Payne Gap Cemetery Directory

Wilma Cleo “Cleo” [Black] Carswell (1917-2009)

Names Detail

First Name

Middle Name

Nick Name/Preferred Name

Maiden Name

Last Name

Birth and Death

Birth Date

Death Date

Age at Death

Cemetery Location and Disposition

Cemetery Location

Disposition Type

Relationships to Others at the Cemetery

• Wife of Aubrey W. “Pat” Carswell (1907-2002)

External Links

• Find A Grave

Notes

From The Four Fs of Moline, Texas, in the essay on the Carswell family by Cleo Carswell:

In 1937, I was employed as primary teacher at Moline. It was my first teaching position. I was nineteen years old. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The first year I boarded with Jewel and Eunice O’Neal and Dewayne, earning $80 a month and paying $20 for board. Then for two years I had one-room apartment with the Mattie O’Neals. It was in Moline that I met Pat Carswell, first seeing him on a Saturday afternoon when everyone came to town. In June of 1940, Pat and I were married.

Since Pat was operating the family farm and living with his mother, the Carswell house was arranged into north and south apartments so that the two families could live in it. I continued teaching for three more years, and as Moline School was then discontinued, I retired for the time.

Farming, ranching, and hog-feeding practices continued at the Carswell place. In the following years improvements were made on the premises and home. Rock barns, metal sheds, chicken houses, and a rock garage were built; rooms were added to the house; and water was piped to the house. It was still a two-family home, the apartments being divided by a breezeway.

Carrie Carswell continued living in this house until she suffered a broken hip in October of 1962. After hospitalization, she spent over a year in care homes at Evant and Goldthwaite, and died of a stroke in December 1968. She is buried in Hines Chapel near Evant, Texas.

Byrd Carswell died in February 1965 at Heritage Home in Goldthwaite, having lived for a time in San Saba and in Lampasas. He was 82 years old. He is buried in Payne Gap Cemetery.

Pat and Cleo Carswell’s children are Judy, born in April 1946, and Patsy, born in November 1950. Growing up in a household with a grandmother afforded them many opportunities for learning and for spoiling that are unique to such households. Each of the girls was carried out in afternoons to help feed the chickens from the time of infancy until they no longer considered it a special thing. Also they always had their choice of menus from the two tables in the house, or a bit of each of them. Their favorite bedtime or naptime special was suggested to Grandma by, “Tell me about the olden days.”

The girls attended school at Star, but were definitely a part of Moline. They loved getting together with friends at Paul Lee’s store or at gatherings at Moline school building or in their various homes. They were close to the families of the Hugh Soules, Haskell Alexander, Doris Pattersons, Floyd Donnelleys, Pat Thurbers, Chock Duncans, J. D. Hunts and Paul Lees, and the grandchildren of the Lees and Clem Adams. Paul Lee can vouch for the community spirit by remembering the times that Patsy and Judy, Robert and Darrell Hunt, Donna and Wanda Soules and others soaped his store windows and stacked his doors on Hallowen, then offered to help him clean it up the next morning. On another Halloween, Patsy said, “I hate to soap Paul’s windows after he helped Daddy pull that cow out of the mud.” But she did, anyway.

For several years Pat rented land for corn-growing from Mr. Patterson. Usually as he worked it he took his lunch with him. But on occasion Judy could persuade her mother to take his lunch over at noon so she could be a part of the “picnic” that delighted her so.

Judy and Patsy finished high school at Star. Each graduated from college. Judy majored in art education at Tarleton and Southwest Texas at San Marcos. Patsy received an associate in nursing from Angelo State University. They have both worked in these vocations.

Judy Carswell married Donald Seward in 1968. They live in Austin, and Donald is manager of a pit barbecue restaurant in North Austin. They have three boys, ages 9 years, 7 years and 9 months.

Patsy Carswell and Larry Blasdell were married in 1969. Larry is the San Angelo representative for Kraft Food Co. Patsy is an R.N. and is O.B. supervisor at Angelo Community Hospital.

Through the years Pat has worked on the farm and ranch, and also worked for many years at Evant Commission Co. and Mills County Commission Co. Cleo taught school at Star from 1958 to 1977. Now we enjoy retirement and work at home.

In 1981 the Carswells will become a 100-year family, with four generations having made their homes and their living from this land pre-empted by Grandpa William T. Carswell. Every year of Pat’s live except his first year has been spent on this place. We are happy to be the representatives of the family on this farm and ranch land, and to still be a part of the Moline Community.

