Olive Elizabeth "Ollie" Montgomery
from memories compiled by Elizabeth Maxson, Ollie's GranddaughterOlive was a school teacher and principal. She was Beryl's teacher for the first 3 years of her daughter's schooling. She was known for the tamales she made, for the crocheted items for baby showers in the community, and for being generally artistic. Each month the County Agent would come to the community, teaching a new craft. Miss Ollie embraced glass etching, metal tooling, and leather tooling. She had a complete set of leatherworking tools, using them to make wallets, belts, purses, etc., with leather purchased at Tandy's in Ft. Worth. She also wrote poetry, producing a new poem for each wedding, new baby, or anniversary in the Paint Creek Community, located in Haskell County, TX. She had two poems published in 1942.
Christmas Memories
I remember fondly the Christmas celebrations at my maternal grandparents' home. They were farmers in west Texas, so they never had a lot of money, but at Christmas, my grandfather would go down to the pasture, cut down a cedar tree and bring it home to be decorated with popcorn strings and construction paper chains. I do remember they had about 10 electric bubble lights, that would "boil" once they got warm, and that were fascinating to watch. There were a few special Christmas balls made of glass, twisted metal icicles, and, of course, the foil tinsel carefully hung on each branch. My grandmother filled in the spaces of the giant 10-ft. tree with balloons and candy canes, which she gave to children from the community who visited their home. The most fun was on Christmas Eve, when we opened all the family gifts, waiting for Santa to come the next morning. My grandmother would shop all year long, wrap the packages immediately, and then put them under the tree, thinking she would remember which package belonged to which family member. She didn't! I might open one that belonged to my father, and he might open one that was my grandfather's, etc. It brought a whole new meaning to "gift exchange" and was so much fun.
Another tradition from the same grandmother was to say "Christmas Eve gift" to everyone she met on Dec. 24th. Supposedly, if you said it before the other person did, they had to give you a gift. Although we never actually exchanged gifts with it, we had a lot of fun "stealing" someone else's Christmas Eve gift. In fact, I still do it today, and have taught several family members and friends about this old tradition. I cannot find how it originated, and have met only two other people who have ever heard of it.
The other tradition was that same grandmother's favorite Christmas dessert - purple cows. A purple cow is a wonderfully tart and sweet concoction made from the best vanilla ice cream with Welch's (my grandmother's maiden name was Welch, so it had to be Welch's) grape juice poured over, as in a float. My mother (Beryl Montgomery Cathey) says they had those even before they had electricity and a refrigerator. Apparently, on Saturday, they would bring 100 lbs. of ice home from town. My grandfather dug a deep pit on the north side of the house out on the farm, which he lined with burlap and boards. The ice would last until about Thursday. When they were going to have ice cream, they would also purchase dry ice to keep it frozen. Mother says she remembers having purple cows before she and Daddy married, and that was 1938. Mother and I carried on the tradition this year (2002) by having purple cows as our Christmas Eve dessert. They were just as good as they ever were.
© Elizabeth (Cathey) Maxson, 2002.