August 21, 2025 • 40 mins
Mary sets up housekeeping on the Colorado across from LA Grange while her husband is a prisoner in Mexico. The 8 doubloons he sends her is worth about $14,000 today.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good afternoon. This is am I and I am here
on Thursday afternoon to do the next installment of Mary
Maverick's memoirs. So this is chapter twelve, and it's called
Colorado Bottoms. In Texas we call a I guess you
(00:22):
would call it a valley. Valley's I think of as
being steeper. Bottoms are just like down where the river is.
So we have creek bottoms, we have river bottoms, and
so this is the Colorado Bottoms. So that's going to
be on the Colorado River. Okay. We lived on the
Colorado from June twenty first, eighteen forty two, until November fifteenth,
(00:48):
eighteen forty four. I have mentioned our arrival June twenty
first at Colonel Dancy's where we were to remain a while.
On August twenty first, mister Maverick bought twenty six acres
of land fronting on the right bank of the Colorado
and lying between two tracks belonging to Colonel Dancy. He
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had it surveyed by Hudson and made arrangements to build
us a temporary home on it. This tract was opposite
Lagrange in Fayette County and opposite the Ferry okay, Benda Lagrange.
So at some point in time I'll have to go
back and see if I can figure out where across
from Lagrange Mary Maverick lived. It was on August of
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twenty second, as I have mentioned, that mister Maverick left
us for San Antonio, where he was captured and taken
to Perote, which is down Veracruz, Mexico. So it's way
down south. During September, poor little Lewis became ill with
typhoid fever. Griffin came back about this time and returned
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on his fateful air. And remember Griffin died when he
was in with one of the army companies. September twenty ninth,
I received a letter from my dear husband, now a captive.
The letter was written on the eve of their being
marched off to a Mexican dungeon. It was calm, cheerful
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and hopeful and counseled me to be brave, to bear
a stout heart and take care of myself and the children.
November sixteenth we moved into our own house, which consisted
of a log cabin of one room sixteen by eighteen.
Now my storage building is eighteen by eighteen, so she's
talking about a little bit smaller, two feet smaller than that,
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and that is not a big space, okay, one smaller
for a kitchen and a shed room for Jinny and
the children. Okay, So that means they had a smaller cabin.
They had their kitchen separate from their house, which was
very much the case back then. A it kept the
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house from getting hot, and b it kept the you know,
if you had a fire, that gave you at least
a hope that you didn't catch both parts on fire.
This house was built by Granville and Wiley, with much
help from mister griff Jones, who was very kind to us.
Lewis was now almost strong again. The fever had been
severe with him and had so reduced him that he
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was unable to stand up for some time after it
had left him. My aunt, Missus Bradley, whose husband was
also a prisoner in Perote, came to the Colorado and
moved into Colonel Dancy's house, which I had just vacated.
She and I had some sad consolation conferring together over
our troubles and comparing such news as each of us
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occasionally received from our imprisoned husbands or from Dame Rumor,
as she calls it, So that would be, you know,
rumors that came flying around. Annie Bradley had gone to
Alabama to visit her relatives. Molly Bradley, my my sister, Lizzie,
and Leonora Hill, daughter of a neighbor, became intimate companions,
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rode much on horseback together and kept some youthful company
and cheer of life about us. So they had some
young people and that helped them not be quite so sad.
In Lagrange lived Doctor Chalmer's family, refugees from Austin. Here
we met Thomas J. Devine, a young lawyer, and the
Missus Elder, one of whom Divine married. We also met
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George Hancock and Tom Green. As I've said, Missus Elliott
was in San Antonio when mister Maverick was captured. She
visited the prisoners by permission, and mister Maverick handed her
privately twenty gold balloons for me about three hundred and
twenty five dollars in our money. The money came safely
to me. I'll have to go back and figure out
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how much that was in today's money, because I'm thinking
that would be pretty a pretty good sum. The amount
with which I had in the house, I tried to
make go as far as possible. Coffee, sugar, and flour
were very high, as indeed everything except beef, corn, fowls,
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and butter, because it's the things they could grow and
produce themselves versus the things they couldn't, which is a
good prepper lesson. We may come back to that. I
had the twenty six acre track fenced in and purchased
some milk cows. My brother William came to see how
I was doing and stopped a while with us and
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worked with our men until they built another log cabin
adjacent to the one previously built, leaving a passage or
a haul between them, kind of like a dog Truck's
what it sounds like, and that's what they usually did.
They'd build one cabin and then they'd have the opportunity
to build some more, and they would put a roof
over the whole thing, but they would be separated by haul,
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and they called them a dog truck. Usually my parents
and when sister was little, was younger than you know,
long before I came along, they lived in a dog trot,
but it was a house, not a cabin. In this
hall we usually sat when the weather was fair. We
had an immense live oak tree for shade, and immediately
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in front of the house stood a mott. She has
that end quotes of young live oak trees, so I'm
assuming that's like a little stand of trees. In fact,
we met ourselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.
William remained with us as long as he could, and
then left for Alabama in November. I received a letter
from my husband written October sixteenth in mont Clova or
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mont Clover excuse me, and she has in parentheses Montalvez Kowahea.
Hopefully I said that right, because my Spanish is almost
non existent. He had marched four four hundred miles and
had eight hundred more, as he understood, to march before
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reaching the city of Mexico. I cannot imagine. Assuming that
they walked say ten miles a day, that means that
they had walked what fifty days at that point and
still had another eighty to go. They may have made
them march faster than that, but at some point in time,
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especially if you're not feeding people, they're not gonna be
able to march that fast before reaching the city of Mexico,
where he expected to be released. My dear husband wrote
to cheer me expressly before he spoke of his excellent
health and hopefulness, but did not mention anything about the
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pens they were herded into at night, or of the
other abuses they were subjected to. I, however, was constantly
fearing that the next mail should bring some dreadful news
from the prisoners. And only when I got an occasional
letter so brave and fond from Sam, which would be
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his initials, I could hope? Could I hope? I tried
to follow his advice and kept up at times a
semblance of cheerfulness. But I was then only twenty four
years of age and almost a child inexperience, and I
had the care of three helpless children, and of the
birth of a fourth to look to in the future.
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So you know, in addition to having three children, she's pregnant,
a refugee in a strange land, and my husband a
captive in the power of a cruel and treacherous foe.
Then I felt what weight of agony the human heart
can bear. But I strove to be brave and prayed
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to God that I might live for my children and
my dear husband. In February eighteen forty three, I received
a letter from mister Maverick written January twenty seventh, so
that's actually not as far as a timeframe goes at perote.
He mentioned in it how badly they had been treated
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in Saltello. And this is a quote that robber city
of thirty thousand people, where we were closely confined in
a filthy prison for fifteen days unquote, and where their
captors threatened to take them to some secret place excuse
me allergies in the evening as well as in the morning,
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to some secret place where they would never be heard
from again. But in this letter, mister Maverick was quite
hopeful of being released through the exertions of General Wattie Thompson,
then United States Minister to Mexico. This letter full of
deep feeling, along with other letters written by mister Maverick,
whilst a prisoner, I have carefully preserved for our children
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as sacred. And you know that I'm going to take
We're gonna talk about it when I get finished, but
I'm gonna take this as an asside that we don't
write We don't write letters anymore. We text, we email,
we FaceTime, we take digital pictures, but we have nothing materially.
