"EARLY MEMORIES of OCTA HILL RICHARDSON"

My father, James Overton Hill, was born near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, December 14, 1853. He was the fifth of eight children. His mother died just as the Civil War was starting leaving Grandpa Hill with the children to raise, as he never married again and didnt have to fight in the Civil War nor didnt own any Negro slaves. Aunt Mary Dill was the oldest child being 14, never married till she wass 37, then had Kate, Annie and Scobey. The other children were all married so he lived on with her dad till he died.
My father, James Overton Hill, first married Lovona Woods in 1877. They had two girls, Azzie Mae and Lovona. When Azzie was about 3 years old and little Lovona, one month, their mother died and the baby passed away at age 3 months. Papa lived with Aunt Mary till he married Sallie Ann Brown, my mother, December 4, 1883. She was called Annie and I was born to them February 14, 1885- Octa Alice. Then January, 1886, a little premature brother, Earnest Ezell, was born and lived to be 8 months old and died with summer complaints and is buried in Quanah. He had driven some new nails in the yard and Papa never let us move them. James Oren was born in Quanah on February 17, 1891 and we moved to near what was later called Looney one mile east and half mile south of Liberty cemetery on the half section of land north of Dewey Thomason. The north half of the section. Grandpa and Grandma Brown, my mother's parents, lived with us. It was the early spring of 1892 Grandpa Brown died with what they called Lagrippe then, same as flu now, when he was only 67.
We lived in a two bedroom house two feet in the ground but walls and floors planks, but called a half dugout. Next year Papa moved the house on the east quarter of land one mile east where a road ran from Jester, a store, a days drive north of us with oxen or horses where a grocery store, built a kitchen on the back and large house on top of the ground, moved the front room for a grocery store, built a kitchen on the back and large dirt storm house like we have in the country now, but was to live in. Grandma and Pearl slept in there.
On January the 8th, 1893, our twin brothers Rolly White and Roy Gilbert were born and our dear mother only 31 1/2 years old died that night. The babies were fine healthy boys, weighed 15 pounds. My mother was a pretty woman and a real good cook. She and Papa made lots of taffy candy for candy breakings and lovely big cakes for picnic dinners. She played the organ and I can remember the neighbors standing around singing. She had pretty dresses and jewelery she bought with money inherited from her grandfather. We came from Tennessee when I was about two years old (1887). I also remember she drove a team of horses to a wagon and took us to Liberty School houst to church. I dont know what kind of preacher away back then or if there was a preacher. We had literary programs on Friday nights and also after we came back here in 1900.
There was our daddy with my old grandmother in early seventies, my half-sister Azzie, 13 1/2, and me nearly 8 and four younger, here, herein this new country rolling prairies and real good people, but all poor people. Two neighbor families took the babies to take care of them. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert took Roy, they had five children of their own but kept Roy 8 years. Mr and Mrs. White took Rolly. They had four children the youngest eight years old but in a year they had a baby so we took Rolly back. Grandma Brown was still with us, but our sister Azzie Mae only 15 1/2 years old got married to Will Ford, 22 years old and moved down to Johnson County Texas to live. Papa got a Mr. and Mrs. Gilliam with one little girl to stay with us that year till fall when he sent Grandma back to Tennessee to her two sons. Jim and I stayed three months till Christmas with mr. and Mrs. Gibson and family and Pearl and Rolly stayed with the Whites who first kept Rolly. Azzie and Willie kept begging Papa to bring us to their house so we all but Roy went. He had such a good home and the folks loved him so much. None of us but Papa saw him any more for five years.
By January, 1895 it was getting dry here some people ground kaffir corn to make bread. Lots of cheap cattle and many people ate rabbits. It was a common thing to see women out with a long wire twisting rabbits out of prairie dog holes. Lots of people left though some didnt. Papa took us to Johnson county Texas. It was one of the worst winters in all my life. Willie and Azzie had a baby girl by then and his mother, two boys and a girl and Papa with four of us all spent the winter in a house, one large room down stairs with a loft over head where we five slept. Two beds in the living room. Mrs. Ford and Lucy, Azzie and Willie in them and a trundle bed pulled out in between for Bud and Pat Ford. A shed room kitchen on the back where we all cooked and ate. We lived on the bank of a creek where there were lots of trees for wood and we had a big fire place. None of us children got to go to school and Bud Ford and I were ten years old by then.
