More of Grandma's Story

We got another 2 room house and had to carry water from across the street.
John came to Oklahoma from Missouri in a covered wagon (a coincidence is that my other grandmother Alma Coe came from Missouri when she was 3 in a covered wagon with her family but went to Texas) when he was about 5 years old with (his parents, she must have been talking to one of her children at the time) your Grandma and Granddad Barnett. Two wagons came together. Granddad’s sister, husband and their kids were in one wagon. Felix Jebber Barnett and Elizabeth Pemberton Barnett and their 7 kids (Mary, Jim, George, Elmer John, Cora and Frankie) in one wagon. Frankie didn’t live very long after they settled in Creek County, Oklahoma. They had lots of fun. Big kids would get out of wagons and play along dirt roads. The wagons were loaded with enough furniture to get by with. Felix and John Gillim would hunt while wives drove the horses. They camped close to a river, creek or pond to have water and cooked on campfires. They would cook enough food for next day’s traveling if possible. Creek or Nation Country had lots of Indians. I believe there were 5 tribes the government moved to Oklahoma. People could cross Oklahoma and Kansas line, drive a stake in the ground and they owned 160 acres of land. (Oklahoma Land Rush she was talking about maybe). Many people didn’t get any land, can’t remember what the history books called it. Creek Nation was nearly center of the state.
They rented farms and raised mostly cotton. Cotton was planted real thick in a row then at 3 or 4 inches high would have to go over it with a hoe, cut out ones that wee to thick and weeds, (guess so would get a good stand. I never could understand why would have to cut out weeds). It was real pretty when it grew from knee to waste high with big white blossoms. They would turn to pods and when grown would open up to a ball of cotton ready to pick by hand. They would put it in a big sack with straps around their shoulders and pull it behind them. Boys could always get jobs hoeing or picking cotton for neighbors. It was hauled to town in big wagons with sideboards on it to the cotton mills where it was seeded.
John and May Gillum and kids came in other wagon. Grandma and Mary were real friendly until John rented the place Felix had been farming out from under him. He paid owner more rent and Grandma and Grandpa had to move off. They never spoke to each other again.
They moved to Pawnee County (or I would have never met John Barnett) Seems they didn’t know much about forgiveness, though John and others went to church every Sunday. Grandma said she sat up every night patching overalls so they could have a clean pair to wear every Sunday. She used to say that Mary Gillum’s house was always so clean she wouldn’t have minded eating off her floors.
John spent 2 years in the Army during World War 1. They had rented a place about a mile south of us. (This was same time my other granddad, Andy Boyd Green was in Army. Both were stationed in France but neither ever knew the other.) While he was in the Army, Mary’s oldest boy, Bill Neely came and farmed with his Granddad.
Wheat was raised. It was planted in the fall of year, came up and people ran their cows on it all winter. In the spring during rainy season it grew out and made wheat heads and would cut it about June or July with a horse drawn binder which made shocks of wheat. Then they would stack it in big stacks like hay. Someone in the neighborhood would have a thrashing machine and go from field to field and thrash wheat from stacks. It had a pipe that would run wheat into wagons. When it was full they would have another wagon ready. Sometimes they would take it to town and sell it for so much a bushel or sometimes put it in a granary at home. They would scoop it in with a big scoop shovel and keep it until price would go up in town, then scoop it out into wagons again and haul it to market. While men were doing all of that, women would cook dinner for the thrashers. A neighbor would come in and help. John’s sister Mary came from Tulsa, Oklahoma and helped. I went once and helped them. At our house we would put the table in the living room and put leaves in it. Usually we went to town and bought big beef roast and sometimes would dress out chickens. Would bake pies or cakes the day before.
After the war was over, John came back from the Army and did the farming. I had written letters to him while he was in France because his Mom or Dad could not read or write. I didn’t know him except for his name. One day our class in high school was selling tickets for Chautauqua and I was on a pony riding down the highway. I met John and sold him a ticket. I asked him later if he went, he said no, but he couldn’t turn a good looking girl down. He traded his pony and some more horses for an ‘almost new’ Ford car and started going to dances and parties with neighbors. One night he stopped at our house and asked my brother George (both of my grandparents had brothers named George and Jim which gets confusing. They named their youngest son George, too.) to go with him then when he started to leave I got in the back seat with them. After that he came quite often, then a little oftener. I could see his car coming down the hill every Saturday night, sometimes oftener. We were married on July 12, 1924.
