Cows Come Home To Collin County

“Go with me where the famous winter wheat stands hip high and promises a luxurious harvest of the finest biscuit flour on earth; where meadows of native grass recall the vast ranges of yesteryear; where they buried the scrub boar years ago purchased sires are standard equipment on every stock farm; where garlic enough to flavor the breath of Mussolini’s minions grows almost accidentally; and where 3,500 of her 6,300 farms have steam pressure canning equipment.” Collin County, Texas was probably not the first place you thought of after reading the glowing description above but that paragraph, even with reference to Mussolini, was pulled straight from the August 1931 issue of the Farm and Ranch newspaper. 

 I came upon the yellowed newspaper in a corner of the Allen Antique Mall that has occupied the former Beals Department Store for many years. I was searching for an old Sad Sack comic book for a different Flipside column when I found the farming newspaper for twenty times its original price of five cents. For $1.50 I could have signed up for a 3-year subscription in 1931. 

 Farm and Ranch was apparently published in Dallas but this issue focused on the rapidly changing farms to the north in Collin County. “Stately country homes of a Victorian vintage, embowered by lovingly planted trees, recall the spacious life of those aggressive entrepreneurs who plowed the prairie to raise homes while herds roamed to multiply and fatten with little care.” 

 I believe Kohls and Krogers now embower the above mentioned prairie while suburbanites cruise the restaurant row to fatten with little care. The feature story called “The Cows Are Coming Home To Collin County,” takes great pains to describe Collin County “yesterday and today.” “This is perhaps the richest soil county in the state wrote Governor J.W. Throckmorton in 1867.” 

According to Farm and Ranch, Throckmorton’s family came to Collin County “before the Secession” in 1841. Western Collin County (Frisco) was a vast unfenced pasture until after the war (Civil War), says the author. “Today these flats are yielding 15 to as high as 35 bushels of wheat per acre. The author, T.C. Richardson, moves on to describe the housing boom in McKinney. “Now the modern bungalow elbows the old fashioned farm home, hard highways penetrate every section of the county so that farmers roll smoothly and wagons remain unbogged on the streets of McKinney.” A modernized version might read: “now the McMansions elbow out the ranch houses of the eighties and six-lane streets penetrate every section of the county so that residents roll smoothly across town and remain unbogged on the Central Expresway. 

 The descriptions of Collin County throughout the four-page story are fascinating and eloquent. Here Richardson looks back on early farming in the county. “Where the cradle sang through the wheat with the sweep of muscular arms and the binders joked as they twisted wisps of straw around the sheaves; the tractor now snorts and the combine cuts, threshes and winnows the grain.” 

 The article about changing Collin County is more than a novelty. It comes across as a reminder that change is a relative term. T.C Richardson says it best in the closing lines of his story. “The highest mark of Americanism is the vision to see both obligation and opportunity; and the nerve to cast aside outworn ways for those which fit a new and different regime. My contacts lead me to believe that Collin County has this kind of leadership and an intelligent fellowship to complete the team.” There is no reason to modernize that paragraph – it could have been written yesterday.

Allen Christmas Parade - December 1970

One blinking light – not even a traffic light; that’s how Allen is often remembered by those who passed through town thirty-seven years ago. There was one subdivision and you knew where you were by the names on mailboxes at the end of long dirt roads. In many ways, Allen was almost unrecognizable from hundreds of other small Texas towns. Downtown was anchored by a feed store at one end of Main Street and a Dairy Queen at the other.

For many, it was a place you passed through. But for Allen’s long time residents, the small town had a special quality about it and they are willing to share that fact with anyone who will listen.

I took the time to listen to those stories recently at the Allen Old Timer’s Reunion. The reunion was open to all residents who lived in Allen before 1980 and as it turned out – there were a lot of people proud to make that claim. Planners for the event anticipated a crowd of several hundred and got double that number to gather at the “new” Allen High School on March 17.

The reunion was actually not a large gathering at all. Instead it was room full of small groups in noisy, perpetual motion – not unlike those atomic diagrams we remember from our science classes. There was the 1959 eight man football reunion and the Class of 1979 hug-fest. There were tales of homecoming floats and hot summer nights at the Dixie Drive In. Then there was the story about the unfortunate horse who died while tethered to the old school but that’s a story for another day.

The highlight of the afternoon for many was a collection of home movies that captured four of Allen’s early Christmas Parades, including the first parade in December 1970. The 8mm movies were shot by the late Don Rodenbaugh , who owned the local appliance store and later served on the Allen City Council. The movies offer a rare look through the proverbial window of time as fifteen cars, three firetrucks, ten floats, one band and no less than 100 horses and riders marched up Main Street. In case you missed it, the parade always circled back and marched back down Main Street for “the folks on the other side of the street” as I was told.

The old timers and some not so old timers were thrilled to see themselves as well as their parents and friends passing by in the parade. It was like opening a time capsule and out popped Pete Ford and Sheriff Burton. It was a slice of Allen before the population boom and it was a reminder of how special Allen was – even with the 1970’s haircuts!

Group Hug For Miss Iva Mae

Is there anyone in Allen, Texas who can speak about our town’s history with more authority than Iva Mae Morrow? I don’t think so. 

Sure, there may be folks who remember Allen when it was a one stoplight town but Miss Iva Mae remembers when there was no stoplight – not even a car in Allen. That’s because the lifelong resident is approaching her 102nd birthday this year. 

