Sycamore

Sycamore

Frieda Norris Welburn

Copyright © 2015 Frieda Norris Welburn

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2015

ISBN 978-1-68139-315-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-68139-316-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

James Justice Norris

Frances Viola McCauley

From Roundup to Startup

Trailblazers

From a Shack to a Home

From Homestead to Ranch

Hard Times Come a-Knocking

Water, Water, Everywhere?

Angels to Watch over Us

On the Wild Side

Community Connections

Our Sycamore Neighbors

Where Have All the Children Gone

As Time Goes By

From the Grandchildren

Dedication

In memory of Jim and Fannie Norris.

Acknowledgments

The research my sister Wilma Norris Sneddon diligently pursued for many decades provides a basis for these stories and remembrances that have been gathered here about Sycamore. All credit also goes to her for the ancestral pictures which she collected, and for many of the color pictures taken of the grandchildren at Sycamore.

A devastating fire on New Year’s Eve 1996 destroyed the old home, where Curly and Jeanette were living. Wilma sent them a scrapbook with copies of many of the family photos. Shawna Norris Bailey, Curly and Jeanette’s daughter, transferred them to a CD, along with several other pictures which she took of scenes from the ranch. Many of those pictures have been used here.

Wilma and her son Louis also made a collection of many of the color slides that had been taken over the years by the Sneddons and sent them to me. Some of the choicest ones have been selected for inclusion. Our daughter Frances has prepared many pictures selected from Shawna’s file, and from other sources. She and our son Darrel who lives nearby, and daughter Laura from Pennsylvania, and son Clint who lives in Nevada have helped with suggestions for the manuscript and with computer problems as they arose. Jay Sneddon in Idaho helped by sending several pictures he had prepared for the Norris book. Dan Hawley, a family friend from Silver City, also photographed items and scenes for the project. Friends and neighbors, Ford Webb and Howard Smith, have saved me during episodes of computer frustration.

Appreciation also goes to all those family members and friends who shared stories and pictures. Florence, Harold’s wife, let me use her scrapbook of Harold’s adventures. Sharon, Ray’s wife, shared the letter she wrote to Paul and her girls about their father a few years after Ray’s death. A cousin, Darlene McCauley Thompson, gave me permission to use pictures from a book of family history that she created. Other friends and former neighbors, such as Pete Wilmeth, Wayne Dickerson, Butch Wallace, Ruth Robertson Anderson, and Donnie and Gene Stailey have shared pictures and given me insights into my older siblings’ lives, and life in general on Sycamore.

Also greatly appreciated are the stories written by Sycamore grandchildren, which add an additional dimension and corroboration to the whole story of Sycamore. It was gratifying to me to see that they remembered and appreciated many of the same things that I did, but from a different angle.

Thanks also go to my wonderful husband, Wayne, who had to patiently wait daily for his turn on the computer, and many times even for his supper. He has helped with suggestions on the manuscript and encouraged me and kept me going on this project.

Introduction

In Southwestern New Mexico, near the small community of Cliff, is a canyon named Sycamore because of the many sycamore trees that grow in it. On an isolated spot in that canyon, my father and mother built a home where they raised six children. I was the fifth child, second daughter, in that family.

Sycamore is much more than a tree, or the canyon where we lived. It is also more than the house where we Norris children grew up. In an effort to describe it, maybe mystique might come close. There was a special feeling that accompanied the mention of Sycamore.

It’s impossible to capture that feeling for all six of us children. The best that can be done is to just tell the story of Sycamore. It’s a story of a young couple who started out with very little except their courage, ability, and determination. Giving the effort all they had, they brought to life the Sycamore we remember. It’s a story that needs to be told.

In 2003, I had a book printed entitled Fred and Provy McCauley: Their Farm, Family and Friends. It is a collection of memories Fannie McCauley Norris had of her childhood and the history of her family. My sister, Wilma, had a book printed in 2008 entitled When Hearts Were Young in Indiana, which has a great deal of her research on the Norris family. Many stories from each of those books were needed here to give a more rounded picture of the development of Sycamore.

As each chapter began to take shape, it was amazing the memories that came back. But an anonymous quote: Memories and facts are like fraternal twins: They are very similar, but not identical. Curly and Wilma have given me feedback. In many cases they were closer to the action, and remember things more accurately. In addition, a few cassettes our mother recorded form a solid perimeter of facts.

Jim and Fannie Norris had twenty-six grandchildren, and there is a host of great- and great-great-grandchildren. It is hoped those descendants will enjoy these stories, and develop an appreciation for Jim and Fannie and the Sycamore they worked so hard to create. Maybe they will also enjoy seeing how cute their parents and grandparents were when they were little.

