`“The Old Porter Place”: Stories From Our Age of Innocence
Jerry C. Brewer Larry D. Davis
Copyright 2009 Jerry C. Brewer
Smashwords Edition
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Dedicated To The Memory Of Our Maternal Grandparents
Walter And Sarah Augusta (Short) Bowen
…an American couple who came west when they and Oklahoma were young. They tilled its soil, struggling against dust, drought, and personal tragedy that never quenched their love, or faith, and raised seven children in the depths of the Great Depression. They bequeathed a rich Southern heritage to their children—two of whom, Marie (Bowen) Davis and Bessie (Bowen) Brewer, were our mothers—and to their grandchildren whose greatest delight was to sit on the bench at their table, eat Grandma’s fried chicken and listen to their tales of life in the far away hills of West Virginia and Kentucky. “Precious mem’ries, how they linger…"
Authors’ Preface
There was never a time in the seven decades of our lives that we did not know each other. We are first cousins, born five months apart to mothers, Marie (Bowen) Davis and Bessie (Bowen) Brewer, who were sisters and our middle names came from our fathers, John Denton Davis and Clyde Brewer. We grew up together in Western Oklahoma and the grandest times of our childhood were spent on the “Old Porter Place” east of Carter, Oklahoma. That was the home of our Grandparents, Walter and Sallie Bowen, and so many fond memories flood our minds from those sweet days of childhood innocence.
We share the same Southern heritage, descending from Scot, Irish, Welsh and English ancestors who settled Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. In our childhood, we imbibed the culture of the Kentucky and West Virginia mountains, the Mississippi and Alabama cotton fields, and the Texas plains. We treasure our heritage and would not trade it for all the gold in Fort Knox. We are the sum of our past and what a treasured past it is! We believe our heritage is worth preserving and that we were indeed blessed by our gracious God to be born into that culture. In our adult conversations, we have often expressed our belief that we were born and raised in one of the best times to be woven into the tapestry of American history.
Only two generations removed from the frontier, we heard our grandparents’ stories of life in the Kentucky and West Virginia hills and from them and our parents came many of the stories that comprise this volume. They bequeathed to us a rich oral tradition of family and culture and we are passing those on to our kin in permanent form. These are stories of a time that is gone forever—one in which the virtues of hard work, honesty, reverence for God, parents, and elders were instilled into young minds—and they should be preserved for those who follow in the long march of time. May you enjoy these true stories and pictures of our kin from their long ago lives as much as we have. May they enrich your lives and instill in you a love for our ancient family culture.
Larry Denton Davis
Jerry Clyde Brewer
17 February, 2010
Table of Contents
Stories By Larry D. Davis
Memories of “The Old Porter Place”
Craters On The Moon And Mary Lou Chandler
“Red Buck” Weightman: Oklahoma Desperado
Whatever Happened To Ed Peskinovsky?
John And Ada Mae: My Paternal Grandparents
Saturday In Elk City, 1940s Style
Does Anyone Remember A Different America...?
Stories By Jerry C. Brewer
The Day I Shot A Chicken Stealin’ Dog
Modern Conveniences? It Depends
Stories By Larry D. Davis
Memories of “The Old Porter Place”
During the late 1940s and early 50s my maternal grandparents, the Bowens, lived on a farm known as the “Porter place.” "Porter" was the name of the family who originally settled the land when it was first opened for white settlement in 1892 in what had been Cheyenne-Arapaho Indian country. Other nearby farms were known as the "Keas place," the "Blocker place," the "Music place" or the "Vaughan place," etc. Those family names represented the original settlers on that land but that form of nomenclature no longer exists today since all the settlers have died out, or, for the most part their families have sold the land and moved away.
Bowen cousins colouring Easter Eggs at the old Porter Place in 1947
Nowadays, as I look back on the past sixty plus years since 1949 I am convinced that many of my most vivid and precious memories revolve around the goings-on in our family while Grandma and Grandpa Bowen lived on the “Porter place.” One of those centers around memories of Christmas time, 1949. I remember that year as the year Grandpa went back to West Virginia to see the relatives he hadn’t seen since his one and only earlier visit in 1924 when he saw his mother for the very last time. My Mom said “It just doesn’t seem like Christmas this year without Dad.”
