A Family Roots Vacation!

I'll say it again! The trip my family took up through Hillsboro, Texas, and then on up to Independence, Kansas, was one of the best trips I've ever been on! It had a huge impact on me and I came back different.....somehow......but different! When my dad, Burhl McClung, was a four-year-old boy, he moved from Las Cruces, New Mexico, to Hillsboro, Texas, and lived on a farm. He met Clyde Nowlin at the age of four and is still friends with Clyde. My dad is now 86, so they've been friends for a very long time! Being fearful that I wouldn't be able to find the old McClung Family farm, my dad arranged for Clyde to meet us in Hillsboro to take us out there. We met Clyde at the Citizen's National Bank in Hillsboro, Texas, and he took us out to the farm. Clyde is a very sweet and gentle man. I was quite nervous at first to have him in our car with all of us - including the dog - but he quickly calmed my fears and I fell in love with his gentle nature. I can see why he and my dad are such good friends - they are alike in so many ways. Clyde was very kind to us that day, taking us all around the area and telling us stories that he remembered of my dad. That day will always be a very special memory for me. Someone needs to shoot me for not taking Clyde's picture. I was so excited by everything he showed us, it didn't occur to me that I should take his picture - and I didn't. I'm still kicking myself over that! Here is a big old Hackberry tree in the front yard of the old McClung Farm. My dad remembers this tree being in front of the house when he was a little boy living on this property - and it was a big tree way back then! The acreage of the farm was incredibly beautiful. It was a big open field with big trees in the background and it had what they call a "draw" on the property, which is where the land drops and there's a nice creek running through it where the animals loved to go to get water. Clyde remembered how he and my dad camped down there one night and a "norther" came along and they liked to freeze to death. Sounds awful, but he had a big smile on his face as he was telling us the story. I think they had fun anyway! They also fished a lot along this draw. Here's the barn that my dad grew up playing in. He has told me stories about this barn. He told me that as kids, he and his brothers and sisters used to take turns climbing up on top of it and then jumping off and trying to fly. They were convinced that they should be able to fly. No one ever did - and I'm sure it was a quick drop to the ground! I can't believe the old barn is still there. I wanted to go inside it, but there are new owners living on the property now and we were technically trespassing, so I just stood from a distance and took pictures.

Here's the entrance to the old McClung Family Farm with a big huge field in front of the house. The house that's there now is not the house that my dad lived in - and it's owned by someone else. The old house that I can remember was torn down. I went out there only once years ago when I was a little girl. I got the most peaceful, wonderful feeling just standing there looking at it and imagining my dad as a little boy playing in the fields and riding his horse through the fields. I've heard so many times how he used to ride his horse to school - which would be WAY COOL now if we could do that!

Across the street from the old McClung Family Farm is my Great Uncle Roy's property. We drove around back there and it is incredibly gorgeous. There's a sawmill down there, too, which my Great Uncle Roy owned and operated. The creek winds around that property, too. When my great grandfather died, he gave all of the property to his sons, one of which is my grandfather, Lee McClung. All the sons divided up the property. My grandfather told his brothers to pick whatever property they wanted and he would take whatever was left over - and what was left over is the old McClung Family Farm that my dad grew up on. I've been told that my grandfather was very good-natured, and my mother tells me that's where my dad got his good naturedness from. All of their properties were adjacent to each other, so they were near each other, but they still had lots of land in-between them.

Inside all of those trees in the background is the crumbling debris of an old church - the church where my grandparents, Lee and Virginia McClung, got married on December 23rd, 1915. It stood for years and years and then began to crumble, and finally a hail storm knocked it completely down, but the rubble is still there. I wanted to get some pieces of that wood (I'm incredibly sentimental and if a piece of wood is all you can get, that's all you can get, right?), but there was a barking dog nearby that acted like he was going to rip us to shreds, and I was afraid to step foot out there because of that. I thought it was so special to be able to see the site where my grandparents had gotten married. No doubt a small church way out in the middle of the country.

