The Homeplace

The Blackwell property included most of the intersection of mile 5 leading from downtown Weslaco, north to Elsa, and mile 10 which ran east and west. Mile 5 was a major 2 lane road, which was widened sometime in the late 1950s. While the widening was going on we took the opportunity to   play in the big dirt piles and in the big concrete pipes that were lying along the roadside for weeks. It was a sad day when the construction was complete and our temporary playground was no longer there. Mile 10 was just slightly wider than a single lane road. When two cars came towards each other, each would have to pull over to the side of the road as they passed each other. That's just the way it was.

Tompa and Granny's house was set back from the intersection quite a bit. It was on the southwest corner.There was a small pasture at the exact corner of the two roads and a corral behind that. Their house was to one side of the corral. Their front yard had a circular drive that led up to the front porch and then back out to the road.

Also beside the corral were some outbuildings, including an old outhouse which stood beside a tall tree. Someone had tied a rope to a high branch in the tree so that if you climbed up onto the outhouse (there was a fence alongside to help) you could grab the rope and swing off the roof out into space. Then you'd come crashing back onto the outhouse roof and could sometimes managed to regain your position on top of the roof without falling to the ground.

Also on the property was a long U-shaped concrete canal that occasionally had water in it, but mostly only a little sludge in the bottom. The lip of the concrete U stuck up  2" or 3" above ground and was maybe 2" or 3" wide. It was fun to try to balance while walking on that lip without either falling into the canal or off the other side onto the dirt bank. In either case you'd end up with some abrasions or at least some stickers. We also enjoyed running inside the canal, which was probably 3' deep. But in order not to step in the sludge it was necessary to run from side to side, jumping over the sludge as you went. Took a certain amount of skill to do that without ending up with stinky mud on your feet. And since we didn't always wear shoes, mud wasn't a good thing.

Another attraction on our homeplace playground was what we called the Tall Texan. It was a giant cottonwood tree, at least 40' high or more. We all climbed it from time to time, although it wasn't my favorite thing to do because there were sometimes ants also climbing it. Once you got up there you could sit on a branch and see for miles and miles, or so it felt like. Why none of us fell and broke a neck is beyond me.

Royce and Margueritte's house was on the southeast corner, but there was also a pasture between the house and the actual corner. A big pasture surrounded the back of their house and led to the barn, which was maybe 1/2 mile away.

And on the northwest corner sat Weldon and Dorothy's house. Their house wasn't separated from the corner by much, just the yard. There was a playhouse in the yard not to far from the roads. It had been built by Dorothy's dad, Tom Anderson, who owned a lumber yard a mile or so away. In back of their house was a field that at first held a citrus grove. After a hard freeze, the trees were removed and various things were grown, cotton, corn, maize, etc. There were always citrus trees in the back yard though, and a lemon tree right by the back door. So anytime we wanted lemonade or lemon in our tea, all we had to do was reach out the backdoor and pluck one.

The property on the northeast corner was not owned by the Blackwells, although I always thought it should have been. Then the whole thing could have been called Blackwell Corners, which I thought had a certain nice ring to it.

Less than 1/4 mile down the road from Tompa and Granny's was Grandma Lacy's house, also surrounded by a field. And another 1/4 mile away was the home of Tom and E.W. Anderson, Dorothy's parents. One story is about Mike, who at the age of about 2 decided to go visit Grandma Lacy. Trouble is he didn't tell anyone what was on his mind. He just walked out of Granny's house one day when no one was looking, walked that 1/4 mile down the busy road without getting hit by a truck, walked in her back door, through the house, and out the front door, and right on back home again. Grandma Lacy said he walked right through the house without saying a word. She went out to the road to watch and see that he got home ok. The grownups probably didn't even miss him and nothing bad happened, but the story could have had a much different ending.

All this area was our growing up place. We never knocked on doors growing up. Just came on in. Your house was my house, and my house was your house, and shoes were optional. It was a fine way for us kids to live.

