November 21, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, before Jay Moore was known for his local history work, he was a grandson trying to finish something his grandmother could not. Her story of an infant buried long ago sent him looking for a cemetery she feared she would never see again. When he finally uncovered the grave, he helped give her the closure she had been missing for decades.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and up next a listener's
story from KWKC thirteen forty am in Abilene, Texas. J
Moore is a retired history teacher who's known for his
fascinating and humorous presentations about his own city's history, and
today Jay brings us a story from the area. It's
(00:31):
a deeply personal one about his grandma. Here's Jay.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It was after my grandmother had passed away that I
realized just how deeply her lack of education embarrassed her.
I think it was a secret shame that she carried
in her naughty Pine panel din. There were bookshelves that
were filled with hardbacked books. That was the room that
she used the most, watching her soap operas or Crow
(01:00):
Shane working at Jigsaw puzzle, visiting with family members. But
I never one time saw her with one of those
books in her lap. Following her death in nineteen ninety two,
it was my dad who came to own the contents
of those bookshelves, and so one day I sat down
to look over the books and see if there were
(01:20):
any that I might enjoy reading. The first book I
picked up was the historical fiction of Catherine Marshall. It
was titled Christy. On the first page, I saw in
my grandmother's familiar handwriting that she had written this this
is one of the best books that I have read.
(01:40):
For that reason alone. I thought I might like to
read it as well, and I started a stack to
take to my car. Picking up another book, I noticed
the same handwritten notation in a fifties era novel. Ditto
for the third book, and the fourth book, and really
nearly all the rest. It seemed to awe that she
(02:00):
would record such thoughts, as though she herself might one
day pick the book back up and be reminded that
it was worth reading. But it slowly dawned on me
she was not writing introspective analysis, nor trying to convey
the quality to a future reader who might pick the
book from her shelf. She wrote comments in the front
(02:22):
of books she never read because her elementary level education
shamed her to write those fake reactions. She wrote them
to throw others off the scent. When Granny was fourteen,
she took a trip west from her home near Waco, Texas,
(02:42):
to visit her family in Runnelds County, which was about
one hundred and twenty miles west. On that trip, she
met a neighbor of her relatives who was nine years
older and who would become my grandfather. The following fall
in nineteen twenty three, they were married. Granny was fifteen
and my granddad was twenty four. They lived in a
(03:06):
two room board and batton house that my granddad built
on some land that his parents had given to him
so that he could farm. It was in that house
that Granny gave birth at age sixteen. I never knew
if a doctor or even a neighbor was available to
help with the birth, but in the end the baby
(03:29):
girl was dead. A small box was fashioned to serve
as a coffin, and my grandfather alone took the box
to the cemetery east of Winters, Texas. He placed the
child in the earth next to another infant. That infant
was his own brother, who also had died at birth,
(03:50):
so he buried his daughter to the side of his
own brother. Sixteen is young to be a mother, much
less one who is grieving, and I wondered just how
my grandmother coped inside that little house. By the time
she was eighteen, she had a healthy baby boy, followed
by five more sons. When I was growing up, we
(04:14):
were often at Granny and Granddaddy's house. Upstairs, at the
end of their hall was my grandfather's office. On the
wall was a large framed family tree that a draftsman
friend had drawn for him, and was comforting to see
the generations diagrammed in the logic of family connections. Their
sons were the branches, and my dad was near the
(04:36):
trees middle. But it was the first branch, the one
down low that was intriguing to me, a very short
branch that was just labeled infant. My grandfather died in
nineteen eighty five, and in just a short time, my
grandmother's sons had convinced her to sell the house that
she had lived in for thirty five years and to
(04:56):
disseminate all the furniture and the dishes and the family tree.
