Interview with Margie Edna Weaver, Tabler, Grady County, Oklahoma Submitted by Jaymee Selby jselby@uswest.net 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 ========================================================================== Interview with Margie Edna Weaver I was born in 1925 on a farm just west of Tabler and east of Chickasha, Oklahoma. Highway 62 ran past our house on the North and the railroad tracks were on the South, at the fork of the East and West Bitter Creeks. It was good farm land in the Washita River Valley. My father was Gus Edward Weaver and know as G.E. Weaver, or sometimes called Ed. He was born November 15, 1890, in Wapanauka, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory. His father was Augustus Edward Weaver, and was believed to be born in 1860 at Boggy Depot, which was also in the Choctaw Nation. His mother was Minerva Pairlea Burrous, and was born in Arkansas. Grandpa died when Daddy was two years old and Grandma married Monroe James Johnson sometime before the turn of the century. It was Mr. Johnson who brought Daddy’s family to Grady County. Momma’s family, the Coopers, came from Arkansas, and settled in this same area. They had first gone to Texas, returned to Arkansas, and eventually came to Oklahoma. I remember hearing stories about them crossing the Red River in a wagon. It was an extremely dangerous crossing because of the quicksand. Men and horses alike were killed trying to cross the Red River quicksand. My father and his twin brother, James Edgar, owned adjoining farms near Tabler. When they bought the property together and divided it, there was only one house on it. The Johnsons had been renting the house but moved to another place Southwest of there when Daddy and Uncle Edgar bought the place. Uncle Edgar and his wife Donnie moved into the existing house, and Daddy had to build his own. Momma and Daddy met at a church social and were married in the early 1920’s. After they were married, the three Basham kids from her first marriage stayed with the Coopers while Momma and Daddy moved in with the Johnsons. Daddy started construction on the house right a way, and soon they were all reunited. I had my grandparents and an abundance of aunts, uncles, and cousins, all within walking distance. As for my brothers and sisters, there were the three Bashams; Harold, Ray and Hazel, and eventually five Weaver kids. First came Virginia, then came Marvin and Me, and last was Floyd and Lloyd. Daddy was a twin, as was his mother, and he fathered two sets of twins himself. Our house was primitive by today’s standards. There was a dug well with a pump, and later we added a windmill which brought water into the house. At first they used kerosene lamps, then what we called “Aladdin” lamps which had a cloth mantel instead of a wick. We had a wood burning stove in the kitchen and an outhouse in the yard. When I was a young child, they bought a propane tank and a new stove. Lamps were replaced by propane lights. We were all frightened by this new addition because of an accident at a neighbor's house. The neighbors had put their propane tank too close to their cellar, and when fumes built up inside, the cellar exploded. In the late 1930’s, Daddy bought a generator. He used an airplane propeller to harness the wind and we had electricity for the first time. The generator charged the batteries which powered the lights. On windy days, we had plenty of power, but at other times power was limited. If we wanted to listen to the radio when the wind wasn’t blowing, we had to turn it off during commercials to save power. In the early days, they grew row crops; corn, cotton, and maize. Later they grew wheat, alfalfa and oats. One year we raised flax. I quickly learned that you shouldn’t run through a field of flax, not even on a horse, because it would trip you up. We had a peach orchard and of course a truck garden, which fed us all during the depression. In the garden, we grew beans, potatoes, and all sorts of vegetables. We took some of the corn and wheat to the mill to have it ground and always had either cornbread or biscuits with our meals. We even made some of the corn into hominy. Momma had chickens, turkeys, geese and guinea hens. We also kept hogs and a few cows. The girls helped, and Momma canned everything in mason jars, even the meat. We may have been poor, but we never went hungry. Most of the plowing was done by the men and the boys, but we girls also helped in the fields. We chopped, hoed and picked cotton, of course, but we also did some of the plowing. We plowed with a team of mules until we got our first tractor. That tractor sure made life easier. My oldest sister, Hazel, could tell you about the plowing. She had been staying with Aunt Hadgie, when she was called home to help plant corn. Aunt Hadgie had lost a baby and needed someone around the house, but all the boys came down with the Mumps at the same time and couldn’t work in the fields. Hazel came home and did the planting with a four mule team and a two row planter. We all did our part. One day when I was about ten, Momma was trying to get the sow back into the barn. Momma was flapping her apron at the sow when the sow made a run for it. She was a fat sow, and she ran right between Momma's legs which caused her to get stuck. We all laughed while Momma rode the sow around the barnyard backward. When Momma finally finished her ride, she chased us off with a broom. We didn't laugh anymore, at least not in front of Momma. My mother was named Pearlie Greene Cooper and was born August 18, 1891, in Benton County, Arkansas. Her parents were James Clark Cooper and Rachael Virginia Parks. Momma was first married to Fred Basham who was from Atchison, Kansas. Fred and Momma lived on 2nd street in Chichasha and Fred worked at a furniture shop. Momma’s family lived somewhere East of Tabler. While on his way home from Tabler to Chickasha, Fred was thrown from his horse and killed. They had the 2 boys at the time; Harold and Ray, and Momma was pregnant with Hazel. Momma told us how Fred was brought to Grandma and Grandpa Cooper’s house and a doctor was summoned. The doctor said there were internal injuries and operated on Fred on the kitchen table, but was unable to save him. After Fred died, Momma moved in with her parents. I remember walking from our house to Grandpa Cooper’s house. Uncle Charlie and his wife, Lela Mae lived there too. It was not far from the country store at Tabler, and our house was only about a mile West from the store. The country store was owned by Dick Dorchester and his two sons. They were Sam, Rick, and Mr. Dorchester to us. I think that Sam was married at one time, but I don’t recall either a wife or kids being around. Sam lived in a house just East of the store, and Rick lived to the Southeast. The cotton gin was across the road. I think Mr. Dorchester lived in back of the