Roland

Pop (Weldon) always praised his big brother, Roland, to the skies. He seemed to be the perfect person who always stood up for and was kind to his little brother, no matter what. Apparently he was very good at football and got a scholarship to Stephen F. Austin college. The way I heard it Roland was very dedicated and played in the cold rain even though he was ill. He came down with pneumonia and died at the young age of 20 or 21 in 1931. Later I realized that there must be more to it than that because Tompa and Granny had taken him to Arizona to a sanatorium for awhile. It didn't help and they brought him back to Weslaco where he died. I may be wrong, but it sounds like he probably had tuberculosis and not just pneumonia. Anyway,  it must have been a terrible blow to his entire family. I know it was to Pop, especially since he looked up to Roland as the perfect big brother.

I may not be totally accurate on my dates, ages, and the name of the college. If you know differently please correct me.

Memories of Granny

Granny (Emma Elizabeth) was always a lot of fun. She let us girls do whatever in her house. She had a 4 poster double bed covered with a big fluffy feather mattress. She didn't seem to mind that we got on that bed and rolled around, jumped up and down, and had wrestling matches. I remember having a jar of peanut butter and a spoon on the dresser next to the bed. When the "bell" rang to end a round of wrestling I'd go back to the jar and lick off a spoonful of peanut butter before the "bell" rang again. No telling if some peanut butter didn't end up on the covers. Granny also let us play beauty shop with her as the victim, er, client. We were allowed to brush her long hair and twist it up on top of her head or braid it or whatever. We could put powder and rouge and lipstick on her, usually in copious amounts. She didn't mind looking like a demented clown as long as we were kept busy happily dolling her up. 

Mom told me that Granny wasn't much of a housekeeper. When she was young she much preferred to be outside with the chickens or in the garden to being inside doing cleaning and cooking, so her mother and big sister just let her. After she was grown and had her own family she didn't change much, although she did learn to make great pies. However, being organized and neat wasn't in her nature. She told my mother that she wished she could just have a bunch of pegs on the wall all around her bedroom where she could hang her clothes instead of having to put them on hangers in the closet or folded in drawers. As the mother of 4 rowdy boys, it's probably just as well she wasn't a neatnik. 

She and Tompa liked to play dominos and card games, but were notorious cheats. Better not leave the room or you'd come back to find that "someone" had moved the dominoes or peeked at your card hand. And Granny had zero patience or self-control when it came to gift wrap. She wanted to know what was in a present NOW, not wait till Christmas morning. You could always count on the gift wrap on a present to be partly torn open because she had been snooping trying to see what was inside. She wasn't very good at repairing the damage once she'd snooped. We could always tell.

Granny liked to sleep with her head covered up. In fact sometimes she'd be sitting on the back porch watching tv with a blanket over her head but her face peeking out. And she loved to self-medicate. A trip to the drugstore for over-the-counter remedies was among her favorite things. Weldon inherited this love of OTC shopping and had drawers and bathroom cabinets full of all kinds of cures for his various ailments, real and imagined.

 Sometime in the 1960s Granny suffered a stroke that slowed down her speech and ability to get around very well. Not long after she had another stroke that paralyzed her totally. All she could move were her eyes. Tompa took care of her at home for years with the help of a couple of nurses who were there part of the time. We really didn't know if Granny had any idea who we were or what we were saying when we visited, and it was hard to see her lying there totally inert. What a sad ending for such a fun-loving lady. She was 84 when she passed away.

Nancy

adding to the card playing story.........Carol and I would spend entire afternoons playing canasta with them.  Tompa and I were always partners and he insisted that we face north and south because that was his lucky direction. I took that explanation without question, but later I wondered if there were other advantages, like being able to see Granny 's or Carol's hands better......When we didn't win, Tompa would have a hard time containing his anger.  He just KNEW that they cheated somehow, because WE were the superior players..........Carol and Granny just giggled with delight....which irritated Tompa more.......

  this is where we need Carol's version of this story.....

  I do remember us spending the night with Granny and sleeping in the feather bed.  Remember the little red, metal suitcases she gave us one xmas?  They were alike except for the teddybear on the front.  We packed these cases and brought them to spend the night.

