MAURENE RUTH TANKERSLEY BISHOP's
LIFE ON THE HOMESTEAD
Part 3 - Starting school, Lola, my cousin, is our teacher:
I started to school that fall. That
was a great day for me. Cousin Lola had graduated from
Stillwater A & M the previous spring and she was my first school
teacher. She lived with us. We slept together in a folding bed in
the parlor. After we would go to bed she would tell me interesting
things of her college days, her plans to get more education and teach
college. She was in love with Ben McIninch who was teaching
and coaching that year at Enid State College.
Lois had been in school one
term studying geography, physiology, history, reading, grammar, and
spelling. I had read all of her text books so I moved right along
with her class. About the first thing Lola taught me was to use the
dictionary, a good Webster on a metal stand. I spent most my time
looking up words and their synonyms.
We had a new organ at home and the
school had one too. Lois stated a correspondence music course
from the Dallas Correspondence School of Music. She learned fast,
practiced, could play all the music furnished by the course and also
play by ear. She was the school organist. She was nine.
For the first time I met boys and
girls. There were several German-Russian families in the school
district and their children spoke German and Russian as well as
English. They would sing in German-Russian and dance. One girl,
Alvina Degnar, taught me to dance and we became real good at jigging
and tap-dancing.
More work as I grow:
More chores were added. Lo
and I milked one cow each morning and evening. The year around we
milked before daylight and during the summer months after dark. I
would sit flat on the ground, with my head against the flank of the
cow, close my eyes and probably milked in my sleep. In the evening
after we did our milking job, we would wait for Dad to finish his
three or four cows. The cows would lie down after their milking and
we would stand on them and sing. I presume I was doing opera. We
could ride any horse on the farm, with or without bridle and saddle.
We would ride standing at times and guess what? I would go into my
opera with my horse for a stage. We were forbidden to ride the
mules.
Home improvements:
Dad started his lawn and orchard that
year. He fenced the lawn with good woven wire, graveled the walks
with white sand and gravel, planted Bermuda grass and shrubs. He
planted an Umbrella Tree on each side of the walk to the front gate,
arborvitae along the fence, and a big Box Elder with a sand pile
beneath near the house. Mom planted climbing roses along the fence,
and wisteria and honeysuckle on trellises to shad the windows and
front porch.
An acre of ground was fenced for an
orchard. Dad went to Perry and bought nursery stock pear, peach,
plum, and apple, also seedlings for the same fruit and grape vines
for an arbor. He taught me to graft. It was exciting to see what
developed. We had the only orchard in Pawnee County for several
years. We sold or traded fruit to Todd and Bishop and sold to
individuals. Lo and I sold peach seeds for 50 cents a bushel.
We sold one bushel.
We also had a blackberry patch in a
black loamy spot surrounded by the creek on three sides. Lo
and I picked fruit. Snakes love blackberries. They would stretch
out on the canes. You could hardly see them. Lo was not well
and tired easily. One hot day, blackberry weather, we were getting
ready to go picking. Lo put on Dad's felt boots, slowly
following me as far as the creek where it was shady and cool, took
off her boots, and used them for a pillow and she went to sleep. I
picked the berries and returned to her, still sleeping. I had to
miss quite a few berries, the snakes were in command.
Keeping cool:
We went swimming almost every day.
Dad had taught us the fundamentals of swimming. We could tread
water, float and dog paddle. One day I became tired, crawled up on a
big rock in the waterfall, stretched out in the sun and went to
sleep. I awakened and found I had a bed fellow, a water moccasin. I
simply rolled off the rock and went back to swimming. We were not
afraid of things, we were children of destiny.
Grandma Tankersley lived with
us a year, when I was about five. She wasn't very big, not much
taller than an eight-year-old. She taught all of us the Mother Goose
rhymes, and told us beautiful stories.
"I'll never leave home again, I don't want anymore sisters!":
May 25, 1905, Lois and I were
sent to Spandau's to spend the day. We walked through the
timber exploring as usual, and under a wide spreading tree we found
Indian beads, formed of clay, with designs. They were unfinished,
unfired, and unpainted. We (also) found some rips haws, and wild strawberries.
