A Time To Remember: Chapter 5

Poppy and Raymond were camped in a tent at Chewey, Oklahoma near Frank's sawmill. They cut logs then snake them down to the mill. They stayed all week and came home Saturday night.

On Wednesday night November 27, 1929 Poppy told Raymond they would get up early the next morning, go cut a few logs, then it being Thanksgiving, they would go home for mother would have a big dinner ready for them.

The next morning Raymond got up, got the fire going real good. He went to the door of the tent, called poppy. He didn't answer. That was unusual for poppy was easy to wake when someone called his name. Raymond called again, still no answer. He walked back to the bed. Poppy had slipped away sometime in the early morning hours. God had his place ready and had called him home.

A preacher and his wife had come to our house to take dinner with us. Cecil had been rabbit hunting and just come home, when we saw Pearl and the deputy sheriff walking up the lane with the sad news.

Mommy met them at the gate, asked, "What is wrong son?” He said, "Poppy is dead."

I thought my world had ended then and there. For I not only lost my loving father but also my best friend.

I remember the last time I saw my daddy alive as though it was yesterday. When he started back to camp on Sunday before, I walked with him to the gate down the lane. He picked me up, gave me a big hug, told me to go back to the house, stay with mother till he got back home.

We put poppy in a homemade walnut casket that is what he always said he wanted. It was lined with white material and covered with black.

He was laid to rest in the Ketcher graveyard near Christie, Oklahoma. It is an Indian graveyard. No one can be buried in it unless they are a special friend to the Indians, which poppy was. He was a special friend to everybody.

It was snowing large flakes. I'll never forget seeing them falling on that black casket.

I missed poppy so much. I'd go down by the little spring branch where he and I used to watch bees. I'd sit for an hour at a time wondering if poppy would miss me as much as I missed him.

Mother missed him too. Many times I've heard her crying when she thought she was alone. They had been married thirty nine years, rearing eight children, going through good times and bad. Mother told me they had some rough times getting by. I didn't see any of them. My life had been wonderful up to that time.

Mother tried to do the things with me that poppy did. But it was never the same. We would go rabbit hunting. Mother dressed our game, put it away in a box behind the house with a layer of meat, layer of salt and a layer of snow and ice. When we wanted some meat, we just scraped the snow and ice away, got what we wanted, covered up the rest till next time. I guess that was our first ice box.

I always loved to hunt. Mother taught me to handle a gun. She was a crack shot with one. She still could shoot perfectly at age eighty.

We moved to Chewey, Oklahoma. in December, around Christmas time.

The boys built us a house out of slabs from Frank's sawmill, just one big room, for Mother and I to sleep in and the kitchen with a side room on the back for Cecil and Raymond to sleep in, that was 1929.

On Christmas morning a lady came to our house with a doll. Said Santa didn't know where I had moved to, so he left it with her to bring to me. I was always told that Santa was only a man dressed up in a bright red suit to hand out presents to children at Christmas time.

That was the coldest winter I have ever seen since. The ice and snow got so bad, the horses couldn't stand up to pull the wagon. Raymond froze his feet so bad when he pulled his socks off, the whole bottom of his feet bled.

After eating most everything mother had canned and the dried fruit she had put up was gone, Cecil wrapped his feet with gunny sacks, walked to Chewey to get some groceries, about three miles. It took him most all day to make the trip. Sometimes he would slip and fall all over the road trying to get up to his feet so he could go a little farther. He could only carry a small sack of flour, a bucket of lard, a gallon of molasses and some coffee. We had a cow so we had milk and butter.

Our bed ticks were filled with corn shucks. Mother ripped them open, fed the shucks to the cow because she couldn't find anything to eat through the ice. That was the taste of my rough living. It never got much better after that.

Leonard and Herbert (my nephews) and I used to play along the creek by the saw mill.

One day we were digging a cave in the side of a bluff, Herbert was digging just above Leonard and I, when he started running down the hill screaming, "They're after me, they're after me." Some men from the mill went to see what was wrong. They saw two big rattle snakes coming down the hill after him. Frank said it was mating time is the reason they chased Herbert like that. I didn't know what he meant by it being mating, but I guess the snakes knew.

I never saw anyone as scared in my life as he was. His eyes were big as dollars. I guess mine would have been if the snakes had been chasing me. You can bet we never finished digging that cave. We tried to stay closer to the house from then on.

We still had fun catching frogs and crawdads in the creek, or just wading in the clear cool water. Oh to be that carefree again. Not a worry to mar a perfect day.

Frank sold the mill and all moved to Seneca, Missouri. They lived there till he passed away in 1951. They had another boy Jim. We never had a chance to play together as Leonard and Herbert and I. He was so much younger than us.

The whole family is gone now, but lovely memories will stay with me as long as I live.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

A Time to Remember: Chapter 4

Sorry that I have not posted any chapters in a few months, I have been in a funky family related mood since February.

