Remarkable Lampasans
Lifelong Lampasas resident shares childhood memories
By Bobbye Alexander Behlau
Special Correspondent

Edell Wade is seated at an organ that has been in the family for 100 years.

Edell Wade is my remarkable Lampasan this month. Her son and his wife have been in the news lately since Johnny and Amanda Wade opened their Mesquite Creek party house and bought Lampasas Hardware but Edell, as the matriarch of the family, is not as well known.

I am fortunate to have known her since 1938, when she, her husband, one daughter and her parents moved across the road from my family's ranch and just up the creek from where my Alexander ancestors settled in the 1850s.

I want to give the rest of you a chance to know her, too.

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Recently, I drove out past Mesquite Creek on CR 207 to interview Mrs. Edell Wade. We sat in the house where she or her parents have lived since 1938. In the yard was a fawn which she, John and Amanda are raising as a pet. It was so gentle I could get close enough to take a photo.

Shown is the house where Mrs. Wade or her parents have lived for 70 years. In the foreground is the family's pet deer.

Edell and I sat at a dining room table that had been brought by her parents when they first moved in that house. The cupboard they used for their dishes was nearby, too. And in the next room was an organ Edell played as a child.

Her parents, the Sylvesters, moved from Teck, a small community 29 miles north of Austin, in 1938 when they were forced to sell their property to make way for Mansfield Dam. They bought the Mesquite Creek place from the Berry family.

Old-timers will remember Ellis and Cora Berry and their daughters, Rexa and Modena, who grew up there and rode horses the seven miles to school in Lampasas.

Edell and her husband, Otto, settled there with her parents and daughter Charlene, who later married my cousin H.A. Davis and now lives near Belton. Six other children were born: James Edwin of Buda; Emma Jean, now living in Georgia; Carol Sue, in Bastrop; Nancy Joy of Lampasas; Weldon Morris in Oklahoma; and Johnny, who recently moved to Lampasas after nearly 20 years in California and is remodeling a house near his mother's.

Bobbye Alexander Behlau

Back to Edell's youth. She went as far in school as she could; Teck schools ended with 10th grade. In the intervening years before her marriage, she worked around the home as daughters did in those days. She married Otto Wade at 21 and began her long career as a homemaker.

During the Great Depression, homemaking often included helping the husband with farm and ranch work because he often worked for other neighbors to eke out a living.

After Edell got in from a full day's work outdoors, she still had duties such as cooking and cleaning to perform. On weekends she sometimes had time for sewing, gardening and canning. One season she canned 100 quarts of green beans. She always made the kids' clothes, she said.

She remembers that she wanted her children to be involved in after-school activities. One December night, she transported them to the old gym on Western Street so they could participate in a Christmas program.

During the program, heavy rain began to fall. When they started for home, they found they couldn't cross Mesquite Creek and had to spend the night with Oscar and Lila Jackson, who lived in the Joseph Alexander house.

Edell recalls that one daughter loved school so much that the next morning she insisted on getting on the school bus and going to school in the clothes she had slept in all night. Ever since then the Wades have said, "I'll come if the creek don't rise."

Actually, they could say "I'll come if the creeks don't rise," because there are TWO creeks they have to cross to get to Lampasas.

Edell said when they first moved to Mesquite Creek, there was no electricity. They used kerosene lamps but had to go to bed early because kerosene was expensive.

When electricity came, it was wired into their home. Each room had a wire hanging down from the ceiling with a light bulb attached which could be lit by pulling a short gold chain.

She remembers the excitement of buying her first Maytag washing machine from George Gartman and having it installed by Olin Dellis.

She said her parents were such good people that they would ride a horse for miles to sit with a sick neighbor. She tried to emulate their goodness as a parent and made an effort to get the children to church every Sunday. It took quite an effort, though, as she had to rise before five o'clock to make a big breakfast, then put dinner in the oven and supervise the children as they dressed, but they still made it to Sunday School by ten o'clock. I assured her that, as I remembered, the Wade family always looked scrubbed and well dressed when they entered the Church of Christ on Sunday mornings.

Edell said she is glad that before Otto died in 1996, they had a more relaxed life and got to travel. Once they went to see daughter Emma Jean in Washington State and even drove into Canada. She thought the flowers there were extra beautiful and the apples ex- tra juicy.

She also visited Johnny several times in California. Once, she and her sister went on a cruise with Johnny and Amanda, and visited parts of Mexico.

When Otto died, she was left with the responsibility of caring for their cattle and land. The children helped when they were available. She can remember one night, though, when she hated to bother anyone, even her neighbor Don Alexander (my brother), and she birthed a calf by herself. She is relieved now that John and Amanda are able to help her.

If Edell has one regret about her life, it's that she didn't have more time to pursue indoor tasks such as cooking, sewing and playing with her children. The child-rearing years seemed to go by too fast, and they didn't have much time to have fun as a family.

Mrs. Wade thinks families have it better now because they have time to enjoy their children and participate in their education. She wishes they would turn off the TV, though. Children seem to have lost their innocence, being exposed constantly to information that she didn't acquire until she was an adult.

Edell doesn't want anyone to think she didn't have her pleasures, though. She is proud of her children and still enjoys walking her land, sitting on her front porch and watching the cattle.

As I drove away, I thought what a remarkable life 93-year-old Mrs. Wade has led, there on her hilltop surrounded by the rolling land, the creeks and the animals -- both wild and domestic -- and enjoying the companionship of her children.

Bobbye Alexander Behlau was born in Lampasas and graduated from LHS in 1946. After living in San Antonio for 50 years where she was an elementary school principal, she and her husband, Joe, have retired in Lampasas.

Mrs. Behlau is a descendent of the Alexanders and the Davises who settled here in the 1800s. She can be contacted at 556-4076 or at bbehlau@earthcomm..com