 Do you remember the next morning?  The bedroom was next to the kitchen and there was much noise with the making of breadfast.I recall homemade biscuits with butter and syrup combined.  tompa would say that the biscuit to syrup ratio didn't come out even as an excuse to get another serving.  Also recall thick bacon and sometimes cream gravy .  Any leftover biscuits and bacon sat on the stove covered with a dishcloth.   One could snitch a biscuit any time of the day.....great snack

Patty

Tommy and TomPa Aug 1973

Thomas Blackwell Family Tree

Emma Elzabeth Gooch Family Tree

kidnapper

I confess. I was a 5 year old kidnapper. My mom took me with her down the road about a mile to visit with Mrs. Hubbard and her 3 kids, Mary Lou, Martha, and Jimbo. Jimbo was maybe two younger than I. We were having a great time playing while the adults chatted, but it was time to go home all too soon. I was not ready to stop playing yet so I managed to somehow smuggle Jimbo into the backseat of Mom's car. She had no idea we had a stowaway until we got home and he popped up with a big grin on his little face. I thought we'd be able to just keep on playing, but alas, that's not what happened. Mom phoned Mrs. Hubbard, who hadn't even had time to miss him. She came and took him home, much to my disappointment. I don't remember getting into trouble over this. Maybe Mom thought it was funny enough to let it slide.

Nancy

Archaeologists

They (Royce, Weldon and perhaps Tompa) were leveling a piece of land, and some earth moving machine opened up an Indian mound of  artifacts. Much of the mound was gone when dad noticed it, unfortunately. What remained were assorted bones and a few beads.  After some research Dad surmised that these were the remains of the indigenous people of that area, the Karankawa (sp?) Indians. He attempted to get feedback from PAC and some creditable people, but I don't recall if that was successful or not.  Anyway, our dads were all excited about being acheologists.....  Dad packed the artifacts away very carefully and every now and then he would get them out and we would listen to him tell all  about them.  I used the artifacts as visual aids in two speeches ....one is high school and another in college...earning good marks on both.  .......Wonder where that box is now.  Maybe in a box in my attic?

Patty

Engagement Ring

I wonder how accurate my memories are......  but my best recollection is that Tom and Em were newly engaged and riding in a horse drawn buggy when they began to argue......about what, I don't recall if I ever knew, but knowing the Blackwell hardheadedness, I can only imagine.  So Granny showed him.  She removed her engagement ring and tossed it away.  Tom was stunned and regretted making her angry enough to do such a thing.  He stopped the wagon, aned together they searched in the grass until they found it. The ring was returned to her finger where it stayed for many years. I recall Granny saying that they laughed about this whenever the two of them relived this story.  After Granny passed, Tompa gave the ring to Betty because she was her namesake.....

    So this is my first contribution to the family  stories

Patty

Foul ball

Tompa told me about an outing he and granny went on one summer day when they were new parents. Folks were picnicking and the men were playing baseball. Royce was just an infant and wanted to be fed. Granny sat down under a tree and was nursing the baby when a foul ball came flying through the air right at her. Sure enough - wham! The baseball hit granny in the chest just inches above Royce's little head. I'm sure she said more than Ouch! But I'm also sure that she was more than happy to take the blow rather than her baby boy. Bob, Patty, Carol, Robbie, Cody, Cori, Jason, Crystal, Brooke, Owen, Luke, Clara, Ethan, Ernest, Eleanor, and Emma should feel relieved, too.
Nancy

TomPa Waco PD 1913

I was shot by a blank rifle cartridge.

Sheldon tells me that I should include this here, before his father tells his version…

Austin, TX Aug 1, 1968 I was in the family garage enjoying the gunpowder that I could get out of the 500 blank M-16 shells that my dad had brought back from his National Guard 2 week training. It soon became obvious that instead of empting each brass shell to obtain the gunpowder and then go through the work of re packaging the gunpowder in a tight compact package, with a homemade fuse to create a loud bang, that simply hitting the primer should activate the "bang".

My older sister's boyfriend, a  friend, my youngest sister and I discussed the concept and decided that placing a shell in the bench mounted vice in garage, placing a 12 penny nail against the primer and whacking the nail with a hammer would be a good idea. It was a blank and would just go BANG, right?