Mrs. Spandau had gone to our
house and had left Etta and the boys home with instructions
for preparing dinner. Late in the afternoon Etta went home
with us and we found another baby sister. I asked mom, "Is she
a girl?" And then I proceeded to tell her that I would never
leave home again, I didn't want any more sisters.
On our way to Independence:
We went to visit Aunt Hattie
and family in June. Dad stayed at home. It had rained for several
days and was raining when we boarded the MK&T train. When we
neared Coffeeville, Kansas, we were told the bridge across the
Verigree River had been washed out and the river was out of it's
banks.
When we arrived there we were
informed the passengers would cross the river on a temporary foot
bridge and the train at that side of the river would back all the way
to Independence. The train we were leaving would back to
Bartlesville.
A traveling salesman passenger
offered to help mom and her four children cross the river. He
carried Helen and led me by the hand. Mom carried Margery
and led Lois by the hand. The foot bridge was made of
railroad ties, the width of one tie. The water below the ties was
swift, swirling, splashing, frightening. We probably walked the
length of six ties. We boarded the train, backed 29 miles into
Independence. Aunt Hattie and Uncle Lee met us. Our
luggage, a big trunk of cloths, including baby cloths, was taken back
to Bartlesville, and it was a week before it came to Independence.
Uncle Lee owned an Oil Well
Building Company. He erected the derricks, drilled and brought the
wells into production or decided the well was a dry hole. He had
three teams of horses, Clydesdales, all known man killers. It was
unsafe for the men to enter the barn to care for them. I was afraid
to look at them and if they saw you, they would try to reach you,
raring, kicking, snap-biting.
A gusher that had come in at the edge
of Independence had caught on fire. At night it would light the
entire city. Uncle Lee took us as near as possible to the
fire so we could see what an oil fire was really like.
One day he took us through a glass
factory where they made all kinds of glass articles, shaped pieces
and kilned them. The pitcher and glasses they gave to Mom and Dad as
a wedding present came from that factory. I have the pitcher; the
glasses are broken.
All the Stone children were at
home, Birdie-19, Elmer-18, Carl-16, Lena-12,
and Faye-7.
We had to find a new teacher:
Lola and Ben McIninch were married in June. They lived in Enid
where he would teach and coach. Lola was going to work in the
college library.
We had a new teacher in the fall,
Fred Waters. He wasn't much older than the big boys who were
in school. He was very stern, didn't appreciate any foolishness. He
was a good teacher. He didn't like me very well and one day told me,
"You are a precocious child and need discipline." Then he
had me stand on the floor until recess. I could hardly wait until I
could look up precocious and discipline in the dictionary. I didn't
like what I found and his attitude didn't please me. Lois told Mom
and Dad. They had a talk with me and Dad went to school and had a
talk with FW. We eventually became good friends and I remember him
as a favorite teacher.
Uncle Ben dies:
Uncle Ben had pneumonia that winter
and died. Dad borrowed Old Blue and rode all night to get to
Stillwater in time for the funeral. Telegrams were our only means of
communication other than the mail. When he came home I heard him
tell Mom that the morning after the funeral, Kate was
disrespectful to Ben. She came downstairs to breakfast in a
red mother hubbard.
Aunt Kate started teaching at
the college. She taught for fifty years and was retired with honors
from the college, the City of Stillwater, and the State Board of
Education.
School in town:
Our parents decided we should go to Jennings to school. They believed
the schools were better. Lois was placed in the 6th
grade and I in the 5th. My teacher was Miss Ward, a
buxom, good natured young woman.
We rode horseback to school, Lois
on Queen, a young bay mare, a trotter, and I rode Daisy, a sorrel
pacer and a balker. At least four out of five days she would go
about a quarter of a mile to where there was a gate into Riggle farm
where several horses were pastured. She would stop. I would try to
lead her, talked to her, switched her legs to no avail. Lois and
Queen tried to lead and drive her. Finally, I would give up, remove
her bridle, get on Queen behind Lois, and we would go to
school. As soon as we started, she would take off for home. We had
stalls rented in a barn near school. At noon we would go there and
feed our horses, generally eat our lunch there, too.
