12.30.43
J.H. Tabor
Aberdeen, Wash
403 E.1.ST

Mrs. Jenny Flemming
Forney Tex
Dear Jennie

I received your kind and much appreciated letter of the 20th. It was all news to me, as I had not heard anything in regard to the folks for several years.

We us children was born in a log house in Allen County, Kentucky about 18 miles I think a little south of east of Bowling Green, not far from the Tennessee line. I was told that I was about 4 months old when my father died.

About four years later, my mother married a man by the name of Boucher. That part was a poor country and so was the people. All our clothes was home made. Nearly every farmer had a few sheep. They sheared the sheep; the women washed and carded the wool. Perhaps you don’t know what carding is. Well, if you don’t, you have not lost very much. Then they spun the wool into yarn by turning the wheel by hand that twisted the wool and made it into threads. Then that was woven on hand looms for different thicknesses of cloth.

They also raised flax. They went through the necessary process and made linen cloth and also a little cotton. The first cotton that we raised I remember of we picked the cotton and all hands and children sat up at nights by the fire place and picked the lint off of the seed by hand and that was made into cloth for clothing.

The flax if they could get it, if not, they (used) cotton and made long shirts for the children that came down near their ankles: made a little Mother Hubbard dress and that is all the garment we wore most of the time. If we got on anything (else) we was considered dressed up.
I was seven years old before I ever saw a cook stove. Our folks bought the first reaper as they called it that was ever in that part. It layed the grain down and (it) was bound by hand. The people came from miles around to see it and it was looked as something wonderful which it was as nearly all grain was cut with a scythe with fingeres (sic) to hold the grain called a cradle.

That is a limestone country and a great place for caves. There was some caves there that had been used by the Indians, I think in DANIAL BOONE’S time. I suspect you have read of him. They were walled up in front with flat rocks and mud with a hole about 18 inches from the bottom, just larger for a man to crawl in. They had never been molested when we left there. There was also a lot of big mounds perhaps 20 feet across at the bottom and 15 or 16 feet high and round. It was said that Indians were buried there. They had not also been molested when we left there.

In 1873 about September we left for Texas, my mother, stepfather and us children also my uncle on my mother’s side by name JOE MEREDITH and his wife and one small son. The first stop was in Dallas. We stayed one night with some people by name of PARKER that had left Kentucky some time before. Then we went from there to Kaufman then south or southwest to some folks of my uncle’s wife by name of WILLOWBY. In that worst chills and marylary (sic) spot I ever saw with a large house and I think two families lived in it all sick with chills and fever. Not enough well ones to wait on the sick ones. Some of the children would squat down in the middle of the floor and perhaps it would be some time before one that was well enough to get around and clean up the mess. I never was in such a discouraging disheartening place and I hope never to (be) again.

We stayed 1 or 2 weeks, then we went to a house about a half mile east and a little north of Scyene a bunch of timber, I think oak, and the house was in the grove. It belonged to a man by name of MC COMMOS. I think he lived in Scyene. From there my stepfather and uncle hunted for a place to rent. They found one owner by name of WORTHINGTON that joined your granddad PINSON place on the north. here was only a small log cabin on it. We waited in this place for them to build a house along side of the log cabin. My stepfather taken sick and then passed away. I think some of the malary (sic) he got south of Kaufman. I think he was buried on the plot of ground that the PARKERS owned in the cemetery in Dallas.

When the house was done we moved there, made one crop there then in the fall or winter my mother taken sick. The WORTHINGTONS had a large house and was good people. They taken our mother to their house and I think done all they could for her. She soon passed away and was buried in the PARKER plot in Dallas, I think by (the) side of her husband.

Old grandpaw PINSON knew something of our condition and he being a good man built a house near his on his farm. We moved there, lived there one year and his daughter Helen, the mother of the HALEY children, lived in Monteaguge (?) county and lost her husband with some small children and Grandpaw PINSON wanted them near him so he had a farm about half mile east and one and one half mile north of his home place so we moved there and the HAILEY near him. (That I think is the log cabin that was moved to Dallas.) It was made out of cedar logs what would be called large logs then. That was in 1876. We lived there one year or two, I am not positive which. Then your parents was married in that house and Scy (sic) was also born there.

After they married, Jesse went some to school and Sammy worked for ranchers. I lived with the folks there one year, then your dad bought the place north of Forney. It was a hog waller place nearly all in small timber and brush, a lot of it what is called elm. It was sure hard to clear and get in cultivation, but was good land after it was done.

I lived there for one year with them then I went back to Dallas county near where we first settled and farmed one year then in eastern Texas near Texarkana and made railroad ties for the Southern Pacific when they was build to California. Later I bought 100 acres in the Valley View neighborhood for $30 per acre and paid my fourth down. Then my job was to get it payed for. There was 80 in cultivation. I usually had about 10 acres in wheat, 10 in corn, 10 in oats and the other 50 in cotton. I never hired any help except in picking the cotton. I worked long days and sometimes part of the night when I was busy. Nearly always hauled cotton to the gin at night.

I raised about 50 bails one year but taken sick and a lot of it went to waste. We usually got from 6 to 7 cents a pound and we did not get time and a half for 40 hours a week either.

When I was sick the folks moved me to their house. I was told that for 91 days I never was rid of the fever as much as 24 hours at one time. I had the tyford (sic) and malaery (sic) both, just one back set after another. Dr. Newt Shand was my doctor, and he was very faithful or not likely I would have pulled through. I think perhaps you was a baby then. That, I think, was the winter of 1886 and ‘87 or 1887 and ‘88.

I came to Washington later. I sold the place to your father, I don’t know if you have it yet or not. I followed mining for a good many years. In 1895 I was mining in Cripple Creek, Colorado. In the winter of 1896 I visited the folks in Forney. I think you were about 10 years old then. I was in the interior of Alaska 54 years this last summer. Was at Nome on the Bering Sea in 1900.

I have been in a good many places where all were strangers to me when I went there. Read Proverbs 18, 24th verse. He has always been a friend to me and why should not I be thankful to him.

I have had a little ahead 2 or 3 times but always lost it with out any fault of mine and perhaps it is best. If I had made some money it may be that I would have put in all my time trying to make more and forgotten my God and Savior.

Now I have written a lot to you that you may not be interested in and you are the first and the only one that I ever made any attempt to give a sketch of our past life and it is a sure thing that now I am the only one living that noes (sic) but very little about it.

You said you liked to do what you could for your mother. Well, I never have gotten acquainted with any woman that I thought equaled her in hard work, patience, a friend to everybody. Usually if she could not say any thing good for a person she did not say any thing.

Well, I will close. May the good Lord bless you and keep you till we meet here or in the place he has prepared for us.
Your Uncle.