I hesitated too long with the nail and the hammer and Ken ( the sister's boyfriend) who was 3 years older and sooo much wiser, took the nail and hammer from me and whacked the shell.

BAM!                                           

It was loud! Like a .357  had been fired without hearing protection loud!

And something kicked me in the side and threw me a few feet away against an old rollaway bed.  And it hurt! And it was HOT!

I must have had an odd expression on my face as the others turned to me and saw me with both hands on my side just above my jeans waist band.

"I've been hit."

Not believing me, Ken pried my hands away to see a tiny dime sized hole with just a little blood and some fat tissue leaking out.

He told my youngest sister to get mom.  I complained that my vision was getting dark and Ken picked me up and laid me on the hood of the family station wagon with my feet up the windshield. My vision returned to normal. Mom came in and got the story. We could see from the brass shell  ( now expanded dramatically, that there was a piece missing about the size of a dime, about the same size as the hole in my side.

Mom went to house and called and located a surgeon that had worked on dad a few months earlier. She told him the situation and he agreed to wait at the St. David's hospital there in Austin. Some 15 miles away. There was no ambulance service, no EMS, no 911.

The surgeon had told mom to keep direct pressure on the wound. They laid me across the back seat of the station wagon and my friend mashed on my stomach. We sped to the hospital. I recall seeing a group of nurses and doctors outside the hospital entrance, I got out of the car and was able to climb onto the gurney, they wheeled me inside.

Just inside the entrance in a small exam room, the doctor ( same surgeon) held up a long shiny set of forceps and said " Have seen Gunsmoke? I'm going to probe for the bullet."  I nodded and he stuck about 6 inches of the forceps into the hole. I shouted  " Wait, wait , wait". he withdrew the forceps and I said " In Gunsmoke they give you a shot of whiskey for the pain, can I get some whiskey"?

He chose against the whiskey and instead injected some painkiller around the hole. He back in. It was not any better. If the pain killer was doing anything, it was doing it to my skin, not my insides and the pain was incredible.  he wisely gave up trying to locate the tiny piece and sent me to X Ray and prep for surgery.

Knowing what we know today of first aid , it is apparent those practices were not in place in 1968.

My vision being so quickly affected and then improved by body position is a clear indication of blood loss to the brain. There was no blood leaking out of me, but it was going somewhere. My friend’s direct pressure probably saved my life.

When we arrived at the hospital, no one took a blood pressure or pulse rate. If they had, they would have seen the critical state we were in.  My blood pressure would have been unreadable and my pulse rate would have been about 1000. The piece had sliced a hole in my left femoral artery. I was bleeding out.

So, I was lucky that the doc couldn't find the piece with the forceps. I think if he had, he would have sewed the hole shut and wished for the best.

Instead the X Ray showed the location and the doc quickly sliced a 6 inch vertical opening just to left of my naval and learned what was going on. My body cavity was full of blood. They quickly typed my blood and began infusions. I took 13 units.

The doc sewed the artery back together, and found a nick on the top of my colon and sewed that back, then retrieved the tiny piece of brass and sewed the incision closed.

Being 15, I healed rapidly.

Also, being 15, I didn’t quit making homemade bombs or explosives, I just got more sophisticated with the ignition.

We lived through crazy dangerous stuff back then.

Relations

Tompa was the next to youngest in a big family of 12 or 13 kids. One of his oldest sisters was named Emma. I met her in Austin once. She was rather rotund. His little sister was Aunt Mary Jane. She was  fairly petite, if I remember correctly. I met her in Winters. Tompa and Mary Jane, being the youngest two seemed to have a lot of sibling rivalry going on, even in their old age. They loved to argue with each other.

Granny (Emma Elizabeth) was the daughter of a widow, Georgia Gooch, who married Mr. Lacy after her first husband died. Granny had a sister and a brother, Claude. I can't recall the sister's name at the moment, but Claude was married to Delilah and they lived on a farm near Winters. I visited their farmhouse once as a child. There was an actual upstairs and a cellar. Those were pretty foreign to me having grown up in the Valley where two story homes were rare, and cellars were unheard of.