Chapter 1

James Justice Norris:

From Indiana to New Mexico

A Child Is Born

It was the end of summer. The beautiful colors of fall had begun spreading over the hills and valleys of Indiana. A few miles south of the town of Logansport, Indiana, the five children of Luther DeWitt and Florence Hannah Gould Norris awakened one morning to find that they had a little baby brother. None of the children had realized that their mother was expecting a baby, so it was truly a surprise. The day was 21 September 1895.

The older children were LeIla, Quincy, Fannie, Owen, and Elmer. The baby boy was named James Justice Norris in honor of Dr. James M. Justice, who was Great-aunt Zenith’s husband. DeWitt’s father was Bradford Quincy BQ Norris. Aunt Zenith had helped her brother BQ raise DeWitt and his younger brother, Will, after their mother left the family when the boys were small.

Eliza Jane Horton Gould - 1877

1834-1881

Florence’s father, Christopher Gould, died of lung fever (pneumonia) in a Union Army field hospital near Gallatin, Tennessee, on 18 January 1863, when Florence was two and a half years old. Florence’s mother, Eliza Jane Horton Gould, died a month after Florence and DeWitt were married.

Eliza was very knowledgeable about trees, plants, birds and small animals. Children loved to follow her through the woods, fields, and along streams to learn from her. Eliza’s mother, Jane Holcombe Horton, had died in 1855. However, Eliza’s father, John Horton II, liked children, and he continued to visit Florence and his great-grandchildren after Eliza’s death in 1881. He brought them maple sugar when he came from Miami County, Indiana, to visit about once a year. The children remembered him for his unfailing kindness and devotion to their happiness in childhood. He died in 1888 at age ninety-six. (John’s mother had died at age one-hundred-three!)

John Horton II - Florence’s Grandfather

(1792 - 1888)

The baby brother was called Jamie by family and friends. He was a happy, lovable little boy, and his brothers and sisters had fun playing with him. The family later moved into Logansport, and his sister, Fannie, at age ten or eleven, liked to take him when he was very small on summer afternoons to Spencer Park, which was near their home. She would read a book, and he would play. He liked to sing, and at the refreshment stand they got to putting him up on the counter and getting him to sing. Then they would give him a bottle of pop or a dish of ice cream. But when Fannie told their mother how famous he was getting to be, Florence took a dim view of it and firmly said there’d be no more of that!

Before Jamie was born, when the family was still quite young, their grandfather, BQ, came to live with them. At that time, he liked chewing tobacco. After he had been in their home for just a little while, he abruptly quit, saying, No one as lovely as Florence should have to put up with this dirty habit. Grandpa BQ became a great strength and comfort to the young family.

Children of Benjamin and Priscilla Norris taken in the 1890s.

Front row from left: Benjamin, Zenith, Oliver.

Back row from left: Newton, Clinton, Bradford Quincy (BQ).

Grandpa BQ Norris was part of an interesting family. He taught school in his younger years. His parents, Benjamin and Priscilla, were first cousins. His father Benjamin was a captain in the War of 1812, and fought in the battle where the Indian chief Tecumseh was killed. BQ’s brother Benjamin was a prominent farmer in Rush County, Indiana. Their brother Newton invented a wheat drill which another brother, Clinton, had patented in 1872. It was regarded as one of the best drills on the market, and the two brothers established a factory that was eventually moved near Rushville. The Norris drill was sold and shipped all over the United States and to other countries.

Dr. James M. Justice home with DeWitt Justice home shown in background.

After Dr. Justice died in 1894, DeWitt Justice’s family moved into the doctor’s home to care for Zenith. They added the wing on the back. 1991 photo.

Florence played the organ for the Christian church in Logansport. She also had a fine Mason & Hamlin organ at home. One day, when Jamie was very small, he wanted to see what was making the music. He pressed the pedal down and stuck his head in to look up where the sound came from, and the pedal came up and caught him on the neck. He said he was bucking and squalling when Grandpa BQ came and rescued him.

A Mother Is Taken

When Jamie was only four years old, his mother died from tuberculosis, on 12 July 1900. Her death came three weeks after her fortieth birthday which was the twenty-first of June. DeWitt knew that Florence was ill and had been making plans to move to Nebraska for her health. However, her doctor told him that there was no time for her to be moved to another state; her death was imminent.

Aunt LeIla said she had stopped school at midterm to help at home but did not realize the gravity of the situation. She said, Papa took me for a walk one day and told me the doctor had said Mother could live only a very short time, a week or ten days. This was a terrible shock!

