September 1982
I was at Ma and Pa Cato's house. Aunt Oma was there. We were looking through old photos.
MA: Some of those, Oma and your Grandpa will have to tell you
Debbie: Do you know who these are Grandpa?
Pa: I think I do... Ask Aunt Oma, she knows who they are. That's your Grandma Cato and that's Uncle Fielden and that's me.
Oma: I'm not sure... I can't see too well
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Oma, Anne, Cindy, Chap
This is not the photo he's talking about, but is the same visit. |
PA: This was in South Dakota. that was our black DeSoto. This was in South Dakota. We were a lot younger there than we are now. That was in 1947.
DEBBIE: Where were you?
PA: We went over to Cindy's house in South Dakota and Anne came from Detroit.
DEBBIE: Where did you guys live in that picture?
PA: On our grandpa's old place.
OMA: In Missouri. On our old home place. The house was there behind that tree. It was a big old orange tree.
PA: That was the old walnut tree stood out there. Come a storm one time and I sat up in our upstairs window. Mama had a bunch of little ducks in a pen under that walnut tree, and them walnuts, the wind blowed the walnuts off and hit the ducks on the head and killed them and I sat up there and laughed at 'em.
DEBBIE: Grandpa! You're MEAN! ::laughing::
OMA: Well, I used to go upstairs or either in the bedroom when it rained. I don't know why I did. I never let anybody know. I'd stand and look out that window and cry. I just cried and cried. I don't know why I cried. And I like to see it rain, too, but...
DEBBIE: You just just lived there? Just you and Grandma Cato or did Grandpa Cato?
OMA: He died when I was five years old. Fielden was one year old.
DEBBIE: Pa, how old were you?
PA: He died 2nd of June, the 25th of June I would have been three years old.
DEBBIE: So you remember him? You remember Grandpa? (to Oma)
OMA: Well, about the only thing I remember, he had a record and I broke it once and he tapped me with his old hat a few times. I remember him. He used to sit out on the front porch and read his paper every evenin. And he sat in one of those old cane chairs and he'd bend back like that... and I got too close to him, and he let his chair down on my toe!
PA: I remember just before he died, he had Mama bring me in, but I didn't know he was dyin'
OMA: And I remember his neck. I told, I think it was Alice. I looked at Chap's neck once time and Chap's got a neck just like him, those little crossed-like lines. Just exactly! And I remember another time that he went to town and he brought us back some of this, oh, they call it Won Ton chewing gum. It was a, I don't know what it was, but you weren't supposed to swallow it and I thought it was candy. It came in long sticks. He give me a stick and I swallowed mine. I thought it was candy, and he said, "You're not supposed to swallow that!" I swallowed that one and I wanted another one. He told me I wasn't supposed to swallow it, just supposed to chew it. And that's just about all I remember about my Daddy.
DEBBIE: Did he look, was he colored like Grandpa? Did he have dark hair?
OMA: No. He was fair complected and he had blue eyes.
MA: Oh, most of the Catos are blue-eyed.
OMA: We take that brown-eyed, dark hair from our mother.
Ma: All of the Catos are blue eyed.
DEBBIE: Really? I thought since they were Italian they probably were brown haired.
OMA: Yeah, but you know, there's light complected Italians and dark complected Italians. Depends on what part of the country they come from.
(They're pronouncing it "EYE-tal-yons")
DEBBIE: Do you have any idea where he came from? Did you ever hear anything?
OMA: Well, my dad was borned in Missouri but I don't know where his father came from. I don't know. I wish I did.
DEBBIE: Was he ever in the service or anything?
OMA: No, but my grandpa, his dad, went to the service and never did come home. They don't know what happened to him.
(Note from Debbie. I know. I found him - that's another story)
DEBBIE: Do you know what his name was?
OMA: Chap Cato. He's named after him (pointing to Pa)
DEBBIE: Most of this stuff I got from Grandpa, and I'm not real sure... ok.. there's Pa. Now is that your dad's name and when he was born? Is that right? (looking at genealogy)
DEBBIE: Do you know where your dad met your mom?
OMA: Well, he was a musician and I think that's where she meet him.
PA: So, all we know is that we asked our mother, and I suppose a lot of things she never asked him about himself, you know. He wasn't a guy that talked a lot. He was more like Fielden.
OMA: She said he didn't tell her too much. He kept to his self except when he went out and played music, played for dances, you know.
DEBBIE: So he played guitar?
OMA: No, he played the fiddle.
DEBBIE: What about Grandma's parents, now?
OMA: Well, they were from Illinois and his name was Fieldon and ...
DEBBIE: Her name was Annie?
PA: Yeah
OMA: Her name was Farmer, yeah.
DEBBIE: Do you know anything about their parents?
PA: No, sister, I never did ask Mom any of that. The only thing I ever knowed is...
OMA: Annabee Farmer. A-N-A-B-E-E
PA: All I knowed is what I used to ask Mother about Dad and that far back at that time, I never thought anything about it.
