Raymond Moore
Raymond Moore
Interview November 2012
Raymond Moore 1
Ken: OK. So, uh, let me get some information. Raymond. You’re Raymond Moore
Raymond: Right
Ken: And, uh, uh, you were born in Marble Falls
Raymond: Marble Falls. In 1943
Ken: 1943
Raymond: Right
Ken: OK
Raymond: My dad moved us over here to Mountain Home in 1947.
Ken: OK
Raymond: And Mack Callahan had a cedar yard over there. He moved his cedar yard to Mountain Home
Ken: Where is Mountain Home?
Raymond: About ten miles up there
Ken: And he, he moved it from Marble Falls, didn’t he?
Raymond: Yeah. Up to there. Then he, he, then he didn’t stay long, a year or two. At one time there was four or five cedar yards here in Ingram.
Ken: Is that right!
Raymond: Yeah, the Stevens’s were first. Then Rohan’s had one.
Ken: OK
Raymond: behind it, there, and it’s gone now.
Ken: OK
Raymond: Winnie Guthrie had one down here
Ken: Alright
Raymond: And then, uh, Pete Guthrie had one. He sold it to Lee Joy from Roosevelt.
Ken: Near Junction.
Raymond: Yeah. That’s where, Lee Joy lived there. And he used to haul cedar posts with a trailer truck all the time. And Lee Joy had that cedar yard down here, he hauled it about halfway to Kerrville ___. Well Buddy Wells and Lee Joy bought it between ‘em And a few years later Buddy Wells had a heart attack and died. His son still lives here, I reckon, in Kerrville.
Ken: OK. What’s his name?
Raymond: Wells is his name
Ken: Wells is his last name.
Raymond: Um-hum. I can’t think of that boy’s first name.
Ken: So he, did he move from Roosevelt, that fellow, to here?
Raymond: Lee Joy did.
Ken: Lee Joy. I’ve seen a cedar truck, picture of a cedar truck, that says Roosevelt, TX.
Raymond: Well that’s where Lee Joy lived at for a long time.
Ken: So that may have been where the truck came from
Raymond: It might have been.
Ken: OK
Raymond: Now they had a cedar yard, you know, at, at Johnson City.
Ken: Right now
Raymond: right now. And they’ve got one at, at Meridian, and they’ve got on in Glen Rose, I know.
Ken: This Lee Joy.
Raymond: No, uh, a guy, at, at, uh, Glen Rose, is named West.
Ken: OK
Raymond: _____ West was his name
Ken: OK
Raymond: and, uh, I’ve got a friend worked for a company over there at Lampasas. They had a cedar yard there and they make furniture out of it.
Ken: oK
Raymond: But then they had another one up at Meridian.
Ken: Are you talking about the Myers cedar yard there?
Raymond: Yeah, Meyers
Ken: Do you know Doug Lavender there?
Raymond: the younger one?
Ken: Yeah
Raymond: Yeah, I know Doug.
Ken: Do you really!
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: I know Doug too. I live pretty near there, in Liberty Hill.
Raymond: I see, uh, Johnny Lee, a fat boy, worked for him. His name was Johnny Lee.
Ken: OK
Raymond: Well, we’ve been friends for probably fifty years or so
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But he, he went to work for Doug’s daddy
Ken: OK
Raymond: And Doug’s daddy died a few years ago
Ken: OK
Raymond: And, uh, but, uh, ___ Johnny’s wife passed away here a few years ago. We went over to the funeral and, and Doug was up there. He was at the funeral too, you know.
Ken: Uh-huh Is his name Johnny Lavender?
Raymond: Johnny Lee is his name.
Ken: Johnny Lee, OK
Raymond: But, he’s from here.
Ken: OK
Raymond: He’s got two brothers lives here and a sister or two that lives here in Ingram.
Ken: Alright. I know all these people. He’s mentioning people that I know, too.
Raymond: Kenny Robertson used to have a cedar yard over
Ken: Robertson
Raymond: Yeah, in Dripping Springs, and they had one at Cedar Park, wasn’t it?
Ken: You talking Roberts?
Raymond: Roberts? Yeah
Ken: Yes sir. Well see, uh, Cecil Roberts
Raymond: Right
Ken: ‘cause I know, I know his son, Ronnie Roberts, and then Cecil, it’s Oak Hill. He went and lived with his, uh, when, his, his mother passed away, and his father couldn’t raise him so he went and lived with his grandparents
Raymond: See, one of ‘em was blind. One of ‘em was blind, you know
Ken: That’s right. He lived with his grandfather who was blind and helped him in the cedar yard there in Oak Hill
Raymond: Right. Well, see now, Roberts had a cedar yard at Hunt at one time.
Ken: That’s right.
Raymond: Up there at the Y at Hunt.
Ken: I actually have a picture of his yard here. Let me show you. It’s kind-of funny, because I’m just sitting here going “ I know everything you’re telling me now.” I don’t know all those other yards, Here you go. Cecil Roberts
Raymond: Yeah, Cecil Roberts
Ken: cedar yard. Ronnie is a good friend of mine. I’m not related to him. I’m Ken Roberts, but I’m not related to him.
Raymond: At the Y at Ingram, now they’ve got a pavilion made there , you know
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: At one time a cedar yard sit right in the Y when I was pretty young
Ken: So, how many other cedar, you remember, how many other cedar yards do you remember
Raymond: There was, there is one in Auld, J. W. Auld over at Leakey
Ken: Yes, Sir. I’m going over there tomorrow.
Raymond: OK
Ken: I mean back in the heyday of the cedar, back in the 1950s, can you remember other places that had cedar yards
Raymond: Camp Wood had one.
Ken: OK
Woman: Did you get ______
Raymond: Yeah, that was Lee Joy had that. Then there, then there used to be one at Concan, but that old feller is dead now. I can’t think of his name
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But there used to be one at Concan.
Ken: OK
Raymond: I worked for him a while. I lived in Uvalde and rode out there.
Ken: OK
Raymond: We cut over at Reagan Wells.
Ken: Who’s that?
Raymond: On past Concan and 83
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: going about five or six miles there will be a road. Turn off to your right and about ten miles up there is a little place called Reagan Wells. I don’t think they even have a store.
Ken: OK
Raymond: That’s where her daddy lived up in there too. Her daddy did.
Woman: My dad cut cedar also
Ken: Is that right
Woman: Yeah
Ken: Can you tell me your name again?
Woman: I’m Sherry.
Ken: Sherry. What was your maiden name?
Woman: Bishop
Ken: Sherry Bishop
Raymond: Her daddy worked for old Dolf Briscoe, had a big ranch over there
Ken: Yes
Raymond: He worked on his ranch too.
Sherry: Yeah, when he was younger
Raymond: When he was younger ___ ranch
Sherry: And when we moved down this way, he started cutting cedar
Ken: OK
Raymond: He, he died. He’s buried here in Nickel Cemetery. Where my dad and mom are buried at. But my grandfathers, they’re all from Marble Falls, you know.
Ken: What brought them here?
Raymond: Well, for one thing, Mack Callahan moved over here and put that cedar yard in. A bunch of ‘em come with him.
Ken: I see, ‘cause they were probably cutting for him.
Raymond: Yeah. And J. R. McGehee and his family, then, uh, the Moores come over here, and some of the Pierces, but Pierces still live over at, some of ‘em do live around Marble Falls. The Pierces lived here.
Ken: P I E R C E
Raymond: P I E R C E
Ken: OK. ‘cause, now they’re, do they, would you happen to know, ‘cause they’re, I’m from west of Austin and there was some Pierces there. Litten Pierce. That would have been the old man. I knew a Luther Pierce.
Raymond: I didn’t’ know them
Ken: Would you happen to know whether their original home was out there in Bee Cave, out there west of Austin?
Raymond: I don’t know if they were or not.
Ken: See, what happened, is Austin moved west and pushed all those people out.
Raymond: Right.
Ken: So
Raymond: There wasn’t nothing here when my dad moved me here, neither. Yeah, in 1947.
Ken: Nothing. Tell me about it.
Raymond: You know, I was just a kid
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: We lived in a tent up here in Mountain Home
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But the Magehee’s lived there, the Dunbar’s lived there, and the Deans, some of the Deans come over here too.
Ken: So, did yall all live together in the same area?
Raymond: Same area right here. All the Deans still live here.
