Audio Tape Transcript ** August 7, 1985 **

     "I don’t know how old mother (Martha Forrest McDow) was when they married;
she was young; I know she was.  I do not know exactly how old she was; they married
in Alabama; the McDows were there; and the Parrishes were there.  Dad (John
Runnion Jurrant Parrish) was the only boy in his family.  After the war,his Daddy
was of course killed in the war.  His mother lived on Sand Mountain; she did not have
any income except raised what they could on a little hillside farm.  They had a General Store there close by somewhere and that old gentleman there, whoever hewas, was
worth a lot of money.  And he took a liking to Dad and of course he was a little ole boy.
He was born in 1858 and he had to be little because his Dad was killed in the war.  But
he had a lot to do.  There never was a better woman (Ann Terry) that lived than her.
She was so tender hearted; if she saw a little bird out there crippled, she would go out
there and bandage its leg.  (That is your Daddy’s Moma?)  Yes, that is the only Grand- mother (Ann Terry Parrish) that I knew.  I never knew Grandmother McDow (Sarah
Ann Segars McDow) she is buried in Honey Grove.   I never did know her; but my brother—  he was Frank’s twin, he is buried there by Grandma McDow there in Honey Grove.
 Dad and them come to Texas and settled somewhere around Honey Grove.  I don’t
know exactly where.  And stayed there.   All of us children was born in Fannin County except Lela.  She came with them from Alabama.  Effie was always having fun.  It did
notmatter where she was.  She would find something funny about it, you know.  She
was always good-natured.  I would go visit them when I was little.  They lived close by –
around us.
   My Dad was born in Georgia (South Carolina); but moved to Alabama when he was little.
 During the war, Grandmother (Ann Terry Parrish) moved to Alabama—just across the line; it wasn’t very far there.  I always wanted to take Mother and Daddy back there; but I never
did get a chance to. Dad had me back there with him one time when I was ten years old.
 We went back there; a couple of old aunts had some property there in Greenville, SC.  I believe it was.  He carried me back there with him.  I remember that just like it was
yesterday.  That Mississippi River looked like the Pacific Ocean to me, you know.  We
crossed it at Little Rock, Arkansas on the train.  He had some folks back there in Baldwyn,
Mississippi.  And we went there to visit them.  They had a big old log house back then.  A
big kitchen and something else on one side; it wasn’t a dining room but it was where you
could all eat together and on the other side you had a bedroom.  A big hallway down
through there, you could drive a car down through there.  And that is where we went to
visit.  And I never will forget that old boy; he was a good one. I don’t know much about him;
but he decided that one night for supper we were going to have fish for supper and it wasn’t
very far to go to the Mississippi River and get some fish.  And he went there and he got
I bet, a half a tub full of fish.  I have never seen so much fish.  You could never eat it all in
a week.She cooked that and we ate and ate and ate.  I never will forget that.  The next day,
there was a little old meadow a mile or a little more from his house and he had a big old
pretty sorrel horse; and he asked me if I wanted to ride that horse.  And you know a kid of
course I wanted to ride it.  And Dad said well OK.  It is gentle enough.  He said she won’t
hurt him.  And I rode that horse over there to this strawberry patch in this meadow—wild
strawberry patch.  And I got off that horse over there.  I didn’t know how I would get back
home.  She was a big old horse.  I picked strawberries over there and ate them until it was
pitiful; beautiful, just acres of wild strawberries.    We didn’t have strawberries at home
like that.  I got to studying about how am I going to get back on this horse to get back to
the house.  I figured around and I figured around; and I led him down to a little low place
where I could jump up there and grab hold of his main.  I climbed back on her and made
it back to the house.  That memory is so vivid in my mind.  Well the next day or so, Dad
had to go over to the edgeof Alabama and see about some property there and we got over;
we went on the train.  Of course, that is the only way you had to go in those days.  And we
got off at the train depot, walking around there…waiting on a train, I guess.  I don’t know
why now.  But there the revenuers had been out in the hills there and had captured a
whiskey still.  They had it stacked up down there by the depot.  And I asked Dad what is
that thing.  And he told me then; he explained it to me what it was, where they make
whiskey.  And the revenuers had been out in the hills and found that thing and brought it
in.  That is the only still that I have ever seen in my life; but I can remember it like it was
yesterday.  The oddest-looking thing you ever saw; don’t know how anybody could make
anything fit to drink out of that thing.  But we stayed about a week; he had a lot of running
around to do.