John was farming with his Dad so we had to live with them for a while. I remember riding in the lumber wagon with him to where they had threshed wheat. The next day while we shoveled the wagon full of chafe wheat that was left after the threshing machine, we hauled it up to the house for chickens to pick out the grains of wheat. Every Saturday he would take his mom and dad (Ma and Pa) to Pawnee to sell the eggs and cream and buy groceries. Once ma visited her daughter, Mary in Tulsa, Oklahoma and I cooked for John and his dad. Robert was born while we were there, March 1, 1925. Next spring we rented a small place close and they farmed both places. Emma was born there March 11, 1927. I had a miscarriage before. Doctor said when he left the house after Emma was born, “I will see you next March.” John said he was going to sleep on the porch and lock the door. Doctor said it wouldn’t do any good. “You can lock the door and bar the windows but they will get together. Before Emma was born, John said to wave a red rag from the porch so he could see it if I went into labor. This was so he could go to the neighbor’s house and call the doctor. There were not many farmers who had phones then. Bill Neely and Cleona had moved into a house on Granddad’s place. Emma had long dark hair and it hung down to her eyes. I thought it would always be like that but some wore off. She became the pet of school and Sunday School. When she was older I remember taking them to a children day program at the school and she got on stage to say her piece in front of the room full of people, someone said, “well look at little Emma, ain’t she sweet.”
That fall we and Grandpa Barnett had a big sale and sold everything, the horses, cows and farm machinery. Brother Jim had been back from Colorado and talked John into going out to see the country and maybe homesteading a place. Land was very cheap. Cortez had two grocery stores. The Johnson Hospital, courthouse, one café and muddy street were there when we came. We didn’t stay only a few days. John’s folks were living in a little two room house. We stayed with them a few months. My Dad passed away and John, his Dad and brother Jim rented a house and big farm down close to the river again. Jim had a house and machinery but Granddad Barnett took a stroke and passed away. Grandma stayed with us. Bill was born there May 14, 1929. One day I was washing clothes on the back porch. Emma was playing with me and would run up, touch me and say “dat (that) old Mom.” Grandma was setting on the East porch in the shade. Emma tried to get Grandma to play. She ran up to her, touched her and said, “dat old Grandma,” but Grandma misunderstood her. She thought she said ‘dang old Grandma’. She grabbed her, spanked her real good. It scared Emma. John came in and I asked him to explain to her what she was really saying but Grandma never believed him.
That fall we moved to another big house half way from Ralston to Pawnee (close to my folks). It had a big upstairs. Robert started to school there. He walked 2 miles. John’s brother, Elmer, moved in upstairs with his wife, Audry, her son, nearly grown, one girl Burnice, 3 years old. They lived there a year and didn’t find much work. I gave them milk, eggs, and fryer chickens. Audry had a premature baby while there and it was born dead. Gilbert was born there, March 14, 1931.
I raised many chickens there. A bug (like a bed bug) they called blue bug got into hen house, even in nests, chickens would eat them as far as they could reach on the walls but above that they would get in nests where hens laid eggs. The hen would scratch hay out to get bugs. Someone finally told me to use wood ashes. I would throw it all over the walls; put it in nests under hay, on the roost and under roosts. Ashes have a lot of lie in them and people used to have ash heaps in olden days to make homemade soap. Anyway, I got rid of blue bugs and mites, too. Chickens will roll in the ash piles to get rid of the mites. I had been missing some eggs from one nest for some time and thought maybe our dog or someone else’s dog was getting them but I went out one night to gather the eggs and a great big snake was curled up in the nest. I got Perry to kill the snake so no more missing eggs. We decided to sell some hens. We had too many to feed. Someone showed John how to test them to see if she had been laying eggs. You hold them and test how much room between their bones at the back. If they lay eggs, bones will be spread apart, if not close together. We sold about 50 to 100 hens, never missed an egg.
The man that owned the house wanted to move back so we moved 4 miles west of Ralston in a small house. Elmer and family had already moved to work for some farmer west of Pawnee. There was a spring of real good water down the hill toward the road where we carried water from. There was also a spring west of the house for the stock in the pasture. Robert and Emma were both in school and walked 2 miles. We had neighbor kids across the street to play and walk to school with. The lady we rented from lived close. She had a little son and daughter Emma liked to play with and they liked to have her come so their girl could learn to play with others. One day they asked if she could eat supper with them. She was so happy but came home later crying. They had a pie for supper. They cut it in 4 pieces and didn’t give Emma any. She wouldn’t go back but the other family was real friendly. They had a boy older than Robert who taught him bad words. Gilbert was about two. There was an old well curb out north and the kids played on it. Grandma would sit out there after sundown when it was cool. The well was dry but deep. Grandma had a little knife about worn out but sharp. She didn’t have any teeth and she would cut her meat with it so she could chew it. She had peeled an apple, laid her knife down on the curb. Gilbert picked it up poked it through a crack and there was no way to get it out.