I hope you enjoy…..

Jaye

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

CHAPTER IV

We moved to an old house at Chance, Oklahoma near an all Indian community.

An Indian couple lived next to us known as Aunt Nancy and Uncle John. I loved them both. Mother done sewing for Aunt Nancy and helped her do some quilting. Every time we went to see them Aunt Nancy would give me homemade bread and home churned butter. It sure was good. Uncle John taught me some Indian words and what they meant. Of course I have forgotten most of them.

Sometimes when mother made biscuits, she would pat out a thin cake and cook it on the stove cap with homemade jelly. Talk about something good. That was way up on top of my list.

My best friend at that time was an Indian girl by the name of Willow Mae. She taught me about different wild things that were good to eat, like wild peas, wild sweet potatoes, sour balls, may apples and different berries. Also things to leave alone. We always sat together at church, walked to and from school together.

Willow Mae had a cousin walking to school with us. He would hit us, chase us and got to trying to set our dress tails on fire. I would come home crying because he wouldn't let us alone. One day Raymond told me if I didn't take up for myself he would paddle my tail. I knew he meant it by the way he said it. Sure enough the next day that boy was up to his old tricks. I grabbed up a long stick and warped him up side of the head. The blood flew. He picked up a rock, threw it hitting me just above the right eye cutting a hole in my head. We were both bloody when we got home. But he never tried to hurt us girls anymore.

After that he started to take money from rural mailboxes. (Then if people didn't have a stamp we just laid pennies on top of a letter, the mail man put a stamp on it when he got to the post office.) Someone told his father, but he denied doing it. Instead he said Willow Mae and I did it.

One day a man was hid in the brush and saw him take the money out of his box. (I'll call this boy Jonah.) There was no way Jonah could get out of this. Jonah's father put his head between his legs with his rear sticking out. Then he came down with first one hand then the other, with each lick his father said, "Gonna lie, Jonah? Jonah gonna lie again?" I thought he wasn't going to ever stop. I'll bet Jonah thought that too. I think he turned out to be a pretty good boy after that.

One day Willow Mae's aunt wanted to go to the store. She asked us to watch her baby as he was asleep, she didn't want to wake him up.

After she left we thought how funny it would be to tell her the baby had died. When we saw her coming we covered the baby with a sheet. When she came in the door, we said, "Your baby died." She let out a scream, grabbed him up, it scared the day lights out of him. When the excitement died down, our rear ends were red as a beet. We had to stand up for a loooong time to eat. I am so sorry we did a stupid thing like that.

I remember going to Indian pow wows and stomp dances. That was their way of celebrating and services. They were so colorful in their native dress, with different colored feathers and bells on the ankles.

Sometimes they had a big kettle of Ka-nu-chi. I don't know what all went into it. All I know it sure was good. I wish I knew how to make it. I know it had hickory nuts in it.

My parents didn't have much of an education. But I learned a lot from listening to the stories they told. When mother was nine years old, her mother fell and broke her leg. She was laid up for a long time with her leg in a box for a cast. Mother being the oldest girl had to take over the cooking and house work, along with seeing after her four younger sister and brothers. Her older brothers helped with the laundry and heavy chores. There were nine children in all.

My father's father along with his two brothers came to America from Germany in the early 1800's. My uncles stopped off in New Orleans, Louisiana. Grandpa came on to Missouri. There he met and married my grandma. The three boys were called back to Germany to help settle their father's estate. Grandpa had to travel by stagecoach, from town to town, until he could get a boat to cross the ocean. He got as far as Kansas City, Missouri. He was sitting in a saloon waiting for the next stage drinking coffee. When the coach was leaving, someone noticed him still sitting in the corner. When they checked on him, he was already dead. That was in October 1868.

Grandma was in the family way with no way to go where he was. He was buried there some place. Wish I had some way finding out just where he is. That time in the society when a woman was pregnant, she stayed in the back ground.

We don't know what happened from that time on. Don't know if my uncles went on to get their part of the estate or not. Or if they did, they came back to the United States or not.

Poppy was born March 17, 1869. Grandma lived with her parents, raising my father as best she could. I guess she did a pretty good job for he was a wonderful man. As everyone said that knew him.

After mother and poppy married, grandma lived with them till she died, April 1910.

I didn't know her, mother said she was very moody then do things to make everyone miserable. She smoked a long stem clay pipe. One night she got up to light her pipe with a coal from the fireplace. She woke them all up stomping the floor, saying, "Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus." They went to see what was wrong. She had dropped a coal of fire on her foot. It went between her toes. Even though they knew it was hurting, it was funny the way she was doing.

When we lived in Chance, Oklahoma we had to walk to church nearly two miles.

One Saturday I stepped on a nail, sticking it in my heel. Mother poured coal oil on it. But by Sunday morning it was hurting so bad I could hardly walk on my foot.

