My parents moved to Fannin County from Grayson County in 1955. I was two and my brother had not yet arrived. My grandfather had bought a couple of hundred acres north of Windom at Spring Hill that my dad would farm. My dad and his brother had also purchased a farm on the east side of Bois d’Arc Creek near Bonham. That land sits directly across the creek from the Legacy Ridge golf course and is now largely broken up into small acreages. The brothers split the land, my father taking the northern part and my uncle the southern. When you travel US Highway 82 in that area today, you drive right through the middle of what was once my family farm.
We lived on the farm at Spring Hill, but spent equally as much time on the Bois d’Arc place. Our bottom land was used for crops, primarily maize and alfalfa. Our uplands were used for pasture. Our only timber was a strip along the creek itself and a few groves scattered here and there in the pastures. A lot of my days there were spent hoeing fields, feeding cows, and hauling hay but there were lots of days spent tromping around alone, with my brother, or with my cousins just seeing what we could see. The timber and the creek always offered the most interesting possibilities and I often marvel that we didn’t break our necks, drown, or wind up snake-bitten. As long as we were home by supper, or came when my mother or my aunt honked the truck horn, we were left to roam as we pleased. I would not trade those days for any treasure.
I was in my mid-twenties and living in the city when my father called to tell me he had decided to sell the farm. His reasons were sound, but I was nevertheless heartbroken. The next year my father died unexpectedly. I came to see his decision to sell as one that saved us the greater heartbreak of having to sell after his death. However, seeing the land upon which I had been formed, and that had served as my anchor, pass to another and be put to new uses was wrenching. What played out there on a small scale is now playing out on a large scale as the last parcels earmarked for the lake pass into the hands of the North Texas Municipal Water District. So many families have sacrificed the land that anchored their lives to make this new reservoir possible.
My favorite place on our farm was a grove of tall, tall trees that I called my “cathedral trees”. I felt a spiritual connection to the universe walking among them. The trees seemed older than time and stretched majestically heavenward, filling the sky and my imagination. This photo, taken from the bottomlands on Mike Barbaro’s ranch, quite near the location of new dam, reminds me of my trees. My trees were lost years ago, the grief for these is fresh and raw.
Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.
The Last Embrace, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.