by Pete Kendall<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hood County News \u2013 March 19, 2004<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along upper and lower Fall Creek, wagon-weary pioneers found three essentials they\u2019d sought since departing Alabama, Kentucky and points east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cool, clear drinking water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fertile, plow-friendly soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Innocuous, if socially challenged, Indians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fall Creek was a little bit of paradise in the 19th century except for one annoying feature, inclement weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was colder in the creek bottoms. Also, on occasion, windier, as when an 1890 tornado claimed at least three lives and destroyed several structures in its winding path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reconfigured and rejuvenated, the community pressed forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abandonment wasn\u2019t an alternative for families that had traveled thousands of miles on a hope and a prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fall Creek was home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople stopped because of the water and land,\u201d Fall Creek native Julian Massey said. \u201cThat was good land. It\u2019s still good land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe water was clean and clear until the \u201950s. The drought of the \u201950s dried it up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Residents learned quickly to abide environmental anomalies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe lived over there for many years,\u201d Massey\u2019s wife, Willie, said, \u201cand it\u2019s colder there than it is here (Mabrino highway). They have ice long before we have ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople would laugh when we\u2019d tell them about the water from our shallow well. When the wind was from the north, we had soft water. When the wind was normal, we had hard water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople would look at you crazy when you told them that. They\u2019d ask, \u2018Do you have hard water?\u2019 I\u2019d say, \u2018It depends on which way the wind is blowing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Water was particularly prized in the 19th century. It quenched thirsts and dampened fields. Well into the 20th century, the creek provided recreational amusement for young men with a little time on their hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe fished for catfish and perch, and we used to rope suckers,\u201d Julian said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019d take a piece of copper wire and a pole and string. The wire was the loop. The wire is hard for the sucker to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019d sit on the bank and watch for the sucker to swim into the loop. When it did, you\u2019d jerk the rod. That\u2019s how you roped a sucker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey say they\u2019re not fit to eat. I never tried one fried. But if you catch \u2019em, clean \u2019em and put \u2019em in a pressure cooker, they\u2019ll make salmon take a back seat any day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Julian and his buddies occasionally fished with their hands, skinny-dipping and feeling for finned-critters in shore-line crevices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019d always wad our clothes up together on the bank,\u201d he said. \u201cOne evening, we came back after we\u2019d fished a good long while, and we couldn\u2019t find our clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019d seen the girls scouts go down the river a while before. They were hollering at us. I guess they were hollering because they hid our clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe found them under a big cedar. They were stuck at the base of the cedar. We got scratched all over getting them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnother time, we were skinny-dipping and got run out of the creek by the Gee and Morrison girls. We were in the baptizing hole. We didn\u2019t know anybody was watching us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll of a sudden, we heard hollering and looked up, and there they were on the west bank. They ordered us out so they could swim. They were older than us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were other kid-friendly pursuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe rodeo\u2019d with the neighbors\u2019 cattle,\u201d Massey said. \u201cWe\u2019d tail a cow and run and blind her. She\u2019d stop. Then one of us would get on. It was entertaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019d chunk wasp nests and have cob fights and pigeon egg fights. We\u2019d get pigeon eggs out of the barn and choose up sides.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The community of Fall Creek sprawled. The creek flowed, once briskly, between Cresson and the Brazos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFall Creek starts this side of Cresson,\u201d Julian said. \u201cThere\u2019s upper Fall Creek and lower Fall Creek. That\u2019s how the oldtimers separated it. Upper was above (Highway 4). Lower was south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCresson is on the head of Fall Creek. You can pour water on one side of Cresson, and it goes toward the Trinity. Pour it on the other side, and it goes to the Brazos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are falls on the Stewart place and on El Tesoro, the girl scout camp, before Fall Creek reaches the Brazos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI did a lot of playing there when I was a kid. I haven\u2019t been down there in 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Massey saw in the 1930s was pretty much what the pioneers eyed from covered wagons and buggies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI grew up at Fall Creek, past the old cemetery and where the school used to be. You cross the creek and turn left. It\u2019s the first house on the left. The house burned 10 or 15 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI started school in 1932 when I was 5. The community was wonderful. Everybody knew everybody else. There were a lot of chores \u2026 chopping cotton, picking cotton, gathering corn, milking, slopping hogs, feeding chickens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut everybody had the same work, so it wasn\u2019t unique to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Great wealth was a rare commodity in Fall Creek in the Depression years. But hard times brought the community together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI say we were raised poor, but everybody thought they were poor,\u201d Julian said. \u201cI look back, and there was a variation in the poverty level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most land holdings ranged from 40 to 60 acres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat was all that one team could work,\u201d Julian said. \u201cBack then, if you didn\u2019t have several kids, you couldn\u2019t pick the cotton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were a lot of people who were farmers but who couldn\u2019t farm. There was a lot of sharecropping then, people who moved every January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were very fortunate. Daddy (Riley Massey) bought the house I was born and raised in. I believe Tommy Morris had owned it. I don\u2019t know if he built it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe built a second story onto the log room that was already there. There was a big kitchen, about 18 or 20 x 30 north of the log room. The house had porches all the way around. It was a big thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All that remains, sadly, is the foundation and well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBoth my parents (Riley and Myrtle Carmichael Massey) were born at Fall Creek. My great granddaddy (William Massey) settled on the south river. He had 800 to 900 acres.