While living near Bear Creek Methodist Church, on a farm that bordered Bear Creek on the north bank (in other years the family lived further up the creek valley) Papa got into trouble with some other boys, one of them being John Raines, old Doctor Raines of Malesus', brother. He was threatening other teenagers with a pistol he had, and Papa used a knife on him. One older comrade at Bear Creek commented to me one day that Ulrich was ``quite good with a knife.'' Papa was sent to the home of his Aunt Nona Daniel Rodgers (Mrs. Dudley Rodgers) in Red River County, near Clarksville, Texas. He spent sixteen months there at farm labor with the Rodgers and neighbors before returning to Madison County, Tennessee. In the meantime the ruckus smoothed over and all was quiet. John Raines, who had been badly cut up and they thought might die, healed well and no charges were pressed. The year of the Texas trip, Papa's second as he had gone earlier with his family, was in 1903 when he was eighteen years of age.
In later years Doctor James Tidwell Raines of Malesus was our family physician and no hard feelings prevailed due to the youthful incident.
As Papa passed eighty-five years of age he often said that he had ``outlived all of his enemies and most of his friends.'' He literally didn't have an enemy in the world.
-- Recalled by U.A.W., April 2, 1973
Ulrich A. Watlington took his bride to Dyersburg where he lived until spring then moved to a farm south of Dyersburg to make a cotton crop. Two friends, Forrest (Shack) Wilson and Howard Pacaud, joined him at harvest time. He then moved across the Mississippi River to help gather the corn crops. Settling near Caruthersville he made a crop of cotton and corn. While living here his sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Will Stephens, drove out in a covered wagon and brought his father for a visit. The river bottom was filled with mosquitoes and malaria was rampant, so late in the fall he sold out to come back to Tennessee.
It was in selling his cow and two hogs that he got his Hamilton watch that became a prized possession through the years. The following year he lived and worked at the West Tennessee Experiment Station.
His son Paul had his watch repaired for him in his declining years and Papa wanted him to have it at his death. He had used it most of the time over a period of 72 years.
In the midst of the depression years of the 1930's, the health of Ulrich A. Watlington broke on him. He became sick in the Fall or Winter of 1934-35 and could not regain his strength as Spring came. We faced a crop year with a sick father and an aged grandfather. Land had been contracted for cultivation at Will Greer's and also Dick Davy's. ``The boys'' had to plant the crop and see it through. Clara Mai was teaching school at Adee schoolhouse; Mack was in the Civilian Conservation Corps at Jackson, Kenneth was in college but had to stay home and plant cotton this year, and Sam and Herman were left to do plowing. Herman was in high school but school had to give way to farm duties at times.
I remember that Papa was able to do some of the planning and directing. As he was able he would saddle and ride his horse ``Dick'' to oversee the scattered operation. At times it seemed that he was holding on to the pommel of the saddle. We were afraid that he had tuberculosis, but whatever it was it knocked him out of a planting season and most of the crop year. Fortunately he regained his strength by Fall of the year.
Years later as chest X-rays were more common, scars showed up that indicated severe past lung problems, possibly from tuberculosis or pneumonia. Though Ulrich was slight of build with a tendency to be thin and wirey, he seldom missed a day of work from illness. Perhaps this is why his extended illness was so notable in 1935.