The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, July 1915 - April, 1916 Page: 165
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Southwestern Historical Quarterly and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Texas State Historical Association.
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Early Presbyterianism in Texas
would furnish an hour of real pleasure to all of us. The
tendency to general kissing of the bride and groom by all the
attending blacks was a feature and the admonitions of my father
would be eagerly attended. Once he preached to the negroes upon
the text "Thou shalt not steal" and made the plea so vivid and
punishment so certain that for days the negroes were very busy
returning or confessing to small breaches of this commandment.
He was never a prohibitionist, but rather tended to the other
side. Each fall he would make a barrel or more of mustang
grape wine which was famous over Texas. This wine he dis-
pensed from the cold stone milkhouse in pitchers to all the family
and guests and sent bottles far and near for the sick and debili-
tated. He believed that dancing was fine exercise and tended to
improve the female graces and make his pupils "polished after
the similitude of a Pallas." .So every Friday night the girls had
a dance, which mother and father usually attended with any
guests of the school. There were not men enough, so several of
the girls would tie a handkerchief around their left arms and
lead the dances. Sometimes they would have a costume dance
and s.ome of the girls would appear in their brothers' suits and
even in some of my father's and thus add to the merriment.
Usually the dance music was a piano played in turn by musicians,
but sometimes a negro fiddler played, and often the girls played
on their banjos, violins and guitars. Often at noon the girls
would dance under the shade of the beautiful live oak trees to, the
piano played in the parlor. More interesting to me in childhood
were a pair of beautiful twin girls, Rainey and Belle Bethany,
who each played charmingly on an accordeon, and while they fur-
nished dance music for the others, danced together to their own
music. Another sweet memory of early childhood is of "Aunt
Polly" Lipscomb, widow of Judge Abner Lipscomb, a first Jus-
tice of Texas' Supreme Court, when she was probably about
eighty-two, wan, small, and bowed with age, seated at an old piano
playing with great zest dance music for the girls. She was a
veritable wraith, but a lady of great piety and a valued member
of my father's church for years, still believing in the joys of youth.
Her husband believed in immersion, so my father yielded to, his
request and "buried him in baptism"-the only time he ever de-
parted from the prescribed Presbyterian method of sprinkling.165
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, July 1915 - April, 1916, periodical, 1916; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101067/m1/180/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.