After the funeral we did a bit of emailing and got some good stories out of a cousin of Red's.
The email below contains her memories.
A second email came with the followingFrom: GW SHAW <ronbjgw@yahoo.com>Subject: Re: Photos of barnDate: September 27, 2016 at 3:29:01 PM MDTTo: Erin Pollan <erinpollan@gmail.com>Reply-To: GW SHAW <ronbjgw@yahoo.com>DEAREST ERIN,SO GLAD I HAD THE OPPERTUNITY TO VISIT WITH PHIL's KIDS SOME. RED AND FANNIE LOVED YOU ALL SO MUCH.I WILL EVENTUALLY SEND THE BARN PICTURE AND ONE OF CHIEF, THE HORSE. I PLAN TO KEEP THIS EMAIL OPEN AND SEND STORIES AS I THINK OF THEM.WILL WRITE LATER AS A REMEMBER OTHER STORIES.LOVE AND GOD BLESS YOUR HEARTS,BETTY JANE (BJ) POLLAN1. JESS NOTICED THE BARN LIGHT ON AT NIGHT AND REALIZED THAT CHIEF HAD LEARNED HOW TO TURN ON THE BARN LIGHTS. TO REMEDY THE PROBLEM JESSCUT A SMALL CAN AND COVERED OVER THE SWITCH.2. CHECK RED AND FANNIE PICTURES AND SEE IF YOU CAN FINE THE ONE OF FANNIE AND MY MOM, IRENE WEARING UNCLE EB'S PANTS AT THE SAME TIME. IRENELOWER BODY WAS IN ONE LEG AND FANNIE'S LOWER BODY WAS IN THE OTHER. PICTURE WAS TAKEN FROM THE BACK WHILE THEY WERE BENT OVER. VERY IMPRESSIVE.3. MINNIE AND GW AND RED RAISED TURNIP GREENS AND SOLD THEM IN THE 1930'S. MINNIE BOUGHT DIAMOND ERRINGS (I HAVE THEM NOW), CRYSTAL AND NORTIKE CHINA..PATRICIA PATTERN I THINK. (POLLY HAS THESE NOW)4. GW POLLAN PAINTED THE "JESS POLLAN RANCH" SIGN ON THE #1 BARN AT LEAST ONCE. THIS BARN WAS USED AS LANDMARK ON MANY OCCASIONS BY THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN THE AREA.THIS BARN BURNED IN THE 1990'S (AFTER A LIGHTLING STRICK I THINK). THE CORRAL IS STILL THERE.5 CIRCA 1960'S JESS HAD A WHOLE PIG ROASTED BY SOMEONE IN CORISCANA, I THINK. HE HAULED IT HOME ON THE LEAF OF THE TABLE AND MANY FAMILY CAME TO EAT. IT HAD AN APPLE IN ITS MOUTH. JESS SAID TO ME THAT I WOULD REMEMBER THIS DINNER ALL MY LIFE AND HE WAS RIGHT.....I HAVE REMENBERED. HE LIKED TO COOK AND EAT.6.JESS POLLAN TAUGHT ME HOW TO DRIVE IN HIS PICKUP IN THE PASTURE!!!!!!!!!!WAS GREAT FUN FOR ME.7.I TREASURE THE FACT THAT I GOT TO KNOW PAPA JESS AS AN ADULT, AS HE DID NOT DIE UNTIL I WAS 29 YRS OLD IN 1979. AT THE AGE OF 83. HE WAS ABLE TO LIVE AT HOME ALL BUT THE LAST 6 MONTHS..8. JESS WOULD DRIVE UP TO THE FIRST TANK IN THE PASTURE AND HONK THE HORN AND THE CATFISH(HUGH) WOULD COME IN CLOSE TO THE SHORE AND HE WOULD THROW SLICES OFBREAD TO THEM. THEY COULD EAT THE SLICE ALL IN ONE BITE. THEY WERE HIS PETS. ALSO KEPT CHIEF ALIVE FOR SEVERAL YEARS AFTER HE HAD LOST ALL OF HIS TEETH BY FEEDING HIMBREAD SLICES9.JESS WENT TO THE CATTLE AUCTION IN CORSICANA EVERY TUESDAY.10.MINNIE SANG ALTO IN A DUET AT FIRST METHODIST CHURCH IN RICE, TEXAS. MANY TIMES I THINK
11.MINNIE AND JESS HAD A BLACK MAN NAMED "UNCLE TOM" THAT WORKED FOR THEM FOR YEARS. HE LIVED IN A SHED ON THE BACK OF THE PROPERTY NEXT TO THE RAILROAD.