He (Gilbert) liked to climb. There were two big trees east of the house and some tall slim ones. The locusts would shed their skins, leaving them on trees and kids would climb up and get them to play with. Gilbert would wrap his legs around a tree and beat the big kids climbing to them. I would have to stand under the tree and catch him as he came down.
LoraElla and Mary Jean were born while we lived there. LoraElla, April 9, 1933 and Jeanie on October 25, 1935. When the five quintuplets were small the doctor asked me if I wanted twins, I said, “Okay, but not five.” Maybe the government would raise them for us like in Canada. He said, “No, we have a free country. Canada was under a king and they had to do what he said.”
The oldest girl across the street (I believe her name was Mary Mitchell) went out with her boyfriend. He had another girlfriend, too. Mary got pregnant and so did the other girl but Mary didn’t know that. There weren’t many cars then so Mary’s dad took her to Pawnee to make him marry her. On the way another wagon with the other girl passed the. He kept his horses in a trot and beat them to Pawnee. When Mary and her Dad got there her boyfriend and the other girl were already married. Mary stayed home and had her baby. Two of her Mom’s little ones stayed at our house the night he was born. The doctor was slow in coming. I stayed until 4 o’clock then walked to another house and got that lady to go down. I went home to see about kids and fix breakfast for them. She finally had a boy. Her mom made her keep baby’s bottle under her pillow at night so it would be warm. As soon as Mary was able she got her a job and no one seemed to know it wasn’t her Mom’s baby. Mary finally married a real nice man and took her boy.
We had some real dry years. I raised a lot of chickens there, too. I had Plymouth Rock hens. A man came by buying eggs and I sold him some for 10 cents a dozen. I saved all my eggs for him and found out later he took them to a hatchery in Pawnee and sold them as thoroughbred Plymouth Rock for about a dollar a dozen. I saw my first Jehovah Witness while there. She had a big book to sell with lots of pictures in it. Robert wanted it and I didn’t have any money so I gave her four dozen eggs. I can’t remember the name of the book but I would read it to Robert of an evening while putting the little ones to sleep.
It was just starting the Depression and no one had any money. Banks went broke and a man came to the door one day to get something to eat and said he wouldn’t eat at home. He felt like he was taking food from his kids and he saw I had kids so he asked where he could find some wild plums or grapes in timber. We had cows and chickens so we didn’t suffer.
Our house was about a half mile from where we had a mailbox. Robert would meet the mailman most days. He would give him the mail and he would bring it to the house. One day we were eating dinner when Robert looked up and said, “mailman said, Hi Peanuts, ho’s your pecker?” He didn’t know what it meant. We all had a good laugh. John told him if the mailman said it anymore to tell him it was hanging straight down.
We had a cow that would eat slop from a bucket just like a pig. She would follow John just like a dog and try to lick him as if he was a calf when he was milking her. She went down on her milk so we took her slop away from her and she would go out in the pasture and feed with the other cows. When it came chore time John would call her and she would come running to him. The other cows would come too. We never had to go get the cows. I hated to see her sold when we came to Colorado. We stayed a couple of days with brother George and Granddad Will so we took her up there and gave her to George.
We had dust storms while on the place, came from panhandle of Oklahoma. It got so hot and dry that most of their top soil blew our way. It looked like a black cloud coming. There was no easy way to keep it out of the house. I made the kids a bed on the floor in front of open door. The spring dried up and we hauled house water from spring in pasture. I would have to get up nights and take the baby out to a bench where we kept water barrels so she could sleep. Some neighbors had wet sheets and hung them over head of bed.
Emma started to school that fall. John had bought her a real pretty hat to wear to school. One day the wind was real hard and cold. I wouldn’t let her wear her hat. She was so proud of it. She cried and wasn’t going to go without it. I finally spanked her and she left crying. They carried their dinners in a syrup pail. One night Robert was walking home from school with a friend. His older brother came by in a pickup. Both boys threw rocks at him, so he stopped and gave both of them a hard whipping. Robert came home crying and said he didn’t have any right to whip me. He wasn’t his brother and he couldn’t whip me. But he had. When school was out teachers usually gave each child a sack of treats; candy or oranges. It was raining and some of the neighbors went after their kids. John was sure they would bring the kids home too, but they didn’t Robert took Emma’s hand and made it nearly home. Emma got tired sat down in the mud, crying and wouldn’t move. Robert pulled her up, whipped her and practically dragged her the rest of the way home. Their candy was wet and muddy and so were they.