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The William and Caroline Massey cabin still stands, proud and tall, ready to withstand mischievous Comanches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy mother\u2019s daddy, Major (Archibald) Carmichael, settled on the north river,\u201d Massey said. \u201cThat bend is Carmichael Bend. So apparently the Carmichaels got there before the Masseys. The Masseys arrived in 1859.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMajor Carmichael settled on what was the Carmichael crossing that\u2019s under water now. My grandmother Carmichael (Nancy R.) was a Rhodes. She married one of Major\u2019s boys (James).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The major and the Indians coexisted less than peacefully at times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy grandmother said Major would be off running the Indians, and the Indians\u2019 women would come to the house begging. So the Carmichael woman would give the Indian women corn while the men were fighting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Virtually everyone at old Fall Creek community was related \u2026 meaning virtually everyone in old Fall Creek Cemetery is, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were 18 children in Julian\u2019s granddaddy\u2019s family, and they\u2019re all in the cemetery but three,\u201d Willie Mae said. \u201cThere must be 40 or 50 relatives down there, kinfolks or kin of kinfolks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy great granddaddy and grandmaw are there,\u201d Julian said. \u201cMy great greats are buried there. My great greats\u2019 mother is buried there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere might be two or three siblings from one family marry siblings of another family,\u201d Willie Mae said. \u201cIt was very confusing when I got into the family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor instance,\u201d Julian said, \u201cwe\u2019re not kin to the Johnsons, but I\u2019ve got two aunts who married Johnsons. Aunt Lola was a Johnson, and she married a Rhodes, which are kin to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yearly cemetery workings unite the old community the first Saturday of April. Homecomings unite oldtimers less and less. There are fewer and fewer oldtimers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHomecoming is the first week of August,\u201d Julian said. \u201cWe used to have a heck of a bunch of people. Well, the older folks are dying off and the young folks don\u2019t care. But we still have it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tales are told. Tales are, conceivably, stretched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMr. Keith had a little rock store at a curve in the road when I was growing up,\u201d Julian recalled. \u201cAs the story goes, that\u2019s where a lot of boys learned to dip snuff and chew tobacco. They\u2019d buy it there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI learned to dip snuff from those people who gave out the little round cans. They knew they couldn\u2019t give them to school children, so they\u2019d drive down the road and throw them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne day, I got me one. I thought, \u2018Boy, howdy, I\u2019ll try this when school\u2019s out.\u2019 I did as soon as I walked off the school yard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe had to walk a mile and a half to get home. I was going to be through with my snuff by the time I got home because I knew I\u2019d get the hell beat out of me if I got caught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, a neighbor came down the road and asked if we wanted a ride. Everybody else hopped on the running boards. I knew I\u2019d be in trouble if I didn\u2019t hop on, too. When I got home, I must have been green. I sure was sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI got to the front porch. My brother and sister went around to the back. I heard mama ask about me. She came around and saw me, and I guess she detected why I was sick by my color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe gave me the damndest whipping, and that ended that \u2026 except for the time I smoked a cob pipe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fall Creek would seem the ideal locale for walking, talking ghosts. Julian is aware of none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe only ghost story I ever heard was about a holiness meeting at the tabernacle one day in the summertime. Sometimes they got a little carried away down there. We could hear them at home, and that was a mile and a half away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, I wasn\u2019t in on this. I was too young. But a half dozen boys went up on Buzzard Roost, which was on the Rhodes place, and caught a buzzard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey went over on John Little Hill, kerosened a cob and tied it onto the buzzard\u2019s feet. Then they set the cob on fire and turned the buzzard loose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd here come the Holy Ghost, just like the preacher at the tabernacle said.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The buzzard made out better than Henry Davis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHenry was a schoolteacher who made judge and was also a historian,\u201d Julian said. \u201cHe taught at Fall Creek. He was a little feller. The kids were bigger than he was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut he was pretty rough on the kids, and I reckon my uncles didn\u2019t take lightly to being talked down to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHenry was at the blackboard one day with his back turned when somebody raised up and threw a ball bearing plum through both walls. It barely missed Henry\u2019s head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHenry never did find out who did it. Right before he died, he asked my uncle, \u2018Will you tell me who did it?\u2019 My uncle would never say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Quite an honorable uncle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWesley was his name, but everybody called him Mugg,\u201d Julian said. \u201cI was Socks. All the Masseys had nicknames. The Masseys were bad about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Pete Kendall Hood County News \u2013 March 19, 2004 Along upper and lower Fall Creek, wagon-weary pioneers found three essentials they\u2019d sought since departing Alabama, Kentucky and points east. Cool, clear drinking water. Fertile, plow-friendly soil. Innocuous, if socially … Continue reading