Biography of Nye, Jack Newton (n000) - Grady County, Oklahoma Transcribed by: Molly Nye 18 Aug 2004 Return to Grady County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/grady/grady.html ========================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ========================================================================== As told by Jack Nye; February 2002 I came to Bradley in the fall of 1933 from down around Story. We lived out north of Bradley here. Whenever my daddy, he wasn't able to work, I had to do all the work. We had 80 acres out there; we had a team of mules, 20 acres of alfalfa. We hadn't lived out there but a day or two that Adam Brown came out there and wanted to put the hay of on the halves. So we made a deal with him, he would come out there and cut the hay and bale it and we would get a bale and he would get a bale. We made a real good crop. That summer Sam and Jim was going to school and they came in one day and said, "Boy, Jack we found you a girlfriend. Her name is Forrest. Now you got to go with her." Well it went on, finally that fall my daddy bought me a A Model Ford roadster. I went to a part up here on the hill on night, there where the Mowdys lived. Forrrest and her brother Bunion had walked to the party from their place south of the cemetery. When the party broke up, Bunion had walked a girl home and Forrest was standing out by the gate. I went out there and asked her if she had a way home, she said no and I said Well, can I take you home. She said yeah, so that started it. I took her home and we went together for I don't know how long and finally got married. We got along real good and finally we decided we would get married. She was just 16 years old and I was 24. We went to Chickasha to get the licensed and put her down as 18 years old. We went and got married by the Justice of Peace at Alex, his name was Chambers. (Jack and Forrest were married on April 27, 1935.) We went out to my parent's house and for some reason Mr. & Mrs. Tollison came out there. We were having a little party of some kind and finally someone told them that we were married and they just got up and walked out of the house. Her daddy was going to come back and get Forrest and take her home but Mrs. Tollison said it wouldn't do any good, she would just run away again, just let her go. But then they treated me real good. I had a A model Ford with a quail on the radiator cap, it looked like it was flying, he had a A Model sedan with a greyhound on the radiator cap, all stretched out like it was running. He said what would you have done when you were running off to get married, if you would have looked back and saw that greyhound a coming. I said that quail could take off faster than that greyhound can. But they were real good about it and everything went along real good. The first time I took her to a show at Lindsay she says I backed into a car, but I don't remember that. We have had a real good life and raised 9 kids. We sent them all through high school, that's as far as we could go. They are all married and the baby is a grandma now. I told Forrest we were getting pretty old when our baby got to be a grandma. The year we left from Story we raised 56 bales of cotton. We lived on a fellers place by the name of Smith and had some of his bottomland. Well, that year was when they were trading their mules in on tractors. So he traded his mules in and got him a John Deer tractor and he had a feller working for him that had been working for him and living with him ever since he was 17 years old. My daddy, we was up there sitting on the porch and Mr. Smith, he was kinda sickly, he bought cotton all the time down at Maysville, we were sitting on the front porch talking and my daddy said, "T.A., I'm giving your land back. Mr. Smith sat there a minute and studied and said, "What did you say". Poppa said, "I'm giving your land back." He acted like it hurt him real bad and he said, "Now Arthur, you don't have to do that." Poppa said, "I know I don't but I am cause I know you need it. You have been good to us and everything. You got that tractor now and you need that land so let me turn it back to you". Mr. Smith sat there and studied and studied and finally he said, " There is one way I will take that land and that's the only way. We will get up in the morning and get in my car and we will drive until you find just exactly what you want and I'll take my land back. If you don't I ain't taking it back." So they would get up and they would be gone all day and finally one-day daddy come in and said that he had got us a place. I said where at and he said Bradley. I thought, Dadgum I always heard how tough it was at Bradley, I kinda had to move up here. We got up here and everything went real good. It seemed like everybody just took right to us. They called up Knights instead of Nyes, said them Knight people. Beecher Lance had started cutting broomcorn and I went down to help him. Me and Van Mitchusson started to haul it. Well, we got out to the end and here came on of them Powell boys on an old horse going down to the river, they didn't work in the broomcorn. We stopped and talked to him and he said "Where are you going to eat dinner at today Knight" I said, " I guess I'll eat dinner at Beecher's." They called us Knight instead of Nye. We lived there one year and Joe Roberts, a guy that lived over there had a boy that lived with him, he never had been married or anything, his name was Porter. He said he was going to by that place we were living on for Porter, it was for sale. We knew that this Joe was going to buy it, so we got out and got to hunting for a place and found one a mile west of Alex. We lived up there for one year on it. That is where we lived when Forrest and I got married. Then Poppa bought Mr. Tollison, Forrest's daddy, out and they moved back down here. Forrest and I have lived in a half dozen two-room houses here around town. Finally, I bought out a guy on the Vivtria place as they called it. It had a tractor and 10 milk cows. I got the money from the Farm Bureau. I borrowed $3,500 and was supposed to pay it back at $500 a year for 5 years. I made all them payments and them old cows made us a living. (Jack bought the tractor and cows, not the land.) I went up there (to the bank) one day and paid the last payment on a note that I owed and he said, "Let me sell you a new tractor." I said, "No, I don't need no new tractor." He said, "Why." I said, " Well, she (Mrs. Victria) is going to sell that place and I probably couldn't get nothing else that I wanted." He said, "Why don't you buy it." I said, "I don't know whether I could or not." He said, "Yes you can. I'll loan you sixteen thousand dollars to by it with." So one day Mrs. Victria came walking out there, she walked out there every 2 or 3 days. She said, "Well Jack, I guess you will have to move. I sold the place." I ask her what she got for and she said twelve thousand dollars. I told her I would have given her up to sixteen thousand. She said, "Well, the girls wanted their money right now." I said I could have gotten it in the morning. She really did hate that. But she had done sold it and the guy had paid her for it and we had to move. We moved over to a place by the county line called the Stringer place. One day the school board called me and asks if I wanted a steady job driving a bus and working for the school. I said I guess so. I drove it for 20 some years. I hauled some of those kids from the day they started school till the day they got out of high school. But we made a living at it. We have lived here at this place for 40 years. All the kids is gone from home. Note: Jack was born September 13, 1910, Forrest was born November 17, 1918. Jack and Forrest celebrated 67 years of marriage April 27, 2002. Forrest passed away July 20, 2002. As told by Jack Nye; February 2002 Note from archivist: Jack passed way Aug 16, 2004. His obituary is also in this archive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Grady County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/grady/grady.html