Ken: I mean when you lived in a tent, did yall live in, were the tents
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: families
Raymond: Same area around them old tents
Ken: Uh-huh, uh-huh
Raymond: There was sixteen, sixteen tents
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: and wooden floors and a ___ about three foot on each side.
Ken: Huh
Raymond: That’s what they’d do then
Ken: Did yall build ‘em, where did you get em?
Raymond: They bought ‘em and then they put ‘em together up here somewhere
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: They had ‘em in Mountain Home to start with. Then Mac Callahan said he moved, and he moved to, the last time I heard, he moved to Colorado. And had work in, he had a big enough cattle yard, putting in, you know, where you sold cows and stuff
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: feed yard, ‘cause he tried to get my dad to move up there. And my dad would not move to Colorado.
Ken: Laugh
Raymond: And, uh, but
Ken: It’s mighty pretty up there.
Raymond: It is. Oh, we’ve been up there a lot, you know, and, uh, but I’ve lived here all my life except See we moved away, we was gone about twenty-years. Then we moved back here about that, twenty-five years ago
Ken: Uh-huh Where’d yall move to?
Raymond: We moved up by Muleshoe
Ken: OK. Up in the Panhandle
Raymond: In the Panhandle, y eah
Ken: On the way to Colorado
Raymond: We lived up there, we lived up there about fifteen years
Ken: Huh
Raymond: And then we moved out here and bought this little house about twenty two three years ago.
Ken: I’ve always known Muleshoe because of the stockyard.
Raymond: yeah
Ken: You could smell it as you drive in.
Raymond: Right. We lived
Ken: Yeah, these are, yeah
Raymond: Just the people I’ve talked to and stuff like that
Ken: Um-hum. Well, uh, I’m, uh, I’m just following up. And it turns out, I mean, this is my first venture into this part of the country.
Raymond: Um-hum
Ken: I’ve talked to some folks in Marble Falls, and up west of Austin, and even in Junction. I’m gona go to Leakey and Uvalde. This is, Jerry
Raymond: The Carrolls all around Junction, they were in the cedar business too. ___ Carroll, all the Carrolls was
Ken: OK
Raymond: And, uh, over in Leakey , her cousin, he is older than I am, and he still lives up there and he’s alive. He lives out west of Leakey
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: A guy, Nugan.
Sherry: ____
Raymond: Her older cousin. But his daddy is buried at Barkesdale.
Sherry: Yeah
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: north of ___
Sherry ___ cedar yard, my dad’s brother ___
Ken: Um-hum
Sherry: He was out cutting cedar and
Raymond: He died. Had a heart attack.
Sherry: trees, cutting the trees, and, I guess it got too hot to handle one day.
Ken: Hum
Sherry: That’s how we lost my. Well, it was when I was a kid. So ____ younger
Ken: Hum
Raymond: I’d say around fifty.
Ken: Oh
Raymond: Now, he could be, now I don’t know if he was that old or not.
Ken: It doesn’t seem like, If you had a bad heart of something like that
Sherry: Yea
Ken: It doesn’t seem like you could cut cedar very, I mean, it’s seem like, you would have an early death.
Raymond: Well, the Goodmans, they moved up around Beard, that’s when I first met them. See they all moved down here. The Goodmans, John Goodman and all, John Goodman and them
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And they all moved down here, ‘cause I knowed their kids when we were like that, you know.
Ken: So yall moved here in 1947.
Raymond: 1947
Ken: And how many people were in your family then?
Raymond: My dad’s family?
Ken: Yes sir.
Raymond: My dad, my mother, my older brother, my sister, and me. That was it.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Then they had, after we moved here, we had, had another brother was born here. And I had a sister born here.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And they had another sister and ___ moved out, ___ had a cedar yard at Boerne too. It belonged to Gordon Stukes. And he died. Him and my dad was good friends
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Then they had a cedar yard over here at Medina. Belonged to Hal Keys. And he died of a heart attack. And, uh, but I know a guy, Ricky Hildalgo, a Spanish guy, lives in Camp Wood, and he’s still alive. And that’s all he’s done all his life, is mess with cedar.
Ken: Huh
Raymond: And he – I’ve know Rick – I’ve know Ricky all our lives, you now.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But, his boys live down below Boerne, I mean Comfort, now. But he lives in Camp Wood yet.
Ken: Well I’m going to Leakey and Camp Wood tomorrow. Uh, and I was gona talk to, see if I’ve got it here, see what’s his name, um, there it is. Joanne Fisher and, uh, let me see, Eric Whipkey.
Raymond: I don’t know them.
Ken: How about Boatright? Billy Boatright?
Raymond: Yeah, I’ve heard of Boatright. I don’t remember him. I knowd Billy Boatright. Yeah, I knowd of him.
Ken: See, we had a bunch of Boatrights again were from west Austin that moved out to Leander and Liberty Hill, where I live.
Raymond: Well, see I had some kin folks over there named Mouser
Ken: Mouser, yes
Raymond: They’re my
Ken: Liberty Hill?
Raymond: Yah, Liberty Hill
Ken: Absolutely
Raymond: They’re kin to me
Ken: OK
Raymond: The Mousers. Boy Mouser was the old man
Ken: OK
Raymond: And he’s older than my dad was. But, he’s got one daughter that lives right over here now.
Ken: Really?
Raymond: Yeah. And he cut -- his grandkids nearly as old as I am.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Because my cousin, she’s ten or twelve years older than I am. But she lives over here about two blocks from
Ken: Mrs. Mouser?
Raymond: No, Mrs. Moore. Her name is Moore too.
Ken: OK.
Raymond: She married a guy named Moore, just like her mama was named Moore. She married a guy named Boy Mouser.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And then when she married she married a guy named Jimmy Lee Moore.
Ken: OK
Raymond: Made her back to Moore again.
Sherry: but he wasn’t no kin to
Raymond: No. The Simons’ lived over there. The name of Simons.
Ken: All right. Now let’s follow up on the Simons. Was there a Rex Simons?
Raymond: I don’t know. I know a Leo and Leon and, uh, another one, I can’t think of his name. But Leo married my cousin, finally, but Leon – I hadn’t seen, Leo died but Leon was still living in Burnet last I heard of him.
Ken: Burnet, Burnet, Texas? Leon Simons
Raymond: Yeah. That’s where he lived last time I heard of him.
Ken: I don’t know him. OK.
Raymond: But him and Leo was twins.
Ken: OK
Raymond: and I had two cousins was twins. And they wanted to marry each other, but one of ‘em hadn’t of knew the other one. Two of ‘em did marry.
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: Leo married Thelma
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: Mouser. But Leon and Thelma never did get married.
Ken: Which Mouser girl is this here?
Raymond: Her name is, uh, Francis.
Ken: Francis Mouser.
Raymond: Francis Moore now.
Ken: Right
Raymond: But it was Francis Mouser at one time
Ken: Yeah. That’s an old Liberty Hill name.
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: That’s so interesting.
Raymond Moore 2
Ken: You know, I’m thinking that, why do you think, I mean, it seems as though everybody knows everybody, you know. It’s really a pretty small community, isn’t it? Why do you think that is? Do you have any idea?
Raymond: I don’t know
Ken: I mean, do you think that, you, where did, your dad came from, he moved from Marble Falls. Do you know where he was before then?
Raymond: He was born in, uh, Oklahoma.
Ken: OK
Raymond: western Oklahoma, I can’t think of
Ken: What do you think brought him to Marble Falls?
Raymond: His daddy just moved him down there.
Ken: What brought his daddy down here, I mean, uh
Raymond: My grandpa was from Tennessee.
Ken: OK
Raymond: you know. Him and my grandma was. And my other grandpa was from eastern Oklahoma
Ken: OK
Raymond: Up around Tele___
Ken: OK. Is that in the mountains?
Raymond: Yeah, up in the mountains of eastern Oklahoma, up there south of Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Ken: So what would, would you have any idea of the year they came to Texas, about the time
Raymond: No, I wouldn’t have no idea, a long time ago
Ken: Twentieth century, I mean, you know the, way back
Raymond: Way back. They moved down here with a team, a wagon and team
Ken: Oh, OK
Raymond: A long time. They didn’t have very many cars or nothing. ‘cause I remember my dad telling me they moved from up there in Oklahoma, he said ___ ever see it in the wintertime. He said it would take as high as four or five weeks to get down there, you know, in a car, in that wagon and team
Ken: Um-hum. And he came – did he come directly to Marble Falls, or did, do you think that they lived anywhere else before?
