Sina Thompson

SINA ELEANOR COLE THOMPSON

By Camellia T. Denys-1968

     Mama was an earthy person, very plain spoken, a pioneer woman in every sense of the word.  She lived a generation too late for her time, though she did not know it: at least the modern ways never cramped her style.  She was strong and dominant of character, and had the greatest physical stamina of any woman I ever knew.  She could easily have pushed a handcart across the plains, laughing and joking all the way, and danced by the campfire at night.

     It was a marvel the way she could organize her time, even a week in advance.  She knew how much work she could accomplish in so many hours; and if necessary, the oil lamp burned late at night.....sometimes all night.  Mama believed in working hard--with the emphasis on the HARD.  She taught us to finish any job we ever started and to take care of the tools we used, whether it was a fine needle, kitchen utensils or outdoor implements.  Nothing useful was ever thrown away.  "Willful waste makes woeful want," she used to say.

     Her pride and joy was her yard, an acre of ground covered with various plants.  Landscape for balance or beauty was not a consideration.  Each specimen was simply put in the spot where it would grow best.  Mama had a passion for all living plants. Each day she fought the enemies of her flowers.  In Texas, it was Bermuda grass which spread like wildfire in the moist ground;  in Utah, she dug out and piled up the "infernal rocks."  Fresh vegetables, of course, were always plentiful from her garden.  Every one of her fingers was a green thumb.

     After digging in the good earth with her hands, it was time to settle down to more intricate work.  My mother had a rare artistic talent inherited from a French grandmother, Joissine Desmaret Williamson.  French women were noted for their delicate work with the needle, and Mama learned early.  She could do the finest stitches and had an eye for blending colors and patterns for quilt tops.  Then followed the most painstaking work---quilting on each side of a tiny, one-inch square.  She would put anywhere from six to ten spools of thread (300 yards to a spool) in a bedspread size quilt.  when removed from the frames, these quilts became heirlooms, because they could not be duplicated.

    

The wealthy women of Beamont, Texas, heard of her work.  Mama put exquisite stitches on fifty quilts for one woman alone.  She also crocheted many beautiful bedspreads.  Her hooked rugs were done in wool, some as large as eight by twelve feet.  Old clothing had to be cut in strips and rolled in balls preparatory to rug making.  I can never remember when a rug or quilt was not up in the house.  Mama supported her family with a hook and a needle.  Many were the prizes from State Fairs and other exhibits.

     Mama loved people, especially common people.  She was gay and happy when visitors came.  She would laugh at any old joke until tears ran down her cheeks.  Stories of old friends or relatives were particularly amusing to her.  Yet we who lived with her moods every day knew how much she worried.  The deep lines in her face attested to that fact.

     Her life was a hard one.  It began on Halloween night in 1884 as the eighth child of Absalom and Millie (Williamson) Cole.  Her birthplace, in "Cole's Settlement", was located in the southern part of Jasper County, near the Orange county line in Texas.  Her grandparents, William and Joissine (Desmaret) Williamson had settled in Orange County, just two or three miles south.

     The two room, peeled pine log house, had been built by her Uncle Josh Cole about 1850.  Mud mixed with Spanish moss gathered from the trees, was used for the chimney.  The flooring consisted of small poles nailed to larger logs.  The bed legs fit into the "ruts" of the pole floor.  Sina slept in a cradle made by Absalom and used by each of his children until the next one arrived to claim the little bed.  Rocking across the pole floor would lull them to sleep.

     A year long illness as a small child prompted an old doctor to prescribe the use of tobacco.  Her Mother and Pappy smoked, so they fixed a little clay pipe with a reed for the stem.  The working men in the logging crews nearby would buy tobacco just to see her puff on the little pipe.  But, Sina got to smoking in bed and her mother, fearful she would set the house on fire said,"If you will quit smoking, I will too."  Sina took the two pipes and threw them in a mud hole in back of their house.

Sina is on the right with her pipe.

     When six years of age, Sina walked about three miles to the Palmetto school, located on the Gist road in Jasper County.  Mr. White, her first teacher had students ranging from age six to twenty years old in a one room log house.  He gave her a little brown jug, which she kept all her life.  She was so small, the older children would tie her up in a bandana handkerchief, put it on a stick, and carry her across their shoulders.  Many times the children had to take off their shoes and roll up their long drawers to wade high water going to school.  There was always danger of snake bites and of wild cattle on the open range.  The remedy for snake bite was chewed up strong tobacco to make a poultice, and to soak it in coal oil. But, the Palmetto school house was burned down by Frederick Burrell, father of John, Nathan and Marion, because the teacher would not let his boys chew tobacco and spit it out the window.

     Sina relates, "We drank the creek water near the school.  I can still remember the awful taste of the water--and shudder!  The boys were always killing snakes around the creek.  They were big, fat cottonmouth and copperhead moccasins, ground rattlers plus other harmless kinds.  Snakes were a real danger on the wet ground and in the high grass and bushes on the trails.  We carried our lunch in a one gallon syrup bucket.  All the children in a family would eat out of the same pail.  There would be beans, sweet potatoes, fried bacon and cane syrup in a jar, home-made biscuits or cornbread.

     Sitting in a peach tree, Sina had a bird's eye view of her Uncle Jasper's wedding.  Just as the knot was tied, the porch fell down from the weight of the many wedding guests.  

 She was a pert, small girl with dark hair and sparkling, brown eyes.  The social life centered around the community school house.  Programs and plays, Church Revivals and dances were held there.  This is what she loved to do as a young girl - DANCE!

     From Mormon Elders Frank Knowlton and Ralph Boyack, as recorded in their journals:  "This week we witnessed a Texas Dance.  It was something to watch them dance and hear their calls....They waltz quick around the room.....All seem to have a good time."

     Sina was not allowed to go with anyone but her brothers to the dances but, would meet lively fellows there.  One was Cefus Flurry (Uncle Cef, we called him).  Another was "Bouquet Bill" Williams; nicknamed because he always came courting Louisa with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.  "When she married Hamp Gentry then , he came after me but, I was not interested.  I went with "Ole rice Farming Johnson"(can't remember his first name).  He was young and good looking but, I had met a handsome man at one of the dances," admits Sina.

Hansford Jackson Thompson, the "handsome young man".