We had to go to church, nothing could keep us away. I tried to walk on my toes all the way.

After church a man and his wife invited us to go home with them for dinner and stay till church that night. By that time I had red streaks running almost to my knee. I went behind the house to sit in the chimney corner, crying. The other children wanted me to play with them. I just couldn't. They told mother I was crying and wouldn't play with them. She came to see what was wrong.

I had on long cotton stockings so they couldn't see the red streaks. When I told her what was wrong, she had me lay down on the porch, belly down, while they held me down, the man slit my heel open with a razor. I thought he was going to cut my foot off.

When he made the cut, he got his face full of the corruption. Boy, I'm telling you, I felt so much better I wanted to yodel.

They poured coal oil on my foot, put me to bed and I slept all afternoon.

I never went to a doctor in my life before I married, just wish I had all the money in my hand that I have spent on doctors since.

A Time to Remember: Chapter 3

CHAPTER III

We were living in the Arkansas River bottoms near Ft. Smith, Ark. A man dug a big patch of Irish potatoes, after he got all he wanted; he told poppy he could have the rest of the patch. Poppy put a box on the beam of a go-devil. I sat in the box while poppy plowed out the potatoes. The boys picked them up. We had all the potatoes we needed that winter with some to sell. It was so much fun riding on the plow.

Two other families camped on the river bank with us. Poppy and one of the men decided to set trot lines one night. The other man didn't want to go and camp out. The next morning he went down to the river. When poppy and his friend ran their lines, they had a huge cat fish along with some smaller ones. The man stood and watched while poppy and the man worked, taking those fish off the hooks. Then said, "Well, I will only take this one big one, you two can divide the others between you. They will amount to about the same." But that didn't suit anyone except the cheapskate. He didn't stay around very long after that. Guess it got too cold for him.

While we lived there, it came a big flood. People and stock were being moved out of the river bottom. We were taken across on a ferry boat. It was a scary sight. Big logs, small houses with huge rolling muddy eaves. I'll always remember a little dog setting on a mattress coming down the river looking So pitiful, as if to say, "Why don't someone stop this thing and let me off". I wonder if he ever made it to dry land.

We lived at Tulsa when I started to school. I told the teacher, "I have to go home, mommy told me not to stay too long." The teacher asked what my name was. I said, "Sis". She wanted to know my real name. I said, "Sis". You see all my family had always called me Sis.

That was when poppy told me the story of my names. I thought that was the sweetest story I had ever heard.

We lived in so many places. I went to so many different schools. I can't began to name them all. I never went a whole year at anyone school. I count myself lucky that I got as much education as I did. I had to fight for what I did get. One thing I do know, all the schools were country schools, with one teacher, teaching all eight grades.

When the bell rang each morning, the girls lined up on one side of the walk, the boys on the other side. The teacher stood in the doorway, when he or she stepped aside we marched in, the girls first then the boys.

We all stood by our seats till we pledged allegiance to the flag and said a prayer. Then, we sat down and the day began. You know something? I don't believe saying a prayer in school each morning has hurt me one little bit.

The last school I attended was at Mt. Gap near Prairie Grove. The teacher was J. M. Maddox. I finished seventh grade, almost half of the eighth.

While I was going to school there each Friday we would either have a cipher match or a spelling bee. I was a pretty good speller, but I was not worth a darn at ciphering. Spelling and reading were my best subjects. I read anything I could fine with words on it.

Mr. Maddox said he could see how well I loved to read. He and his wife loaned me several books which I really enjoyed.

I think he was the best teacher I ever had. I know he did more to encourage me than all the rest. I have not seen them since I married and moved away from Prairie Grove. I wish them well.

Just before school let out that last spring, I was writing to Cordie Lewis in the CCC camp. I had got a letter from him and was reading it behind my book.

Mr. Maddox said, "Ruby from the smile on your face, I think you should come before the class and read that note." He didn't know it was a letter. I tried to tell him it was a letter from my boy friend. He still wanted to know for sure.

I went up front, read a few lines, Mr. Maddox said, "That is alright. I will lay the letter on my desk, you can pick it up when you go home." That was a long day for me. I was ribbed all day by the rest of the class.

Every kid in school the winter before had the itch. All the parents thought sulfur and lard mixed was good for it. Everyone doped up each morning before going to school. One thing about it, we all smelled the same. No one could point a finger at another one. It was a little bit hard to scratch and write at the same time. Somehow we got through it.

We were living near Johnie at Paris Springs, Missouri; an old lady lived by us that was bedfast. Her daughter was taking care of her. One day she asked Nellie (my niece) and I would sit with her mother while she went next door to a neighbor. She told us just sit, not do anything. Well, as soon as she left the old lady wanted to go potty, we told her she had to wait till her daughter got back. But she couldn't wait, she had to go now. So, we got her up on the thunder mug alright, but when we tried to put her back to bed, we dropped her on the floor. We were about six years old; she was too heavy for us.

