Account Written by his daughter, Iva Ruth Hawsey Johnson Maxwell
on January 31, 1974

"My dad, Allen Hawsey, married [Sarah] Barbara Cawthon on March 3, 1915. She owned an eighty acre farm, a large house that her grandparents had lived in at Darnell, Lousiana, a good number of cattle, and hogs that she inherited from her father [John Chesby Cauthon and Mary Elizabeth Cauthon].

They lost their first baby at birth, so I was their first child to live and there were six other children born to this marriage. (The nearest doctor was over 20 miles away. It was near dark when Mama felt her first pain. Dad sent a black man on horseback after the doctor. The black man decided to take a shortcut through a wooded area and he got lost. He wondered around until it was light enough to see and then went after the doctor. My mother had suffered all night and my dad said it was the longest night he ever spent. He was afraid of losing mom and me but we both survived.)

I remember as a child how much I loved and looked up to my dad. Mama taught us to love and respect him. He was great to us. So many nights I remember that he played rook cards or dominoes with us. Sometimes he picked a guitar; he only knew the cords, but it delighted us to hear him pick and sing.

He farmed our place and he and Mama worked hard to grow all kinds of vegetables, corn, watermelons, etc. Always had more than we could use and would have some to sell to sawmill workers in the nearest town. We always ate good, for Dad would butcher our own meat.

Dad didn't seem to like growing cotton, so he rented part of our land, but he always grew a sugar can patch and made syrup in the fall. I sure liked to watch him and drink the cane juice.

After renting the land for growing cotton he got a job filing saws at the sawmill and was still working week days when I got married [to Evon Johnson on December 8,] 1933. On weekends he worked at seeing after our cows and horses. They had to be rounded up for branding. At this time we had open range.

(Dad bought a Model T Ford car and built a garage for it.  He built a work shop and was a good hand at making things.)

Dad was talented at lots of jobs. He cut timber and made pickets to build a fence around our yard. (He would make ax and hoe handles. When the 1927 flood came he had made a boat. Our house was built high off the ground, still the water got up to the floor but didn't get inside. By that time mom had a son [Thomas Lafayette Hawsey on March 20, 1920] and another daughter [Doris Vivian Hawsey on May 1, 1923]. I remember we rode in a boat to the nearby railroad and rode on a handcar to the nearest town to take typhoid shots. I was only 10 years old when the flood came but can remember there were lots of snakes and when the water began to go down the mosquitoes were terrible. I can remember happy childhood days. We played outside except in cold weather and climbed persimmon trees.

Mama's next baby, a boy [named James Kelly "Bud" Hawsey] was born that same year, June 1, 1927 [in Pioneer, Louisiana]. Two years later her next child a girl [Allene Lula Nell Hawsey] was born December 23, [1929].

(I had to cook and keep house but Dad decided to go buy our food for Christmas. He bought a gallon of oysters and a gallon of catsup and ready made cakes. My brother Tom was three years younger than me ate too much catsup and made him sick.)

Mama had lots of beautiful flowers. One day one of our young horses got in the yard, jumped the fence and got stuck on a picket in his intestines. Dad had to shoot him. Another time when branding colts, one broke his leg and had to be shot. I recall how I was so sad and cried each time.

I remember two mules we owned named Kaiser and Wilson after the U.S. President and after the leader overseas during the First World War. Dad had lots of trouble with the one named Kaiser because he balked. We had a horse named Prince that I like to ride.

When most of the land was cleared Dad and Mom bought more. The next job Dad got was cattle dipping inspector. The cows had to be rounded up to be driven to a dipping vat at different times because they were losing some with tick fever. The vat was near our house, so I would help drive our cattle. I learned to milk cows at an early age and did all the milking for my Mama.

(When I was 14 years old I met a young man that had moved to our neighborhood. It was love at first sight for us but my parents were against him. My husband's mother was a widow and for about 4 years before we married he had worked to keep the family together and provide a living for them renting land to farm. .We had secret meetings at my aunt's until my parents found out and after seeing how determined we were they agreed for us to see each other, though not get married, but when I was 16 years old we ran away and got married. When we married there was only one brother and one sister at home. We stayed with them until my first baby, a girl was born then we moved out to ourselves in 1935. We didn't have much money but everything we planted made in abundance and I canned lots and were staying on at my home so I could help my mom who was expecting again soon.)

(My mother had been in bad health while carrying what she thought would be her seventh child. I stayed on at home to do the cooking and housekeeping and washing, at that time the wash was done with a rub board instead of a washing machine. Mother's legs were swollen and hurt her, I would rub them for her at night and sometimes fall asleep while doing this. I tried to persuade her to see a doctor but she wanted to trust in that Lord that she would be healed.)

Mama was pregnant when I got married [December 8, 1933 at age 16],and a month afterward gave birth to twins [on January 11, 1934, two identilcal girls named Corene Hawsey and Margie Ernestine Hawsey], and only a month and one week after they were born Mama died [on February 17, 1934 at the age of 40].

(I still miss my mama. I wanted her to live and enjoy the twins. I took care of them a while.)

I had been staying home after my marriage to be of help to Mom, so I stayed on to help Dad take care of my brothers and sisters and send the ones of school age to school.  Taking care of two babies and keeping up the big house was too much for me. I got pregnant and had flu, so we let some friends [Mrs. Iverson Fair] take the twins (for a while. She was the first to) separate them. (Mrs. Iverson let Mr. and Mrs. John Sims have Margie to keep for awhile but they soon brought her back home and I kept [Corene] then Mrs. Alva Lewis kept Margie. When it was time for my baby to be born I let Ollie Pylant keep the one I had (Corene), then my Dad let Mrs. Sims have Margie again. She wanted to adopt her but I told my Dad don't ever let her be adopted for I want her to always know her own real family and I had them be together as much as possible because I got the other one until she was 18 years old and I had five of my own too and times were hard.)

