Hala enjoying retirement years on old family homeplace

Posted 9/14/16

An inconspicuous county road sign marks the route to the home of an octogenarian who is happily living on his family property outside Mineola. Leo Hala, a retired airline mechanic and former member …

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Hala enjoying retirement years on old family homeplace

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An inconspicuous county road sign marks the route to the home of an octogenarian who is happily living on his family property outside Mineola. Leo Hala, a retired airline mechanic and former member of the Baptist Missionary Association builders, is the descendant of immigrants who made Wood County their home over 100 years ago.

Hala owns over 200 acres west of Mineola that is bounded on the east by the Sabine River and spans across Highway 80 to “old Highway 80” on the north. Down the half oil sand, half dirt county road a sign declares “Rabbit Run Road” and his house on the property is a short distance from the railroad tracks. This land is part of an original 400 plus acres that his grandfather, Antonin Hala purchased in 1912, five years after he immigrated to the United States from Czechoslovakia. The previous owner was Percy McGeorge.

When his grandfather passed away, the land went to his grandmother, Anna, but when she died, she left no will and the land was divided. Part went to his father and part to his aunt. Leo inherited land from his father and later bought additional acres that had been sold off the original tract.

His blue eyes light up and he smiles about buying the additional property after he retired from Southwest and American Airlines. In addition to working for the airlines as a mechanic, he was a carpenter and traveled many places with a BMA men’s group to build churches. “But that was when I was young.” They constructed buildings in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, he said, and “I forgot where all.” The group even worked on his church, New Hope Baptist, constructing the family life building.

The BMA work was “interesting,” he said. “We met a lot of people.” The churches for whom they built structures would provide them their noon meals as the BMA builders lived in their travel trailers for two weeks.

But the Halas’ home base, which was in Terrell, changed one day after he retired when he and his wife Annette were making a trip to Tyler to visit a former pastor. He told his wife he wanted to drive past his old family home and that is when he saw the property was up for sale. “I said my goodness, let’s check that out,” he said, adding “and I bought it.”

Hala has the warranty deed on the property, a thick document so worn that the once stiff binder is limp like cloth. When the Halas moved there they brought two trees from their Terrell property which they planted. He gestures at one mighty oak, the trunk of which has grown over much of an antennae pole protruding from the base. He had used the pole for its support when he planted it and it was “just a sprig.”

His happiness of being on the family property is tempered with the fact he still misses his wife of 57 years who died about eight years ago. One wonders if she was the one who planted the hydrangeas across the front of the home that are thick as a hedge, or the day lilies that circle a tree not far from their screen porch. He misses her badly but says he still attends church.

There is a wire fence around his front yard area that he put up to keep the hogs out. “It works,” he said, even though he was told it wouldn’t. He leases part of his land by the river to a Tyler man who uses it for hunting. It is a serene, pastoral setting. “I think it’s great to be here,” he said, “to be on the property my grandfather bought many years ago.” The quiet is striking, that is, he says, “Until the train rumbles through.”