And one of my most prized possessions is a is
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letters my father wrote to my mother. Okay, I have
one that he wrote to her while he was in
the army during World War Two. I have one that
he wrote when he was off on a job and
she was at home. It's just it's they're special to
us because we do not write letters. And actually there
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would be a lot to be said for that, because,
as she said, she has kept those for their children
as sacred and their children would consider them that I
have written. I have another written December thirtieth, eighteen forty two,
one written February the second, eighteen forty three, also expecting
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speedy release. Another written March fifteenth, contains the same hope.
March twenty second, he wrote again stating that he and W.
Jones and Judge Anderson Hutchinson were released from prison. Their
final release would be received in the city of Mexico.
He wrote of doctor borkin, one of our San Antonio Boys,
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being shot by a drunken soldier and told of his
dying in great bodily pain and mental agony and he
mentioned the death of General Guadaloupe Victoria, the first president
of the Republic of Mexico, on March thirtieth, eighteen forty three.
On Thursday morning, our second daughter was born, child of
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a captive father, and for him, named Augusta. On the
day of her birth, her father was finally released by
Santa Anna in the city of Mexico. Mister Mavericks set
out for home on the second of April, and finally
reached our cabin the night of May fourth, in splendid
health and happy as he could be, and so was I. Okay,
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if he sat out on the day of her birth,
which is March thirtieth, and he no, he sat out
on April the second, and he got there on May fourth.
That is only a month. And it is a very
long way from Mexico City to Lagrange. I'll have to
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go back and look at that distance as well. He
was in splendid health and happy as he could be,
and so was I, and thankful to our heavenly father
for all his mercies. Augusta was five weeks old when
she and her father met in June. Ada Bradley was
born in June and again September mister Maverick visited San
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Antonio to attend court and lamb business. I'm like, you know,
he probably should have actually maybe thought better of that,
but he didn't. In December eighteen forty three, mister Maverick
went to Washington attended the session of the eighth Congress
of the Republic as a senator from bay Are. Now
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that would be Washington on the Brass, which is not
the same as Washington DC. He had been elected whilst
in Perote prison. He returned from Washington to spend Christmas
with us at home, and we with others took Christmas
dinner with family of doctor Chalmers in Lagrange eighteen forty four.
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The Congress adjourned on February the eighth, eighteen forty four,
and that was the last session of the last Congress
of the Republic of Texas. Mister Maverick soon after left
for San Antonio, where he attended the March term of
the District Court, and returned to US in April, and
then started off on a visit to South Carolina. So
mister Maverick does not reside at his Alshbury remarkable Indian
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fight on June twentieth, eighteen forty four, Major Jack Hayes
came to see me and gave me the particulars of
a noted encounter he had had with the Indians only
twelve days before he called on me. The fight took
place on June eighth. Hayes, with fourteen men, was scouting
on the Guadaloupe about fifty miles above Sageen, which is
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outside of San Antonio. Because southeast it must have been
between the present sites of Sisterdale and Comfort in Kendall County. Yeah,
I guess that, but that makes sense. While some of
the rangers were cutting a bee tree, which would be
a tree with a bee have in it and they
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could get the honey, the spies galloped up with the
news of that a very large party of Comanches was
close upon them. At once the rangers mounted and made ready.
By this time the Indians had formed in admirable order
on on the level top of a hill nearby. The rangers,
following their leaders, spurred forward in full charge, and when
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they reached the foot of the hill, which was steep
and somewhat overhanging, they found they were no longer inside
of the enemy. Taking advantage of this, Hayes led his
men half around the base of the hill, still out
of sight, and dashed up at a point not expected.
The Comanches had dismounted and were kneeling down with guns
and arrows fixed for a deadly aim. Strange to say,
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Hayes was close upon them before they discovered his stratagem,
and before they could mount their horses. The Rangers were
in their mits, shooting them right and left with their
new revolving pistols. But the indiot that would be the
Colt revolver, I believe. But the Indians were numerous, some
sixty five or seventy warriors, and were led by two
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especially brave and daring chiefs. The chiefs rallied their forces
and closed completely around the Rangers and fought with great daring,
But the astonishing six shooters did the work. The Indians
speedily became demoralized, and they broke and fled, leaving twenty
three of their comrades dead on the battlefield. This was opportune,
for the loads were exhausted in the six shooters of
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the Rangers, and they immediately took advantage of the enemy's
flight to reload their vigorous little weapons. The Indians, finding
they were not pursued, paused, and reformed for battle. The
Rangers now charged now with the same result. The fight
lasted nearly an hour, and the Indians fighting stubbornly and
retiring slowly, still forty strong. A chief then made a
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great talk to his followers. Rising in his stirps and gesticulating,
he rode up and down their lines and got them
to make another desperate stand. The Rangers were reduced now
to eleven fighting men, and Hayes called out, any man
who has a load, kill that chief. Ad Gillespie answered,
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I'll do it, dismounted, aimed carefully with his trusty yegger,
and shot the chief dead. When a panic seized the
Indians and they fled in the utmost confusion. Peter four
was killed and four of the rangers wounded, and many
arrows passed through their hats and clothing. For several thousand
arrows were fired into their midst. I wrote the memorandum
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of the fight just after Major Hayes had related it.
I was much struck with the odds in the numbers
of the opposing forces fifteen against sixty five or seventy,
with Hayes' remark that more than thirty Indians were killed.
Hayes modestly gave the credit of the victory to the
wonderful marksmanship of every ranger and the told surprise to
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the Indians caused by the new six shooters, which they
had never seen or heard of before. I quote Colonel
Hayes's closing remarks, we were right glad they fled, for
we were nearly used up. With the fatigue of a
long day's march that day and the exertions on the battlefield,
we were almost out of ammunition. The Indians made a
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magnificent fight under the circumstances. They seemed to be a
band of selected braves in full war paint, and were
led by several chiefs, showing that they were marching down
upon the settlements, where they would have divided into parties
commanded by each chief. And great would have been the
mischief done by such number of savages. Mischief might be
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a mild word there. August eleventh, our dear little Agatha
came near being killed. Brother Andrew came to see us
on his way to Alabama, and, dismounting, hitched his gentle
horse under the shade of a live oak tree. Some
time afterwards, Agatha was playing near the horses heels when
the horse, kicking at a fly, struck her on the
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forehead and buried a small piece of his hoof in
her head. She screamed and fell down, and when her
father picked her up, she was in convulsions. And remember
they didn't have an emergency room back then, or nine
one one. We picked the scrap of hoof out of
her forehead, bathed her head in cold water, and we
sat almost hopeless at her side awaiting the result. At midnight,
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she became quiet and went to sleep, and just before
daybreak she opened her eyes and said, Papa, give me
a drink of water. He said, with deep emotion, blessed
be God, and she was out of danger. Under the
doctor's advice, we took great care of her and kept
her out of the sun for some time. In the
summer of eighteen forty three, the balance of the Pirote
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prisoners received their liberation, and mister Bradley soon thereafter reached
his family. In the summer of eighteen forty four, mister
Bradley was persuaded to run for Congress. Whilst out electioneering,
he was taken down with a fever of which he
died September twenty fourth. Pauline Bradley was also quite ill.
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At this time. Annie had married Robert Bibb of Alabama,
and they came out to see Aunt Anne directly after
mister Bradley's death. When Missus Bibb returned to Alabama, Missus Bradley,
with her children, took her servants and moved out to
San Antonio. Missus Bradley was self reliant, and she determined
to provide for the large family left in her widowed care.