Raymond: They did, around Marble Falls, over around Austin, over in there
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Cedar Park
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: My dad did, And see, I had, I’ve got kin folk live in Three Rivers.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And my uncle, he had a cedar yard down there.
Ken: Three Rivers.
Raymond: Right. It’s not there no more. He’s dead and so is his son. But his name was Willie Jones. Sherry too remembers him.
Sherry: Yeah
Raymond: He died after my dad did. My dad died he was in 1982, I think. He’s buried down here
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: My dad did.
Ken: How old was your dad when he passed away?
Raymond: Seventy six. My grandpa lived to be ninety six I think. He died over there in Austin.
Ken: Is that right.
Raymond: He lived to be ninety six years old.
Ken: That’s amazing.
Raymond: My grandpa did
Ken: Did he cut cedar too?
Raymond: When he was young
Ken: Uh-huh.
Raymond: You know. See, they used to have a cedar yard and stuff like that. And ___ cut a wagon and team and they’d load up and go down there, but it might be, in ___ , a day or two before they get back home, ‘cause it’s so far, you know, sometimes.
Ken: When they would go into
Raymond: Austin to unload.
Ken: So they were probably cutting out in the hills west of Austin
Raymond: Yeah, around Marble Falls, down in there.
Ken: Uh-huh, yeah
Raymond: He said it took ‘em a day to get there and they’d unload and sometimes they’d start back that day and sometimes they’d wait until the next day to start back.
Ken: This is your granddad.
Raymond: My granddad,
Ken: Do you know which yard he would take it to?
Raymond: No. I just knew the Roberts had that cedar yard over there.
Ken: So it could have been that very yard because that yard was west of Austin and Oak Hill.
Raymond: Right, over at Oak Hill.
Ken: Yeah, that would be the way you’d get to Marble Falls is, is through Oak Hill.
Raymond: But then like you say, Leander had a bunch of cutters. Their name was Mouser, lived around Leander. But their name was Mouser.
Ken: Right, right, right
Raymond: And, uh, I don’t see them very often, you know. But I don’t go nowhere no more. But I’ve still got a bunch of cousins lives at Marble Falls. Their name is Moore, some of ‘em is.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: That’s where my uncle’s buried. And both my grandpas. And one grandma is buried there in Marble Falls. My other grandma is buried in Tele___ Oklahoma. She died up there and her husband moved down here ‘cause my dad married one of his daughters, see. So, uh, and he died in 1944, I think, when he died.
Ken: Huh. Boy, you’ve got a great memory. Do you
Sherry: I don’t have a good memory
Ken: I don’t either (laugh) I’m envious.
Sherry: I wish I could remember things like he does but I can’t
Ken: Well tell me, what do you remember about when you were cutting and, what age were you when you stopped cutting cedar?
Raymond: About twenty-eight, twenty-nine.
Ken: OK
Sherry: It was right after ___ was born
Raymond: Yeah
Sherry: ___
Raymond: We had a son was born, right after he was born we quit, I quit. But I cut some, I moved back here a few years ago, but I didn’t cut, just on weekends to have something to do I’d go out there and cut cedar.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: I knowed a guy had a cedar yard up here at Mountain HomeAnd I’d go up there on Sunday a. nd I’d help him, you know.
Sherry: Yeah, ‘cause he’s forty two right now.
Raymond: we had a son got killed, he was been forty two years old now. He got, he’s been dead thirty.
Sherry: He was three or six months when we moved to Oregon so that’s when you quit cuttin’ cedar.
Raymond: Yeah, we moved to Oregon, lived a year
Sherry: But when we did move back down here, about twenty-five years or so ago, he did work down here at Jerry Steven’s ____
Raymond: I helped Jerry for a while
Ken: Um-hum
Sherry: ‘cause it was hard to find a job
Ken: Um-hum
Sherry: So he worked down at the cedar yard for a while.
Raymond: Now I don’t do nothing. I’ve had heart surgery, you know, and I’ve got a pacemaker. I just don’t get around good no more.
Ken: You look in good shape
Raymond: But, uh, but they, they done four bypasses on me, see.
Sherry: ____ in
Ken: Yeah
Sherry: ‘cause it busted open and
Ken: Was that a long time ago?
Sherry: About three years
Raymond: Three years ago.
Sherry: Well last month was three years
Ken: Um-hum
Sherry: That started all that
Ken: They are getting mighty good at that now.
Sherry: Um-hum
Raymond: Well see, they had me in San Antonio, ___ down there, that’s a good heart hospital, you know.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And they kept me five or six days, and said “you can go home.” I tell them “I don’t’ feel good.” In here, you know. “well, you’re all right.” I come home three or four days, I was passing out. So she had to call the ambulance and they took me back to San Antone. And that all’d come loose in there.
Ken: Hum
Raymond: So the redone it and put a plate in there that time.
Ken: Hum
Raymond: And they said “you’ve got to have a pacemaker.” So, they took me back to San Antone and I had a pacemaker put in. And, uh, then after that I caught pneumonia
Sherry: In November, then in December
Raymond: I caught pneumonia and like to died.
Sherry: Like to died. Had him on life support for almost a week.
Ken: Hum
Sherry: But he pulled through. So, October, November, and December we had a bad time.
Ken: So
Sherry: Every two weeks back and forth to the hospital
Ken: It’s tough, that’s real tough
Raymond: But I got two sisters lives here. And I’ve got a brother that lives here, he’s older than I am.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But he, he never did cut much cedar. He didn’t. He just never did do it.
Ken: OK. So start back at the very beginning. So you, when your dad moved here, yall lived up in a camp.
Raymond: Right.
Ken: And how many years did you live up there?
Raymond: About a year or two
Ken: Uh-huh. And then did you move down here to Ingram
Raymond: Moved down here to Ingram
Ken: Uh-huh. Did you get a house then?
Raymond: We got a two room cabin they had down here.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: They used to have a bunch of cabins down here. Jack Stevens had ‘em.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: He was the one that owned it, Jack Stevens, Jerry’s uncle Jack.
Ken: Yes
Raymond: He owned it, then Thad Stevens, ___ Jack’s boy, J. T. Stevens, took it over
Ken: OK
Raymond: He couldn’t make a go of it. Then Thad took it over, then Jack’s younger brother
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: I worked for him too.
Ken: So did they, those little cabins they had down there, was that for people to live in?
Raymond: For people to live in.
Ken: Part of the deal?
Raymond: Yeah.
Ken: So, he’d contract, tell me how it’d work --- he’d contract the ranches and you’d cut for him?
Raymond: Right. And he paid you, they paid you so much a post.
Ken: Right.
Raymond: We cut off the Stires Ranch and the Cullen Ranch
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And we cut off the Meadows Ranch, I know, I remember them. I think they cut some off of the ___ Rock place. It’s in Mountain Home
Ken: Were yall just cutting the posts or were you clear cutting?
Raymond: No, we’re just cutting the posts.
Ken: Uh-huh. You know, and the rancher, he got, he got some money out of it.
Raymond: So much money out of it.
Ken: About ten percent, or
Raymond: Yeah, or sometimes twenty percent.
Ken: So, when it’s really good cedar
Raymond: When it was really good he got twenty percent.
Ken: Did you ever cut anywhere the, I was in a cedar brake the other day, one of the twenty, thirty feet cedar trees without any branches, just straight up post like that. Did you ever cut in those virgin cedar brakes like that?
Raymond: Not very many of ‘em
Ken: Were most of, most of the places you cut had, have those cedar been cut before, or
Raymond: No, some ___ just wasn’t, it just wasn’t, you know, pretty straight up stuff.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Now, I went to Oklahoma and cut pine like that
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: I went up there and worked for three years and you’d just stand there like that and, you know, you’d just cut a certain tree, they had a guy ahead of you that marked the pine trees.
Ken: Oh, OK.
Raymond: We lived in ___ Oklahoma, that’s where our baby was borned at. Now he lives here with us. He’s forty-one years old.
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: But he’s been married and that is my grandson’s pick-up out here.
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: They’re working on it.
Ken: So, back, back when you were cutting for Jerry, no, J.T, you said?
Raymond: J. T.
