Ava was born to Charles Franklin “Frank” McNair and
Ella Vermell King McNair in Eddy, McLennan Co., Texas, on April 21, 1904. Dr. Will Henderson, Charles’ uncle, delivered
Ava at his house. Shortly after she was
born, her family moved to Tye in Taylor County, Texas, where most of the King
family lived. Several McNair families
were located nearby in Leuders, Jones County, Texas. (Carolita told me that she remembered being
told that the McNairs came from Arkansas and the Kings came from Georgia, all
in covered wagons.)
When Ava was 14, Frank began his missionary work and
the family moved to Tolbert between Chillicothe and Vernon, then to Thalia,
then to Lockett, then Hess Oklahoma and finally Frank settled in Lockett where
he eventually retired. Ava went to school
in Thalia in 1920 and graduated from there in 1922. I have in my notes that she enrolled in the
university which would probably have been in Abilene if that is true, but that
was not to be since Ava married Joe Carroll Jones in 1923.
Joe Carroll “Skinny” courted her in a horse-drawn carriage,
and Ava remembered a time when he took her to a party and left with another
girl. His brother, Hugh, had to take
her home. Joe Carroll’s family lived in
a community just south of Thalia and he dropped out of school after the 8th
grade. His father grubbed out mesquite
trees to make pasture land for other people.
Ava was acquainted with an ambitious upcoming young man who her father
knew she would marry. When she fell in
love with Joe Carroll, Frank was adamantly against it. Frank knew the night that they were going to
ask him if they could get married, and he went on to bed before they got
home. They went in to his bedside anyway
to ask for his permission. He said she
could if that is what she wanted, but that he would not bless the marriage. Even though Frank was a minister, he did not
even attend the marriage. They were
married in the parsonage in Vernon by Dr. Mima.
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After the marriage, they lived with Joe Carroll’s
parents (Martin Harmon and Mattie Belle Jones) for awhile. Joe Carroll farmed all day, and when they
could establish themselves in a home, he also began working in the cotton gin.
His job there was to poke the cotton through the first machine to keep it from
becoming jammed in the claws that rotated to shred the cotton. The machine snagged his glove and pulled his
whole arm into the machine which was brushing his head. They worked day and night to save his life
and the recovery lasted for the better part of a year. Ava had to do all the work around the house
which included chopping wood, bringing the cows in, milking them, and keeping
the fires stoked.
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There were complications with their first born child,
Reitha Jo. It was an extended labor and
Jo was stuck in the birth canal. Forceps
were finally used, yet Jo was born with physical deformities. Directly after birth, Ava’s mother, Ella,
took Jo and worked with her, clearing her passageways. Everyone left, including the doctor, thinking
that there was no way the Jo would survive.
Ella breathed life back into Jo, and she lived to be 63 years old. Martin was born in 1926 and when Carolita was
born in 1928, Ella and Charles Franklin (Mama and Papa) took Jo in order to
help Ava, who would have had 3 infants in diapers. They taught Jo to walk and potty trained her,
and when life returned to normal, Jo returned home. This was during an era when people would keep
those with disabilities from the public eye.
When anyone came to the house, Jo was sent to the back room, and other
children made fun of her. The last time
that Jo was allowed to go to town with them, she was taunted as she waited in
the car by passers-by until she was in the floorboard of the car. Ava and Joe Carroll finally took her to the
Masonic Hospital in Dallas, Texas. They
were told that nothing could be done for Jo, but that they could leave her
there and she would be taught life skills.
Joe Carroll was more in favor of this, but Ava did not have the heart to
leave her. So, Jo was brought back home
and became Ava’s total responsibility.
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About
1934, they purchased a butane refrigerator which eventually exploded and burned
down their home “on the hill” and everything in it. Fortunately, the family had gone for a ride
and no one was home. They had only the
clothes on their backs and the children were all barefoot. They drove to Electra that night to stay with
Ava’s parents, and the next day Frank took them to buy shoes and socks. Ava and the children stayed in Electra until
Joe Carroll could find a place to rent, and then they eventually made a down
payment on a home in downtown Thaila in 1939.
The community had a shower for them to help replace some of their
things. Joe Carroll moved a house onto
the back of their property for his parents, and Ava took care of them for the
rest of their lives.
Back
during that time, extended families lived near one another and often
together. They stayed close to help
support one another. When someone died,
embalming was done in the house and the body stayed at home. The community and friends would sit with the
family and the body night and day until the person was buried. They would also sit with the sick, too.