Of course heading east on our trip, in Arkansas, we spent thenight in Little Rock and the
café was up on the second floor; and you could look out at that big Mississippi River and see
those big boats going under the bridge.  I wondered how they could keep those big boats
afloat…they were so big and heavy.  But you know kids just have different ideas about
things. But we stayed back there a good while; but he never did get that straightened out.
But he had to come on back home and later on…several years later, those old aunts passed
away.  And a banker there was an administrator there and he wrote Dad and said I think you ought to come back here and see about this thing and get their business straightened up.
 And he said it is not in bad shape; and they were not wealthy; but they had a little money coming in. So Dad and Emma went back that time.  He finally got that straightened out
back there and it amounted to quite a lot of money back in those days.   They had a big old
house, just the two of them.  But Emma she had a good time and they carried her all over
that country and introduced her to the old folks and showed her their homes and she really enjoyed it.  If you remember that little old lantern that I have, it is about that tall.  She
brought that back  from Alabama for me full of candy.   I kept that old thing all this time; I
said I was going to keep it as long as I live.  I keep it in my room.  Mother said you never
will throw anything away.  I would keep any little thing that anyone would give me.
Mother and Dad come…Mother was born in 1861. Lela was born in Alabama and she was
just a baby when they came to Texas.  She must have been born about 1882 or 1883.
They settled down there around Honey Grove.   Dad was known for his honesty; that was
one thing about it and not to be bragging.  And he got in with the Underwoods and them
that had the money there and they saw what kind of a man he was and Uncle Miles (Miles
McDow) was the same way.  That is where I got my name.  They settled there around Honey
Grove…all of them and they finally all got pretty close together in the neighborhood.   They
farmed 100%…raising cotton and corn and oats.  Dad and Uncle Miles were kind of partners
in buying that land.  Both of them sign the note together.  I’ve got a bunch of them at
home.    Dennis (Fortenberry) wanted to see them one time and I said you can have them
because I wouldn’t know anything about them anyhow.    The land that he bought, he
bought some land at Lone Star…I think there was 110 acres there.  That is where I was
born and lived there until I was 11 or 12 years old until we moved.  He bought the land
south of Windom and sold that place.
       I was born there at home at Lone Star.    There wasn’t much at Lone Star but a church
and a schoolhouse. It all blew away.  That time that Dad & I went to Alabama there came a
wind storm through there and it blew that church away.  We lived close to the church and
school.  And we didn’t know about this storm; they did not have the news coverage then
like they have now.  So Dad got the news of the storm about Texarkana or somewhere
thereabouts.
And found out that the storm had blown Lone Star away and of course he was very upset
until we got home.  Luckily, our housewas not torn up.  It missed us just a little ways.
Then we moved south of Windom and he bought that land there and I will never forget
that.  He bought 246 acres of that black land.  And I thought he will never pay for that…
just a kid.   And he gave $14,600 for it.  I thought that is more money than I ever heard
of in my life.  It was at that time.  You know what, all of us kids were home except Effie and Lela and Willie and we got out there and worked that land except Mother…she worked
at home…she canned everything in the world; we had all kinds of fruit trees and
vegetables.   We worked and paid for that land…we raised 40-50 bales of cotton each year.
He would save every dime of it; I guarantee that.
Down there at the school close to home.  All of us went to school there.  If the weather was
bad, Dad would get out and hook up the wagon even to go that short distance. He bought
that land there at Lone Star and that was our home for a long, long time… for years.  He
was a cornerstone of that community.  Everybody called him Uncle John.  He worked.
