Hood County & Johnson County, Texas
Contributed by Stephen Eddleman
| The following booklet was provided by: Mr. Marshall C. Wicker Cleburne, Texas July 2, 1998 |
| Since it isn’t copyrighted, I am copying it verbatim for other Eddleman families’ benefit. Vernon Drewa 1120 Oak Bend Lane Keller, Texas |
A WORTHY HERITAGE
By Reginald N. Eddleman
FORWARD
This biographical sketch, which I have entitled “A Worthy Heritage” is written for my brothers and sisters and their families, and of course, for my own family.
In relating any personal experiences in this article, I do so only where such experiences are directly related to some part of the story of the lives of my parents.
In writing this article, I do so in the hope that it may renew our memories and increase our appreciation of our beloved ancestors who have passed on to their reward, leaving with us precious memories, which have lingered with us during the years.
Sincerely,
Reginald N. Eddleman
March 1, 1952
A WORTHY HERITAGE
My father and mother were married a little over sixty three years before father passed on and for forty seven of those years it was my privilege to live in the home with them; and then for six more years Mother and I lived in the old home until she, too, was called to her Heavenly reward. And often in the last few years of their lives father and mother would talk to me of their lives and of their childhood days, and in that way, I obtained information concerning my grandparents, that I had not been able to get previously. And so, I am inviting you to go with me back through the years and renew our memories of those sturdy pioneers, who have give to us some worth ideals to help us face the uncertainties and confusion of these times in which we live.
In this article I shall not be concerned so much about dates or statistics, in writing bout these ancestors of ours; but I shall be more interested in their background and environment, in short, when, where and how they lived.
And now, may we journey eastward to the grand old state of Georgia. In the northern part of that historic old state is the little town of Marietta, in Cobb County. And it was on a farm near there that the man who was to become my paternal grandfather was born, on January 13, 1810, more than one hundred and fifty years ago. His name was David Eddleman. He was one of a large family, and my father said that he often spoke of his home as being a good home. His father, Rueben Eddleman, was a just man and earned a good living, and his mother, Mary Eddleman, was a gentle woman, and was better educated than many women of those pioneer days. She was also a sincere Christian and a Methodist, and she saw to it that her children received a fair education. Three of her sons, including David Eddleman, became Methodist preachers. David’s father was of German descent, but he was born in Georgia in the early days of the Republic. David’s mother was of English descent, but she was also a native of America. When David was twenty-one years of age he married Elizabeth Thompson, April 17, 1831. They lived in that part of Georgia, where David’s parents lived, and having taught school for a few years, and he also learned to be a blacksmith and a wood workman. While he earned a living by these trades, he preached locally as he had opportunity. He was not a regular itinerant preacher.
David Eddleman and his family continued to live in Georgia until seven children were born into their home. The fourth child in this group, Asbury F. Eddleman, was to become my father in later years. He was born January 17, 1843.
In 1848 David Eddleman and his family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, and on December 18, 1852, the wife and mother died, and was buried near Little Rock. The next year David Eddleman, with his children, moved to Texas, and settled, first in Dallas County, but the next year they moved to what is now Parker County. At that time it was not an organized county. He lived in Hood, Somervell and Johnson Counties during the years from 1854 until his death on June 16, 1883. He is buried in a small cemetery on Squaw Creek, near Comanche Peak, in Hood County.
Asbury F. Eddleman was ten years of age when he moved to Texas with his father and family. He worked on the farm with his father until he was fifteen years of age, and then he got a job working on a farm for Mr. Rube Cope, who lived near old Caddo in Johnson County. In the summer of 1861 he joined the Confederate Army. He enlisted in a Company organized in Johnson County by Captain Will Shannon. He was in Company “C”, Tenth Texas Infantry, and he served during the entire war.
After the war was over, in the Spring of 1865, he returned to Texas, and after staying with his father for a few months he got a job working for Captain Will Shannon on his farm in Johnson County. And there we shall leave A.F. Eddleman until we go to another part of this story. Then we shall return and take up the story where we left it.
Now, once again, may we turn back the pages of time and journey northeast to the state of Tennessee. There, in the beautiful hills about fifty miles north of Nashville, we find a comfortable farm home. And in that home lived Edward and Elizabeth Warren. They were of Scotch and English descent, but their ancestors had been in America since colonial days.
In that home, on August 12, 1820, was born a son, whom they named William Newton Warren. And it was he who would become my maternal grandfather. William was the oldest of several children. When he was a small boy his parents moved to a farm about fifty miles north of Jefferson City, Missouri. They lived there for several years, and then moved to Jasper County in southwestern Missouri. William Warren was about grown when they moved to this part of Missouri.
In March of 1842 he married Sarah Zane Jones. He bought a farm on Jones’ Creek near Carthage, where they lived for many years. There, nine children were born into the home. The fifth child was born in this home on October 23, 1850. They named her Millie Ann Melinda, and it was she who was to become my mother in later years.
