Jewel Moore Gresham's Early Years in Oklahoma, 1919-1922

Sometime before she died in 1994, my mother-in-law, Jewel Moore Gresham, either wrote down or dictated some memories.  This is the second part of those memories, from the family's early years in the Bray, Oklahoma, area, from early 1919 to sometime in 1922.  Part one (near White Settlement, Texas, 1914-1918) is here:  https://abt-unk.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-mother-in-laws-early-memories-abt.html

Above:  Tandy Clayton Moore (on ladder) helping to build a house, unknown date and place

The war was over November 11, 1918, so I am guessing that when we got to Marlow, it was in the early months of 1919.  The soldiers were coming home and bringing all their germs.  I don't remember much about living in Marlow, and I don't remember anything about moving to Bray.  Bray was about 9 miles east of Marlow.  The house had two big front rooms, and a shed room for the kitchen.  It had no fireplace, just a woodstove.  I don't remember too much.  I think we all had the flu.  Mama¹ was very sick.  I do remember the doctor coming in a buggy to see her.  I was four years old at the time.

My next memory was Mama teaching me to read.  I was reading from Aesop's Fables.  "The sun and the wind had a quarrel," and "The crow and the pitcher."  Those were the ones that kept me under the table, because I couldn't remember some of the words.  It must have been the fall of 1919, because I remember Mama and I were alone; so I guess everyone else was in school.  School was about 2 miles away.  This house was on a creek -- I don't think it had a name.  The farm houses were widely scattered.  The Burns lived north of us.  To the east lived the Davises.  To the south lived the Jacksons.

I remember being the "water boy" during the summer when everyone was in the field.  I know Gurth² was still at home because he let me ride on the cultivator with him when I took him a drink.  I don't remember when he went back to Fort Worth, but he didn't like Oklahoma.  

I must have started to school in the fall of 1920.  I don't remember my first day at school.  Everything must have gone smoothly.  My teacher's name was Augusta Montgomery.  Mama must have prepared me well for school, because I could read and spell all the words in my primer.  I had gold stars everywhere.  Can't remember much about the first year.  Augusta Montgomery was also my second grade teacher.  I think I was the teacher's pet.  I remember being in little plays and singing songs Mama had taught me.  And so the second year passed.  

During the summer months, we all worked in the field.  By that time, I was big enough to help with the hoeing.  Papa³ cut a hoe handle off and made me a hoe I could handle.  He also had to follow the turkey hens when they went off to steal their nest out on the creek.  We would have to get their eggs and take them home for Mama to save until the turkey hen started setting.  Then Mama would make them a nest which would be safe from the animals, and let her hatch her eggs.  I remember Mama would always cook some clabber milk until all the solid parts became cheese, and I would have to feed the little turkeys.  The little turkeys liked it and so did I.  When the turkeys got larger, we would drive them out into the pasture so they could feed on the grasshoppers.  I remember Ruby⁴, Mabel⁵, Audie⁶ and I spending nearly all day herding the turkeys.  Late in the afternoon we would herd them back home.  Of course, we did a lot of playing while the turkeys ate grasshoppers.  

The creek was also a source of play.  We used to swim and play in the deep holes.  In the summer time when the creek ran slow, we would make dams across it so we could have some water to play in.  We had play houses on the creek.  All in all, it must have been a good time of our lives.  

We always had to stay out of school to pick cotton in the fall.  Most all families kept their kids out during cotton picking time.  So it was no big deal.  When we had picked a bale, Papa would haul it to the gin in Marlow to get it baled.  It would usually take him all day to go and come.  I remember waiting at the road for him to come home.  We could recognize the rattle of the horse's trace chains, and we would know it was him.  He always brought us a sack of candy.  It would take us about 6 weeks to harvest the cotton.  All the bolls didn't open at the same time, so would have to go over the field again.  

I guess we had a little money at that time of year.  That made it nice, so at Christmas time, Papa and Mama would go to town and get us some Christmas presents.  We never had a tree.  No one else did either.  The only tree was at the school house.  The kids always got a net bag with an apple, an orange, some nuts and candy.  At home, we hung up our stockings, and I mean the stockings we wore every day.  Of  course, we always washed them.

We always had a garden.  We had chickens and hogs.  In the fall, after a good frost, Papa would kill several hogs and cure the meat.  We never ate beef.  In the spring, Mama would raise chickens, and we would eat chickens in the summer.

Mama had to wash clothes on a rub board.  (Mama made lye soap from cracklins from the hogs.)  Then she would boil them in a pot, and then she would rinse them twice.  The last rinse would always have bluing in it.  Mama made quilts, made our clothes.  I remember one dress she made me.  It was pink Peter Pan and she cross-stitched a row, or maybe lots of rows of cross-stitching in black thread at the bottom of the skirt.  We had a Montgomery Ward catalog, and I guess she must have ordered our coats from it.  I don't remember buying anything at a store.

1922 was the year we moved back close to Marlow.  I have no childhood memory of the move.  But from family talk, I think the reason was Mama didn't think the school at Bray was a very good one.  The story was that some of the older boys at school had got into some kind of mischief, and the principal had given them a whipping.  The parents got involved, and the principal was fired.  So we moved.  

Papa bought twenty acres of land just outside the city limits of Marlow (what was called East Ward).  Some of it was hillside.  The top soil had all washed away.  There was some wet land that we called the "willow flat".  The rest of the land was in black-jack oak.  Sometime in the summer and fall, he built a two room house.  Later, he added a kitchen.  

Girls' coats on page 26 of the 1921-22 Montgomery Ward catalog.

It's possible the photograph at the top of this post is of the very house Jewel describes her father building.  The photo is unlabeled and undated.  Jewel's nephew Tom Moore thinks it may actually have been taken when the family was living in Fort Worth, Texas, between March 1903 and March 1904.  Clayton worked as a carpenter's helper on the many houses going up in that city.

Future posts will have more of Jewel's memories.

NOTES  

1.  Mama is Jewel's mother, Nancy "Nannie" Flora Jones Moore, 1882-1969.

2.  Gurth is Jewel's older (and only) brother, Thomas Gurth Moore,1902-1935.  Sometime after the 1920 Census was taken in Marlow on January 26 (probably after graduating from high school that spring), Gurth moved to Fort Worth, Texas.

3.  Papa is Jewel's father, Tandy Clayton "Clayton" Moore, 1878-1964.

4.  Ruby is Jewel's older sister. Ruby Clayton Moore Albillar, 1908-1967.

5.  Mabel is Jewel's older sister, Beulah Mabel "Mabel" Moore, 1910-1932.

6.  Audie is Jewel's older sister, Audie Ruth Moore Cook, 1911-1969.

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