WETSEL JOTTINGS AS WRITTEN BY OUR
SCRIBE
Daily Courier Gazette, July
23, 1938
Thrifty Farming Center Located On
Highway 75 Between McKinney and Allen
[Note: In 1938, Highway 75 was the road that is
Highway 5 today]
by Mrs. O. S. Scott
Wetsel community is
located on Highway 75 almost five miles south of McKinney. It has a modern
two or three-teacher school, a store, filling station and tourist camp. It
is a community center surrounded by excellent blackland farms with a fine,
high class type of citizenship inhabiting it. It takes its name from the
late Uncle Jim Wetsel and wife, who reared their large family of children on
their old homestead near the schoolhouse. Many other familiar names among
old settlers had their habitations in the Wetsel community.
When this newspaper
scribe called at the store, we found F. H. Hammel and wife busy serving
customers in their general mercantile store and service station. They are
also the owners of a machine shop and of the Wetsel Cottage Camp. They have
several of these cottages neatly kept and looked after for the accommodation
of tourists. The Lacy Wayside Park joins them on the south. These
accommodations offer an ideal place for tourists to stop and rest to spend
the night or perhaps a few days’ vacation as they feel like doing. Mr.
Hammel, proprietor of these enterprises, was reared east of San Antonio. His
father is deceased but his mother, Mrs. Emma Hammel, still resides at their
old home near San Antonio. Mrs. F. H. Hammel was reared in the Lucas
community, and before her marriage, was Miss Ida Rich, daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. A. L. Rich. Mrs. Hammel and husband have been residents of the Wetsel
community for the past eight years. They chose an ideal location for their
business and certainly they could not find a better community in which to
live.
The Wetsel School is a
modern building on a pretty campus with plenty of playground equipment for
the children. During the term recently closed, Miss Lonnie Mae Hight and
Miss Juanita Moore were the teachers. The former has been teaching at Wetsel
for five years, while the latter has just completed her first year’s term of
school at this place. Miss Juanita is a daughter of W. M. Moore, a worthy
farmer, living on his place, four or five miles southeast of McKinney. Her
father is a brother of Sheriff E. B. Moore of this county. The Wetsel School
Board is composed of G. W. Compton, Bart Bryant and Will Bush. It is our
information that the Wetsel School is not encumbered with debt and has some
money in its treasury.
Wetsel farm women are
grouped in an active Home Demonstration Club organization, which is
officered as follows: Mrs. Bart Bryant, President; Mrs. Cliff Jones,
Vice-President; Mrs. Ed Cain, Secretary-Treasurer; Mrs. Sam Payne, Council
delegate; Mrs. R. E. Byrd, Bedroom Demonstrator and Mrs. Cliff Jones, Fruit
Plot Demonstrator. The Wetsel Home Demonstration Club plans to remodel their
clubhouse in a way that will make it a more comfortable meeting place for
them in the future.
Mr. and Mrs. Bart Bryant
are a thrifty farm couple. Their farm contains 121 1-2 acres that fronts on
Highway 75 and located only about four miles south of McKinney and about
three miles north of Allen. Its enterprising and industrious owner has the
farm in an excellent state of cultivation. He has harvested a very good crop
of wheat this year. Crops on his place, this year, are wheat, oats, corn,
sorghum, grain, millet, cotton, and onions. Bart Bryant was born at Newport,
Tennessee, and came to Texas at the age of only fifteen. Both of his parents
passed away when he was quite young. He has one sister living and three
brothers as follows: Gray Bryant, Newport, Tennessee; George Bryant,
Rockwood, Tennessee, and Bob Bryant, Excelsior Springs, Missouri. Bart
Bryant and Miss Minnie Hutcherson were married February 27, 1910. Mrs.
Bryant is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Hutcherson , now residing in
the Clearlake community, about fifteen miles southeast of McKinney. They are
the parents of two children, a boy and a girl. Their son, Jack Bryant is
married, his wife being the former Miss Ellen Spradley, daughter of Mr. and
Mrs F. D. Spradley of near Prosper. They are residents of Fort Worth. The
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bryant died at the early age of three. Mrs.
Bryant’s parents were both reared in Collin County. Her father was born and
reared three miles northwest of Prosper. Her mother, whose maiden name was
Mary Etta Duncan, was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Duncan.