I vividly remember those days when the Christmas tree was anchored with red Oklahoma dirt in a galvanized bucket, situated in front of the dining room window and decorated with a mixture of traditional and modern ornaments. Aunt Irene, the sentimental type, wanted to use some of the old-time tree decorations remembered from her childhood days—popcorn strung beadlike with needle and thread for roping, and multicolored paper chains of colored construction paper, now called craft paper.
Also included were tokens of modern decorations such as glass ball ornaments and a strand or two of electric Christmas lights purchased from a Five and Dime Store in Elk City or perhaps Della’s Variety in Carter. Every year someone dressed up as Santa Claus and in 1949 Grandma played Santa Claus. I remember it well since I was 8 years old and that’s the year I discovered Santa Claus was a myth when I recognized Grandma’s voice and her hands. Also, that year I remember when Santa squatted down to talk with my cousin, Lynn. He was so excited that he forgot his own name when Santa asked him. Instead, he reeled off the names of all of us cousins except his own. The family roared and I never forgot the occasion.
The Porter place was a typical Western Oklahoma farmstead in the 1940s. It had no indoor plumbing or running water. Winter time heat was supplied by the coal-fired, black, pot-bellied stove which Grandpa managed in the living room and the coal oil cook stove which Grandma tended in her kitchen. Whenever I slept over during a week or weekend, which was common, I slept in the bed with Uncle James under piles of homespun quilts in his unheated and un-insulated room just off the living room. In the morning it was so cold that I'd put on my blue jeans while still under the warm covers before running out to warm myself beside the potbellied stove that Grandpa had already fired up.
Next, it was into the kitchen to splash my face with frigid water to wake up, then dry off with the communal face towel and then head for the breakfast table. Grandma had already been busy for an hour or more preparing platters of fried eggs, ham, or bowls of sausages and plenty of freshly baked “cathead” biscuits, as Uncle James called them. There was always a big pot of fragrant coffee and a pitcher of cold milk from their own cows. Fresh farm milk would sometimes have a hint of flavor derived from whatever plants the cows had grazed on. I remember tasting “wild onion” in the milk occasionally. And, no, the “cathead” biscuits had nothing to do with a house cat except the size of its head which was about the same size as Grandma’s biscuits. They were always light as a feather and fluffy as a cloud and Uncle James always put lots of freshly churned butter between his biscuit and called it “putting it to sleep.” We ate till we were filled while enjoying friendly chatter and laughter until we were fortified and ready to greet the day!
The familiar bucket of water in the kitchen was drawn from the cistern just outside the back door and was supplied from the gutters on the roof which funneled rainwater into the cistern for storage. I remember our water and iced tea made from it sometimes tasted of the cedar shingles over which the rainwater traveled on its way into the cistern. Beside the water bucket was the communal dipper which we all used to drink water. Our mothers would always remind us to “don’t let the water drip back into the bucket when you drink!” Any leftover excess water would then be thrown out the back door.
The backyard held a privy, a chicken house, smoke house and garage, which Uncle James called a “shed.” It housed their green 1937 Chevrolet and located on the other side of the outhouse was a giant cottonwood tree which all we cousins climbed and played in until its branches were worn slick from our adolescent activities. Last of all was the storm cellar—our refuge from tornados in the early springtime and the storage place for all of Grandma’s preserved and pressure-canned foods.
Every springtime Grandma would mail order 300 baby chicks from Kansas City or some such place which she read about in Capper’s Weekly or the Progressive Farmer magazine. They were delivered “live” in perforated cardboard boxes by the rural mail carrier and Grandma would then tend them until they started laying eggs for the family. After some time they also provided meat for the table and, usually, she would kill three of them for a Sunday dinner. Her fried chicken was unforgettable!
I also remember that by-products of her chicken raising effort were the chicken feed and laying mash sacks that the products came in. She bought the laying mash from Fred Smalts in Elk City. The sacks were color-patterned such that farm folks used them to make work shirts or aprons. Well, I had the great honor to wear those sack shirts as a little boy and am proud I did. Colored flour sacks were also converted into shirts and aprons back then. Not like our modern “throw-away” society of today.
The front yard had no grass to mow but the bare ground was occasionally swept clean with a broom and Grandma always had flowers growing out there. I especially remember “Sweet Williams” and her ever-present “Hollyhocks.”
