The Making and Memory of a Home Place
My weak and strong Texas roots
If you have heard of Thalia, Texas, we may be related. (Or, you might be a fan of Larry McMurtry who disguised his own Archer City as “Thalia” in a series of books that started with his first novel, Horseman, Pass By, and included The Last Picture Show and others.) Thalia is a tiny town in a county that barely counts 1,000 people. But part of my ancestry comes from there, so it sits in a special spot in my life.
For The Wild Card this week, I thought I might use Thalia to muse on home and place and memory. Read on!
Getting There Familiarly
My oldest brother helped move me to graduate school. After a summer in Pennsylvania, I had to get to Arizona, and he drove with me across the continent. We wanted to visit our great uncle and aunt who still lived at the home place in Thalia—the place where he, my grandfather, and their siblings were raised.
All morning, as we drove out of Oklahoma and into Texas, my brother and I saw little that was familiar. As Northwesterners, we are comforted by evergreens, mountains, saltwater—none of which appeared along the two-lane highways we traveled. As we neared Thalia, I thought I recognized the turn off. My intuition was ridiculous to trust—I had only been there twice.1
That this turn off seemed familiar speaks to my impeccable memory, dumb luck, or a connection to this country that I had no business feeling. Still, I felt—and feel—some connection.
Staying Put
It took a while for some of my great-grandparents to find west Texas. I’ve heard an uncle say the family tended to roll into an area just after its peak. Not long after, now stuck in a declining county or town, they left to try out a new place. But once my ancestors found this spot in the early 1920s, they remained. The farm in Thalia, originally 80 acres, remained in the family until after my great uncle and aunt died. They were devoted to each other and the lives they made on the home place.
I am reminded of this passage by Scott Russell Sanders in “Staying Put:”
When we cease to be migrants and become inhabitants, we might begin to pay enough heed and respect to where we are. By settling in, we have a chance of making a durable home for ourselves, our fellow creatures, and our descendants.
Those ancestors of mine had been migrants; this place stopped them, and they became inhabitants. I’m not sure why they decided to stay put here. It couldn’t have been easy. My grandfather was one of 10 children, seven of whom lived to adulthood. The farm was not large. Water was not plentiful. Prices were never high. A small oil well produced modestly at best.
The youngest son, that great uncle of mine, stayed and farmed. In a yellowed, laminated newspaper story in my possession. I have read about how he was once named Foard County Conservation Farmer of the Year.
Somehow, the family endured on that patch of ground and made a durable home in a place that mocks durability.
And something about all that has stuck with me.
Horizons
When I turn to my memory, I only count seven times I’ve visited that farm in Thalia. One of those visits lasted a matter of hours; another included only a drive by after others were living there. I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than two or three nights there or nearby. What I’m saying is my accumulated time there has been short. My memories there are few.
I remember being afraid of red ants in the yard when I was eight. I remember seeing turtles under the tree by the shop that same trip. I remember walking around the yard and by the barn and looking at the horizon, realizing it was the same one my granddaddy saw as a long-eyelashed boy, the same horizon that surrounded my mom when she played with her many cousins at reunions during her childhood summers, the same one that embraces my grandparents buried in the community cemetery three-quarters of a mile away as the hawk flies.
If you’ve read this newsletter for much time at all, you will know that I see the past in all landscapes around me. But this one is a family place, not just a historical one.
And so I fuel this imagining with stories, mostly of people I never met. Somehow, those relative strangers tie me to this place.
It is a home where I’ve never lived—and, frankly, would not want to. I heard stories of tornadoes and snakes and drought, the likes of which make me glad I’m rooted in the mossy, temperate Northwest. I am one of many who spread out of that place, building lives unimaginable to those first ancestors who stopped on the plain.
Descendants
In a 1969 county history called They Loved the Land, the brief family history of my Confederate great-great grandfather ends with a synopsis of the family diaspora:
There are at least 219 descendants now and they are scattered from the State of Washington to Florida. From a generation of farmers have come men in the oil business, realtors, an author, college professors, registered nurses, a college president, an optomtrist [sic], public school teachers, medical doctors, ministers, an auctioneer, a director of a children’s home and many other occupations. There are still a good many farmers in the family and all love the land.
In the 55 years since that summary, it is hard to count how many more people came from that spot of land and all the occupations and dreams they have held.
I don’t know how many of those descendants get a catch in their throat as they survey this spot from the sandy road or from Google Earth. Do they marvel, like I do, at what it took to make a life here and hold a family together and then to encourage that family to fly where their dreams took them?
In another passage in a different essay, Sanders writes, “A house is a garment, easily put off or on, casually bought and sold; a home is skin.” It’s an odd expression, but one I’ve been mulling.
In recent years, the house at the Thalia farm had to be torn down, and I’ve not revisited since then. I’m sure I would find it disorienting that the house was no longer there. But I imagine that the home still would be. Razing a house cannot erase a home. You can’t shed your skin.
Closing Words
Relevant Reruns
I have not written any newsletters related to this one, but my first trip to the home place included the stop at Carlsbad Caverns that I reported on here. For a personal essay shaped partially around my grandparents, paid subscribers can listen to it here, and everyone can read it here or here.
Today marks one year since I lost my beloved dog Samadhi. I wrote about her then. My heart is still broken.
New Writing
I reported the latest in a local story that is about a zoning controversy but ultimately much more, including the future of farmland, private property, and democratic processes. I hope you’ll read the latest story here.
As always, you can find my books, and books where some of my work is included, at my Bookshop affiliate page (where, if you order, I get a small benefit).
Taking Bearings Next Week
Next week, I head back to The Classroom where I trust I’ll find something to say. Stay tuned!
I was right, sort of. This was the way, but it was a bad route: we soon were stuck in the sandy road.
Cool stories. I grew up in Texas, but never heard of Thalia. That place looks like home, though.
This year is the tenth since I lost my companion jindo Ollie. I am still heartbroken, too, but I live with it easier now. I’m sorry to hear of your loss, one year ago today. 🩶
So many memories here! Thank you.