The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, July 1944 - April, 1945 Page: 255

A Trip to Texas

chance of an education as you of the presant day has. Theres
difference from 1835 to 1914 of training the mind; as I said,
I will do the best I can. ist-Why we came to Texas: for many
reasons. 1st-We wanted to come to a new country so our
children could grow up with the country. We were living on a
good farm; had a tanyard. My husband was a tanner by trade,
but he was never a very stout man (the men there did not
live very few over sixty five years old). He said that he would
live ten years longer by coming to a new country. You hardly
ever saw a gray headed man. I did not want to come to Texas
at all; I dreaded the Indians in those days, for they roamed
all over this part of Texas. The thought troubled me for
sometime. I thought the matter over and decided to come as
my husband had better judgment than I did. I thought if
coming to Texas would lengthen his life ten years, I was willing
to undertake the trip. I came willing and have never regreted
one moment, but oh how sorry I was to leave our Miss. home,
where six of my children were born. Four came with us;
two left back there in Shady Grove grave yard. That was
the sadest thing to leave, but we are here, been living in and
near Meridian since 1869; have never been back to see the
first home I ever had. Had a chance once; will always regret it
soldiers. The Lomax family still preserves much of the Confederate money
received in payment for the shoes.
Her common school education was supplemented by a year at a "Female
Institute," where, among other accomplishments thought suitable for girls,
she was taught the art of knitting, fine needlework, tatting, embroidery,
etc. In her later years, when relieved somewhat from the duties of a
mother and housekeeper, she found great satisfaction in making gifts
of her handiwork.
Of her eleven children eight lived to be adults, five boys and three
girls. Two, Annie and Charles, were buried in Mississippi. Of the others -
Richard, Mary, Jesse, John, George, Robert, Sue, and Alice --four are yet
living: John Avery Lomax, Dallas; George Kelly Lomax, Port Arthur;
Mrs. Sue Blake, Chickasha, Oklahoma; Mrs. Alice Pedigo, Austin.
"I have mothered twenty-one children," she used to say. This number
included ten of her own (one died at birth), five stepchildren, and three
of a stepson whose wife had died, three of her daughter Mary. The next
generation of these "twenty-one children" show up to date thirty-five
grandchildren.
Susan Frances Lomax was a typical pioneer woman, who helped to make
the frontier blossom, without whom there would be no "Western Move-
ments" for the historians to write about. She possessed the character,
courage, and inflexible will that made pioneers succeed.
To the last she maintained her home in Meridian, Texas. The two
grandsons who lived with her understood who was boss. Perhaps, too, she
helped them to vote for prohibition and against Jim Ferguson. In her
latest years the annual celebration in her honor as the oldest citizen of
Meridian, where everyone called her "Mother Lomax," gave her deep
satisfaction and pleasure.

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