Across the road from the farm house stood the barn and windmill which pumped water for the cows. The barn housed the cows and sometimes baby calves. I remember us cousins holding a “rodeo” in the barn, riding the calves. Calvin was the best calf rider as I remember. Additional fun was had by climbing up to the loft and tumbling down into the hay stack— over and over.
Out in the “shed,” or garage, Grandpa kept three or four old steel traps hanging up which he used to capture an occasional possum or coon that threatened the chickens. We used to set the traps out and try to catch Grandma’s chickens by baiting them with corn. We also tried our hand at trapping wild animals with them, just like trappers of old. One Sunday, we slung the steel traps over our shoulders and headed down to a small rivulet of water, which wasn’t actually a real stream, where we set the traps. I had to go home for the following week but when I returned the next weekend I learned we had caught something—a skunk which my cousin, Calvin, dragged home and pleaded with Grandma to take him to the doctor since he felt he was deathly sick! I don’t remember trapping after that.
I remember the times that Grandma made molasses taffy just like her mother had done for her when she was a child in Kentucky. She would cook the ingredients then we’d have to “pull the taffy” while it was still quite hot until it was the right consistency —delicious old-time candy. I also remember the Saturday night chili supper when we’d stop at the grocery store by Highway School house to pick up a five pound box of saltine crackers, a block or two of chili and six-pack of RC Colas. Made a great supper for us on a wintry Saturday night!
As a young kid, I was always interested in all things old. One week when I was spending a week of summer vacation with them, I decided to hunt for Indian artifacts or arrowheads. I wore myself out looking for them, without any luck, so I asked Grandma, “How can I find something old?” She brightened up, pointed to herself and exclaimed, "you’ve found it! I’m old”! What a sense of humor she had!
Finally, and most of all, I remember bedtime when lights were out and just like on “The Waltons” television program during the 1970s, everyone in the household would invariably bid “good-night” to everyone else. “Good night Mama, good night Papa, good night Aunt Irene, good night James. Good night, Larry.”
My Last “Chaw”
It was a typical boiling hot August Sunday afternoon during my 15th year on earth and the red liquid in the “Carter Cotton Gin” thermometer on the side of Grandma’s porch had once again been driven above the 100 degree mark. As was usual for a Sunday, the family had gathered for one of Grandma’s famous fried chicken dinners. We called the noontime meal “dinner” since in those days supper was considered the last and lighter meal of the day.
After the big meal we boy cousins sought refuge from the heat in the cooling shade of a giant cottonwood tree and the chance to catch a breeze in the side yard. Shade there was, breeze there was not and soon boredom, typical of a lazy hot summer day, set in and we boys approached Uncle Charley, Grandma’s youngest brother, whom we could always depend on for a covert “chaw of tabackee” as he called it in his Kentucky drawl. His one and only brand was “Beech-Nut” in the familiar red and white striped pouch he kept in his striped overall pocket. We knew and trusted him as our buddy and he loved us kids since his only daughter had died at an early age many years before. I now also know that our parents knew of his generosity to us but pretended not to notice his indiscretion in the hope that we would eventually be cured of our curiosity with chewing tobacco, thus solving the problem once and for all.
Uncle Charley and Aunt Lola Short
Uncle Charley always obliged our request and freely passed around his tobacco pouch. Each of us would imitate him and place a big wad in our cheek then slowly chew and begin to spit as the “juices” started flowing. Actually, I remember that it had a pleasantly sweet taste but I was still an amateur although I had tried it several times in the past—always during family gatherings such as this. However, this particular time, feeling particularly grown-up, I accidentally swallowed too much of the “ambeer” as it was called and soon I began to feel the effects of the nicotine. I began feeling “woozie”, as Mother called it, and, being dizzy, I immediately sat down on the crumpled top of a sagging hog wire fence surrounding the side yard while great beads of sweat popped out on my forehead in spite of the shady cottonwood canopy. Suddenly, the world as I knew it was transformed into a panorama of distorted, surreal, figures and my head started pounding from a near-blinding headache that I felt certain would threaten my vision. Mulberry bushes around the yard began swirling around me like the visions of “Alice In Wonderland” and the familiar voices of my cousins became distorted and seemed to come from far away, as if thru a long tube. I felt that death was imminent and, at this point, not totally without merit. These sensations went on for an eternity, so it seemed, but more likely, only a couple of hours, then subsided into a general malaise which I carried home with me at the end of a painfully memorable hot summer August day in 1957.