That is where her daughter found her mother when she got home. We got a good balling out for not minding. One good thing, nothing was broken from our good deed.

We started to Elmer’s one day; as usual the old car broke down about half way. It was getting late, Cecil said, mother and I had better walk on to the house. He didn't know how long it would take to get it fixed. It was dark by the time we got there. He was a policeman. There had been threats made on his life. He met us at the door with the biggest pistol I ever saw. Those pearl handles sure shined up in the lamp light. I thought he was going to shoot both of us.

Elmer's two older children, Ada and Robert and I were chasing each other around the house. Smarty me, I decided to jump the fence and cut them off. Well, I didn't quite make it. I split my knee open on a nail that was sticking out of a board. Mother poured the hole full of kerosene. Boy did it smart! We were having so much fun before that happened. They seemed more like my brother and sister than Elmer because he was so much older than I am. My niece was even older than me.

Elmer stripped an old car down to the steering wheel and the seat under it for the driver to sit on. He came to our house to get some lumber to make a flat bed on it. Well all of us kids set in on him to take us for a ride on the truck before he fixed it. He said, "Pile on”. He took us to the store about two miles and back. It had come a little shower the night before. I think he tried to hit every mud hole in the road and if there wasn't any he made some. You talk about a dirty and muddy mess. We were the best. We were covered from head to toes, but such fun. Then we all went to the creek swimming to wash it off. Mother told us we couldn't come in the house till we got all that mud off us. Kids will be kids you know. Why do all the good times have to end?

I remember my aunt had a big pear tree in her back yard. My cousin and I would climb up in it to eat pears. Our mothers would call us. We wouldn't answer. When they went back into the house we just climbed down as though we hadn't heard them. We always got a scolding for not answering them when they called.

I had a nephew that stayed with us a lot. He and I got into more trouble than anyone could imagine. If he didn't think of things to get into, I would.

One day my mother and his worked all day putting out a garden, setting out cabbage and onions. When they stopped to come and get supper. We thought they might want some onions. We pulled up a handful, walked in the kitchen so proud of our help toward supper. We soon found out that wasn't what they wanted at all. It sure ruffled their feathers, also, made our butts red. More about troubles later.

A Time to Remember: Chapter 2

Ruby Swatsenbarg (Nanny) with her parents

Chapter II


My mother was a Pentecostal preacher. We never ate a meal before turning thanks. Each night Mother read a chapter from the bible, and then each knelt by the bed to say a prayer before going to bed.

Mother always put a pallet on the floor behind the pulpit. I could play with other children till she got ready to start services, then she would snap her fingers, point to the pallet. I knew it was time for me to lay down and be quite. I did this until I was old enough to sit out front. I was never allowed to run up and down the aisles like the kids do today.

I remember mother holding meetings in old brush arbors with coal oil lanterns hanging all through the arbor.

My mother didn't preach for money. She preached for the souls she might help bring to her Lord and Savior.

I can remember the whole place shaking with the power of God, old time singing.

Every Christian in church got down on their knees to pray. Now days one stands to pray, while some of the congregation is planning what they will do the rest of the day or night. While the rest is trying to figure out which garage sale sister so and so got the dress or hat she was wearing.

After a week or ten days of revival, the whole neighborhood would go down to a clear hole of water, waist deep in the creek for a baptizing of the ones that had given their heart to God. Mother always wore a white dress when she was preaching. I can still see her in her white dress wadding out in the water leading a line behind her all holding hands. While everyone on the bank was singing. She would say a prayer, thanking God for each one he had taken into his fold, and then baptizing each one in the name of the Father, and of the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

What has happened to that kind of preaching now?

The church where mother was pastor for so long at Garret Creek has been moved to the old battlefield at Prairie Grove, Arkansas. Also, the school house where I went to school in the sixth grade. Both have been reconstructed.

My grandfather and uncle both fought on the battlefield there during the Civil War.

I know my mother loved me. But, by being a preacher was always busy. If she wasn't doing her house work, she was reading her bible studying for her next service. I always felt I was in her way. That is why I spent so much time with my father. Although my father never preached, he was a devoted Christian. They truly lived their religion to the end as best they knew how.

One morning a small boy fell out of a wagon. The back wheel ran over him. A group of church members came to our house for all to pray for him. We were getting ready to eat breakfast. Well, everyone dropped to their knees, started to pray. Mother was by the cook stove. I had to kneel by her. She had a platter of fried eggs setting on the back of the stove. I thought if I could just reach up and get an egg, I could eat it while they were praying. No one would know. I reached up not looking what I was doing. Well, the whole platter fell off the stove, splattering eggs all over me and mother's feet. I have never done anything wrong that I didn't get caught.

