# Hattie Holt (1879-1967) ## Early Life in Tennessee (1879–1898) Hattie Elizabeth Holt was born on 6 August 1879 in Medina, Gibson County, Tennessee. She was the daughter of Ezekiel Hutson Holt and Louranie Adkins Heath. In the 1880 census she appears in her parents’ household in Gibson County, listed as a young daughter, firmly rooted in a rural southern family environment shaped by farming and close kinship ties. Hattie’s childhood was brief and unsettled by loss. Her father died in 1880, when she was still an infant, leaving her mother to raise her during years that likely demanded resilience and early maturity. These formative experiences helped shape the strength that later defined her adult life. ## Marriage and the Start of a Large Family (1898–1900) On 2 January 1898, Hattie married George Redmon Pate in Wooster, Faulkner County, Arkansas. She was just eighteen years old. The young couple established their household in Arkansas, and by 1900 they were living in Union City, Faulkner County. This period marked the beginning of what would become a very large family. Over the next several decades, Hattie gave birth to eleven children: Hazel Leona, Redmon Roma, an infant who died young, Henry French, Charles “Z” Ezekiel, Ray Andrew, Montine Adeline, Rupert Harlan, Francis, Annie Josephine, and Georgie Lou Pate. ## Raising a Farm Family Across the Southwest (1900–1930) Hattie’s adult life was defined by near-constant childbearing, household labor, and geographic mobility. Census records place the family in Union City, Arkansas, in both 1900 and 1910, where the children were born in steady succession. By 1920, the Pate family had moved west to Otis, Eddy County, New Mexico, joining a broader migration of farm families seeking opportunity in the Southwest. They later settled in Lake Arthur, Chaves County, New Mexico, where they remained through at least 1940. These years reflect the reality of frontier family life: large households, agricultural work, and endurance through economic hardship. Family recollections describe Hattie as the matriarch of a true farm family—practical, steady, and deeply accustomed to the demands of raising many children under challenging conditions. ## Widowhood and Independence in Artesia (1940–1965) Sometime before 1950, Hattie was widowed. In that year’s census she appears in Artesia, Eddy County, New Mexico, listed as the head of household and widowed. This detail is telling: despite her age and the loss of her husband, she maintained independence and authority within her family. She lived in Artesia for approximately twenty-two years, becoming part of the local Methodist community. Her faith remained a constant, and she was an active member of the Methodist Church throughout her later life. Family memories from this period emphasize her strong personality. She was remembered as someone who enjoyed watching wrestling on television and as a woman fully aware of the size and reach of her family. One relative summarized her plainly and accurately: she “produced a lot of offspring” and ran a big family. ## Final Years in Texas and Death (1965–1967) In 1965, Hattie moved from Artesia to Odessa, Texas, where she lived with family members during her final years. Her health declined after a long illness, and she died on 17 June 1967 at the age of 87 in Medical Center Hospital in Odessa. Her funeral services were held at the First Methodist Church of Artesia, reflecting the deep ties she maintained there despite her move to Texas. She was buried in Woodbine Cemetery in Artesia, returning her to the community that had been central to her later life. ## Legacy Hattie Elizabeth Holt Pate lived a long life marked by endurance, mobility, and family. Born in post-Reconstruction Tennessee, she crossed Arkansas and New Mexico during the height of American westward agricultural settlement and ended her life in Texas surrounded by descendants. Her legacy is measured not in public records or titles, but in the generations she raised and the family memory that still recalls her plainly, vividly, and without embellishment—as a strong woman, a mother of many, and the unquestioned center of a sprawling family.