EDITOR'S NOTE -- This is the 84th of a series of articles marking Kerr County's sesquicentennial.

By Irene Van Winkle

West Kerr Current

The 100th birthday celebration for ``Miss Ellie'' Mae Hyde Cobb at Billy Gene's Restaurant last Tuesday was a hoot. Red Hat Society ``Queen'' Gladys Simpson, of the Center Point chapter, led a lively bunch marking the special occasion, and Ellie Mae was all smiles, surrounded by family and friends!

The Hyde genes are hearty indeed, and living to a ripe old age -- along with a fierce spirit of self-sufficiency and hard work -- is the norm.

It wasn't too long ago that Ellie Mae lived at home, along with her son. Her ``baby'' sister, Millie Cobb, 93, still drives herself around town in Kerrville.

The history of the Texas family essentially stems from three Hyde brothers: Benjamin J. (Jr.), Theodore (``Thee'') Coglin and Marion. They were all children of Benjamin J. and Milly Hyde, whose names were found in the October, 1850 census living in the 9th Ward of Ouachita Parish, Louisiana.

At that time, Benjamin J. Hyde of Tennessee was listed as 36 years of age, along with Milly, born in Arkansas, who was 33. There were other names listed in the household: Jasper and Newton (both listed as 10 years old); two girls born in Arkansas: Frances J., 8, and Mercey, 5; and then two boys, both born in Louisiana: Benjamin, 2, and Squire, 1.

The next census record, in 1860, listed a Benjamin ``Hide'' in Texas's Fayette Co. as a 13-year-old head of the household, with Theo C., aged 10, Francis (Marion?), aged 7, who was born in Texas; there was also a baby, Minnie, aged 6 months, and a Millie Robertson, 43, from Arkansas.

Bennie said he didn't know if this was the mother (whose age would have been correct in that year), and whether she had gone back to using her maiden name, or had remarried.

Benjamin J. (the elder) was missing from the 1860 census. The two children found in the 1850 records (Mercey and Squire) were not named in the household now, and Bennie said he'd learned from visiting the area that there had been a bad flu epidemic there in the 1850s. This might have accounted for the missing family members in the 1860 records, but that is still just speculation.

There is also speculation that possibly Milly had been a seamstress and went to work in a large clothing factory that was set up in Fayetteville.

By 1870, in the Jackson County (Wharton) census, the family group (now with the name spelled Hyde again) had more changes: Benjamin J. (Jr.) was 23, listed as a stock driver, Theo. C, was 19, Marion was 17, and there was a youngster named Charley, age 3. However, no mother was listed, but two other people were living in the household: T.J. Ward, age 27, a housekeeper from Arkansas, and a girl, D.A. Ward, age 3, who was born in Texas. Their names never appeared again with the Hyde family.

The Hyde brothers took up the cowboy and ranching life, although Benjamin, Jr. also worked on a surveying team in Wharton County. They arrived in Kerr County from DeWitt County around 1879, after Benjamin J. Jr. had passed through here earlier on a cattle drive.

Thee bought land first, which is now part of the Heart of the Hills Camp outside Hunt.

Once settled down, Thee (1851-1933) married Sarah ``Sally'' Elmira Emmons around 1902. ``She was a little feisty woman,'' Millie said. They had seven children: Anna, Theodore Marion (Mack), Susie, Hiram Preston, Guy, Arthur (Bud) and Walter.

Mack was the Y.O. Ranch foreman for many years, after it had changed hands from Young-Owens to Charles Armand Schreiner, for whom he had worked at the Black Bull Ranch. Mack married Carrie Graham, and all of their children were born at the Y.O. Ranch.

Mac's son, Clarence Charles (1902-1983), married Sylvia McKay, and was also the ranch manager there while Walter and Mildred Schreiner ran it. Clarence's son Jack (Charles Derwood), worked there too, but once Charlie Schreiner III took over, the Hydes left the ranch behind and moved on to other trades.