He seen that we went to church every Sunday, now if we weren’t sick or something like that.  Now Mother couldn’t go every time; because she had to cook for those preachers.  I can tell you a story about those preachers.  Later on down the line, Frank & I got to be pretty good-sized boys.  It rained in that country. Oh it rained and it rained and there were no paved roads and those preachers would come in on the train and call out there and say..Uncle John can we come stay out there and stay till Sunday.  And sometime they
would stay a week. I don’t know why.  We got out and hooked up that a pair of mules to
the surrey.  Dad had a surrey with fringe and a top.   And we would go get those preachers.  And we were mean little Dickens.  Frank would do most of the driving, big team of mules
and they would jerk that old surrey around and mud…we would just do it for meanness.
Dad never knew it; Mother did; she seen it; she didn’t much care; she got the biggest kick out it as anybody.   But Dad would have beaten us to death, I guess.   I never told him until we were grown.   Frank threw mud all over that preacher; he looked like a mud ball when he got out at home.  He would jerk those old mules around and hit them and they would
jerk.John Runnion was about the size of Miles Alvin.  Frank was a whole lot like Dad; he
had features like Dad.  He was black headed and about the same size.  I don’t think he was
any taller than Dad.  I am about the same size as Dad.  Jim wasn’t as tall; he was smaller;
and Willie wasn’t as tall. Dad was a little taller than me.  I finally got up to almost 6 feet.
Dad was larger than 6ft.  Willie the oldest boy; he was a little heavier set than the rest of us.  I don’t know where he got it.    But he wasn’t as tall as Dad but he had the blackest,
thickest hair.  I never will forget that; he couldn’t hardly comb his hair; he would break a
comb in his hair; it was so thick.  Willie married when he was 16 or 17.
I am the only one left out of my family.     Dad passed away when he was 85 and Mother
passed away when she was 83.   I don’t know much about my Grandfather on my Mother’s
side of the family.  Now the Grandmother is buried in Honey Grove.  But my Grandfather on
my Father’s side of the family died in the Civil War.
Mother had a gold wedding band that she wore forever.  She told Emma when I pass away, I
want Norma to have this gold band because she is the youngest grandchild.  And Norma has
it too. She wears it and she is so proud of that ring.   And it will be taken care of as long as
Norma lives.   Mother died in 1944 and Norma was born in 1936.  Norma remembers some
things but some things she doesn’t remember.  Now Mattie Lee was born in 1928 and she
remembers more.
He couldn’t do all that work you see.  Frank was in France during the war.   I was ready to
go to war to see Frank.  But of course, I would probably never see him over there.    I got
my class 1A and I was working at the gin there and Daddy would bring a bale or two of
cotton up there just about every day if he could get some pickers to pick it.  He came up
there one day and I was inside there and I was tying out bales and he said I guess you will
be missed … you’ll give up your job here for awhile.  I knew something was wrong.  I didn’t
know what it was.  He said you got your classification today.  Well, I was ready to go.  I
tried to get into aviation.  There were 3 or 4 of us that went to Dallas together and spent a
day or two there.  And one of the old boys that I ran around with and I failed our
examination.   I never will forget it.   Back in those days if you were flat footed you just
could not get into the service.  They claimed you couldn’t walk.  Well we went back to the
motel room that night and this old boy that I ran around with got a piece of paper out and
put it on the floor and put his foot on it and his foot was just as flat as that board there.  It
touched all around there and I teased him that he would never get in because of his being
flat-footed.  I said you will never go anywhere.   I was turned down on my dentures…my
teeth.  I told them that doesn’t make any difference, I can eat anything you give me.  They
said you go on home and we will call you.  So we went on back home and they never did
call.  On the 11th of November, I was up for the next call.   On the next call, they never did
call.
