My Memories

Papa had to hire a bunch of men to come and strip the broomcorn. The tops were pulled out and tied in big bales and taken to market to make brooms and each ball brought a good price. We had several men and boys there for two or three weeks. One young man, Luther Hixon, from Hinton, Oklahoma, was such a good singer and guitar player. All this time Papa and Uncle Dave was making the covered-wagon for us to go back to Nebraska in because Papa had the idea he had to take the horses and mules to have to farm with when we got there! Aunt Sarah left about a week before we did and how I hated to see her go and I never saw her again. I believe she went to California to be with her daughter and Aunt Sarah had a little granddaughter she spoke of a lot and her name was Cleta May and that’s where I got my girl Cleta’s name.

In August 1914, World War 1 started in Europe by the assassination of an Emperor of Austria, I believe, and already all nations were getting real anxious over events taking place. We had received letters during the summer from Sarah and Walter, (I believe they had dried out in New Mexico), and they were going to come back to Nebraska too and Papa had me write and ask them if they could meet us in Arkansas City, Kansas, and to write to us there and let us know if they could or not. Papa rented our house to the Pastor of the Free Methodist Church and his wife. He was a widower who had remarried that spring. He had several grown children, none at home. We rented the house with all our furniture in it, even my organ, and left so many real old valuable things such as a Seth Thomas wall clock, Pappy Joe’s old Bible and powder horn (used in the Civil War). Pappy Joe was Papa’s father who was born and raised in Tennessee where fathers were called Pappy and that’s what his family always called him. He died when I was real small so I never knew him. He and Papa’s sister, Kate Tucker and her family are buried near Norfolk, Nebraska. And of course I had to leave Tiny, my pet goat. I went to spend a night with Bessie Carte a few days before we left and it was a tearful farewell next morning when I left for home on Rocket, because I was pretty sure I’d never see her again and I never did! I would love to know if she is still living and where. One Sunday afternoon, before we left, I was planning to go down the creek and say goodbye to my favorite places. I had spent many happy hours along it. Being I was so much younger then Sarah and an only child after she married, I was a lonely person and with my pets I would walk along the creek and sit on the bank just dreaming or reading. There was a huge tree, I think a willow, that grew out over the water and had a long flat limb and Bessie and I had that for our tree house. It was sloping enough so it was easy to climb up there. I wanted to go alone as my heart was very heavy, but our neighbor, Annie Poitry, was at our house and she insisted on going with me, which I didn’t want at all, but I know she was sorry we were leaving as she had a hard live and we were good to her. Next morning, September 21, 1914, real early, we began to get it all together. Uncle Dave and Aunt Alice were there early. Frankie and Cecil were in school. When everything was ready we lined up, first Papa with the spring wagon in the lead and Mama in the covered wagon. Papa’s team was old Daz, and Rachel. Then we had Pepper and Faye, two mares and they were the mothers of two colts and we also had two young mules about one and a half years old that Papa called "Nip and Tuck". The mares were tied to Mama’s wagon and I rode Rocket the first day or two in order to get the young stock to follow. Quite a procession and today it would be entirely unheard of and impossible. But my folks had made several journeys by covered wagon and they didn’t seem to think it was strange. When we passed Joe Whitley’s farm, Minnie came out and tearfully bade us goodbye. I have forgotten to mention that Joe was critically ill. He had an incurable disease. Had spent some time at a mineral spring in Texas or Arkansas and it was affecting his mind.

We always raised a patch of watermelons and had lots of them and a while before we left, Joe had come down. Their girl Marjorie, who was about ten then, usually came with him as Minnie didn’t want him to be alone, but that day, I guess, she was either in school or didn’t know he had come. He sat at a table in the yard and ate and ate melons until it would seem he couldn’t eat anymore and Minnie sent Marjorie down to see if he was there and she finally persuaded him to go home. But I believe it was in November that fall that we heard Joe had died. We really felt bad as he was a fine friend and would only have been in his forties.

Well, we went pretty slow and I really had my hands full keeping the colts along with the rest as they really thought it was a lark and were anxious to explore every road and path. We went south one half mile past Binghams place then east across the Canadian river and it was some job getting those colts to cross that river bridge! We went about a half-mile from the Carte farm but I stopped and asked some schoolgirls I knew there and they said Bessie and her folks had gone to Watonga to a circus. That day we kept on side roads. No paved roads then and I don’t believe any gravel either. But we stayed off the main roads where cars would be. We went about fifteen or twenty miles that day and camped for the night somewhere near Okeene, Oklahoma. We let the horses eat grass along the road and Papa fed the ones we were driving. We had a campfire supper. Uncle Dave had made Mama a frame out of some kind of iron that she could stand on the ground and put a skillet and coffee pot on a fire underneath and it made a handy little stove and after a long weary day the food tasted so good and Mama made sure we had plenty of food along. I think she cooked pancakes or "flap-jacks" for bread. Papa tied the workhorses, Pepper and Faye, up for the night and that way the colts wouldn’t leave them. I think I cried myself to sleep that night. I was so sad and lonesome. But along in the night a terrible rain and windstorm came up with bad lightning and thunder and of course the wagon cover was not water proof! And the wind really rocked the wagon. Papa and Mama and I sat up and held bows or slats that went across and over the wagon to hold the cover on. We hung on for dear life, not knowing but any minute the whole thing would go in the wind and I’m not sure but what they did some praying. But finally it was over. The storm, that is. But we were soaked. All the bedding and everything was soaking wet! Not much sleep, if any, the rest of the night. But morning dawned bright and clear and warm sun and about noon we stopped and Mama and I hung everything along on the fences along the road to dry out. It was quite a wash out on the line!