We made friends with the town girls,
and Lois found a boyfriend, Otto Ramey. The town girls liked
to go to the farm with us for weekends and we enjoyed staying with
them in town for weekends. I have corresponded with Zoe Todd,
Helen Carmichael, and Opal Ramey since 1910 when
we left Oklahoma.
Otto Ramey rode a white
stallion. He would run past our house yelling like a Comanche so
Lois would be sure and see him.
Bigotry in Oklahoma:
Tariton was 2 ½ miles east of
Jennings and was 2 ½ miles west of our house. Jennings had
signs posted, "Niggers not allowed here after sundown."
Tariton's population was all Negro except one man, the Frisco Depot
Agent. He was also the postmaster. Tariton had a Negro church.
They announced baptism on Sunday in House Creel on Mrs. Barnett's
farm. A large crowd attended, both black and white. We went in our
new surrey with the fringe on top, driving a pair of young mules,
Dad's pride and joy. The singing was beautiful, sad, and joyful at
the same time. The minister and those baptized wore long white
gowns. The crowd was reverent, quiet. I cried tears, wanted to sob
loud and clear, but the rest of my family didn't cry so I had to keep
control.
On August 13th, we
attended the Emancipation Proclamation Independence Day celebration.
It was held in Tariton. There were fireworks, a Negro speaker, a lot
of laughing and singing. A platform had been built on which dancing
went on all afternoon and evening. They had violins, a banjo; the
music was good, at least I liked it, and dancing was really great –
graceful and rhythmical.
Visiting Uncle Tom in Lawton:
In August, Lois
and I went to visit Aunt Rosie and Uncle Tom Ferris in
Lawton, Oklahoma. They had three sons, John, Scott,
and Baker, ages 11, 10, and 7. That was our first train ride
alone. A telephone company came to Jennings that summer so we had a
telephone. Mom called the Dr. Leach residence in Oklahoma
City, and asked Mrs. Leach if she would meet us at the MKT
station, take care of us for a couple of hours and then take us to
the Santa Fe depot and see that we boarded the right train. Dr.
and Mrs. Leach lived in Jennings a very short times before
moving to Oklahoma City. She met us in a surrey driven by a Negro.
We went into the city to a very tall building where the doctor had
his office. There was an elevator. We didn't know such a thing
existed, and was it neat! She left us with the doctor, as she had
some errands to do. Lo and I rode down and up several times.
Then we climbed through an open window onto the roof of the next
building, hung over the edge and looked down on the sidewalks below
us. We could see miles and miles of surrounding territory.
We went home with them for lunch and
we were both awed by the big house and it's furnishings. They had a
colored maid. The lunch was ready, and for the first time we tasted
pineapple. There was so much for us to see and learn there. Our
train left Oklahoma City about the middle of the afternoon and two
hours later, we were in Lawton. The entire Ferris family met
our train. Uncle Tom had stopped at our house and stayed
overnight about a year previous to our trip, so we knew him. When he
left, he gave Lois and me each a silver dollar, the first and
only money we ever had, except for the 50 cents we made selling peach
seeds. They lived on a small farm near Lawton. One of their
neighbors was a Studebaker. The young father and his sons
became the manufacturers of the Studebaker cars. The Ferris
home was different, with glassed in porches, large windows, store
carpets and big flower designs.
They milked several cows and sold
milk to an ice cream manufacturing company. John, age 10,
delivered the milk in the morning and Lo and I went with him.
Each morning we had ice cream at the little retail store annexed to
the manufacturing building. We had fancy things such as sodas,
sundaes, etc. We had never tasted ice cream before as Oklahoma did
not have stored ice.
Scott Ferris, United States
Senator, brother of Uncle Tom, lived in Lawton. Grace,
his wife, was a real pretty blond, beautifully dressed at any time we
saw her. We would stop there every morning; I loved Uncle Scott.
The fox hunt:
Uncle Tom had a riding horse,
a stallion which he kept for breeding purposes, for a fee. He was a
meanly and kept confined at all times except when Uncle Tom
exercised him daily. Several couples, including Uncle Scott
and Aunt Grace, had a riding club and the fox hunted, too.