Frank was over there and had been over there a good long while.  He would write letters
back.  I know he had a tough time of it. They finally put him in guard duty in France and
he would say we just hoped that one of those Germans would start to run.  We all wanted
to shoot him.  It was pouring down rain and walking so many hours…4 or 5 hours a shift
before someone else could take over.  He said they were mad at the Germans and just
wished one would start to run because they would shoot him; and he just hates the
English.  He said they were the most obstinate people; they think they are better than
anybody in the world.  And they let you know about it.    He had a big old neighbor boy that
went with him; he was big and stout.  Well Frank was too; he was big and stout…they went
together and they finally got together in NJ somewhere down the line at Fort Nix, New
Jersey, I believe it was.  They were together in England over there.  They were just at the
right age that they did not care whether the sun would rise in the west or the east.  It did
not matter.  They were just that way. They were not mean or anything like that …but they
have a lot of fun.   Englishmen would talk about those Bloody Americans.  Frank and this
friend would be walking the streets at night when they was off duty.  And they would stop
at the corner and if an Englishman came by, he would just knock him out in the middle of
the street just for meanness.  They expected they were going back into the trenches
anyhow and afraid they would get killed anytime but Frank never did get injured.  He was
like Effie; he always had a lot of fun.  It did not matter where he was.  He was a big tease.
Now he could mock one of those niggers down there on the farm.    The way they talked;
they had a certain brogue.   He would come in and tell some story about one of those
niggers and we would just laugh about it. When he came back out of the service, he
weighed more than 200 pounds.   Oh man, we were surprised.   He didn’t even talk like
Frank; but he and I were together and close in age.   He would tell me a lot of stuff that he
would not tell Mother and Dad.  Of course, they would worry about him.  No use worrying
about it; it was done over.  I never did go; I guess if I had I would have been in  the Quarter
Master Core; but I was trying to figure out where I would have been. .. on a world tour.   I
would have gone to some place that I’ve never been to in my life; it didn’t make any
difference.  We were close to the same age.  I worried about him.    But I did not have to
go.  So I didn’t have to worry about it. After the war was over, Daddy had 4-- 60 acre tracts
for each of us boys to build a home.  And he quit.  Well he didn’t really quit, he helped us all
he could.  But I know Frank and I went to buy a mule.  We wanted to buy a good one.  And
we had to buy it on credit of course.  And Dad would talk to the bank and tell them well let
them have it.  I’ll stand good for it.  We bought a harness…. the best leather harness.  Dad
always used an old chain harness on those old mules and Dad would just laugh at us and
say that is all right, you are going to pay for it.  Just things like that all the time.
We had lots of friends.  I don’t know, Linda, like you were talking about this gentleman
down here being sick.   Down there, if neighbors came down with a sudden illness,  a fever
or got sick; there was lots of fever in those days.    It did not make any difference if people
lived 4 miles away.  People (neighbors) would hook up their cultivators and plant their crop
and worked it and gathered it if he wasn’t able to.  Dad was always first called to go help
somebody like that.  Somebody would call and say let’s go over to old Joe’s place and get it
worked out now; he can’t do it; he is conked out now.  Daddy did lots of good things for
people. I still like to do things like that myself.
Mother, I do not know how she did it.  She would work.  Dad made sure all of us kids went
to the field, we all worked.  We all knew how to work.   There were no ifs about it.  There
were 5 or 6 of us at home at a time and mother always had lots of garden she was raising,
chickens this that and the other.  She always had a good meal for us when we came in from
the field, never failed.  Now she put up that stuff in half gallon jars…hundreds of them. We
didn’t have the sizes of jars that we have now… the small ones like pints and quarts.  We
just had half gallon sized jars for canning. Of course we would help if it was raining and we
couldn’t get in the field and stuff like that and the girls helped her all the time in the house.
But they worked in the field too. It is a pleasure to be raised in that kind of a family.  So
many of them were not, even some of our neighbors.  You can’t help everybody.   We never
had any trouble with the law or anything like that.
