Her father was Jack Southworth.

George Washington married Mary Emma at Plano, Texas on October 22, 1876. He then took his new bride to Elm Grove and asked, "Will this spot would be O. K. for a house?" Mary Emma said, "If it suits you, it suits me," and dropped a black walnut into a deep crack. That black walnut grew into a giant tree that still stands today.

George and Mary lived in a tent for three years while their house was being built. Their first child, Cora Mae was born in this tent on September 29, 1877. George and Mary had fifteen children total. Five died as infants. Their deaths were a result of whooping cough, "summers complaint" (dysentariae), and other childhood diseases. There were no doctors in this area in those days and what medicine had been invented wasn't available out on the plains of this new frontier.

Pleasant Valley was the only near by cemetery in those days, so all five children were buried there. George Washington and Lewis Henry Wells took a wagon to Terrell so that tombstones could be ordered. The trip took one day to get there and one day to return. While in Terrell, George Washington traded several guineas and some chickens for the markers.

George Washington and Mary Forster's dinner bell had a large dinner bell. It was for the chief meal of the day and the noonday meal was always the chief meal for friends and family members that were working in the fields.

Dinner bells were so significant that they were always listed on the census report during the late 1800's. This bell was cast in 1886 on a number three yoke and erected about 1887. The bell still sets on the original bois d' arc post.

"You could hear that bell over the country side. Grandma Forster always had a big pan of biscuits that she'd made in that ole wood stove. She sure knew how to cook." Hubert Forster Raney.http://www.dallaspioneer.org/stories/pioneers.php?ID=60