One night mommy, poppy and I were coming home from church. I was about eight years old. We were crossing a creek on a foot log. They were holding my hands between them. I said, "It would be funny if we fell in". We got to laughing. You guessed it. We fell off the log into the water. We went home looking like drowned rats.

We never ate supper before going to church. Mother said it was hard to sing on a full stomach.

One night we were at Strawberry Springs. It came up a quick thunderstorm. We had to cross Peacheater Creek going home. When we got there, the creek was out of banks. Water was everywhere. We couldn't cross it. We sat all night in the wagon, wet, cold and hungry. The next morning a lady brought some cold biscuits and fat back. I think that was the best meal I ever had.

After the revival was closed, all the neighbors got together and had a community pie supper. That is when the women and girls would bake pie of their choice. It would be auctioned off to the husbands or boy friends of his special girl he was sweet on. Then the couple would eat the pie together. Sometimes they would pick couples to be love sick. The couple that got the most votes got the jar of pickles.

Everyone had a good time. The money was then turned over to mother. That was all she got for holding a revival. Sometimes if someone couldn't attend the pie supper, they would give us vegetables or maybe a chicken or two.

Mother would clean house every spring, and repaper it, wherever we were. If we lived in a house that is, sometimes we lived in a tent. She asked the neighbors to save their newspapers when they finished with them. We had to scrape the old paper off and wash the walls down with lye water, to kill the germs, and then put up new papers.

I learned a lot by reading the news and the advertisements of now. Mother said we were poor but we didn't have to go dirty.

She made our laundry soap from old lard and lye. It was strong but it got you clean. We always had to carry water. I don't know if we ever lived in a place with a well that had enough water to do with. We never had running water unless we fell down and spilled it.

One day I went to the spring for a bucket of water. I scared our pigs. One fell in and drowned. Cecil dressed it. Mother cooked it but I wouldn't eat a bite of it. I blamed myself for it drowning. I guess I was guilty, if I hadn't run down the hill they wouldn't got scared and started running.

Where we lived was free range, everybody’s stock ran loose. Poppy caught a cow with a new calf, so we had plenty of milk and butter. No one cared as long as the cow and calf were cared for, which we did.

My grandmother lived at St. Joseph, Missouri for awhile then she moved to Webb City, Missouri to make her home with one of my uncles. Mother and I would ride the train to visit her. Grandma always said, "I sure am glad to see you. You can sleep with me to keep my back warm.”

One morning we were coming home from grandmas, all at once the train stopped. Two boys were found on the track. The train had run over them, cutting them into pieces, scattering parts along the tracks for several yards. No one ever knew if they just laid down or if they were murdered and the bodies placed there. They were at a curve in the track.

The bodies were tied up in bed sheets, placed in homemade coffins. They were set on two chairs side by side near the graves. While mother was preaching their funerals, blood was dripping from the bottom of the caskets. I remembered that for a long time. It took years before I lost my fear of trains. I would just start screaming every time we had to stop at a train crossing.


One cold and snowy morning, an old man stopped at our neighbors, ask if he could come in and warm. He sat down by the heating stove while the lady went to the kitchen to make him coffee, biscuits and side meat. When she got back to the living room, the old man was dead. She sent her daughter over to get poppy and mommy. They had no way knowing who he was. He had no identification on him or any extra clothes with him.

The neighbors made plans to bury him. Poppy, Cecil and Raymond helped dig the grave. Poppy gave him a pair of overalls and a shirt. Mother preached his service. He was buried in the same Ketcher Cemetery we laid poppy later on.

It is so sad to go out of this world without some folks and friends with you. But he went with some friends even if he didn't know them.

I wonder if he had any children that ever thought of what could have happened to him. I hope they know he was taken care of his last day on earth, also, put away nice and with respect.

A friend and I were walking through the woods one day, when we ran across a block of salt. We thought we had found it. We carried and dragged it together to our house, intending to divide it for our cows.

Well, when we got home, all hell done broke loose. You would have thought we had murdered the president of the United States by the way our mothers carried on.

They made us tote that salt all the way back to the place where we found it. You can bet your boots it was a lot heavier going back than when we first picked it up. The salt wasn't going to do our cows any good either.

A Time to Remember: Chapter 1

So, incase you guys are wondering why my posting has been, at best, pretty spotty lately it is because I have been working on a very special project. It is my great-grandmother autobiography.

I have been pouring over these pages in great detail and finally after a little work I am planning on making myself a book of her story. I love reading the words they mean so much to me. And since this is my blog I thought that I would share with you her story. It is to much for just one blog posting so I will post a little bit at a time.

I call her Nanny.

A Time to Remember

My love for my family is the most important thing in my life. Without them, I'd have no reason to write these words.
* * * * *
I want to dedicate this book to my loving parents. My beautiful daughters all five of them, and most of all my wonderful husband, Cordie, who has put up with me for fifty odd years.