Needless to say, that was my last “chaw”.
Grandma Glover
My Great-Great Grandma, Sarah Augusta Bancroft Glover, was born in 1843 in the New England town of Worcester, Mass. and was the 9th generation of her family in this country since her immigrant ancestor, John Bancroft, landed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640 from England. While Sarah was still a small girl, her father, Madison Bancroft, moved his family to western Virginia where he set up his blacksmith shop.
Later, as a young adult, Sarah married and taught school in Virginia and Kentucky. Her husband died, leaving her with a small child who became my great grandmother. Sarah remarried and her second husband also died a few years later. In 1907 she decided to “go west” with her son-in-law and his family after the son-in-law’s two-story log house located in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Johnson County, Kentucky burned to the ground, resulting in the death of two young sons, Milton and Paul, in 1906. Their intended destination was Washita County in the Territory of Oklahoma which was soon to become a state.
The family group arrived in Oklahoma Territory on January 30, 1907—Sarah’s granddaughter’s 21st birthday. Her granddaughter became my grandmother and she told me there was blizzard blowing in its full fury when they finally arrived in their new “home.” This area—Washita County, Oklahoma Territory— had formerly been a part of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Indian Territory until it was opened for white settlement by a Land Run in 1892. The Federal Homestead Act of 1862 declared that a person could claim 160 acres of unclaimed Federal land if he homesteaded it—filed for it, lived on it and improved it for a period of at least five years and then it would be deeded to him.
To qualify, Sarah Glover, aged 64 years, and her son-in-law built a half-dugout dwelling as was common on the prairie in those days. A site was chosen near a fresh water creek on level and well-drained ground and protected on three sides by red Oklahoma hills. Many pioneer homes on the prairie were of the half-dugout type since building timber was scarce except for trees growing mostly along the creeks. A 10 or 12 by 12 foot pit was dug into the earth to a depth of 3 or 4 feet and above it was constructed a 3 or 4 foot high log house with a thatched roof. It had a single door leading down three or four steps onto the earthen floor and the dwelling had no windows. Lighting was supplied by candles or kerosene lamps, according to my mother’s oldest brother who lived there with his great grandmother. The half-earth, half-wood room was very practical since it proved warm in winter and cool in summer. The downside was all the “crawlies”—spiders, snakes and various others—that also took up residence in the cozy half-dugout.
After the required five years of improvement, Grandma Glover fulfilled the requirements of the Homestead Act and the land was deeded to her from the courthouse in Washita County, Oklahoma. But two years later, she grew homesick and longed to see her relatives back in Kentucky. She sold her homestead to her son-in-law, Silas Short, my great grandfather, and went back to live in Kentucky. She lived there about one year until the Influenza Epidemic of 1917 claimed her life.
Even today, the location of her half-dugout is evident as a sunken spot, now mostly filled in by time and erosion, located exactly where she settled her land about 15 miles southwest of my hometown, Elk City, Okla., and in 2008, my mother, aged 90 years, pointed out the location to me as we slowly drove past while touring the area of Mom’s childhood.
Tales of the “Dust Bowl”
“Eleven cent cotton and 40 cent meat, how in the world can a poor man eat?” Those lyrics from the Depression era song written in 1931 pretty well sum up the stories I’ve heard first-hand all my life from my own mother, now aged 91, and my Dad. She and my Dad both lived through those terrible 1930’s in Oklahoma that left memories embedded in their minds which affected the remainder of their lives.
According to Mom and what I’ve gathered from reading, the years 1926-1931 saw unprecedented bumper crops in our nation’s breadbasket. There was an over-abundance of cotton, corn and wheat and this false sense of prosperity encouraged the dry-land farmers to plow up even more of the virgin prairie lands and sow even bigger crops. What they hadn’t counted on were three future record drought years, 1934-1936, when crops withered, dried up, and died. Cattle starved and record temperatures were recorded—134 degrees in 1934. The parched ground cracked open like 40 acres of over baked cookies and the drying winds exchanged topsoil between Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and points north in gigantic, dark billowing clouds that actually blocked the sun until, according to my Dad, “chickens went to roost in the middle of the day.” Sandy, dry soil blew so hard that it covered the fences and posts so deep that cattle could walk right over them on the dunes. Cattle herds starved and the price of a whole beef dropped to $14 per head and half of the herds were so ravaged by starvation and thirst that they had to be destroyed. My Dad told of using a bulldozer to dig pits and bury the carcasses. The proverbial breadbasket of the nation was empty and America was brought to her knees.
