Cleo Remembers When….

by Cleo Hinton

Forney Messenger
Thursday, 27 June 1974, Page 2

I first started to school in the Markout Community, about 4 miles South of Forney which today is located on F.M. Road 740. Then we only had dirt roads which were muddy and sloppy when it rained. We often came to town on Saturdays in a wagon or surrey. My father, Andrew J. Farmer, gave us children 15 c each to spend for “goodies” – my 15c always went for a package of chewing gum, 5c worth of candy from the E.E. Reagin Grocery Store and 5c worth of ice-cream from the Griffin Drug Store.

All the children in the community walked to school – our home was 2 miles from the school – which didn’t seem that far as each family of children waited for the others to come along so there were 25 or 30 before we reached the school. We wore long underwear during the winter months to keep warm and high top laced or button shoes, and we carried our books in a satchel and our lunches in a small lard bucket with holes punched in the lids to give our food some air. Even tho’ most of us didn’t have much money, we ate well because we had gardens, chickens, hogs, orchards, and cows so we had biscuits with sausage in between, boiled eggs, fried pies, tea, cakes and an apple or an orange in our lunch pails, often we would “swap” something with a school mate and add variety to our lunches. Looking back, we were a happy group. I’m sure the children of today cannot conceive of such hardships, but it wasn’t hardships to us – it was our way of life – and it was a good life of close family ties – no running around at nights – mothers were always at home with us, and helped us with our homework at night – we did not have electricity then so we studied by a kerosene lamp.

We would all go to Sunday school and church on Sunday in the school house, and you couldn’t tell who were Baptists, Methodists, Christians or Presbyterians, and nobody cared. Jack Trott’s mother, who was then Miss Mattie Starnes, played the Piano, and all the children knew the words to all the old Hymns before we could read.

Living in the rural communities in those days couldn’t be anything but good when we see some wonderful men and women today who were born and raised in the communities around Forney.