Dear Hales, I was born 1929 in Johnsville, Erath County, Texas 10 miles from Stephenville on U.S.67 towards Glen Rose (The sulphur water resort of 1900-1950's)I knew of 3 Hale families- and do not know if they were connected. I attended Johnsville now Three Way) elementary, Selden high 2 years and Stephenville High 2 years. There was a Grover Hale- a deacon at Selden Baptist church where I attended until I was 14 or so. He had a son Halford a year older than I was. I think Halford is still living. They had a farm with a newer rock home just across the cattleguard where the Selden main street turned left to circle the school ground. I think Halford had older sisters. I remember dad talking about Grover buying neighbors cotton for 30 cents per puond, expecting it to go above 50 cents. In 1929 when the European depression finally rippled through farm comodoties markets in Texas, the cotton dropped to 5 cents a pound, when the bankers finally found out what some farmers already knew. Mr. Hale survived and kept his farm. He lived next door to Alfred Scrimsher. His daughter Dorothy can fill you in on the family and I will forward a copy of this to her. You can contact her at Mutt and Dorothy Suitt Route 3 Box 169A (Selden) Stephenville, Texas 76401. There were two Hale sisters in high school at Stephenville High about 1950. They attended elementary school at Chalk Mountain (Now part of Three Way School District). They, the Laney sisters, and Donna Brock and 2 more girls from Huckaby-Oak Dale area were on the Stephenville High girl's Basketball team which went to State finals and later won State. Stephenville girls dating Tarleton State University considerred basketball as childish and unspohisticated. Today most Texas colleges give girls athletic scholarships. Anyhow, this winning girl's team silenced parents who wanted to eliminate Girl's sports as unladylike. Stephenville now has the highest paid football coach and athletic director in Texas public schools, and the Principal gets $1.00 per year more than the coach. The Laneys, Hales, and Donna Brock and friends rode long bus runs and had played with or against each other for 8 years. Donna Brock is now (Dr. I think) Donna Spross, counselor at Lorena High School,Lorena Texas. Her dad had a dairy and an Auto shop on north side of Stephenville. I taught with her for 6 years in Midway High, in Hewitt, Woodway, Speegleville, Harris Creek,, and Waco, Texas (Not part of Waco Schools) I think, if my memory isn't short circuited , one of the Laney Girls or a Hale married a Hill man who moved to Chalk Mountain. He had excellent but old equipment and used to cut Oats, Barley, and Hairy Vetch and Wheat for my dad and others with a a Regular Farmall with no variable speed throttle and an Allis Chalmer Combine when Super M farmalls and John Deere combines would not cut the stuff without constant binding and choking problems. There was another Hale in Stephenville who was a working carpenter and contractor. He built several homes in the Riverside Edition of Stephenville near the Bosque River where a tornado had cleared some scattered buildings and a farm home a few years before. I knew several Cox, Wright, and others who retired from the farm, and bought one of his painted frame houses with wood floors and all conveniences but air conditioners. Some added evaporative coolers for cooling. All had garden Spots. I had no first hand work experience with this Hale. The houses reminded me of some of Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity homes and were wonderful to the generation who lived in log or box houses , carried their water, and had outhouses like most 1930's house in Texas farms had. Some had gravity fed cold water for the kitchen fro a windmill and overhead tank. They heated bath water on the stove or in a stove resivoir, actually part of the stove. "Aunt" Celia Shaw, 112 lived with "Aunt Marthy" and Ed Cox there. She told me she got married when 13 or 14 and sat on a stump darning socks watching Ed cut logs and build their first log cabin and they started marriage out of debt. Habitat for Humanity was actually started in Georgia near the Carter home by the Koinia Fellowship- a communal group similar to Amish, Mennonite, and the Homestead Heritage community near Waco. Jimmy Carter took that ball and ran with it and now Opra Winfrey is running interference for him, in football terms. It's 107 here today- drove by the giant Waco Flea market today and most dealers were gone by 2 pm.In cooler weather Corpus Christi and Houston antique collectors are there buying. Even stray dogs avoided the place today. My cousin planted hybrid hay in our 93 acres at Selden as soon as constant spring rains stopped and it is so dry the seed has nor sprouted. Cattle being sold off are not going to Wyoming, Kansas, or West Texas feed lots or grazing, but, under Nafda- to Mexico feed lots where they spray them with DDT and bad corn. Dairy cows cannot eat the dead corn stalks with a tablespoon of grain on each cob instead of a cup full- It has Aflotoxins. I understand it is legal in Mexico if not too toxic or clay is mixed with it to bind up the Aflotoxin. It isn.t worth cutting. First time in my life I have seen people shred and rake and bail dead corn stalks. A cousin closed his dairy and is now hauling cull and broken Frito and Potato chips to Mexico from Dallas. We now have 10 to 20 Federal Fire fighters, some from Wyoming, and Helicopters stationed in the Barracks the ATF and FBI stayed in during Mount Carmel on the Texas State Technical College on the old James Conally Air Force Base. They are making 2 or 3 runs a day as local firefighters need them. Two farmers not only lost all their grass and fence posts to fire, but each lost over 100 big round bales of hay each in the fire. It burned 30 acres of Cameron Park, the largest City park in the U.S., but did not get near the zoo nor buildings, thanks to the Forrest service service Heloicoptors dipping from the Brazosand their bulldozers. 4 or 5 other local departments also sent trucks to help Waco, but you didn't ask about all of this. Take care and happy hunting, Charles Wyly P>S> If you know any Wyly families, let me know. One in North Dakota , an attorney, goes South to Denver to get warm in the winter. Folks here go up there to cool off. Others in Wyoming, Oregon & Washington State. to California & most Statesback to Georgia & South Carolina. . _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]