In 1933, Mother’s oldest brother, Harry, joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) a Federally sponsored program which was established to provide jobs and income for needy families. It was run like a military organization and Uncle Harry ended up serving his stint in California fighting forest fires and such. Each cadet was paid $30 a month and was required to send $25 back home to his family, retaining only $5 for personal use for that month. Sounds quite extreme to us, right? Well… those were extremely dire circumstances. Would we be willing or able to do the same today? What?? No cell phones or Ipods?? Let’s hope we’re not called on to do so!
Uncle Harry Bowen at the CCC Camp in California, 1937
Mother recalled dirt blowing and drifting inside the farmhouse so badly that bed sheets were soaked in water and hung over the doors and windows to catch it. Mother’s sister, Nadine, contracted “Dust Pneumonia”, a serious but common ailment during the Dust Bowl era. In 1935, Mom’s family lost the farm they had worked since 1917, along with hundreds or thousands of other unfortunate farmers when there was no way possible for them to meet payments on the farm or pay their debts. After that, they became sharecroppers working for someone else who had fared better and it seemed that Grandpa lost his incentive—was psychologically destroyed—afterward. On the other hand, Dad’s family—crusty and tough ol’ Texas stock since 1850 fared much better! Grandad Davis was “tough as a boot” and a survivor, no matter what came his way. But, his life story is best left for another time…
Finally, conditions became so bad that Dad joined other “Okies” and headed out on Route 66, which went right through my hometown of Elk City, to California. Remember “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck? Dad, his sister and her husband, my Uncle David, drove to California in an old jalopy of a car and they told many tales about blowing tires, repairing them with “cold patches” on the roadside, blowing head gaskets, repairing them on the side of the road with “extras” they had thoughtfully brought along with them, and uncounted numbers of breakdowns while traveling through the desert Southwest. I heard those same stories so many times that I never really “listened” to them, so, unfortunately, I can’t relate a lot of detail that I have heard. Now, 50 or 60 years later, I regret that!
Once they reached “the promised land”, and being unemployed, they had to sleep in their car and catch fish in the ocean surf for food until they snagged a job. Soon they all landed jobs at Libby’s Canneries and the money came rolling in—more money than they had seen in years! At last they could send money back home to help their poor but deserving families.
Finally, the situation began improving in Oklahoma as the rains returned, winds abated and conditions improved. Conservation practices were improved, shelter belts of trees were planted to deter the Oklahoma wind and farming returned to normal, except they now terraced instead of planting and plowing flat fields. Those “shelter belts” are still a familiar sight in the farming areas of my own native Western Oklahoma. Dad returned to Oklahoma about 1938, started dating Marie Bowen whom he had known for years and they were married. I came along a year later and we all lived “happily ever after”.
Craters on the Moon and Mary Lou Chandler
The year was 1952. I was in the 7th grade in the Memphis, Texas Junior High School and it was five years before the Russians punched a hole into space with their Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. Those were much simpler, less sophisticated, times but most folks were already thinking about space travel, and aliens on Earth and movies were appearing about the subject since the “Roswell Incident” of 1947 in New Mexico was still fresh in our memories. The science teacher at school had even ground lenses and made a fairly decent telescope. He took a bunch of us students outside town to a nearby knoll one dark night where he set up his scope to look at the heavens. I was amazed by the fact that he was smart enough to integrate the telescope with a mechanical driver which he calibrated to compensate for the rotation of the Earth in order to keep our viewing field constant. I was astounded at his expertise and knowledge and thought to myself that these were such exciting times to be living in!
My best friend, Jon, lived two houses down the street from me and we spent nearly all our waking hours together. We both day-dreamed of space travel and decided to become junior astronomers. He secured an old telescope and a pair of binoculars his family used during sight-seeing trips to the New Mexico mountains. These “optical instruments” became the heart of our observatory which was sometimes located on the grass of his front lawn or, sometimes, in the back of his father’s old Chevrolet pickup. At nighttime we’d lie there scanning the skies for any movement that might forecast a new discovery. Once in a while we’d spot a shooting star but nothing much more than that. Disappointing.
