by Robert G. Cowser  (originally published on February 10, 2008 on texasescapes.com)

Beginning in the early 1930s, annual memorial services are held at the Old Saltillo Methodist Church in Hopkins County. Until the early ‘60s the program was scheduled for the third Thursday of July. By that time the cotton crops had been “laid by.” It was a time of waiting through the Dog Days of summer until the cotton bolls began to open. Since 1960, the services are held on the second Sunday in July.

In the ‘40s and ‘50s prior to the day of the service a member of the Cemetery Committee contacted citizens of the community to inform them of the day set aside for hoeing the weeds in the cemetery. Before 1950 the cemetery was kept free of grass. One year in the late 1940s each worker was paid for hoeing. The money came from donations and from the profits of the concession stand that operated on the day of the picnic.
The service memorializing those who had been buried in the cemetery the year before was and still is conducted at 11 A.M. The speakers were usually ministers who had formerly served as pastors for the Saltillo circuit. During the ‘40s and ‘50s many men and some teenagers did not attend the services, though they were on the grounds. The teenagers who did not attend sat in cars parked in the shade of the numerous oak trees or strolled through the cemetery reading the quaint inscriptions on the tombstones.
For two or three decades in the middle of the century Tom Briley’s quartet often sang two or three “special numbers.” Virginia Grace Briley, Tom’s wife, accompanied the group on the piano and sang the alto part; Tom sang bass. Gospel songs like “Just a Rose Will Do” and “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” were popular. After the noon meal several gathered in the un-air-conditioned church to sing hymns.
Early each morning on the day of the Memorial service two or three men took their shotguns to the woods to hunt for squirrels. After they shot the squirrels, the men cleaned them. North of the church building they built a fire under a large pot already containing water. Into the pot they put the squirrel carcasses, stewed tomatoes, canned corn, potatoes, salt and pepper. By noon time the stew was ready to be eaten.

The women of the community prepared a variety of food for the noon meal. The food was spread on wooden tables under the oak trees behind the church. Certain items appeared year after year: fried chicken, field peas boiled with okra and a slab of pork, corn bread, mashed potatoes with a half of a boiled egg in the center of the dish, deviled eggs, boiled ham, canned beans with mayonnaise for a sauce, fried okra, stewed beets, cucumber pickles, peach halves pickled in sugar and cloves. The desserts were numerous: chess pie, chocolate pie, pineapple cake, German chocolate cake, butterscotch pie, banana pudding, blackberry cobbler.

In order to raise money for the upkeep of the cemetery at Old Saltillo, men of the community sold concessions during the noon hour and all through the afternoon. They sold soft drinks, cooled in tubs of ice; candy bars; and even ice cream from canisters stacked in wash tubs filled with ice. In the afternoon children stood near the concession stand, located under the oak trees north of the church building, hoping that a generous adult would ply them with sodas and ice cream. After all, the money went for a good cause, even if a kid who drank his fill of soda and ate several candy bars had no appetite that evening for supper.