Hardison, Albin Agnus

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

Hardison, A. A.

By: F.F. Hardison

            Albin Angus Hardison and his three children, Verna, age fourteen, Burl, age eleven, and Fonnie, age eight, left Mason County, Texas for Eunice in the late fall of 1909. Albin’s wife, Ida Ora Reeder Hardison, had died within the year after Fonnie was born, so young Verna carried more than her share of responsibility in the Hardison home. The move was made in a covered wagon. Albin purchased another homesteader’s claim which is now part of the Eunice town site. There was a half dugout on the property, a one room structure with a dirt floor. After the property was legally surveyed, shortly after New Mexico became a state (1912), it was discovered that the dugout was actually on Marshall property, so Albin moved the upper part of the structure onto the Hardison property and constructed a two room home for his family.

            On the northern part of Hardison property Albin farmed approximately 40 x 50 acres of ground. Corn was usually the crop planted and some years he had a mighty fine yield, however he experiment with cotton, but not with much success.

Albins main source of income was freighting. He, his family, wagon and team would travel to Midland, Texas most often, a trip of 3 days. They made camp at night at a source of water. The first night out of Eunice the camp was at Hal tank, a spot between Eunice and Shafter Lake near where a cotton gin now stands. The second night out was at the “4 C’s”, a spread located between what is now Andrews, Texas and Midland. Albin hauled mostly groceries and occasionally lumber back to Eunice. He also freighted to and from Pecos, Texas and Carlsbad, New Mexico. The Carlsbad route took the family through Monument.

            In the fall of each year Albin and his family and many of his neighbors headed for nearby west Texas to pick cotton. The entire family would go into the fields to work. Fonnie remembers that the family, in a good cotton field, could bring in 1,500 pounds of cotton a day. The Hardison’s picked cotton all fall returning to Eunice towards the end of the year.

            Upon the return to Eunice the Hardison children would enter the one room school established there. One of their school teachers was “Miss Edith” (Davis Fanning), as she was so fondly called by Eunice school children.In later years, Miss Edith taught many of Fonnie’s children. She retired in Eunice.

            Albin’s sister-in-law and husband and family, Uncle Chunk Norten and Aunt Susan Reeder Norten, and his brother-in-law, Edgar Reeder, moved to Eunice anf opened up the second general store in Eunice, the Carson store being the first. The Norten cousins were playmates with the Hardison children as well as the Grizzell, McCormick and other neighbor children.

            Fonnie remembers that the school was the central meeting place for most of the community activities; church, singings, diner on the ground, town meetings were all held at the school building. A special treat each year was the Fourth of July celebration at the “84’s” headquarters with diner on the ground, contests, bull riding and horse riding, cigar races and dollar pitching. People from far and near came and enjoyed the day’s activities.

            In the late fall of 1917 Albin and his family loaded up their belongings and moved back to his home country, Hopkins County, Texas. He had lived out his claim and retained the ownership of the Eunice property. Eighteen years later both Fonnie and his young family and Verna Hardison McGrady and her husband Dan and son returned to live on the same property in the oil boom town of Eunice. Verna and her family stayed only a few years and then they, too, returned to East Texas; but Fonnie and his wife Eula stayed and raised their family and still reside in Eunice at this writing.

            A.A. Hardison died in 1936 and is buried in the Pinehill Church cemetery near Winnsboro, Texas along with his wife, Ida Ora Reeder Hardison and their son Burl who died in the late 1950’s. Verna Hardison McGrady died in 1982 and is buried beside her husband Dan in Sulfa Springs, Texas.