They had a fox hunt one day, came in bright riding habits on restless
horses with many fox hounds. Aunt Rosie loaded the boys, Lo
and I in the surrey, and drove to where the planned to direct the fox
for the kill. We could hear the hounds baying, people yelling.
Finally they came in sight, a
beautiful sight it was, and they got their fox. We could see the
action but not the killing. We walked where the action was –
Aunt Grace had fainted when they killed the fox. Aunt
Rosie said that was a regular performance; she intimated that
Grace was a show-off.
The swimming hole:
Everyday we went swimming. Lo and I held our own with the boys. In
their big hay barn a diving board had been placed high above the hay,
up in the roof area. From it we would swing on a rope, propelling
ourselves with our legs bicycling, back and forth the length of the
barn, finally dropping. Then we had to go to the swimming hole again
to wash the hay dust away.
They had an organ and they kept Lois
playing every evening. We knew lots of songs. Lois would sing
soprano and I the alto. I could have sung both voices at the same
time but didn't want to show off. "Red Wing" was a
requested number every evening.
We had been there a week when Mom
came with Helen and Margery. She had planned with
Aunt Rosie but they surprised Lo and me. It was a good thing she
came as we were homesick.
Teddy Roosevelt at the Powwow:
All of us went to Fort Sill to an Indian Powwow. We went in a big lumber
wagon packed with bedding, food, etc. We made camp on the Quanah
Parker reservation adjoining the military encampment. We were
very near the Indians. We saw Quanah Parker, his daughter and
son. The children were home form college, and
the girl was very pretty.
Teddy Roosevelt and a friend were there, guests of Quanah Parker. They had
been in the Arbuckle Mountains hunting. They had captured two bear
cubs, about half grown and had them in a cage for all to see.
The Powwow was interesting, many
rugged games were played by the young Indian men. Their dances were
colorful and music plaintive.
At night we spread one wide bed and
we all slept side by side, with our heads to the west. In the night,
Helen awakened Mom and asked her if she had locked the doors.
The Indian dogs prowled and made long mournful cries. The sun in our
faces awakened us and we faced the Arbuckle Mountains when we sat up.
Uncle Tom took all of the kids on a before breakfast hike to
the mountains, perhaps two miles away. We returned to loads of good
food, bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, and other goodies. It was a great
camp out. All of the way home, Uncle Tom beat on an empty
five gallon lard can with a wagon whip handle and chanted gibberish.
Getting home to fearful news:
When we arrived home (Editor's note; in Jennings
from Lawton) in the night, Dr. Newell met us at the train.
It was raining and he told us he was taking us to the hotel for the
night. He kept assuring us everything was all right but when we got
to our room, he told us that Dad had driven the young mules to town
and en route home the became frightened at something, ran away, and
he could not hold them or stop them. The surrey had turned over and
Dad had been dragged before he could free himself, and he was at
Spandaus getting good care.
The State Fair:
Oklahoma's first State Fair was held
that fall in Oklahoma City. Dad, Lois, and I went to the fair
and left Jennings on a very early MKT train. We arrived home about
midnight. We was all of the exhibits, a good rodeo, with or neighbor
Guy Carmichael as the state champion rodeo rider. The highlight of
the day was the ride the three of us had on the roller coaster.
The farm flourishes:
Dad had built a good sized one room
house in the corner of our big yard. In early spring, he had hired a
Negro family with several children to work the cotton fields. They
planted, chopped, and picked the cotton. Jennings had a cotton gin
built with a man-made pond alongside to furnish the water for the
steam engine. A sorghum mill and other enterprises moved into the
town and countryside. Todd and Bishop built a new building of native
rock. They started business in 1893 in a huge tent, started
building a couple years later and now the store is a good size, two
stories. Bishops lived on the second floor.
Dad planted watermelons all through
the corn fields and told the Negroes to break one open whenever the
wished. I did my first bookkeeping job that season. A scale was
attached to the wagon which had three side boards on each side. The
wagon would hold 1600 pounds of cotton, a bale after it was ginned.
