Harry Britt McCarty

BM: This is July 16, 1986 in Harry McCarty's living room.

MM: Okay--

BM: Now, Harry, you said a while ago the two girls was buried where?

HM: Lola (ph) was buried at Port Acana (ph) and Bea (ph) was buried down there close to Houston in a Catholic cemetery but we didn't go to the cemetery.

BM: Do you know--

HM: I don't know the name of it--

BM: Don't even know the name of it?

HM: No, I don't.

BM: Who could--where could a person find out?

HM: I don't know. I don't have any idea.

MM: What year was she buried, do you know that?

HM: I don't know that either. I don't know [indecipherable] remember. But Lola died when we lived down there at Port Acana (ph) with the diphtheria. And she was the--she was the third one that was ever put in that Port Ac--that cemetery 00:01:00out there. They might've had another cemetery there around Port Acana (ph) but I didn't know it. And there was a Shell Road run right along down, going down from Evercorn (ph) down toward Port Acana (ph) and there was a gate went into that cemetery right along there and Old Man Holloway (ph) was buried there first, and Bryant Fassmore (ph) was buried there second and she was buried there third. And they took Old Man Holloway (ph) up and sent him back to--I don't know whether he was buried in that Fairland Cemetery (ph) or Toby (ph), over there. And after we left there I never went back to her grave.

MM: Where did his grandpa [indecipherable]? Where was--

BM: Do you have any idea where your grandpa was buried?

HM: Grandpa who?

BM: Grandpa McCarty.

HM: No, I don't.

BM: Well, I--Grandma Holland, where was she buried at?

HM: She's buried there at Toby (ph), I think. I'm pretty sure she was.

BM: Well there's somebody told me there was something--where I got this I don't know. They said there was also a McCarty Cemetery right around Toby (ph).

HM: No, I never did know of any McCarty Cemetery.

BM: That the Toby (ph) cemetery was their--this other one, it wasn't even close to--it was close to this Toby (ph) cemetery, alright, but it wasn't right in this Toby (ph) cemetery.

HM: I don't think there's anything to that. That Toby (ph) cemetery sat right 00:03:00along like that, and there was a schoolhouse out here, and right off down in this pasture here just a little ways was where the old homeplace was, where dad was raised.

BM: Yep.

HM: The old Holland place. Grandma Holland--grandma married Sam Holland after dad's father was shot.

MM: He lived right there at Toby when grandpa was shot?

HM: I don't know where they lived then. I think dad was--I think he said he was eleven years old, I believe.

BM: Yeah, six--seven makes five. I believe he said five. I believe I remember 00:04:00hearing him say five. I may be wrong there.

MM: I heard him a Corey (ph) talk about it [inaudible].

BM: And I've always wondered where that he was buried.

HM: Well, I don't know that he could've been buried around that Toby cemetery (ph) if they lived there, I'm satisfied they lived around [inaudible].

BM: They had to live right in there--

HM: Somewhere.

BM: --in there around Marble Falls or somewhere in that neighborhood, anyway.

HM: He's buried there in one of them--well there was a Wash Crosson (ph) cemetery back up on the Colorado River that there was several--I don't know if there's any McCartys ever buried up there but there's several people buried up there.

MM: Ask him how many of--if he could tell all the names of papa's half-brothers and -sisters and all them. All of them kids, we've heard so many tales of the half-brothers and -sisters and stepbrothers and -sisters and all that, how many 00:05:00of them can you name?

HM: [Inaudible] Them Hollands, Uncle Tom Holland was dad's half-brother. And when he was here I asked him about them other Hollands down there and he said that I thought they was all Grandpa's Holland's brothers. He said they was his brothers and half-brothers or something. And I don't know.

MM: Someone told me, maybe it was Uncle Tom, of all of them, the step-brothers and --sisters and half-brothers and --sisters and all the [indecipherable] there was thirty-five kids in that generation.

HM: Well, it could've been. Had a lot of them Hollands that's scattered around over them hills there that had families that was old enough that I thought that 00:06:00they was Grandpa Holland's brothers. But Uncle Tom said that they was his brothers and half-brothers.

MM: Well, now, Grandpa McCarty was married before he married papa's mother. He had kids before them.