Ken: Yeah
Raymond: Then I cut some for, I was a kid when old Jack had it. He was the original owner of it.
Ken: How old were you, when you started cutting?
Raymond: About fifteen.
Ken: Uh-huh. Well there are some kids that started a lot younger than that
Raymond: Right. I was about fifteen because I was going to school. We were living in Dripping Springs and my mama got sick. You’ve been to Dripping Springs?
Ken: Oh, yeah.
Raymond: There was a cedar yard there, you know.
Ken: Yes
Raymond: And, uh, daddy just couldn’t hardly make it by hisself. So, when I quit school I went to work helping him cut cedar.
Ken: Uh-uh
Raymond: And, I never did go back to school after that.
Ken: So yall, did yall move from Ingram to Dripping Springs then?
Raymond: We didn’t moved from Ingram, we moved from Burnet. Then we moved back here then we moved to Dripping Springs
Ken: OK. And that’s when you started cutting cedar.
Raymond: Right.
Ken: Who else would cut with you, you and your dad?
Raymond: Me and my dad and my older brother, but he didn’t cut much.
Ken: (laugh)
Raymond: He didn’t ever cut much
Ken: Wasn’t as good as you?
Raymond: No, he wasn’t as good. My dad wasn’t as good as I was
Ken: (laugh)
Sherry: He could get out there and cut and load and be ready to go and they ain’t even started loading yet. I never seen a man work so fast, so hard (laugh)
Ken: What time would you start?
Raymond: I’d be out there when the sun come up
Ken: Uh-huh
Sherry: Yeah
Raymond: And by dinner time I’d be ready to go home.
Ken: What time would that be?
Raymond: Twelve or one o-clock. I’d be on my way home.
Ken: Uh-huh. And what, did you have your own truck?
Raymond: Right.
Ken: So each, you, your dad had a truck and you had a truck
Raymond: ___ down cutting cedar, one truck down here, but I always cut enough that we had to go home by twelve or one o’clock
Ken: OK
Sherry: But you had his own truck when we were together
Raymond: yeah
Ken: So the three of you would load up that one truck and take it in twelve or one o’clocke?
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: Then you’d be done for the day?
Raymond: Right. But then I finally got my own truck. I could do the same thing by myself. I still had it loaded by twelve or one o’clock.
Sherry: Yeah
Raymond: and had to go home.
Ken: So, what do you think, what year would that be? If you were fifteen when you started, you were born in what year?
Raymond: Forty three
Ken: Forty three.
Raymond: ‘58
Ken: ‘58, OK. How much would you be making in a day in 1958?
Raymond: About ten dollars a day.
Ken: Uh-huh
Sherry: It wasn’t a lot
Ken: No
Sherry: (laugh)
Raymond: Just like loading trucks out here for Jerry, loading cedar out, back when I was young, they paid you about twelve dollars to load the trailer truck
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And now the same trailer truck pays you about seventy dollars to load the same truck. Then they had a cedar yard in Medina, and, uh, ‘cause I knowed Lester Guthrie had one in Medina too, and Lee Joy, my friend, he had one over there too. ‘Cause I know Guthrie did. I think Lee Joy did.
Ken: How many other cutters were bringing in their trucks, uh, to that cedar yard back when yall were working for J.T.?
Raymond: When we worked for J, they just scattered out, you know, they was one, two, three, four cedar yards here
Ken: Yeah
Raymond: And they’d take ‘em about ten trucks to the cedar yard, so forty different trucks.
Ken: Forty different trucks
Raymond: Probably
Ken: Uh-huh. And then the big, the big boys would come bring their eighteen wheelers in
Raymond: And load it out.
Ken: How many of them would come in a week or whatever?
Raymond: Sometimes there’d be three or four a day.
Ken: Three or four a day, huh
Raymond: Sometimes.
Ken: And they’d take ‘em, where would they take them?
Raymond: Anywhere people’d want to buy ‘em.
Ken: Everywhere, huh
Raymond: Everywhere just everywhre
Ken: What’s the furthest you ever heard of ‘em taking ‘em?
Raymond: New Mexico
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: There’s a, see, what was his name, he built that house on the corner down here. Bill Little. He’d haul all the way to New Mexico. He drove everywhere. And he had a trailer truck, tandem, you know, it was a semi trailer truck, his name was Bill Little.
Ken: Bill Little. I’ve got a picture here of, does that look something like the trucks that were coming in here?
Raymond: Yeah, this is an old truck there.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: That’s an old one. And that looks like something
Ken: What do you think, what year do you think those trucks are there?
Raymond: Let me get my glasses.
Ken: Alright.
Raymond: I think it’s in the forties, though
Ken: (laugh)
Raymond: I tell you what. That looks about like, some of my kin folks standing there.
Ken: White, it says White here. This is, this is the Engles Store, which is out in Bergheim, you know, which is pretty close to Cedar Point.
Sherry: Um hm I’ve been there
Ken: This is the Engles Store, it says, yeah. I’ll get my glasses too.
Sherry: You been to the Engles Store?
Ken: The Engles Store in Bergheim.
Raymond: I’ve been to Bergheim
Ken: Uh-huh
Sherry: It’s Whites
Ken: They used to have a cedar yard there, I think.
Sherry: They flew the coop
Ken: Can you recognize any of those people?
Raymond: No, I don’t recognize any of ‘em.
Ken: (laugh)
Raymond: That guy stands a lot like my dad does, right there. ___
Ken: I’ll show you some other families too. Here’s a couple of other pictures. Now here’s a picture from Marble, some Marble Falls folks.
Raymond Moore 3
Ken: Her name now is Darough
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: You don’t recognize him
Raymond: I don’t recognize him
Ken: That’s an old
Raymond: My daddy used to have an old truck like that
Ken: Here’s another truck.
Raymond: This is probably Twin Mountain there
Ken: Twin Mountain?
Raymond: Twin Mountain Supply.
Ken: I don’t know.
Raymond: That’s about the kind of rig they would have.
Ken: Uh-huh, where was that?
Raymond: They were from San Angelo.
Ken: OK
Raymond: But they’d come down here and buy and haul them back up there
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: They had a big cedar yard
Ken: Here’s some, here’s a picture of a family, now here’s some Austin, here’s some Austin cutters. What kind of truck, you know those cars.
Raymond: Yeah, I know Model Ts and stuff like that
Ken: Uh-huh, uh-huh
Raymond: I don’t know ‘em all.
Ken: Well, I’ll tell ya, the Simons, you mentioned the name Simons
Raymond: Uh-huh
Ken: Roberts, and the Simons, uh
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: And the Boatrights all began right here in Bee Creek, In Bull Creek, out west of Austin.
Raymond: Yeah, I know where that is.
Ken: And that’s, that’s a picture of the Bull Creek group. (laugh) Yeah, you don’t happen to have any photos, I think photos just tell a thousand words.
Sherry: I’ve got some old photos of his family probably when they were cutting cedar, but (laugh) it’s just a ____
Raymond: I’ve got a picture of my dad and mom sitting yonder
Sherry: We’ve got pictures of, you know, the, a few of ‘em we’ve gotten with old vehicles. Yeah, I don’t know what album.
Ken: (laugh)
Sherry: But I’ll ___ and see if I can
Ken: OK. Let’s see your dad and mom.
Raymond: Bring that picture of mom and dad
Ken: I’ll go in here and look at it.
Raymond: He was born in 1907. He died in ’81 I think.
Ken: Hum
Raymond: Or ’82, something like that
Ken: He was a good looking man
Raymond: Thank you. But, he had…I’ve got another picture over there of his daddy.
Ken: Where is that?
Raymond: Over there. Sitting right here. That older man, that’s my grandpa. ___
Ken: OK
Raymond: This is my dad. His brother and his brother. She would remember her brother ended up down here.
Ken: Who is this?
Raymond: My grandpa, that’s his younger brother and sister
Ken: Oh, OK
Raymond: She only died a few years ago
Ken: Hum
Raymond: That was my grandma.
Ken: Where was your grandma from – she was from Oklahoma too?
Raymond: No, she was from Alabama or Tennessee. But she died over here and was buried over here in Marble Falls.
Sherry: ___
Ken: Take your time
Sherry: there is the old trailer we used to live in
Ken: Let me get my glasses and get in the light here.
Sherry: Now some of ‘em looks like they were taken in Oklahoma too.