Highest on our priority list was visually “exploring” craters on the Moon. They were mysterious and we pondered “how were they formed?” Any life forms up there? What gas do “they” breathe? More questions than answers, for certain! We longed for stronger lenses and a clearer picture, but had no spare money since it had been squandered on comic books from the drug store and the picture show downtown on the courthouse square.
One memorable Saturday night, about 10 o’clock, we were in the back of the pickup scanning the heavens when our neighbor, Mary Lou Chandler and her current boyfriend, Lenny Davis, drove up and parked at the curb next to her house located catty-cornered from our vantage point. We had already tired of looking at craters on the Moon and, searching for a diversion, trained our binoculars on the action inside the car. This proved more suitable for the power of our lenses than an object about 230,000 miles away on the moon. Mary Lou and Lenny were in the throes of passionate good-night kisses for that evening. Soon she ran inside and Lenny sped away. Wow… that was definitely more exciting for a couple of 11-year-olds than watching craters on the moon! But, we’d had enough “astronomy” for the evening so I went home.
Next semester at school everyone was buzzing about a rumor they’d heard. Mary Lou was pregnant and not married! In 1953 that was shockingly big news and the very first time I ever remember hearing such a thing. Times were different back then and, truthfully, I don’t know the outcome of it all since we were soon transferred back to Oklahoma for my Dad’s job. I suppose all of us have unanswered questions from our past. I always wondered how it all turned out. Did Mary Lou actually have a baby? Did she get married and raise a family? I hope so. What happened to my friend Jon? Last I heard of him, about 35 years ago, he got married and moved to Amarillo—or, was it Lubbock? Did he become an astronomer? I didn’t.
Bootleggin’ In Oklahoma
Prohibition was in effect in the United States between the years 1920 and 1933 and was arguably one of the worst laws ever passed by the Congress. Alcohol and human beings had coexisted since 7,000 years BC when the Sumerians in ancient Iraq recorded the first recipe for beer. It is theorized by anthropologists that agriculture, as we know it, was established to produce grain to make alcoholic beverages which were purer and far safer for consumption than drinking water. The Pilgrim fathers who founded a permanent settlement at Plymouth Bay in 1620 did so because ”their victuals, especially their stores of beere were running low.” They were forced to set ashore at a location different from their intended destination, which had been granted to them by the Virginia Company of London, so they could take up brewing and replenish their supply. In those days it was common for all persons to drink about a quart of beer per day.
Fast forwarding to the early 20th century, prohibition separated Americans from their longtime companion, alcohol, and my uncle, “Chick” Davis, who was an enterprising fellow and a Beckham County, Oklahoma Deputy Sheriff, became a bootlegger during the 1930’s and 40’s when Oklahoma was still a “dry” state. He owned and operated a speakeasy called “The Tower” in my hometown and it was from there that he distributed his “supplies.”
According to my Dad, Uncle Chick got most of his “supplies” out of Texas since it was only about 30 miles west to the state line. Uncle Chick had a pilot’s license and a Piper airplane which he flew and brought supplies into western Oklahoma. He landed on the hay field of another uncle, Goebel Music, who was “Chick’s” brother-in-law and the load was stored in the barn for distribution. Once he flew too low over the Clinton-Sherman Naval Air Base, where World War Two Navy pilots trained at Burns Flat, Oklahoma, and they fired at him. The shots missed their mark and, again, he safely landed in Uncle Goebel’s hay field.
Another avenue for his “supplies” was by car, driving up from north Texas, across Red River and into my grandpa’s barn. My Dad made these runs with his older brother and their final run was the most exciting and memorable, according to my Dad. One night they came out of north Texas with a full load of whiskey in Uncle Chick’s long black Buick touring car which had a powerful straight eight engine and from which the back seat had been removed so that cases of liquor could be packed in from the trunk right up to the front seat to maximize their payload. They also had installed heavy duty springs to carry the overweight load at a normal level without tipping-off anyone looking at the car. Lawmen had learned to look for cars that were riding lower than normal which indicated a heavy load.