She moved to a smaller house, but before long she
moved from there to a nursing home when she was
eighty four. During those days of her living in just
one room with commercial furniture and a view of an
empty field, I stopped by several times each week, and
my grandmother and I had conversations. Some of them were short,
(05:20):
but others were long enough that by the end she
had fallen asleep. We discussed our family church, what was
happening in the news. I don't recall how it was,
but on one visit we talked about that family tree
and I brought up that lowest branch. Granny told me
the story of the unnamed baby girl in the burial
(05:42):
and those difficult days that she went through so long ago.
She bemoaned that she had never visited the grave, and
now she couldn't even remember the name of the cemetery
and was only vaguely familiar with its location somewhere east
of Winters, Texas. But she knew a woman still living
in Winters who would know, and I sensed that she
(06:05):
was asking me to go on a mission for her.
That is how I came to drive forty miles south
from my house to pick up Leona Billips one day
at her small home. Leona had known my grandparents for
most of her life. She had me drive east on
a farm to market road and she told me of
(06:27):
the one time community known as Truet. The one room
school community was long gone and really the only remnant
was the Truett Cemetery. Finally, we came across a green
sign pointing to Truett Cemetery, although it was actually pointing
at a gate into a farmer's field, and since it
was raining, we didn't go any farther. The next day
(06:50):
I went to see Granny, caught her up on Leona's
life in all about her family, and I told her
that I knew the approximate location of the cemetery, but
I would have to go back and open the gate
and drive down the rutted path. Granny told me then
that her infant daughter was buried beside the other baby,
my granddad's brother, but she said she was not even
(07:12):
sure if that grave was marked. On my second trip south,
I took a friend. We arrived at the gate opposite
the Truett Cemetery sign. We drove slowly through the tall
grass between tire ruts before coming to a second gate.
Soon we saw a fence at the end of the
half mile path. The fence surrounded a square plot of
(07:36):
land with a wide silver gate that had welded metal
letters spelling out Truet on top. And just inside the
gate were some headstones that were visible, but others were
far back among cactus in yuccas and grass that seemed
prime real estate for snakes, and we hadn't brought anything
like hose or shovels to hack at that growth or
(07:57):
to ward off reptiles. I stepped in to begin a
hunt for a headstone I was not sure even existed.
The markers were spread far apart, and there was no
evidence of any row or path like there is in
most cemeteries. I gingerly stepped over cactus and cautiously examined
the etched stones to see if there was one with
(08:18):
my last name. Towards the back corner, I used my
heel to push over a yucca growing right next to
a small stone, and behind the plant was a weathered
inscription cut into a sandstone marker reading infant son of
ds In M. F. Moore, Daniel Spurgeon and Mary Francis,
(08:39):
my great grandparents, the grave of my granddad's brother. A
smile of relief came, for there was the spot where
my grandfather had laid his daughter nearly seventy years before.
The Next day, seated by Granny's bed, I watched her
(08:59):
face register of strange relief. An eighty four year old
mother who had never forgotten, a daughter who had never
breathed life granny had finally found the child that she
had given birth to when she was just sixteen. A
few days later, she told me that she had decided
to put a marker on the grave, and she asked
(09:20):
me to go to the monument company to choose one,
and to pick one similar in size to the one
marking the adjoining grave. She said that she wanted the
marker to have a lamb on it, and she had
decided on a name for her infant daughter. The name
was Dixie Lee. Dixie was my granny's name, and so
I asked for you no, she said, Dixie Lee was
(09:44):
the name of Bing Crosby's wife, and I always liked her.
A few weeks later, I returned to Truett Cemetery, followed
by a truck from the monument company. But because I
was not sure on which side Dixie Lee was buried,
my grandmother had told me to just choose one. I
chose the north side, putting her that much closer to
(10:06):
her mother. For the past thirty summers, I've returned to
Truett Cemetery and to the grave of Dixie Lee, and
there I've cleared the growth and smoothed the ground, marking
the site of Granny's never forgotten child. My grandmother, Dixie Moore,
died only a few months after she found her daughter.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And my goodness, what a beautiful story. And a special
thanks to Jane Moore, and a special thanks to Robbie
for doing a beautiful job on the production. Jane Moore's story,
his grandmother's story, a beautiful family story. Here on our
American Stories.