I stayed on the wagon and weighed the sacks as they were brought to
be emptied. The sacks were 6' long, had shoulder straps for
convenience in dragging them between rows. I entered the weight in a
book. Years later when I was working as a bookkeeper, Dad showed me
the book and it was very well done except all of the 3's were written
backwards.
The happy Negro children would play
rough and tumble, laugh, whistle, and sing. Lo and I watched, but
Mom wouldn't let us talk to them. At night after the work was done,
we would sit outside on our patio. The patio was made of large flat
rocks Dad had dragged in with a team, covered the entire area between
the house and the log house. The well sat in the center of the
patio. The Negroes would also sit outside and they sang spirituals
and hymns, not very many happy songs, but the sound of their music
you wold never forget.
We had planted alfalfa the previous
fall, a new crop to Oklahoma. We had several cuttings of hay that
first season. Dad mowed and I followed the mower with a team hitched
to the rake. We hauled the hay to the barn and pitched in into the
mow. It was filled for winter feeding.
I helped pick corn that fall, helped
harvest the peanuts, onions, potatoes, and yams. Lois was
kept busy helping Mom with Helen and Margery, the
canning, jelly making, etc. Butchering hogs was a job we disliked,
the canning curing hams, bacon, sausage by smoking. Mom made her own
soap. The wood ashes were put into two barrels set on a foot high
platform, with shallow trough from each barrel that would drain into
ten gallon stone jars. Each day we poured water over the ashes and
the contents draining into the jars was pure lye.
The fat from the meat was trimmed and
cooked (Editor' note; rendered) outside the house in large iron kettles,
drained, stored in large stone jars. That was the lard. The
cracklings (leavings from the cooked fat) were then cooked in the
lye, in the same big kettles, and that became soap. It was used for
washing, dish washing, and bathing. Our washing machine was a
washboard.
We had a new teacher, John
Strohmeyer. He became County Superintendent in 1908. He was a
good teacher, too.
There was considerable horse and
cattle stealing. The Vigilantes had organized and Dad joined them.
He would be gone for several days, and he never talked about their
activities when he returned.
Lois and I caught a horse
thief. Our dog, Toby, was barking, looking under the corn crib,
making a big fuss. We decided something was causing his anxiety, so
we took a look. A man was under there, but it was too dark for us to
identify him. We made a plan; was to stay with Toby and keep the man
under the crib while Lois would run to the field and fetch Dad. She
ran like a deer. When Dad came he ordered the man to come out. He
was a young man, probably in his twenties. He had stopped at the
house several days before asking for a handout. Mom set him to
chopping wood. Dad offered to let him stay a few days and work. He
accepted. We had a young sorrel horse that he admired and he rode it
around the farm. He had returned with the intention of staying until
night and stealing the horse. Dad took him to Jennings, told him to
move on, and if he returned he would shoot him.
Dad's health was not good. He hired
a young man on a full time basis. We had other men off and on to
help out, but we had to make arrangement for Zeb to live with us. A
single bed was set up in the log house which was our summer kitchen.
He stayed with us until we sold out and moved to Nebraska in 1910.
Dad became the MKT Depot Agent and
Telegraph Operator. There was living quarters in the freight depot
so he lived there, came home for three or four hours almost every
day. There weren't many trains scheduled then. He also took on the
job of Assessor for our precinct.
Helen started school in the
fall, she was five. John Parshall, a young handsome man was
our teacher. He gave Helen a lot of attention, and she was
pleased, bothered other pupils, prowled around the room, joined the
upper classes and they sat on the recitation bench, etc. She was a
quiet youngster, never talked much but was alert to everything going
on. I worried about her, afraid Mr. Parshall would have to
discipline her.
One day he was standing beside her
desk, listen to the class recite. I saw Helen tear a piece of
paper about the size of a silver dollar, lick one side of it, and
paste it to Mr. P's leg. He saw her, too. He didn't smile, scowl,
or let anyone know he saw it. She looked pleased at her
accomplishment.
Mr. P never married. Kept in touch
with Helen with cards and letters. When she was about 17, he
wrote to visit and marry her. Even though she turned him down, they
still corresponded for a number of years.
this ends Ruth's story
-THE END-
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