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How ably and successfully she performed that difficult task is
quite well known. For some weeks after her accident, Agatha
was quite pale, and she had a long and severe chill.
About the first of September, the doctor gave her quinine
and she was soon a perfect picture of rosy health.
Sam had a spell of chills and fever, and I
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became at last quite sickly myself during the summer. In fact,
I became much reduced and was an invalid. All all,
we concluded that it would not do to live here
any longer. The Colorado Bottoms were too unhealthy. Mister Maverick
decided to take us to the Gulf Coast where we
could enjoy sea bathing. Okay, that's the end of that
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chapter and we will go back and read some more
next week. Now, let's think about all the things that
happened to her happened to him. One of the things
that strikes me about this, and this was true when
we were talking about Jane, long before we ever got
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to marry. Men that settled. I don't even know if
you say they settled, I'm gonna say the women settled
Texas because the men were always gone. I mean, could
they not stay at home? I don't get it. What
was the deal? First of all, he got you know,
mister Maverick got captured when he went to San Antonio
for court. Well, blessed Patty gets released and he goes
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back to court. I just don't even have words. So
you think about these women, how how strong and independent
these women had to be because they had to take
care of themselves and their children and knew yever else
had responsibility for with no hardly no supplies. And you
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know whatever happened at the time that they had to
deal with uh and and husband is off somewhere. Okay,
he's gone to Congress, he's gone to the court. He's
he's gone back to South Carolina. You know, it's like, hello,
could you not take the rest of them back to
South Carolina with you? Maybe not? Anyway, that's my rant
for all these guys that didn't think they could stay
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at the house and take care of their families. But
it but it made for a whole bunch of really
strong women. So uh, and that is, you know, kind
of the thing that uh is that Texas women are
known for is being necessarily I'm gonna say strong. But
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there's several things here for us to think about as
far as what happened on a daily basis and how
hard that was to deal with. First of all, Okay,
so if they lived in a river bottom well and
that was really wet and moist, and what does what
do bodies of water breed mosquitoes? Okay, So, and I'm
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such a all you can eat buffet for the mosquitoes. Literally,
I got out of the car yesterday afternoon, I'm, you know,
like fully dressed for work. I stop and water the
little arbor day trees that we have by the side
porch because they're on the way in the house in
zone one right there where I can take care of them,
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and I got bitten on the inside of my wrist
by a mosquito twice. So I have big ol'd whelps
that have you know, popped up because they bit me.
I did kill him before he got away for the
second time, but then I had to go. When I
got in the house, I had to go find the
ice pack and sit and hold my wrist on the
ice pack and to liquid itching. Okay, well, they not
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only did they have the mosquitos, they had all of
the diseases the mosquitoes brought, and they didn't have any
way to fight those diseases. So now going to the
coast is not gonna help her out because the coast
is worse than the river bottom as far as mosquitoes
and all kinds. I mean, you know, they're yellow fever
wiped out whole communities down on the coast. So we'll
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have to find out how that works for her when
she gets there. But a lot of people did not
enjoy being on the coast of Texas at all. It's
not like Florida or you know, Alabama, where you've got
all the nice beaches and stuff. The coast of Texas
is not particularly attractive. Although we do have one, okay,
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so what else is going on? Well, first of all,
Agatha is playing around the horses. Who you know the
horse and it's a gentle horse. And you know, now,
Agatha is a baby, she's not very a toddler, or
probably she's not very old. Probably would have been better
if she'd been closer to home, but you know, like
in the house or something. But people, you know, children
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have in the past been more independent than we treat
children now. As a kid who grew up without total
parent supervision twenty four to seven, I remember before I
ever went to school, we moved to where we live now.
I think i'd been in the first grade about a
month when we moved to where I am now. Before
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we lived here, the other house we lived in was
in it was on It was farther out in the country,
but the houses were closer together, and there were several
houses that were within the walking distance. And just across
the our garden was in. You know, it's preggod sized garden.
But just on those side of her garden was my
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aunt and uncle and my two cousins who were comparable
in the ages. And then you know, us being the
baby boomers, everybody had kids the same age. There was,
you know, a pretty good little group of us that
lived in that little bitty tiny rural area. And so we,
you know, played together all the time. And even at
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five years four or five years old, my mother did
not always know where I was because I would be
at so and so's house and back then we did
we didn't have air conditioning, so we were outside all the time,
and we meet. I remember going behind one of the
neighbors houses, like back back out of the side of
the house in kind of a field, and that had
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it was a field with a bunch of flat rocks,
and we would get up there and we'd get a
little like a little rock and we would ride on
the big rocks because they were like sandstone, and we
would we would play school, and but our parents didn't
know where we were. And we were four and five.
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So we think about at Agatha in little and she's
playing around the horse and the horse didn't kick her
on purpose. The horse was kicking a fly. So and
we kept we were the same way. I mean, we
played with the horses. You know. I might be out
in the garden and the horses would be out there.
We could literally climb up on, you know, one of
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them's leg and get over the horse and ride at
bare back. So that was that's not out of the
realm of how I was raised, but it's certainly not
the way kids were raised then. But again, this was
a serious injury of this child. She had this, but
she was young, so her head was soft, so that
was in her benefit. And she apparently turned out okay,
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but literally had a piece of hoof buried in her
head and they had to kind of dig it out,
and then they had to give her a chance to
get over it, which she did. Now she could have
just as likely gotten not gotten over it, or had
some kind of brain damage where she you know, she
wasn't she She lived, but she wasn't quite the same
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as she was before. And this happened a lot because
you know, things happened to people when you don't have
all the safety bumpers around you like we do now.
And there could very well come a time when there's
not again. You know, probably as human history goes, I'm
gonna say we're probably in a time that's the exception
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and not the rule, and there may very well come
back a time when we're back to the how people
used to live. But you know who knows at this point. Okay,
so what else is going on? So back to the
business about what they could buy and what they couldn't buy.
So he gave her, he was able to give their
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friend that stayed there in San Antonio give her some
money to give to Mary, and she did. She brought
the money to Mary, and I'm sure three hundred and
twenty five dollars or whatever that was in today's terms,
would have been a lot of money. But the things
that they could grow or could be grown in that area, like,
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for example, they had cows, so they could get milk,
they could get beef, they could get as you said, fowls.
They had chickens, they had eggs, they had things corn,
they had things they could produce themselves. But the things
they could not flour because they couldn't grow wheat. There
coffee because they obviously couldn't grow coffee beans there. So
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think of that in terms of prepping, and that's kind
of what I've tried to do with my prepping. I've
tried to establish a garden for the things that we
can grow and stock up on the things that we
cannot grow so you know, I have a stalk of flour,
I have a stalk of wheatberries in because they have
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to grow my own flour as important time because sweetberries
apparently last forever. So that's a good thing to know. Rice.
There is something called upland rice. I keep saying, I'm
gonna investigate at some point that would allow you to
grow a type of rice in this area. You know,
rice generally grows. A lot of rice grows on the coast.
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They grow it and used to and they still do
or not used to grow it in South Texas, grow
it in South Louisiana. Any place that's swampy. You know,
you have a lot of water, you can grow rice.
You think about the rice paddies in the Far East.
That's in places where there's a lot of water standing
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or that you can channel it in and out. It's
how you grow rice. We up here would have been
a different kind of rice if that's possible. We can
grow corn, so you can grind that and make corn meals.
