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Edith L. Crawford,
Carrizozo, N. Mex.
PIONEER STORY.
Date: February 17, 1939.
Words: 158)
ToAc: Pioneer Story.
Source of Information:
Mollie Grove Smith,
White Oaks, New Mexioo.
r7,
I have lived in the State of New Mexico for about forty-
five years and in Lincoln County about twenty-five years. I
was born September 15, 1878, near Memphis Tennessee. My father
was T. 0. Grove. He was born ;uly 25, 1854 on a farm near Memphis
Tennessee. My mother was Mattis Hill and was born September 18,
1856, in Mississippi. I do not remember the place. My mother
and father were married in Middleton, Tennessee, October 26, 1873.
They moved frac Middleton, Tennessee, to Brown County, Texas, in
1878. I was about six weeks old when they moved and had an older
sister and brother. My father farmed in Brown County Texas, but
they did not like it very well there so in the summer of 1884
they moved to New Mexico.
There were six of us ohildren then. We moved in a covered
wagon and had all of our household goods and a coop of chickens,
besides the family. A family by the name of Willis left Texas
with us for New Mexico. They also had a covered wagon. I do
not remember much about them, they left us when we got to Peoos,
Texas. I was six years old at that time. I remember that my
father and my oldest brother, Herbert, slept on the ground and
Mother and the rest of us slept in the wagon. Mother cooked on
a camp fire. I remember gathering fuel. After we got on the
plains we had to gather cow chips to cook with. We had three
horses. I do not know how long it took us to make the trip.
When we got to Pecoe, Texas, my father joined two other
families who were on their way to New Mexico. One man was named
F. M. Evans. He had a wife and ten children and about a hundred
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head of cattle. The other man was named George Castleberry. He had
a wife and seven children. Both traveled in covered wagons. My
father and brother, Herbert, helped Mr. Evans to drive his cattle.
74 traveled slowly and grazed the cattle along. We cams
to thz Lower Pen'easeo aad to the Upper Pensasco and on to James
Canyon where we camped for .iuite a while. At that time this was in
Lincoln County, New Mexico. This Tas a lovely place to camp with
lots of grass and water. My mother told my father that she had
found the iilace where she wanted to live, right there in James Canyon.
All three families decided to locate there so each man filed on one
hundred and sixty acres. My father homesteaded his. one hundred sixty
acres to include the spring where we had camped. Mr. L'vans located
about a mile above us and the Castleberry family about a half mile
from Mr. Evans.
Eueh family got a tent and we lived in those tents for several
months until the men got houses built for their families. The houses
were built of hand hewn logs with the roof made or boards rived by
hand. At first the houses were just one big room with a large fire-
place. I remember that my mother cooked on this fireplace and we
depended mostly on the fireplace for light as well as warmth.
Bach man cleared a field and fenced it with split rails. My father
cleared about twenty-five acres at first and enlarged his field each
year. My father planted oats, Irish potatoes and all kinds of garden
stuff. The grass was about waist high then and my father out grass
hay with a hand scythe, to feed his horses t.irough the winter months.
I remember that we used to thrash out our seed oats with a pole or
flail, as we called it. My mother and we children did most of the
work on the farm. Father bad good horses and be decided that he
could make good money freighting. At first he had only one wagon,
but before very long he got another wagon and team and my oldest
brother Herbert helped him and drove one of the wagons.
One winter a man by the name of Greeley came through by our
place looking for a place to winter some cattle. My father had a
lot of hay out so he decided to winter these cattle on halves. I
do not remember how many of the cattle there were at first but my
father got thirty-five head for his share in the spring. We were
so proud of those cattle.
After we had been on our homestead for about three years
three other families located not far from us, two families named
Hunter and one named Holden. That gave us quite a settlement.
if4e had a post office then called Pine Springs and the first post-
mistress was Mrs. Caleb Holden. I remember that an Indian carried
the mail on horseback. I was just dreadfully afraid of him and
he often stopped at our house to warm and eat. I always hid behind
Mother's big quilt box until be left. Mother used to knit soaks
and mittens and sold them to him for fifty cents a pair.
The men of the settlement built a log school house. I de
not remember the name of the first teacher that I went to school
to, but he was fat and bald headed. I remember at one time that
at one time the Hunter, Holden and Grove family (ours) had a gov-
erness by the name of Elvira Kinney. There were sixteen or us
that she taught and each family boarded this governess for a week
at a time and she would go fron one family to the other. Her salary
was ten dollars a month and her board. She taught us for two summers.
There was a baptist preacher in the community that we all
called Parson john Hunter. I have often heard my father tell this
tale on Parson Zohn. Once just before Christmas when my father
had gone to Roswell with his freight wagons to haul our Christmas
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supplies, Parson John joined him with his wagon on the home trip.