12. MY YOUNGER SISTER, GEORGIA, AND I WERE SLEEPING IN THE GUSTS ROOM AT MINNIE AND JESS'S HOUSE. WE HEARD MEOWING.
THEY DISMISSED OUR QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MEOWING. WE ASKED AGAIN AND MINNIE WENT ONTO THE CARPORT THAT HAD AN
ADJOINING WALL WITH THE GUEST BEDROOM. THE CARPORT WALL HAD BIG STORAGE DRAWERS AND IS WAS DISCOVERED THAT
ONE OF THE BARN CATS HAD MOVED HER LITTER INTO ONE OF THE DRAWERS THAT HAD BEEN LEFT OPEN. WE PLALYED WITH THE KITTENS.
13. ELLA POLLAN MCDOWELL(OLDEST SISTER) HUSBAND WAS INJURED IN A COTTON GIN ACCIDENT. JESS POLLAN HIS BROTHER IN LAW CLIMBED
A LADDER (AT LEAST 2 STORIES TALL) AND PLACED HIM OVER JESS'S SHOULDER AND HAULED HIM DOWN THE LADDER TO SAFTY. WAS A MIRACLE.
ELLA'S HUSBAND LOST HIS ARM IN THAT ACCIDENT.
14. JESS POLLAN WAS A 50 YEAR + MEMBER OF THE MASIONS. I HAVE HIS 50 YEAR PIN ON MY CHARM BRACELET.
15. JESS WENT TO THE PASTURE EVERYDAY FOR SEVERAL HOURS I THINK. HE LOVED THE RANCH AND HIS COWS. HE KEPT UP
WITH WHEN THE COWS WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE THEIR BABIES, ETC.
16 JESS WAS STRONG AS AN OX, BUT DUE TO THE TRACTOR ACCIDENT THAT RESULTED IN THE LOSS OF HIS LEG, HE MOVED SLOWLY.
GW ALWAYS SAID THAT JESS HAD A LONGER LIFE BECAUSE HE DID HAVE TO MOVE SLOWLY. MANY OF JESS'S BROTHERS DIED YOUNG OF HEART DISEASE.
17. AN ACCOUNT IN THE RICE NEWSPAPER SAID THAT JESS SAW HIS BROTHER LITT, DROP DEAD IN THE FIELD.DON'T REMEMBER WHAT YEAR.
18. JESS SISTERS ARE ELLA, MAUDE, BELL. BROTHERS ARE JESS, GEORGE, LITT, BUCK, HOARES, WILLIAM, CHARLIE, ELBERT.. ELLA KNOWN AS "BIG SIS" FINISHED RAISING
HORASE AND BUCK AFTER MARY FRANCES DIED. BIG SIS CONTINUED TO LIVE IN THE FAMILY HOME..
19. JESS DID PROFESSIONAL BUTCHERING AT THE LOCAL GROCERY STORE IN RICE.
20. GEORGE WASHINGTON POLLAN'S NAME IS ON THE CORNORSTONE OF THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE. WHEN THAT BUILDING WAS TORN DOWN THE CORNOR
STONE WAS RELOCATED IN THE LOBBY OF THE NEW SCHOOL. MY MOTHER TOLD ME THIS...I HAVE NOT SEEN THIS PERSONALLY.
21.MINNIE WAS UPSET WHEN SHE REALIZED THAT POLLY (MY OLDER SISTER) HAD BEEN FEEDING CHIEF HER PICKED OUT PECAN HALVES!!!!
22. JESS CLIMBED ON TOP OF THE ROOF ON CHRISTMAS EVE AND STOMPED AROUND AS SANTA CLAUSE. UPON REENTERING THE HOUSE GW TOLD
HIM THAT HE HAD MISSED SANTA CLAUSE.
23 JESS CAME TO FERRIS TO GW'S HOUSE NUMEROUS TIMES FOR SUNDAY LUNCH AND OTHER OCCASIONS.
24. JESS DID NOT EVER HAVE TO TAKE MUCH MEDICENE AND THOUGHT THAT A TUMS COULD CURE JUST ABOUT ANYTHING.
25. JESS LIKED OLD SPICE SSHAVING PRODUCTS PRODUCTS AND ALWAYS HAD THAT GOOD SMELL ABOUT HIM..
27 JESS TEASED US BY PUTTING HIS ARM AROUND US AND CLAIMING TO BE "COUNTING OUR RIBS". HIS WAY OF TICKLING US. HE ALSO HID EASTER EGGS IN THE BRIM OF
HIS HAT FOR THE FIRST GREAT GRANDCHILDREN.
