Silas Filmore Worley
Silas Filmore Worley was one of the early pioneer highway contractors in the State of Texas. He had a number of tents for both his family and for his crew. The crews would pitch the tents in a selected spot, preferably near fresh water, and move the families & crew to that spot. There were kitchen tents with all the necessary kitchen furnishings and equipment, bedroom tents with trunks which opened up to resemble a chest of drawers and closet. There were drawers on one side and hangers for hanging clothes and a drawer at the bottom for shoes. There were trunks for bedding and towels, trunks for folded clothes and toiletries, etc., and trunks for book and maps, etc. All the stoves and lamps were either kerosene or wood burning, since there was no electricity in most places where they set up camp.
The crews would work on the highway for a certain distance away from the campsite and return for meals and to rest at night. When the highway had been extended for a greater distance than was practical to return to camp often, they simply pack up the camp and moved it further down the projected path of the future highway. There were many varieties of trunks still in the family from this endeavor long after WORLEY changed professions. Not too many useful items were discarded in the early days, as they were very hard to come by and money was tight.
WORLEY later became a minister of the Nazarene Church. He pastored for a time at a church off Evans Ave. in Ft. Worth, Texas. He died in his home in Ft. Worth on Chenault Street. I was 5 1/2 years old and recall peering through his bedroom window and seeing the family place nickels on his eyelids and tearing his feather pillow case off to see if there was a halo pattern formed in the feathers. This was believed to predict that the deceased was to go into Heaven. Mary Parkman believes she still has the halo of feathers stored in her barn. I was terrified by what I witnessed, and ran almost a block away to my home, which was also on Chenault (3608) and still can rememeber vividly the entire scene as if it where yesterday.