This is our American Stories, and up next a listener's
story from KWKC thirteen forty am in Abilene, Texas. J
Moore is a retired history teacher who's known for his
fascinating and humorous presentations about his own city's history, and
today Jay brings us a story from the area. It's
(00:31):
a deeply personal one about his grandma. Here's Jay.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It was after my grandmother had passed away that I
realized just how deeply her lack of education embarrassed her.
I think it was a secret shame that she carried
in her naughty Pine panel din. There were bookshelves that
were filled with hardbacked books. That was the room that
she used the most, watching her soap operas or Crow
(01:00):
Shane working at Jigsaw puzzle, visiting with family members. But
I never one time saw her with one of those
books in her lap. Following her death in nineteen ninety two,
it was my dad who came to own the contents
of those bookshelves, and so one day I sat down
to look over the books and see if there were
(01:20):
any that I might enjoy reading. The first book I
picked up was the historical fiction of Catherine Marshall. It
was titled Christy. On the first page, I saw in
my grandmother's familiar handwriting that she had written this this
is one of the best books that I have read.
(01:40):
For that reason alone. I thought I might like to
read it as well, and I started a stack to
take to my car. Picking up another book, I noticed
the same handwritten notation in a fifties era novel. Ditto
for the third book, and the fourth book, and really
nearly all the rest. It seemed to awe that she
(02:00):
would record such thoughts, as though she herself might one
day pick the book back up and be reminded that
it was worth reading. But it slowly dawned on me
she was not writing introspective analysis, nor trying to convey
the quality to a future reader who might pick the
book from her shelf. She wrote comments in the front
(02:22):
of books she never read because her elementary level education
shamed her to write those fake reactions. She wrote them
to throw others off the scent. When Granny was fourteen,
she took a trip west from her home near Waco, Texas,
(02:42):
to visit her family in Runnelds County, which was about
one hundred and twenty miles west. On that trip, she
met a neighbor of her relatives who was nine years
older and who would become my grandfather. The following fall
in nineteen twenty three, they were married. Granny was fifteen
and my granddad was twenty four. They lived in a
(03:06):
two room board and batton house that my granddad built
on some land that his parents had given to him
so that he could farm. It was in that house
that Granny gave birth at age sixteen. I never knew
if a doctor or even a neighbor was available to
help with the birth, but in the end the baby
(03:29):
girl was dead. A small box was fashioned to serve
as a coffin, and my grandfather alone took the box
to the cemetery east of Winters, Texas. He placed the
child in the earth next to another infant. That infant
was his own brother, who also had died at birth,
(03:50):
so he buried his daughter to the side of his
own brother. Sixteen is young to be a mother, much
less one who is grieving, and I wondered just how
my grandmother coped inside that little house. By the time
she was eighteen, she had a healthy baby boy, followed
by five more sons. When I was growing up, we
(04:14):
were often at Granny and Granddaddy's house. Upstairs, at the
end of their hall was my grandfather's office. On the
wall was a large framed family tree that a draftsman
friend had drawn for him, and was comforting to see
the generations diagrammed in the logic of family connections. Their
sons were the branches, and my dad was near the
(04:36):
trees middle. But it was the first branch, the one
down low that was intriguing to me, a very short
branch that was just labeled infant. My grandfather died in
nineteen eighty five, and in just a short time, my
grandmother's sons had convinced her to sell the house that
she had lived in for thirty five years and to
(04:56):
disseminate all the furniture and the dishes and the family tree.
She moved to a smaller house, but before long she
moved from there to a nursing home when she was
eighty four. During those days of her living in just
one room with commercial furniture and a view of an
empty field, I stopped by several times each week, and
my grandmother and I had conversations. Some of them were short,
(05:20):
but others were long enough that by the end she
had fallen asleep. We discussed our family church, what was
happening in the news. I don't recall how it was,
but on one visit we talked about that family tree
and I brought up that lowest branch. Granny told me
the story of the unnamed baby girl in the burial
(05:42):
and those difficult days that she went through so long ago.
