My dad must have had the Texas fever, for it was Texas or Bust. So one morning in early May, 1899, the family - 10 of us - loaded into our two wagons, called the dog and headed for the Paine farm near DeLeon, Texas.

   I was only 3 1/2 years old when we travelled to Texas by wagon, but I remember many incidents along the way. One morning, my mother threatened to throw me into the river for wetting my bed. I peeped over the wagon board and, sure enough, the wagon was travelling alongside a small river.

   There is an old saying,  "Bitter as well as the sweet come to us as we travel along life's pathway,"  and I believe it, for death visited the family and claimed my little brother, who died with malarial fever in Paris, Texas. He was buried there.

   My father went to Texas with the intention of buying a farm and settling there, but the climate didn't suit him. He told my mother that crops would be too uncertain there and that we were going back to Arkansas. And go, we did. We arrived at Wes Stimson's home late one evening in early September.

   Well, action began instantly. The sow came at them with her big mouth open, ready to battle. Wes Stimson threw his gun down and skinned up a sapling, but my dad stood his ground with his gun poked forward, which the sow grabbed, chewing on it. Surely my dad was under providential care, for the old sow quit wrestling with the gun muzzle and went chasing off after her pigs.

   Many things have happened to the family since then. In the course of time, Father and Mother died, fulfilling their mission on earth. And one-by-one, others of the family have passed away so that I, alone, of the J.E. Cunningham family, remain - just waiting for the sumon to come up hither. So death is sure and one generation follows another.

contributed by: W.R. Cunningham

The family homestead of W.R. Cunningham                         Photo courtesy: W.R. Cunningham