Ken: OK. So, uh, let me get some information. Raymond. You’re Raymond Moore
Raymond: Right
Ken: And, uh, uh, you were born in Marble Falls
Raymond: Marble Falls. In 1943
Ken: 1943
Raymond: Right
Ken: OK
Raymond: My dad moved us over here to Mountain Home in 1947.
Ken: OK
Raymond: And Mack Callahan had a cedar yard over there. He moved his cedar yard to Mountain Home
Ken: Where is Mountain Home?
Raymond: About ten miles up there
Ken: And he, he moved it from Marble Falls, didn’t he?
Raymond: Yeah. Up to there. Then he, he, then he didn’t stay long, a year or two. At one time there was four or five cedar yards here in Ingram.
Ken: Is that right!
Raymond: Yeah, the Stevens’s were first. Then Rohan’s had one.
Ken: OK
Raymond: behind it, there, and it’s gone now.
Ken: OK
Raymond: Winnie Guthrie had one down here
Ken: Alright
Raymond: And then, uh, Pete Guthrie had one. He sold it to Lee Joy from Roosevelt.
Ken: Near Junction.
Raymond: Yeah. That’s where, Lee Joy lived there. And he used to haul cedar posts with a trailer truck all the time. And Lee Joy had that cedar yard down here, he hauled it about halfway to Kerrville ___. Well Buddy Wells and Lee Joy bought it between ‘em And a few years later Buddy Wells had a heart attack and died. His son still lives here, I reckon, in Kerrville.
Ken: OK. What’s his name?
Raymond: Wells is his name
Ken: Wells is his last name.
Raymond: Um-hum. I can’t think of that boy’s first name.
Ken: So he, did he move from Roosevelt, that fellow, to here?
Raymond: Lee Joy did.
Ken: Lee Joy. I’ve seen a cedar truck, picture of a cedar truck, that says Roosevelt, TX.
Raymond: Well that’s where Lee Joy lived at for a long time.
Ken: So that may have been where the truck came from
Raymond: It might have been.
Ken: OK
Raymond: Now they had a cedar yard, you know, at, at Johnson City.
Ken: Right now
Raymond: right now. And they’ve got one at, at Meridian, and they’ve got on in Glen Rose, I know.
Ken: This Lee Joy.
Raymond: No, uh, a guy, at, at, uh, Glen Rose, is named West.
Ken: OK
Raymond: _____ West was his name
Ken: OK
Raymond: and, uh, I’ve got a friend worked for a company over there at Lampasas. They had a cedar yard there and they make furniture out of it.
Ken: oK
Raymond: But then they had another one up at Meridian.
Ken: Are you talking about the Myers cedar yard there?
Raymond: Yeah, Meyers
Ken: Do you know Doug Lavender there?
Raymond: the younger one?
Ken: Yeah
Raymond: Yeah, I know Doug.
Ken: Do you really!
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: I know Doug too. I live pretty near there, in Liberty Hill.
Raymond: I see, uh, Johnny Lee, a fat boy, worked for him. His name was Johnny Lee.
Ken: OK
Raymond: Well, we’ve been friends for probably fifty years or so
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But he, he went to work for Doug’s daddy
Ken: OK
Raymond: And Doug’s daddy died a few years ago
Ken: OK
Raymond: And, uh, but, uh, ___ Johnny’s wife passed away here a few years ago. We went over to the funeral and, and Doug was up there. He was at the funeral too, you know.
Ken: Uh-huh Is his name Johnny Lavender?
Raymond: Johnny Lee is his name.
Ken: Johnny Lee, OK
Raymond: But, he’s from here.
Ken: OK
Raymond: He’s got two brothers lives here and a sister or two that lives here in Ingram.
Ken: Alright. I know all these people. He’s mentioning people that I know, too.
Raymond: Kenny Robertson used to have a cedar yard over
Ken: Robertson
Raymond: Yeah, in Dripping Springs, and they had one at Cedar Park, wasn’t it?
Ken: You talking Roberts?
Raymond: Roberts? Yeah
Ken: Yes sir. Well see, uh, Cecil Roberts
Raymond: Right
Ken: ‘cause I know, I know his son, Ronnie Roberts, and then Cecil, it’s Oak Hill. He went and lived with his, uh, when, his, his mother passed away, and his father couldn’t raise him so he went and lived with his grandparents
Raymond: See, one of ‘em was blind. One of ‘em was blind, you know
Ken: That’s right. He lived with his grandfather who was blind and helped him in the cedar yard there in Oak Hill
Raymond: Right. Well, see now, Roberts had a cedar yard at Hunt at one time.
Ken: That’s right.
Raymond: Up there at the Y at Hunt.
Ken: I actually have a picture of his yard here. Let me show you. It’s kind-of funny, because I’m just sitting here going “ I know everything you’re telling me now.” I don’t know all those other yards, Here you go. Cecil Roberts
Raymond: Yeah, Cecil Roberts
Ken: cedar yard. Ronnie is a good friend of mine. I’m not related to him. I’m Ken Roberts, but I’m not related to him.
Raymond: At the Y at Ingram, now they’ve got a pavilion made there , you know
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: At one time a cedar yard sit right in the Y when I was pretty young
Ken: So, how many other cedar, you remember, how many other cedar yards do you remember
Raymond: There was, there is one in Auld, J. W. Auld over at Leakey
Ken: Yes, Sir. I’m going over there tomorrow.
Raymond: OK
Ken: I mean back in the heyday of the cedar, back in the 1950s, can you remember other places that had cedar yards
Raymond: Camp Wood had one.
Ken: OK
Woman: Did you get ______
Raymond: Yeah, that was Lee Joy had that. Then there, then there used to be one at Concan, but that old feller is dead now. I can’t think of his name
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But there used to be one at Concan.
Ken: OK
Raymond: I worked for him a while. I lived in Uvalde and rode out there.
Ken: OK
Raymond: We cut over at Reagan Wells.
Ken: Who’s that?
Raymond: On past Concan and 83
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: going about five or six miles there will be a road. Turn off to your right and about ten miles up there is a little place called Reagan Wells. I don’t think they even have a store.
Ken: OK
Raymond: That’s where her daddy lived up in there too. Her daddy did.
Woman: My dad cut cedar also
Ken: Is that right
Woman: Yeah
Ken: Can you tell me your name again?
Woman: I’m Sherry.
Ken: Sherry. What was your maiden name?
Woman: Bishop
Ken: Sherry Bishop
Raymond: Her daddy worked for old Dolf Briscoe, had a big ranch over there
Ken: Yes
Raymond: He worked on his ranch too.
Sherry: Yeah, when he was younger
Raymond: When he was younger ___ ranch
Sherry: And when we moved down this way, he started cutting cedar
Ken: OK
Raymond: He, he died. He’s buried here in Nickel Cemetery. Where my dad and mom are buried at. But my grandfathers, they’re all from Marble Falls, you know.
Ken: What brought them here?
Raymond: Well, for one thing, Mack Callahan moved over here and put that cedar yard in. A bunch of ‘em come with him.
Ken: I see, ‘cause they were probably cutting for him.
Raymond: Yeah. And J. R. McGehee and his family, then, uh, the Moores come over here, and some of the Pierces, but Pierces still live over at, some of ‘em do live around Marble Falls. The Pierces lived here.
Ken: P I E R C E
Raymond: P I E R C E
Ken: OK. ‘cause, now they’re, do they, would you happen to know, ‘cause they’re, I’m from west of Austin and there was some Pierces there. Litten Pierce. That would have been the old man. I knew a Luther Pierce.
Raymond: I didn’t’ know them
Ken: Would you happen to know whether their original home was out there in Bee Cave, out there west of Austin?
Raymond: I don’t know if they were or not.
Ken: See, what happened, is Austin moved west and pushed all those people out.
Raymond: Right.
Ken: So
Raymond: There wasn’t nothing here when my dad moved me here, neither. Yeah, in 1947.
Ken: Nothing. Tell me about it.
Raymond: You know, I was just a kid
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: We lived in a tent up here in Mountain Home
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But the Magehee’s lived there, the Dunbar’s lived there, and the Deans, some of the Deans come over here too.
Ken: So, did yall all live together in the same area?
Raymond: Same area right here. All the Deans still live here.
