02-26-01

Cousin Billie gave me a little time off by writing the Merrylands Farm adventures from the depression years. There have been several people come in telling me that they remember the family living at Merrylands Farm and about their neighbors. I have again asked Billie to come up with some stories about when she and Martha Jo and I had to crawl under the old house where I live now. You see, we stored potatoes under our house with the onions; my grandad had us place the potatoes and onions under the house where they were not touching each other – this allowed them to stay dry and cool and last for many months.

It was my job to crawl under the house when company came for Sunday dinners and gather the potatoes and onions for my Grandmother so that she could start the dinner for the large family of great uncles and aunts and children.

About ten or eleven years before we learned to put the potatoes under the house we heard discussions among the elders of our clan as they talked about the incorporation of the town of Aubrey. It seems to me that I recall talk from under the porch of the old big Tipi that I still live in now, about the hardships of the years back then and that the townspeople were circulating a petition for election to incorporate. On May 22, 1923, sixty-two people petitioned to become a city municipality with a population of 800 inhabitants. The petition was presented to the county commissioners, however no election was called from this petition and then on February 28, 1924, another petition was presented and approved by the County Commissioners and an election was called to form a less than two square mile incorporated town limits that was surveyed by Acting County Engineer H.T. Brewster. The petition was delivered to the commissioners court by Constable of Precinct 7, J.T. Elrod. Names on the original petition were numerous citizens that I recall that were interested in the city becoming a corporate municipality.

They are as follows: J.E. Boner, O.A. Lipstrew, J.H. Andrew, H.C. Amos, Mrs. Lillie Morgan, Lula Lipstrew, T.E. Ratchford, Mrs. Clytin, Mrs. L.E. Nuckles, J.C. Haynie, Eva Ratchford, Mammie E. Boner, Jim Goin, H.B. Maxwell, Mrs. W.E. Dyche, Dora C. Ratchford, M.L. Holman, T.L. Phillips, F.R. Powledge, F. Wilkinson, W.C. Simpson, T.E. Smith, A.Q. Mustain, W.R. Mohon, J.T. Tatum, T.H. Goin, W.D. Keen, Minnie L. Tatum, J.W. Henderson, D.K. Lyles, W.E. Conly, S.C. Henderson, Len Henderson, Mrs. A.C. Bryant, B.F. Stofford, J.E> Copenhaver, P.A. Whitson, W.C. Dyche, C.H. Cantrell, T.L. Mullins, Wood Goin, Mrs. Erma D. Kelly, Wm. Dyche, R.H. Ezell, W.O. Tatum, W.T. Wilson, Mrs. Earl E. Love, Carl Kelley, Mrs. W.T. Wilson, Earl E. Love, C.W. Robertson, E.P. Creswell, T.L. Simpson, J.T. Harmon, J.W. Stanling, Mrs. E.M. Bates, J.A. Harmon, J.W. Thomas, C.H. Hodges, O.A. Burke, A.G. Bryant, J.H. Lanford.

I hope that the descendants of the names on the incorporation petition can give us more information about this event. Time is slipping by and if we do not make an effort to document the facts, then in only a short while it will be too late and won’t be remembered.

This week’s photo shows the results of the municipal incorporation close to forty years after the petition was circulated. The Aubrey Fire Department was organized by the leaders that are shown in the photo with 38 other volunteers that were active in the success of the organization.

The article with this photo published in the December 3, 1962, Denton Record Chronicle is as follows:

Aubrey’s planned fire department has become a reality with the delivery of a $6,000 booster-pumper truck from a Wichita Falls firm. The truck carries 400 gallons of water.

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