INDIA, TEXAS

History in a Pecan Shell

Alfred Jefferson Moyers, Jr Home

by Charla Priddy Marsh

My grandfather, Alfred Jackson "AJ" Moyers (8/26/1894 - 8/7/1993) was the grandson of Alfred Jefferson Moyers, Jr. Following was taken from: Mother Moyers' Family by Maxine Moyers Phillips - AJ was born at the Cross Roads near Ferris, Texas. Soon after his birth he and his parents moved to the big pasture in front of his Moyers grandparents' colonial style home which was about twenty miles south of Dallas, near India. The area before 1900 had much heavier growth and a variety of wild animals still roamed the area. AJ remembers hitching Moonlight to the buggy and driving down to the "bottoms" with his grandfather Alfred Jefferson Moyers, Jr to shoot squirrels and other animals with a powder loader. You might say that A J was the retriever while Grandfather Moyers pulled the trigger and loaded the muzzle-loader. Granddad died in 1903 so this is one of AJ's early adventures. Both sets of his grandparents, the Bradleys and the Moyers lived within a half mile of each other at this time. Early on AJ learned a system that kept him a well-fed first child. He would eat at the Moyers and move on the half mile to the Bradley farm and pull the hungry act again. There he would be lovingly fed again.

Remembering India, Texas

I lived at India from 1931 thru 1937 on the Alfred Jefferson Moyers home place. Annis Wiles Collins Witherspoon Moyers, Wife of Alfred Jefferson Moyers Jr. was my g-grandmother who died in 1931. Her husband died in October of 1903. They had 14 children-4 boys & 10 girls. When she died there was a need for someone to move into the homeplace and take over the farming. My grandparents, Billy & Ola Moyers Wilcher moved in with their four boys and three 3 girls. My mother and oldest Uncle- Moyers Wilcher worked in Dallas. James (the youngest) and I went half a year to the India school run by a man and his wife. I don't recall their names. I moved with my mother to Ft. Worth after the 8th grade.

Mr. Eagle ran the General Store at India. There was a cotton gin and a water tower where people filled their water wagons for family use. Papa and the boys raised cotton, big gardens, feed for the animals, and sheep for the wool. Cows were strictly for milk and butter, and we had horses, pigs and chickens. There was a family at India that had a peach orchard and another that had a big berry patch and in season you could go and buy their produce, picked or pick it yourself. I used to go with Papa. Papa knew a farmer at Cedar Hill and at Christmas he'd let Papa cut down a tree. Down in back of the big pasture there were Mustang grapevines growing on tall trees-they must have been there for years because the vines were as big around as a man's arm. They had formed swings & seats. It was really fun to play down there. Mama would make grape juice and jelly, can peaches and make preserves, put up berries for pies & jam. Of course vegetables were canned and we had a potato hill for both sweet & Irish potatoes. We always looked forward to the 1st. norther and the 1st. hog killin' of the season. The smoke house was replenished-Papa made really good sausage-Mama made sacks for it out of unbleached muslin just the size to fit on the stuffer. There was also a cream separator that separate milk and cream so Mama could churn and make butter.

I wouldn't take anything for having grown up in that period and being that close with my grandparents and knowing all my grand-aunts and uncles. There's nothing like family! - Peggy H. Nelson, June 11, 2007

Take a road trip