Nowell was born 11 Nov 1903 in Comanche County, Texas. She was a granddaughter of Joseph Benton Nowell, the former subject of my FHWC project. But I've decided instead to write about my memories of Grandma. And blog them. Much easier.

She claimed her daddy was 100% Irish, by which I think she meant that he was descended from Irish immigrants, because surely she knew he was born in Northeast Texas. Her mother, she said, was Black Dutch.

Grandma (she was my great-grandmother, but we all called her Grandma) and her siblings grew up picking cotton on her parents' farm. She received an 8th grade education in Lawn, Taylor County, Texas before her family moved to Henderson County. There she met her future husband, Rufus Amery "Jack" Parmer, the son of another cotton farmer.

Grandma's divination teachings
According to her, as a young woman, with a tub of water and a mirror at noon on the first day of May she discovered who she would marry (this would have been sometime between 1922 and 1924). She said she saw Jack Parmer's face in the water wearing a hat. Then the next time she saw him in person, he was walking up the road, wearing that same hat.

They were married 16 Sep 1924 in Tyler. I think the photo above was taken that day, because she had several printed up (I'm not sure how many are out there). Here is the back side of the photo:

Near the bottom Grandma Zula wrote "To Dear Mother From Jack and Zula." She wrote it in pencil so it is rather difficult to make out now. It was probably one of her daughters that wrote in the dates and ages in pen later.

Anyway, back to Grandma's witchery, she had a method for determining the gender of your future children. Stick a threaded needle into the eraser end of a pencil, and hold the pencil over your wrist by the thread (now I know this is called a pendulum).

Eventually the the pencil will begin to move. If it moves in a circle, it means girl. Back and forth in a line means boy. Then it will come to a stop, and begin to move again telling you the sex of the second child, and so forth for as many children as you think you want to have.

As kids, we had a good time playing with this one. I can't really speak to the effectiveness of it, since it has a fifty-fifty chance of accuracy, and I only have one child. But my sister swears by it. I always got 3 girls, then a boy.

One who controls the weather, controls the world
In addition to divining future elements of one's life, Grandma also passed on a means of controlling the weather. Texas summers are often drought-ridden, so whenever we really needed some rain, Grandma would call us up and tell my sister to "throw a snake over the fence."

So my sister would catch and kill what my great-grandmother called a chicken snake, though I think they are more commonly referred to as rat snakes. Then my sister would hang it over the barbed-wire fence and we would wait.

Now, I'm not a superstitious person, and I'm not exactly sure how hanging a dead snake over a fence would have any impact on the weather, but I'll be damned if it didn't always seem to work. In fact, the more snakes my sister hung on the fence, the more rain we would get.

Grandma's snake bite remedy
Grandma also had a way to deal with poisonous snake bites, though we never really had a need to test this one. The way she put it was, "Split a chicken and lay it over the bite." It would seem the intention behind doing this was to draw the poison out of the wound, into the chicken.

And this is why my mom would declare, "Grandma is a witch!"

FHWC: Day one, ready or not

I woke up this morning feeling non too confident that I could start writing for the Family History Writing Challenge today. Heck, I haven't even been able to conclusively determine whether Joseph Benton Nowell was born in 1842 or 1843, in Alabama or Mississippi.

But then I received the FHWC newsletter from the Armchair Genealogist. Lynn's advice for the unprepared really helped. Instead of putting off the writing to chase down more documentation, I'm going to do both.

First I will start with writing summaries about events in his life, even if I do have to include the "I don't know if it's this or that," statements. And I'm only setting a 300 word count quota to start with so that I will also have time to research for the next day's topic. I may bump it up later when I have more information.

I'm not going to worry too much about the order of events. In fact, I'm probably going to save each event summary separately so that I can go back and put them in order for a single outline. Then I can start the actual first draft.

As far as style of writing goes, I'm not sure what you'd define it as, but I'm mainly writing it for interested members of my family. So I will give all of the documented facts, including the contradictory ones, but also try to throw in some of that good old Nowell family humor that Grandma Zula passed down to us.

And, of course, it's just a rough draft that will grow and flesh out over time with more research. Which is why I won't be publishing it on my blog. =D I will post updates on my progress, achievements, and frustrations though.

If anyone reading this is blogging about their own experiences with the Family History Writing Challenge, or is actually posting their family history writings, please feel free to share your blog link in the comments so I can check it out.

Time for me to put on a fresh pot of coffee and start Day One.