Ruby Swatsenbarg Lewis

CHAPTER I

My parents and three younger brothers were living in a tent, up Flat Rock Hollow at Christi, Oklahoma, when it came time for me to make my appearance into the world. Poppy rode on horseback to get the Midwife of the neighborhood, then on to Westville, Oklahoma to get the Doctor.

It was storming, thunder and lightning, one flash and clap after the other, and pouring down rain.

When they got back to Peach Eater Creek, it was out of banks (you could spit in it and it would overflow.) The Doctor couldn't cross in his buggy, so he went back to town.

As soon as the water went down enough, Poppy swam his horse across and went on home. But I had beat him there.

I was born May 31, 1920 all 4 lbs. and 8 oz. worth to Rozella McGehee and James B. Swatsenbarg.

I was delivered by the Midwife. She never reported my birth in Stillwell, Oklahoma, which is the county seat of Adair County. There isn't a record of my birth anywhere in Oklahoma. So you see I could be called a ghost writer.

I was the eighth child, the only girl and the runt of the litter.

My father was an only child. After they had two boys (each time mommy got in the family way), poppy would say, "Maybe this one will be a girl".

When I was born mommy said, "Well, Jim you finally got your girl, what are you going to name her?"

Poppy went outside for awhile. When he came back in he said, "What is the most precious jewel you can think of?" Mommy said, "A ruby I guess.” Poppy said, “That will be her name, for next to you she is the most precious little girl in the world."

Mommy gave me the name Mae after the most kind and loving sister-in-law in the world.

I had seven brothers; the four older ones were married with children of their own.

John Columbus Harrison, James William Franklin, Elmer Isiah Wesley, George Washington, Cecil McKinley, Pearl Adolphus and Raymond Albert. Thought you would get a kick out of that, odd but true.

When the three younger boys came home, Raymond went out sat down on the step crying. Poppy asked him what was wrong. He said, "I wanted to name little sister." Poppy said, "What do you want to name her?" He said, "Ruthel". When Pearl heard it he wanted to name me too, so he named me Mary. Cecil said if the other boys gave me a name, he wanted to name me also. Poppy asked what it would be. He said, "Magdalene". Mommy has this all in her bible. You figure it out. I am just glad the older boys didn't want to add their names in on it, there's no telling what I would have come out with.

Mommy had six grandchildren; she was ashamed to let anyone know she was in the "family way". One day a lady caught her heaving and guessed her secret. Mommy was 43 years old. She was too old to be bothered with a new baby.

I loved my mother and I know she loved me, still I always felt I was in the way. There are times I feel that way even now.

While I was a small baby, mommy would have Raymond look after me. While she did her laundry, cooking or anything else she had to do.

I think Raymond sort of resented being tied down, not getting to play with the other neighbor boys.

He is eight years older than me. He was always looking for a chance to get out of staying with me.

One day he made a harness for his dog, and then tied him to my buggy, everything went fine until a cat ran across the road in front of us. Well, the chase was on. I fell out when the buggy turned over. Raymond had a tough time sitting for awhile. That was the last time he tried that.

Another time he was swinging me in a tree swing, some boys came by wanting him to go with them rabbit hunting. Mommy said she needed him to watch me for her. He started hollering, "Mommy can I go? Poppy said I could." The louder he hollered, the faster he pushed, you guessed it. I fell out flat on my face.

When I was sitting alone, Mommy had me on a pallet in the yard, while she hung out some clothes. (I never crawled.) She heard me scream, when she picked me up a tarantula spider fell out of my "didy". It had bit me just above my pelvic. That made the worse sore anyone could imagine all over the lower part of my stomach. The flesh rotted out to where they could see my intestines. The whole family held, rocked and walked the floor with me for weeks, not knowing if I was to live or not. Don't let anyone tell you that a tarantula isn't poison. I will carry the scars of one to my grave.

When I was about a year old, I had the whooping cough. An old Indian woman told mommy to get some mares milk, give it to me, it would cure the whooping cough. Poppy knew a man that had a new colt. They milked the mare, gave it to me. I know it cured me. For I am still here and have worked like a horse ever since. I guess that is why I am always nickering about some thing or other.

I loved my father and followed him every step that I could. He never got too busy to answer my childish questions or listen to me rattle on.

I remember going to a little branch close to our house (some where in Okla.) He would pour sweet anise in a lid; we would sit and watch honey bees feed on it. When their legs got covered, they would rise and fly. Poppy could tell by the way they took off, if the tree was close by or far away. If it was close he would say, "come on Sis, let’s find that tree. I can taste that honey now." But, if it was too far away he would say, "You go back to the house and tell mother to get started on them Johnnie Cakes." When he cut a bee tree, we always had honey, butter, and Johnnie Cakes the next morning for breakfast.

