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Note: ily farm near Ladonia, Texas called So Tales, memories of the late 1890s and early 1900s. He built a home on Hwy. 34 for his wife and son on the Cox land inherited from A. B. Cox. After his son and wife died, he gave the title to his nephew, Eli Robert Cox, and lived there with that family for many years, before moving in with his sister, Lola and her husband Joe in his last years. He was known as Granddad to the Cox children.
Written by Maggie Cox, Jan. 2008: John Allen McFarland, whom I call Grandaddy, loved my great aunt, Verne Cox, since they were little kids. His mom said that the only thing he loved any where nearly as much as Verne was cabbage, which he called her until he could say Verne.
Grandaddy always wanted to be a doctor, like Dr. Eli Cox, Verne's father. Because of that, he was given the name Doc in childhood. His McFarland nieces and nephews still call him Uncle Doc.
After high school in Ladonia, Grandaddy went off to U.T., where he pledged Delta Tau Delta. One night, the fraternity actives decided to brand the pledges. Grandaddy, being a strong tough farm boy, was branded first. Grandaddy fainted from what he said was the worst pain he ever felt.. After branding just the one pledge, the actives got scared and didn't do it to the other pledges. Grandaddy said the brand stayed on his stomach for at least thirty years.
When World War II began, most young men Grandaddy's age were sent to fight. But, because the country needed farm products, Grandaddy was sent home to work on the farms after only one year of college. He was never able to return to school and become a doctor.
Verne married a man from Dallas and moved there. Grandaddy got busy helping run the extensive McFarland farms and figured he would never marr
When Verne's sister-in-law died, leaving three kids, Verne wanted to take two of the children to raise. Her husband wouldn't agree to take the kids. So, Verne divorced him, moved back to Ladonia, and married Grandaddy who was thrilled to finally get the woman he had always loved - and two children to boot! Only the middle child, A.B., stayed in San Angelo with his father, a pharmacist. The oldest, a girl named Edna Verne, and a new baby, Eli Robert (my dad), stayed in Ladonia.
The youngest child was called Tincy because when his mother died right after child birth, she handed him to her sister-in-law, Verne, and said, "Please take care of my Tincy baby." Even though the baby, Dr. Eli Robert Cox, grew to be 6 feet 8 inches tall, he was still called Tincy or Tince by every one in Ladonia.
When Tince finished East Texas State, he wanted to go to medical school. His Uncle Doc, who had raised him, paid his tuition to Baylor Medical School.
Doc and Verne had one son of their own, John Allen McFarland. Johnny and his two cousins, Robert (Tincy) and Edna Verne, were raised as siblings.
Johnny was very handsome and athletic. He played football with Doak Walker at SMU. In one football game, Johnny was hit in the head and became unconscious for days. Johnny became a lawyer, but for years after that football injury, there would be periods of time when he was in almost a catatonic state - mute, staring and barely moving. My father always believed that Johnny felt one of those spells coming on when he ended his own life.
Grandaddy was, of course, devastated at the loss of his son. (His wife had died of a heart attack years before that.) In his grief, Grandaddy was living at the farm in Ladonia in a very sad state. My dad, Robert Cox, brought him to our house in Dallas to live with us. That's when my great uncle by marriage became my Grandaddy.
The Cox kids, Mollie, Maggie, Bobby and Will, couldn't have been given a greater gift than to have such a wonderful man live with them.
Grandaddy loved good food. He was a huge fan or our wonderful cook, Bessie May. When he was eating something especially good that Bessie had cooked, we would begin to hear a tap tap sound under the table. We'd all look at Grandaddy and he'd laugh saying, "It just tastes so good I can't keep my foot still."
Grandaddy and Bessie often worked on the crossword puzzles in the Dallas Morning News as a team. One year, the paper had a contest. Each day, the first person to get a correctly worked puzzle to the paper won $100. They never won, but they surely tried hard.
Grandaddy was a big sports fan. He told me that he wasn't at all surprised that African Americans had just about taken over sports. "I use to watch those big black men working on our farms and realized that they were physically superior to whites. They were, as a whole, bigger, stronger and had more endurance."
In his later years, Grandaddy was pretty hard of hearing. He told me that he couldn't hear anything on TV, but that it didn't matter. "I can see the baseball games with my eyes. I don't need to hear those sports announcers telling me what I can already see. Anyway, there isn't anything else worth seeing on TV anymore anyway - except sports."
When Grandaddy lived with my family, he once gave us a color TV (one of the first) for Christmas. My dad was pretty surprised, because Grandaddy wasn't much for spending money. Every Sunday night, my whole family would watch Bonanza , Grandaddy's favorite show when he could still hear, together on that TV. The Cartwright men were a lot like Grandaddy: honest, hardworking, loyal, good guys.
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Note: Mary Helen Haines writes: All of us remember "Uncle Doc" as the sweetest, funniest uncle (brother of grandmother Lola.) He wrote a wonder compilation of memories of his childhood growing up on the fam
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