Here is the property where my dad went to school - the Arnotville School. It has a historical marker on it now. It was a one-room schoolhouse that had students of all ages attending in the same room. Clyde told me that he can remember playing marbles with my dad at the front entrance to the school. I would give anything to see that. Now it's just a big open field, but man, if that property could talk, can you just imagine the stories it could tell? I'd like to know where the horses were kept when the students rode their horses to school! I saw other farm properties, too, that belonged to my grandfather's brothers; and Clyde's property was nearby, too, sort of! He told me that on Sunday afternoons, all of the boys in the area would make their way to Clyde's family farm and they would play baseball, or whatever sport was in season at the time, out in the fields. An interesting story Clyde told me was that when he was a youngster and was delivering groceries, he saw a Whippet for sale for $35. He went home and asked his parents for $35 to buy the car - and, well, they didn't have it. He approached my dad and another friend, Ray Sawyer, and the three of them donated a third to the car and those boys shared that Whippet for a long time. They took turns driving it and maintaining it - and I have seen pictures of my dad sitting in that Whippet. They were all very proud of that car. When we took Clyde back to the bank so he could make his way home, it was really hard for me to watch him walk away. He is a precious man and it meant so much to me that he spent the afternoon showing us around. I realized, as he walked away, that he knew more about my dad than I do and he has known my dad much longer than I have. It broke my heart to watch him leave. Thank you, Clyde, for giving me the most special gift I've ever received from anyone - your time, your familiarity with the old McClung Family Farm, your memories, and your stories about my dad. It was all priceless to me and one of the most special days of my life.

A Family Roots Vacation!

This is the First Baptist Church in Hillsboro, Texas, where my parents were married in 1950. Clyde Nowlin was my father's best man - a friend he's had since he was four years old - and Clyde was kind enough to meet us in Hillsboro to show us where the old McClung Family Farm was, but more about that later!

Traveling with a dog isn't easy - TRUST ME! You can only go through fast-food windows and eat in the car - and then you have to make frequent stops so that your four-legged friend can tend to his business, but we really enjoyed having Otto with us on our trip. After driving for hours on end, he finally relaxed and slept - and we were so glad when that happened. Here he is in his little bed with his favorite blankie - his Sponge Bob blankie! Now he's a seasoned traveler and he's been around the block a few times!

This is my grandmother's old house in Hillsboro, Texas. We called her Mother Browning - she's my mother's mother. When I saw this house, I got chills everywhere. I slept many a night as a kid in that front bedroom. The house has been painted a different color, so it was hard for me to find it at first, but this is definitely it. It's on Elm Street in Hillsboro and it's two houses down from the corner - just as I remembered it. This was an interesting house. It has two entrances off the porch. One leads into a bedroom and the other leads into a living room, which my Mother Browning used for storage and we were NEVER allowed to go in there. As kids, it was really scary to visit Mother Browning because rumor had it that a CRAZY lady lived next door, Mrs. Hamilton, who carried around a crowbar. If she caught you doing something she didn't like, she'd use her crowbar on you, so we were scared to death of her. Heaven forbid if you caught glimpse of Mrs. Hamilton! As far as my Mother Browning is concerned, you must know that she made the best plum jelly than anyone you'll ever meet - then or now! I can remember her kitchen and how she'd pour that white parafin wax on top of the jelly to seal it in the jar. Remember that? I would give anything for a jar of her plum jelly at this point in my life. We always played in the back bedroom of Mother Browning's house where she had a TV, a big old bed, and a loud window air-conditioning unit. That's just where we always hung out. I can also remember that in her bathroom, she had a heater in the wall that actually had an open flame. Now that I think about that, it seems awfully dangerous. Visiting Mother Browning was always fun - she had good things to eat and she let us play; we just couldn't go in that storage room! Mother Browning had a very hard life. Her husband, James D. Browning, died at the age of 35 from a heart attack, leaving her to raise four children all by herself during the Depression. She was a strong woman and I love her. I only hope that I possess some of her strength and character - that would make me very proud! We visited Mother Browning's grave while we were in Hillsboro, along with many other family members buried there.