In the spring Papa and Willie (Will Ford) built a house in Venus. It had three large rooms downstairs and three upstairs, and they had a grocery store. But in the summer of that year Papa took us to his two sisters, Aunt Martha Overall and Aunt Sallie Webb in Collin County Texas. We also stayed some with his brother, Uncle John Hill. They all had large families, and Aunt Martha had a married daughter, Etta nelson and husband Charley with two little boys. I stayed with them and went to school that winter I was eleven and next winter when I was twelve. Pearl stayed with Aunt Sallie and family the same time and Aunt Martha kept Papa and Rolly and Jim. Christmas of 1896 Papa took Rolly and Jim and went to Aunt Mary and Uncle Dill's (Dr. Dill)in Tennessee and in July that summer Pearl and I went on the train by ourselves. Rolly was sick till he was four years old with bowel trouble, but Uncle Dill cured him. There was a big Centinnial going on in Nashville, Tennessee. The town was 100 years old. Such a big crowd, we got off the train, people were crowded night on through the big depot and us with them. We were put to bed about half scared to death. Got up next morning, went out front and there was Papa walking in looking for usand we were happy. We were so glad to see Jim and Rolly. Aunt Mary had a boy Scobey over a year older than Jim, a girl Annie just younger than Pearl, and Kate a year younger than me. We seven enjoyed each other but, I wonder how aunt Mary lived. She sent us all to school and we studied hard. With all of us ten in the family, Uncle Dill and Papa had a grocery store, Papa had several grocery stores during his lifetime. Uncle Dill and Aunt Mary were very religiious members of Church of Christ so we all sent to Sunday school and church. The church building was on Uncle Dill's land. I was baptized that summerafter I was 12 years old and Pearl a few years later.
Papa left us in Tennessee the Christmas of 1899 and came back to Oklahoma to see about Roy and decided to stay with the Gilberts to make a crop. He met a widow Parolee Woods, 32 with a boy nine and they decided to get married. I spent that winter 1899-1900 with Papa's first sister, Aunt Clemmie Dement and attended a real school. The school at Aunt Mary's was also good. Pearl, Rolly and Jim went to school there that winter where I also had attended school. That winter I was 15 in February. I had higher English, algebra, geometry, physics, civil goverment and history.
In October, 1900 Papa had the four of us t come on the train from Tennessee to Oklahoma. He lived on the rented Gilbert place that year. Papa and our new step-mother got married November 27, 1900. Roy came to live with us, but Papa let him spend nearly every weekend with the Gilberts who lived only a few miles away. Papa took us to see our step-mother before they married. We got along better than most of mixed up families. The next October we had a beautiful brown eyed baby brother that we all loved and enjoyed named Doyl Overton. In 2 1/2 years in March another brother, Waydell. Nearly two years later in January, Lois Juanita and 2 1/2 years in September Dena Dill, another girl. Our step-mother's late husband filed on the northeast quarter of a section of land and only lived a month, he died with pneumonia. That gave her the right to own it without living on it. Papa paid $50.00 to a man to relinquish the southwest qurter of the same section and he filed on it. In the fall of 1901 he built a large house, three rooms downstairs and three rooms upstairs and we moved there a few years later he built an L shaped front porch and a shed room the back. Dining room, kitchen and one room with the cistern in it.
