Baker, Marguerite Pearce 36

Lea County Families and Histories, Then and Now, Vol II

Baker, Marguerite Pearce

By: Marguerite Pearce Baker

My name is Marguerite Pearce Baker, I was born at Colorado City, Texas, My parents were Benjamen Manning and Curtis Ethel Thompson. I came to Lea County in 1920. I came here because we homesteaded in what is called Rattlesnake Canyon.  My parents were married at Sterling, Texas and they were ranchers.  They came from Odessa, Texas in the summer of 1919. My grandfather and grandmother were James B. Thompson and Mary Brown Handley. We lived in Sterling City, Texas, Ada, Oklahoma; Midland and Odessa, Texas. Then we moved to Eunice, New Mexico. I now live in Carlsbad. I went to school at an Odessa rural school called White School, and in Eunice and in Carlsbad.

            I met my spouse at Wink, Texas sand married William F. Pearce in Seminole, Texas in 1929. We had two boys and one girl. Our children are: Billie Frances Sims, daughter, lives in Santa Fe. A son Bobby L. Pearce who still lives in Eunice, and the other son, Terry Baker, lives in Carlsbad.

            My father, Manning Thompson, went to work for John W. Cowden at a ranch, “The Baker Place” in Texas in 1914. From Shafter lake, Texas in 1918, we moved to Odessa; from there to a Cowden ranch called the Double (XX) near Andrews, and from there, still working for the Cowdens, we moved to the “H’s” between Jal and Goldsmith, Texas. These moves were by covered wagons across lots of sand hills.  You never saw your neighbors they were so far apart, but we did have what they called bottleneck telephones. I have always wished my children and my grandchildren had known the happiness I remember in those years.

            My impression of Lea County is lots of happy memories of gatherings at each others homes for parties, singings and many rabbit drives. All the family participated in this. When we lived on the Bull Head ranch northeast of Jal our only transportation was by wagon or horse back. My dad used to go to the Ratliff ranch across those sand hills and ride to Midland with them in their car and come back the next day. He put the groceries, shoes and whatever he bought in toesacks, some people call them gunny sacks, tie them on a lead horse and be homeward bound. My dad would start whistling when he got near home. We were always so excited; we knew there would be candy or a piece of fruit for each of us. By then there were five of us children, four girls and one boy. Dad used to tell every one he had four Queens and a Joker-a good poker hand.