Margaret Antonio Moore

Margaret Antonio Moore — known to everyone as Maggie — was born on July 14, 1864, in Winn Parish, Louisiana, near Vicksburg, Mississippi. She was the daughter of John Calhoun Moore (born 1836 in North Carolina, died 1871 in Calvert, Texas) and Ruth Jane Lindsey Moore (born 1834 in Georgia, died 1906 in Walker County). Being the only girl in her family, with five brothers, she took over the household management at the age of twelve during her mother’s illness.¹³

Marriage

On December 15, 1880, Maggie married William James Morris (“Billy”) at Maysfield, Texas. The Baptist minister E. J. Glazner performed the ceremony.¹

Migration to Walker County

In December 1887, Billy, Maggie, and their small children set out from Milam County for Walker County, accompanied by Billy’s brothers Pat and Lum. The men took turns driving wagons loaded with livestock, camping each night along the way. The trip took three weeks. They settled at the McAdams Community, where Billy farmed.¹

Children

Maggie and Billy had eleven children: John, Jim, Will, Irma, Hattie, Grady, Sally, George, Lloyd, E. (Ebb), and Bernice. Jim became the barber of Huntsville and married Ethel Arrine Thompson in 1906.¹

Widowhood and Later Life

Billy died in 1927. Maggie had moved with him and their younger children to Brownwood in 1920. After his death she returned to Huntsville in her later years, where she lived with her daughter Mrs. Ewell Loudermilk.¹

In 1961, a family reunion of ninety-one people was held at the J. H. Rose Ranch, north of Huntsville. Six of her eight living children attended: John Morris, Mrs. R. V. Archer, Mrs. William Robinson (all of Huntsville), Ebb Morris of Hearne, George Morris of Richards, and Mrs. Bernice Loudermilk of Brownwood. Grady Morris of Brownwood and Lloyd Morris of San Angelo were unable to attend. She had twenty-one grandchildren, twenty-five great-grandchildren, and four great-great-grandchildren.⁴

On July 14, 1962, the Huntsville Item ran a feature: “Mrs. Margaret Morris Still Spry at 98.” The bright, blue-eyed Mrs. Morris remembered taking the family washing down to the creek in a wash-pot and hanging the clothes on the bushes to dry. She recalled hearing her parents talk of Lincoln’s assassination. She was “extremely talented at piecing quilts” — completing nearly twenty since the previous September — and still did her piecing without glasses or visual aid. She had knitted socks for soldiers in both World Wars. She walked with only a slight limp from an old leg injury and remembered when the horse or carriage was “used for very long distances” — each Sunday meant a three-mile walk to church.³

Maggie died on Monday, June 10, 1963, at 4:30 a.m. at Huntsville Memorial Hospital, at the age of ninety-eight. The funeral was held at the Huntsville Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. Roy Felder, the Rev. Robert Owens, and the Rev. Joe Barnes officiating. Graveside rites were held at Greenleaf Cemetery, Brownwood, with the Rev. Henry Causey officiating. She was survived by five sons, three daughters, twenty-two grandchildren, thirty great-grandchildren, and nine great-great-grandchildren.²