Ken: I mean when you lived in a tent, did yall live in, were the tents
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: families
Raymond: Same area around them old tents
Ken: Uh-huh, uh-huh
Raymond: There was sixteen, sixteen tents
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: and wooden floors and a ___ about three foot on each side.
Ken: Huh
Raymond: That’s what they’d do then
Ken: Did yall build ‘em, where did you get em?
Raymond: They bought ‘em and then they put ‘em together up here somewhere
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: They had ‘em in Mountain Home to start with. Then Mac Callahan said he moved, and he moved to, the last time I heard, he moved to Colorado. And had work in, he had a big enough cattle yard, putting in, you know, where you sold cows and stuff
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: feed yard, ‘cause he tried to get my dad to move up there. And my dad would not move to Colorado.
Ken: Laugh
Raymond: And, uh, but
Ken: It’s mighty pretty up there.
Raymond: It is. Oh, we’ve been up there a lot, you know, and, uh, but I’ve lived here all my life except See we moved away, we was gone about twenty-years. Then we moved back here about that, twenty-five years ago
Ken: Uh-huh Where’d yall move to?
Raymond: We moved up by Muleshoe
Ken: OK. Up in the Panhandle
Raymond: In the Panhandle, y eah
Ken: On the way to Colorado
Raymond: We lived up there, we lived up there about fifteen years
Ken: Huh
Raymond: And then we moved out here and bought this little house about twenty two three years ago.
Ken: I’ve always known Muleshoe because of the stockyard.
Raymond: yeah
Ken: You could smell it as you drive in.
Raymond: Right. We lived
Ken: Yeah, these are, yeah
Raymond: Just the people I’ve talked to and stuff like that
Ken: Um-hum. Well, uh, I’m, uh, I’m just following up. And it turns out, I mean, this is my first venture into this part of the country.
Raymond: Um-hum
Ken: I’ve talked to some folks in Marble Falls, and up west of Austin, and even in Junction. I’m gona go to Leakey and Uvalde. This is, Jerry
Raymond: The Carrolls all around Junction, they were in the cedar business too. ___ Carroll, all the Carrolls was
Ken: OK
Raymond: And, uh, over in Leakey , her cousin, he is older than I am, and he still lives up there and he’s alive. He lives out west of Leakey
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: A guy, Nugan.
Sherry: ____
Raymond: Her older cousin. But his daddy is buried at Barkesdale.
Sherry: Yeah
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: north of ___
Sherry ___ cedar yard, my dad’s brother ___
Ken: Um-hum
Sherry: He was out cutting cedar and
Raymond: He died. Had a heart attack.
Sherry: trees, cutting the trees, and, I guess it got too hot to handle one day.
Ken: Hum
Sherry: That’s how we lost my. Well, it was when I was a kid. So ____ younger
Ken: Hum
Raymond: I’d say around fifty.
Ken: Oh
Raymond: Now, he could be, now I don’t know if he was that old or not.
Ken: It doesn’t seem like, If you had a bad heart of something like that
Sherry: Yea
Ken: It doesn’t seem like you could cut cedar very, I mean, it’s seem like, you would have an early death.
Raymond: Well, the Goodmans, they moved up around Beard, that’s when I first met them. See they all moved down here. The Goodmans, John Goodman and all, John Goodman and them
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And they all moved down here, ‘cause I knowed their kids when we were like that, you know.
Ken: So yall moved here in 1947.
Raymond: 1947
Ken: And how many people were in your family then?
Raymond: My dad’s family?
Ken: Yes sir.
Raymond: My dad, my mother, my older brother, my sister, and me. That was it.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Then they had, after we moved here, we had, had another brother was born here. And I had a sister born here.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And they had another sister and ___ moved out, ___ had a cedar yard at Boerne too. It belonged to Gordon Stukes. And he died. Him and my dad was good friends
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Then they had a cedar yard over here at Medina. Belonged to Hal Keys. And he died of a heart attack. And, uh, but I know a guy, Ricky Hildalgo, a Spanish guy, lives in Camp Wood, and he’s still alive. And that’s all he’s done all his life, is mess with cedar.
Ken: Huh
Raymond: And he – I’ve know Rick – I’ve know Ricky all our lives, you now.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But, his boys live down below Boerne, I mean Comfort, now. But he lives in Camp Wood yet.
Ken: Well I’m going to Leakey and Camp Wood tomorrow. Uh, and I was gona talk to, see if I’ve got it here, see what’s his name, um, there it is. Joanne Fisher and, uh, let me see, Eric Whipkey.
Raymond: I don’t know them.
Ken: How about Boatright? Billy Boatright?
Raymond: Yeah, I’ve heard of Boatright. I don’t remember him. I knowd Billy Boatright. Yeah, I knowd of him.
Ken: See, we had a bunch of Boatrights again were from west Austin that moved out to Leander and Liberty Hill, where I live.
Raymond: Well, see I had some kin folks over there named Mouser
Ken: Mouser, yes
Raymond: They’re my
Ken: Liberty Hill?
Raymond: Yah, Liberty Hill
Ken: Absolutely
Raymond: They’re kin to me
Ken: OK
Raymond: The Mousers. Boy Mouser was the old man
Ken: OK
Raymond: And he’s older than my dad was. But, he’s got one daughter that lives right over here now.
Ken: Really?
Raymond: Yeah. And he cut -- his grandkids nearly as old as I am.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Because my cousin, she’s ten or twelve years older than I am. But she lives over here about two blocks from
Ken: Mrs. Mouser?
Raymond: No, Mrs. Moore. Her name is Moore too.
Ken: OK.
Raymond: She married a guy named Moore, just like her mama was named Moore. She married a guy named Boy Mouser.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And then when she married she married a guy named Jimmy Lee Moore.
Ken: OK
Raymond: Made her back to Moore again.
Sherry: but he wasn’t no kin to
Raymond: No. The Simons’ lived over there. The name of Simons.
Ken: All right. Now let’s follow up on the Simons. Was there a Rex Simons?
Raymond: I don’t know. I know a Leo and Leon and, uh, another one, I can’t think of his name. But Leo married my cousin, finally, but Leon – I hadn’t seen, Leo died but Leon was still living in Burnet last I heard of him.
Ken: Burnet, Burnet, Texas? Leon Simons
Raymond: Yeah. That’s where he lived last time I heard of him.
Ken: I don’t know him. OK.
Raymond: But him and Leo was twins.
Ken: OK
Raymond: and I had two cousins was twins. And they wanted to marry each other, but one of ‘em hadn’t of knew the other one. Two of ‘em did marry.
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: Leo married Thelma
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: Mouser. But Leon and Thelma never did get married.
Ken: Which Mouser girl is this here?
Raymond: Her name is, uh, Francis.
Ken: Francis Mouser.
Raymond: Francis Moore now.
Ken: Right
Raymond: But it was Francis Mouser at one time
Ken: Yeah. That’s an old Liberty Hill name.
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: That’s so interesting.
Raymond Moore 2
Ken: You know, I’m thinking that, why do you think, I mean, it seems as though everybody knows everybody, you know. It’s really a pretty small community, isn’t it? Why do you think that is? Do you have any idea?
Raymond: I don’t know
Ken: I mean, do you think that, you, where did, your dad came from, he moved from Marble Falls. Do you know where he was before then?
Raymond: He was born in, uh, Oklahoma.
Ken: OK
Raymond: western Oklahoma, I can’t think of
Ken: What do you think brought him to Marble Falls?
Raymond: His daddy just moved him down there.
Ken: What brought his daddy down here, I mean, uh
Raymond: My grandpa was from Tennessee.
Ken: OK
Raymond: you know. Him and my grandma was. And my other grandpa was from eastern Oklahoma
Ken: OK
Raymond: Up around Tele___
Ken: OK. Is that in the mountains?
Raymond: Yeah, up in the mountains of eastern Oklahoma, up there south of Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Ken: So what would, would you have any idea of the year they came to Texas, about the time
Raymond: No, I wouldn’t have no idea, a long time ago
Ken: Twentieth century, I mean, you know the, way back
Raymond: Way back. They moved down here with a team, a wagon and team
Ken: Oh, OK
Raymond: A long time. They didn’t have very many cars or nothing. ‘cause I remember my dad telling me they moved from up there in Oklahoma, he said ___ ever see it in the wintertime. He said it would take as high as four or five weeks to get down there, you know, in a car, in that wagon and team
Ken: Um-hum. And he came – did he come directly to Marble Falls, or did, do you think that they lived anywhere else before?
