Hello, my name is Anne Marie Wells and I am one of this year’s recipients of the Fortenberry Family Reunion scholarship. My grandparents are Neal and Shirley Fortenberry. My mom is their youngest daughter, Cindy. My dad is retired military, so before we came back and settled down in Wise County we moved all over the States. We used to come visit my grandparents in Greenwood all the time. One of my most interesting memories about visiting was when I was about 4 yrs old and it involved a horse and a wild ride.

Grandma and Grandpa used to have this old Pinto horse name Simone. Growing up, my sister, Jodie, and I loved horses. Now, Simone didn’t get ridden very often, but he was a horse that could be ridden, so one time when we were visiting Grandpa and Mom took Jodie and I to go ride Simone. Jodie went first. They saddled up that horse and plopped Jodie up there. Grandpa gave Jodie the reins and then led her and Simone around the pasture while Mom and I waited at the pig barn.

Now it was a bit cold outside—and let’s not forget that Simone was a rather old horse who didn’t get ridden very much—so by the time Grandpa and Jodie had taken a turn around the pasture and it was my turn, he was just about ready to be done. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that. Now it was my turn to be plopped up there and go for a ride. They got me up there, and Grandpa took us out into the pasture.

At this point in the story, I feel rather sorry for my mom and sister, because instead of waiting outside and watching us walk all the way around the pasture, they went inside the pig barn to look at my cousin’s show pigs. I say I feel sorry for them because my sister has this habit of bursting into laughter every time I get hurt (she says it’s because I make funny faces when I’m in pain, but I don’t know about that…  Anyway—I think Jodie really missed a good opportunity to guffaw, because as Grandpa, Simone, and I were turning to head back to the barn it got exciting. Simone being the grumpy, tired, old horse he was saw that we were heading back to the barn and thought: “Hey! We’re almost done! Once we get back to the barn I get to be free of this varmint on my back!” At that moment, Grandpa was walking beside Simone instead of holding onto the reins, because he—like the rest of us—trusted Simone to behave himself and politely walk back to the barn. However, this was not what Simone had in mind—the minute he saw that barn he high-tailed it for the drop-off. Unfortunately, the “drop-off” came early and it turned out to be a literal drop-off. About 1/3 of the way to the barn, I came flying off! (This is where Jodie would have gotten a laugh.) In the blur of the moment, he also stepped on my arm. The Lord must have been taking care of me, because I still don’t know how it didn’t break! I started crying, Grandpa ran up and got me, and Mom and Jodie finally came out to see what was going on.

And that pretty much concludes the story. There were no lasting scars or—miraculously—broken bones. I can’t recall ever riding Simone again, but I’m sure he didn’t miss me either.

Again, I’d really like to thank the Fortenberry Family Reunion for the scholarship. I plan to use it to buy textbooks for college this coming fall.

Samuel York reminds us of the special connection the Fortenberry family has with the land and country living.

Hello, my name is Samuel York, I am the grandson of Neal and Shirley Fortenberry, and one of the recipients of the Fortenberry Family scholarship this year. I’d like to thank you for supporting me in my college experience, and I have been asked to share some of my memories of being a Fortenberry. Now while I’m not too good at recalling specific events, I do remember going out fishing with my granddad when I was a child. We would all pile into his pickup and drive out to one of the ponds on his pasture some ways away and spend a couple of hours catching fish and then return home to eat. My parents were never particularly outdoorsy people, so getting to do this was special for me. Most of my memories of being a Fortenberry were just getting to ride out in the pasture on four-wheelers counting cows, and going out to help harvest the vegetables from my grandparents garden. That is my story, and I hope in the future I will be able to help contribute to future generations stories of the Fortenberrys.

This is from Michael York, one of the recipients of our Fortenberry Scholarship.  These stories and photos are priceless.  If we could all come up with 3 stories and photos, our family history would be incredible!  Michael has given all of us an example to follow

Hi, this is Michael York son of Lee and Nealies York. My mom is the daughter of Neal and Shirley Fortenberry. first of all  I would like to thank you for the scholarship. These 3 pictures are pictures of my child hood. The 1st is actually my brother Samuel in the crib, but there is a funny story behind it. It was the day after Christmas and mom and dad has put Samuel to bed after throwing a temper tantrum. I had ask my parents why Samuel had to take a nap and I didn’t, they said Samuel was upset and needed to rest and for whatever reason I decided that the reason Samuel was upset was he couldn’t play with his Christmas toys. So I took all his toys and dumped them in his crib with him so he could play with them. Samuel, who was very tired, didn’t like this and began to cry. my parents however thought this was both sweet and hilarious, so they took a couple of pictures. I was trying to find a picture that had both me and Samuel in it (me laughing because my parents are and Samuel obviously wailing in indignity) but I couldn’t find it so this will have to do.