 Dad would go to Bonham; they would get him on a jury.  He would go by buggy or catch a
ride with another neighbor who might be going as a juror too, and they would maybe stay up
there a week.  They might draw about $1.50 a day.  And Dad always told us boys, now you
just don’t pay any attention to those attorneys.  Just forget them. Take that evidence that
is given on that stand. Listen to the witnesses and that is what you reach your verdict by.
… forget those lawyers.  We’d sure miss him.
He would guide us with everything we did on the farm.  But we knew pretty well what to
do.  He always had a lot of stories to tell; mother too.   Mother looked after the girls and
Dad looked after the boys- lots of pleasure to think about those memories.
Talk about Effie, she was quick tempered.  She wasn’t hard to get along with; but you just
did not say anything about Dad and get away with it.   I never will forget, we lived down at
Lone Star and we had a beautiful horse…big, bay horse…I don’t know where he had been.
But Daddy drove that horse down around the choolhouse.  And that horse got to running wide open and came through a big gate and Daddy slipped off and hit that gate post.
And there was a preacher there of course at the time.  And everybody came running out
and the preacher said "Oh, he’s not hurt very bad."  And Effie said,  "You shut your mouth."
We never will forget that.  It did not matter who it was. She said," You shut your mouth;
you do not know anything about it."  Mother just laughed about that.    We were all out
there.  It did knock the breath out of him; but he was all right.  But Effie was that way; if
anyone said anything about Dad they just should not have done it.
We had 3 rent houses on the place there.  All on the same land of course.  Willie lived in
one; Frank lived in one; Jim lived in one and I lived at home you see.  We had a place to
live.  We would build our own houses; and I would paint them- lots of pleasure to just
think about it.  Grandmother McDow died the day Frank was born in 1896. (Frank & his
twin were born August 11, 1895; Grandmother McDow died 16 November 1896.  But the
twin and Grandmother McDow are buried in the same plot.  Miles Alvin must have heard
this story told because he was not born until 1898.)
I forgot how many sisters Mother had, one – two – three—three I guess.  One of them lived
up there around Wichita Falls.  Two of them come from Alabama with them.    Aunt Mary
she was the oldest (She may have looked the oldest to Miles Alvin, but she was not the
oldest).  Aunt Emmaline lived in Clay County another one lived down there around
Greenville.  Now can you imagine we lived about 40 miles…can you imagine Dad loading
us up in that wagon… team of mules and we would go down there and stay a week at a time
and they would come and stay with us a week at a time.  I don’t know how he did it…how
we fed them; but we raised everything.    We didn’t have any money to buy anything much,
just the bare necessities of life.  But we had … I remember we went down there one time
and it rained…and Dad got uneasy and he had to get back home but we could not get back
home…had to wait for it to quit raining.
  Another thing, we had a flour mill at Wolfe City…about 30-40 miles and he would let me
go with him and we would take a load of wheat down there and have it ground there and
on the way homewe would have maybe 15-20 sacks of 50 lb of flour each.   We had
a backroom there and a little shelf to keep it up there and keep the rats from getting into
it.  And we would go down to the wagon yard and spend the night there.  Get our flour the
next morning and start home.  We could do it in one day…but it would take the entire day
to do it.  I remember that so well.  Dad would go get us some cheese and crackers and that
was so different for us. We didn’t have that at home.  We had to raise everything at home.
 I study about those memories a whole lot.  Mother and Dad …when Mattie Lee came
along…there was nothing else like her.  Mother would tell Nanny to let Mattie Lee get
down and get dirty.  Nanny would curl Mattie Lee’s hair every day.  She had beautiful hair.
Talk about a spoiled brat; she was one of them.  I think I showed you the poem."
END OF TAPE.

[There are errors in Miles Alvin’s memory in some areas that I am sure of and there may be errors in my understanding of some words but this is a transcription of the tape by Linda Tredway Wright (1998). Email:    L3Wright(remove this spam block)@ juno.com]

• Lone Star School destroyed in a storm
• Parrish, Mary Emma
• McDow family