28. JESS ALWAYS HAD A STRAWBERRY PATCH MADE OUT OF AN OLD CISTERN AND ALSO HAD A PLUM TREE.
29. JESS HAD MANY DOGS OVER TIME AND ALWAYS NAMED THEM :"BOY". MANY OF THEM DID NOT FAIR WELL SO CLOSE TO THE HIGHWAY.
ALL FOR NOW
LOVE
BJ.POLLAN (MY HUSBANDS NAME IS RON SHAW AND MY SON IS GW POLLAN SHAW. I MAINTAIN MY MAIDEN NAME.)
Jayn had a few of her own she remembered...
I would add also that Minnie made Betty Jane, Georgia Sue and me giant rag dolls one year for Christmas. My doll had red yarn hair, Georgia's was brown, and BJ's was yellow. I think the dolls stood almost 3 feet tall and had movable arms and legs. She also made the dress they wore of course. Im guessing that would have been the Christmas or two before she died. She had a double kidney on one side and had renal cancer I believe.
When we came for our annual vacation in rice we had such fun on the farm and with our cousins. When it was time to leave, Jess pan fried steaks for us which were our lunch on the road between two slices of white bread.
BJ I believe he also had a peach tree in the yard, and for a while there were chickens. Each summer, Jess and dad and probably GW baited a fish trap which was lowered into the cow pond and caught many catfish. I remember them being nailed to the barn for gutting and then there was a big family fish fry. Dad would always instruct that you had to be really careful with catfish or you would get speared by their spiny whiskers.
Mom and Dad’s home in Dickinson had a very long back yard that ended with a fence at the very back which bordered a very overgrown pasture. During dewberry season (texas wild blackberries) mom would squeeze through the barbed wire and go collecting. Sometimes there would be a big menacing bull and she would have to retreat, but most of the time she collected gallons of these berries. She froze them and then the Phil Pollans and Jayn would be gifted with the frozen berries to take home to make cobblers or preserves. Sometimes mom inadvertently collected chiggers on these outings as well but it never stopped her.
The second recollection has to do with Jess Pollan’s brother William, affectionately known to us as Uncle Bill. He was the jolliest person you could ever want to know. He was a psychologist who graduated from North Texas State and worked much of his life I think as a psychologist for the VA. He was married to my aunt, Lura, who was an RN and on faculty in Sheridan, Wyoming. Uncle Bill died of colon cancer. But he gave me some of the most wonderful memories. He was an avid golfer and that may be why he had a close relationship with Dad. Our family had a wonderful vacation one summer to Sheridan where of course golfing took place, but he loved going to the horse races and won many silver dollars which he kept in a dish on the way to the kitchen. We were told that when we walked by, we could take one—I’m pretty sure the whole dish disappeared eventually. It was so exciting. He took us around and showed us the buffalo, and wild elk, and took us trout fishing in the mountains. We did catch trout and ate them for breakfast the next day. It was July and it snowed! Uncle Bill collected ChokeCherries, an indigenous wild cherry in Wyoming, and he made two things from it. Wine in the basement with his own distillery, and jelly. He loved to give it away. He also had a black lab named Jane. I liked to think he named her after me and I think he told me that, but it pleased me immensely that he named her Jane. If a boy, perhaps he would have been Phil. Anyway, he trained Jane to gallop over the snow drifts that he had to contend with in Sheridan to retrieve the newspaper. She traveled with them and I remember her coming to our home in Tucumcari once when they were passing through.
Uncle Bill loved kids so much maybe because he didn’t have any. Once he came to visit us in Farmington New Mexico and we begged him to hypnotize us. I was determined that I couldn’t be hypnotized, and in fact I wasn’t. Phil was another story though, and it was so funny. He would have been in 7th or 8th grade as I was a 4th grader. Uncle Bill explained that he would talk to him and he would go into a relaxed state. So he began. He then asked mother what it was that she would like for Phil to do once he came out of the hypnotic state. While he was in this state, my mother told Bill she would like for Phil to scrub his knuckles as they were always “gray” she said. So, U.Bill began to bring Phil out of his hypnosis and told him he was very relaxed, etc., and when he would count backwards from 10 or 3 or 5, I don’t remember which, that he would awake, but when he heard a certain word spoken afterwards, that would be his cue to get up and go wash his knuckles. He told Phil he would not remember anything. Phil woke up on cue and we were all sitting there wondering what would happen next. In a while, someone spoke the magic word, and Phil rose from his chair and went to the bathroom and spent a while in there really scrubbing on his hands. We all had a good laugh, and Phil seemed none the wiser for it. If he was faking it, no one could tell. I believe that Uncle Bill may have lived with us briefly in Amarillo or at least stayed for many days. He would pay me a nickel to eat the crusts on my toast! And he had a turtle race with all of us kids—wrapping a few big box turtles in newspaper and then letting them get out of the paper and try to get over the finish line.
No comments:
Post a Comment