Saving texts using Froyo on ATT Pantech Crossover

[MsTessie]

If my pathetic post brings you laughter, I'm OK with that. Feel free to mock me, but be nice.
I'm upgrading to an iPhone SE 2020 after learning that my 3G ATT Prepaid Pantech Crossover will no longer be supported in the near future.

I can generate a .vcf file with contacts.
I can't save my texts. They don't have to transfer to the iPhone, but I'd like some kind of record of them.

Phone won't let me upgrade the OS beyond Android 2.2.1 (Froyo).
I can't access Market on the phone to load the SMS Backup App (this phone is so old that Google Play must not have existed when I got it).

I got as far as creating a new gmail account and connecting that to the Marketplace, but when I click on the "Marketplace" icon, the Pantech Crossover just gets hung up "loading."
1) Any suggestions?
2) Can I send the texts to my new gmail account?
3) In playing around with text threads, I see an option to "Move to Sim" but when I select that nothing seems to happen.
4) It looks like I could load some ATT Mobile App on the iPhone SE, but I've never used that before and don't know if it will help me back up the text messages.

Thanks for any help folks can throw my way!
Stay safe and sane!

 

[Unforgiven]

There was an app I used back in the day, SMS Backup+ but alas that is 2.3+, so no Froyo support. You can probably search f-droid or apkmirror since you can't access Market/Play. Those are both legitimate and trustworthy alternate apps repositories.

 

[MsTessie]

There was an app I used back in the day, SMS Backup+ but alas that is 2.3+, so no Froyo support. You can probably search f-droid or apkmirror since you can't access Market/Play. Those are both legitimate and trustworthy alternate apps repositories.

Thanks, Unforgiven! I did stumble upon APK apps, but hesitated to fool around loading them on the phone, as I've honestly never loaded any app on the darn thing. I'll revisit that solution.

Last night, connecting a new gmail account to the phone (in the hopes of sending the text messages to gmail) seemed to trigger some odd phone behavior: I would see the sim card be completely full even though I hadn't loaded anything onto it. So, I brilliantly thought maybe I could delete some text threads and photos to free up some space. I've never deleted a text before either, and in the course of experimenting with that, for a few horrible hours, I thought I had deleted all my texts because they all disappeared. After reaching that rock bottom, believing that that texts were entirely trashed and rationalizing that maybe this was the universe's way of solving my text-transfer problem and maybe I should get on with my life, THE TEXTS REAPPEARED! I was relieved and elated and oddly annoyed. And so it goes.

If I manage to figure this out, I'll share for any other Pantech Crossover dinosaurs out there!