store, and there was a large porch on the front, facing north. We could buy almost anything we needed there. They had chicken feed, farm tools, harness and tack, bolts of fabric, and candy. We charged our purchases all year long and paid the bill when our crop was sold. The whole family would go to see the Dorchesters and make our yearly payment. Our bill was never over a hundred dollars, and it was an annual event we all looked forward to. One year Mr. Dorchester gave Daddy a new pocket knife and each of us kids a sucker. I guess the crop was in early. The chicken feed came in cotton sacks in a variety of colors and prints. When Momma picked out a pattern she liked, she would ask Sam or Rick to put aside a few matching ones so that she could buy them next time. That way she would have enough of one cotton print to make a dress. She also saved the string from the top of the sacks and used it to crochet doilies for the house. I still have some of those doilies, even after all these years. Momma was raised in the Methodist Church, but her second husband, my father, was a Baptist. She finally converted to Daddy’s Church after the last of her 8 children was baptized there. She decided that she was outnumbered. We grew up in a very religious home and went to church every time the door opened. With this kind of training, my brother, Marvin, and I thought we should baptize the farm animals. One afternoon we gathered up as many baby chicks as we could and baptized them in the stock tank. We had them all lined up on the ground with their newly cleansed souls when Momma discovered what we had done. I don’t remember if we got into too much trouble since we only did what we were taught. I do know that Momma was pretty upset. Those chicks would have grown up to become Sunday dinner for many weeks to come. The Church we attended was Sharon Baptist Church, and it was located on the road that turned North off of Highway 62 to Amber and Pocasset. Directly across the road was our school. Friend School was small, but it went from first to twelfth grade. As I recall, we never walked to school together. One of us would take off walking, then another. We each found our own way there, and for several years, there were at least one of us on the boy's and the girl's basketball teams. We had great fun growing up on the farm near Tabler. Brothers, sisters, and cousins were always thinking up new games to play. One of my favorites was “lifting geese”. We would tie a piece of string to a kernel of corn, then climb on top of the barn or the shed. Next, we would lower the corn over the side and wait for a goose to grab the kernel. The hard part was being patient enough to let the goose swallow the corn. If we tried to lift before the corn was swallowed deep enough, the goose would fall off the string. But, if we waited, we could lift the goose all the way to the roof. We sometimes got impatient, and the goose made a plunk when it hit the ground. Everyone had a barn, a shed, and a cellar on their property. We were no exception. The cellar was used to store our canned goods, and more importantly, to escape the frequent storms. Ours was made with a section of very large pipe that came from the dam on the Washita River. Daddy helped build that dam and when it was finished, some excess materials were sold. He bought the pipe and brought it home. The men dug a hole in the ground and placed the pipe in it. They built steps on one end and shelves on the other. One day, during the time they were digging, my sister Virginia was sitting on the edge of the hole in the ground and watching. The Rittenour boys, from the other side of the highway, were target practicing with their guns, and a ricochet hit Virginia in the hand. She wasn’t badly injured, but had a nice scar the rest of her life. Before our cellar was built, we had to use the one over at Uncle Edgar’s house. A very bad storm came two days after Marvin and I were born, and we all went to the cellar. Momma was still feeling the effects of giving birth to twins and had to be carried down the steps in a cane bottom chair. Aunt Silla was carrying the two babies, and in the commotion, she slipped, fell, and dropped us. All the women present huddled in the corner of the cellar to check us over for damage while the storm raged on. Momma kept asking what was wrong, and they told her “Oh, nothing”. Fortunately, we were not hurt in the fall. When I was older, one of the annual events I always enjoyed was the Chickasha Rodeo and the parade that preceded it. I was to ride in the parade during my eighteenth summer, so I saddled my horse and rode into town. There was a huge turnout and what seemed like thousands of people in town. The streets were lined with people who came to see the parade. Suddenly a young man came running out of the crowd and jumped onto the back of my horse. In the spirit of things, I allowed him to ride the rest of the parade with me. That was the first time I met my future husband, James Allen Selby. He was young, handsome and, I suppose, a little forward for those days. James later joined the Navy and was sent to San Diego for training. We were married on December 28 when he came home on leave during Christmas of 1945. We drove to Wichita Falls, Texas for the wedding, and he was promptly shipped out to Japan. Fortunately the war was ending by then, and he was only there during the occupation. Our first daughter, Pamela Joan Selby, was born October 5, 1946. James came home again in the spring of 1947 and that Summer we moved to California. Our second daughter, Jaymee Edna Selby, was born in Antioch, California on March 11, 1948. The trip to California was an adventure. We loaded all our worldly goods into an old car, and a little trailer pulled behind. We took Route 66 and saw mountains and deserts for the first time. Pam was less than a year old, and we brought along a puppy for her to play with. We ate sandwiches, fruit, cheese, crackers, and whatever we carried with us. We had about 50 dollars for gas, and we slept on the side of the road. We were headed for the promised land. After we got there, James went to school on the GI bill, and was learning to become a cabinet maker when he was killed in a car accident February 17, 1951. I stayed on in California for a while, but eventually came home to Momma and Daddy in Tabler. Momma died later that same year of a heart attack. Her funeral was a huge event, and she had many friends and family attending. She was buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Chickasha, next to her sister, Nannie Clementine. Most of the family is either gone or moved on from Tabler now. In fact, it no longer exists. I have shared with you what is left of Tabler; my seventy-five year old memories. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Grady County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/grady/grady.html