 To put this in perspective, Teddy Roosevelt was president and the Cubs won the World Series the year Iva Mae Miller was born on a farm in northwest Allen - 1907. Her father died unexpectedly of typhoid fever when she was 6 years old leaving her mother to raise five girls, four boys and one more girl who would arrive three months later. She attended the new red brick school at Belmont and Cedar Streets which had opened only three years earlier in 1910. 

 “We walked four miles into school each day,” explained Morrow. “If the weather was bad we might ride in the wagon but most times we just walked and walked.” Once again to gain perspective; the intersection of Custer and McDermott Roads is four miles from downtown Allen. She graduated from the same two story school and lived with an older sister and her husband before getting married at 22 to Bemon Morrow. The couple was first introduced at a funeral, she explained. 

“He was one of the pall bearers and when I saw him I said that’s the man for me. We went on a date two weeks later at the Ritz Theater in McKinney. He was a real honey – the nicest man you would ever meet.” “We drove to Oklahoma (Durant) with my sister and her husband and got married,” she continued. “We gave the preacher $5 and bought rings for $5 and that left $5 to live on.” Iva Mae and Bemon moved to a farm in Lucas and lived there for two years. “We came into town every two weeks in his old car. We often had to stop and patch the tires just so we could get home.” They later moved back into Allen where Bemon worked as a butcher at the grocery store in town. The depression hit Allen as hard as any small town but no one seemed to notice, she said. “Everybody was in the same situation – no one had money so we just did what we could.” Life wasn’t much easier during World War II. Bemon kept his job and Iva Mae sold hamburgers for a quarter to the high school kids out of her house at lunchtime. The small business helped her get her first electric refrigerator. The couple raised two children, Doyle and Linda who graduated from Allen. She brought her cooking talents to the Allen School at the age of 51 and worked for 30 more years with Lois Curtis, the food service manager. “There were 125 kids in the school when I started working there,” she said. “Lois and I would arrive early and start peeling potatoes and making rolls.” Every lunch was a home cooked meal as Iva Mae and Lois dished out chicken fried steak, meatloaf, corn bread and fried chicken based on their home recipes. In addition to her school duties, she worked for many years in the nursery at Allen’s First Baptist Church. There wasn’t a child in Allen who didn’t know Iva Mae from church or school. Surprisingly healthy and active for the age of 101, Iva Mae offers no secret to her good health.. “I never drank and never smoked,” she admitted. “I have taken a One A Day vitamin every day so maybe that’s it.” “I’ve lived here all my life and loved every minute it,” she added. “I loved the schools and I loved all the people in this town.” I think Miss Iva Mae Morrow deserves one big group hug from the hundreds; make that thousands; of lives she has touched since the Cubs won that world series back in 1907.

Learning Lessons From Grandma: Flossie Floyd Green

Flossie Floyd-Green never ran for school board or taught in a classroom but that didn’t make her any less worthy when the Allen ISD Board of Trustees named a school in her honor in 1995.

In simplest terms, Flossie was a farmer who overcame many hardships to raise a family and touch the lives of many children in the small town of Allen. There’s more to the story of course.

Flossie Floyd was born in 1886 and raised on a farm in west Allen north of the current Green Elementary School that bears her name. The farm was given to her parents, Robert and Lena, as a wedding present in 1872 by her grandparents who had settled in Collin County shortly after the Civil War.

One of nine children, Flossie attended a one room school house near the current intersection of Custer and Highway 121. She later attended college at what is now called Mary Hardin Baylor in Belton, Texas.

Flossie married John W. Green who was born and raised on a nearby farm where Green Elementary School stands. The couple raised two children, John and Leonard, in Allen and Albuquerque, New Mexico before returning to McKinney. John died unexpectedly in 1932 leaving Flossie to manage the 132 acre family farm at the height of the Depression. Despite the challenges, Flossie maintained the farm and provided a college education for her sons. Both grew to become highly successful businessmen with one becoming executive vice-president for Texaco and the other serving as president of the Dr. Pepper Company.

Church was an important part of the family’s life, according to Flossie’s grandson John Green who, with his wife Georgie, managed a Morgan horse farm on the original Floyd family property for many years. “She rarely missed a service at the First Baptist Church in McKinney and was active in that congregation for over 50 years.” “She loved children and especially enjoyed working with the GA (Girls In Action) group at the McKinney church,” he added.

Years later, Flossie and her lifelong friend Lucy Rasor helped raise funds to rebuild the church from their childhood, the Rowlett Creek Baptist Church. The structure, which is the oldest recorded church in Collin County, still stands near the intersection of Custer Road and Highway 121.

John spent many summers at his grandmother’s farm and remembers her as strict but kind. “I learned more than a few good lessons about telling the truth but it was a wonderful place to visit.”

“My grandmother was a good steward of the land,” said John. “She had many opportunities to sell the property over the years but instead kept it as a working farm. She later saw the changes coming to Allen and hoped that her land would someday be used for a school.”

To that end, her grandson donated land in 1993 and worked with the developers of the new Twin Creeks subdivision to accommodate a new elementary school in her name.

Flossie Floyd-Green passed away in 1976 and Comanche Drive hardly resembles the old dirt farm road but we can be sure that she would be pleased to hear the sounds of children who visit her farm each school day.