A Family Roots Vacation!

On our trip to Kansas this summer, we went by way of Waco, where we drove by the Branch-Davidian compound - which was really kind of creepy, but might as well see it while we're so close - and then we headed on up to Hillsboro, Texas, which is where my family is from. I spent many holidays and summer vacations as a kid in Hillsboro, Texas, to visit lots of family members who lived there. Since we had Otto with us on our trip, we couldn't go into a restaurant, so we found this old drive-in that was built in 1954 and had a great hamburger! That's older than me! They don't make drive-ins like this anymore! That's my husband Randy, Hunter and Haley, and our dog Otto. I wanted to take a picture of this menu because in Texas, you don't ask for a hamburger with mayonnaise - that's for sissies! We eat mustard on our hamburgers down here in Texas. I wanted to prove that to my husband, who insists that mayonnaise is much better on a hamburger. HE'S WRONG, but we got a good laugh out of it! He had to special-order his hamburger.

Going to my grandmom and grandad's old house was such a surreal feeling for me. I have tons of memories of their house as a little kid and just being there filled me with all kinds of emotions. I wish that I could have knocked on the front door and my grandmom would answer and invite me in. She and granddad would probably be watching As the World Turns, their favorite soap opera. My granddad would be drinking a Dr. Pepper (which he always had for breakfast, by the way), and I'd go to the fireplace mantel and play with some magnetic kissing dolls that they had there. We played with those dolls so much that their faces were missing, but we loved them. As you brought the dolls close together, their faces would engage in a kiss, and we played with those things for hours on end! My grandmother would be sitting in her favorite chair and she'd look up at me with her Coke-bottle glasses on, which made her eyes really big, but I loved those eyes and wish I could see them now. In the picture above, you can't see it very well, but at the end of the street is an old cemetery that my cousins and I would play in. We'd come home ridden with chigger bites that would keep us up all night scratching, but we'd more than likely go back the next day and play there again.

My grandmom and granddad had a big Pecan tree in their front yard, so there would constantly be pecans laying around everywhere in the front yard. I just had to bring some of those pecans home with me. It makes me feel like I have a part of my grandparents here with me. Just the way they smell brings back memories for me.

Here's that big old Pecan tree.

My grandparents, Lee and Virginia McClung (my father's parents), lived at 101 Smith Street in Hillsboro, Texas. As I walked up to the front door, I realized that the same old doorbell was there that was there all those years go - the kind you move back and forth to ring. I knocked on the door, but no one answered, even though there were two cars parked at the house. I just wanted to tell them that my grandparents used to live here and I just wanted to look through the front entrance - I wouldn't go in - but no one would answer the door! Darn! Being on the front porch flooded me with memories of how we all used to pose on the front steps for family pictures. There was also a swing on the front porch - and we had a ball swinging on that porch!

Here's 101 Smith Street - where my grandparents used to live. It has really deteriorated, but I love that house. I have lots of good memories here. When we were little, if we cried about something, my granddad would tell us to come cry in his pocket. He'd hold out his pocket so that your tears could fall into it. That was so confusing to a little kid that you'd stop crying just to think about it. Worked every time - you'd quit crying! One of his favorite terms was "ol' screench-onchie"! He'd say, "Well I'll be an ol' screench-onchie"! He'd also make an interesting sound with his tongue and his lower lip - which is hard to describe, so the next time you see me, ask me about it and I'll do it for you! I'll never forget it - it was so granddaddy! My grandmother used to make incredible meals for all of us. My mom says she still can't figure out how grandmom could make so many dishes and have them all on the table and still hot all at the same time with only one oven. That took talent! Wish I could ask her about that now!