HM: Yeah. He had, he had Keeg (ph) and Epp (ph).

MM: Where did Alvin (ph) come in?

HM: And he had Miney (ph) and he had that that I was talking about a while ago, McCourse (ph).

BM: Mac horses.

HM: Ida, I think was her name. Wasn't there some of them down there at that reunion?

BM: No, there wasn't none of this down there so I tried to--

MM: They've mostly died, so, on that--

BM: --that is the reason I wanted to run this down myself and I can go from there with it. But we intend to take off either about the last of September or the first of October after it goes to cooling down, run this all down, and we're going to try to find a place where it'll be a little bit warmer for winter.

HM: Well that, there name was McCourse (ph), and Ida (ph) was a sister to Miney (ph) and Epp (ph) and Keeg (ph) and they was my grandpa's first marriage, I guess.

MM: And how many was--papa and Ari (ph) and how many of those kids was there?

HM: Well there was just three.

MM: Three?

HM: Alex (ph) and dad and Ari (ph).

MM: Where'd Alex (ph) die?

HM: I think there around Port Lavaca somewhere.

BM: I believe I remember hearing something about this, but I wasn't sure on that.

HM: They lived down there when dad and Laura and Ferrell (ph) Blythe out when the calvary went--

BM: Yeah, yeah, I remember hearing them talk going to Port Lavaca to see Keeg (ph) I believe what it was.

HM: No, see Alex (ph).

BM: Alex (ph)! Yeah, that's the way it was, Alex (ph).

MM: Okay, now, did grandma McCarty have a family before her and grandpa married?

HM: Yeah.

MM: Who did she have?

HM: Well, she had--she married (pause) I don't know whether she was married before she married to Thompson but she had Wiley Thompson (ph) and Charlie 00:09:00Edwards' (ph) mother, Mary by Thompson, but I don't know what his name was.

MM: Do you remember what year Bea (ph) died?

BM: Well, I remember hearing about it.

HM: He died when we lived out there in the oil field.

BM: Yeah. When we lived out there on the hill.

MM: About what year?

BM: And, see, Bea (ph) and her old man and them two girls come back when you lived out there in the field.

ZM: When we lived out there [inaudible].

BM: On the old--

MM: Sunrise.

BM: Yeah, Sunrise. They come back--

ZM: First time we went up there, went out there, was in 1930 and '40, wasn't it?

HM: Thirty-nine.

ZM: Thirty-nine. Nineteen-and-thirty-nine and forty. Christmas, you know. And come back about New Year's.

HM: Yeah, but she hadn't--

ZM: And then we made another trip, we made about three or four trips down to the Port. We went [inaudible].

HM: [Indecipherable] come down there to the house.

MM: What was their last name?

ZM: Simmons.

MM: Simmons? S-I-M-M-O-N-S?

ZM: S-I-M-M-O-N-S. We moved up there in [indecipherable] what year, 1940? Yeah.

HM: No, we moved up there in '41.

BM: Forty, '41, somewhere in there, that was when Amelia (ph) was--when Laura Ina (ph) had the first, first--

ZM: Amelia (ph).

BM: Amelia (ph), wasn't it? Oh, that big [indecipherable] was rough to carry down them steps--

MM: Forty-four or '45, isn't that about where Bea (ph) died?

BM: --that old hospital.

ZM: I don't know, I don't have any idea.

HM: Well, let's see.

BM: I believe it was later than that.

ZM: Yeah, I believe it was, too.

BM: It was--I know you were still up here, but it was later than that.

ZM: Well was we here when Bea (ph) died? Yeah, yeah, we lived in here when Bea 00:12:00(ph) died. We moved in here in '67. Might be--

HM: No, we didn't.

BM: No, you hadn't moved to town whenever Bea (ph) died.

[all talking]

HM: We lived out there in the oilfield.