We had three and four months school at Liberty school by the Liberty cemetery first two years. A one room boxed ans stripped building. Later six month schools. Home made seats and desks, also in 1900 a new building with 2 rooms and two teachers for my brothers. I attended a four week normal school at Mangus the summer after I was 16 in 1901. Ellen Reeves and I stayed with her sister, Eula Norris and family. I took the county examination and got a 3rd grade certificate, but was so young did't try to get a school. We, Ellen and I went three month to Mr. Erwin to school that winter. The other three months were at Willow Grove in a different building, but same school district. Rob's folks lived near there and his sisters went that three months. He walked five or six miles and came to Liberty part of the time. He was the best looking boy around. I thought such pretty hair and eyes. Papa boarded Pearl in Mangus and let her go to a real good school in the 8th grade, I guess nine months. I attended another summer normal six weeks in Granite, Oklahoma in 1903. I was 18 years old then and got a second grad certificate and taught school at Mesquite, southwest of Hollis, near the river. Taught 8 grades in a one room boxed school house with 75 pupils on roll. Got $40.00 a month, paid $8.00 board. A four month term of school. Took an 8th grade class through the Ray's Arithmetic.
After school that summer I went on the train to Frisco Texas, Collin County and visited Aunt Sallie Webb and Uncle John Hill's family. Two weeks then and two weeks with my sister Azzie and family in Venus, Texas. Her sixth child, Raymond (Pete) was born the day I went home, August 1st. That winter 1904-1905 I taught school another small school house New Nine this side of Duke. Same length of term and same price. That fall Pearl and Jim Gibbons got married, December 17, 1905. She was 18 years old the July before. She had a pretty wedding at home and big supper.
Half sister Juanita was born January 17 and when she wa a week old a cousin Abra Allen come from San Angelo and was spending the night with us. I cooked supper for all of us and needed an extra lamp so sent Roy upstairs to get one. A small lamp with a tin reflector was hanging on wall at the head of the bed. We supposed Roy lighted the lamp and dropped the match on bed. About the time I got dishes washed, we heard a noise upstairs and thought it might be a cat, then a louder noise and Papa jumped up and opened the stairway dooor and down came smoke and blazes. The whole top of that room was burning. The baby only a week old, women didnt walk around then as they do now. It took some time to get the baby and Mama out and on a bed. It was a beautiful still moon lit night, so we carried lot of things out. Mama, Pearl and I had made 20 quilts that summer, Pearl had 8 and moved hers, but I had 15 and all burned but one that was downstairs. All my clothes, books and everything but pictures were burned. We had an organ we got out and most things in living room. Papa had weather boarded our house, painted white, trimmed in bright red. We had packed balls of rags and had two new rag carpets on two large bedrooms and a bought cloth carpet in living room. all had praire grass under them and new window curtains and we were so proud of our home. I had on a new calico dress tied an apron on my head and had an old coat downstairs was all I had left. All four boys clothes but what they had on were burned- all had new Sunday shoes and clothes.
In 1900 we had a buggy driven by two horses. Very few people had any way to go but a wagon. Later Papa bought a hack they were called, two seated vehicle and Papa was so good to let Jim and Clyde take us and the Enyart girls and Laura Satcher to parties and singings when we didn't have boy friends. We all had good times in our days. Lots of times three and four couples went to literaries and parties, box suppers and singings in one wagon. My first boy friend was Ellen Reeves, one of my best girl friends brother, herman Reeves. I was about 16 years old. I went with Rob off and on for four years. We got married in a double wedding, Laura Satcher and Rob's brother, Jess at Laura's house with about 100 people there. We stood on the ground in front of the house, March 4, 1906. We moved into a half dugout and lived first two years. Pearl and Jim had a two room house and Laura and Jess had two rooms downstairs and two upstairs. Laura and I visited every week. My first child, a girl Floy Alice, 10 lbs., was born December 21, 1906, just nine months and 17 days later. Laura and Jess had a boy, 8 lbs., Robert Gordon. Laura and I were both members of Church of Christ and that made us closer to each other as the Richardson were very prejudiced family. We loved all of them and they loved us. There were eleven children, six girls and five boys. One boy between Rob and Linnie died when a baby. Linnie died with cancer of lungs in December, 1949, nearly 63, the other 10 all living to this date of November 21, 1964.