Everything went fine with their trip home until they got to Lone Wolf, Oklahoma where they met with a big surprise! Apparently someone had tipped off the Kiowa County Sheriff who had set up a roadblock and was expecting them to come through. The car slowed as they approached a left turn in the center of the small town to head north toward Sentinel, Oklahoma. There they encountered the roadblock and a few lawmen. Then, "Ole Billy Thunder” broke loose as gunfire shattered all the windows in the car and Uncle Chick warned my Dad to, “get down on the floor board ‘cause I’m drivin’ ‘er thru.” He then hunkered down, busted thru the barricade and miraculously sped away toward my Grandad’s barn in Beckham County where they parked their load for the night.
That was the last run my Dad ever made with his brother.
Uncle Flem Watson
A very memorable character out of my childhood was always known to me as “Uncle Flem.” His official name could have been Fleming Watson but I don’t know for certain. He was an uncle of my Uncle Pete Vaughan who married Mom’s youngest sister, Virginia, and they lived on the “old Vaughan home place” as it was called. Flem was born during the 1880’s in Alabama and had come to Oklahoma in a covered wagon with his sister and family in the early 19th Century. Flem never married and was considered somewhat mentally unstable so he always resided with his sister’s family, then later with my uncle, his nephew’s family, until his death in the 1950’s.
Uncle Flem was a lean, lanky fellow with a long sharp nose which protruded from a slouch hat with brim turned down all around and which hid his shock of reddish colored hair. He always dressed in blue overalls, chewed tobacco and liked to whittle wood with a pocket knife to pass the time. Don’t remember that he carved anything in particular but simply whittled shavings off a piece of wood.
Flem always seemed mysterious to us boys and “his room” was located behind a closed door at the top of a staircase leading from the dining room to the attic of the big white farm house. His room was always off limits to us little cousins but we were always curious about “that room” and once or twice we ventured up there while he was away and peered inside without entering. Nothing sinister looking but we didn’t dare go inside. Still, his room seemed foreboding to us.
Uncle Flem lived in the room indicated by the second story window. This house was purchased by his brother-in-law, William Vaughan from Sears Roebuck in about 1902
Uncle Flem liked to tease us and would clamp "Devil’s Claws" onto our lower pant legs where their two sharp points would pierce the skin. It hurt but he was amused. "Devil’s Claws" are the dried pods of a gourd-like plant that is common on the dry prairie of the Southwest. They are similar in shape to a crab and have two sharply pointed pincers. He didn’t mean harm but found it amusing.
Occasionally Uncle Pete would be away from the house and Flem found it a perfect time to tease and taunt my Aunt Virginia. At least once he took a playful swipe at her with his whittling knife. At a later time, Uncle Flem was committed to the State Mental Hospital at Fort Supply, Oklahoma when he became belligerent and announced that “he could stop the wind from blowing.”
I don’t remember any more than that about Uncle Flem but I’ll never forget him and may God rest his soul.
Uncle Jeff Davis
One of my great grandfather’s younger brothers, Jefferson Davis, was born near Fairfield, Texas in Freestone County in 1862 or ’63 and was named for the President of the Confederacy at that time. The family had moved to Texas from Mississippi in 1851 after Texas achieved statehood in 1845. Jeff’s parents died in the 1870s and he went to live with his oldest brother, Silas Daniel Davis, who was a veteran of the War Between The States and my great grandfather. He was twenty years older than his brother, Jefferson.
I met Uncle Jeff only once in my life although I had heard a lot about him from older family members. He resided in El Paso, Texas, and came to our house for a visit in 1947 when I was in the first grade at school. From what my Dad had told me, Uncle Jeff was a serious minded man. He spent only one evening and night with us and was about 85 years old at the time. We were all amazed that his mind was so clear and that he had retained all his natural teeth, did not need to wear eye glasses and was neatly dressed and of very clean and fastidious habits—unusual for an old-timer of his advanced age. He drank only milk with all his meals but before bedtime he invariably had a whiskey toddy.
All my life I have been interested in listening to stories of the “old days” from older relatives and strangers alike and to my satisfaction, Uncle Jeff was a good storyteller. After supper that night, to my delight, he started telling us about his early days. His stories gave an insight into his personality as a no-nonsense type of fellow. We already knew my grandfather also possessed that quality and, so, I concluded it was a Davis trait. My conclusion proved true in succeeding years as I learned more about my family and its history.