AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
SAMMY LEE BARNETT TANKERSLEY
June 1, 1938
Part 5;
Is there a Doctor in
the House, neighbor helping neighbor:
Rush was
summoned on a jury at Pawnee on a big cattle case (editor's note; I do not have any records on this, was it cattle rustling?). They called it the Million Dollar Jury. He was there just one month. I had three children,
Grandma Tankersley was with us then, and I boarded the school teacher
and kept a hired man. I was a very busy woman but managed to keep
things going.
For several years I went about the county helping to
care for the sick, and there was a great amount of sickness. The
county was new and there was much malaria and typhoid. One night
someone called from outside and Rush went out. Two men had come for
me to go to where a little girl eight years old had died. Rush got a
horse and put the saddle on for me while I got ready. I got on the
horse and took Ruth in my lap and rode a mile through the timber with
these men, single file, to the home. The men went on to their homes
down in Indian Creek country. I never did see them again, of even
see them at all, for it was 11:00 p.m. When they came for me and they
left before daylight. I never did see their faces. I went many
times in the night to help people as there were no doctors for
several years.
I was called another
time at midnight to go and call two young men who were camped down on
our creek where they were building a large bridge across the creek.
Their father was very sick at a hotel in Jennings and they said he
would not live until morning. Rush was away from home, and I felt
like it was a mater of life or death and that I must go. I woke the
two older children and hunted up a lantern and went the half mile
down in the dense timber and across the creek on a log. When I was
near enough to call I did so, and several dogs ran out and began
barking. The cold chills ran down my back and I stood there until
one of the men answered. I told him what was wanted and then we went
back, shivering, up the hill home. All such things belong to pioneer
life and we took things as they came and tried to do our part.
Many pleasant incidents
happened along with the other things. One day I needed some oatmeal
and Rush didn't want to stop working to go to town. An old German
lady living near us came by going to town. Rush stopped her and
asked if she would bring some oats. He gave her one dollar to pay
for them with, but she thought he meant oats for seed, so she went to
the feed store and bought a bushel of seed oats and paid a dime for
the sack to put them in, and lost what was left of the dollar. We
had a hired man who laughed about it every time he came in the house.
He told all the neighbors and they would call to ask when Rush was
going on full feed. So we got a good laugh out of that.
In 1902 we had quite an
experience with our school teachers. I was on the school board at
that time and we hired a young man for our eight month term. He
taught one month and got into some trouble and ran away. It was a
very great surprise as he was well educated and very refined and well
liked. We then hired a young lady. She had taken her examination
for her teacher's certificate. She hadn't got it yet but was very
sure she would. She taught one month and failed to get her
certificate. By this time all of the schools had teachers and it
seemed as though we wouldn't get one. I met our County
Superintendent at a street fair in Jennings and he told me of a lady
we could get. She had given up teaching and was on a farm. The next
day I drove our horse and buggy eight miles and hired the lady. She
came the next Monday and too the school and was fine. She had a
husband and four children, and was a successful teacher.
In 1904 the oil people
came to our county and leased all the land and began drilling oil
wells, wildcat wells about two and a half miles apart. They were
drilling a well at Cleveland, Oklahoma, which proved to be a gusher
and came in the 2nd of July, 1904. I started to
Independence, Kansas on the 3rd and the train stopped in
Cleveland, which was twelve miles from Jennings. That was the first
oil well in Oklahoma. There was a wildcat made on our farm and they
struck oil, but they plugged the well and went away.
In 1904 was the first
time I saw an automobile. While in Independence, Kansas, I saw this
wonder. It was two years later before there was one in our town. The
one I saw in Independence was very large and upholstered in red leather. It
came from Philadelphia and was said to have cost $4,000.
That year we raised a
fine crop of cotton and had some cattle and hogs to sell. We then
bought, among other things, some badly needed furniture, an organ,
and a cook stove. The small cook stove that I had used for so many
years we sold when we got the new one, and all the children cried
when the old one was taken away.
In 1905 our fifth
daughter came and was named Margery Barnett (editor's note; this is Sharon Worth
Goodnight's mother). We were a very happy family and the next
five years everything seemed to go well with us. We had good crops
and an abundance of fruit, our hard times seemed to be over. While
we had lots of work to do, as all farmers have, we had more time to
spend with our neighbors and for forgetting for a few hours the cares
and hard work. Drawing water out of the well seventy feet deep
dozens of times a day and doing the family washing on a wash board as
I did for years before I got a washing machine was hard. It worked
by hand, but that was fine and saved much hard work.
That year Jennings had a
Street Fair for two days and the merchants gave prizes for the best
of everything brought in. I took two loaves of bread and got a fifty
pound sack of flour given by the Todd and Bishop store. Also, for
one glass of jelly I got $1.00 and for one can of blackberries I got
a dozen photos of our baby Margery. I also got the premium on the
baby at the baby show and another $1.00. So we went home happy and
everyone voted the Fair a success.
Our first county fair
was held at Hallett, a town three miles north of us, in 1910. That
year we decided to sell the farm as Rush was having very poor health
and couldn't work on the farm very much, and we had to keep help all
the time. He was County Assessor for several years and didn't do
much work at home. Then the two older children had got to the place
where we had to make a change on account of schools. Rush put an ad
in our home town paper one week and a man got off the train one day
and went to the printing office and asked if they knew a good farm
for sale. The editor told him he did, that a man down on the corner
had a car load of apples and he was selling out his farm and to go
see him, which he did. Rush brought him out to see the farm. He
looked it over and came and looked at the house and said he would
take it. So that time it paid to advertise. It would have been
better if we had rented it for a few years as the oil companies came
back and developed the county after we were away five years.
I went back to visit the
old home in Jennings and there were eight producing wells and two gas
wells on our old home place. But as we had never had any oil money
we didn't miss it by going to Nebraska. Rush had his health again
and that meant much after coming to Nebraska and buying a nice home
where we lived for twenty-five years. The children grew up and we
gave them the best education we could. We have always been proud of
our daughters. Rush and I came to Lincoln in 1935 and Rush padded
away, after forty-seven years of traveling down the long road
together. On this 22nd day of April, our fiftieth wedding
anniversary, ends the story of my life and our pioneering days.
After grim duties have led us over many rough, winding ways now
thrills even more the lengthening chain of memory. I muse awhile and
old dreams come thronging back again. The sadness wears away in the
evening sunshine and I calmly wait until the sun goes down.
Here ends the Autobiography of Sammy Lee Barnett Tankersley
-The End-
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