Rest of Barnett Story

Emma went to California, where John’s sister lived. A friend went with her. She got a job in a telephone office. They were called “Hello Girls”. David Axtel had joined the Navy shortly after high school. He got his discharge while Emma was in California. They were soon married. They came back to Pleasant View and David helped his dad in his machine shop. Gilbert stayed out there with them a lot. Emma’s daughter Karen was little. Gilbert even babysat and did odd jobs; hung clothes on the line and helped in shop. The machine shop and house burned down. Emma was here in town, she started home and saw the blaze from the fire and got there in time to save some pictures. People held her outside, afraid that the shop roof would fall in. The neighbors had a big shower for them. David’s mother and father soon moved back to Oklahoma.
Butch and George were both born while we lived in that house on South Elm, across the street from the old homeplace we bought later. (Homeplace on Elm was where my grandparents, and half the kids and grandkids when we would visit when I was little.) Butch was born on April 5, 1944 and George was born August 15, 1946. There was a neighbor girl, Mary Helen Almond, who lived next door. When Butch (John Eugene) was little, she would come over every day and rock him. She called him Butch. I had a hemorrhage while in the hospital with George so I stayed in a few extra days. The nurses would bring the baby in to feed and then take him right back to the nursery. He would cry for two hours until they brought him back again. They wouldn’t leave him with me. When I got home I went to bed with him. He never cried again. I had heard about cats sucking a baby’s breath and killing the baby. We had a big mama cat. I had a big chair and I made a bed for George in the kitchen to sleep in the cold weather. While I was busy I looked at the baby and the big cat was in the chair snuggled against the baby, both sound asleep, her head against his head. It scared me. I threw her outside and she stayed out from then on. I knew she was just finding a warm place.
When George was four or five, he had a friend across the street. There were not many cars on that street so they played in it. One day I heard him yell, “Mama!” A man had come down the street and both boys threw rocks at his car. Stevie got away from the man when he stopped to try to catch them. Stevie ran into his grandma’s house but George was too far from home so the man caught him. He was holding George under his arm ready to spank him. George was yelling, “Hit him, Mama, Make him put me down. Hit him. Hit him, Mama.” Bill happened to be home. He laughed and asked the man what he had done. He watched them a minute, then said, “Think he has learned his lesson. May as well put him down.” So he did. The man left threatening him if he ever did it again.
John was working for the city in winter then and in uranium mines in summer. Our landlord made a deal with me to can fruit for him. He would give me half. He would sell it to Indians for a big price. I, also, canned for another lady. I had several real elderly ladies to kind of look out for.
I gave Emma a whipping when she was in high school. She had asked to visit a friend and took her best clothes along so they could go to a party without asking me if she could go. She said if Daddy had not been there I would never have got it done.
When I was writing about Uncle Marion’s book, “Three Years in Arkansas” I forgot to say he did marry the Indian lady Indian style. She got down on the floor on one knee raised her right hand, he pulled her up with his left hand, kissed her and they were married.
I forgot to write when we were quarantined for small pox at Stillwater someone called on the phone and said cousin Elsie had died of small pox. They couldn’t have the funeral or burial because of quarantine so they buried her under a window outside but it was all a mistake. No one had died.
We lived in Craig’s house across the street on South Elm for 10 years then we bought old home place next to Bill Denison. He had a team of horse. He plowed gardens of a spring for everyone. George, Butch and friends would ride in the wagon to where he was plowing and walk back when they were not in school. He tied his horses out in the alley when feeding them, and not working them. It made quite a smell. He finally died with cancer.
My sister, Pearl, and husband, Sylvester, and (I believe) about 8 or 9 kids came out from Oklahoma when we lived across street before we bought the house. They lived at Pleasant View close to brother Jim. Jon and Sylvester went to Arizona a couple of times to find work there but didn’t find anything steady so came back. John got on with the city of Cortez fixing water leaks in the line which he hated. Pearl had a baby born out here, Deena, but they finally went back to Oklahoma to live. When she left she gave me a big tame doe rabbit and me and Butch went into the rabbit business. We borrowed a cage from a woman who got tired of hers. Rabbits will eat most anything. Any kind of green weeds, table scraps, etc. We had a few real good meals of young rabbits but when it got real cold John took them and put them in the cellar where they were very happy for a while. They had mashed one crowded up in the pen. They finally got to digging holes and climbing walls. They knocked off a few jars of canned fruit so we ate them. We gave mama rabbit to Christian who lived across alley and irrigation ditch. They dug out burrows with coops on top. We fenced them in chicken wire and sold young rabbits to neighbors. I bought some only I hated to kill them but we didn’t buy much meat from store then.
Christian and Dock got married and had a son, called him Jimmy. He was George’s friend and school mate. They had a big dog who would meet George out the door and walk with him to get Jimmy. He was real cross with anyone else.
Butch and I tried rabbits again after moving to the house we bought but not much luck. Bill Denison put some in his year to eat grass. The kids moved the pen every day. So I tried chickens. John built a pen out by the toilet. The store gave us a dozen baby chicks if we bought a dozen. I put them in a little pen, lit a lantern and set it in the pen. They huddled around it like an old hen but when they got big enough to eat, it took more food to feed them than to buy a chicken. One chicken kept getting out of the pen and ate neighbors garden. I took last of the out to Pleasant View to Pearl and Jim and that was the last of my ventures raising meat.
John would get a deer or two each fall. He would have bacon and eggs for breakfast.
I put my time into working in the garden and raised a lot to can and freeze. John would get aggravated at me for staying in the garden so much. I would say, plants would do what I helped them to do but him and kids wouldn’t. Maybe if I had stayed inside more he wouldn’t have got to going to bars and drinking.
(End of Grandma’s story.)


