Stirpes, Volume 39, Number 4, December 1999 Page: 4
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Nora Bell Stevens-Bailey 1897-1977
By Leo BaileyNora Bell Stevens was born Nov. 26, 1897
to Telia Tennessee Butler and William Durant
Stevens near Cuthand in Red River County,
Texas. She was the oldest of four sisters and
four brothers. The younger children were
taught to call her "sister." This put her a level
higher than a child, but lower than a parent.
At an early age, she was exposed to the
responsibility of housekeeping and parenting.
The family moved to Postoak in Lamar
County before she started to school. Nora
learned reading, writing and arithmetic to
about the 5th grade. This was the highest
level in the local school in those days.
Nora helped with cooking, canning,
cleaning, washing, ironing, sewing and babysitting.
She was 12 years old when the eighth
child was born. Her brothers and sisters were
Butler, Mittie, Allison, Erby, Prudence, Cora
Lee and R.T.
Like other farm girls of that period, she
learned to milk cows, feed chickens, work the
garden and dress chickens and wild game. She
never wanted to kill the chickens. She also
helped with the harvest of field crops.
There were very few opportunities for
young people to meet socially, aside from
church. To an extent, parents picked marriage
partners for their children but to a larger
extent, members of the community helped to
match partners and the gossip put the couple
together consistently. Eventually they were
wed.
Nora lacked three months being 18 years
old when she married Luke M. Bailey on Aug.
15, 1915. Luke was 23 at the time. They rented
a small house and farm in the area and began
their life together. Their first son, Freeman
Harvey, was born July 6, 1916. Son number 2,
Raybon Earl, was born Jan. 4, 1918.
Nora had two children under two years old
at this time, along with her other household
and wifely duties. Farm life was not good butneither she nor Luke knew or wanted anything
else. On Aug. 3, 1920, the third son, Melvin
Hollis, was born. The baby was sickly and lived
only three months, until Dec. 21, 1920. The
cause of death was recorded as erysipelas.
Nora and Luke felt guilty for many years about
the death of this tiny son.
Son number 4, Leo Lynn, was born Jan. 17,
1922, on the McWilliams place at Postoak.
While Nora was anxious for a daughter, on
Nov. 11, 1924, she gave birth to son number 5,
Bernice Boyce. This occurred also on the
McWilliams place at Postoak.
By 1925, the family had moved to
Byrdtown and at age 28, she was separated
from her Stevens' relatives for the first time.
In 1926, they moved to the Wayne Williams
farm midway between Byrdtown and Watson.
The farm was later designated as the Swing
Creek Place. It was here on Aug. 17, 1928 that
son number 6, Alton Luke, was born.
Telia Elizabeth was the first and only
daughter and the seventh child born to Nora
and Luke on Aug. 12, 1930. She was named for
her grandmothers, Stevens and Bailey.
The Blossom Prairie was a man's domain
and cotton was king. The farmer grew yellow
corn on only five to ten percent of his acreage.
Corn was needed to feed workhorses and
mules and to fatten out meat hogs. Tenant
houses were completely surrounded by cotton
fields. No shade trees or shrubs competed
with the cotton. Nora always planted zinnias
around the house each spring.
A typical tenant farmhouse occupied 600
to 700 square feet. It was of wooden frame
construction and was divided, usually into four
rooms of almost equal size and shape, for
eating, living and sleeping. A fireplace or wood
heater kept the living area warm in winter. The
water well was 10 to 20 feet away from the
back door. The drawing and fetching of water4
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Texas State Genealogical Society. Stirpes, Volume 39, Number 4, December 1999, periodical, December 1999; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth41412/m1/6/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Genealogical Society.