Most of the time there was a potluck supper to keep the energy alive.  The playing of "Home Sweet Home" signaled that the dance was coming to a close.  No matter how late folks got to bed, the family was up early the next morning tending to the necessary chores as neither roosters nor cows allowed extra time for sleeping in..

Most homes had a piano and every community had its share of musicians.  Playing an instrument was considered by some a necessary avocation. One such person was my daddy,  Taylor James "T.J." Van  Zandt.  He was raised on an 160 acre farm at Ft. Chadbourne in Coke County, but he lived most of his life at Blackwell and Maryneal in Nolan County. He could play any instrument; however, he did not like the Jew's Harp as it made his mouth sore.  Self-taught like most local musicians, he could not read music yet he had all the music theory in his head.

  
The instrumental "Ft. Chadbourne Blues"  was created in the late 1930's by the Bronte Yellowjackets, a band whose members  wore white pants/shirts with yellow jackets. Daddy played sax and trombone for the group while his brother Jodie played sax..  Daddy was also  a substitute piano player for Milton Brown and the Musical Brownies prior to Brown's death in 1936. .  His style at the piano emulated that of Brown's regular piano player, "Papa" Calhoun, who was a classically trained jazz pianist.  When I hear the riffs of "Papa" Calhoun on Brown's now released CD's, I  immediately think of Daddy.

During the '30's and the '40's he made most of his wages by playing music---but working for the WPA and McDonald's Gin helped put food on the table, too. Later, when he was working for Lone Star Cement plus gauging oil wells and tending the pump jacks, time for playing dances was precious. Yet after he retired, he and his pals from the '30's regrouped for regular jam sessions. They would be playing an old tune and the rest would stop but Daddy would keep on playing the piano.
  "T.J., what's that?"
  "It's the bridge, Jack," all the while not missing a note.
  "Well, hell, I had plumb forgot that..."
Feeling for the forgotten notes,  pretty soon all had reached back into their memory and the instrumental was revived with gusto!

At Blackwell, I remember two outstanding fiddle players:  Bill Green and Harve McPeeters.  When Bill played "breakdowns" like "Eighth of January", the rosin powder left by his bow formed a cloud above the fiddle strings. He was left-handed and thus held the fiddle in his right hand and the bow with his left hand.  It always seemed that he really enjoyed such hard work "playing backwards".  In contrast, Harve had a laid-back, smooth style with his bow---whatever the tempo.  Harve also strung his bows with hair from the tails of his horses. Although rosin did have a whitening effect, his bow strings were always a mixture of gray and black hairs.  With his fiddle, Daddy liked to play  harmony to Harve's lead fiddle.

The invention of the television brought the world of entertainment into the living room. Time once set aside for a country dance diminished as Liberace and Lawrence Welk entered the living room. .  And wall-to-wall carpeting surely  added to the demise of those dances---but the memories still remain..

Tad Richards held a Birthday Party each year.  He had a huge two story barn where he held a BarBQ and had a dance each year.  This was in Coke County, but folks from Nolan County were always in attendance.  Saunders men helped with the BarBQ and T.J. Van Zandt was in charge of furnishing the musicians.

Submitted by:  Glenda Van Zandt Stroud

When Tad Richards built the large new house on his ranch near Bronte, he also  built a huge two story barn.  The upper floor was finished hardwood because he was tired of moving furniture to have a good dance.  This is in  Coke County but people from Blackwell who lived in Nolan County were always in attendance.