Uncle Owen, who was eleven years old at that time, told Wilma that their mother was in bed for two or three weeks before she died. But the children didn’t think she was so very sick because every time they went into her bedroom she would brighten up and be so happy to see them.

Four-year-old Jamie was taken to see his mother shortly before she died. He was put up on her bed so she could see him. He recalled watching her as she gazed at him for the longest time. Florence was laid to rest on 14 July 1900, beside her mother in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Logansport, near where the Eel River flows into the Wabash River.

Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes

Of the six Norris children, five had blue eyes like their father. Only Fannie had brown eyes. One day she was bemoaning the fact that her eyes were brown instead of blue. Her father comforted her with the response, I love your brown eyes. They remind me of your mother.

Fannie eventually had six children of her own. The first five all had brown eyes, but the sixth child was a little red-haired, blue-eyed baby boy. Fannie was so happy to get him.

DeWitt Goes to Mexico

Soon after Florence’s death, DeWitt Norris was offered a position in Mexico by Senator W. D. Owen of Indiana, who lived across the street from DeWitt Justice. DeWitt Justice was DeWitt Norris’s cousin, the son of Aunt Zenith and Dr. James Justice. Owen Norris was named in honor of Senator Owen.

The position DeWitt was offered was superintendent of agriculture on a plantation which was growing pineapple, sugarcane, etc. The job had been offered before, but he had turned it down. DeWitt left with the group in September 1900 for the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which is about three hundred miles south of Mexico City, near the (then) Colombian border. They took workhorses, harnesses, and other farming equipment with them.

When DeWitt left for Mexico the children went to live with Great-uncle James Gould, who was a brother to Florence’s father, Christopher. Uncle James and Aunt Nancy had a farm about nine miles out of Logansport where he raised melons and vegetables. He would take the produce on a wagon through the streets of Logansport, with Owen doing one side of the street and Elmer the other side, selling the vegetables and melons. In the evenings they would bring all the nickels, dimes, and quarters home; and Uncle James would throw the coins into a trunk. He did not trust the banks.

Uncle James also had a large tract of land in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. In the fall he usually traveled by wagon back to Oklahoma. It took him about a month each fall and spring to make the trip. Since DeWitt was planning to leave soon for Mexico, it was decided that the family would go with Uncle James when he returned to Kingfisher for the winter. Less than four months after Florence’s death the family moved from Indiana to Oklahoma, where they lived near Great-uncle James Gould and his son, Ned. To the children, the idea of moving to Oklahoma sounded like a great adventure, and they were excited about it.

The Move to Oklahoma

Instead of going by wagon to Oklahoma, they rented an emigrant box car on a train. They loaded it at a little station on the Eel River about three miles from the farm. The railroad car was divided into three compartments. All their possessions, including the beautiful carved-walnut furniture that had belonged to Florence’s mother, were loaded at one end of the car. Uncle James had about seven hundred bushels of potatoes he had not been able to sell in Logansport. The bushels of potatoes, and more than four hundred quarts of home-canned food, were put at the opposite end of the car; and the horses occupied the center section, where the doors were. Uncle James, Quincy, and Owen accompanied that car to Oklahoma. LeIla, Fannie, Elmer, and Jamie went by passenger train, arriving two or three days before the others.

Owen arrived in Oklahoma on 4 November 1900, which was his twelfth birthday, and which was also a national presidential election day. Uncle James had no trouble selling all the potatoes when they got to Kingfisher. Uncle James’s family had a little house bolted together on the property for them. It was really just one room which they partitioned off with curtains and the furniture, including the organ, which they had brought with them.

Because the house was very small, they also had a little storage shed near their house. In it was a carved chest which contained Christopher Gould’s Civil War knapsack, Florence’s baby dresses, old letters, family papers, and other memorabilia. Somebody got into the shed and stole the chest with all its treasures.

The new house was very difficult to heat during the winters. Jim said in later years that he never saw a poor old horse but what he thought of all the broomcorn they had twisted up to burn, and wished he had it to feed to the horse.

Grandpa BQ did not come with the family to Oklahoma, but he packed a great big box for them to take which was marked Sundries. Every time the family needed something it was found in that box. He came to Kingfisher the following spring when they had gotten all settled.

They were all so happy to see Grandpa when he came! Aunt LeIla said, He was a great part of our family. I just can’t tell you the care he took of us, and the interesting funny things he would tell us. He carried a cane—which he didn’t need at all—with a silver top. He would walk along with his flowing white beard and swing the cane and let it down with two little stamps each time.

Grandpa was with them three years, until the spring of 1904. He liked to work in the garden in the mornings and, afterward, go sit in his big chair and rest. The sheriff’s wife lived next door and would come over and visit him. One day she came in, sat down, and started talking to him. When he didn’t answer, she looked at him for the first time and saw that he was dead! He was eighty-nine years old.

