Mary Elizabeth
Smith
Born May 10,
1885 – Died July 8, 1975
Md January
11, 1905
Everett
Sandefur
August 23,
1885- June 21, 1954
Mary Elizabeth Smith, called “Lizzie” by her family, was the
second daughter born to James T. and Sarah (Sanders) Smith. She was lively and fun, always getting into
mischief and pulling pranks, and married when she was twenty to Everett Earnest
Sandefur, also twenty, the son of Lucian A. Sandefur and Mary Emily Beck.
Everett and Lizzie went to Texas on their honeymoon, and I
have a good studio picture of them sitting in a buggy in front of a store in
Beaumont. !n 1912, they were living in
Orange, Texas, not far from Beaumont, when their daughter was born. Later, they lived in Edgerly, Calcasieu
Parish, Louisiana for a period of several years, before moving to Palestine,
Texas. Everett went to work in a store there, and in later years owned his own
grocery store in Palestine.
This couple had one child, a daughter, Joye, who married
Frank Moore, in 1931. They had no
children.
My grandmother and her older sister were very close and
their two families lived together in a number of different places. Joye was like another sister to my dad and
his three sisters.
March 7, 1977 tape
– Retha: “Tell about Auntie fighting at
Bunker Hill when you started home from school.
(Laughter)”
Grandmother:
“Well I was quite small, and Auntie was four years older than me. But from the time we got out of school after
we had started home, and there was boys and girls all the way, and they would
have a fight. They chunked at each
other, playing, you know. Not really
fighting…just scuffling. And I think
they called it Bunker Hill. Auntie would
pull off her fascinator (that you put over your head and tied them under each
end to keep you warm.) …Auntie would pull off her fascinator and that’s where
they would have their last battle on their way home. They would get her fascinator and throw it up
in the trees…so it would catch up in the trees.
There were three roads, and they turned one way and we turned the
other. And she would get their cap…and
no telling what she did do with that…probably went higher than the trees,
knowing Auntie.”
“Oh, at Easter we always got new hats and shoes, and
clothes. And Ella and I both got us an
Easter hat. And it was called
leghorn. And it was white and had red
roses on it…for Easter. And it was real
broad-brimmed. And the next Easter, I
believe it was, I got one that was real pretty…it was kindly turban shaped,
straw…pretty straw, and it had a veil over the crown and then inside, it had a
whole wreath of forget-me-nots. Blue
ones and pink ones. It was real pretty
and I really liked that hat. Yes, that’s
what we wore. We always had new dresses
and new slippers…new clothes for Easter.
Ma made all of those dresses because she had a sewing machine. That’s why Della did a lot of the house work,
because Ma did all the sewing. Della was
real good.”
Sisters - the two oldest daughters of James Thomas & Sarah (Sanders) Smith
~~.~~
Mary Elizabeth Smith
May 10, 1885 – July 8, 1975
Auntie told me a number of stories about growing up that I
wish I had recorded but did not. One of
the things she told was about her grandmother, Kitty Ann Smith, and her
children, sitting around in chairs picking cotton seeds out of cotton bolls and
putting the seeds in cups. Each child
had a cup. They were doing this when the
Rebels came and invaded their farm and took their wagon and blue geese, and
tried to find her money. However she had
it wrapped up in her quilt scrap pieces in her lap and they didn’t find
it. I do have this story below that
Auntie told me:
"Auntie said their house was a big two-story house,
painted white, with pretty wall paper.
The bedrooms were all upstairs and they had one bedroom downstairs. They had alots of flowers and the prettiest
garden with peonies that looked like wax - red and white. At the end of the garden walk, the landscape
stair-stepped, and they had a grape arbor with slatted roof-top.
Auntie said that Grandma Sanders' house had a summer kitchen
where they cooked and canned.
She also said they had a dog, named Old Sport that bit
Grandmother once by the chimney.
They had a smoke house out behind the house. She could remember that her father killed 16
hogs one cold winter day, and there are lots of people there. They let her walk to Grandma Sanders' house
to get a knife to use in the hog-killing.
Lilacs arrived in the early spring and those hardy shrubs
filled spring with its delicate scent and profusion of blooms - white and
purple.
~.~
When Auntie and Uncle got married in 1905, they came to
Texas on their honeymoon - and Joye gave me a picture of them taken in
Beaumont, sitting in a fine looking buggy
- and they were a good-looking young couple.
They moved to Palestine, Texas in 1929 - probably from Mexia
in Limestone County. At one time, Uncle
had a filling station, and Frank worked in it after school. I've forgotten who told me that. He next had a grocery store. Uncle's Grocery Store,"Sandefur's
Grocery" store was located at 601 West Reagan Street, Palestine, according
to the 1937-1938 Palestine City directory.
Their residence was in the Southview Addition. Ten years later in the 1947-1948 city directory,
both addresses remained unchanged.
---------------------------------------
E. E. Sandefur Rites Wednesday
Obituary from the Palestine Daily
Herald,
Tuesday, June 22, 1954
.<<~.~>>.
E. E. SANDEFUR RITES WEDNESDAY
Funeral services for E. E. Sandefur, 68, will
be held in the Bailey Funeral Chapel at 6 p.m. Wednesday with the Rev. Morris
House, pastor of First Methodist Church, officiating.
Burial will follow in New Addition
Cemetery.
Mr.
Sandefur died at 7:15 p.m. Monday in Memorial Hospital, following an illness.
Born in Beaver Dam, Kentucky, he came to
Palestine to make his home in 1929. He
had operated Sandefur Grocery Store here for the past 19 years.
Pallbearers
will be Fred Rogers, J. D. Glenn, Lacy Kendrick, Robert Bristow, Bill Presley,
O. R. Williams, Weldon Bynum and Ed Lockey.
Survivors
include his wife; one daughter, Mrs. Frank Moore of Palestine; three brothers,
C. W. Sandefur of Mexia, Adrian Sandefur of Pasadena, Calif., and John Sandefur
of Alamosa, Colo; and one sister, Mrs. Virginia Taylor of Beaver Dam.
Mrs. Sandefur
Obituary from The Palestine Daily
Herald,
Wednesday, July 9, 1975
.<<~.~>>.
Mrs.
Sandefur
Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sandefur of Palestine, died Tuesday morning in a
local hospital following a long illness.
Funeral services will be held in Bailey Memorial Chapel at 2 p.m. Thursday
with the Rev. Jim Crawford officiating.
Burial will be in New Addition Cemetery.
Pallbearers will be J. D. Glenn, W. A. Fuller, Jr., Robert Bristow,
Weldon Bynum, Herbert Schuler and David Dial.
Mrs. Sandefur was born May 10, 1885 in Ohio County, Kentucky, to James
T. and Sarah Sanders Smith. She had
resided in Palestine for the past 46 years and was preceded in death by her
husband, Everett E. Sandefur, on June 21, 1954.
Mrs. Sandefur was a long standing member of the First United Methodist
Church and Women's Society of Christian Service.
Survivors include one daughter, Mrs. Frank Moore of Palestine; three
sisters, Mrs. J. N. Cox of New Summerfield, Mrs. Della Taylor of Beaver Dam, Ky., and Mrs. Roy T. Stewart of
Cromwell, Ky.; two brothers, Ellis Smith and H. X. Smith, both of Cromwell, Ky.
and several nieces and nephews.
~.~
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