She bemoaned that she had never visited the grave, and
now she couldn't even remember the name of the cemetery
and was only vaguely familiar with its location somewhere east
of Winters, Texas. But she knew a woman still living
in Winters who would know, and I sensed that she
(06:05):
was asking me to go on a mission for her.
That is how I came to drive forty miles south
from my house to pick up Leona Billips one day
at her small home. Leona had known my grandparents for
most of her life. She had me drive east on
a farm to market road and she told me of
(06:27):
the one time community known as Truet. The one room
school community was long gone and really the only remnant
was the Truett Cemetery. Finally, we came across a green
sign pointing to Truett Cemetery, although it was actually pointing
at a gate into a farmer's field, and since it
was raining, we didn't go any farther. The next day
(06:50):
I went to see Granny, caught her up on Leona's
life in all about her family, and I told her
that I knew the approximate location of the cemetery, but
I would have to go back and open the gate
and drive down the rutted path. Granny told me then
that her infant daughter was buried beside the other baby,
my granddad's brother, but she said she was not even
(07:12):
sure if that grave was marked. On my second trip south,
I took a friend. We arrived at the gate opposite
the Truett Cemetery sign. We drove slowly through the tall
grass between tire ruts before coming to a second gate.
Soon we saw a fence at the end of the
half mile path. The fence surrounded a square plot of
(07:36):
land with a wide silver gate that had welded metal
letters spelling out Truet on top. And just inside the
gate were some headstones that were visible, but others were
far back among cactus in yuccas and grass that seemed
prime real estate for snakes, and we hadn't brought anything
like hose or shovels to hack at that growth or
(07:57):
to ward off reptiles. I stepped in to begin a
hunt for a headstone I was not sure even existed.
The markers were spread far apart, and there was no
evidence of any row or path like there is in
most cemeteries. I gingerly stepped over cactus and cautiously examined
the etched stones to see if there was one with
(08:18):
my last name. Towards the back corner, I used my
heel to push over a yucca growing right next to
a small stone, and behind the plant was a weathered
inscription cut into a sandstone marker reading infant son of
ds In M. F. Moore, Daniel Spurgeon and Mary Francis,
(08:39):
my great grandparents, the grave of my granddad's brother. A
smile of relief came, for there was the spot where
my grandfather had laid his daughter nearly seventy years before.
The Next day, seated by Granny's bed, I watched her
(08:59):
face register of strange relief. An eighty four year old
mother who had never forgotten, a daughter who had never
breathed life granny had finally found the child that she
had given birth to when she was just sixteen. A
few days later, she told me that she had decided
to put a marker on the grave, and she asked
(09:20):
me to go to the monument company to choose one,
and to pick one similar in size to the one
marking the adjoining grave. She said that she wanted the
marker to have a lamb on it, and she had
decided on a name for her infant daughter. The name
was Dixie Lee. Dixie was my granny's name, and so
I asked for you no, she said, Dixie Lee was
(09:44):
the name of Bing Crosby's wife, and I always liked her.
A few weeks later, I returned to Truett Cemetery, followed
by a truck from the monument company. But because I
was not sure on which side Dixie Lee was buried,
my grandmother had told me to just choose one. I
chose the north side, putting her that much closer to
(10:06):
her mother. For the past thirty summers, I've returned to
Truett Cemetery and to the grave of Dixie Lee, and
there I've cleared the growth and smoothed the ground, marking
the site of Granny's never forgotten child. My grandmother, Dixie Moore,
died only a few months after she found her daughter.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And my goodness, what a beautiful story. And a special
thanks to Jane Moore, and a special thanks to Robbie
for doing a beautiful job on the production. Jane Moore's story,
his grandmother's story, a beautiful family story. Here on our
American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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