So that's a possibility. Wheat in this part of the
country is not a possibility. It is in other parts,
but it's not here. So things that you know, tea
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now there is apparently a plant in Texas. I want
to say it's a yopon holly maybe, and it has
you can actually grow it and take the leaves and
treat them like you would do tea leaves. I guess
you let them, you know, kind of dry out, and
you maybe grind them a little bit, and then you
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use it like you would tea because it has caffeine
in it, so it would give you a source of caffeine,
which you know, for those of us who were kind
of addicted to caffeine, that would be an advantage. So
there are places in Texas that grow these yopon bushes
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and you can actually make tea from them. So that's
a thought if you want to put that in. But
looking at what you have to have, and that's how
they did things. They went off to get supplies. They
would get supplies for a long period of time, but
knowing that there would come a time when they would
run out of it. The things they could not grow themselves.
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Remember our couple that came down either from Tennessee or Kentucky,
I don't remember which it was, and he he didn't
bring any planting equipment. She brought her weeping and spending equipment,
but they didn't have any food. They didn't have any corn.
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They ran out of corn, and then they didn't have anything.
They were able to He was able to actually sell
a trade a horse for a man who actually had
some corn, who had grown it, because he didn't have
any equipment either. He had plowed his field with a
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stick apparently I can't even imagine what that would have
been like, and planted some corn, and so he traded
the horn for the corn for a horse. Sometimes I
wanted these people were their own worst enemy. That's all
I can say anyway, thinking that what do we have
put by that we could not get if we were
(33:06):
You know, we can be self sufficient to a point,
but we cannot do We cannot be self sufficient completely.
There are gonna going to be some things we cannot
produce ourselves. Now we make and trade some things, you know,
that kind of stuff. But that's one of those things
we shall have to uh be able to acknowledge that
we are not completely self sufficient. Another thing is the
(33:33):
how they built their house, and the the fact that
they built their kitchen separately, and then eventually when our
brother came, they basically she didn't call it this. They
basically built a dog trot, and a dog trot is
a really good house to to, you know, for dealing
(33:53):
with the heat purposes. It's really nice because you have
this open between the two cabins. Is how the way
they would do it. They called them pins, but it
would basically be two one room cabins under the same roof,
and then there would be a haul through the middle
(34:13):
and because of that, it would actually act like a breezeway.
It would catch an air current. And when my parents
and my sister and my brother lived in the dog trot,
a lot of times in the summertime, my sister and
my brother would sleep out on the dog trot, like
(34:35):
on a pallette on the floor, and it would be
a lot cooler than it was in the house. And
so that's what they did too. So this goes back
to how do you mitigate it? I did that. I
did it put one of my very first podcasts, and
it turned out to be extremely popular, much more popular
than I thought it would be. And I think it's
(34:56):
because when people read it, or when people read the title,
they thought it was probably gonna be something it wasn't.
But that's Okay, it was called climate adaptation, and so
that's exactly what Mary and her family did here, is
they adapted to their climate. What was the best way
to build a house. Well, first of all, that built
(35:17):
the kitchen separate because that kept all the heat from
the kitchen in that one building. And a lot of
times people just had outdoor kitchens where you could, you know,
it might be just open, like you had a shed,
brew or something, so you could be outside. One of
the things that I have done, I finally got around
(35:38):
to it, is I bought a camp stove so that
if you know, we have another event like we had
a summer a year ago where we didn't have electricity
for five days and we were in the middle of canning,
that gives us the ability to go can outside where
we would at least get a breeze if nothing else,
because it was unbelievably hot in the kitchen. Not only
(36:00):
was it hot from the weather, but when you you know,
have three burners on the stove on going at the
same time, it was just absolutely miserable to be that hot.
And so that's gonna give us the opportunity to be
able to cook outside if we need to. So The
best thing about this to me is looking at how
(36:23):
did people deal with the environment they lived in the
circumstances they were in. Remember she's twenty four years old,
she has three children and another child on the way,
and her husband's down in South Mexico. Now he got
back in a hurry. I will say that because that's
(36:44):
a long walk. That's why people when you see people
back then, they were not very large because they didn't
get to eat much, but they had a lot of exercise.
So just doing that much walking, he was what I
say was too. I want to say it was about
two hundred and fifty miles from San Antonio to the
(37:04):
Rio Grande River, which is the border with Mexico. Well,
if you I'm one of those people that has a
map in my head, so navigation that's another good thing.
If you're visualizing the country of Mexico in your head,
Mexico City is not up at the top, it's kind
of in the middle. And this pirote which is where
(37:25):
it's kind of like the district or the area where
Veracruz is, it's kind of down south of that and
way down. I mean, that's a lot of ground to travel.
Remember you said they'd already been five hundred miles and
they thought that we're gonna have to do another eight
hundred miles. And that was just to get to Mexico City.
And then he had to go from Mexico City owed
(37:46):
down to Veracruz. So that is a massive amount of walking.
And we don't even have any clue about that, traveling
that far by foot and how long that would take,
get what kinds of things that you would be exposed to.
And on the way down there, they were prisoners. Now
how they traveled back just by themselves should have been
(38:10):
interesting because they were prisoners, but they would have still
been subject to gangs, outlaws, marauders, people that just didn't
like them. You know that they wouldn't have been any
kind of cake walk to come back. And then, of course,
bless him, he picks up and goes to San Antonio
(38:31):
for the court because you they've for even missed that. Yes,
that was sarcasm in my voice. Anyway. So Mary has
a time here. She is young, she's still very young
at twenty four. She's had a lot of life experiences
at this point, but you know, she's trying to do
the best she can and this goes to mindset. She's
(38:54):
trying to keep her even though she's very upset that
her husband has been taken from and she's concerned because
that's what happened to Jane Long She thought her husband
was because she didn't know her husband been taken on
prisoner and he had, and then she didn't know he
had actually been killed as a prisoner. And so all
(39:15):
this time she's sitting down there at Fort Carossus, I
think was the name of it was, on Bolivar Point,
waiting for him because he told her that's where he
would come back to get her. And you know, she
and her children about to die of starvation in frostbite,
and she thinks he's coming back when he's been dead
for a while. And so that's the thing that Mary thought. Also,
(39:38):
she was afraid the same kind of issue would have
happened to hers. Now her situation turned out better, but
you know, there was always the chance. So another thing
to think of in this particular episode is the is
her mindset. She determined that she would take care of
(40:00):
herself and she will take care of her family and
her children. And that's what we have to think about
if we have hard times. Things are not we have
some kind of tragedy or crisis or whatever, we have
to think about what. Okay, it's up to me. In
this case, it really was up turkeys, wasn't There wasn't
anybody else to help to take care of things and
(40:22):
keep them going. And that is how the folks who
were our ancestors survived very hard times, and it's how
we're gonna have to survive them as well. Okay, I
am home, and we're gonna put Mary down for a
little bit and we will bring her back next Thursday.
I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Good afternoon. This is am I and I am here
on Thursday afternoon to do the next installment of Mary
Maverick's memoirs. So this is chapter twelve, and it's called
Colorado Bottoms. In Texas we call a I guess you
(00:22):
would call it a valley. Valley's I think of as
being steeper. Bottoms are just like down where the river is.
