My New Life as a Bride
While we lived on the Daily farm Jeff came to our home to notify my Dad that people were being hired to work on the roads. That is how we met. We had a few home dates. Dad decided Jeff should not come back to see me. Dad handed him a note asking him not to come back. Jeff said, “If you say I can come, I will”. I said, “Stay away for awhile and then come back”. He did as I asked. One day Papa saw him coming and said, “Here comes that Jeff Jeans again”. Papa did not object again to my seeing Jeff.
Jeff took a rambling spell and went to Blossom, Texas to live with his Uncle Jim Buchanan and Aunt Ella. He was working for Uncle Jim’s father, Uncle Buck. He was doing black land farming. One of Uncle Buck’s tenant farmers had moved away. He asked Jeff if he planned to get married. Jeff said, “Yes, in July”. Uncle Buck asked him to write and ask if I would change the date to April. He needed him to take the tenant’s place before spring planting began. He wrote and asked me and I said, “Yes”.
I came in from school one day and told my family I was not going back to school. Dad said, “I would like to know why?” I said, “I cannot keep up with my class and will not be able to pass 7th grade.” “ Jeff and I are going to be married and I need a couple of weeks to get ready”. I asked Dad not to tell Grandpa and Grandma until Jeff came to ask for my hand in marriage.
I didn’t tell any of my friends. I had seen a friend jilted by her boyfriend and I did not want that to happen to me.
Jeff gave me a high mounted ruby engagement ring held by four prongs. It was a gold ring. I didn’t wear my engagement ring until I was married. My wedding ring was a band of gold. I wore them both proudly after we were married. I only wore it about 8 or 10 months. My hands began to swell with my first pregnancy. I took off the wedding band and placed it on Jeff’s little finger and he lost it. He said, “I’ll buy you a new one”. I said, “No, it would not be the same.”
Ella Mae was born July 1, 1917 in Lamar County, Blossom, Texas. Ella Mae was a sweet child, a little “ butterball” chubby baby. Everyone who saw her loved her. Before she was born I would make tatting lace and sell it to buy cloth to make her clothes. Every time I made something with my friends help I was thrilled. I would show Jeff what I had made and was so proud of. He would say, “Can’t I come home just once without looking at baby clothes”. That hurt me so badly. I was thrilled that I was having a baby. Jeff never seemed to care about babies.
I told Aunt Ella my fears that Jeff would not love our baby. Aunt Ella said, “Just you wait, he will change.” “A man does not love a baby the way a woman does until he holds it in his arms.” He really did change and he was so proud of our little girl. Aunt Ella never had a child. She was so helpful and loved her. Everyone was helpful in showing me how to care for our little bundle of joy. We named her Ella Mae after Aunt Ella and May Evans, a very dear friend of mine. Mae taught me how to make tatting and to sew.
While I was pregnant Mae would check books out of the library and bring them to me. I loved to read. When it was raining and Jeff could not work he would have me put my books away. If I didn’t spend my time with Jeff he would hide my books. He wanted me to talk to him instead of reading.
Ella Mae’s first trip was in Uncle Buck’s buggy. We borrowed it to take Ella Mae to show her off to his Uncle Nath (Nathan Jeans). I use to tell Jeff he was more parshal to Ella Mae than the other children but of course that wasn’t true. She was his first child. He and I loved them all and tried to prove our love. We were poor but we did the best we could with what we had to give them.
Jeff decided he wanted to move to Bowie County, DeKalb, Texas to be near his Mother and folks in the summer of 1918. Workmen were working the roads there and Jeff and Nick Cochran were given a job. Nick is his sister Bessie’s husband. Bessie and I had jobs cooking for the hired hands. The kitchen was in a big cage that they had used to haul prisoners in. We worked for two or more months.
One day when I made biscuits I pulled my ruby engagement ring off and hung it on a nail in the kitchen. When Jeff and I left for the day I forgot my ring. Nick and Bessie looked for it. Someone had taken it. I felt it was bad luck to lose them both. I was never crazy about jewelry so I didn’t worry Jeff for another pair of rings.
That was a summer to remember. When we moved to DeKalb we took a bed each and a trunk for our sheets. Nick and Bessie did not have any children. Ella Mae was a baby. We borrowed tubs and a wash pot from a neighbor to do our washing. We carried water from the neighbor’s well.
In 1919 Jeff wanted to move to Howard County, Nashville, Arkansas. Sanford was born August 23, 1919. He was a tenant farmer on Earl Williams place. Sanford was always smiling at us. He was such a sweet baby, big eyes and no hair but very healthy.
NOTE: The picture of the rose, at the top of the page, was taken in
the garden of Ella Mae Jeans, Evans, first born of Donia
Jeans, April 2001.