A WAY OF LIFE--------BECKHAM COUNTY OKLAHOMA, WEST TEXAS Written and Submitted by Paulyne Taylor pingtiger@arn.net ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** Note: You may steal as much as you need from this, it’s only history. The Dust Bowl that devastated Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas in 1873, is probably the reason over half the people who live in California and Arizona today got there by the parents who fled those area’s in Texas and Oklahoma. Not only were the dirt, dust, and wind taking their toll, but along came the grasshoppers to plague those early pioneers. The wind did not discourage some of those early ancestors, nor did the disease that killed by the hundred’s. Draught and famine were fierce enemies to folks already struggling to hold on to the wind swept land. Many reasons have been offered for the dusters that swept down the Plains in the 1870’s, along with the dreaded prairie fire 16 years later in 1889 cowboy’s, ranch hands, and freighters were scattered over the prairies of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, unsettled, and unemployed since the blowout of 1873. Cattle price’s dropped in 1886 and 1887 ruining many and driving yet more people, and families away. Many of those went toward California moving further West. Some headed East, anything to get out of the dirt and poverty. In 1890 a duster blew in that turned day into night and it blew for 2 days. Times didn’ get any better because in March 1895 came the 1st snuster. This is a mixture of snow and dust and if you have never seen it, take my word for it ,you don’t want to ever see it. This was the 1st snuster, many more followed. This made life hell for not only the people but the animals, the tame and the wild. Winds of over 40 miles an hour, filled the North Fork of the Red River with dead animals of both kinds, blocking the stream and contaminating the water. Those pioneers who had the stamina, and fortitude to survive during this period of history were many, and among them were my grandparents, W.F. and Lulu Rutherford, Maggy and Jerome Sechrist, James and Melvina Gage, the Harris’s, Clinesmith’s, Robertson, McCommas’, Rice’ Gables, grandfather went to Berlin Oklahoma ,Indian Territory, in 1897 near Cheyene Roger Mills Oklahoma, The Harris’s, an part of the Rutherford’s went into Greer County Oklahoma. My grandparents and great grandparents homesteaded land in Roger Mills Oklahoma, and then to where Murphy’s Gin was, i what is now called New Liberty, North of Sayre, Oklahoma. All mail received from kin in those days have Indian Territory on the postmark I have several. Oklahoma became a State in 1907 the year my Uncle was born. Lulu remembered well those early years and told stories of the hardships to not only her children who handed them to us, but Lulu told her grandchildren about those early days.Lulu gave up 4 children to the elements of those days. 3 girls and a son. When Gorden died she told my dad that her faith had been tested. She remembered by 1905 the good times had come, these were the years known as the wet spell. Farmers and ranchers of that period who had managed to hang on were soon to make a fortune.My grandfather did manage to hold on because he had hauled freight during the bad years from Sayre to Sweetwater, often leaving Lulu alone in a half dugout that had no door only a wagon sheet that hung from the opening. She kept her small babies in the oven to protect them from wild animals. Her grandparents Eli and Sarah Clinesmith were also in this same area. During those good years, more land was farmed, more cattle raised, the mules, and horses were used to plow. This, along with the tractor was to contribute to the dust bowl I remember, the dirty 30’s. The old area known as the old blow out was in store for even more during the good years with what came to be a killer never seen before Typhoid Fever. In 1910 it hit with alarming speed wiping out whole families. It killed thousands, and it took not only the whiteman but the Indian. Many more fled during this period, they scattered far trying to outrun the disease, the Indians, and the harsh life of the Plains. With the coming of the Fordson an invention of Henry Ford, more and more of the plains was plowed. Many say that Henry’s tractor settled the West. I think it caused the dusters. Prarie fires struck fear into the hearts of all that lived in those days, My grandmother Maggie Sechrist said a rider would appear riding a horse and screaming at ever farm “Prarie Fire, Prarie Fire”. Then he would pound off to the next farm. A prarie fire with winds over 40 miles an hour and grass knee high can kill in minutes. I have seen many. If the snakes don’t kill you,( that’s rattlers) that flee from the fire d hide in anything that’s not burning, then you stand a good chance of loosing everything you own, crops, house, and animals from the fire.This also happened to the migrating pioneers of those days. Wagon trains moving to Texas and Oklahoma were often over taken by the fires.Water was scarce and the only thing they could do was either make it to a stream or beat it out with shovels and toe sacks. Many Wagons left beside the trail was not burned by Indians but by prarie fires. Many of these people had come from Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri,and Mississippi they left scraps of paper hanging from doors or nailed to the tree’s said G.T.T. Gone to Texas. Everyone came to understand the GTT. After 1920 the land was lying there waiting. This was after the great PLOW UP.There was no vegetation to hold the soil, farmers did not know the proper way to plow a field. The rain seldom came, and irrigation was years in the future. The land lay there and the wind came. Day after day after day. I