They
lived and raised their children in the Thalia community during the Great
Depression. Thalia had a nice school,
several churches, a grocery store, gas stations, a lumber yard, a cotton gin,
and when the highway was paved, the community thrived. Nothing was open on Sundays and the family
grew most everything they ate. They had
to work hard, but the family was always clean, clothed and well fed. They drank water from a cistern, slaughtered
hogs to render lard for soap, built fires to heat water, washed clothes on a
rub board, then ironed the clothes with 2 black irons that were rotated and
heated over the fire. They brought in
their own fresh milk and would skim the cream from the top. Ava used the laundry water to wash the
floors. She was finally able to buy a
gas Maytag washer which was placed in the smokehouse running the exhaust pipe
out the back of the building. She would
order material, patterns and shoes from the Sears and Roebuck mail order
catalog, but made everyone’s underwear out of flour sacks and used tire tubes
for elastic. They went into town only
when they needed to.
Saturday
nights were bath nights because everyone went to church on Sunday. A #3 washtub was placed behind the stove, and
they would take turns bathing in the same water. Nothing was wasted so this bath water was
used to wash the floors. Carolita
remembers that linoleum floors were for “rich” people. They had wood floors with a rug in the
middle. There was always a tea kettle on
the stove for hot water. Saturdays were
also used for yard cleaning. They would
pick up the yard and then sweep it with a broom…no grass. Carolita also remembers Ava “driving the
flies” out of the house with a tea towel.
Scraps of material were used in quilts.
Large frames were suspended from the ceiling and after the noon meal and
the men had returned to the fields, the women would lower the frame and sit
around the edges and hand quilt the top to the batting and bottom. I still have some of these handmade quilts.
Carolita remembers crawling under this frame and watching their hands work from
the underside.
Joe Carroll’s father died in 1950 and sometime around
1957 or 1958, Ava and Joe Carroll moved the family to Crowell. Joe Carroll also moved the little house that
his parents lived in and located it near their property in Crowell where Ava
continued to take care of Mattie Belle. Their
house was considerably more modern, yet they still had to haul water into the
bathroom. Joe Carroll worked for a large
land owner, Guy Crews, and when he got enough money together, he purchased his
own land, about 180 acres. The family
did well living off the land.
Ava was a devout Christian and was active in the First
Baptist Church of Crowell where she taught a children’s Sunday school
class. She began driving to Vernon every
Wednesday to take her laundry to the laundry mat, and she also did her grocery
shopping there for many years. Her home
was the gathering spot for extended family on holidays. She would bake pies, cakes, breads, etc, and
also serve a complete meal to the families on holidays and on most
Sundays. She was known for her red
velvet cakes and strawberry icebox pies!
Among all the duties that she performed every week, she cooked 3 meals a
day, was an excellent seamstress and often did embroidery handiwork. She continued to be the nurse maid for Mattie
Belle, who now lived next door, and she cared tirelessly for her daughter,
Reitha Jo. It was in her nature to be a
devoted partner, caring for others with a gentle spirit. She believed in tending to your own business
and there was no room for gossip in her world.
Ava was not judgmental and never said anything bad about anyone. She was serious minded, yet she had a
wonderful sense of humor.
After Joe Carroll passed away in 1972, Ava continued
to live in Crowell with Reitha Jo. In
the early 1980’s, they moved to Hale Center, Texas, to be nearer to her son,
Martin. Martin was a devoted son and
cared for her and Jo for the rest of their days. Not long after her move to Hale Center, Ava
fell and broke her hip. She never fully
recovered because she began to suffer congestive heart failure. When she passed away on 21 Dec 1985, there
was no doubt for those who witnessed her death that she opened her eyes and saw
Heaven.
Ava’s sister, Ova Kerr, wrote Carolita a letter after
Ava died. Ova always referred to Ava as
‘Sister’. Her words properly describe
the person I knew as ‘Mimi’.
“
Sister – Papa always said she was ‘the best one in the family’. I agree!
She was special in so many ways.
I wanted to be the kind of grandmother she was. She was my model. My grandchildren think I’m OK, but I know I
fall short of Sister. She had a loving,
giving spirit few people have. She knew
what love was – She was love. She
had to make no effort – it was her.
She had
true humility which gave her great strength.
I never knew her to be pretentious.
Yet she was so genteel and gracious.
She had a sweetness that was like a fragrance.
And I
loved her and I will miss her. But who
could deny her the Glory she was so privileged to see and so richly deserved.”
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