Mobley
Articles of Interest
The
Bastrop (Texas) Advertiser, March 29, 1934
CELEBRATES
94TH BIRTHDAY MAR. 18
McDade, Texas. March 22
Children, grandchildren, great-grand children and friends of Mrs. Mary
Caroline Mobley met at her home in McDade on Sunday, March 18 to help her
celebrate her birthday on which she reached the age of 94 years. The gathering
was planned as a surprise to Mrs. Mobley who received a number of nice gifts.
At noon boxes of good things to eat began to appear, and soon everyone
was invited to the heavily laden table which held for a center piece a huge
angel food cake holding 94 pink candles.
The afternoon was spent in conversation and in listening to Mrs. Mobley
tell some of the experiences of her long life.
She came to Texas from Georgia a few years after the close of the Civil
War, and settled, with her husband and two children in Bastrop County.
she is the mother of seven children, six of whom are living. However only
three were present to help celebrate her birthday.
Her husband was “Uncle Joe” Mobley, a pioneer Baptist minister of
Bastrop County. He has been dead 20
years.
Mrs. Mobley is quite active and enjoys perfect health despite her advance
age. Late in the afternoon
everyone went home wishing Mrs. Mobley many more years of life and happiness.
Those present were: W. F.
Mobley Mrs. Tinae Mobley and two children of Red Rock; Mr. and Mrs. Travis
Mobley of Round Rock; Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dickerson and three daughters of
Giddings; Mr. and Mrs. H. G. Hodges (sic) and daughter; Mrs. Nettie Mason; Mr.
and Mrs. D. M. Branton of Elgin; Mr. and Mrs. G. R. Mobley, Mr. and Mrs. Ira
Mobley, Mrs. Cora Hodge, Mrs. W. P. Sims and four daughters, Mr. and Mrs. T. J.
Branton and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Branton and daughter, Mrs. M. E. Allen
and Burke Harris, of McDade.
ELGIN'S
"AUNT MARY"
By Winnie McCall Burns, Chronicle Correspondent
--published in the Houston Chronicle Magazine, August 5, 1951
In
former years, when people reached the age of three score and 10, the popular
belief was that they were supposed to fold their arms and silently fade away.
But not so with Mrs. Mary Mobley Christian of Elgin, who now is 91.
She not only has been a member of
the Baptist Church for 74 years, but she has gone through the most turbulent
period in the history of this section.
Born in Georgia, she moved into Bastrop County in the days
when the frontier was being moved rapidly westward and when one lived longest by
talking the least.
She was married in 1879 to Micaja
Jesse Christian. Four years later, they, and the Mobley family, came to Texas
and settled near Oak Hill, south of McDade.
McDade at that time was a
thriving little town on the newly-built Houston and Texas Central Railroad. As
the M.-K.-T. was not built through Elgin (10 miles to the west), Bastrop,
Smithville, La Grange and on into Houston until 1886, McDade was the shipping
point for the territory south of Elgin.
It had many stores, saloons,
gambling houses and eventually developed a lawless element that ruled the
community.
At about the time "Aunt
Mary" and her husband had settled in their new home, a dance was given at
the home of one Pat Erhard in the Blue Branch community.
During the dance a member of the
"committee", as the lawless called themselves, proceeded to go in and
call outside each of the men wanted until four men were in their hands. In a
short time a man walked onto the dance floor and announced that four men were
hanging to a tree a few hundred yards from the house.
On the eve of the second
Christmas after Aunt Mary arrived, the "committee" called three more
men out of a saloon, took them about a mile from town and hanged them to a tree.
The next morning three brothers
of one of the victims came into McDade, seeking the killer of their brother. Two
of them were shot down in the streets. Six men lay dead by Christmas morning.
The year 1887 stands out most
vividly in Aunt Mary's mind as the year that the greatest tragedy that could
befall any human came into her life.
Her husband was invited to attend
a meeting of "neighbors", held in the woods. It turned out to be a
meeting of the lawless element, which had decided that a certain Negro in the
community was to be disposed of. Two of those present were designated as
executioners. Word of this meeting was whispered around and Christian was
accused of telling what had happened.
Not long afterward Mr. Christian
was riding a horse with his wife up behind him when he was overtaken by several
men. He stepped to the ground and before he was given a chance to explain his
side of the argument he was shot dead in the presence of his wife.
After the death of her husband,
Aunt Mary made her home with her brother, Joe Mobley, for 62 years and the two
of them reared 13 children of the Mobley lineage. Uncle Joe Mobley died a few
years ago.
After the death of Joe she was
moved to a local nursing home, where she sits in her wheelchair dispensing cheer
to those less fortunate.
In her 68 years in Bastrop County she has seen this area
changed from cabins to castles and its roads from cow trails to high speed
highways.
