Willie Jones (Sam) Laurence and
Alla Edith Eatherton
My father, Willie Jones (Sam), moved with his family to Oklahoma at the time the Cherokee Strip was opened. My dad recalled moving there and living in their covered wagon until they got their cabin built. They settled in the Ft. Gibson/Hulbert area, which was hilly and not very good farming land. W.J. (Sam) my father was about 13 when they moved to Oklahoma. When he was about fifteen he moved with neighbors who were going to Dodge City, Kansas, and never lived near his family after that. According to my mother, my dad did not get along with his dad as a teen-ager, so he left home. He never talked much about his dad to me, but always spoke kindly and softly when he mentioned his mother. After his marriage to my mother, they always stayed close to her family. I think they lived in California a short time around 1920.
