Bio. Bernice Conner 1995  Bryan County, Oklahoma

Copyright © 2000 by Saundra Anderson. This copy contributed for use in 
the USGenWeb Archives.  Sander8570 @aol.com
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Taken from Gardner Street Church of Christ "Just About Us" series 1995.

                           Bernice Conner

     Bernice was born to John Howard and Birdie Jane Williams Wilson 
in Kemp, Oklahoma nearer Denison, TX than Durant, Oklahoma on Feb. 12
1914. She had 4 sisters and 2 brothers.  One girl and one boy died young
Mr. Wilson was a "3rd and 4th" farmer, a neat way to say he got 3/4 of 
the crop and the landlord got 1/4.  He raised cotton and corn, some feed,
and kept cows, hogs and chickens. The children waded creeks, swung on 
grapevines 
and climbed trees.  Bernice and younger sister Merle also cut paperdolls from 
Sears catalogs for many hours of fun.  That activity helped keep their minds 
off 
the lack of heat as much of the heat in the fireplace went up the chimney.  
Once the chimney caught fire and Mrs. Wilson put it out with baking soda.  
Bernice and Merle attended school at Kemp where Bernice cried her way through 
early first grade, ran home at every opportunity--embarrassing her older 
sister, 
Marie, who sympathized and was sometimes sent to bring her back.  Once her 
mother promised 
her an apple, a rare treats those days, if she stayed all day.  Too early she 
ran off
again; the principal saw her.  He, an ogre in her mind caught her.  
Frightened, she quit
running away.  The school was partially burned by a gang of boys when she was 
in 5th grade,
but promptly rebuilt.  There was an active Klu Klux Klan in Kemp, and once 
when she and a 
friend visited the Methodist church, the Klansmen in Klan regalia marched in 
and sat 
down to keep the unruly boys from disrupting the services.

     They had parties with talking games, and Victrola music, but no dancing, 
and 
she must be home early.  After Marie married, she kept Bernice out a little 
later -- at last! She met a girl friend's brother at church.  The school had 
an end-of-year play,
some very good ones; and the newly met boy came to watch practice and walk 
Bernice home.
There were both Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians in OK., and their stomp dances 
were a favorite entertainment.  
Usually the Indians built fires of corn stalks and other unused roughage in 
the pastures, dressed complete 
with feathers, and chanted loudly as they danced.  Their lands were rich, and 
some of them married white
women and farmed.  Sadly many other drank themselves to death. 

     Bernice and Bill's sister were baptized following a revival at church. 
She was 13 and wore her good 
pink and white dress.  As they were baptized in a stock tank, the water 
carried the red of the hills
and stained her dress.  She had no choice but to wear it anyway.  Bernice's 
new friend was Bill
Conner, son of S. E. and Decie Warrick Conner, youngest boy of 8 children.  
He was born Jan. 3, 1911,
in Kemp.  Mr. Conner was a Church of Christ preacher and worked in a saw 
mill.  Frequently part of his
salary was foodstuff.  He died when Bill was six.  Bill spoke of the time 
when his father interrupted
his sermon to scold Bill and his friends for cutting up during services.  
Bill and Bernice dated frequently, 
often going to a movie in Denison.  Once his sister took a hen off the nest 
and sold her for gas and ticket money.
Tickets were a dime a head, and gas about a dime a gallon.  Bernice sometimes 
cried when working alone in the fields.
After Marie married as Mrs. Wilson wasn't strong enough to work with her 
anymore.  Merle encouraged Bill and Bernice 
to marry, and they did on Oct. 3, 1931, spurning her senior year of school as 
unnecessary.
They lived in Kemp.  Bernice says she changed one cotton patch for another.  
Bill also drove a school bus,
and sometimes on field trips they saw the state capitol, a basketball game, 
or a stock show. 
Now Merle worked alone in tears.
     On thanksgiving, Nov. 26, 1942, Billye Delores was born in Denison.  
Bill had a faulty heart which
kept him from battle, but they went to California where he worked as an 
electrician in the shipyards.
They returned to Oklahoma and bought a house with electricity but no running 
water.  Bill got a 
job with Phillips in 1951 and they moved to Borger.  Bill died in 1969.  
Bernice has pieced and 
quilted, enjoyed volunteer work at the hospital, and let Billye teach her to 
drive.  
Last year at nearly 80 she took her first big jet ride.  
    Find Bernice, Billey(Taylor), Merle(Howard), and nieces near the back on 
the west side of
the auditorium and let them know we love and appreciate them.

(Note Marie is my Grandma Evans. Bernice and Merle are my great aunts)

Saundra Anderson