Journeys with Paw Paw #7
First supplement to a Tale of 5 Country Kids (1991)
By Dale Whitson, Dec. 1997
Among the things I want to add is about the town of Fame, Oklahoma in 1931 as I remember it and from stories passed down from earlier days. The town was larger and more active before 1931. In years gone by the town had a drugstore with a soda fountain that was owned by the local Doctor Smith who was an M.D. The drugstore was on the southeast corner of the town crossroads. The biggest store was the Hensley General Merchandise store across the street on the southwest corner of the crossroads. The post office was in the Hensley store and Mrs. Hensley was the postmistress. At one time the post office was in a building south of the drugstore. The 1st owners of the store that I remember were my Uncle Russel and Aunt Lula (mama’s sister) Hensley. He later sold the store to his sister Bertie and Earnest Downum (Earnest was mama’s cousin). They ran that store until it closed sometime in the later 1960’s. There was another Gen Mdse store south of the old post office building.
The two stores sold dry goods, bolt cloth (denim ticking, broadcloth, canvas, etc.) shoes, overalls, shirts, dresses, under-wear and socks. They sold all kinds of hardware, feed, all kinds of medicine, gasoline, oil, kerosene (coal oil), but their main line was groceries. They also bought and sold eggs, pecans, butter and chickens. Eggs were 5¢ a dozen, gasoline 8¢ a gallon for white gas and 10¢ for red gas, and coal oil (kerosene) was 5¢ a gallon. All of our lamps were kerosene and we used it for starting fires. It is slow burning and poured on kindling wood or dry corncobs makes a quick fire with firewood. The main groceries were flour in 50lb bags, dry beans, sugar, cornmeal, cured pork, cheese, baloney, bananas, and all kinds of other food items. The only refrigeration was two iceboxes with ice delivered twice a week from Eufaula. There was no electricity or gas or running water in the town.
The feed they sold was mainly chicken feed for laying hens. It was sold in 100lb print bags suitable for making clothes. We had about 6 choices of patterns or colors of bags. Mama made shirts, shorts, pillowcases, curtains, and anything else we could use out of the bags.
My brother Johnnie and wife Lahoma owned and ran the other store for a couple of years in about 1939 & 1940. They had only a small inventory of mostly groceries. They lived next door to the store and I think Mac and Susan were both born there.
The clothes we wore were nearly all homemade shirts with high bib overalls made of denim. We had high back or low back with buttons on the suspenders at the waist in the back. In the winter we all wore a one-piece long john wool suit under our clothes. We each had two suits and we changed every 3 or 4 days. We usually slept in them too. The other suit got washed and the process started over again. In the summer we wore one-piece BVDs with a slit in the back just like the long john’s. The slit was so you could use the bathroom without undressing in the cold. We would get one pair of shoes a year in the fall. They were work, dress and school shoes all in one pair. They were usually high top lace ups. We had rubber boots for wading in the cow and horse lots and for the mud and snow. One coat and a wool sweater of some kind made up our wardrobe.
Now back to the town of Fame. South of town was an active Methodist church and east of town was the Baptist church, which we attended. At least half of the folks in the Baptist church were our relatives. Grandpa Turner’s family (mama’s family) had 6 or 7 families and Downums (Susie Downum was Grandpa Turner’s sister) had another 4 or 5 families in the community. So the Downums were all 1st, 2nd or 3rd cousins to all the Turner offspring. All these families and their in-laws made up about half of the community.
The school was by the Baptist church on the other side of the old gin pond. In years past there was a cotton gin between the church and the school. The old boiler for steam was still there on the bank of the millpond. I will tell more about the gin later. The school had been a high school in years past. Mama went to high school before she was married in 1916. She was 18 when she and Papa were married. Her sisters after her also went to high school there. The high school closed for the grades over eighth in about 1930 or before. The high school kids then went to Stidham high school that was about 4 miles from Fame. All 5 of us kids graduated from Fame grade school and from Stidham high school. Sometime in the 60’s or 70’s, both the Fame grade school and the Stidham high school closed. The grade school kids went to Stidham and all the high school kids went to Eufaula by busing. Eufaula is 13 miles or so from Stidham School. In the 30’s Stidham had an active cotton gin. Eufaula had 3 gins.
The cotton gin was big part of the economy of raising cotton. Cotton that is picked right out of the field must be “ginned”. Ginning separated the cottonseed from the lint or fiber. Two thirds of the just picked cotton is seed by weight. 1500lbs of cotton from the field makes a 500lb bale of lint cotton. The cotton gin was a big part of the industrial revolution and made cotton farming into a major agriculture industry. Cotton was the major cash crop of the southern part of the United States. Lint is for clothes and all kinds of fabric long before nylon. Cottonseed is a major oil and shortening foods product. The by-products of oil processing are cottonseed meal and cottonseed hulls that are very important and major livestock feed products.