BM: You lived out there on oilfield, out there in the oilfield, out there on thirty-three. (pause) But I--

HM: [Indecipherable] Flossie (ph) and Paula (ph) and you and me went to La Porte, that's where they lived, in La Porte, but she was in a funeral home there in Houston. And we went back there the next day, it was foggy and raining. We went down through there and they don't have water ditches there, they just have kind of bar (ph) ditches, flattened out. And the next morning we went back to that funeral home and if was twenty-four miles, they was twenty-six cars in that, that'd missed that that night in that fog and there wasn't anybody in 'em, 00:13:00they was just bogged down out in there and if it was the other way around they was twenty-four miles and twenty-six cars and if it's twenty-six miles well there's twenty-four cars, I don't remember. And we'd went right down between 'em that night and (laughs) [indecipherable] to the road.

ZM: --he said, Well I wish they'd get over there! Said, Right over here in my lane! I wish they'd get a four-lane drive! And he was over in the third lane! And he said, I wish they'd get over there! And Flossie (ph) said, well, Raymond! Said, Why don't you look where you're driving! Said, Maybe you're in the wrong--maybe you're driving wrong. I'm not driving wrong! he said. They're just a'crowd, trying to crowd me off! [Inaudible.]

HM: Across that--we went through that Columbus and stopped ate supper and I saw a lot of driving then it wasn't quite dark, and I saw some of them cedar bricks 00:14:00afire. It looked like smoke just roll out ahead of you, and then it kind of clear up and then here it'd come again. And we got on down there and eat supper in Columbus and went on down and had to cross that Colorado River between there and Houston twice, and boy I never did see--I drove fifty miles an hour that night watching, without a fog light, the car went around it had a fog light, and all I could see was two little lights just (laughs). And I drove fifty miles an hour trying to see where I could see them, and every once in a while you could tell you passed something on the shoulder. And went on down and had to stop and get gasoline and that old boy there running that station, he said, Where'd you 00:15:00come from? I told him, and he said, Man I don't see how you made it though that, down through there crossing that river up there, that. He said, I been in there a few times when it was just like it is tonight, and he said, I don't know how you made it without a fog light.

ZM: --letters that I had the other day, I could tell you about what--

HM: But we went on down there and we went to the funeral the next day but we didn't go on to the cemetery. But that night went in there to La Porte, I don't know what time it was, it was late. Saw a cab stand there and three or four men standing around it, we didn't know where we was going. And I said, I'm gonna ask these guys here at this cab stand if they happen to know Paul Stephens (ph), and 00:16:00went out there and one of them said, Is that the man that lost his wife? And I said, Yeah, I guess it is. And he said, Well, I don't believe I could tell you to where you could find it, but he said, Just follow me and I'll take you down there. It was plum across town, and got down there, why, he turned around and he told us that's where it was. And I got out and went out there and I said, How much I owe you? He said, You don't owe me anything. I said, Well I don't want you to do it for nothing, I said, I want you, I'm gonna give you something. He said, Well, it won't be anything, it'd just be the cab fare for coming down 00:17:00here, and he didn't want to take that. Wasn't much, I don't know what it was, it wasn't much and I thought that was pretty nice of him.

BM: Yeah, it was.

MM: What year did your daddy come out to Oklahoma?

HM: Well, he come here in--I guess it was the early part of '18.

MM: What time, when did you come out?

HM: I come later on. I come in the fall. September. And he had worked over there at Lawton, and we was over at Wichita Falls, Bert Burnett (ph), and I went back and lived with grandma Holland for a while. And he come on out here--he started to Wyoming, and that Mina Phipps (ph), his half-sister, was living down there below Bristow. He hadn't seen her in a long time and he was up there to see her. 00:18:00And they talked him into the notion of staying. He went to work for Ed Barnfield (ph) out there on the old Baker place and worked for him a while, then he went to work for Baker, then he rented the place.

ZM: Your mother died in '68.

HM: Yeah.

ZM: And Bea (ph) must've died about two years before, didn't she?

BM: That's what I was thinking. I thought--it was just before I bought that place out there, or right about the same time I bought that place out there.

HM: Well, I don't think Bea (ph) died after we moved in here. I know she didn't.

ZM: No, I know she didn't either, because I--

HM: We moved in here in '57.

ZM: --I couldn't hardly make up my mind whether I wanted to go or not and right 00:19:00at the last I did, and we went up by the mailbox and we found the letter from someone, I don't know who it was from, that Bea (ph) was real bad, and we went on down there--

HM: Went on to Marble Falls.