She was born in Newport, Tennessee but was brought to Texas by her parents,
when she was only two years old. Her parents J. P. Duncan and wife located
on their farm, four miles west of McKinney in the Bowlby schoolhouse
community, where they reared a large family of children and where both of
them passed away a few years ago. Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Hutcherson reared a
large family of children as follows: Will Hutcherson, Route One, McKinney;
Jack Hutcherson, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Ray Hutcherson, 431 N. E. 7th Street,
Apartment 12, Oklahoma City, Okla; Dan Hutcherson, Route 1, McKinney; Alvin
Hutcherson of Route 5, McKinney; Mrs. Jimmy Harrell, Memphis, Tennessee;
Mrs. Forrest Strickland, Route 3, McKinney; Mrs. Betty Darland, Route 1,
McKinney; Mrs. Bart Bryant, Route 2, McKinney.
For several years Mrs.
Bart Bryant has been active in Home Demonstration Club work in Collin
County. She served as Yard Demonstrator for the Wetsel Home Demonstration
Club. She now has a pretty hedge for hiding unsightly buildings. Her hedge
was grown from cuttings raised in her own cement pile cutting bed. These
cuttings consist of native and nursery plants. The hedge is 100 feet long
and costs her only sixty-five cents in money. Of course it cost considerable
painstaking labor, but it is well worth the price. This hedge has ten
different variations of shrubs, which are redbud, crepe myrtle, vitex,
spirea, lilac, japonica, dogwood, African cedar, white vitex, and
pomegranate. Leading into Mrs. Bryant’s pretty flower garden is a trellis
over which a beautiful red rose is climbing and beautifully blooming.
Stepping stone walks lead you into her garden and to her milk house, snugly
sheltered behind a screen of attractive-looking shrubbery.
Mrs. Bryant very
graciously accompanied us to the hospitable home of a good neighbor in the
person of Mrs. R. E. Byrd and husband. Mr. Byrd was born in McMinnville,
Tennessee, and moved to Texas with his family in 1911. Soon after coming
there his wife passed away, leaving a little baby girl that was reared by
Mrs. Alex Russell of Clearlake. In 1922, Mr. Byrd married the second time to
Mrs. Candace Smith Shaffer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Smith of Camp
County, Texas. The second Mrs. Byrd is a member of a large family of
children consisting of four sisters and six brothers as follows: Mrs. I. E.
Gautney, 309 Grey, Apartment 3, Houston, Texas; Mrs. M. J. Judice, 1107
Harwood Street, Houston, Texas; Mrs. R. E. Pattillo, 828 East Twenty-Fifth
Street, Houston, Texas; O. L. Smith, Grand Saline, Texas; J. H. Smith, Los
Angeles, Calif; Arland Smith, 209 Grey Street, Apartment 3, Houston, Texas;
Miss Mary Jane Smith, 1816 Louisiana Street, Houston, Texas; A. B. Smith,
Fort Worth; Earl Smith, Fort Worth, Aaron Smith of Arkansas, and Mrs. R. E.
Byrd, Route One, Allen. Mrs. R. E. Byrd is the mother of one daughter by a
previous marriage. The daughter is now Mrs. C. B. Cotier and living at
Humble, Texas. She is a regular reader of the Weekly Democrat-Gazette. Mr.
Byrd’s children by his first wife are: Ray Byrd, Wink, Texas; Clifford Byrd,
Clayton, New Mexico; Mrs. G. J. Neal, Depancle, New Mexico; Mrs. G. D.
Houmer, and Miss Medwin Byrd, both of Princeton. Mr. Byrd’s children by his
second wife are Doris Ethel, Senior the past year in the McKinney High
School; Cletus, Louise, and Nelva Jean. Their daughter, Miss Doris Ethel, is
reporter now for the Wetsel community for the Weekly Democrat-Gazette and
Daily Courier-Gazette. We are sure that she will get valuable training in
her capacity as newspaper reporter for her community and will have the
cordial cooperation of her many friends in her efforts to gather and report
all of the Wetsel community’s happenings from week to week.
Communities
Index
- Recommended citation:
"Wetsel- Collin
County Communities," Collin County, Texas History and Genealogy Webpage
by Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries, Inc., <http://www.geocities/genfriendsghl>
[Accessed Fri February 13 13:37:28 US/Central 2004 ].