Apparently Grandpa Turner furnished the land for the school, church and the gin. He owned the adjoining land. Grandpa Turner was by far the largest land owner and farmer in the community. He came to Indian Territory long before statehood in the early 1890’s or late 1880’s. He cleared the land and started farming in those years. All of the real good farming land in the community is now under water of the Eufaula Lake that was built in the 1950s. Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Grandpa’s kids in order of their ages are: Etta (Sam Self), Edgar (Aunt Golda), Hester (mama), Irvin (Aunt Ollie), Jesse (Aunt Mattie), Lula (Russel Hensley), Susan (Elmer Nix), Reuben (Aunt Jo), and Lewis (Aunt Cleo).
Grandpa Turner’s farming and pasture land was probably 800-900 acres. He owned more than half of it and rented the other part. Papa farmed about 100 aces in the bottom. He rented it all and part was from Grandpa. We all lived up on the hill out of the bottom. The good farm land was all in the bottom – now under water. We had 40 acres of cotton, 40 acres of corn, 10 acres of oats, 5 acres of hay and 5 acres of head feed for cow feed. All of the farming was done with mules. Tractors came along in about 1939 and quickly replaced the mule farming. We borrowed equipment from Grandpa for a lot of our harvesting. He had a row binder for the head fee. He had a 5ft cut binder for the oats. He had all the equipment for cutting, raking and baling the hay. A big thrasher would come thru the county and thrash the oats of all the farmers. They would move from farm to farm and everybody would help everybody else in getting the bundles hauled in from the field to the thrasher that was powered by a big tractor and run off a belt drive. Most farmers did not have the equipment to do all the things we did. The corn was for feed for the mules, hogs, cows and chickens. The oats was for the mules, hogs, cows and chickens. The head feed was both stalk and grain head feed or the cows. The head feed was grain sorghum called Darso or Hegari and was hauled in and stacked in ricks outside for winter-feeding to the cows we were milking. We kept seed from all of these crops for next year’s planting including the cotton. Pork was the meat everybody had to eat. We would kill the hogs in cold cold winter and cure it out and salt it down so it could be kept thru the summer without refrigeration. It was cured and smoked in the smoke house. We had beef 4 or 5 times a year on a strictly fresh basis only. Some neighbor or we would kill a calf and peddle it thru the neighborhood the same day. It was cooked that day or the next. Most of it was as “chicken fried” steak or roast. We had a lot of fried chicken that we caught fresh and dressed and cook all the same day. We had fried chicken nearly every Sunday all spring and summer. The old hens would lay the eggs and set on them until hatched. Then they would raise them up to about half or two thirds grown until they were frying size. In the winter months we would have old hens or rooster with chicken and dumplings or dressing.
The Baptist church was the center of the community along with the school. Grandpa Turner was the Sunday school superintendent, Papa was the song leader and Mama was always the key small kids teacher. We’d have a visiting preacher about twice a month for Sunday morning and Sunday night services. The hat would be passed around to take up a collection for him. He would usually get $10 to $15 a trip. Depending on where he lived, he would spend the night with someone in the community and that was usually at our house.
The schoolhouse had 3 rooms, with a gym on the west side. The teachers lived in the teacher’s house behind the school. A man and wife were two of the teachers and one other young single lady was the other teacher. Sometimes this young lady would room and board with us in our “big” house. Usually someone else in the community had more room and would take her in. Those teachers taught 8 grades in the 3 rooms. Johnnie and I graduated together in 1934 and there were 5 in our class. When we graduated from Stidham High school in 1938, there were 19 in the class.
Some of the other families in the community lived down in the bottom that is now covered with water. There were 5 Williams families – 4 brothers and 1 sister. There was Joe Druie (married Rena Self), Obie, Marian, the sister married to a Winters. Joe Williams son, Joe Roy, married Roberta Turner (uncle Edgar’s daughter). One other family – Luke Dalton was the 2nd largest farmer in the bottom and he lived up in the north end of the bottom. Among the Williams, Dalton and Turners – they farmed 90% of the 2500 acres of the good land in the bottom.
Other families in the community were 2 families of Rapps, 2 of Arteberry, 2 of McIntosh, Boatman, Bruce, Corley, Counts, Story, Young, Needham, Overman, McCoy, Freemen, Pigman, Rhodes, Redding, Garland, Lindhardt, and a few others. These last named families all lived out of the bottom except the Rhodes. From 1929 thru 1933 times were really tough. Those were the Great Depression years when many people did not have a job or anywhere to go get a job. The farming land out of the bottom was not very productive in good years and was bad in bad years of low rainfall. We were better off than many of our neighbors because we had some good land to farm. It was real tough on everybody.
In about 1932 or 1933 the government gave clothes and groceries to those most in need. Papa was appointed custodian of some of these goods. We had our back room piled high with corduroy pants and jackets and with flour and beans. Papa took care of this with no pay. We were not eligible for the clothes. I think we did get some of the groceries. Later on the WPA came along and helped people get along until the worst of the Depression was over in 1934 and 1935. These were not the “good old days”.