So we have creek bottoms, we have river bottoms, and
so this is the Colorado Bottoms. So that's going to
be on the Colorado River. Okay. We lived on the
Colorado from June twenty first, eighteen forty two, until November fifteenth,
(00:48):
eighteen forty four. I have mentioned our arrival June twenty
first at Colonel Dancy's where we were to remain a while.
On August twenty first, mister Maverick bought twenty six acres
of land fronting on the right bank of the Colorado
and lying between two tracks belonging to Colonel Dancy. He
(01:09):
had it surveyed by Hudson and made arrangements to build
us a temporary home on it. This tract was opposite
Lagrange in Fayette County and opposite the Ferry okay, Benda Lagrange.
So at some point in time I'll have to go
back and see if I can figure out where across
from Lagrange Mary Maverick lived. It was on August of
(01:30):
twenty second, as I have mentioned, that mister Maverick left
us for San Antonio, where he was captured and taken
to Perote, which is down Veracruz, Mexico. So it's way
down south. During September, poor little Lewis became ill with
typhoid fever. Griffin came back about this time and returned
(01:50):
on his fateful air. And remember Griffin died when he
was in with one of the army companies. September twenty ninth,
I received a letter from my dear husband, now a captive.
The letter was written on the eve of their being
marched off to a Mexican dungeon. It was calm, cheerful
(02:11):
and hopeful and counseled me to be brave, to bear
a stout heart and take care of myself and the children.
November sixteenth we moved into our own house, which consisted
of a log cabin of one room sixteen by eighteen.
Now my storage building is eighteen by eighteen, so she's
talking about a little bit smaller, two feet smaller than that,
(02:34):
and that is not a big space, okay, one smaller
for a kitchen and a shed room for Jinny and
the children. Okay, So that means they had a smaller cabin.
They had their kitchen separate from their house, which was
very much the case back then. A it kept the
(02:55):
house from getting hot, and b it kept the you know,
if you had a fire, that gave you at least
a hope that you didn't catch both parts on fire.
This house was built by Granville and Wiley, with much
help from mister griff Jones, who was very kind to us.
Lewis was now almost strong again. The fever had been
severe with him and had so reduced him that he
(03:18):
was unable to stand up for some time after it
had left him. My aunt, Missus Bradley, whose husband was
also a prisoner in Perote, came to the Colorado and
moved into Colonel Dancy's house, which I had just vacated.
She and I had some sad consolation conferring together over
our troubles and comparing such news as each of us
(03:42):
occasionally received from our imprisoned husbands or from Dame Rumor,
as she calls it, So that would be, you know,
rumors that came flying around. Annie Bradley had gone to
Alabama to visit her relatives. Molly Bradley, my my sister, Lizzie,
and Leonora Hill, daughter of a neighbor, became intimate companions,
(04:06):
rode much on horseback together and kept some youthful company
and cheer of life about us. So they had some
young people and that helped them not be quite so sad.
In Lagrange lived Doctor Chalmer's family, refugees from Austin. Here
we met Thomas J. Devine, a young lawyer, and the
Missus Elder, one of whom Divine married. We also met
(04:30):
George Hancock and Tom Green. As I've said, Missus Elliott
was in San Antonio when mister Maverick was captured. She
visited the prisoners by permission, and mister Maverick handed her
privately twenty gold balloons for me about three hundred and
twenty five dollars in our money. The money came safely
to me. I'll have to go back and figure out
(04:52):
how much that was in today's money, because I'm thinking
that would be pretty a pretty good sum. The amount
with which I had in the house, I tried to
make go as far as possible. Coffee, sugar, and flour
were very high, as indeed everything except beef, corn, fowls,
(05:14):
and butter, because it's the things they could grow and
produce themselves versus the things they couldn't, which is a
good prepper lesson. We may come back to that. I
had the twenty six acre track fenced in and purchased
some milk cows. My brother William came to see how
I was doing and stopped a while with us and
(05:35):
worked with our men until they built another log cabin
adjacent to the one previously built, leaving a passage or
a haul between them, kind of like a dog Truck's
what it sounds like, and that's what they usually did.
They'd build one cabin and then they'd have the opportunity
to build some more, and they would put a roof
over the whole thing, but they would be separated by haul,
(05:57):
and they called them a dog truck. Usually my parents
and when sister was little, was younger than you know,
long before I came along, they lived in a dog trot,
but it was a house, not a cabin. In this
hall we usually sat when the weather was fair. We
had an immense live oak tree for shade, and immediately
(06:18):
in front of the house stood a mott. She has
that end quotes of young live oak trees, so I'm
assuming that's like a little stand of trees. In fact,
we met ourselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.
William remained with us as long as he could, and
then left for Alabama in November. I received a letter
from my husband written October sixteenth in mont Clova or
(06:43):
mont Clover excuse me, and she has in parentheses Montalvez Kowahea.
Hopefully I said that right, because my Spanish is almost
non existent. He had marched four four hundred miles and
had eight hundred more, as he understood, to march before
(07:05):
reaching the city of Mexico. I cannot imagine. Assuming that
they walked say ten miles a day, that means that
they had walked what fifty days at that point and
still had another eighty to go. They may have made
them march faster than that, but at some point in time,
(07:25):
especially if you're not feeding people, they're not gonna be
able to march that fast before reaching the city of Mexico,
where he expected to be released. My dear husband wrote
to cheer me expressly before he spoke of his excellent
health and hopefulness, but did not mention anything about the
(07:45):
pens they were herded into at night, or of the
other abuses they were subjected to. I, however, was constantly
fearing that the next mail should bring some dreadful news
from the prisoners. And only when I got an occasional
letter so brave and fond from Sam, which would be
(08:05):
his initials, I could hope? Could I hope? I tried
to follow his advice and kept up at times a
semblance of cheerfulness. But I was then only twenty four
years of age and almost a child inexperience, and I
had the care of three helpless children, and of the
birth of a fourth to look to in the future.
(08:27):
So you know, in addition to having three children, she's pregnant,
a refugee in a strange land, and my husband a
captive in the power of a cruel and treacherous foe.
Then I felt what weight of agony the human heart
can bear. But I strove to be brave and prayed
(08:47):
to God that I might live for my children and
my dear husband. In February eighteen forty three, I received
a letter from mister Maverick written January twenty seventh, so
that's actually not as far as a timeframe goes at perote.
He mentioned in it how badly they had been treated
(09:08):
in Saltello. And this is a quote that robber city
of thirty thousand people, where we were closely confined in
a filthy prison for fifteen days unquote, and where their
captors threatened to take them to some secret place excuse
me allergies in the evening as well as in the morning,
(09:33):
to some secret place where they would never be heard
from again. But in this letter, mister Maverick was quite
hopeful of being released through the exertions of General Wattie Thompson,
then United States Minister to Mexico. This letter full of
deep feeling, along with other letters written by mister Maverick,
whilst a prisoner, I have carefully preserved for our children
(09:57):
as sacred. And you know that I'm going to take
We're gonna talk about it when I get finished, but
I'm gonna take this as an asside that we don't
write We don't write letters anymore. We text, we email,
we FaceTime, we take digital pictures, but we have nothing materially.
And one of my most prized possessions is a is
(10:20):
letters my father wrote to my mother. Okay, I have
one that he wrote to her while he was in
the army during World War Two. I have one that
he wrote when he was off on a job and
she was at home. It's just it's they're special to
us because we do not write letters. And actually there
(10:42):
would be a lot to be said for that, because,
as she said, she has kept those for their children
as sacred and their children would consider them that I
have written. I have another written December thirtieth, eighteen forty two,
one written February the second, eighteen forty three, also expecting
(11:02):
speedy release. Another written March fifteenth, contains the same hope.
