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Ted and Lora saved all the money Charles sent home from the Navy. When he came home, they gave it to him.
It was a lot of money about 4
or 5 thousand dollars. Charles bought a brand new Buick. Charles had himself a good time for the next couple of years. He was out every
night dating and just enjoying himself for the first time in his life.
In 1949, Charles William Weathers married Betty Elkins. Betty’s father and brothers farmed for a living. They lived at Hartman and when
Betty and Charles bought a house they bought it as Hartman. Out of this marriage came one son,
Michael William Weathers.
Charles bought a H. Farmall tractor, rented some bottom land, and started farming. Most of the coal mines had shut down, and Ted was
farming pretty heavy now. Ted and Charles would plant their crops together. Ted had traded
his tractor for a M Farmall. Ted’s M was a bigger
tractor than was Charles’ H, so Ted pulled the disk and Charles
did the planting. I had to keep the hoppers full of soybeans.
At harvest time they would go together and harvest their crops. One year, Charles rented some land out on an almost island. By this I
mean, the river, had cut a new channel and left it dry, but very sandy river bed. The only
way you could get across was to ride a tractor or
walk.
When it come harvest time Charles, Ted, and I built a road across the riverbed. We took a tractor and trailer
down there. We cut willows
that were growing on the old riverbank, and laid them on the trailer. We then hauled them to the part of the road we were building and laid
them crossways. It took us about a week to build this road. Even then, we would have to pull the truck across with a tractor when it was
loaded with soybeans.
In 1950, Ted bought 65 acres of bottomland from Bob and Benny Fausett. Ted’s family signed over the mineral rights from the strip mine to
help Ted pay on the land. Ted borrowed $5000 off his brother, Woodrow, to finish
paying for the land. The land cost $6500 at this time.
The first year’s farming was good and Ted was able to pay Woodrow $1000.00 back but after that the droughts hit and he was until 1957 in
paying it all back.
Ted had 12 acres rented from Pearl Hackney and 28 more rented around her land. This was the land that Henry
Weathers had homesteaded in
1850. I didn’t know this at the time, and I wonder if my dad, Ted, knew it. Pearl
had inherited it from her mother, Sallie Hackney. The land
Henry had farmed had caved off in the river, except for the
40 acres we were farming. This was known as Blackpoint when I was a boy.
In 1950, Marvin and I were playing
midget baseball. Whitey Steel and Pert and were the coaches. The first game we played that year was
at Clarksville and I hit 2 home runs and a single. I pitched that game and it was the only game I
ever pitched in my life. This was only and
exhibition game.
At the start it was decided that the team that won the Johnson County League would go to the state tournament.
We won the league and then
it was decided that the team that won the tournament would go to the state. It was
a double elimination tournament and we lost a game one
day while I was hoeing soybeans and didn’t make the game.
Not that I was that good, but it was just the way it happened. The last day of the
tournament we played 2 games in the evening and 2 games that night. We won all 4 games and the tournament. Then it was decided that we could
only take 10 of our players and the other 5 would have to come off the Clarksville teams. We were beat by Pine
Bluff in the first game. Pine
Bluff was the home team.
Coal Hill came back with some good basketball teams in the early 50’s. In 1952, the Junior boys took 2nd place in
their
sub-district. Due to the flu epidemic in school the coat took part of his Jr. Team and put them on the Senior Team. We the forfeited our
game in the district. The main string of the Jr. Team was Dallas Davenport, George
Morris, J.R. Fultz, Bill Motti, and I, Lee Roy Weathers.
The senior boys went on to win the district, beating Harford in the finals, but lost the first in the state. Some of the players on this
team was Leroy Douglas, Russel "Moon" Bartlett, George Edwards, Lavon "Jeep" Yates, Bently Yates, Dallas Davenport, and George Morris. The
last being off of the Jr. Team. L.N. Gaines was the coach.
In 1953, the senior girls won the district, but again got defeated the first game in the state. Their coach was Pansy Hollway and some of
the players were Mary Brazil, Mary Bell Hollway, and Monia Douglas. These were the forwards and the guards were Doris Ostendorf and Betty
Douglas.
