Nita Thurman

I get a lot of e-mails addressed “Dear Ms. Thurman” and I want to thank everyone who takes the time to write and share their memories about early days in Denton County.

Nearly every column that ap­pears weekly in this newspaper evokes some sort of a response. Sometimes it is a question I can’t answer. Sometimes it is a story that my column nudged from the writer’s memory. The recent stories about harvesting food and killing hogs brought several stories.

Before I tell those, however, I have a question. Someone sent me this bit of information clipped from the Jan. 20, 1875, Dallas Daily Herald. The information ap­parently came from the Den­ton Monitor newspaper: I haven’t been able to find out much about Mr. Holback. If anyone has suggestions, please e-mail me at the address at the bottom of this column. This is the article:

“An old man Holback, well known to the old settlers of Den­ton county, was found dead on the prairie, near Clear creek, fro­zen stiff, last week. The Monitor says that Holback was the first white man that ever settled in Den­ton county.”

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My friend and schoolmate Joe Lewis, now living in Dallas, remembered hog-killing time at his grandfather’s farm. This is his story: “My mother’s parents, [Malone], two brothers and two sisters and their families lived in the Slidell community in Wise County. I remember one hog killing time. I was four or five. All had gathered at my grandparent’s house. They had a .22 rifle to shoot the hog. Someone threw up my uncle Bill’s new hat, and the guy with the rifle shot a hole in it, Bill moaned and groaned all day. My grandmother always made lye soap at that time. My mom would say they would find a ham still in the salt box at the next killing.”

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This recollection is from Charley Roden: “One thing that I re­member about those days was the churns in the cold dining room. The doors were never open­ed to be heated unless there was a special day — otherwise, we ate in the kitchen at the big kitchen table where it was warm because of the cook stove in there. Sometimes, MawMaw would take an iron skillet to the dining room, uncover the churn that had the crock lid on it and under that a clean folded cloth covering cold lard. She would take a long-handled fork and dig down to pull out a huge slice of green ham. Boy was that good when she finished frying that and making red-eye gravy to go on hot biscuits.

“Instead of rubbing the hams with some sort of salt mixture and hanging them to cure, they were sliced and placed in the churn — covered with lard which sealed them. She would have warm lard from when they rendered the fat, pour some in the bottom of a churn, place a slice of ham, pour lard, place a slice of ham, pour lard, etc. until the churn was full. Enough lard was poured on top to seal the meat inside. 

“PawPaw would take me to the pot where they were rendering the fat and take something off the top that floated and was crisp — not a crackling — he called it “sweetbread.” It was delicious, and I don’t even want to know what it might have been.”

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I also get mail from people now faraway who grew up here and still have loving memories of those days.

This is from Mary Frances Garrison Winke: “I was born and raised in Denton on July 23, 1923, but have lived in Joliet, IL for the past 60 years and never fail to love to hear about Denton. My mother and father were both born and raised in Denton County. My father, Wm. Ed Garrison, was a prominent watch repairman and inventor (he also kept the courthouse clock running for many years) and my mother, Bertha, was a well-known seamstress. I have not kept up with classmates and friends and often wonder if any of them are still living, perhaps even in Denton. My last visit to Denton was 1997 for my mother’s family reunion, the Pockrus family. Mother and Daddy are both laid to rest in the IOOF Cemetery.”

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From Carolyn Elizabeth Goode Garcia: One of her grandfathers was James Goode, sheriff of Den­ton County, and her other grandfather was Benjamin Lee Taylor.

Taylor “owned gins in Denton with his father and later his brother. He owned 400 acres out Locust Street where the Nike Base was. It was called Taylor’s Lake and was the recreation spot for many fishing trips, picnics, and swimming. The lake was several acres large and it was good for fishing, swimming and diving. He had a very large swimming pool built and I remember swimming in it as a child. He died when I was nine years old and my grandmother leased the place for dairy cows. And that ended the recreation part of Taylor’s Lake. You have to be an old timer to remember Taylor’s Lake … most people my age do not remember it. But it was a lovely place, a fun place, and worth remembering.”

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Judy Flowers of Denton wrote with a question I couldn’t answer.

“I have an old photo found at my aunt’s that is of children playing in a school yard. On the back of the photo is handwritten “children of Dirty Neck School.” My aunt and uncle were both raised in the Denton-Wise County area. They remained in this area all their lives. Do you have any know­ledge of a school by this name?  I thought maybe it was a reference maybe among the writer and the holder of the photo, but it is such an out of character statement for my aunt or uncle to put a label on individuals, I just had to research to see if there was an area called Dirty Neck.”

So, anyone heard of Dirty Neck School?

NITA THURMAN can be reached at nitathurman@aol.com .