Granny's mother,  known to me as Grandma Lacy, lived in a house about 1/4 mile from Tompa and Granny's house north of Weslaco. After Mr. Gooch died she married Mr Lacy and had two more sons, Jim and William (?). William's son, Bill, lives in Shalimar, FL which is just a few miles from where I live now. It's a small world!

Doc must have been a doctor, or a quack. I remember being very small and getting sick. Doc came to the house and sprayed something in my throat, and I threw right up on the carpet. I never did like him.  I seem to remember Mom telling me he was a drunk. So why did they let him spray something in my throat????

I also remember when Grandma Lacy died. She lived to be 97 or 98, I think. She was a tiny little old woman who always had her gray hair pulled back in a bun. Anyway, I remember we were going over to Granny's house and my mother told me not to be running around making noise because Grandma had died and we were suppose to be quiet.

Nancy

Moving to Weslaco

My dad told me this story about moving the family from the Killeen area to Weslaco. TomPa and the older boys had made train trips to the valley area to locate the new homestead. I am assuming they knew their Killeen area  property was being purchased by the federal government for the construction of Fort Hood. They found the property and bought the land and the house that was on it. Sometime later, they packed all their belongings and drove to their new home.

To their surprise there was a family living in it! TomPa explained that he was the rightful owner, but the family refused to leave, saying they were paying rent to the Sheriff.

TomPa had his family unload from the truck and he told them to wait in the front yard. He took the truck and a revolver to town to “meet with” the Sheriff.  Sometime later that day, TomPa and the Sheriff returned and the Sheriff explained to the resident family that indeed the Blackwells owned the property and they had to leave immediately.

Tommy Blackwell

The School Superintendent

He also took the family to Oklahoma for awhile and somehow became the superintendent of the school system (which was probably a one room schoolhouse). As I remember hearing it the teacher was having trouble with one of the kids and give him a whipping. The kid's father came up to the school and gave the teacher a whipping. So Tompa, being the superintendent, went to see the father, and gave HIM a whipping. In retaliation, the father burned the school house down. After that Tompa and family left and went back to Texas. 
Nancy

The Flood

OK. Here's another one. Tompa and Granny had lived on farms/ranches during their youth. I guess at some point he decided he wanted a different kind of life and became a policeman in Waco. I don't know how long that lasted, but I do remember that he said there was a flood in the city, and his job had him rescuing "whores" from rooftops in a rowboat.
Nancy

The Beginning

This blog is for the descendants of Tompa (Thomas David Blackwell) and Granny (Emma Elizabeth Gooch Blackwell) and their sons, Royce M. (born in 1906), Roland T. (born 1910), Weldon C. (born 1913), and Thomas D. (born in 1918). It would be sad if some of the great stories we have about our family were forgotten, and very sad if the younger generation never got to hear them. Therefore let's get them down in writing before they're lost and gone forever.

We'll start with the story of Tompa's father, G.W. Blackwell (George Washington?). The way I remember it being told, he was a Texas ranger for awhile in the 1880s. His wife, whose maiden name was Parson or Parsons, was worried that it was too dangerous. They had a passel of children to raise, so she convinced him to give up the job. After that he stayed home on the farm from then on, but took up itinerant preaching. He traveled in the area (near Killeen?) preaching at various gathering. There was a family of bad guys around  (the Darnels) who must have been doing some really bad stuff because G.W. took to preaching against them. They didn't like this and one day while he was on his way home in the buckboard, they ambushed him! Shot him in the head. So his wife's fears were realized, but not because he had stayed in the Rangers. Tompa told me that they had his daddy laid out for the funeral and Tompa was made to kiss the body on the face (despite the fact that there was a bullet hole in the head). He was only 3 or 4 at the time, but it left an impression. He vowed to get revenge on the Darnels and was probably a very angry kid during his growing up years. But when he was a teenager a tent revival came to town, he was saved, and he decided revenge was not the Christian thing to do and gave up on the idea. Thanks goodness! Where would we all be now if he'd gotten revenge but ended up in prison for life???

Please add on or correct if you remember the story differently. I have a feeling there will be several versions of most of our stories.

Nancy
___________