Aubrey W. (Pat) Carswell is the second son of Walter Byrd and Carrie Carrigan Carswell. He was born on the Carswell homestead north of Moline on October 27, 1907. He married Wilma Cleo Black who was born and grew up east of Goldthwaite, Texas in the Live Oak Community.

Pat and Cleo married, after she had taught in the Moline School for three years, on June 23, 1940.

Two daughters were born to this union, Judy Delene (April 10, 1946) and Patsy Jane (Nov. 7, 1950). Judy is Mrs. Denald Seward of Austin and has three sons. Patsy is Mrs. Larry Blasdell of San Angelo.

Obituary, The Goldthwaite Eagle, Wednesday, April 29, 2009, page 5:

Wilma Cleo Carswell, our “Mother-Cleo-Mimi” passed from this life on Friday morning, April 17, 2009 at the home of her daughter, Judy Seward of Goldthwaite. She was 91 years of age. She was born November 23, 1917 at Goldthwaite, Texas to Irk and Minnie (Huckabee) Black. She was the second of five children.

She lived her entire childhood on the family farm off Hwy. 84 E, North of Kemp Lake. She attended Live Oak School, having been allowed to start school at age 4 so her Sister Oma, age 6, would not have to walk alone. When Live Oak School closed its doors, Cleo attended school at Goldthwaite where she graduated at age 16. She enrolled at John Tarleton Agricultural College (now Tarleton State) at Stephenville and was a college graduate at age 18. Her first teaching job was at Kempner. A short time later she took a teaching position at Moline at the school on top of the hill (which is still standing today. She rented one room from the O’Neals who lived at the foot of the hill. Here she resided, did her own cooking and walked to school each day. She was about 20 when she met a handsome 30 year old bachelor who was born and raised at Moline. There was a party at Star and Cleo didn’t have a car so she rode to the party with Eunice O’Neal.

This handsome bachelor gave Eunice a dime to let him take Cleo back home to Moline from the party. Guess it was worth the dime (probably all he could spare) because on June 23, 1940, Cleo and Aubrey W. “Pat” Carswell were wed at a preacher’s home near Comanche. Cleo’s lifelong friend Veona (Flatt) House and her husband Roydston of Goldthwaite were their attendants. After the short, simple wedding, they left for a honeymoon in Arizona in Pat’s Model A. Ford, taking along Cleo’s brother Norman, who had always wanted to go to Arizona.

After six years, along came their first daughter Judy. Then four and onehalf years later the second, Patsy, was born. Cleo quit her teaching job when she started her family and during those years she tended a garden, raised chickens and sewed clothes for the entire family.

She returned to teaching in 1958 at Star School, teaching a total of 24 years. She organized and directed numerous yearly school plays and even designed and constructed elaborate costumes. Cleo loved her students and they loved her.

She was an active member of the Moline and Star communities. She made homemade ice cream for socials and enjoyed summer Sundays at Bennett Creek watching others swim. Cleo was an accomplished seamstress and enjoyed the fellowship of the Star Quilting group when she retired. She was also a member of the Goldthwaite Retired Teachers. She was a member of the Star United Methodist Church for many years where she made lifelong friends.

She was a member of the Goldthwaite Church of Christ, some of whose members provided the beautiful acappella singing for the service.

Services were conducted by Jim Hayes, minister for the Goldthwaite Church of Christ, assisting were special friends Dayton House and Karry Harper and Sam Campbell at the graveside.

Survivors include two daughters and their husbands. Judy and Don Seward of Goldthwaite and Patsy and Larry Blasdell of Ruidoso, New Mexico; four grandsons and families, Chad and Regina, Allison, Quaid and Macy Seward of Goldthwaite, Dane and Kim, Trenton and Trey Seward of Liberty Hill, Ryan and Kristi and Landri Seward of Keller and Shan and Jessica Seward of Cedar Park; a sister Mavis Patterson of Gatesville; sister-in-law Alma Carswell of Granbury and a wonderful, “special” caregiver Agnes Jurek of Moline and many nieces and nephews and former students.

Memorials may be made to Payne Gap Cemetery Fund c/o Dale Duncan, 1511 FM 572 E., Goldthwaite, Texas 76844 or Goldthwaite Retired Teacher’s Scholarship Fund, Sandy Sanders, PO Box 38, Mullin, Tx 76864

Patsy Blasdale repainted lettering and cleaned Pat and Cleo’s monument around October 27, 2025

Images and Documents