His obituary in the Thursday, 28 April 1904, issue of The Kingfisher Free Press stated,

An Aged Citizen Gone

Last Friday at one o’clock occurred the death of B. Q. Norris at the home of his son, L. D. Norris, of this city, at the ripe old age of eighty-nine years. The cause of death in simple terms is worn out. Mr Norris came to Oklahoma from Indiana in 1901, and has been an honored and respected citizen. He was an unusually intelligent and amiable gentleman, and during his residence here has made many warm friends…His passing was like the flow of a gentle and peaceful stream. [Minor corrections in statistics have been made here.]

Jamie Goes to Mexico

Jamie Norris - Age 6 -

Kingfisher, Oklahoma - 1901

DeWitt was gone to Mexico most of the first three years after Florence’s death. During the years that the father was away, Jamie was cared for at home by his big sisters. Because they were in school or were working, he was alone quite a bit of the time. There were a lot of trees around there, and he said he climbed every one of them. The family had always had horses. Jamie liked to go to the corral, where he would entice the horses up to the gate with some feed. He would then repeatedly slip the rounded back from an old chair over their necks and watch them buck it off.

Perhaps because of the cold winters, or perhaps because of his being alone so much, Jamie was not thriving in Oklahoma. It may have been the beginning of his tuberculosis as there seems to be no other mention of his being ill during the earlier years of his life.

On his second trip to Mexico, when Jamie was six, his father took him to Mexico. LeIla said when Jamie left he was not strong, but when he came back, he looked healthy and well. On the plantation, there were Americans who loved him and paid a great deal of attention to him. A Mrs. Hammond, who had gone down with the crew, cared for Jamie while he was there. After the third year, a revolution broke out on the Colombian border, so the plantation was sold, and DeWitt and the crew returned from Mexico.

Jamie and friend in Old Mexico

The Family Go Their Separate Ways

The older children and DeWitt eventually went in different directions: Quincy to Colorado, LeIla to Louisiana then California, DeWitt and Elmer to Louisiana. Owen went to Texas and worked for some time for Frank Norfleet on a ranch. Frank had a brother, Bob. Fannie married Bob, and they lived in Hale County, Texas, about thirty miles west of Plainview, where they were living when they passed away in the 1970s. Jamie lived with them for a few years.

Owen worked as a cowboy for several ranches as he made his way from Texas to New Mexico. He rode his little spotted pony the whole way. The Norris men were notorious for not writing letters. When Owen left Texas, Fannie begged him to write and tell them where he was and how he was doing. The weeks and months went by with no word. Finally, after six months or more, Fannie received a postcard with the message, OK. O. N. She said never did four little letters ever mean so much!

Elmer had a similar story. He was drafted into the Navy during World War I. He wrote home that he was assigned to sleep in a hammock that night and he would probably fall out of it. Much later a postcard arrived, saying simply, I did. Love, Elmer. Elmer never married. After the war, he went to Louisiana where he worked in an oil field, and later had a farm with cattle and a pecan orchard.

Owen Arrives in New Mexico

After many adventures, Owen finally arrived in the Grant County area of New Mexico. He worked for Walter Pitts, who had several daughters, at the H-Y (H bar Y) ranch in the Mule Creek area. One Pitts daughter was Jean, who reminded Owen of Eliza Norfleet, Frank Norfleet’s lovely wife. He and Jean were married in February 1912. Owen and Jean were living just over the New Mexico–Arizona border in Duncan, Arizona, and were running a short-order café there.

Amarillo, Texas, is not far north of where the Norfleets lived. I’ve heard it said that there is nothing between Amarillo and the North Pole but a barbed-wire fence. Bob and Fannie had begun talking about trying out a move to Ramah (pronounced RAY-ma), New Mexico. Jamie had been helping Bob feed cottonseed cake to cattle in howling wind and knee-deep snow. He decided he would like to go to Arizona to be with Owen since the Norfleets were talking about the move.

At that time, coyotes were a problem for the sheep men in the Texas area, and a two-dollar bounty was placed on them. Jamie borrowed one of Bob’s fast horses and, with his slingshot, chased down and killed enough coyotes to earn his train ticket to Arizona.

Jamie Joins Owen in Arizona

When Jamie arrived in Duncan in February 1912, the sunshine was warm, the cottonwoods were greening up, and there were signs of spring all around. Jamie decided then he never wanted to go back to the wind-swept plains of Texas.

Jimmy, as he was known in New Mexico, was sixteen years old when he joined Owen in Arizona. He took his turns with the shifts in the café. He learned many things about