My Dad was so sad and lonely. Only six months after Mama died he married again [to Thelma Lee Alderman on August 1935], a young girl only three days older than I. [Thelma was born April 24, 1917]. I resented it so much at first, but finally mostly got over it for I wanted Dad to be happy.

I had moved out of my Dad's house because he hired a housekeeper that I didn't like and too, my husband was getting dissatisfied, so my husband and I moved in with his mother and brother and sister. After my baby, a girl [named Barbara Johnson], was born [on August 31, 1934] we moved ourselves and I got one of the twins, Corene Hawsey, and kept her until she was grown. We had the other twin, Margie Hawsey, visit us often.

Doris Vivian Hawsey [Morgan] with her young twin sisters, Corene and Margie, c. 1944

My Dad wanted me to live near him so he sold me (let me have) forty acres of land and helped build a house on it. At the time we lived on my husband's uncles place near a river.  My Dad came and stayed a week with us and he and my husband cut cypress timber and he made enough cypress boards to cover the house. My Dad and husband finished the house in January 1938. I was so proud to have a place of my own. Only six days after we moved in our first son [Virgil Evon Johnson] was born [on January 18, 1938]. We were so anxious to move in, we moved before the overhead ceiling was built in it and was so cold we almost lost our son with pneumonia that winter. We had two more sons, [Tony Ray Johnson on August 28, 1940, and Justin Wayne Johnson on July 11, 1944] and another daughter [Kathryn Johnson on August 1, 1952].

(In the meantime the Sim's moved to Fresno, California around the time Margie Hawsey was 18 in 1952.  Margie was to be married [on August 31, 1952 to Kenneth Howard Toner], and sent for her twin, Corene, to attend her wedding so we got her a ticket and sent her there. Her twin, Margie, persuaded her to stay and I've always been glad for now they live near each other and spend many happy hours together.

The one that lived with the Sim's [Margie] was raised in a city environment and education, has planned two family reunions and they were a success and I know she feels she is one of the family. Corene was raised in a very rural environment and education, as a result they have quite different personalities.

Corene met Robert Thomas Archer in 1952. In the fall she left for college. Robert decided he wanted her to marry him so he picked her up at school and returned her to Fresno where he married her January 10, 1954, the day before her twentieth birthday, )

My Dad marrying such a young wife, they had eight more children: Betty Lee Hawsey 1935, baby Hawsey 1935, Allen Lafayette Hawsey Jr. 1938, Larry Michael Hawsey 1941, Walter Barry Hawsey 1943, Doris Annette Hawsey 1946, Alvin Leon Hawsey 1950, Ernest Leo Hawsey 1955, making a total of fifteen children for him.

When stock law began fences had to be built to keep the cattle.  Dad sold all except what he could pasture, and then he bought more land. His cattle were fine looking and he always took good care of them.

Next job he got was game warden. He liked his job and looked so nice in his uniform. This gave him a chance to fish and hunt lots and he did get much pleasure from both. He killed lots of deer and caught lots of fish and would often bring us big strings of crappies.

His next job was State Trooper. He traveled all over the state of Louisiana, and caught all kinds of wild animals.

My sons liked to go with their grandpa to check his traps.

In all, my Dad owned over 300 acres of land and was proud to have inheritance to leave his large family.

So at last it was only my husband and me left at home. We went on fishing trips and drove around often to look at crops growing, but it was short-lived for on August 1, 1970 my husband was killed in a car wreck. It was such a shock to me, but we had thirty-seven years together, and it was a good marriage. It has taken all the past three years for me to get over losing him or accept it and know I have to make a different life for myself. The life of a widow is hard to take. I have moods and get very lonesome living alone. I'm learning to trust the Lord, and believe that he will keep me safe.

It was good to have my Dad to comfort me. His health was failing badly; he had light strokes and had to retire. His health failed fast and he passed away April 8, 1971 [at Darnell, Louisiana]. I miss him and my husband, I'm proud of the memories.

On November 6, 1976 Iva Ruth Hawsey Johnson married Kirby Maxwell.

Iva Ruth died May 29, 1999 at Monroe, Louisiana.

NEW HOPE CHURCH OF GOD ~ WHERE LOVE ABOUNDS

Back in the 1920's my mother Barbara Cawthon Hawsey had a dream that a church was built in this community, a farming country place, with the nearest small town being Pioneer, Lousiana, that is 8 miles away. She also said the name should be New Hope. She found the owner of the land and time after time tried persuading him to donate or sell the land to the church.

Barbara Hawsey died February 17, 1934. Shortly afterwards the owner of the land donated five acres for the church and a cemetery. In 1935 the first church was built. It was just a small frame buillding but we were proud of it and started holding services in the new building before the floor was finished.

Only a few years later a group of people were cleaning the church grounds. A brush fire got out of hand and the church burned. Right away we started ways of making money and built another frame building.

In 1980 we started building our present building which is brick. The majority of men attending the chruch at that time was of old age. Even the carpenter was over 70 years old. But the men stayed with the building of the church and the women worked at garage sales and cake sales and other ways of making money and securing donations. As a result of faith and hard work and perserverance the builing was finished without any money being owed. The building belongs to God and to God's people.

Author unknown.

Copyright 2001 www.OrsonPrattBrown.org