Thursday, November 11, 1999
‘White Man’ doggedly put roots
down in area cemetery
By Bill Whitaker
Plenty of words and wind were expended about the long-gone
community of Shields the other afternoon, but in the end I think
Richard Dillingham summed it up best.
When someone asked the 83-year-old caretaker of the community
cemetery if anyone famous ever came out of Shields, he smiled,
then shook his head.
“There’s nobody famous out here,” he said. “We’re
all just common folks. There’s no one here who ever did anything
outstanding.”
At least, nothing that ever got into the history books.
In fact, to hear some on hand for Saturday’s dedication
of a historical marker recognizing Shields, the town never amounted
to much more than keeping people from interbreeding. One early-day
settler came to the community 17 miles south of Coleman because
“all the people around his former home were kinfolk and he
didn’t want to breed a generation of idiots.”
If that weren’t strange enough, the tiny farming and ranching
community got off on the wrong foot by getting its very name wrong.
It was originally named for L.L. Shield, who built a general store
and opened up a post office in the community. But when it came
time to name the place, folks got to calling it “Shields,”
adding an extra “s” to the mix.
Which, years later, still rankled one of Mr. Shield’s
descendants who lived in the nearby Coleman County town of Trickham.
“She was a Shield and it really upset her,” Richard
told me. “She’d get so mad sometimes she’d get
someone to come over here and mark that extra ‘s’ off
all the signs.”
Aunt dipped snuff
That said, Shields — or what little remains of it —
drew about 60 folks from as far away as Hobbs, N.M., and Leesville,
La., just to show their respects and dig up some memories. Admittedly,
there wasn’t much more to go on. What was once a town is
little more than a cemetery.
And Richard acknowledged he was having trouble finding anyone
to succeed him as cemetery caretaker.
“This is the only thing holding all these people together,”
he remarked after the ceremony. “The school is gone, the
church is gone, the stores are gone and, unfortunately, nobody
will have the cemetery.”
The dedication brought out a wide variety of folks, some pretty
dignified-looking, others displaying little pretense or formality.
For instance, shortly after a longer-than-usual prayer and a rather
sober recounting of Shields’ 99-year history, 78-year-old
Vernon “Cowboy” Jones of Hobbs, N.M., decided he’d
had enough.
Owing to his deafness as well as his impatience with long-winded
speeches, he went and sat in a pickup truck for the duration.
Only afterward did he venture out to rejoin his kin in milling
about the cemetery, sorting out history on his own peculiar terms.
Seldom have I seen so many memories stirred up at a cemetery,
some of the liveliest ones courtesy of “Cowboy.” When
several of his better-dressed kinfolk were paying their respects
at the grave of old maid “Aunt Matt” Jones, the rugged
rancher who grew up in this stretch plunged right in and offered
his own two cents.
“You know, she was an old snuff-dipper,” the rangy
rancher remarked as he and Joel Collins, Eugene Suggs and Billy
Jones looked down at Aunt Matt’s tombstone, dated 1848-1933.
“I used to cut her a snuff stick. I’ve even chewed a
few of ’em for her. Got it all ready to go!”
Dogging his heels
Cowboy then glanced over at the grave of his grandfather, A.L.
Jones, Aunt Matt’s brother, who in 1924 “dropped a 30-30
and killed himself on a hunting spree.” Actually, Cowboy
remembers far better A.L.’s dog “White Man” which,
after the funeral, showed up at the cemetery, dug himself a spot
on top of A.L.’s grave and made himself at home with his
master.
That’s regarded as a true-blue dog in West Texas.
“Now, that’s definitely a true story,” Cowboy
told his kinfolks. “And any man that denies it, I’ll
whoop him on the courthouse square, and I’ll give you 10
days to draw a crowd. You know, an old dog can’t talk, but
they’re pretty intelligent other than that.”
Although Shields had a population of 125 just before World
War II broke out, it suffered the fate of so many towns in this
part of West Texas. After the war, the young folks moved away,
the older folks began dying out, the town went into decline and
now Shields is little more than a state of mind.
For the record, nobody seems in a hurry to change the name
of Shields Cemetery to reflect the man it honors. But then, L.L.
Shield didn’t exactly help things. After all that, he went
off and got himself buried in nearby Santa Anna’s cemetery.
Bill Whitaker, who noticed one child running about the cemetery,
affectionately stroking the lambs atop tombstones, can be reached
at 676-6732 or whitakerb@abinews.com.
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Copyright ©1999, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews
/ E.W. Scripps. Publications
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