Castleberry, Walter Ham and Mattie Carl Daffron

Lea County Families and Histories, "Then and Now", Vol I, 1974

Submitted by: Bernice Castleberry

Walter Ham Castleberry, known as Ham, was born in Alabama on December 15, 1887. His parents were Richard C. and Catie Prater Castleberry, Catie was the daughter of Joseph and Martha Ann “Hope” Prater. Ham Castleberry married Mattie Carl Daffron in Wellington, Texas, Mattie was the daughter of Zimmerah Henderson Castleberry and Ellen Jane Kennedy. Zimmerah Daffron was in Garland, Alabama, February 25, 1860 and passed away on February 13, 1945. His father’s name is unknown, but he was a Yankee soldier. Ellen Jane was born June 1, 1862 and passed away October 30, 1938. Her place of birth is unknown.     

Ham, with his wife Mattie Carl and their two sons, Ruedolph and Orville Paul, came in a covered wagon, along with Jessie Farris and homesteaded four miles west of McDonald, New Mexico in 1815. 

Denzel Eugene (Dick) Castleberry was born March 31, 1916 at the homestead site. Two bearing apricot trees still mark this site, which now is part of the late Seth Alston Estate. 

The Castleberry’s moved to Meadow, Texas, in 1918 and back to Lovington in 1949 where they lived until moving to Odessa, Texas in 1972. Ham passed away on September 28, 1977 in Odessa, Texas. 

There was a Mr. Wiggins who ran a store at the Plainview Site, which was located east of what is now McDonald. The LFD Cattle Company had several watering holes in that part of the country, one known as Rat. The Wiggin’s store was called the Rat Store.

The people applied for a post office and wanted to call it Rat, New Mexico. They got the reply, the government said they did not name a post office after an animal, so they named it Plainview. The post office was later moved to McDonald, which was named after the first governor of New Mexico. 

In the eastern states, as we all know, Texans and the western men were supposed to be wild and mean cowboys and ranchmen. Zimmerah Daffron once made the trip back to Alabama and before going to see his family, he decided he should have shave and a bathe after getting off the train. The barber was a colored man and said, while he was giving the shave, “Boss man, where are you from”, Zimmerah replied “Texas” and when the barber finished he said, “Boos man, If I had known you were from Texas, I wouldn’t have shaved you”. 

Denzil (Dick) married Bernice Hall on January 28, 1936 in Plainview, Texas. They have lived in Lovington since 1946. Dick has his grandmother’s bible which has written on the fly leaf, “Presented to Catie Prater by her father, dated December 6, 1873.”