From the Woods County News, Thursday, October 16, 1947, an issue dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the founding of Northwestern Territorial Normal School. The article is headed by a photograph of the sixteen members of the class of 1902.
"Then--As Now--Northwestern Students Mixed Fun With Classroom Studies"
[Editor's Note: Dalton W. Riggs, who is now president of Duo-Tint Bulb and Battery Co., Inc., of Chicago, received his college diploma with Northwestern's class of 1902. As he explains, it would take volumes to cover the history of the class completely, and consequently he has touched only briefly on a few human interest events that took place at Northwestern nearly fifty years ago.]
By Dalton W. Riggs
The class of 1902 started to school in 1898 in the old Congregational church with but three teachers, President J. E. Ament, Prof. J. Everett Smith and Miss Sarah Bosworth.
In one class six of we students had seats on the preacher's baptismal platform. None of the class were immersed, but I do recall someone put a calf in that tank one Hallowe'en eve. I won't say who did it, but on that platform sat the late Gen. Hugh Johnson, Pete Ezell (now you know Pete would not do it), Jessie Mehaffey, myself, and I do not recall the other two right now.
Hugh Johnson became head of the N. R. A. to supervise codes for the various industries, but few know that the first "code" he ever signed was written there in the old church by this writer and others such as Jess Langley, who became a famous patent attorney.
Our first "code" was to let our mustaches grow from one week in April until the close of school in June. The first to cut it off was to treat the other signers to ice cream or ride a rail around the Alva public square. Hugh cut his off the first week and some say it was at a lady's request. We asked him if he wanted to treat or ride. He said, "No money," so we agreed to meet after 4 p.m. in the southwest corner of the square with a 12-foot rail from the Grundy feed lot.
Hugh got astride with his hands on my shoulders to steady his ride. We were soon in front of the post office, where his dad, the late Sam Johnson, was Postmaster. He rushed out to see why Hugh was in such a ride. The penalty was soon explained--we got the money for each code-signer a 10-cent dish of ice cream, then we disbanded.
LIVING EXPENSES LOW
President J. E. Ament lived across the street from the church and I roomed and boarded next door at the home of Mrs. Brown and her daughter, Anna. (She lives in Chicago now and we exchange lunch or dinners occasionally). I did janitor work for the four-room public school for $12 a month; $1 a week for the Land Office; 25 cents a Sunday for the Episcopal church which met in the school house; worked on the Renfrow Record at 50 cents per week press night (I was the Power on the Wheel). This met the $3.50 weekly board bill. The clothes were few and changed so little that help from home, or other work paid for them.
I think Jessie was the only girl who worked her way through school at that time, and I the only boy.
I rode a bicycle home 18 miles every two or more weeks and that sandy road developed quite heavy muscles that gave me a physique that may make me a long-lived subject. This was before Bert Nichols and Cap Stine got their first one-lunged Reo. They could outrun me on the level, but I could get up the long hills faster. When the wind was to my back the folks along the way came out to see me go by so fast. To ride through mud was another feat--and brought about a trade of my bicycle for a horse with a $10 boot, near the present town of Hopeton.
PROUD OF NEW BUILDING
After starting in the old church, the class of 1902 felt quite proud when it moved to the new "Castle on the Hill." I saw it go up day by day and in fact helped to do much on Saturdays by putting down seats, helping construct the football field, etc. Ed Baird and I slept and boarded with Jackson the janitor, in the basement of the building, in return for which we helped with the janitor work.
Ed married one of our class, Garnet Kendall, who came from the Northwest. She had taken a seat in the freshman section the first day she came to school in the fall of 1901. The president explained that she was in the freshman section and asked her if she did not wish to graduate, and she replied that she did. He said, "Then take a seat in the senior row, right behind the gentleman with the red moustache." I had left my mustache on that summer by the president's request "for luck." When Miss Kendall walked to the senior row to take her seat behind me, the whole room of some three hundred craned their necks to see. Herbert D. Fisher, now of California, was in the class and has been one of my close friends ever since who likes to recall that incident. Ed is now Dr. Baird in Excelsior Springs, Mo., where the late Mrs. Riggs was under his care several months last year.
MOVE TO DORMITORY
When the dormitory was built many of us moved to it to have our own cook, manager, janitor, waiters, etc., made up of students working for their board. This cut expenses to as low as $1.75 a week for board and room.
Getting an education took more will power to go than many put forth--hence small attendance. Our class was pepped up by George Hicks and Lacey D. Heater coming in the last year from Iowa, where President Ament had been their high school superintendent a few years before. Professor Smith had been one of his faculty there also.