remember the 30’s. The wind never stopped. If you lived in Western Oklahoma, or West Texas or Kansas, you knew. The day would start out beautiful, then you looked North if it was winter you saw the black clouds close to the ground and when they began to roll, and they did roll, you got inside, that was called a Northerner. Summer you saw the red cloud rolling like a long fat roll and it was filled with dirt. Winds in these storms have been recorded at 80 miles per hour. Howling and scaring the living God out of everyone. People survived those days by sheer guts and a courage that will never be seen again. No one living had ever experienced anything like the dirty 30’s, the plow that had made it possible to plow more and more of the soil with less manpower was about to end many lives as people had known them before. It never seemed to let up, it came days on end. Many said the dirt blew as far as the Gulf of Mexico and into Washington D.C. I remember my mother hanging wet sheets over windows and doorways to keep the dust out. We wore wet rags over our mouth and nose to keep from breathing it into our lungs. Thousands died with dust pheomonia one was my brother Kenneth O’Dell Rutherford at age 10 months. You could not hang clothes out to dry because the dirt was so thick. Women did laundry day after day and had to redo it the next day. Those were rub board days. Boil the water and start over. I have helped my mother sweep up buckets of dirt one day, and the next do the same thing. You slept in dirt, you ate dirt, and you wore it. There was no escape. Whole fields lost the top soil and it stacked up and Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas began to look like a desert. The farm animals died from the dirt and hunger. Many women and my grandmother Sechrist told me men ,lost their minds during this time, she said they went mad. It was a rare day the dust didn’t come. I remember the 1st one I ever really can say I remember it was 1937, my mother gathered up her children Gary, Kenneth, and me and went to the cellar. She thought it was a Tornado, only in those days she called them cycolones. The Grasshoopers came back about this time and what wasn’t already deadfrom draught and dirt was taken by the swarms of locust (as my dad called them). These were depression years, no money, dirtstorms,grasshoppers,draught, and disease. Many proclaimed it was the end of the world. Men went around with signs that said “ TheEnd Is Here”. Some believed it and waited My parents grandparents, uncles and aunts survived, my dad was known to make moonshine down in the shinnery patch in Oklahoma. The government caught him and he spent a year on a work farm in 1926. He and his brother Joe. Dad took the rap because he wasn’t married. Grandpa bought him a new 1927 Ford when he got home. They told everyone he had run away from home, not even the sisters knew. That car was to become very important in a few years In 1817 they drilled test holes on my grandfathers property in Oklahoma, agan in 1945, went back in 1982 and just now have reopened the well that was capped in 83. Most of my cousins and myself still hold the oil rights to the old home place. During the late 30’s many young men unmarried, and some that were married made their way to California or Texas, they hitched rides on freight trains or hitched a ride by thumbing their way on the highway. There were old abandoned cars still sitting on the highway up into the 40’s. Rusted and the people long gone. They gathered what they could carry when the cars broke down and hitched a ride on toward California. In 1933 when I was 6 months old my parents left Beckham county Oklahoma and came to Amarillo,Texas. The Smelter was paying the unheard of wages of $1.00 a day. My dad knowing nothing but farming came to make the big money. There was a new addition to Amarillo called University Heights small one bedroom houses had been built. They had electricity and running water, natuarl gas. Outdoor toilets Modern houses and new. Two men had bought one of these houses but they had the desire to go to Califonia, but they had no car. My dad traded his 1927 car to them for the house and furniture. We were uptown. Dad made $6.00 a week and moma and dad thought they were rich. They planted a garden in the back yard that was an acre, and moma canned all summer. No druaght here we had a water hose. Dad had some relatives still on the farm and he brought home whole wheat that they ground up. Moma made bread. I never saw a loaf of bread till I was 14 years old. We had a cow and plenty of milk and moma made butter and cheese. Credit was coming into being but my parents never charged. My dad use to say “If you don’t have the money to buy it you don’t need it”. He ordered class’s by mail. He got degree’s in taxidery and draftsman. He was moving up, by now he had another car a Reo Flying Cloud.Big black sedan. His Ford had been a coupe with a rumble seat. That’s was the first car my mother ever rode in and my grandfather Sechrist. Others from Oklahoma soon followed moma and dad to Amarillo. Most everyone worked at the Smelter, and we were kin to most of them. Some kin made it to California and stayed there. Some headed East to Detroit where there were factories opening that paid those good wages $1.00 a day. Moma fed a lot of Hobo’s that stopped by. Biscuits and bacon. They made a mark on our back gate and I was told many years later that this was a message to others that you could get a hand out here. Some slept in the old barn out back dad had built for the cow and chickens. People ate a lot of Jackrabbits and wild greens, lambsquarter, that ’s the weed that grows in your yard and you mow it down every summer. Life was pretty good back then. Moma and dad were soon running with the