We four celebrated our golden wedding anniversary in 1956 here at our house. After living on their farm by us for 20 years. Jess and Laura moved to Hollis where schools were better. They had Harmon, Arzie, and twins Olen and Olive, all younger than my children. Floy married in February, 1924 to Raymond Leese and our first grandchild, Billy Ray, a beautiful baby boy was born January, 1926. Gordon was nearly 18 so we all were so very foolish over him and was 10 years before we had his sister Mary Ann in March 1936. Gordon married Lorene Ford in Altus in March, 1931. They had no children till February, 1937, and Gordon Don was born. They were living in Hollis by then and had a nice brick home and grocery store. Gordon had a sore throat often and in January, 1940 had strip throat that abscessed and no medicine common to treat it, went to hospital on Friday and passed away on Monday 22nd day of January. The most terrible thing in all our lives. We have lived on these 24 years without him, but so sad and lonely. At first we felt like we could not live without him, but we knew he would want us to take up our lives and go on.
Back to our early married years. We went through the 1930 depression days and many years of drouth. We worked hard with my two babies and I wasn't very strong. I never worked in the fields, like most women but very little. Raised chickens and turkeys. I helped milk cows, separators, churned butter, run incubators, hunted turkey eggs, cooked for many hired hands for many years. We had 320 acres of school land leased, bought it from the state for $4,000.00 in 1916 with 40 years to pay for it. We bought two other farms, 160 acres each before we paid out the school land in about 1940. Later bought 250 acres north of us and finally cleared it all in about 1943. We also bought 160 acres in Jackson County, brakes land, traded it for the north east quarter in brakes pasture for $600.
It was so far out to come to church regularly and roads so bad when it rained or snowed, I finally got Rob to move to town in October, 1947. Billy Ray married Quida Turner the same month and they moved on our farm. In July, 1948 our first great-grandchild, Cathy Gail was born. In September, 1951 Carol was born. Wjem Catju amd Carp; were 10 and 13, little Rob, their brother was born, the pride and joy of all our lives. Rob passed away May 7, 1965, leaving me alone.
My only sister, Pearl Gibbons, died in April, 1960. How I wish she was here to live with me. She had two boys, Woodrow and Roy White. Wodrow and Louise Baird Gibbons have four real nice children, woody Dean has his master's degree, James coy and Nita Jacqueline also have their degrees, and Sara Ann will receive her degree in May of 1973. Roy White lives in Gould, he and Lois have three married children, James Roy, Lois Mae, and Joyce Ann are twin girls.
Raymond Leese, Floy's husband died in December 21, 1950 with what they thought was a brain tumor after suffering six months. In 1955 she married Arledge Cook, an elder of our church. He was 15 years older then Floy, but they were very happy for 16 years. He died after a long illness in 1971 and she married Foy Garrison on August 4, 1972 and they are very happy living in Gainsville till he retires in November 1, 1973. They then will move back to Wichita Falls Cathy, my oldest great-granddaughter had 3 years of college at Abilene Christian College and this is her second year at Lubbock Christian College. She will get her degree next spring. Mary Ann has a little boy Neil, 9 and they adopted a baby boy in June, three months old. She finished college at Denton, Texas. She majored in home economics, two years, then buisness two years, bookkeeping, typing, shorthand. Been teaching 13 years at the same school. Bob White, her husband, is a deacon in a large Church of Christ in Wichita Falls. Billy Ray's wife, Quida a very sweet person, just like another daughter. Billy and Quida live in Lubbock, Texas and run a big cattle sale barn. Don Richardson, Gordon's son, lives in Hollis, and farms all our land her (Lorene) land.

Transcribed from handwritten notes by A Find A Grave contributor

Transcribed to Find A Grave by Carolyn Mackey-Byrum


James Overton Hill had 3 wives. The first two died and he remarried Minnie Parolee Woolley Woods.

1. M Lovona Woods - 1855 - 1881
2 children - Azza May Hill 1878 - ?
Rosa Lavona Hill 1880 - 1881

2. Sallie Ann Brown - 1861 - 1893
6 Children
Ernest Exelle Hill 1885-1886
Vida Pearl Hill 1887-1960
John DeWitt Hill 1889-1891
James Oren Hill 1891-1968
Rolly White Hill 1893-1976
Roy Gilbert Hill 1893-1968

3. Minnie Parolee Woolley Woods - 1868 - 1943
4 Children
Doyl Overton Hill - 1901 - 1985
Lemual Waydelle Hill - 1904 - 1974
Lois Juanita Hill Pearce - 1906 - 1978
Dena Dill Hill - 1908 - 1990

James Oren Hill, Rolly White Hill and Dena Dill Hill are buried in the Morton Memorial Cemetery, Morton Texas.


According to his death certificate his occupation at the time of his death was as a Salesman at the "Music House" in San Angelo, Tom Green Co., Texas