William Newton Warren had a very good education for that early day, and he was elected as a representative from his district to the Missouri Legislature and served from 1856 to 1858. When the Civil War started in 1861, William N. Warren joined the Confederate Army and was commissioned as a Captain and served in that capacity during the war.
On April 5, 1862, while Captain Warren was in the Army, his wife Sarah Zane Warren died. In the latter part of that year, Captain Warren came home on furlough and while there he married Nancy Hammer, a widow, who was a cousin of his first wife, and had lived near his family. He left her in the home to look after the family when he returned to the Army.
In 1864, the Federal Armies got charge of that area, and ordered all families of Confederate soldiers to leave Missouri. Captain Warren’s family, along with seventeen other families, formed a wagon train and started south.
Most of the families came to Texas. Many of them drove oxen to their wagons, and it took about three months to make the trip. My mother was about 14 years of age at that time, and I have often heard her tell the experiences of that long journey.
Captain Warren’s family reached Texas in the late fall of 1864. They found a place to live in Grayson County, and remained there until Captain Warren joined them after the war closed in the spring of 1865. In December of that year, he moved with his family to Johnson County. When in 1868 he bought a farm on Village Creek, about four miles northeast of old Caddo, and he lived there until his death on September 5, 1883. He is buried in the Prairie Springs Cemetery, near Burleson, Texas.
Some one has said, that you can judge a man by the children that he rears. By that standard, Captain Warren was a successful man. As stated previously, he was married twice. He had nine children by the first wife and three by the second; five boys and seven girls. All received fair education’s for people of that early day. Four of his sons were farmers. All had good farms of their own. One of the farmers was a banker at Burleson, Texas, in the latter part of his life. His youngest son was a school teacher and was Superintendent of Schools in Johnson County for three terms. All of the girls married good and substantial citizens. Most of his sons-in-law were successful in their chosen fields of work. Four of them were farmers, one was a physician, and two were businessmen.
At one time, three of Captain Warren’s sons and four of his sons-in-law owned farms adjoining each other and within a radius of a little over a mile of the Captain Warren home.
May I mention one unusual thing about Captain Warren’s family. Of the five boys and seven girls, not one used tobacco in any form, which was very unusual for that early day. Mother often told me that her father taught his children to be sober, honest and upright citizens. And as you and I know, they lived up to those teachings, as the years have come and gone.
And now, to continue this story, we shall go back to where we left A.F. Eddleman after he had returned from the Civil War, and was working on a farm for Captain Will Shannon. He worked for Captain Shannon for about three years, and lived in the Shannon home during that time. The Warren home was in the same community where Captain Warren and his family lived. And it was while attending various affairs in the community that Asbury F. Eddleman became acquainted with Millie Ann Warren. They soon became engaged and on September 10, 1868 they were married. For the first two or three years, they rented a farm, and then they bought a small farm a short distance north of Caddo Peak. There they lived for a few years, and then they sold this farm and bought a larger farm in the Centerville community, about a mile west of the Captain William N. Warren home. A.F. Eddleman and his family lived there for many years.
Life wasn’t easy for the Eddleman family during these early years. The long strain of Army life, together with an accident which happened to father while he was riding a horse, the horse becoming unmanageable and running into some trees where my father’s ear was punctured with a twig. This caused him many years of bad health. Therefore, for several years they knew what it meant to suffer and sacrifice. But better days were to come. The farm produced well and it was soon paid for and the going was easier in the later years.
There were eight children born into this home. The first child died in infancy, but the other seven lived to an advanced age. Six are living at the time of this writing. Thomas M. Eddleman died in October, 1947 at the age of seventy four years.
I was born into this home on July 10, 1885. And the early years of living on the farm with father and mother, and my brothers and sisters, were happy years to me. Our family life was very congenial, and we all enjoyed the opportunity for real living as afforded on that old farm. To me it was a beautiful spot for a home. On the north of our home, to protect it from the cold of winter, was a nice forest of oak trees, and from the front porch of our home we had a beautiful view for miles.
I lived on this farm until I was fifteen years of age, and the pleasant memories I received there have remained with me during the years. During many of the years that we lived on that farm, we had the pleasure of being near many of our relatives, whose farms were near or joined ours. Uncle Lum Warren, Uncle Tom Warren, Dr. James Pickett, Uncle George Bransom, and Uncle Don Overton all lived near and our childhood visits with their families are pleasant memories.
In the early fall of 1898, father, mother, sister Ettie, brother Earl and I moved to Burleson. There Ettie, Earl and I attended school at the old “Red Oak Academy”, near Burleson. As soon as school was out the next spring, we moved back to the farm. In the fall of 1899, Ettie and I entered Willie Denton College at Joshua. We drove to school, with horse and buggy, each day.
