Grapeland Texas
Queen City Of The Sand Flats
In 1903 Dr. and Mrs. W.D. Mc- Carty moved to Grapeland and bought the Dr. Merriwether house that stood then on the corner of Oak and Chestnut streets. They added a second story to this house which the doctor with his family occupied until his death on January 29, 1925, The McCarty's had six living children: Lucille, Walter, Maude, Clarence, Louise and Hazelle.
Grapeland Texas
McCarty Family
In 1903 Dr. and Mrs. W.D. Mc- Carty
moved to Grapeland and bought the Dr. Merriwether house that
stood then on the corner of Oak and Chestnut streets. They
added a second story to this house which the doctor with his
family occupied until his death on January 29, 1925, The
McCarty's had six living children: Lucille, Walter, Maude,
Clarence, Louise and Hazelle. On March 28, 1890, Miss Sallie
Breazeale, later Mrs. W.D, McCarty, was one of the attendants
at the marriage of W.R. Wherry to Miss Ada Bruton at
theMethodist Church in Porter Springs. In 1895 Miss Sallie was
one of seven maids of honor in the court of Miss Gracie Smith,
sponsor for Crockett Camp #141 of the sons and daughters of
Confederate veterans. Later in Grapeland, Miss Sallie, as she
was called, was a charter member of the Order of the Eastern
Star No. 120; the Woodman Circle; and the First Baptist Church
of Grapeland. She was also a very good cook. During the summer
revivals, she prepared peas, cornbread, onions, ham, fried
chicken, cake, and homemade ice-cream for both the Methodist
and Baptist visiting ministers and the ministers of all the
local churches. The doctor considered opossum, the way Sallie
prepared it, a delicacy. Of course, he fed the opossum a while
before he judged it suitable for the table. Then Miss Sallie
swathed it in red pepper and flanked it with sweet potatoes,
many of which had been "taken in on accounts." Uncle Billie
Brown frequently treated the McCarty’s with gunny sacks of
large sun-kissed Elberta peaches – sweet and juicy. At this
time a well-stocked smoke house was almost a necessity. Behind
the big two storied red house, the McCarty smokehouse always
had hams, backbones, ribs, linked and pan sausages.
At breakfast, Miss Sallie cooked
one pan of sausage for her and the girls and one for the
doctor and Clarence. Owens would label these "mild" and "very
hot." In Porter Springs, before he moved to Grapeland, Dr.
McCarty was elected as one of the agents for the Houston
County Commission to the World's Fair. He was a delegate to
the Houston County Democratic Convention. He served as one of
the managers of the school elections in the Porter Springs
District of Houston County. He was interested in the progress
of public schools, advocating adding mathematics courses to
the curriculum. Dr. McCarty received his degree
from Tulane Universityin New Orleans, La. He enjoyed telling a
tale about his orals. When asked to name the 256 structures of
one of the systems of the body, he practiced a bit of
psychology on the examiner. He rattled the ones he did know in
Walter Winchell fashion. When he stopped to get his breath,
the examiner said "stop! If you know that many that well, I am
satisfied that you know them all." He didn't! Dr. McCarty
owned the first telephone company in Grapeland which he later
sold to Mr. J.S. Cook in Crockett. He was an official
physician for the I.G.N. Railroad Company. He was a 32nd
degree Mason, a Shriner, a Steward in the Methodist Church,
where he sang tenor in the choir. He was one of the
original Myrtle Lake stockholders, a lake located about a mile
and 1/2 east of Grapeland. Anytime he was fishing and was
needed in his office, two long blasts and one short one from
the whistle at Bridges gin located where Bailey Foster Funeral
Home is now, would bring him home from the lake. Many times
before school either Louise or Hazelle went with him to the
lake to row the boat while he caught for the family dinner. As
time passed a custom became a tradition. On August 8 each year
the doctor reserved the lake for his friends, patients and
relatives. Before daylight the men went to the lake to run the
trot lines. At noon the fish were fried right at the edge of
the lake. Shortly after daylight, the children went to the
lake to swim. The ladies went later after they had baked pies
and cakes and fried many chickens. Some arrived in wagons with
cantaloupes, watermelons, tomatoes, and plums. The last order
of the day was gallons of homemade ice-cream. At one time Dr.
McCarty owned a fine - rather wide - team of horses. He made
house calls even in the rural areas. Sometimes he filled the
buggy bed with gum and hard candy and took Louise and Hazelle
with him. (How nice of them to get them our of Miss Sallie's
hair for awhile!) They often waded in a creek while he made
calls near by. The horses and buggy in time were replaced by a
model T Ford, the first one in Grapeland. The doctor's office
was on the south corner of the block in the yard of his home.
There "Papa" Sam Goodson, Mr., Sam Bredges, Mr. Dick
Murchison, the Reverend A.O. Riall and others joined the
doctor for daily domino games. He was a great checker player
also. Many nights his brother Mike came up from Crockett on
the 7:30 P.M. train and the two played checkers until the
train went south at 1 A, M. But they could not discuss
politics, as they disagreed on that subject. Even in these
early days of practicing medicine, Dr. McCarty kept his
opiates under lock and key. After some drugs were stolen from
his office, he hid the next supply in various places in his
home. At his death, Miss Sallie had to go to court to dispose
of them. The doctor was somewhat of an entertainer and a
joker. He enjoyed playing his fiddle, but never in contest
with Mr. Barker Tunstall of Crockett. Once when Miss Sallie
had ladies - Mrs. Bob Pridgen, Mrs. Al Brown, Mrs. George
Darsey, Mrs. Starley Boykin, and others over for a quilting
bee, he came into the room ostensibly to admire their
handiwork; but all of a sudden he surprised the ladies with a
black cat - right in the middle of the quilt! With no air
conditioning, the family often sat - after dinner - on the
office porch with a pitcher of ice water and listened to tales
the doctor could tell by the hour. Now on rare occasions, he
performed very minor surgery. Some of these operations
prompted one of his many doctor tales. Some, true - others,
the family wondered. Like the time he removed a knot full of
sand from the bottom of a youngster's foot. The little boy,
chopping cotton barefooted, had chopped into the ball of his
foot. When he came out from under the anesthetic, he looked up
and asked "Did it hurt?” When she thought it was time to go to
bed, Miss Sallie knew just how to put and end to these tall
tales. She would simply say, "Now you have told that one so
many times you will soon believe it yourself!" That was all
that was necessary. Mrs. McCarty died on August 25, 1959. The
McCarty’s loved their church, their family, and the city
of Grapeland.