They had heard that there was a case or smallpox on the road at
a store run by a man named Unnedy. Parson John had one of his
children along who was sick and the Parson was just sure the child
had smallpox. As the wagons neared this store Parson frokin stood
up in his wagon and yelled: "Everybody strike a lope! Everybody
Lope your teams by this store! Hurry, everybody hurry!" My father
thought that was so funny.
There was no doctor in the settlement. I remember once
that my brother Luther got very sick and we did 'not know what was
the matter with him. My mother and a neighbor woman took Luther
and went to the Mescalero Indian Reservation to a doctor. When
they got there they found that the doctor was a negro. My mother
was horrified but the baby was so sick that she decided to let
the doctor prescribe. The doctor said that Luther had bone or-
isipilas and that the bones would work out of his foot. Sure
enough they did and my brother is crippled in that foot to this
day. My mother was the mid -wife in our coramunity and often
was called on to doctor the minor ailments in the settlement.
As we children got older my mother worried about not having
better school advantages for us so she decided to move to Las
Cruces and send us to school. We lived there for three years.
When my father was freighting I used to go with him once
in a while on his trips. I remember once that my oldest sister
Olga and went with father to White Oaks. Father had oats, po-
tatoes, garden stuffs, butter and eggs, to trade for groceries
and clothes. One of the merchants where Father traded gave
Olga and ma each a little breast pin. We thought they were the
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grandest things and were very proud of them indeed. We thought
that White Oaks was the biggest city in the world. Another time I
vent with my father to El Paso. I saw my firststreet oars there.
We went into a restaurant to eat and I went with my father into a
small roam to wash up. saw a big ft ohinaman standing behind a
door pulling a rope. I could not imagine what he was doing and :vas
very frightened. Afterwards I found out that the rope that be was
pulling operated some fans over the tables in the restaurant.
There were ten or us children, Olga, Herbert and Mollie,
born in Tennessee, Sissala, :Imrie and Willie, born in Brown County,
?efts, :ohn, ndward and Luther, born in :ames Canyon, New Mexico,
and Bppie Jean, born in Las Cruees, New Mexico. Seven of us art
still livinc.
In 1895 my father sold his place in James Canyon to Colonel
3. E. Edgington, who was head of the New Mexico Military Institute
at Roswell, New Mexico. We moved back to Texas and lived at Sipe
Springs, Comanohie County, Texas.
I Was married in January. 1898, to William Les Smith.
we have two sons, Leo and Orris, both born in SiPe prings, Texas.
In 1900 my husband and I left Sipe Springs, Texas, and moved
baok to New M412100. We lived in James Canyon, tn the same house
that my father had built on his homestead and had lived in for
eleven years. 44) rented the place from Colonel Edgington and farmed
it for five years. In 1905 my husband went to work for the El Paso
and Southwestern Railroad Company and we moved to Alamogordo, New
Mexico. My husband ran on the mountain division from Alamogordo to
Clouderoft, New Mexico. On Marsh 19„ 1924, a log rolled off a flat
oar and hurt him very badly, injuring his beak. Be had to give up
working on the railroad and was sent by the railroad oompany to
Garrizozo, New Mexico, as caretaker for the railroad club house at
Carrizozo. -4 lived in Carrizozo for eighteen months, but Mr.
Smith was very dissatisfied so we leased a ranch about eight miles
from White Oaks, New Maxim), and lived there for five years. In
1932 we moved into the village of White Oaks and are still living
there.
Edward Grove, who was president of the Paris Medicine Com-
pany of 3aint Louis, Missouri, and who put out Groves Chill Tonic
and Grove's Laxative Bramo-quinine, on the market, is a first
cousin oflmy father. have a letter dated December 23, 1913,
from =ward Grove to my father in which he sent a check to my
father for $100.00, as a Christmas gift.
My father and mother moved fraa Sipe Springs, TOXIIS, to
Gorman, Texas, in 1910 and they were living at Gorman when they
died. Tether died on Murch 3, 1936, and Aotbior died September 3,
1938. Of the seven children left, I allt the only one who lives
in New Lexie°. The others all live in Texas.
NARRATOR: Mollie Grove Smith, Aged 60 years. White Oaks, New Mexico.
Edith L. Crawford,
Carrizozo, New Mexico.
CORRECTIONS ON PIONEER STORY OF
MOLLIE GROVE SMITH.
MAR 1 6 1939
Page 4. Paragraph 3. We moved to Las Cruces, New Mexioo,
in August, 1891.
Tegs 6. Paragraph 8. I have a letter dated December 23,
1913, from Edward W. Grove to my father in which he sent
my father a check for $100.00 for a Christmas gift. This
Edward W. Grove was president of the Pant Medicine Como.
pany of: Saint Louis, Missouri, and was a very wealthy man.
He was my father's first cousin and visited in our home
once in a while. I do not know just how many checks he
sent to my father at different times but the total amount
was rather large.