ZM: And stayed all night, and you and Red (ph) got up the next morning and called Houston, went down and called Houston and--

HM: Called La Porte.

ZM: She was just as bad as she could be, they said. And we decided we'd go on down there but she was gone when we got there.

MM: What was her kids names?

ZM: Betty and Vivian and [inaudible].

MM: All girls.

ZM: Uh-huh.

MM: Do you know their names now?

ZM: Well, Betty's is Simmons (ph), and--

HM: Betty's is what?

ZM: Simmons (ph)? No, not Simmons (ph). Her maiden name was Simmons. I don't know, maybe it's in here. I forgot all of their names so maybe it's in here. Mack (ph) is--Mack (ph) Betty's husband's name [inaudible].

BM: Their daughter killed herself.

MM: Wow.

BM: Betty's and Mack (ph).

ZM: I don't know. I've got the others here, Vivian [inaudible].

BM: Well, her name is not what it was then.

ZM: [Inaudible.]

MM: What about [inaudible].

ZM: Betty Lee and Vivian King (ph) and Audrey Lola Simmons. That was before they was married. This is her picture. Betty, Vivian, and Audrey, this was '44.

HM: Aubrey Simmons (ph) and Bea (ph) separated and she married Paul Stephens (ph), wasn't it?

MM: Her name, then, when she died was Stephens (ph).

HM: I never did see him but one time, that fall.

ZM: Yeah, when she died it was Stephens.

HM: I saw him, we went to Austin.

ZM: There's Betty--uh, Bea, and that's her three girls and that's her.

MM: Ain't nothing worse than picking up a tape you've made [indecipherable] date and where we at and say, We were somewhere and sometime we made this tape. (laughs) We make--

ZM: [Inaudible.] These are just pictures.

BM: I was gonna say, we're gonna leave--try to get away about the last of September or the--

ZM: This is the key to that [indecipherable]--

BM: The last of September or the first of October.

HM: That's Bryant's (ph) dad.

BM: Yeah.

HM: And mother.

BM: I think--I know, I think Valerie got one of these. Pretty sure she does 00:23:00have. Well I've seen this one before.

ZM: You have.

HM: Well, you've seen them too, I think.

BM: Yeah, I've seen--I remember Bea.

HM: I mean, Uncle Keeg (ph) and--

BM: Yeah, yeah.

HM: They come to Bryant's (ph) when we lived up there on the [indecipherable] up there.

BM: Now, Keeg (ph) and them should be in there somewhere, buried in there somewhere around Marble Falls.

HM: I think they, they lived up there around Lannow (ph).

BM: Lannow (ph) and Marble Falls, in there some dang place.

HM: I imagine, I'd have to imagine they was buried around Lannow (ph). They 00:24:00lived up in there for, for quite a while. Well, the last two times we went to seem them they lived up in there. And I don't know--they could've been brought back down there to Toby (ph), that's where he was raised.

BM: Well, that--

ZM: This picture was taken when you and her were--Lorreine (ph) went, and I was sick and didn't get to go in to my favorite [indecipherable] and Lorreine (ph), and this picture was made in March 1955. It's you all at your momma's. That was before Bea (ph) died, I'm sure it was.

HM: I don't know. We left out there in '57, I know that. And I think Bea (ph) died--Herbert and Lorreine (ph) lived over there on that hill there from Jack 00:25:00Higgins' (ph) because of Audrey (ph) and Neely (ph) lived over in Tulsa and they found out about Bea (ph) faster than we did, and they called Herbert to find out if any of us was a'going, they wanted them girls to go. And we had already gone. But we didn't know she was dead. Well, she wasn't dead, I don't guess then, when we left. And Herbert and Lorreine (ph) left off of that hill there and went to New Mexico. Right over in New Mexico, and lived out there for a good while after that.

MM: That's a good picture of [inaudible].

ZM: Yeah. [Inaudible.]

(talking in background, inaudible)

ZM: --Sixty-one, was it?

HM: Yeah.

BM: I was thinking it was '60, but it was '61.

HM: It was '61.

BM: '61.

MM: Yeah, he died in May. Buddy died one May and he died the last day of April--I don't know if it was March or April the next year.

BM: Yeah. April the next year.