In this summer of 1900, father sold the farm where we were living and bought a farm one and one half miles west of Joshua. He also bought a twenty five acre tract of land one half mile south of Joshua, and built a house there that summer. We moved there that fall and Ettie, Earl and I entered school at Willie Denton College.
Father and mother, being reared in a frontier country, didn’t get to attend school very much, but they were both great readers, and educated themselves. When I was a very small boy, on the farm, father bought a twenty volume encyclopedia Britannica set and it was the only one in the community at that time. Father always subscribed to a magazine or two and some kind of newspaper. He was always interested in all civic enterprises in the community. Father was a good penman and taught writing school some in his younger days. One of my earliest memories of father was his love of history and he would read history books by the hour as we children would listen.
In July, 1904, I took typhoid fever and was down for eight weeks, and I shall never forget how father and mother nursed me through that severe illness. The other children would have helped, but father was afraid the children would take the fever, so he and mother nursed me through the entire illness. The typhoid fever left me in rather bad health and I didn’t get to return to school that fall.
At this time brother Jim was in west Texas, near Hereford, in Deaf Smith County, where he and father had bought a small tract of land. Father sold the home where we were living, and early next spring we moved to Hereford. Father had in mind buying a home and remaining in the west, but that was not a very good year in that part of Texas, and he decided to move back to Joshua that fall of 1905. We had two wagons and teams that we wanted to take with us back to Johnson County, so we equipped the wagons with covers, and also with bed springs and mattresses for sleeping in the wagons. And after shipping part of our things by express, we started on our journey back to Johnson County. Brother Earl and I drove one team and father and mother the other. We traveled very leisurely, sometimes not traveling more than fifteen or twenty miles a day if we found a good place to camp for the night. Our route was through Plainview and Lubbock, which at that time, were very small towns with no railroad connections. From Lubbock we went to Tahoka, Snyder, Sweetwater and up the T.&P. railroad to Cisco, where we visited with our relatives for two or three days, and thence on to Joshua. We were on the road about twenty six days. I shall never forget that trip. Father and mother also seemed to enjoy every minute of the journey. In later years, I often heard them refer to the experiences of that trip.
After returning to Joshua, father bought a twenty five acre tract of land on the southwest edge of Joshua, and in the spring of 1906 he built a home, where father and mother lived the remainder of their lives.
Soon after we returned to Joshua, I got a job in a general merchandise business in Joshua and continued to live at home with father and mother. Then on January 11, 1915, I was appointed Postmaster at Joshua and served in that capacity for eleven years. During all those years, and the years that were to follow, until both mother and father passed on, I remained at home and assisted in the care of father, who was an invalid for nineteen years. After father died in 1932 at the age of eighty nine years, I continued to live at the old home with mother and with the assistance of my brothers and sisters, cared for her until she passed away in 1938, at eighty seven years of age.
It was my privilege to live in the home with father and mother for many years longer than it is usual for a child to remain at home. And I learned to know them as no one else could know them. And I learned from them many valuable lessons that shall remain with me always. I observed father during the many years he was an invalid, and his patience and cheerfulness, during those years of suffering, and it was a revelation to me. He seemed never to complain but sought in every way possible to make it easier for us to care for him. Often, after a long hard day at the Post Office, I would come home tired and discouraged, but then I would come and sit by father’s bed and talk with him for awhile and his quiet patience and cheerful admonition always gave me a brighter outlook on life and prepared me for the tasks of the days to come.
I also observed my mother as she cared for father and kept the household going these many years. She served and sacrificed uncomplainingly these busy years. She always sought to make things easier for those about her. Her quiet, unassuming personality and gentleness of spirit brought the love and devotion of all who knew her. The love and devotion which father and mother had for each other was wonderful to the end that devotion seemed to grow strong as the years passed. Father and mother were sincere Christians, but they never talked much about their religion, choosing rather to live it day after day. Their simple, sincere faith in God helped them to face the many difficult tasks they encountered in life.
When father passed on, he did not leave a large legacy of real estate or stocks and bonds, but he bequeathed to me values worth more than stocks and bonds and those values cannot be taken away from us. And when mother passed on to her reward, she did not leave us earthly riches or social prestige, as the world views it, but she left with us a memory of her gentleness of spirit and loving devotion, which shall linger with us as the years come and go. And so I am sure that you can truly say with me, that we, indeed, have “A Worthy Heritage.”
Sincerely,
Reginald N. Eddleman
| David Eddleman January 13, 1810 to June 16, 1883 Buried near Comanche Peak in Hood County, Texas Asbury F. Eddleman 01/17/1843 to 03/28/1932 – CSA Buried in Joshua Cemetery in Johnson County, Texas David Henry Eddleman 03/10/1845 to 08/22/1918 – CSA Buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Hood County, Texas |