In the Georgetown (Texas) Public Library I found a book
entitled Adamsville Through
Their Eyes: History & Reflections compiled in 2008. In it I found an article submitted by Wenona
Conley, daughter-in-law of Clarence Conley, my mother’s uncle.
From it I learned some of our Conley family settled in
Adamsville about 1919. In the article,
Wenona said that Will and Clarence moved from Evant [in Lampasas County] to
Adamsville and built a cotton gin. I
remember my mother, Iva Conley Robbins, telling me about a cotton gin, but I
don’t remember the location or who ran it.
Her father, Frank Conley, was the brother of Will and Clarence. If I remember correctly, she told me she had
a pet goat and it would follow her up the stairs of the gin into an area that
would be like a loft in a barn. Outside,
below, were fairly high piles of cotton lint.
She would hide from the goat and when it would go to the edge looking
for her, she would push it into the pile of fluff. It’s a wonder the goat didn’t return the
favor.
In the article Wenona stated, “Will and his wife Nora soon
moved to Cherokee.” Will’s wife was
Violet Inman Conley, the sister of Nora Inman Conley who married John Franklin
(Frank) Conley. Brothers, Will and Frank Conley married
sisters, Violet and Nora Inman. Will and
Violet, Frank and Nora, Iva, and Wilber did move to Cherokee, but were still
listed in Adamsville on the 1920 Lampasas County, Texas Census.
Clarence and his wife, Willie (Carrigan) owned land between
the Lampasas River and what is now U. S. Highway 281 about six miles north of
Adamsville. I did not know, “The Conley’s
were the first in the community to have electricity generated by batteries
before LCRA put in a line.” I remember
Uncle Clarence had what I called a horse ranch in Adamsville; I did not know he
raised Welsh ponies and sheep.
One summer, when I was about eight years old, my Granny
Conley, (great) Aunt Violet and Uncle Will visited my (great) Aunt Willie and Uncle
Clarence. He had horses from newborn to
very old. He loaded my cousins and me in
his pickup and took us to a pasture to see the horses. I grew up in Abilene and as a “city girl” was
wearing my little white sandals with no socks – definitely not appropriate for
walking in a pasture, but he told me not to worry because we’d be driving up
close to the horses.
We did walk around a little to get closer to the
horses. At some point I told him my
ankle was stinging and I thought something had bitten me. He knelt beside me and told me it looked like
I’d gotten into some stinging nettle. Of
course I had no idea what that was, but he pointed it out and then broke off
some milk weed and rubbed the white milk on my ankle to stop the stinging. It was a plant that had a white, milky
substance inside but I don’t really remember what it looked like.
He told me there are lots of things in this world that can
hurt us, but if we’ll just look, the Good Lord put lots of things here to help
us. He told me if I’d look around,
everywhere I saw stinging nettle, I’d find some milk weed nearby. Whether
it’s factual or not isn’t very important to me now, but I believed him and of
course, my ankle quit stinging. What a
special memory to have of him!
Uncle Clarence’s son, Charles Allen Conley, was Wenona’s
husband. She states in the article that Charles
spent the last 25 ½ years of his 40 year preaching career as pastor of the
Adamsville Baptist Church. I did not
know that he served as an MP in the occupation of Japan in WWII. I did know Uncle Clarence served in World War
I.
I learned from the article that Uncle Clarence and Aunt
Willie donated a portion of their land for the Hines Chapel Cemetery. In a quick online search, I found the oldest
known marker was dated 1885. Perhaps I
need to add another cemetery to the list of those I’m working on for historic
cemetery status.
