Oral Histories of Tennessee Valley

Miller Springs Day - April 1, 1995

Bell County Museum

Belton, Texas

Billie Thompson Wilson

Grew up in Sparta...3 sisters, 2 alive, sister of Ernestine Humphrey...in-laws are from Tennessee Valley - Thompson...1st husband who was killed 1958, Bert Nevitt Thompson...3 kids: Brenda Freedman (Moody), Tony Sykes (Huntsville), and Pansy Warrick (Holland)...lived in Belton at the time...lived in Tennessee Valley before moving to Belton...had a grocery store on 317, name? can't remember. about 1952...lived with his parents when 1st married. in a dog trot house, each couple had 2 rooms...his parents raised watermelons, garden veggies, & took them to town to sell...do you remember when the houses were moved? oh, yes, very well...it was sad..."most did not want it because a lot had lived there for so many years...that they didn't care for the dam; it wasn't going to effect them that much; it was tearing up their home life."...Watched some as the water raised...Remembers when the Leon and the Cowhouse used to get "out of the banks"...

Cowhouse would not stay up as long as the Leon would. Cowhouse ran into the Leon and the Leon would stay up longer. Goes to Tennessee Valley roundup...remembers corps digging up the cemeteries "had to be done, but it was sad."

Emily Bounds Klaussen

Viola Bounds Copeland

VBC lives less than 1/2 mile from Tennessee Valley...Their dads were brothers so they are cousins...Members of Tennessee Valley group...VBC was born in Tennessee Valley - Live Oak Park...VBC moved from Tennessee Valley when married, family moved in 1951...EBK moved in 1952, July; house was where you go down; where the gate is, you can see the road & cedar trees.

Daddy was a farmer (cotton, corn) & worked at American Desk; he was trustee of the school when it burned. Both went to Tennessee Valley school...VBC's daddy was a farmer. Family lived on "grandpa's place" where they lived when they got married. Raised cotton, corn & vegetables. "If that all failed we had our pecan trees to fall back on. And if that all failed we had our cedars to cut and sell wood. And if that all failed we'd trap hides up under the bluff. We did fish. Helped us eat."

Electricity...they got it to the schools, church, stores, and some homes.

Miller Springs...1934/5 family trips to Miller Springs. VBVs sister was flirting with CCC's on bus and one grabbed her hand and she had to run alongside the bus...Remember when families were forced to move out? 1952...VBC was pregnant and so she was not allowed to go to watch the cemeteries being moved. It would "mark the baby." VBC: We used hide in the brush and throw rocks at the cars carrying the corps workers...EBK: I remember one time the water got so high up over the bridge that we missed school for a week...EBK: I go out there and I watch all these young people and they are having so much fun. Well, I used to have fun there too, but their fun is on top of my fun! And I think they don't realize; and no telling whose fun I was on top of! . . . somebody ahead of me."

VBC: "No I'm not mad about it. The only thing I'm mad about now is they charge to get in. 'Cause there is a certain time of the year I go around there and watch the moon come up over the bluff. One time it was so bright and glarey, we thought our neighbor's house up on top of the hill was on fire."

EBK: During the war we couldn't work. No gas, no tires, no way to go...EBK and VBC: We made our own fun; we would get together her house or my house or somebody's house and they made music and we danced and we had a good time. On Sunday's after church we went picnicking up under that bluff by grandpa's house (Tennessee Valley Bluff/Buzzard Bluff - right across from Tennessee Valley - the long bluff seen from Temple Lake Park)

Ernestine Humphrey

Bert Bounds

Willhite sisters...Mary Kathleen (1920), Ernestine, Billie, Bert...All four girls born in Phoenix

daughters of Ernest and Lee Willhite..."Preacher Willhite" - not a preacher. In Phoenix since married on June 9, 1918, went to service on June 19th. 1931 - moved to Sparta. lived there for 23 years before the dam came. 1930s they kept coming through saying they* "were surveying, they was going to build a dam there and I just couldn't believe it." It was impossible to imagine because it was "just farmlands and cedars, just a beautiful valley" * Byron Denman, Bob Poage, Sanderfords from Belton came through...daddy was a farmer. cotton, corn, maize, hay, sugarcane

"and we were boys that wore skirts; everybody in the community worked, it wasn't like we were just singled out to work" raised some watermelons, not as many as in Tennessee Valley, where the land was sandier (not black soil like in the valley)...had Johnson grass and cockleburrs

when Cowhouse would get too full and overflow it would run through...daddy's field and cut off at the end of the Boren Bridge...We had close neighbors, if you saw anybody's light burning late at night you thought they were sick and went and checked on them...No electricity. kerosene lamps. battery powered radio - only listened to news or religious singing (daddy was song leader at church -Church of Christ)...dad moved to Heidenhammer when the dam went in. The old Cummins family. Then to Salado...Mr. Wilhite leased the land & house that the family lived on.

Feelings on land being covered by water: They were heartbroken..."It was the only place I knew as home"..."It was sad"...house moved in 1953...Land began to fill in 1954. "It (the water) came up and spread out easy"...1957 flood - it almost filled then...'91 and '92 it overflowed again...Bert asked a corps engineer "How long will it take that to fill up and run over" and he said "You'll probably never live to see it, it will be at least 100 years." "I wish I knew where he was! and tell him that I did see it!"

"Mrs. Byron Denman, bless her heart, he worked so hard to get that in there (their farm in the valley) and I believe it hurt her worse than it hurt him. She just nearly had a nervous breakdown over it" They moved to Temple and bought a place over there. Miss Nora's mother and grandmother lived there with her when we moved to Sparta in the early 1930s. She was an only child (Walton). "They were about the richest people in the community. She dressed, she had her gloves and her hat."

Ernestine: on Sparta and the surrounding area, "I felt like they could have picked a poorer valley to do it in than that beautiful valley we had."

Bert: "I never did give it too much of a thought because I blocked it out, our homeplace being covered up. But it is kind of like just laying down and letting water cover you up, that's just the way I feel. It was a live burial, in a way. And of course, for Daddy, that's the way they make their living (from the land) so it was even worse for them. And so many people didn't know where they were going to go, they just had to get out and find a place."

We lived just above where the Cowhouse and the Leon come together..."We always thought Dr. Pittman brought the babies in his little black bag."..Boren Bridge was between Sparta and Tennessee Valley, it crossed the Cowhouse. Tennessee Valley bridge crossed the Leon. Sparta bridge crossed the Cowhouse above the Boren Bridge.