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My husband and I just got back from Texas where we finally found the Vaden cemetery. Last October we went looking for it and found what we thought was the ranch which my great great grandparents homesteaded in 1848. It turns out however, that the ranch we found was Frank Vaden's ranch - he was my great grandfather's brother and the father of Tennie Vaden.
With some directions from Hampton Roach including a 1908 survey map and the name of a street, we wandered around just west of Sherman until we found Shady Oaks Lane. We drove up and down this street which is only about a mile long, looking for an old extinct cemetery. We finally saw a woman washing her car just north of the intersection of Shady Oaks Ln and Shady Oaks Circle. I got out of the van and she walked up and said, "Are you looking for the cemetery?" She then told us that the little subdivision there was the old pauper farm which we knew was where the James Harding Ranch had been. It was about six houses, all relatively new subdivision type houses with a dried up tank (pond everywhere but Texas) in the center. She pointed up a road and we had to walk about 1/4 mile and there it was. The photos which Hampton sent me some time ago show verses what we say this week shows that time, vandelism and a severe drought have taken their toll on the place. There were the graves of three babies, two of whom were siblings of my grandmother and the graves of my great great grandparents, James Harding Vaden and Elizabeth R. Vaden. Also, close but separate, was the grave of Willis Vaden - colored. He was born the year before my great great grandfather and I'm guessing he was his half brother, born and died a slave. The Vaden graves were in the center of about four acreas of fenced ground and along the edges were about 20 other much more recent graves which we believe were 20th cent pauper graves from when the place was the poor farm. Hard hard land, dry as dust. The song comes to mind -
Hard Times
------Johnny Cash
Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears
Oh, hard times, come again no more.
'Tis the song, the sign of the weary
Hard times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered all around my cabin door
Oh hard times, come again no more.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay
There are frail forms fainting at the door
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh, hard times, come again no more.
'Tis the song, the sign of the weary
Hard times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered all around my cabin door
Oh hard times, come again no more.
There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away
With a worn heart, whose better days are o'er
Though her voice it would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day
Oh, hard times, come again no more.
'Tis the song, the sign of the weary
Hard times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered all around my cabin door
Oh hard times, come again no more.
'Tis the song, the sign of the weary
Hard times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered all around my cabin door
Oh hard times, come again no more.
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