(Continued from Previous Page) In 1901, about 2 years later, her mother Gustine married again, to a Mr. Jacob Henry Smith, known to many as Daddy Jake. He built them a house on 3rd Street. He was the only father she knew, but at first, she didn’t like him at all. She was used to sleeping with her mother, and when this guy married her mom, she got the boot. She said she was very mean to him at first, even making him cry, but soon learned to love him and regret her actions. 

        Laura went to school in McGregor graduating in 1912. She then attended 2 years at Baylor and became a “school marm” at the Wasp Creek one room school house which stood on the old Crawford Highway about half way between the two Hering afore mentioned homes, probably by Wasp Creek. She was a town girl, and this was out in the country, and too far for a young single girl to ride a horse and carriage to and from each day, so she took a room somewhere near, but took supper at the Hering’s place. This is where she met Albert. 

       There was a creek between her school and her mother’s home in town, and she talked about one time how the horse slipped when crossing the creek and was in trouble and about to bolt. She didn’t know what to do and out of nowhere, a man appeared, took the horse by the reins, and calmed him. Then he told Laura it was OK to go on. She never knew where he came from. Albert would like to visit Laura on the weekends, and so after farming, he would take a team of horses and a carriage into town, which his family complained about because they thought the horses needed to rest. It was also known the Albert’s family wanted him to marry a farm girl, not a city girl like Laura. He would need someone who was used to farm life. But Laura adored the farm life and was always good at it.

Albert and Laura were married on a Tuesday evening in December at the house where she grew up and spent their honeymoon, 10 days, there as man and wife. Charles and Louisa were ready to retire to town and they allowed Albert and Laura to live in the farmhouse and farm the land. There was just one caveat, the youngest sibling, Charlie, just 16, still lived in the farmhouse, and Albert and Laura had to take him on too. According to family legend, he was a spoiled brat. After a year, Laura asked if Charlie could live somewhere else, and Louisa said, “If you don’t want Charlie, you can just move!”, which they did. 

Bill was born in 1918 in a house on what is today New Windsor Parkway. In 1921 they moved out west to Plainview, as they had heard from an old friend who was there, Ben Quabe from Welcome, that it was very good farming out there and a lot of nice folk. Bob was born in 1923 at the Barrett place and Lee was born in 1925 at the Minor place. They had five crop failures out of eight years, but the first crop of wheat was so fantastic, it paid for the farm, and the last year it was great. Albert sold half the wheat, and stored the other half as wheat was at an all time high. When the market crashed, and he told the grainery owner to sell when the storage charge equalled the value of the grain. He got nothing for that half. But they were ready to move back to McGregor, and they had enough to do that. So they held an auction, sold their things, and Albert opened up McGregor’s first drive through gasoline station.

A summary of where they lived: 

Albert was born in Welcome, TX, in 1894 and moved to McGregor in 1896 to a place 2 miles north of town on the old Crawford highway (where Bob had his shop) and his parents built a new house 6 miles north of town on the old Crawford highway in 1901 and they moved there when Albert was 6. He grew up there. Laura refers to it as the old Hering homeplace. 

Laura was born in 1895 in a house next door to her grandmother Hayes on 2nd St., McGregor where Warren and Gustine Hall lived, 709 W 2nd St. They moved to San Antonio for Warren’s business (advertising). He had tuberculosis which got bad enough they decided to move west to Junction, TX. He died there in 1899 when Laura was 4. Gustine and Laura and her mother moved back to McGregor and moved in with Grandmother Hayes (Frank and Augustine Hayes, 4th husband, aka Mickey and Money) on 2nd St. Then, In 1901, Gustine married Jacob Smith who built a house at 715 W 3rd St, and he, Gustine and Laura moved there. Laura grew up there and married in that house. Albert and Laura had their 10 day honeymoon there while Jacob and Gustine went elsewhere. 

When Albert and Laura married, they moved there for their first year, but then moved to a place on New Windsor Parkway where Bill was born but were there only a short time. They moved to a place owned by Jacob Smith sw of town where the ordinance plant is now. Then they bought a house in town on 6th St. when Albert converted the livery stable to a drive in filling station. In 1921, they  moved to Plainview, TX to the Barrett Place in Lockney Co where Bob was born, and by 1925 had moved to the Minor Place in Hale Co where Lee was born. In 1929, they moved back to McGregor, and moved into the house at 715 W 3rd St where Albert and Laura had gotten married. By this time, Laura’s parents had moved into the hotel next to the theater and had kept the house as rental property. They lived there 3 years until 1932 when they built the house on Harrison that Bob and Jeannine later lived in. They lived there 8 years until 1940 when they moved to the farm on the sw edge of town where the bomb loading plant is. They had to move that house in 1942 when the plant was built, and they moved it to it’s current 2020 location on Sunny Hill where the old Crawford highway splits off from the Lone Star highway north of town. They lived there the rest of their lives.