When Emma and Robert were little we went to Rocky-Ford, Colorado. John got a job from a farmer, ‘topping onions’. There were big field of them. They would pull the, pile them up and let them lay a few days. Then he would cut the tops off and wash them in a running irrigation ditch. He would let them dry and pile them up again, and trucks hauled them to the market.
There was a big ant den close to the house. Robert took a stick and stirred them up pretty good. He was wearing short pants and he began to scream. I stripped him and began to pick the ants off. He was sore all over, like the story in Uncle Marion’s book. They were biting in the tenderest spots. I forgot how we got rid of them, but I have found out if we dig a hole deep enough to let water stand and pour all my wash water and soap suds in it they will die in time.
Grandma and Grandpa came out. They shipped a lot of their things in boxes, but when fall crops were done, there wasn’t any more work for him. So he traded our car for a small truck. We all went back to Ralston, Oklahoma. We came back to Ralston and moved into a small house in town where John’s brother, Jim was living. The flu was bad that spring, lots of people were coming down with it. I was pregnant with Bill. I got very sick. John’s mother was very sick, also. Mary came up from Tulsa to take care of her. Doctors didn’t know what to do for it but put them to bed and care for them the best way they could. My brother, George had it, and guess my Dad did, too. One morning a neighbor girl I had graduated with from high school, came to our door and said, “your papa is very bad. The Doctor said he was dying and would have to hurry to see him alive.” We got the two kids up, dressed them and hurried out, but he was gone. My brother Carl was there and sister Maude. Doctor had said to feed him and she tried to feed him chicken broth, but it was too late. I was too sick to go to the funeral. John went. He was buried in Stillwater beside our mother. When Alford and Cerena Wills came out here they brought me a picture of the grave stones.
We then moved to the farm by the river. Granddad was so glad to be on a farm again. Bill was born there May 14, 1929, but before he was born Granddad had a stroke. We called the doctor from Pawnee. He was slow getting there and nothing he could do, might last a day or two, but would take him eventually. We called all their kids and had a house full. He was only partly conscious, couldn’t eat or drink. Grandma said his lips looked dry. She got a clean rag, a bowl of water and would keep wiping them. He seemed restless. Mary said maybe he wanted to pee. We got a big rag and put it in his underwear. I gave them Emma’s cloth diapers as she was wearing panties. A close neighbor came. I wanted to call the doctor, but she said no, he just had to go, which he did in a short time. Grandma was holding his hand when he died.
Jeannette was born June 25, 1941 at home, two miles south of Cortez. Doctor came out to house and brought his wife, and a neighbor lady. I had meant to let the older kids stay with their school friends in town, but I didn’t have time to get them there, so I fixed them a bed upstairs (boys had been sleeping upstairs). They got along pretty good. The doctor was in a hurry. He had another lady in town ready. He got back just as the nurse delivered it. The doctor came back the third day to see if everything was OK. His wife saw Jeannette asleep behind me in the bed. She told the doctor she was the sweetest thing she had ever seen. She hoped she had a girl that looked just like her. Emma was big enough to help John wash clothes. We had a little irrigation ditch in back of the house and she took a tub with dirty diapers to the ditch and washed the dirt out and John finished them.
Robert quite school while we lived there. He said I had enough kids in school He just didn’t like to study. He stayed with his Uncle Jim on Mesa a lot. He liked it there. Emma graduated from high school in Cortez. (Daddy, also, worked a lot for Mac and Birdie Prible on their pinto bean farm near Pleasant View, CO. until he joined the Navy when he was about 17.)
Bill got a job from a farmer south west of Cortez and stayed out there alone taking care of stock while the owner was gone. The mailman would bring him a loaf of bread each day and he could cook for himself. One day I saw him coming down the street toward home. He had a sack on his back. When he saw me he hollered, “Mom, I got one! I killed a deer!” He had a hind quarter in a big sack and was sure proud of himself. (I don’t ever remember meeting Uncle Bill. I do remember he joined the Merchant Maries and was with them for a while. I believe the story was that he was found dead in an apartment in Seattle, WA in 1080’s.)