Raymond: They did, around Marble Falls, over around Austin, over in there
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Cedar Park
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: My dad did, And see, I had, I’ve got kin folk live in Three Rivers.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And my uncle, he had a cedar yard down there.
Ken: Three Rivers.
Raymond: Right. It’s not there no more. He’s dead and so is his son. But his name was Willie Jones. Sherry too remembers him.
Sherry: Yeah
Raymond: He died after my dad did. My dad died he was in 1982, I think. He’s buried down here
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: My dad did.
Ken: How old was your dad when he passed away?
Raymond: Seventy six. My grandpa lived to be ninety six I think. He died over there in Austin.
Ken: Is that right.
Raymond: He lived to be ninety six years old.
Ken: That’s amazing.
Raymond: My grandpa did
Ken: Did he cut cedar too?
Raymond: When he was young
Ken: Uh-huh.
Raymond: You know. See, they used to have a cedar yard and stuff like that. And ___ cut a wagon and team and they’d load up and go down there, but it might be, in ___ , a day or two before they get back home, ‘cause it’s so far, you know, sometimes.
Ken: When they would go into
Raymond: Austin to unload.
Ken: So they were probably cutting out in the hills west of Austin
Raymond: Yeah, around Marble Falls, down in there.
Ken: Uh-huh, yeah
Raymond: He said it took ‘em a day to get there and they’d unload and sometimes they’d start back that day and sometimes they’d wait until the next day to start back.
Ken: This is your granddad.
Raymond: My granddad,
Ken: Do you know which yard he would take it to?
Raymond: No. I just knew the Roberts had that cedar yard over there.
Ken: So it could have been that very yard because that yard was west of Austin and Oak Hill.
Raymond: Right, over at Oak Hill.
Ken: Yeah, that would be the way you’d get to Marble Falls is, is through Oak Hill.
Raymond: But then like you say, Leander had a bunch of cutters. Their name was Mouser, lived around Leander. But their name was Mouser.
Ken: Right, right, right
Raymond: And, uh, I don’t see them very often, you know. But I don’t go nowhere no more. But I’ve still got a bunch of cousins lives at Marble Falls. Their name is Moore, some of ‘em is.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: That’s where my uncle’s buried. And both my grandpas. And one grandma is buried there in Marble Falls. My other grandma is buried in Tele___ Oklahoma. She died up there and her husband moved down here ‘cause my dad married one of his daughters, see. So, uh, and he died in 1944, I think, when he died.
Ken: Huh. Boy, you’ve got a great memory. Do you
Sherry: I don’t have a good memory
Ken: I don’t either (laugh) I’m envious.
Sherry: I wish I could remember things like he does but I can’t
Ken: Well tell me, what do you remember about when you were cutting and, what age were you when you stopped cutting cedar?
Raymond: About twenty-eight, twenty-nine.
Ken: OK
Sherry: It was right after ___ was born
Raymond: Yeah
Sherry: ___
Raymond: We had a son was born, right after he was born we quit, I quit. But I cut some, I moved back here a few years ago, but I didn’t cut, just on weekends to have something to do I’d go out there and cut cedar.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: I knowed a guy had a cedar yard up here at Mountain HomeAnd I’d go up there on Sunday a. nd I’d help him, you know.
Sherry: Yeah, ‘cause he’s forty two right now.
Raymond: we had a son got killed, he was been forty two years old now. He got, he’s been dead thirty.
Sherry: He was three or six months when we moved to Oregon so that’s when you quit cuttin’ cedar.
Raymond: Yeah, we moved to Oregon, lived a year
Sherry: But when we did move back down here, about twenty-five years or so ago, he did work down here at Jerry Steven’s ____
Raymond: I helped Jerry for a while
Ken: Um-hum
Sherry: ‘cause it was hard to find a job
Ken: Um-hum
Sherry: So he worked down at the cedar yard for a while.
Raymond: Now I don’t do nothing. I’ve had heart surgery, you know, and I’ve got a pacemaker. I just don’t get around good no more.
Ken: You look in good shape
Raymond: But, uh, but they, they done four bypasses on me, see.
Sherry: ____ in
Ken: Yeah
Sherry: ‘cause it busted open and
Ken: Was that a long time ago?
Sherry: About three years
Raymond: Three years ago.
Sherry: Well last month was three years
Ken: Um-hum
Sherry: That started all that
Ken: They are getting mighty good at that now.
Sherry: Um-hum
Raymond: Well see, they had me in San Antonio, ___ down there, that’s a good heart hospital, you know.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And they kept me five or six days, and said “you can go home.” I tell them “I don’t’ feel good.” In here, you know. “well, you’re all right.” I come home three or four days, I was passing out. So she had to call the ambulance and they took me back to San Antone. And that all’d come loose in there.
Ken: Hum
Raymond: So the redone it and put a plate in there that time.
Ken: Hum
Raymond: And they said “you’ve got to have a pacemaker.” So, they took me back to San Antone and I had a pacemaker put in. And, uh, then after that I caught pneumonia
Sherry: In November, then in December
Raymond: I caught pneumonia and like to died.
Sherry: Like to died. Had him on life support for almost a week.
Ken: Hum
Sherry: But he pulled through. So, October, November, and December we had a bad time.
Ken: So
Sherry: Every two weeks back and forth to the hospital
Ken: It’s tough, that’s real tough
Raymond: But I got two sisters lives here. And I’ve got a brother that lives here, he’s older than I am.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: But he, he never did cut much cedar. He didn’t. He just never did do it.
Ken: OK. So start back at the very beginning. So you, when your dad moved here, yall lived up in a camp.
Raymond: Right.
Ken: And how many years did you live up there?
Raymond: About a year or two
Ken: Uh-huh. And then did you move down here to Ingram
Raymond: Moved down here to Ingram
Ken: Uh-huh. Did you get a house then?
Raymond: We got a two room cabin they had down here.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: They used to have a bunch of cabins down here. Jack Stevens had ‘em.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: He was the one that owned it, Jack Stevens, Jerry’s uncle Jack.
Ken: Yes
Raymond: He owned it, then Thad Stevens, ___ Jack’s boy, J. T. Stevens, took it over
Ken: OK
Raymond: He couldn’t make a go of it. Then Thad took it over, then Jack’s younger brother
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: I worked for him too.
Ken: So did they, those little cabins they had down there, was that for people to live in?
Raymond: For people to live in.
Ken: Part of the deal?
Raymond: Yeah.
Ken: So, he’d contract, tell me how it’d work --- he’d contract the ranches and you’d cut for him?
Raymond: Right. And he paid you, they paid you so much a post.
Ken: Right.
Raymond: We cut off the Stires Ranch and the Cullen Ranch
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And we cut off the Meadows Ranch, I know, I remember them. I think they cut some off of the ___ Rock place. It’s in Mountain Home
Ken: Were yall just cutting the posts or were you clear cutting?
Raymond: No, we’re just cutting the posts.
Ken: Uh-huh. You know, and the rancher, he got, he got some money out of it.
Raymond: So much money out of it.
Ken: About ten percent, or
Raymond: Yeah, or sometimes twenty percent.
Ken: So, when it’s really good cedar
Raymond: When it was really good he got twenty percent.
Ken: Did you ever cut anywhere the, I was in a cedar brake the other day, one of the twenty, thirty feet cedar trees without any branches, just straight up post like that. Did you ever cut in those virgin cedar brakes like that?
Raymond: Not very many of ‘em
Ken: Were most of, most of the places you cut had, have those cedar been cut before, or
Raymond: No, some ___ just wasn’t, it just wasn’t, you know, pretty straight up stuff.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: Now, I went to Oklahoma and cut pine like that
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: I went up there and worked for three years and you’d just stand there like that and, you know, you’d just cut a certain tree, they had a guy ahead of you that marked the pine trees.
Ken: Oh, OK.
Raymond: We lived in ___ Oklahoma, that’s where our baby was borned at. Now he lives here with us. He’s forty-one years old.
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: But he’s been married and that is my grandson’s pick-up out here.
Ken: Um-hum
Raymond: They’re working on it.
Ken: So, back, back when you were cutting for Jerry, no, J.T, you said?
Raymond: J. T.
Ken: Yeah
Raymond: Then I cut some for, I was a kid when old Jack had it. He was the original owner of it.
