Renestine made their little shoes by shaping cloth after their worn ones and sewing them together with pieces of soft cardboard for soles. She made coffee by drying beets, and flour by drying potatoes. Her practical little head was resourceful for any emergency. She felt sad at the separation from her husband, and her large black eyes were mournful but not tearful. To be and doing was her spirit. In spare moments she sat down to her tambourine to do crewel work on a tapestry picture. It was a large subject—The bard Ossian playing his harp to Malvino. Ossian seated on the front of some brown rocks, Malvino seated before him, her hands folded across his knees, full of tender regard for the gentle musician. This work was her pastime and recreation. She selected the worsteds and worked her needle out and in, shading and coloring and outlining with the skill of an artist in paints. Three years she worked on this picture, almost to the end of the war, almost as long as Penelope worked on her task awaiting Ulysses' return.
In the meantime Jaftray paid short visits to his family and made them as comfortable for periods of his absence as he had it in his power to do. Texas was too far away to be the theatre of battles during the conflict, so that no real harassing of the families by the invading Northern soldiers took place, but her people suffered privations and danger just as much as her sister states and perhaps more after the war was over and the reconstruction period set in.
In 1870 the town of Jefferson was thrown into a panic by the murder one night of a "carpet-bagger." Carpet-bagger was a name given to those men who came into Southern towns after the war to stir up the people, and particularly the darkies, against the authorities. It was necessary for Washington to send troops to Jefferson to restore order.
A stockade was built up on the hill near the new home of Jaffray, for he had found his first little house too small for his growing family, and into this stockade some of Jefferson's prominent citizens were thrown and kept until they could prove their innocence of the charges brought against them, namely, that they had knowledge of the murder of the carpet-bagger. Those were trying days. Jaffray had returned from Mexico in impaired health, which had been caused by the impure drinking water in the country and also the intense heat there. The doctors told him he had to take a long rest.
Things were going badly in the town, military law was established and all men found implicated in the disturbance were drastically punished. The war bad reduced the prosperous store holder to penury, there was little money left to circulate among the people and Jefferson was demoralized in its business, civic and social life.
General Buell, commanding the military occupation, asked as a favor to be put up at Jaffray's house, as it was one of the largest in the town and near the camp. Jaffray consented. So General Buell and his wife came to live with Renestine and Jaffray, and afterwards one or two other officers and their wives joined General Buell. This was a courageous thing for Jaffray to have done, for, with the spirit existing in the town at that critical time, not many residents would harbor the Yankees. It was so dangerous that one night, when the General wished to retire to his rooms across the broad hall, he turned to Jaffray and said:
"Jaffray, put out the lamps before I cross over."
Kerosene lamps were in use and Jaffray put out the light before the officer walked from the sitting room across to his own rooms. In politics Jaffray was a Republican and he had the courage to live up to his convictions in a community that was enraged against Lincoln and his party. But the Republicans stood for free men, whatever color or creed, and Jaffray championed their doctrines. For him humanity, justice and liberty was the breath of his nostrils. This passion for men's rights he had inherited from a long line of ancestors reaching back into the mists of "In the beginning." He was an Israelite.
Renestine was glad to accept this change in their lives, as she realized that Jaffray's affairs were not prosperous and with the assistance of her servants she could help him very well, particularly as he was not in robust health. Whatever situation faced her she met it with high courage and a spirit to do. Their devotion was deep and with their little family they were happy and contented. Sorrow had not spared them, however, for their baby daughter bad contracted whooping cough and died a few months before. Jaffray grieved deeply for the little child and Renestine was almost overcome. But she straightened up herb beautiful head, like a flower after the storm has passed, and comforted her husband.