In 1954, the senior boys won the sub-district. They defeated Dover in the semi-finals 64-63. This broke a 33 game
winning streak for
Dover. In the finals Coal Hill defeated Altus 91 to 41. In the district Coal Hill won the first two games but in the finals fell to Oden by
10 points. Coal Hill won the first game in the state defeating Delight 51 to 37.
They were defeated the second game 44 to 40 by Valley
Springs. Oden went on to win the state that year. The next year, Delight won the state. The starting lineup on this Coal Hill team was
Dallas Davenport, George Morris, Lavon "Jeep" Yates, George Edwards, and Lee Roy Weathers. Our coach was Dale Grims.In 1955, Coal Hill again won the sub-district defeating Dover in the finals by 10 points. That night our coach Jim
Rackley had the Jr.
Girls in the finals of the district and we were in the finals by 10 points. That night our coach Jim Rackley had the Jr. Girls in the finals
of the district and we were in the finals of the sub-district. He went to the Jr. Game first and they won the district, then he came to
Pottsville, where we were playing Dover. When he came in
the door we were 10 points ahead and that put a smile on his face as his Jr. Team
had already won the district. The starting lineup on this senior boys team was Jim Langston, Tony Langston, George Morris, Dallas Davenport,
and I, Lee Roy Weathers. This was my senior year and I had a 17-point average. We were defeated the first game in the
district by Hartford
at Booneville. The starting lineup for the Jr. Girls team in 55 was Midge Crabtree, Anice Hurst, Sue Hill, Shirley Hanson, Betty Albat, and
Margaret Hardgrave.
In 1951, Charley Weathers bought the first T.V. set in Coal Hill. You could only get two stations here at this time. Fort Smith had a UHF
station channel 22. Later they changed it over to channel 5. Channel 7 out of Pine Bluff was the only other station you could get at this
time. They were both very snowy. Earl Yates bought the next set the next week. Charley once said that it would take a great invention to
replace the t.v. and I thought when I heard him say this "I didn’t think anything would ever replace television." Maybe Charley was right
and someday something will come along and replace it.
By late 1952 a lot of people had t.v. sets in town. Charley and Pert had to close the theater. People stayed home instead of going to the
movies.
One evening, after school I was hoeing the garden and my dad, Ted, was plowing it. We had a big gray horse named
Tom that we used to plow
the garden with at this time. A dark cloud came out of the west and it had a loud rumbling
noise. Ted stopped and unhooked the horse from
the plow. He told me to come on to the shed. I said that I would after I finished the row and he said "Right now". I threw down the hoe and
went with him. We took the horse and got under the tractor shed. Almost immediately it started hailing and raining. The hail was the size of
baseballs and some of it had sharp jaggers sticking out of them. It was the biggest hail I have ever seen. The wood shingle roof
had to be
stripped off and a new roof of tin put on the house we were living in.
Up until 1955, most of the Weathers family had cattle on the farm that Charley inherited from Vina Weathers. Charley had about 60
Hereford Cows and a polled Hereford bull. The rest of us had about 10 head a piece.
This varied from year to year. When it came time to put
up hay everybody pitched in and helped. Ted owned a tractor and usually mowed the hay. The hay was hauled in loose with pitchforks at first,
but in later years, it was baled and hauled in by truck.
Charley had a man and his family living on the farm named Sam Fultz. Sam would help get in the hay and feed it to the cattle in the
winter. For doing this, he would get his rent free and a small amount of money. Sam had a boy named Rex and that maybe the reason Charley
named the theater Rex.
Ted told me to water the cow and the calf on a dry summer day in 1946 and he would give me the heifer calf. I hunted up a spring in the
pasture and dug it out so the cow could have water. I had to carry it to the calf, which was penned up in a small pen. The cow was our milk
cow and that was the reason it had to be kept away from the calf.
By 1954, I had sold very few and had about 12 head of cattle.
From 1952 until 1955, there was very little rain and the soybeans we were growing in the bottoms did very poor. Land that had been
yielding 50 bushels per acre now yielded 30 bushels. In 1954, Ted told me that he wouldn’t have enough money for me to graduate high school.
I sold my cattle a few at a time for the money to finish school. The last
cow and calf I had, I give to my dad, Ted. The droughts were so
bad that Charles sold his house and farming equipment and moved to Texas.
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