In January we a have a real cold spell. We have 8 or 9 inches of snow on the ground and schools are turned out. One morning Sommy Lowry walked into our place about 11 o’clock. His mother was Papa’s sister Aunt Flora and his dad was Uncle Jack Lowry. Uncle Jack was not a very good father. Sommy told us that they didn’t have anything to eat. They lived up in Hogskin Bend on the river near Lenna. He had 5 sisters at home, 2 older and 3 younger. We fixed up a bunch of food in some burlap bags (we called them “toe sacks”). We fixed some ham, bacon, corn meal, potatoes from the cellar, some canned fruit and vegetables, milk, beans and salt. Papa went down to the store with us and got a 20 lb sack of flour and some baking powder. We tied that up in some sacks and tied it on the back of our saddles. We had two horses, ole’ Snip and ole’ Smokey. Sommy and I headed out up the snow-covered road and back to their house. We got back to his house about 2 o’clock. Aunt Flora cooked up a big meal and they ate well for the first time in a good while. After we ate I headed out back home leading ole Snip and riding ole Smokey. I got home about dark.
Uncle Jack was not a good provider, husband or father. He always lived way back in the bend of the river or up in the edge of the mountains where he could hide out a bootleg “whiskey still”. He made whiskey when he could get the ingredients. He sold some of it and drank the rest. He always had one team of mules and farmed a little cotton and corn. They’d work all year to get some cotton to sell. They’d pick a load and Uncle Jack would take it to town and sell it. They expected him to get some groceries and some clothes and shoes for fall. Much of the time he would get the money and go buy a quart of moonshine and get falling down, slobbering, crying and fighting drunk and then pass out. Someone usually stole all of his money while he was passed out. If no one was with him he would get back to the wagon in the wagon yard and pass out and spend the night sleeping and sobering up. When he got home the next day he wouldn’t have any money or anything. Sometimes Sommy or Balford (the older son) would be with him and they would get him in the wagon and drive him home even though he was passed out. Sometimes they could keep him from getting robbed. If he came home and was awake he would slap and whip everybody that crossed him in any way. Aunt Flora would take the younger kids out in the cotton patch and hide out until he went to sleep.
Sommy went into the army in 1943. He was killed in Germany while in the service. Aunt Flora and Uncle Jack got insurance monthly from his death as long as they lived. The insurance gave them more money than they had ever had in their lives. They lived off of it until they died. The insurance was not a lot but I have often wondered what would have happened to that family without it. Aunt Flora had 11 kids and only 8 lived to be grown. Sommy was my age. When I think of tough times, I think of Sommy and January 1931.
Grandpa J. F. Whitson came to Indian Territory (Oklahoma statehood in 1907) in 1890 from Arkansas. Papa Roy was born on the state line between Okla. and Ark. in1889. They lived out in the Ozark hills real close to the state line and he never really knew which state he was born in. Their address was Hackett, Arkansas, a little town 15 miles south of Fort Smith.
Grandpa had 7 children in the following order: Cora Hurley, Flora (Jack Lowry), Wayne, Virgil (Aunt Ester), Papa Velma Whitson, and Frank. Grandpa later married another Martha and she died in 1926 in Lenna, Oklahoma.
Papa was at one time a deputy county sheriff in McIntosh County either just before or just after he got married in 1916. He was also a member of the Vigilantes. In those days they were a loosely knit group that helped suppress and punish crimes when the law was inadequate. He told of one case of a man that married a young widow with two small boys about 8 & 9 years old. The man was mean to all of them. He would whip and slap them around and make them work extra hard. The Vigilantes went to him and warned him to straighten up and treat the family right. He didn’t listen. They went back and got him and took him out in the woods and gave him a good country butt whipping. He got drunk later and mistreated them again. They went and got him on horseback wearing their hoods. They took him way out in the woods and stripped him off. They poured liquid tar all over him and covered him with feathers. They gave him until sundown the next day to be forever gone or else. Papa called that treatment “ku klux” him. That was the way the Ku Klux Klan treated people they wanted out of the community. No body ever saw the man again. Years later one of those grown up boys came and looked Papa up and thanked him for changing that family’s life for the better.
There weren’t any laws to deal with family situations like the above in those days. Family, friends or neighbors had to take care of this type thing. Many family feuds came about because of this type of thing. The Vigilantes and the Ku Klux Klan were mostly formed after the Civil War in 1865. The Ku Klux Klan was formerly organized in 1915 in Georgia as “the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan”. From that time on the Ku Klux Klan has been considered a white supremacist secret group. The official lawmen in those days were primarily involved in murder, theft and other crimes considered major. The local folks had to take care of cowardly bullies like the man they “ku kluxed”. I guess that you could call that old times Neighborhood Watch.
End of first supplement Dec. 1997