OMA: And she was born, my mother was born in Illinois. She came over here when she was two months old (she came to Missouri). She told me two months.
PA: Grandma Farmer died in Illinois. Mother was 11 years old I think.
OMA: Chap! Mom was seven years old when her mother died in Missouri.
PA: All right! But Mom said she never left the Illinois. She was not buried there, she's buried over there across from Cape Girardeau.
DEBBIE: So she died in 1880, 1878. If Grandma Cato was born in 1871, her mother died when she was 7.
OMA: She died when she was seven; that's what she always told me.
PA: But mother was 11 she always told me when she come from Illinois.
OMA: Chap, she come over when she was two months old!
DEBBIE: Do you know how old she was when she died?
OMA: She was 39
DEBBIE: What that all? How did she die?
OMA: TB. That's what my Mama always said, she had TB.
DEBBIE: How about your grandpa; how old was he when he died?
OMA: Well, he married again and had a new family and I don't know what year he died.
DEBBIE: Well, you didn't keep any contact or anything?
OMA: I never seen him, never seen him, I've seen his . . .
PA: All right, tell me this. Where was he buried?
OMA: I don't know that. They was a little cemetery up in the hills somewhere. I think they is, but you know, he married that Mrs. (sounds like Zoeman), they had all those kids.
PA: Uncle Albie, Uncle Harry, Uncle George, Uncle Frank, and Uncle Ben
OMA: And we've seen his wife. I've seen his wife, the last wife he married, because she lived a long time after he died.
PA: They had three girls.
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Back Row: Cindy, Alice, Oma, Ann
Front Row: Fielden, Chap |
DEBBIE: Where did you guys grow up at, you and Grandpa. Who all was there? There was you. Tell me everyone's name and how old they were or when they were born?
OMA: Well, if you want the half-brothers and sisters, there's Cindy
PA: But they were practically grown when we come along. We growed up with Pete and Ann.
OMA: Lucinda Cato
PA: You know, I never saw Cindy that I ever know. I did, she said, when I was a baby, but 1920 was the first time I ever seen Cindy. I was eight years old.
OMA: And Annabelle Cato. Then there was James Finus, we called him Pete. Now they both had different mothers.
PA: Cindy argues that wasn't his name. She said ...
OMA: Well HE says it was. And his mother was a Collins. Cindy's mother was a Woodfin. And Anabelle's mother was a Woodfin. They were own sisters. And Pete didn't have any own brothers and sisters.
DEBBIE: Then after that who came next?
PA: Well, he had one but it died along with his mother.
OMA: After that, he married my mother and Alice was born. (Alice's whole name?) Just Alice. And next was me, no middle name. Well, I was a twin. I had a twin sister named Opal. She died about 22 months old. Then there's Chap. Then Fielden. I was born in 1910. Alice was born in 1908. Chap 1912. Fielden 1914.
DEBBIE: So there were seven of you guys. Did you all live together, all 7 of you?
OMA: Part of the time. See, those girls were 14 years old when my mom married and she went ahead and raised them. But Pete was only 7 years old so my mother practically raised him.
DEBBIE: Now, is that Uncle Jimmy?
OMA: No. He's not in there. You're trying to check the Cato's aren't you?
DEBBIE: Jimmy's not a Cato? But he was your mother's son, wasn't he?
OMA: But that wouldn't be in the records because his name was Null.But he was a half-brother
OMA: I think he was born down in ________, somewhere down in there. I don't know just exactly where he was born. But I don't think you'd find that in the record because he went by the name Null all of the time.
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| Uncle Jimmy Null and Aunt Ory |
DEBBIE: Did Aunt Cindy get married and have kids?
OMA: She married Harry Raber and had one child and he died. I don't know what year. His name was Harry Raber. And she had one daughter, Mildred Raber.
DEBBIE: Okay, then Anabelle
OMA: She married Larou Wilson and had one son and one daughter.
PA: Was that Anne's name, Anabelle? I never knew that. I know Cindy's name was Eva Lucinda.
DEBBIE: What about Pete? Was he the one that only had one arm? (yes) What happened to his
arm?
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| Uncle Pete Still in Bandages |
PA: He shot it off when he was 16 years old. I can remember him bleeding through the bed and on to the floor before we could get him to the hospital that night when they brought him home.
DEBBIE: Was he hunting or something?