uptown crowd. Society clubs and what I learned was a lot of hooey.Tea and crumpets and some of the biggest drunks I ever saw. By then our house was so big it was like a maze. Dad had installed the 1st inside bathroom and people use to come over to see it. Yes this is our bathroom. Dad was a a man who could do anything, electricty was his speciality and he and my brother Gary made electric things no one had seen before. Moma was an interior designer and she designed the interior of many of the new tract houses that they were building. She made $50.00 a room. Yes we were pretty high on the hog. But they quit building and our house was so big people got lost in it and I guess things got tough for everyone.The cow got killed by a train and some hobo’s stole the chickens. Then came the war, dad got called up, but he was blind in his left eye and was blessed with the Rutherford heart, he had his first attack in his 40’s and it never got better, the death of all Rutherfords on my side. The work was in California so in 1942 we went. Dad had a 39 Plymouth sedan. We sealed up the house, later rented it and took off. Dad had $25.00. That ’s when you could see all the old cars left by the earlier people headed for California, there was the old wood road built during the 20’s and it was so narrow only one car at a time could drive. Dad told me if they met another car one had to get off the road. This was in the desert. We had a canvas bag tied on the front of the car this was drinking water and it always tasted like canvas. When we left Texas my parents had never been out of Oklahoma or Texas, it took courage to head to California. These were the days when a lot of people were going. Old trucks with wash tubs, rub boards, mattress ’s tied all over and kids were riding on top of the pile. They stopped along the 2 lane highway and cooked over camp fires. People made pallets on the ground and slept outside. Moma and Dad took turns driving and never stopped except to get gas and balogna and bread. It took three days and when we arrived in San Luis Obispo dad still had $12.00. The days were hot and air conditioners had never been heard of so you really didn’t mind because you don’t miss what you never had. The war made changes in everyones life. We all gripped because we couldn’t get shoes, sugar, and things that had been plentiful before. Everything was rationed and ration books were given out each month to buy meat, sugar,shoes,and gasoline. Dad went to work for Mr Hess who owned a farm at Moro Bay California. We lived in an old two story house that had 13 rooms. It was way out in the country and was so large we only camped in two rooms. I thought it was haunted. Some of the other kin soon came out and we all lived in this old house. We stayed a year in Califonia and went to New Mexico where Hardy had a farm. We stayed there a year and all the kin showed up . Some worked on Issac’s place, some on D.O.’s and Dad and Hardy worked on Hardys. Some of dad’s other brothers were helping grandpa Rutherford back in Oklahoma. We had a lot of scrap drives back then everything was recycled. You couldn’t buy tires, gas,and the thing I missed most was bubble gum. We use to take rubber ballons and spearmint chewing gun and chew them all at once. That made a sort of bubble gum. When the bubble gum did come in kids stood in line for long periods of time to get their ration which was 5- 1 cent pieces. Some of us sold it for a quarter a piece. Enterprising. By now money was plentiful, there just wasn’t anything to buy. We went back to Amarillo and moma started her interior business again and dad went to work for Amarillo Iron work as a draftsman. A lot of men went over there, to places they had never heard of before, names no one could pronounce. We all set at night and listened to Franklin Roosevelt give his fireside chats. Dad listened to Joe Lewis fighting and he listened to the baseball games all on a radio. Dad’s buddies and friends wrote from those foreign shores and dad would read the Air mail letters to us. They talked of the mud, the fighting and if they mentioned anything of where they were a black line was drawn through the letter. All mail was checked and edited before it ever got to us. Men came back after the war and parades were held, and anyone wearing a uniform was offered food ,drink and even a place to stay. I know we had a few spend the night in our house. Pride was high during the war and after. Many didn’t come back and many who did left a portion of himself there. Those were years of high hope, a patrotic period we will never see again. No one waged marches that said we shouldn’t be over there, we knew why we were over there, children along with the adults cheered the men and women who were away from home and we were proud of them. Every war since has not shown the patrotism that was shown in that war. Even today when the old one’s talk about the War they refer to the 2nd world war. My husband was in Korea, my son and son in law were in Viet Nam when they came back from over there they were spit on. My grandson was in the Gulf war when he came home I met him at the airport with banners, bells, and cheers. I dared anyone to spit on him. The dirt storms returned in the 50’s and people who had lived through the 30’s became disgusted, and again they left headed for better climate. Conservation soon caught on and farmers were planting all year long. The storms didn’t stay as long as they had in the 30’s. My grandparents on both sides hung on in Oklahoma, made do with what they grew and worked like no other people will ever work agan. I am proud to be from both lines of my family. Proud hardworking and self educated .I am so lucky that I was born in this family. I wouldn’t trade places with anyone else on earth.