Poppy could rob a hive or a tree and never get a sting. He always said, “Bees don't like the way I taste."

Poppy had lots of funny sayings or at least I thought they were. Like the time he told me if I wanted some speckled chickens, all I had to do is set a hen on Easter Sunday. All the chickens would be speckled if they weren't some other color. Of course I didn't catch that last part. I am just a little slow to get some things.

Poppy bought a model T touring car at Charleston, Arkansas in 1925. Everyone was so proud of the new car and wanted to learn to drive it.

We lived down the lane from the road, with a corn patch on one side of the lane, with a watermelon patch on the other. Mommy decided she was going to learn to drive. She went up through the watermelon patch and back down through the corn. When she got it stopped, she crawled out, said, "Now that I have my crops gathered, I think I'll stop driving." She never tried again.

Poppy never learned to drive either. One of the boys always drove wherever we wanted to go.

The day Cecil decided to learn to drive, there were some girls setting on a wagon just talking, enjoying the Sunday afternoon. Well, Cecil was watching the girls, not paying attention to what he was suppose to do. He ran into the back of the wagon. The tongue stuck up in the air. He pushed that wagon several feet before it stopped. It looked so funny. No one was hurt, except Cecil's pride.

I remember going to Uncle Pats. They had a litter of new puppies. Of course I wanted one. Mommy said they were too young to be taken away from their mother. Uncle Pat said, "Let her have one, if it doesn't make it come back and get another one."

Someone had put corn meal in the radiator to stop it from leaking. On the way home, the car got hot, that corn meal started to boil out. It looked like mush. Mommy pulled me out of the car, asked where was my puppy? I had him under my coat. I wasn't going to let anything happen to him. Poppy just stood and looked at the mess and said, "Well, just as I expected." He would always say that when things went wrong.

He also said, "If you have anything you can't fix with bailing wire, you don't need it." I guess that is true for many strands have been used.

I never saw my daddy mad. I am sure he was from time to time, but I never knew it.

I named my puppy Spot. He was my constant companion. He went with me everywhere I went and slept at the foot of my bed every night.

One morning Frank came over early, I was still in bed. He made a grab at my foot to pull me out of bed. Just as he grabbed for my foot, Spot got him by the hand, bit a place that took a long time to heal. Spot was following along behind the wagon, when a man came along in a car, ran over him and killed my dog. Pearl made that man pay me for hitting Spot for he could have missed the dog had he tried.

Pearl gave me a bay mare. Mommy and I could ride her any place. She just walked along fine, never stumbling. Just let one of the boys get on. She would just go wild, bucking like a bronco. No one ever figured that out. She took foot evel. We couldn't ride her anymore. We sold her to a man, who said he knew how to cure it. I don't know if he did or not, for we moved soon after that and never heard from her again.

It seemed like I always got all the crippled and unwanted animals in the family. George gave me a blind rooster. I carried him around and fed him until he was able to eat by himself. He followed me every place I went. I put papers on the floor every night under a chair for him to roost on. Each morning he crowed to wake us up.

An old man was staying with us for awhile. He sure hated that rooster. He said, "Some day, I'm going to make dumplings out of that rooster." Well, one day my rooster came up missing. He disappeared never to crow again. Everyone called the old man Daddy Green. He was always playing tricks on anyone he could. One day, he told me, "I can give you a stick in each hand, I'll bet you a stick of candy you can't hit me with them." He sat down in an old cane bottom chair. Told me to take hold of a rung in each hand, and then try to hit him with them. He didn't know the rungs were loose. I jerked them out, hit him on the head hard as I could. Boy was he mad! He wanted Mommy to paddle me. Mommy said, "You told her to hit you."

I sure got even with him for killing my rooster. He left our house soon after that. I never heard of him trying to pull any more tricks on anyone.

Our family was real poor in worldly goods, but rich as kings in loving each other.

Poppy and the three boys at home made cross ties, cut wood, did share cropping or any other hand labor they could get.

We moved from place to place, job to job. We always stayed in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. If they heard of a job somewhere they thought was a better deal than what they were doing, we would up and move at a moments notice: first in a covered wagon, then a model T pickup, then a model T touring car. What we couldn't take with us, we just left behind, always intending to go back the next day to pick it up. Of course we never did.

I have often wondered whatever became of all those things, dishes, quilts, tools and whatever.

When we moved from Natural Dam, Arkansas, Poppy left an old cap and ball rifle. I've heard him say lots of times he wished he had found room on the car to put it. I can remember watching him melt lead to make balls for that old gun. It would mean the world to me now.