We had a fine class of 16. Eight of the Orient Literary Society and eight of the Occident Society, four boys and four girls in each and many a class meeting was held with emphatic arguments [illegible] the right. Ayres K. Ross and [?]llison Armstrong were the [?] debators. A Mr. Connie [?] the last part of school [?] intention of getting a d[?] [?]ut he did not receive it [?] next year; however his [name?] appears as a graduate with [?] class. [NOTE: there is a hole in the old clipping, so several words of this paragraph are missing in whole or in part]
ENJOY A CLASS REUNION
Of the original class of 16, 12 are now living. We had our first meeting at the Northwestern homecoming at Alva in 1946. It was a real treat and we all long to have a meeting again before many pass away. We have a "Robin" letter and all write two or more times a year and send to all the members of the class with some of the old Professors adding a letter at times.
Professor Smith now lives at Woodward, Professor Lisk at Alva, Professor Abbott at San Antonio, Tex., and Prof. Palmer at York, Neb. Lute Weld of the class of 1905 now lives at Seattle and is included in the letters as he was in our classes so much.
To see the many new buildings go up on the campus makes us old grads feel we had a part in the start of a fine school. Our class lost Frank Miller soon after he graduated; Frank Green next; Clarence Salter next; and Ed Reed the last. All left a memory never to be forgotten of their good points and influence on our lives. What we may leave will have to be decided in the next decade or so.
I expect to travel much and try to see as many of the "old timers" as possible on these trips. If you will send your address, I will be glad to jot it down in the old note book. I am keeping up a flat at 4433 North Racine Ave., Chicago, Ill. Look me up when in this vicinity.
Yours very truly,
Dalton W. Riggs
Living members of the class of 1902:
Mrs. Ed Baird (Garnet Kendall), housewife, Dr. Ed L. Baird, Excelsior Springs, Mo.
Miss Nellie Smith, teacher 119 South Green St., Wichita, Kans.
Mrs. Maud Linton Chambers, housewife, 912 Carter St., Stillwater, Oklahoma
Mrs. Ottie Arndt Strickland, housewife, 714 Fourth, Alva, Okla.
Miss Estella V. L. Sherrill, teacher, Box 325, Woodward, Okla.
Mrs. Allison Armstrong Krames, retired teacher, 1018 Quincy St., Bakersfield, California.
Mrs. Jessie Mahaffey Shelley, orchardist, Campbell, Calif.
Lacey D. Heater, wholesale and retail musical instruments, 1001 Southwest Morrison St., Portland, Ore.
Dalton W. Riggs, manufacturer and distributor, 4433 N. Racine Ave., Chicago, Ill.
Miss Edna B. Smith, merchant, 27 Elk St., Springville, N.Y.
George L. Hicks, namager room 1, Cotton Exchange, Exchange Bldg., Houston, Tex.
Ayres K. Ross, attorney, 906 1/2 Congress St., Austin, Tex.
On the back page of the Riggs article is the following:
"Letter To Alva Man Reveals "Pre-Northwestern" History
Following is a letter received recently by J. W. Monfort, pioneer Alva druggist, from Bird Watrus now of El Reno, who published the Alva Review before the turn of the century. Monfort and Watrus are the only men now living who instigated the founding of Northwestern at Alva.
El Reno, Okla.
Oct. 9, 1947John Monfort
Alva, Okla.
Dear Old Friend;The item recently in the Oklahoman that Alva was going to celebrate the Golden Anniversary of the Northwestern Oklahoma Normal brings to memory many of the early days in Alva, but one that comes foremost to my mind was the night when James Ament, Cap Stine, yourself, Frank Hatfield, who was editor of the "Pioneer" and myself, who was the editor of the Review.
We were closeted in the old Dennis Hotel, just across the street south of your drug store and Jim Ament says, "I can land that school if I had $1,000 to use on the legislature." Cap Stine went out and came back in a few minutes with $1,000 and said: "Ament, a train leaves in 30 minutes, here is the money, what are you waiting for?" Ament left immediately and Cap Stine turned to you and said: "John, it's up to you to see the business men on the square in the morning and get my money back."
He then turned to Hatfield and myself and said "You fellows will be supposed to back us up on this deal."
Those who will attend the celebration, at least most of them, will not know anything of the trying times we went through getting the Northwestern established. Many of them have gone to the great beyond. Just you and I are all that is left of the ones who attended that meeting in the Dennis Hotel. Stine, Ament, and Hatfield have passed on.
Hoping that it may be possible for me to attend, I am
Yours truly,
Bird Watrus
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