March twenty second, he wrote again stating that he and W.
Jones and Judge Anderson Hutchinson were released from prison. Their
final release would be received in the city of Mexico.
He wrote of doctor borkin, one of our San Antonio Boys,
(11:26):
being shot by a drunken soldier and told of his
dying in great bodily pain and mental agony and he
mentioned the death of General Guadaloupe Victoria, the first president
of the Republic of Mexico, on March thirtieth, eighteen forty three.
On Thursday morning, our second daughter was born, child of
(11:47):
a captive father, and for him, named Augusta. On the
day of her birth, her father was finally released by
Santa Anna in the city of Mexico. Mister Mavericks set
out for home on the second of April, and finally
reached our cabin the night of May fourth, in splendid
health and happy as he could be, and so was I. Okay,
(12:11):
if he sat out on the day of her birth,
which is March thirtieth, and he no, he sat out
on April the second, and he got there on May fourth.
That is only a month. And it is a very
long way from Mexico City to Lagrange. I'll have to
(12:31):
go back and look at that distance as well. He
was in splendid health and happy as he could be,
and so was I, and thankful to our heavenly father
for all his mercies. Augusta was five weeks old when
she and her father met in June. Ada Bradley was
born in June and again September mister Maverick visited San
(12:54):
Antonio to attend court and lamb business. I'm like, you know,
he probably should have actually maybe thought better of that,
but he didn't. In December eighteen forty three, mister Maverick
went to Washington attended the session of the eighth Congress
of the Republic as a senator from bay Are. Now
(13:16):
that would be Washington on the Brass, which is not
the same as Washington DC. He had been elected whilst
in Perote prison. He returned from Washington to spend Christmas
with us at home, and we with others took Christmas
dinner with family of doctor Chalmers in Lagrange eighteen forty four.
(13:38):
The Congress adjourned on February the eighth, eighteen forty four,
and that was the last session of the last Congress
of the Republic of Texas. Mister Maverick soon after left
for San Antonio, where he attended the March term of
the District Court, and returned to US in April, and
then started off on a visit to South Carolina. So
mister Maverick does not reside at his Alshbury remarkable Indian
(14:02):
fight on June twentieth, eighteen forty four, Major Jack Hayes
came to see me and gave me the particulars of
a noted encounter he had had with the Indians only
twelve days before he called on me. The fight took
place on June eighth. Hayes, with fourteen men, was scouting
on the Guadaloupe about fifty miles above Sageen, which is
(14:23):
outside of San Antonio. Because southeast it must have been
between the present sites of Sisterdale and Comfort in Kendall County. Yeah,
I guess that, but that makes sense. While some of
the rangers were cutting a bee tree, which would be
a tree with a bee have in it and they
(14:44):
could get the honey, the spies galloped up with the
news of that a very large party of Comanches was
close upon them. At once the rangers mounted and made ready.
By this time the Indians had formed in admirable order
on on the level top of a hill nearby. The rangers,
following their leaders, spurred forward in full charge, and when
(15:07):
they reached the foot of the hill, which was steep
and somewhat overhanging, they found they were no longer inside
of the enemy. Taking advantage of this, Hayes led his
men half around the base of the hill, still out
of sight, and dashed up at a point not expected.
The Comanches had dismounted and were kneeling down with guns
and arrows fixed for a deadly aim. Strange to say,
(15:31):
Hayes was close upon them before they discovered his stratagem,
and before they could mount their horses. The Rangers were
in their mits, shooting them right and left with their
new revolving pistols. But the indiot that would be the
Colt revolver, I believe. But the Indians were numerous, some
sixty five or seventy warriors, and were led by two
(15:54):
especially brave and daring chiefs. The chiefs rallied their forces
and closed completely around the Rangers and fought with great daring,
But the astonishing six shooters did the work. The Indians
speedily became demoralized, and they broke and fled, leaving twenty
three of their comrades dead on the battlefield. This was opportune,
for the loads were exhausted in the six shooters of
(16:17):
the Rangers, and they immediately took advantage of the enemy's
flight to reload their vigorous little weapons. The Indians, finding
they were not pursued, paused, and reformed for battle. The
Rangers now charged now with the same result. The fight
lasted nearly an hour, and the Indians fighting stubbornly and
retiring slowly, still forty strong. A chief then made a
(16:41):
great talk to his followers. Rising in his stirps and gesticulating,
he rode up and down their lines and got them
to make another desperate stand. The Rangers were reduced now
to eleven fighting men, and Hayes called out, any man
who has a load, kill that chief. Ad Gillespie answered,
(17:03):
I'll do it, dismounted, aimed carefully with his trusty yegger,
and shot the chief dead. When a panic seized the
Indians and they fled in the utmost confusion. Peter four
was killed and four of the rangers wounded, and many
arrows passed through their hats and clothing. For several thousand
arrows were fired into their midst. I wrote the memorandum
(17:25):
of the fight just after Major Hayes had related it.
I was much struck with the odds in the numbers
of the opposing forces fifteen against sixty five or seventy,
with Hayes' remark that more than thirty Indians were killed.
Hayes modestly gave the credit of the victory to the
wonderful marksmanship of every ranger and the told surprise to
(17:49):
the Indians caused by the new six shooters, which they
had never seen or heard of before. I quote Colonel
Hayes's closing remarks, we were right glad they fled, for
we were nearly used up. With the fatigue of a
long day's march that day and the exertions on the battlefield,
we were almost out of ammunition. The Indians made a
(18:11):
magnificent fight under the circumstances. They seemed to be a
band of selected braves in full war paint, and were
led by several chiefs, showing that they were marching down
upon the settlements, where they would have divided into parties
commanded by each chief. And great would have been the
mischief done by such number of savages. Mischief might be
(18:32):
a mild word there. August eleventh, our dear little Agatha
came near being killed. Brother Andrew came to see us
on his way to Alabama, and, dismounting, hitched his gentle
horse under the shade of a live oak tree. Some
time afterwards, Agatha was playing near the horses heels when
the horse, kicking at a fly, struck her on the
(18:54):
forehead and buried a small piece of his hoof in
her head. She screamed and fell down, and when her
father picked her up, she was in convulsions. And remember
they didn't have an emergency room back then, or nine
one one. We picked the scrap of hoof out of
her forehead, bathed her head in cold water, and we
sat almost hopeless at her side awaiting the result. At midnight,
(19:18):
she became quiet and went to sleep, and just before
daybreak she opened her eyes and said, Papa, give me
a drink of water. He said, with deep emotion, blessed
be God, and she was out of danger. Under the
doctor's advice, we took great care of her and kept
her out of the sun for some time. In the
summer of eighteen forty three, the balance of the Pirote
(19:39):
prisoners received their liberation, and mister Bradley soon thereafter reached
his family. In the summer of eighteen forty four, mister
Bradley was persuaded to run for Congress. Whilst out electioneering,
he was taken down with a fever of which he
died September twenty fourth. Pauline Bradley was also quite ill.
(20:00):
At this time. Annie had married Robert Bibb of Alabama,
and they came out to see Aunt Anne directly after
mister Bradley's death. When Missus Bibb returned to Alabama, Missus Bradley,
with her children, took her servants and moved out to
San Antonio. Missus Bradley was self reliant, and she determined
to provide for the large family left in her widowed care.