Janice found where someone had transcribed information from the Cortez Cemetery which had our grandparents Dorothy B Barnett and John R Barnett and long passed Aunt Mary Jean. William F Barnett would be my Uncle Bill. As for Steven Russell I am not sure but he was a baby that didn’t survive according to this but I had a lot of girl cousins that had babies that still had the Barnett name. Maybe he was one of theirs.
BARNETT Dorothy B (Wills) 07 Dec 1903 01 Mar 1994 w/o John R Barnett
BARNETT John R 22 Apr 1892 30 Apr 1983 WWI Vet h/o Dorothy B Barnett
BARNETT Mary Jean 25 Oct 1935 17 Mar 1938 buried w/ John R & Dorothy B Barnett
BARNETT Steven Russell 09 Sep 1972 09 Sep 1972 buried w/ John R & Dorothy B Barnett
BARNETT William F 1929 1975


Here is the information that I have on Daddy and his family and their marriages and children. Of course as Daddy was the oldest it starts with him, myself and my sisters

Robert Leroy Barnett – born March 1, 1925 at Skidee, Oklahoma
Married Catherine Green on August 31, 1950 in Albuquerque, NM
Children – Barbara Jean – born August 3, 1951 in Albuquerque, NM
Married Gary Lee Borror on November 28, 1970 in San Diego, CA
Son – Dustin Lee Borror– born July 3, 1980 in Albuquerque, NM

Sarah Emily – born July 1, 1955, in Amarillo, TX
Janice Laurel – born January 10,1958 in Burlington, Vermont
Married James Marvin Edmonds on July 14, 1979 in Silver City, NM
Son–James M. Edmonds, Jr.–born Oct.6,1980 in Silver City, NM
Son–Eric J. Edmonds- October 19, 1983 in Silver City, NM
Daughter-Cynthia Julia Edmonds on Oct. 12,1986 in Homestead,
William Felix Barnett – born May 14, 1929 Skidee, Oklahoma (no children)
Died 1975

Emma Barnett – born March 11, 1927 married David Axtel
Daughter – Karen and 3 sons


Gilbert Franklin Barnett – born March 14, 1931 married Lee Anha (Mirea)
4 daughters Londa, Lora Jean, Charma, Lynnia
Lora Ella Ruth –born April 9, 1933 married Johnny Reamer 5 daughters, Vickie Sue, Sandra Kay,
Judy Gay, Mickie Lee, Lori Kim and a son (name unknown)
Doris Jeannette – born June 25, 1941 married Jack. W. Risenhover 3 daughters Connie Lenett,
Cheryl Dawn, Jenna Deann
John Eugene – born April 5, 1944 married Mary Ann had John Thomas and Julie Ann
George Wesley – born August 15, 1946 married Marjorie Ann had Victoria Susan