MM: I know that he come out there when Buddy--

ZM: This was taken was on Easter Sunday and we was out at Herbert's. And mother was there and she had, she told me several times after, after dad passed away, I wanted my picture taken with him, with dad, and I said why didn't you tell us? 00:27:00She said, Oh, I don't know, I didn't know whether Laura would like it or not.

BM: Doesn't make a damn bit of difference anyways. (laughs) make a damn bit of difference!

ZM: --near the same age, she said, and she sure just--she told me that I don't know how many times, I wanted my picture taken with Frank.

MM: Well, we got a big picture of him on a horse just about a year before he died. We had one--

BM: Did you get one of them?

MM: My sister took a snapshot

HM? Hmm?

BM: Of dad on that horse.

HM: No.

BM: Just, oh, probably--

MM: --took a snapshot and the boy went across it and--

BM: --oh, I think it was November.

HM: Mmm-hmm.

BM: I think it was November.

MM: I know it was the summer Buddy was killed.

BM: Well it was after Buddy was killed. He'd had--it was cold.

MM: Anyway, my sister had this, one of them little pictures just something, and Loyd (ph) blowed it up like that and [indecipherable] and hang on the wall.

BM: It was cold, but--it was cold enough that it's the same day that--

MM: That's what you ought to do with them four generations, have it blowed up.

BM: --That was the same day that I had him to come out there and we cut that old boar hog. I went in that morning after him--

MM: No that was the next spring.

BM: --I went in after him to--

MM: [Inaudible.]

BM: No.

MM: I know it wasn't in the fall.

BM: It was in the fall. I went in after him to see how he felt and I said, How you feel dad, and he said, Oh I don't feel very good.

MM: I think 'cause that hog [indecipherable].

BM: Well, I got to cut that old boar hog, go to getting everybody so I can knock him down. He said, Son I'll go out with you but I just don't know whether I can do anything with him or not. Well, come on, you tell me what--you just stand 00:29:00back and tell me what to do and I'll do the rest.

ZM: You's a cutting, huh?

BM: Man, well, I can do that. I got out there and got that old boar hog all stretched out and come over in that pen. He said, Go and let me do that. I think my knife is pretty sharp, let me do that. (laughs) He felt of his knife a little bit, Well, now, I believe it needs to be whitted (ph) just a little bit. Okay. He whitted (ph) his knife up a little bit. I still had that old hog stretched out. Well he got one of 'em out and he just throwed it over the fence and said, Well somebody sure make some good dinner.

MM: Have a hog [inaudible].

BM: Went back after the other, got the other one, went over to pick the first one up and the old dog had done run off with it. Damned old bitches, run off with my dinner now I'll just give you both of 'em.

MM: [Inaudible.]

ZM: Would you all drink something, coffee or something?

BM: Oh, I'd have a cup of coffee, sis.

MM: You can turn that off if you want to.

pause in recording

HM: Marble Falls and buried her there at the Marble Falls but they wasn't buried together. And Nina (ph), the oldest girl, she--her husband's buried out there at Toby (ph) and she got it in her head she wanted her mother and dad to be put out there at Toby (ph) and she had them taken up, and they'd been there for a long time. I guess there's nothing there. But anyhow she--

BM: She moved 'em out to Toby.

HM: Out to Toby and buried them out there side by side and they was separated, and one of them was buried in one part of the cemetery there at Marble Falls and another in another part. She put 'em side by side up out there in Toby but there wasn't nothing to it, I don't guess, anything much left. They'd been buried so long. Anyhow, but--

BM: There'd be a few bones but that'd be about it. Doubt whether there'd be that or not.

HM: I don't--she had a gold band ring and they left it on her when she was buried. And I don't know what part was left of her or anything about it, but Red 00:32:00told me that Nina (ph) said that they couldn't find that ring. She made that old boy keep a'digging in there until he did find it. That, that looked like foolishness to me. But one thing she did do, my mother's father was named Britt (ph). And he was buried way off down in that Colorado River somewhere down there in a cemetery, I don't know what the name of it was. He didn't have any tombstone and she went off down there after John died and looked his grave, found where he was buried and she put a tombstone to his grave. And he'd been dead for no telling how long.

(talking in background)

end of recording