Poppy could do lots of things, but he could not milk a cow. He could pull all day, not get enough to cream a cup of coffee. So Mommy did the milking. Poppy did lot of the cooking. He loved to cook and was a good one too. The only time I ever talked back to him, he told me to put wood in the stove. I did but he didn't see me. He said, “I told you to put wood in the stove." I said, “I ain't going to do it." Boy I didn't know what was happening. He had never spanked me in my life. He turned me across his knee and gave my behind a good paddling. I said, "Poppy I did put wood in the stove." He said, "You could just as well told me that in the first place, as what you did say," he said, "The boys never talked back to me, and you are not either. " You can bet I never talked back to him again.

Poppy made a little doll bed and a chair out of spools for me. Mommy made me a quilt and pillow. I sat and rocked my baby dolls to sleep and put them to bed.

Poppy made axe and hammer handles out of hickory sticks. When it was too cold or too wet to work outside, he would work on the handles. I would set in my little chair at his feet and scrape on a hammer handle with a piece of broken glass. He always kept handles on hand for the woodsmen.

Poppy chewed tobacco. One day I was running around the house chasing my dog. He was setting on the porch whittling. Just as I came around the corner, he spit my face full of ambeer. Got my eyes full. You talk about burning, it felt like pepper sauce. He almost cried. He was a tender hearted man.

Sometimes when poppy came home I would climb up on his lap. He told me stories or sang a little song. He would start a story then finish it in his own version of it.

He would kiss the bridge of my nose. He always said, "That was sugar meant only for poppies." I would never let anyone else kiss me there.

One of the songs poppy sang was:

I had a little dog and his name was Jack
I rode his tail to save his back
His tail fell off, and I fell back
That's what I got for riding Old Jack.

Poppy loved to Fox hunt. He along with other neighbor men would gather some nights, go out they would be gone all night. Some nights when he couldn't go hunting, he would sit out on the front porch and listen to the neighbor dogs as they chased a fox. Sometimes mommy and I sat with him. He knew each dog by name, by the sound of their bark. He would say. That’s old Blue, or there goes old Jack or which ever.

Poppy had a big old gray hound that could pick a cotton tail up pretty quick, if Mr. Rabbit didn't find a hole soon. He also had a little bench legged dog he called "Chuch" meaning "boy" in Indian language. He sounded so funny when he barked. Everyone around there knew him.

Poppy always walked with his hands clasped behind him. He talked to himself a lot. I asked him why he did. He said, "That was the only man he could trust that didn't talk back."

Poppy said he would loan a man anything he had in the way of tools, except his gun or his pocket knife. He said most folks didn't know how to care for a gun. He always kept his knife sharp enough to shave with.

Poppy always wore overalls and an old felt hat. Sometimes he and the boys would get into a wrestling match. He used his hat to whip them. We always had so many good times as far back as I can remember. Mommy was always the referee.

My parents, Cecil, Raymond and I were camped along with about fifteen other families at Spavinaw, Oklahoma. The men were working on the big dam there. I was about six years old.

Everybody got water out of the one well there. One evening two girls went to get a bucket of water about the same time. They got into an argument as to who got there first. Their brothers took it up, and then the fathers started to get into it. Next thing we knew someone started shooting, knifing, fighting with clubs, broken bottles and anything they could get hold of. Poppy shoved a bunch of women and children down in a covered wagon telling us to lay still and not move till he said we could. Boy, he didn't have to tell us more than once.

I thought it would never end. When the fighting finally stopped, there had been several wounded, some were dead, there was blood all over the place. I remember seeing them rolling a man up in a quilt, all I could think of was he will smother rolled up like that.

That was the first dead person I had ever seen. I didn't know it at the time. I only knew I was a scared little girl.

Some of the families left. We stayed awhile longer. Don't know if we stayed till the dam was finished or not. No one in our family was hurt.

One Christmas my brother and sister-in-law came to see us. They brought me a rag doll filled with saw dust with painted features. They took her sister a few months older than I the biggest and the prettiest doll I ever saw. Well, I wanted one like it. My sister-in-law said when I got big enough to take care of a doll like that, she would get me one.

After dinner my nephew and I took my doll out to the chicken trough and baptized it till the water was dripping from it. I brought it in and threw it in my sister-in-law's lap. I told her she could have the old doll I didn't want it. My brother said, "Sis, I will get you a big doll like the one you want if it is the last thing I ever do." He kept his word. The next time he came to see us; he brought me the prettiest doll I ever saw. It was almost as tall as I was.

I kept that doll until Ava Carol got big enough to play with it. She tore it up. I wish I still had it.

One night it came up a real black cloud. The neighbor came running by saying, "A tornado was about to hit, take cover". Poppy told us all to go to a neighbor’s cellar about a quarter of a mile across the field. Cecil grabbed me swung me upon his shoulder, took out in a run for the cellar. It started to rain and hail. Hail balls were hitting me on the head. It was thundering and lightning all the way. By the time we got there the worst was over. Poppy said that was the most foolish thing he had done in his life. We would never again run his family out in a storm like that. We never went to a cellar again as far as I can remember.