My mother, CALLIE (PARKER) GROOM, and her twin brother Mack Parker, were born January 28, 1887 in Somervell County, Texas, next to the last of twelve children born to JAMES TUCKER PARKER and SUSANAH CAROLINE (JOHNSTON) PARKER. They were born in the beautiful white limestone, two-story house which was built by their father and brothers with the help of a stone mason. The house has now been designated as a "Texas Historical and Cultural Monument of the State of Texas".
My mother Callie was fourteen years of age when her father died and her mother managed the big 514 acre ranch and farm and took care of the five children which were still at home. I saw my grandmother Susanah only once and I remember her as a small, gentle, kind woman with beautiful long waving white hair. Of course I never really knew her but my father spoke very highly of her and described her as a most remarkable woman.
I was five years old when my mother Callie died so the only things I remember are highly emotional incidents, not the warm personal things that really do describe the kind of person she was. My father loved her so much and spoke of her as a beautiful personality, loving, and cheerful. He grieved deeply when she died, and for the rest of his life he held her so close to his heart, that he could hardly speak of her. She left four small children, ages one through seven years .
My mother Callie and my dad, Rev. Millage Short Groom, met in Somervell County, Texas, where he was her school teacher. She was sixteen years of age and he was thirty -two. Dad and mother married in Somervell County, Texas, November 19, 1903. They lived several places where he was pastor of Baptist Churches. Dad said that she was always a great help with the Church work and that everyone loved her. She died of Typhoid fever when she was twenty-five years of age. In those days, medical science did not know what caused the disease and of course they did not know how to prevent it or cure it. Mother died October 10, 1912, in Bailey, Fannin County, Texas where dad was pastor of the Baptist Church. She is buried in White Rock Cemetery, near there.
I wish I knew more first hand information about my mother, but in my memory, I see her through the loving eyes of my father who kept her memory alive in his heart and and in ours, for all of his life till he died at one hundred and one years of age.
(For more information about my mother, see THE STORY OF MY LIFE, written by LOMA (GROOM) HARRISON).