(20:23):
How ably and successfully she performed that difficult task is
quite well known. For some weeks after her accident, Agatha
was quite pale, and she had a long and severe chill.
About the first of September, the doctor gave her quinine
and she was soon a perfect picture of rosy health.
Sam had a spell of chills and fever, and I
(20:44):
became at last quite sickly myself during the summer. In fact,
I became much reduced and was an invalid. All all,
we concluded that it would not do to live here
any longer. The Colorado Bottoms were too unhealthy. Mister Maverick
decided to take us to the Gulf Coast where we
could enjoy sea bathing. Okay, that's the end of that
(21:07):
chapter and we will go back and read some more
next week. Now, let's think about all the things that
happened to her happened to him. One of the things
that strikes me about this, and this was true when
we were talking about Jane, long before we ever got
(21:27):
to marry. Men that settled. I don't even know if
you say they settled, I'm gonna say the women settled
Texas because the men were always gone. I mean, could
they not stay at home? I don't get it. What
was the deal? First of all, he got you know,
mister Maverick got captured when he went to San Antonio
for court. Well, blessed Patty gets released and he goes
(21:50):
back to court. I just don't even have words. So
you think about these women, how how strong and independent
these women had to be because they had to take
care of themselves and their children and knew yever else
had responsibility for with no hardly no supplies. And you
(22:13):
know whatever happened at the time that they had to
deal with uh and and husband is off somewhere. Okay,
he's gone to Congress, he's gone to the court. He's
he's gone back to South Carolina. You know, it's like, hello,
could you not take the rest of them back to
South Carolina with you? Maybe not? Anyway, that's my rant
for all these guys that didn't think they could stay
(22:33):
at the house and take care of their families. But
it but it made for a whole bunch of really
strong women. So uh, and that is, you know, kind
of the thing that uh is that Texas women are
known for is being necessarily I'm gonna say strong. But
(22:54):
there's several things here for us to think about as
far as what happened on a daily basis and how
hard that was to deal with. First of all, Okay,
so if they lived in a river bottom well and
that was really wet and moist, and what does what
do bodies of water breed mosquitoes? Okay, So, and I'm
(23:18):
such a all you can eat buffet for the mosquitoes. Literally,
I got out of the car yesterday afternoon, I'm, you know,
like fully dressed for work. I stop and water the
little arbor day trees that we have by the side
porch because they're on the way in the house in
zone one right there where I can take care of them,
(23:41):
and I got bitten on the inside of my wrist
by a mosquito twice. So I have big ol'd whelps
that have you know, popped up because they bit me.
I did kill him before he got away for the
second time, but then I had to go. When I
got in the house, I had to go find the
ice pack and sit and hold my wrist on the
ice pack and to liquid itching. Okay, well, they not
(24:06):
only did they have the mosquitos, they had all of
the diseases the mosquitoes brought, and they didn't have any
way to fight those diseases. So now going to the
coast is not gonna help her out because the coast
is worse than the river bottom as far as mosquitoes
and all kinds. I mean, you know, they're yellow fever
wiped out whole communities down on the coast. So we'll
(24:26):
have to find out how that works for her when
she gets there. But a lot of people did not
enjoy being on the coast of Texas at all. It's
not like Florida or you know, Alabama, where you've got
all the nice beaches and stuff. The coast of Texas
is not particularly attractive. Although we do have one, okay,
(24:46):
so what else is going on? Well, first of all,
Agatha is playing around the horses. Who you know the
horse and it's a gentle horse. And you know, now,
Agatha is a baby, she's not very a toddler, or
probably she's not very old. Probably would have been better
if she'd been closer to home, but you know, like
in the house or something. But people, you know, children
(25:10):
have in the past been more independent than we treat
children now. As a kid who grew up without total
parent supervision twenty four to seven, I remember before I
ever went to school, we moved to where we live now.
I think i'd been in the first grade about a
month when we moved to where I am now. Before
(25:33):
we lived here, the other house we lived in was
in it was on It was farther out in the country,
but the houses were closer together, and there were several
houses that were within the walking distance. And just across
the our garden was in. You know, it's preggod sized garden.
But just on those side of her garden was my
(25:54):
aunt and uncle and my two cousins who were comparable
in the ages. And then you know, us being the
baby boomers, everybody had kids the same age. There was,
you know, a pretty good little group of us that
lived in that little bitty tiny rural area. And so we,
you know, played together all the time. And even at
(26:14):
five years four or five years old, my mother did
not always know where I was because I would be
at so and so's house and back then we did
we didn't have air conditioning, so we were outside all the time,
and we meet. I remember going behind one of the
neighbors houses, like back back out of the side of
the house in kind of a field, and that had
(26:37):
it was a field with a bunch of flat rocks,
and we would get up there and we'd get a
little like a little rock and we would ride on
the big rocks because they were like sandstone, and we
would we would play school, and but our parents didn't
know where we were. And we were four and five.
(26:57):
So we think about at Agatha in little and she's
playing around the horse and the horse didn't kick her
on purpose. The horse was kicking a fly. So and
we kept we were the same way. I mean, we
played with the horses. You know. I might be out
in the garden and the horses would be out there.
We could literally climb up on, you know, one of
(27:18):
them's leg and get over the horse and ride at
bare back. So that was that's not out of the
realm of how I was raised, but it's certainly not
the way kids were raised then. But again, this was
a serious injury of this child. She had this, but
she was young, so her head was soft, so that
was in her benefit. And she apparently turned out okay,
(27:41):
but literally had a piece of hoof buried in her
head and they had to kind of dig it out,
and then they had to give her a chance to
get over it, which she did. Now she could have
just as likely gotten not gotten over it, or had
some kind of brain damage where she you know, she
wasn't she She lived, but she wasn't quite the same
(28:02):
as she was before. And this happened a lot because
you know, things happened to people when you don't have
all the safety bumpers around you like we do now.
And there could very well come a time when there's
not again. You know, probably as human history goes, I'm
gonna say we're probably in a time that's the exception
(28:26):
and not the rule, and there may very well come
back a time when we're back to the how people
used to live. But you know who knows at this point. Okay,
so what else is going on? So back to the
business about what they could buy and what they couldn't buy.
So he gave her, he was able to give their
(28:48):
friend that stayed there in San Antonio give her some
money to give to Mary, and she did. She brought
the money to Mary, and I'm sure three hundred and
twenty five dollars or whatever that was in today's terms,
would have been a lot of money. But the things
that they could grow or could be grown in that area, like,
(29:09):
for example, they had cows, so they could get milk,
they could get beef, they could get as you said, fowls.
They had chickens, they had eggs, they had things corn,
they had things they could produce themselves. But the things
they could not flour because they couldn't grow wheat. There
coffee because they obviously couldn't grow coffee beans there. So
(29:32):
think of that in terms of prepping, and that's kind
of what I've tried to do with my prepping. I've
tried to establish a garden for the things that we
can grow and stock up on the things that we
cannot grow so you know, I have a stalk of flour,
I have a stalk of wheatberries in because they have
(29:53):
to grow my own flour as important time because sweetberries
apparently last forever. So that's a good thing to know. Rice.
There is something called upland rice. I keep saying, I'm
gonna investigate at some point that would allow you to
grow a type of rice in this area. You know,
rice generally grows. A lot of rice grows on the coast.