The 2nd picture is of me with one of my huge night shirts with a pillow stuffed inside it. when I was young, my night shirts were big enough to be almost like dresses. they were big and warm and covered most my body. one day I had a ingenious idea. first i wondered how much stuff I could fit into my shirt with me. I managed to get anywhere from 3 to 6 pillows to fit inside my shirt with me. Samuel, not to be outdone, stuffed as many pillows into his huge shirts as well. after this I got the idea that we should stuff blankets into the sleeves and start running into each other to see who could knock the other down first. it was a lot of fun.

The last picture was taken at my Grandparent’s house. Grandpa Neal (I just call him Granddad) is a hunter and brings home his kills and cooks the meat then has someone take the skin and form those fake head things you see in the picture. I was very young and granddad had just put in a new deer head in his living room when we came to visit that time. I this will sound crazy but until I was around 7 to 8 I thought that immobile things such as trees, pots and pans, toys and other thins like these were alive and intelligent (I got these ideas from watching movies like toy story, beauty and the beast and snow white. I was young o.k. I liked to believe anything was possible, give me a little credit.) and that these things just pretended otherwise while we were around. I had not seen granddad put up that deer head so when I saw it for the first time I thought that it had moved in on it’s own accord. all the deer heads in granddads house gave me the impression that there eyes were following me until I was older but, with the older deer head this didn’t bug me. they were just part of the family. this new head was not. so I climbed onto the couch (the new deer head was directly above it) and somehow managed to hoist myself up on top of it. as you can tell from the picture once I was up there I was afraid of falling off so I held on tightly. I don’t remember this but suppository when granddad ask me what I was doing up there I said “I got new guy, I got ‘im” this was quite amusing to everyone so a picture was taken.

Sloan Fortenberry who was a son of William M. Fortenberry was born in Arkansas April 12, 1851.  His wife Kathryn (Kate) Georgia Ann Moore was the daughter of Samantha Jane Rankin Moore and James Jefferson Moore and was born in Shelby County, Texas, October 12, 1859.  Her father was a native of Georgia and her mother was born in Tennessee.

Soon after the Civil War, the mother died leaving three daughter: Kate, Nan and Harriet.  Their father kept them together.  They moved to Hill County, Texas, and when Grandmother Kate was ten or eleven their father died.  Their uncle, David Cambell of Whiteboro, came for them and gave them a home until Kate and Nan were married.  Harriet died at sixteen and is buried at Rosston just outside the Fortenberry iron fence.  She was born February 22, 1867, and died February 11, 1883.

When Grandmother Kate was fifteen they moved to Leo in Cooke County just across the Wise county line.  It was there she met a young cowman, Sloan Fortenberry.  In February 1878, when grandmother was past eighteen, they were married, up the creek from Leo among squirrels, whpper-wills and wid turkeys.  Grandfather was twenty six years.  He had come from Arkansas when he was seven years old.

A year or two after their marriage, they acquired 120 acres of land on White’s Creek near the Wise-Denton county line and near the corner of the two counties.  This was added to along until several hundred acres made up their estate.

Four sons were born to them: Ambrose Taylor, William Everett, Aubrey Sloan And Claud Rankin.  There were twenty grandchildren.  Grandfather gave the first child in each family a calf.

Grandfather was thrown from a horse in his middle years and his leg was broken so that it had to be amputated by a doctor at Greenwood.  He recovered, but was never able to use an artificial limb made for him.  Instead, he used a peg leg.  With the hospitals of today, his leg might have been saved.  He died at the age of sixty.

Grandmother, however lived to be 85 years old.  During this time she lived in her own home and traveled some.  She made several trips to Oregon to visit Aunt Fannie and Uncle David Cambell who had made a home for her and her two sisters after the death of their parents.  She died in April 1943.  She and grandfather are both buried at Rosston, Texas, Cooke County.