MISC - Charles William Scheihing - Logan County, Oklahoma 

Submitted by:  Dr. Ned H. Benson    nbenson@stjohnschurch.org
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BIOGRAPHY FORM
WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION
Indian-Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma

SCHEIHING, CHARLES WILLIAM - INTERVIEW

Field Worker's Name:Mildred B. McFarland

This report made on February 24, 1938.

1. Name:                        Mr. Charles William Scheihing (Shine)
2. Post Office:                 Guthrie, Oklahoma
3/ Residence address (or location):     R. R. #6
4. Date of Birth:               December 10, 1865
5. Place of Birth:              Wurttenburg, Germany
6. Name of Father:              John Scheihing  Place of Birth: Germany
7. Name of Mother:              Dorothy (Monk) Scheihing Place of Birth:
                                   Germany

An Interview with Charles William Scheihing, Guthrie
By - Mildred B. McFarland, Investigator
February 24, 1938

I was three years of age when my parents brought me to America from
Germany. Father bought a farm near Burlington, Iowa. We lived there
until 1891 when I decided to come to Oklahoma. It had been opened two
years then. I bought a relinquishment from Mr. Ward Richey five and a
half miles south and a half mile west of Guthrie.

There was a little one roomed log cabin and a well on the place. We
did not bring anything with us except some bedding. There was an old
rusty stove in one corner and we patched it up and made it do. I made
a table, bed and corner cupboard out of old boards and logs. Our chairs
were old stumps of trees. We bought a team of horses and a plow. I got
about ten acres of land cleared the first year. I planted it in oats and
Kaffir corn. The first three years were failures. We raised enough from
our garden to barely keep us alive. We had nothing for months except sweet
potatoes and cornbread. When these things gave out we ate boiler Kaffir
corn. I would cut wood all one day and haul it to town the next.
Sometimes I received $1.50 and other times 75 cents for a load of wood.
I always had to take groceries in pay.

I made the children a cradle of a dry goods box with barrel staves
for rockers. One winter it was so cold that we almost froze to death. Our
babies' feet froze and as they had no shoes we wrapped their feet in
gunny sacks. [The children were Heinrich William (Henry William), born
in Burlington, IA, 31 Dec 1890; and Ada Louise, born in Guthrie, OK, 13
May 1893.]

The Indians never bothered us - only to sell us wild turkey and deer meat.

There was a little log schoolhouse about one and a half miles from our
place. We attended church every Sunday at the Lutheran Church in
Guthrie. We always drove in a covered wagon.

Ma helped me in the fields every day. We would take our two children
with us, making a bed for them in the wagon. The second year we
harvested fifty bushels of peanuts. My wife baked bread and washed and
ironed for two bachelors who lived close to us. The money they paid her
kept us in groceries for a while. We have worked hard for what we have
and have gone through many hardships, but have been very happy.

[The log cabin Grandpa Scheihing mentioned in the second paragraph above
is still standing.]

SACKETT - SCHYLER: Volume 80 -  9 microfiche #6016945, pages 395-397

397