Glennie Elizabeth Harrington Narrative
tale is in first person form

Glennie Elizabeth Harrington Shortly after his discharge from Company B of Murphy's Battalion of the Third Alabama Calvary Regiment in 1865, my father, Young Jeptha Harrington, married Mary Malica Oliver in Tallassee, Elmore County, Alabama. I was their second child, born on September 4, 1871. I was almost seven years old in 1878 when my father joined a wagon train of relatives and friends on a migration to Smith County, Texas. They settled near the Mt. Sylvan community in far northwest Smith County. When I was eighteen, I met Robert Edward Raney who was living with his aunt, Louisa Ann Raney Houser, who was one of our neighbors. We were married on January 8, 1890 by Reverend James W. Kelly. Robert and I rented a sharecropper farm and our son, Ezra Preston Raney, was born on August 2, 1890. Robert was unhappy with our marriage and he left when our son was about one year old and I never heard from him again. With no means of support, I had to move in with my parents. In 1894, my father moved his family across the Sabine River and settled near Yantis, Wood County, Texas. I soon met C. A. Murphey and we were married on May 3, 1895. I discovered that he already had a wife so the marriage was annulled. I then met Charles Thomas Hall, whose wife had died and left him with four children; Jesse R. age 12, Annie age 11, Daniel Boone age 9 and Charles W. Hall age 3. We were married on June 5, 1898 and Julia Blanche Hall was born on February 28, 1901. My husband, died on June 20, 1901 at age 42, leaving me a widow in my 29th year with six children to support. We buried my husband in the Sharp Cemetery south of Yantis, Texas near my mother, Mary Malicia Oliver Harrington, who died the previous year on March 6, 1900. I moved in with my father to help him on his farm in order to feed my children. I soon met a widowed school teacher, James Henry Downing, age 66. We were married in 1902 and moved to Cumby, Hopkins County, Texas. Henry Young Downing was born on August 19, 1903. My husband, James Henry Downing, died four months later on December 27, 1903. We buried my husband in the Pleasant Grove Cemetery near Cumby in Hopkins County. I was left a widow again with seven children to support so I moved in with my father who was living alone after the death of my mother. One of our neighbors, Jefferson Davis Woolley, lost his wife, Mary Francis Gibbons Woolley, on February 17, 1905 and he was left with three children to support. We were married on July 24, 1906 and we now had a combined family of ten children. Our family was reduced to only eight children at home when Ezra Preston Raney, age 16, married his new step sister, Emma Davis Woolley, age 16 on July 26, 1907. In the next seven years we added four more children to our family; Lewis Clayton, Mattie Lou, Minor Edwin (who died young) and Lewin Albert Woolley. My father, Young Jeptha Harrington, homesteaded 320 acres of government land near Monument, Lea County, New Mexico in 1913. His letters described the good farming land and encouraged us to join him in New Mexico and homestead 320 acres. My husband and my son, Ezra Preston Raney, decided to move to New Mexico. In the summer of 1916, they sold their crops and bought supplies for the trip by wagon train to Monument, Lea County, New Mexico. My husband, Jefferson Davis Woolley, had four wagons driven by himself, his son Oliver, his stepson Henry Young Downing and Lon Tallent, a friend who traveled with the group. Ezra Preston Raney had one wagon for his wife and four children. Counting all of our children, there were 15 people on the five wagon convoy to New Mexico. We stopped at China Grove, Scurry Co, Texas to rest and visit with my step children, Dan Hall, Annie Hall, and her husband, Lindsay Shoemaker, who owned a large farm near China Grove. When we arrived at Monument, we joined my father on his homestead. He only had a small cabin on his homestead so we lived in tents on his homestead for 18 months. We applied for our own homestead and tried to farm the arid land in Lea County. There was very little rain that year so we barely made enough from our crops to get by. We lived on our vegetable garden and jackrabbits and sage hens that the boys killed with a 22 rifle. The only work we could find was hauling freight so we purchased burro's to pull our wagons and made enough money hauling freight to feed our families. My father died in 1917 and my son Ezra Preston Raney decided to abandon his homestead and return to County. In 1918 we moved to China Grove, Scurry County and share cropped a farm near the my step children, Dan Hall and Anna Hall Shoemaker. Ezra Preston Raney's wife, Emma Davis, died in the great 1918 flu epidemic and he was left with four young children to care for. He moved to Mitchell County to join us and I took care of his four children along with my six children while he worked with my husband on the farm. The cotton crop was good in 1919 and cotton was selling for 48 cents per pound. In 1920, we rented a sharecropper farm in Loraine, Mitchell County, Texas but the price of cotton dropped rapidly. We tried to salvage our crop by shipping the cotton on a freight car to the cotton sale at Galveston. The cotton sold for six cents per pound which was not enough to pay the freight cost and the total crop was a loss and we were all flat broke again. Ezra Preston Raney married Rachel Clara Bigham, a widow with one child, and moved his family back to Wood County. We moved to Blackwater Township near Clovis in Curry County, New Mexico where there was more rain and better farm land. About 1932, we moved to Cedardale, Woodward County, Oklahoma. I developed chronic interstitial nephritis or kidney failure and died at age 66 on November 13, 1937 and was buried in the Moreland Cemetery. My husband erected a headstone on my grave that can be viewed by searching for Glennie Elizabeth Woolley on www.findagrave.com. Special Thanks to Don Raney, Author of this Narrative