Ken: How old were you, when you started cutting?
Raymond: About fifteen.
Ken: Uh-huh. Well there are some kids that started a lot younger than that
Raymond: Right. I was about fifteen because I was going to school. We were living in Dripping Springs and my mama got sick. You’ve been to Dripping Springs?
Ken: Oh, yeah.
Raymond: There was a cedar yard there, you know.
Ken: Yes
Raymond: And, uh, daddy just couldn’t hardly make it by hisself. So, when I quit school I went to work helping him cut cedar.
Ken: Uh-uh
Raymond: And, I never did go back to school after that.
Ken: So yall, did yall move from Ingram to Dripping Springs then?
Raymond: We didn’t moved from Ingram, we moved from Burnet. Then we moved back here then we moved to Dripping Springs
Ken: OK. And that’s when you started cutting cedar.
Raymond: Right.
Ken: Who else would cut with you, you and your dad?
Raymond: Me and my dad and my older brother, but he didn’t cut much.
Ken: (laugh)
Raymond: He didn’t ever cut much
Ken: Wasn’t as good as you?
Raymond: No, he wasn’t as good. My dad wasn’t as good as I was
Ken: (laugh)
Sherry: He could get out there and cut and load and be ready to go and they ain’t even started loading yet. I never seen a man work so fast, so hard (laugh)
Ken: What time would you start?
Raymond: I’d be out there when the sun come up
Ken: Uh-huh
Sherry: Yeah
Raymond: And by dinner time I’d be ready to go home.
Ken: What time would that be?
Raymond: Twelve or one o-clock. I’d be on my way home.
Ken: Uh-huh. And what, did you have your own truck?
Raymond: Right.
Ken: So each, you, your dad had a truck and you had a truck
Raymond: ___ down cutting cedar, one truck down here, but I always cut enough that we had to go home by twelve or one o’clock
Ken: OK
Sherry: But you had his own truck when we were together
Raymond: yeah
Ken: So the three of you would load up that one truck and take it in twelve or one o’clocke?
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: Then you’d be done for the day?
Raymond: Right. But then I finally got my own truck. I could do the same thing by myself. I still had it loaded by twelve or one o’clock.
Sherry: Yeah
Raymond: and had to go home.
Ken: So, what do you think, what year would that be? If you were fifteen when you started, you were born in what year?
Raymond: Forty three
Ken: Forty three.
Raymond: ‘58
Ken: ‘58, OK. How much would you be making in a day in 1958?
Raymond: About ten dollars a day.
Ken: Uh-huh
Sherry: It wasn’t a lot
Ken: No
Sherry: (laugh)
Raymond: Just like loading trucks out here for Jerry, loading cedar out, back when I was young, they paid you about twelve dollars to load the trailer truck
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: And now the same trailer truck pays you about seventy dollars to load the same truck. Then they had a cedar yard in Medina, and, uh, ‘cause I knowed Lester Guthrie had one in Medina too, and Lee Joy, my friend, he had one over there too. ‘Cause I know Guthrie did. I think Lee Joy did.
Ken: How many other cutters were bringing in their trucks, uh, to that cedar yard back when yall were working for J.T.?
Raymond: When we worked for J, they just scattered out, you know, they was one, two, three, four cedar yards here
Ken: Yeah
Raymond: And they’d take ‘em about ten trucks to the cedar yard, so forty different trucks.
Ken: Forty different trucks
Raymond: Probably
Ken: Uh-huh. And then the big, the big boys would come bring their eighteen wheelers in
Raymond: And load it out.
Ken: How many of them would come in a week or whatever?
Raymond: Sometimes there’d be three or four a day.
Ken: Three or four a day, huh
Raymond: Sometimes.
Ken: And they’d take ‘em, where would they take them?
Raymond: Anywhere people’d want to buy ‘em.
Ken: Everywhere, huh
Raymond: Everywhere just everywhre
Ken: What’s the furthest you ever heard of ‘em taking ‘em?
Raymond: New Mexico
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: There’s a, see, what was his name, he built that house on the corner down here. Bill Little. He’d haul all the way to New Mexico. He drove everywhere. And he had a trailer truck, tandem, you know, it was a semi trailer truck, his name was Bill Little.
Ken: Bill Little. I’ve got a picture here of, does that look something like the trucks that were coming in here?
Raymond: Yeah, this is an old truck there.
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: That’s an old one. And that looks like something
Ken: What do you think, what year do you think those trucks are there?
Raymond: Let me get my glasses.
Ken: Alright.
Raymond: I think it’s in the forties, though
Ken: (laugh)
Raymond: I tell you what. That looks about like, some of my kin folks standing there.
Ken: White, it says White here. This is, this is the Engles Store, which is out in Bergheim, you know, which is pretty close to Cedar Point.
Sherry: Um hm I’ve been there
Ken: This is the Engles Store, it says, yeah. I’ll get my glasses too.
Sherry: You been to the Engles Store?
Ken: The Engles Store in Bergheim.
Raymond: I’ve been to Bergheim
Ken: Uh-huh
Sherry: It’s Whites
Ken: They used to have a cedar yard there, I think.
Sherry: They flew the coop
Ken: Can you recognize any of those people?
Raymond: No, I don’t recognize any of ‘em.
Ken: (laugh)
Raymond: That guy stands a lot like my dad does, right there. ___
Ken: I’ll show you some other families too. Here’s a couple of other pictures. Now here’s a picture from Marble, some Marble Falls folks.
Raymond Moore 3
Ken: Her name now is Darough
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: You don’t recognize him
Raymond: I don’t recognize him
Ken: That’s an old
Raymond: My daddy used to have an old truck like that
Ken: Here’s another truck.
Raymond: This is probably Twin Mountain there
Ken: Twin Mountain?
Raymond: Twin Mountain Supply.
Ken: I don’t know.
Raymond: That’s about the kind of rig they would have.
Ken: Uh-huh, where was that?
Raymond: They were from San Angelo.
Ken: OK
Raymond: But they’d come down here and buy and haul them back up there
Ken: Uh-huh
Raymond: They had a big cedar yard
Ken: Here’s some, here’s a picture of a family, now here’s some Austin, here’s some Austin cutters. What kind of truck, you know those cars.
Raymond: Yeah, I know Model Ts and stuff like that
Ken: Uh-huh, uh-huh
Raymond: I don’t know ‘em all.
Ken: Well, I’ll tell ya, the Simons, you mentioned the name Simons
Raymond: Uh-huh
Ken: Roberts, and the Simons, uh
Raymond: Yeah
Ken: And the Boatrights all began right here in Bee Creek, In Bull Creek, out west of Austin.
Raymond: Yeah, I know where that is.
Ken: And that’s, that’s a picture of the Bull Creek group. (laugh) Yeah, you don’t happen to have any photos, I think photos just tell a thousand words.
Sherry: I’ve got some old photos of his family probably when they were cutting cedar, but (laugh) it’s just a ____
Raymond: I’ve got a picture of my dad and mom sitting yonder
Sherry: We’ve got pictures of, you know, the, a few of ‘em we’ve gotten with old vehicles. Yeah, I don’t know what album.
Ken: (laugh)
Sherry: But I’ll ___ and see if I can
Ken: OK. Let’s see your dad and mom.
Raymond: Bring that picture of mom and dad
Ken: I’ll go in here and look at it.
Raymond: He was born in 1907. He died in ’81 I think.
Ken: Hum
Raymond: Or ’82, something like that
Ken: He was a good looking man
Raymond: Thank you. But, he had…I’ve got another picture over there of his daddy.
Ken: Where is that?
Raymond: Over there. Sitting right here. That older man, that’s my grandpa. ___
Ken: OK
Raymond: This is my dad. His brother and his brother. She would remember her brother ended up down here.
Ken: Who is this?
Raymond: My grandpa, that’s his younger brother and sister
Ken: Oh, OK
Raymond: She only died a few years ago
Ken: Hum
Raymond: That was my grandma.
Ken: Where was your grandma from – she was from Oklahoma too?
Raymond: No, she was from Alabama or Tennessee. But she died over here and was buried over here in Marble Falls.
Sherry: ___
Ken: Take your time
Sherry: there is the old trailer we used to live in
Ken: Let me get my glasses and get in the light here.
Sherry: Now some of ‘em looks like they were taken in Oklahoma too.