Theodore Coglin's brother, Benjamin, married Martha Viola Wallis, but there are several disputes as to whether or not some members of the family had changed the spelling of their name to/from Wallace. Bennie said he'd checked in several locations and found two versions of the name, but all he could confirm was that some of them had come from North Carolina. Benjamin, Jr., who died in 1915, was later buried at the Wallis Ranch in DeWitt County.

He was secretary of the Goat Ranchers Alliance in the late 1880s, and Bennie said the monthly dues were a nickel. The ledger shows the group's minutes and transactions, carefully written in a florid hand.

Benjamin and Martha had a son named John Benjamin, born in 1874 in De Witt County, who married Mary Philbina Belder (daughter of Cornelia and Peter Belder).

John and Mary's fourth child, Benjamin Julius, was born in 1913 in Kerr County. He married Viola P. Lyons, and their son was Bennie. John Benjamin had siblings named Emma, Lue Ethel, Martha Ann, Minter Marion, Willie E., Thomas Carlyle, Lee Washington, and Lena May Viola. Bennie said he knew that his grandfather had built two dams for Dr. Secor.

Bennie's father also freighted, and later started his own trucking line.

``During WWII, Dad used to show Captain Sid Peterson's Palominos. He was the third one in Kerr County -- besides Basse and Ayala -- to get an ICC (interstate commerce) license.''

Bennie said that he had found out that Peter Belder (who died in 1906) was buried at Glen Rest, whom he had always assumed was a Confederate veteran. He had heard that his grandmother, Cornelia Belder, had tried to get a pension, and needed three signatures to verify her identity in lieu of a marriage license. Eventually she got them: one from a relative, as well as J. L. Pampell and Tom Moore.

As it turned out, Clarabelle Snodgrass and some of the other members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, had been at the cemetery for a commemoration. When they took a closer look at the tombstone, it turned out to have a Union insignia. He had served in Company H of the 1st US Artillery.

Ellie Mae's grandfather, Theodore, married Sally Emmons -- and this clan was commonly called ``the Divide Hydes.''

The branch from Benjamin J., Jr.'s family, who is Bennie Hyde's grandfather, were known as ``the Goat Creek Hydes.''

The third sibling, Marion, Bennie said, took off for Oklahoma (Hayes County) around 1900, where some of his descendants still live.

The question of why the family chose those designations probably has some history, but today's descendants say there was no major rift in the family.

Thee and Sally's fourth child, Hiram Preston (1881-1946), was born above Hunt along the south fork of the Guadalupe River.

Hiram married Mattie Johnson, whose parents were Tom and Maggie, and they had 10 children between 1903 and 1928: Leonard ``Buddy,'' Loy, Ellie Mae, Earl, Frances, Millie, Eloise, Irene, Lucille and Margaret. Besides Ellie Mae and Millie, their two other sisters, Lucille and Margaret, are still living.

At least the first four of the children were born on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River above Hunt, Ellie Mae said.

Three of the ``Divide Hyde'' siblings married three Cobb siblings, who had their roots in Junction, and were the children of Ollie and Irene Griffin Cobb. Ellie Mae married Bryan Cobb, Millie married Robert Cobb, and Earl married Lillie Cobb (the youngest sister).

Nada Cade Hyde, who has lived and worked for years in Ingram, married Earl's son, Hiram Benjamin Hyde. (see Cade story, Sept. 14, 2006).

Millie said that the Cobb and Hyde siblings would go on picnics and outings together in a big group.

``We'd just go and have a lot of fun, and roast chickens. There was no hanky-panky, then,'' she said.

On one of those outings, though, she said that she and Robert had gone into a barn, and suddenly without a word, Robert pushed her to the ground. Although she was a bit shaken, she was relieved after she realized that Robert had observed a large bird in the upper level, which was about to make an unsavory deposit below.

