taken from the book “Dickens County—It's Land and People”
Copyright 1986, page 297-298
Carney's mother, Minnie Norris Roberts, was born in Erath County, Texas, June 24, 1891, died 1968. Carney's father, Linnard Roberts, born 1899, near Little Rock, Arkansas, but soon moved to Lisbon, Texas, where his father died and is buried. Linnard's mother then married Joe Jackson; they moved to Erath County, Texas where Linnard (Papa) grew up, met and married Minnie Norris August 26, 1906. They had 8 children, 3 deceased (Eubert, Darlene, and Carney, born June 23, 1914, Erath, County), 5 surviving (Wyade, Delton, Travis Dale, Tracy, and Norlene, identical twin to Darlene).
August 1924, papa rented the Erath farm to his brother-in-law, loaded their belongings into a covered wagon and came to Dickens County where several relatives lived. They pulled cotton for Ma's cousin, George Apperson. Near Christmas, they moved to the Louis Poteet place near Lawson McWilliams's home, McAdoo.
My mother, Mamie Pollard, was born in Woodruff, County, Arkansas, January 16, 1890, to Etta Gibson and Charles Benjamin Pollard. Her mother was born in Kentucky, her father near Gadsen, Alabama. Both parents' families had moved to Arkansas after the Civil War because of unrest in their home states. Mama's mother and father married in Woodruff County, had three children, but Bob and Ruth died as children and her daddy died when she was 5. My father Victor Stephenson, was born in Woodruff County, too, son of Margaret Cariaker and Samuel Charles Stephenson. The Stephensons had come from North Hampton County, North Carolina after the Civil War, too, because of unrest in North Carolina. Mama and Dad, reared in the same community of Revels, married November 10, 1904, at Augusta, Arkansas. They had 10 children—5 deceased (Mildred, Sam, Gilbert, Howard, and Ruth), 5 living (Helen, Annie T., Robert, Louis, Vance, Rosalyn).
Carney and I met the day my family arrived at McAdoo, January 23, 1925. We left Arkansas because Mother was ill. Dad's brother, Walter Stephenson, helped Dad get land to work and a house at McAdoo. Mother and we children came by train to Roaring Springs. At Paducah, an elderly lady boarded who proved to be a friend indeed. She was grandma McWilliams, mother of Lawson McWilliams, McAdoo. When we arrived at Roaring Springs, no one was there to meet us because cold and snow had interrupted mail service. But Grandma McWilliams arrqanged transportation with the mail carrier. Imagine, the mailman, 4 days' delayed mail, Mama, 5 children, Granny, and everybody's luggage piled into one vehicle! But the mailman, delivering mail, soon stopped on top of the caprock at a mailbox where two boys, ages, 10 and 5, waited. Granny introduced us to Carney and Wyade Roberts. We went to school with Carney that term, then they moved.
Seven years passed before I saw Carney again. At a home dance where my cousin, Nathan Stephenson, was fiddling, playing “I'll Tune Up My Fiddle,” I walked across the floor with another cousin who whispered, “That is Carney Roberts.” I realized I was face to face with my future husband! I said, “He is my man, if I ever get him.” Two years later we were married in Berry Street Baptist Church, Forth Worth, Texas. We had two children, Carney Willard born July 13, 1935; Sidney Carol born July 24, 1936.
In 1940 the federal government helped Carney and me buy a farm. We moved to our new East Afton home March 9, 1941. Like others we had our good times and our bad times. We soon paid for the farm. That was some of the good times. Some of the bad are: my dad died 1941; our son Willard in 1949; Ma Roberts, 1968; then Mama, 1969; Howard, January 27, 1975; six days later Sam was gone. In three years, Gilbert died; next hes wife Jerry. February 4, 1980, Sidney Carol and I lost our beloved father and husband.
Sidney Carol's daughter, Shell, had graduated from Texas University and married her high school classmate, David Redman. When Carney passed away, they had a nine-month old daughter, Tiffany Christa. Shell and David soon moved to Lubbock from lake Charles, Louisiana. They now have a four-year old son, Logan David. Tiffany is a first-grader. The children are such a pleasure to us.
In closing I want to thank my Lord and Savior that he gave us the good times and carried us through the bad times.
Annie T. Stephenson Roberts