Lyles

Submitted by, Leon Lyles and Fannie Stallings

As with many of the early settlers of Lea County, our story begins in Texas.

Our father, Leander McBeth (Lee) Lyles was born January 18, 1871 in Clay County, Texas, a son of William Thorp and Julia Lyles. He was married to our mother, Minnie Mae Stephens on March 15, 1892, probably in Clay County. Mama was born June 27, 1871 and her parents were Perry and Fannie Durham Stephens.

Mama and Papa lived on a farm in Clay County and raised wheat. In 1899 they decided to try cotton farming and moved to Lockney in Floyd County. The house was a half dugout 6 miles from town. The cotton made fairly good crops but after four years, they decided to move back to Clay County, where they remained until 1915.

All of us children were born in Clay County. There were seven of us, the youngest baby, a boy, died when he was six months old.

On the August 2nd, 1915, Papa filed a claim for land ten miles west of Lovington, in Lea County New Mexico and we moved here in August 1915.

Papa, Mama, Hettie, Bill, Fannie and I made the trip in two covered wagons and it took us two weeks to get here. We lived in the wagons until we could build a house, which was only two rooms. It took us a week to bring the lumber from Artesia, New Mexico, that is why the house wasn't any bigger.

When we got here there was only open range, no roads and only eight or ten houses. The girls cried all the way from Texas, wanting to go home and it sure didn't help when they saw the countryside. The people were the friendliest you ever saw and that made it better.

After arriving in Lea County, Papa became a rancher instead of a farmer, raising cattle and sheep.

Mama died March 22, 1850 and Papa died July 14, 1958. They are both buried in the Lovington Cemetery.