(30:15):
They grow it and used to and they still do
or not used to grow it in South Texas, grow
it in South Louisiana. Any place that's swampy. You know,
you have a lot of water, you can grow rice.
You think about the rice paddies in the Far East.
That's in places where there's a lot of water standing
(30:37):
or that you can channel it in and out. It's
how you grow rice. We up here would have been
a different kind of rice if that's possible. We can
grow corn, so you can grind that and make corn meals.
So that's a possibility. Wheat in this part of the
country is not a possibility. It is in other parts,
but it's not here. So things that you know, tea
(30:57):
now there is apparently a plant in Texas. I want
to say it's a yopon holly maybe, and it has
you can actually grow it and take the leaves and
treat them like you would do tea leaves. I guess
you let them, you know, kind of dry out, and
you maybe grind them a little bit, and then you
(31:19):
use it like you would tea because it has caffeine
in it, so it would give you a source of caffeine,
which you know, for those of us who were kind
of addicted to caffeine, that would be an advantage. So
there are places in Texas that grow these yopon bushes
(31:40):
and you can actually make tea from them. So that's
a thought if you want to put that in. But
looking at what you have to have, and that's how
they did things. They went off to get supplies. They
would get supplies for a long period of time, but
knowing that there would come a time when they would
run out of it. The things they could not grow themselves.
(32:01):
Remember our couple that came down either from Tennessee or Kentucky,
I don't remember which it was, and he he didn't
bring any planting equipment. She brought her weeping and spending equipment,
but they didn't have any food. They didn't have any corn.
(32:22):
They ran out of corn, and then they didn't have anything.
They were able to He was able to actually sell
a trade a horse for a man who actually had
some corn, who had grown it, because he didn't have
any equipment either. He had plowed his field with a
(32:44):
stick apparently I can't even imagine what that would have
been like, and planted some corn, and so he traded
the horn for the corn for a horse. Sometimes I
wanted these people were their own worst enemy. That's all
I can say anyway, thinking that what do we have
put by that we could not get if we were
(33:06):
You know, we can be self sufficient to a point,
but we cannot do We cannot be self sufficient completely.
There are gonna going to be some things we cannot
produce ourselves. Now we make and trade some things, you know,
that kind of stuff. But that's one of those things
we shall have to uh be able to acknowledge that
we are not completely self sufficient. Another thing is the
(33:33):
how they built their house, and the the fact that
they built their kitchen separately, and then eventually when our
brother came, they basically she didn't call it this. They
basically built a dog trot, and a dog trot is
a really good house to to, you know, for dealing
(33:53):
with the heat purposes. It's really nice because you have
this open between the two cabins. Is how the way
they would do it. They called them pins, but it
would basically be two one room cabins under the same roof,
and then there would be a haul through the middle
(34:13):
and because of that, it would actually act like a breezeway.
It would catch an air current. And when my parents
and my sister and my brother lived in the dog trot,
a lot of times in the summertime, my sister and
my brother would sleep out on the dog trot, like
(34:35):
on a pallette on the floor, and it would be
a lot cooler than it was in the house. And
so that's what they did too. So this goes back
to how do you mitigate it? I did that. I
did it put one of my very first podcasts, and
it turned out to be extremely popular, much more popular
than I thought it would be. And I think it's
(34:56):
because when people read it, or when people read the title,
they thought it was probably gonna be something it wasn't.
But that's Okay, it was called climate adaptation, and so
that's exactly what Mary and her family did here, is
they adapted to their climate. What was the best way
to build a house. Well, first of all, that built
(35:17):
the kitchen separate because that kept all the heat from
the kitchen in that one building. And a lot of
times people just had outdoor kitchens where you could, you know,
it might be just open, like you had a shed,
brew or something, so you could be outside. One of
the things that I have done, I finally got around
(35:38):
to it, is I bought a camp stove so that
if you know, we have another event like we had
a summer a year ago where we didn't have electricity
for five days and we were in the middle of canning,
that gives us the ability to go can outside where
we would at least get a breeze if nothing else,
because it was unbelievably hot in the kitchen. Not only
(36:00):
was it hot from the weather, but when you you know,
have three burners on the stove on going at the
same time, it was just absolutely miserable to be that hot.
And so that's gonna give us the opportunity to be
able to cook outside if we need to. So The
best thing about this to me is looking at how
(36:23):
did people deal with the environment they lived in the
circumstances they were in. Remember she's twenty four years old,
she has three children and another child on the way,
and her husband's down in South Mexico. Now he got
back in a hurry. I will say that because that's
(36:44):
a long walk. That's why people when you see people
back then, they were not very large because they didn't
get to eat much, but they had a lot of exercise.
So just doing that much walking, he was what I
say was too. I want to say it was about
two hundred and fifty miles from San Antonio to the
(37:04):
Rio Grande River, which is the border with Mexico. Well,
if you I'm one of those people that has a
map in my head, so navigation that's another good thing.
If you're visualizing the country of Mexico in your head,
Mexico City is not up at the top, it's kind
of in the middle. And this pirote which is where
(37:25):
it's kind of like the district or the area where
Veracruz is, it's kind of down south of that and
way down. I mean, that's a lot of ground to travel.
Remember you said they'd already been five hundred miles and
they thought that we're gonna have to do another eight
hundred miles. And that was just to get to Mexico City.
And then he had to go from Mexico City owed
(37:46):
down to Veracruz. So that is a massive amount of walking.
And we don't even have any clue about that, traveling
that far by foot and how long that would take,
get what kinds of things that you would be exposed to.
And on the way down there, they were prisoners. Now
how they traveled back just by themselves should have been
(38:10):
interesting because they were prisoners, but they would have still
been subject to gangs, outlaws, marauders, people that just didn't
like them. You know that they wouldn't have been any
kind of cake walk to come back. And then, of course,
bless him, he picks up and goes to San Antonio
(38:31):
for the court because you they've for even missed that. Yes,
that was sarcasm in my voice. Anyway. So Mary has
a time here. She is young, she's still very young
at twenty four. She's had a lot of life experiences
at this point, but you know, she's trying to do
the best she can and this goes to mindset. She's
(38:54):
trying to keep her even though she's very upset that
her husband has been taken from and she's concerned because
that's what happened to Jane Long She thought her husband
was because she didn't know her husband been taken on
prisoner and he had, and then she didn't know he
had actually been killed as a prisoner. And so all
(39:15):
this time she's sitting down there at Fort Carossus, I
think was the name of it was, on Bolivar Point,
waiting for him because he told her that's where he
would come back to get her. And you know, she
and her children about to die of starvation in frostbite,
and she thinks he's coming back when he's been dead
for a while. And so that's the thing that Mary thought. Also,
(39:38):
she was afraid the same kind of issue would have
happened to hers. Now her situation turned out better, but
you know, there was always the chance. So another thing
to think of in this particular episode is the is
her mindset. She determined that she would take care of
(40:00):
herself and she will take care of her family and
her children. And that's what we have to think about
if we have hard times. Things are not we have
some kind of tragedy or crisis or whatever, we have
to think about what. Okay, it's up to me. In
this case, it really was up turkeys, wasn't There wasn't
anybody else to help to take care of things and
(40:22):
keep them going. And that is how the folks who
were our ancestors survived very hard times, and it's how
we're gonna have to survive them as well. Okay, I
am home, and we're gonna put Mary down for a
little bit and we will bring her back next Thursday.
I'll talk to you tomorrow.
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