The Writer's Cabin

The Writer's Cabin. . Eustace Maurice Hutchens was born in 1893 near Bartlett, Texas and attended school through the sixth grade at Indian Creek School. As with most families during the early twentieth century, who relied on farming to support themselves and feed the family, the children were expected to help in the fields during planting and harvesting times. He worked as hard helping his father with his black-land farm as he did to excel in school. Eustace's education extended well beyond the small school and the farm. His family home contained a rare library with over one hundred volumes of choice English and American classics, as well as Greek and Roman history and mythology. He loved and retained everything he read., After high school in Haskell, Grandview, and finally Thomas Arnold High School in Salado, Eustace studied for a career in journalism at the University of Texas in Austin and was looking forward to a career as a writer. Early in 1917 he volunteered for military service in World War I. During active duty in France and Alsace-Lorraine, he suffered serious injury that hospitalized him for forty-eight days in a coma in France. , Before leaving for the War he married Ruby May Vickery on New Year's Eve, 1917. They had a daughter, Helen Maurice Hutchens, born October 19, 1918, and a son, Richard Vickery Hutchens, born March 18, 1924. In 1921 the Hutchens built a "Sears and Roebuck Catalogue House" at 301 North Main Street in Salado, which is still in use today. Ruby played the piano at First Baptist Church in Salado and taught piano lessons to supplement their income. Eustace raised vegetables and chickens and sold eggs in the field next to their house, where he built a small cabin to vend his products., The residents of Salado cherished the friendliness, warm hospitality and music of the Hutchens home and Eustace loved to visit with everybody. His "interviewer's instincts" led to dozens of informal conversations with Bell County old-timers. "One question could get a feller talking about 'back then' for an hour or more," and a day or a week later his fertile memory could quote every word in their tales and would chronicle them. All of his works are marked by exciting and graphic vocabulary., Soon, the small cabin was transformed into an office where he could enjoy his passion for writing. A fireplace, desk, rug, cot and electricity were added. Interesting features of the cabin are the ice box built into an exterior wall, the cubby hole for eating utensils and leaving notes, and the lightening rod. The fireplace is made from local rocks; look for the flint and crystals imbedded in it., The cabin was moved in pieces from its original location to the Salado Historical Society grounds in 2015 and in 2017 family members gathered to rebuild the cabin in memory of their grandfather and uncle. The cabin was dedicated on June 9, 2018.