The other siblings married into many other local families: Leonard wed ``Fannie'' Secrest, Frances Hyde married Roy Trimble (who became well-known as a local musician), Irene married Freeman Miears, Lucille wed Floyd Wachter, and Margaret married Jake White.

Ellie Mae said she was always attached to her sibling, Loy -- ``he was my special brother.'' She said he protected her, and they remained close all their lives.

Growing up, the ``Divide Hydes's'' neighbors were families like the Sprouls, Roy Kemp and Jim Priour. In school, she said her teachers were Elizabeth and L.C. Fawcett. She was friends with Rachel Lowrance, and her siblings, Grace and Jim.

As the oldest girl, Ellie Mae said she had a lot of responsibilities, starting at a young age.

``I raised the younger ones,'' she said. ``When I was five or six, I changed diapers, cleaned house, fed the chickens and boiled the beans on the stove. I remember handing the nails to my Daddy when he was shoeing horses, too.''

Hiram freighted with mule-teams between Sonora and Kerrville, and even to San Antonio after the railroad took over. He drove food stuffs and other supplies, even for Tom Moore's grocery store in Old Ingram.

``He hauled cattle to the stockyard from the ranches around Mountain Home and from Rocksprings,'' she said.

Ellie Mae remembered riding a horse to the Lowrance school (possibly later called the Reservation School), astride a mare named ``Gussie.'' She remembered going during the winter, which was a daunting accomplishment.

``We had to ride four and a half miles each way. One day, we came to school, and boy, was it cold. My brother -- I think it was Earl -- passed out after getting in front of the fire the teacher built.'' She said her favorite subject was arithmetic and geography. She only attended through the 9th grade, she said, because it was too far to travel to Kerrville for high school.

Ellie Mae recalled the 1930s, including the flood of 1932, but it didn't affect their branch of the family much.

``I remember it distinctly,'' Ellie Mae said. ``We were never in any danger, though, because we lived on high ground then.''

She said their neighbors, the Talberts, had a store nearby. The Hydes lived on several acres of the Talberts' land. Dad built a house out of the school building that the Whitworths owned, because they gave us the lumber. My brothers and husband tore it down and put it on the truck. All we had to buy was the nails, windows and doors.''

Ellie Mae said that she was baptized in Johnson Creek when she was 27 years old, and Millie took her baptism in the Guadalupe River.

Theodore Hyde was 81 years old when he died

In 1946, Hiram died quite suddenly at the age of 64. An obituary stated that people were shocked at hearing of his death at his ranch on the Divide where he had lived for 30 years, and his death was attributed to heart failure.

He was buried at Sunset Cemetery, where most of the ``Divide'' Hydes were interred. The ``Goat Creek Hydes'' mostly ended up at Nichols Cemetery.

Millie said she'd had a kind of premonition just before his death that something was wrong.

Mattie, who belonged to the Mountain Home Methodist Church, lived to 81 years of age. Millie said she became a Methodist, too. Mattie left behind 25 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Ellie Mae said that she and Bryan had four children who grew to adulthood: William Howard, Wayne Preston, who lives in Gatesville (``he walked when he was just 9 months old -- I couldn't believe it!''), Bobbie Louise who passed away five years ago, and Ola Marie, nicknamed ``Bub'' by her oldest brother, who lives near New Braunfels.

Ellie Mae worked in several cafes, including the Chatterbox. One of her co-workers, Wanda Woods, attended Ellie's 100th birthday party, along with many friends from the First Baptist Church in Center Point.

Millie and Robert had one child, Jacqueline Polk, who now lives near Ingram.

Bennie left the Hill Country in 1953, spent a career in the United States Air Force, and returned to Kerrville in 1991. He's been married to Mallie Hunt since 1964. They have two children: Eva, who is the Human Resources director for Kerr County and a son, Jason, who is in the USAF. Bennie's daughter, Donna, works in Kerrville for a telecommunications company.