PA: Yeah, him and Jimmy. They were just like brothers, that was our half-brother Uncle Jimmy, Mama's boy when her and dad married. Pete was our dad's boy when they married. They went hunting. It was on Sunday night and mom tried to keep them from going. She told them it wasn't right to hunt on a Sunday night but they went anyway. They was walking along. There was quite a bit of brush I guess and Pete's shoelace come untied, the way I get it. And he reached over and tied his shoelace and set his gun, the butt of it, on a log and the muzzle under his arm, and it shot. I guess it was just dangling, didn't shoot it completely off. Then they took it off at the shoulder. I remember, but I was little. I didn't know what was going on. But I remember him bleeding clear through the mattress that they had him on and it went on the floor. And they put him on the train, seem to me like it was at night. It was that same night. I remember they took him over to put him on the train to go to the hospital... that was a long ways, couldn't go that far in a horse and buggy in one night. It was about 30-35 miles. So they had to go by train. I don't remember who took him. It kind of seems like Jimmy might have.
OMA: Jimmy went with him. Jimmy and I think ____ or somebody... And I remember Jimmy catching the train going over to see him and I remember when he come home Jimmy had to dress his shoulder for a long time.
PA: Yeah, I know one time he got an old tick on there, you know, and mom had ot cut it off. His arm wasn't really sore yet, but it was still tender and that old tick got on there.
DEBBIE: Did he get married? How many kids did he have?
PA: Two. Daryl and Jimmy
DEBBIE: Where do they live?
PA: Darryl's dead and Jimmy lives in Missouri. Jim's the one that runs that feed store and gives me those red caps advertising that Dixie Feed. In Advance, Missouri. And Jim's boy is Denny. He's a city policeman there.
DEBBIE: Ok.. then Aunt Alice has how many kids?
PA: She's got two little boys dead, Cleo, Jerry, Thelbert, Bill, Caroll Don, what's that seven? Seven boys and two girls, Barbara and Dorothy
DEBBIE: The little boys that died, they died when they were babies?
PA: Yeah. One was about 2 1/2 and the other was about 4.
DEBBIE: Do you know how they died?
PA: Debbie, in those days, they didn't tell you. The doctor didn't know. They didn't have the know-how they do now, you know. One of them got sick in the night and he was dead before they knowed it. He woke up and he was gone. They never did know what done it or anything. Then the other one, he was sick for quite a while, but the doctor's didn't have the equipment like they got today. I don't know if they even had X-ray machine. I never did see one til I come to his country. (he means California)
DEBBIE: How about Uncle Fielden, how many did he have?
PA: Ken's the oldest, then Paul, then Verlene, then Buddy is the youngest one.
DEBBIE: And Aunt Florence, what was her maiden name, do you know?
PA: I do if I can think of it. Kinsey.
DEBBIE: Is her family from Missouri too? Did you all come out here together?
PA: No, we come here and then we were here about a year and Oma's husband (Preston) came. He sent for her and she come out. Then next after they come, about a year, I went back and brought Fielden and Florence back here. Then I went back and I brought Vivian and Lorene back here. Then I went back and I brought, let's see, I brought...
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| Oma and Preston (Willet) |
DEBBIE: How long did it take you guys to get here??
PA: Oh, not very long. But the car them days, the speed limit was 35 miles an hour and that's fast as you'd go. It was right about a five day drive. Now it's about two, two and a half. I got to where I could rive it, we got better cards. The car i had when we went in '47, that was only a little over two days coming. Because they got new freeways, they cut it down. It's only about 1750 miles from here back where we come from. When we went to your house in Georgia, we come back all along Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and over into Missouri where we come from and then fro there back down in Arkansas by Ralph's and come home. We only put 4750 miles on the motorhome.
DEBBIE: Well, that's not bad now, but I would have hated to have done it then.
PA: Hey, listen. When we first come here they had the old board road over the sand dunes in Texas. They didn't have paved roads all the way. They had some but ...
DEBBIE: Were they BOARD???
Pa: Yeah. Had to be over those sand dunes in Texas or you couldn't get through it. It was like trying to run a car down on the beach in heavy sand.
OMA: I come on a train out here.
PA: She come first class! The rest of us came in jalopies. Her and Doris came out when Doris was just a little fella. Preston was already here. He come out and worked for a while then he sent for them.
DEBBIE: Now you have Doris and Larry. Are those your only children?
OMA. Yes, I've got one dead between Larry and Doris.
DEBBIE: What was her name?
OMA: Gloria Joy. One day old.
PA: did they ever pay you for that other lot?
OMA: they sent me a letter saying they would give me $15 and the lot though when we looked at it, I think it was half the lot where the baby's buried. I kept asking Mr. Barnes and he'd say, "Oh, I'll look it up and all this and he never did."
PA: Oh, he's a chicken... when we was buying Denise's lot we had three right there together and Inez said, "Why don't we just buy all three, you don't know when you'll need them." I said ok. So she went over there, her and Don and Gloria, I guess. And the Portuguese guy, what's his name, that works there? Well, he told her, if you want the three they'll be so much and he says you have til the 15th of April to decide if you want the other two. Well, do you know they wouldn't take the $400 and it ended up costing us $600. They raised it that much! We went to Mr. Barnes and he said, Naw, well, we didn't tell him to tell you that, you'll have to pay for it. So we had to pay $600 for the other two.
...to be continued...
